#this is a complete mess of a story & will decidedly Not be in the polished version of this story

[brown-little-robin]

You’re asking me to cripple him? Me?!

[a draft-preview of Clone Six. Subject to change.]

Thad Six is my dearly beloved clone. Created by a bored villain who just wanted to watch a speedster wreak havoc, Six will be an antagonist in Strange Redemption. He is capable of enormous destruction—and he indulges himself. He believes that life is a game where the most powerful people have the most fun. As Inertia, he taunts the Flash family, creating destruction in various places to draw their attention and running away before they got close enough to confront him, dodging into unrelated fights just to create chaos. He is a master at escaping unscathed, leaving only the echoes of mean-spirited laughter behind him.

It comes as a shock to him to have his speed stolen.

Six is no stranger to injury, but he can hardly breathe when he realizes that he’s going to have to clean out the gravel stuck in his cheek. It lodged there, stinging, in that final fight with his genetic double, and his cheek will not fully heal. Ever.

Nothing can compare to the sheer power of a speedster, the sizzle-crack of lightning in their veins. The golden light of the speed force is the shine in their eyes. The speed force, with the souls of the dead, sings and whispers in the back of their minds. Six will long for the speed force for the rest of his life.

He wakes up that night with his cheek stinging, tears dripping salt into the gashes on his cheeks. It’s dark.

Six wakes up at 1:54 AM in a strange purple-swathed room in the house of his genetic double, and he thinks: I can’t do this.

He runs away six days later. Runs, not on the air, not with the wind in his face, not with the speed of lightning, but on a stinking, humid, crowded bus to Gotham City. He is surrounded by tired people, human beings, the scum of the earth, sweaty, miserable creatures. He takes a pile of pages he printed at the library, which his oh-so-generous genetic double allowed him to visit. The papers advertise a meeting of magicians on the night of the solar eclipse. That was six days ago, mere hours after he had his life ripped out of him.

He goes to the site of the solar eclipse meeting and asks around. Three bars later, after being treated like some kind of idiot child and being forced to out himself as Inertia five times in order to get any leverage, he finds a magician still lingering in town after the solar eclipse event. The magician sends him to another magician, who sends him to a witch, who sends him to an honest-to-god wizard.

By the time he reaches the hotel lobby where the wizard is supposed to be, Six’s feet are sore. His ego is sore too.

He knows by now that he was never all that special. He’s past that. His genetic double stroked his hair while he vomited into the toilet, and then he talked him through the aftermath of losing his powers in his excruciatingly gentle way. He took Six’s verbal abuse calmly. And then he named him Six, and that pretty much killed what was left of Six’s idea that he was unique. But people kept laughing at him in the bars and it hurt.

The armpits of his black t-shirt, the one item from his genetic double’s closet that he would deign to wear, are sweaty. Six is dead on his feet. He keeps trying to pull energy from the speed force and finding nothing. Like trying to drink from an empty bottle.

Speaking of which, Six should have brought water. He can’t just steal things anymore.

Six sits down on a bench in the lobby and waits until the wizard comes out of his room.

The wizard looks very normal. Hooked nose. Greying hair. Dingy jeans. A single black earring. Six wouldn’t have recognized him if he hadn’t answered to “Mr. Marzhin” as he dropped off his keys at the lobby desk thing.

The wizard turns to the doors. Six intercepts him.

“Wizard Marzhin—”

“Don’t tell me,” the wizard says, sounding utterly bored. “You just lost everything.”

Six flushes. This guy thinks he’s entitled to drone you just lost everything like it’s the most cliche thing in the world—it’s been a horrible enough week already—

To his horror, he starts to cry.

The wizard sighs. And then Six feels the wizard’s arms wrap around him, hugging him close. Wizard Marzhin smells like damp wood and mushrooms. He is very strong.

“Well, boy,” he says. “I don’t suppose you lost everything around the time of the last solar eclipse?”

Six nods as best as he can.

“Well, I guess I’m stuck with you,” the wizard sighs.

Wizard Marzhin teleports Six somewhere deep in a forest while Six is busy crying into his chest. He also gives Six a bulky kind of jacket with a furry collar and a cup of some kind of spicy drink which Six strongly suspects was drugged. Six started seeing little blue lights, then immediately fell asleep in a confusion of warm robes and blankets.

Wizard Marzhin serves fish roasted over a fire for breakfast. Six accepts that. It’s not like Six can do anything about it. He’s not a speedster anymore. And being stuck in a forest in a weird wizard’s cabin is better than being stuck in that awful ornate house with his genetic double.

Wizard Marzhin is not talkative. He lets Six follow him like a lost puppy that day, but he doesn’t speak to him at all. He doesn’t speak when they leave the cabin. He doesn’t speak as he gathers berries and mushrooms into a basket. He doesn’t speak when he starts scaling a slope barely better than a cliff. He barely even speaks when Six cuts his hand on a spiky root and has to stop for a while, more because of terror at the way the blood keeps slowly welling up than because he couldn’t move. The wizard just stands there with him and waits until Six finds it in himself to stand up and keep following him until he reaches his mysterious destination.

The destination is a tree, where Wizard Marzhin spends some time talking to an owl about, of all things, the owl’s hunting habits. Just chatting. Six watches him sourly. He walks for upwards of an hour to talk to an owl and he won’t say more than five words to Six?

But that night, back at the cabin, sitting by the fire, the wizard says he’s going to teach Six, and Six forgets his resentment.

“What kind of magic?” Six asks, staring eagerly at the wizard. In this firelight, the wizard looks more like a proper wizard; his blue eyes have a kind of sparkle to them.

Wizard Marzhin says, “What are you?”

Six stares. The wizard’s crooked nose casts a sharp shadow that dances unceasingly on his face.

“Huh?”

“Do you know what “wizard” means, boy?”

“What?”

“Wise man.”

“Okay, so?”

“So answer the question or I won’t answer yours, smart-alec. What—are—you?”

Six frowns.

“I’m... a clone.”

“And what’s a clone?”

“Do you live under a rock?” Six asks, incredulous.

Wizard Marzhin snorts. “Just explain it.”

“A clone is a copy of another person.”

“A copy,” the wizard says thoughtfully. “Is that all you are?”

Six winces. It’s not... not true.

“Well, well. You don’t have much of a sense of your own identity. Which could be good, of course... not getting too caught up in the particulars of things, keeping your eyes on the flow of nature... but then again,” he says, and his eyes flash at Six in a menacing kind of way. “If you’re just a copy, you have no substance to you.”

“Shut up,” Six hisses. “I do so.”

The wizard stretches his boots nearer the fire, sighing. The firelight flickers on his face. Six watches him resentfully until he can’t bear the quiet anymore.

“So what if I don’t have a great sense of identity? I can still learn magic. I’m smart.”

“Smart, smart, smart,” the wizard scoffs. “Everyone’s smart. No one’s wise.”

“Well how am I supposed to be wise? No one ever taught me.”

“Well put, boy,” the wizard says. “How indeed? Well... well. You’re going to have a magic by the end of the day. No time for you to have wisdom by then, of course.”

“Oh,” Six says, absorbing that. He is tremendously relieved that he won’t be left powerless. A magic, he’ll have a magic of his own by the end of the day... “Do you know that I’ll have magic the same way you knew that I lost everything?”

“Mm.” The wizard stretches his arms above his head with a yawn. “Mhm... so, boy, what magic do you want to start with?”

“I get to choose?”

“You’ll choose the first one,” the wizard says. “Or be chosen, more like. And it will be special to you forever. But the rest will come... all of it. That’s the way of a druid.”

Six says, “I’m going to be a druid? Like a nature... wizard... whatever?”

“Oh yes. Yes, clone-boy, you’re going to be a druid.” Wizard Marzhin gives one of his sharp glances. “If you don’t let that hate in your heart eat you up like a rotten apple. Then you’ll be a stunted little sorcerer with too much power and no control and someone will have to kill you.”

Six grimaces.

“So what’s it to be?” the wizard asks. “Your first magic... the thing that calls to you... what is it for you?”

Six thinks about it. He wants to ask for lightning, or light, or maybe wind: something that could give him back a connection to the speed force. He wants it so badly. But he knows with complete surety that he is never going to see the speed force again.

Six remains silent for so long that the wizard says, “For me, it was a hawk.”

“I don’t care for animals,” Six says honestly.

The wizard makes a groaning noise. Six ignores him, thinking. If he’s going to have every nature magic eventually, then what does it matter which one he initially picks? Only how it affects Six himself. And Six... his only comfort now is...

“Darkness. I want the dark.”

“The dark, boy?” the wizard says softly. “Be careful, now. Ask for too much, and you’ll go mad.”

“Not the dark in general, then,” Six says, a little alarmed at the idea of somehow owning all of the dark. He couldn’t handle that much. “Just... shadows. Some shadows. To have.”

“Shadows,” the wizard repeats. “You’ll tie yourself to them forever, you know, boy. Half your soul will be in your shadow.”

Six nods. It sounds good.

“You’re certain?”

“I’m certain.”

A cold wind comes up, pushing the flames nearly sideways—away from Six. Six shivers and pulls his cloak tighter around his shoulders.

His cloak?

He looks down at his hands. He is holding a thick fabric of shadow. The dark garment wraps around his neck and has a weight on his back, pools insubstantially around his waist and trails thinly into the grass at the edge of the fire. His hands and shoulders feel the shadows thick and heavy, but the shadows fade away behind him.

He stretches them experimentally, and the cloak spreads out across the ground, darker, darker; the fire becomes the one light in the black expanse of the night. He pulls the shadows back to him and runs them along his arms, feeling the weight of them, and then flips them backward to extend from his back, making wide wings like a black angel. He feels like he could fly, or slip into the shadows and disappear; he has a sudden awareness of every beam of light on his face making him stronger and bigger. He grows. He spreads. He becomes very dark.

Six comes back to himself suddenly. He remembers that he’s a human being with a name. He’s shivering.

His shadow is laughing.

He tucks his shadows underneath his jacket. When he looks up, Wizard Marzhin is smiling at him from across the fire.

Six doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to run cold for the rest of his life.

[technoturian]

TIL Disney+ is going to be rebooting Firefly.

Firefly.

Joss Whedon’s Firefly.

Joss Whedon is not involved, which I am both thankful for but also baffled by. This wasn’t just a property he adapted, this was his messy little baby. I’m just thinking... Why? Why. Why this. Why. Why is this a thing? Why though.

Here’s an incomplete list off the top of my head of things that didn’t age well in Firefly and will have to be purged wholesale for a Disney+ version:

- Every time Mal calls Inara a slur - Actually, just all of Inara’s sexist characterization wherein we are meant to simultaneously gleefully leer at her through the male gaze, cruelly judge her for her ~immorality~, and yet all the while believe she’s the most respected person and sexism is dead, actually! - Romanticizing the Confederate South - Jayne - Cultural appropriation - Badly spoken Mandarin - No actual Asians though - Casual ableism towards River - The edgelord rape-monster Reavers

And here’s a list of things that were not necessarily problematic but also will absolutely not make it to a Disney+ version because it’s Disney:

- Inara’s job entirely, like there’s absolutely no way - Darker themes or any sexual content - Graphic violence - The heroes being villainous or morally grey (they can’t even do this for a Loki show. LOKI cannot be morally ambiguous in his own show) - A hypersexual ex-courtesan anti-hero who comes in just to mess stuff up for fun and money - Anything that might hint at being anti-war, anti-corporations, anti-Big Brother, anti-China, anti-religion or anti-capitalism

So, my question is... what are we left with here?

I kind of got peer-pressured into watching Firefly because my friend group loved it. I eventually loved it too, even though there were some parts that really made me uncomfortable. I feel like Joss Whedon’s personal issues -- especially with women, sex and minorities -- are never more apparent than in his pet projects, Firefly and Dollhouse. The series has so many issues now glaringly apparent that I can’t even imagine what it would look like removed from all of that baggage, and what little is left is still a decidedly dark and morally ambiguous story that will not survive the Disney polish.

Potential viewers will inevitably be in one of three camps:

1. The few remaining die-hard Whedon stans (if in fact they are not creatures of myth) who will be outraged at his removal and will hate the series regardless, but especially because it will not have anything thematically in common with the original

2. People like me who dislike Whedon, have little nostalgia left for his work and whose lasting good impressions of the series are largely due to a delightful cast whom by all accounts will be completely uninvolved with the reboot

3. People who did not see Firefly. They don’t know what it is, they don’t care, but hey, this space show on Disney looks cool I guess

... Just make an original property, Disney.

I’m  b e g g i n g  you.

Not because Firefly was just that good and I want you to leave it alone, but because in order to make this show within your brand requirements you will be gutting it for spare parts worse than you did with the Star Wars sequel trilogy! Who is this for? Who will enjoy this, specifically because it’s Firefly? Make your own space show! There is no brand recognition to be mined here! People who are still die-hard Firefly fans are either Whedon fanatics or incredibly engrossed in the idea of being the ‘underdog’ and will bristle at a story about scrappy folks sticking it to The Man, made by The Man, in a way that neuters harsh criticisms of The Man. Most people are in neither camp and will not care if it’s called Firefly or not.

But more importantly there’s just nothing about Firefly that can be salvaged from a writing standpoint, particularly for the modern viewer and political climate, for the Disney brand. You take out the R-rated aspects and the political underpinnings and the racism and sexism and the cast that was far too good for this property and you’re essentially starting from scratch. I mean, you can use the word ‘gorram’ in it. I guess that’s worth investing millions???

Look, maybe the old junker did have a few good years left in it once upon a time, but it’s been too long since it’s been driven and it kind of smells so maybe you should just scrap it.

[my-one-love-is-music]

Wally West’s Nail Painting Adventures

Summary: Nail polish always held a certain allure for Wally. Ever since he first saw his mom using it, he wanted some of his own. His dad wasn't so kind about it, but that didn't stop him. And it turned out that it was a great way to express himself and his...romantic interest too. 

A/N: Back again with another Birdflash fic because I have no self-control. And I really loved the idea for this Wally-centric fic because my son could use some more love. Iris and Barry are a blessing and you can't convince me otherwise.

Also on AO3!

The first time Wally had seen the bright red polish was when he was still a little kid. His mom sat in front of the coffee table, a paper towel spread over the glass to catch any drips or mess that might happen if she got distracted. He’d been curious and held his Flash action figure tightly in his hand as he watched her paint the red on her nails, holding them out proudly to admire her work when she was done and they still needed to dry.

“Me next! Me next!” he’d cried, rushing over to her. “It’s red like the Flash!”

She’d laughed and pulled him into her lap, telling him he was right and so smart. She’d even indulged him and painted the little stubs of nails on his fingers to match her own.

His father hadn’t been happy when he’d gotten home and seen their matching nails. Rudy had yelled at Mary to get “that feminine crap off his son’s hands.” She’d tried to placate him and say that it wasn’t hurting anything and they were just having a little fun.

It didn’t help that Wally nearly threw a fit when his mom had taken him into the bathroom to wipe the red from his nails with the nail polish remover.

“Mommy, no! It’s like the Flash! I want to be like the Flash!”

He’d cried as she wiped his nails clean and she tried to shush him and make him feel better with a bedtime story, but it hadn’t made him feel any better. Not when her bright red-tipped fingers were turning the pages and he was left tucked against her side, his Flash action figure the only red he still had.

But Wally hadn’t given up. He knew he was going to have red nails again one day. His mom was beyond convincing when it came to painting his nails. She was too worried about what Rudy would say if he got home and saw. So he waited. And when he was old enough, he swiped the nail polish from the bathroom and smuggled it into his bedroom, ready to paint his nails himself.

It was a disaster.

His fingers weren’t steady enough to hold the small brush properly, causing large smudges of red to get onto the skin around his nails. And then in his excitement, he didn’t let his nails dry long enough, causing the red to get smudged on his fingertips since the sight of the polish was reverent and he couldn’t help but touch it.

That wasn’t the worst of it though, because when he tried to fix the smudges, he’d knocked over the bottle of polish, spreading a pool of bright red across the carpet of his bedroom floor.

The one good thing to come out of that afternoon was when his mom had found him, looking decidedly guilty as he tried to clean up his mess. She’d been kind and offered him a smile, taking his apologies in stride.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to have pretty nails like you.”

She’d even taken the blame for the carpet stain, saying she was spending time with Wally in his room. He was playing and she was painting her nails when she’d accidentally knocked over the bottle and made the mess.

Rudy had grumbled about it and made a fuss, but they moved on. Mary had gotten a new bottle of nail polish and life continued even though Wally never forgot about the bright color.

The first time he was in a drug store and saw the arrays of bottles and different colors, that’s when the world of possibilities really seemed to open up for him. He’d only known about red, but now, seeing blue, black, orange, green, the soft pastel lavenders, yellows, and pinks...he knew what he wanted more than anything and started saving his allowance, keeping his intentions close to his heart.

Whenever he could, he’d buy a bottle of polish from the corner drug store and created a stash in a shoe box hidden under his bed behind several unassuming shirts and socks that he’d shoved under there to keep it covered.

He kept plenty of nail polish remover and cotton balls stocked too. He had to make sure that there wasn’t any chance he’d get caught. He spent countless saturdays locked in his room as he practiced painting his nails with every color and variation of the rainbow.

His second attempt at painting his nails wasn’t much better than the first, but the mess was only on his hands this time and the carpet stayed stain-free. He got better and soon enough, he was an expert at putting the color on his fingers, not wasting a single drop.

Wally would hold out his fingers like he’d first seen his mother do and would always grin, wiggling them to admire the different shades and how they caught and reflected the light from his lamp.

The worst part of the night was always when he had to pull out the bottle of polish remover and cotton balls, starting the painstaking process of taking it off to make sure his dad didn’t see. More than anything else, he wanted to be able to wear it for weeks at a time, showing his nails to the world like so many other people got to do.

But then things changed when he went to live with Barry and Iris. The move was mainly to help with his training so they could be close and Wally would have guidance during fights on patrol, but it was a relief in more ways than one. Especially when Wally first came down the stairs and found Iris sitting on the couch painting her nails a pale blue.

He froze, forgetting what he’d come down for in the first place, but his feet started to move without his permission, as they tended to do, and he was standing at her side, staring down at her hands.

“Wally? Did you need something?” Iris asked, looking up.

He swallowed and bit his lip, wanting to ask, but afraid of what the answer was going to be.

Iris’s smile faded and her eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Sweetheart, is everything okay?” she asked, putting the cap back on the polish.

“Do you…” he started, shifting anxiously.

She patted the cushion next to her, careful of her still wet nails and Wally eagerly took the seat. “Do I what, honey?” She almost reached up to brush his hair back but stopped herself before giving Wally some very sticky and blue bangs. “You know you can ask me or tell me anything.”

“Do you think you could paint my nails?” he whispered, feeling his face heat up as he waited for her to tell him that wasn’t something boys should do.

There was a beat of silence.

“Sure! Do you want this blue or some other color? I have plenty of colors upstairs in the bathroom.”

Wally blinked, gaping at her when her words finally registered. “What? Really?” he asked, feeling something burst to life in his chest. Something giddy and happy and relieved.

She grinned. “Of course! Here, give me your hand,” she said, turning to face him.

Wally held out his hand and she grasped it gently, carefully lifting the brush from the jar before she drew the first stroke of polish across his nail. He sighed and smiled, staring down at the color that coated his fingertips.

It was a beautiful pastel blue and having it on his nails looked so right.

“You know,” he started as Iris slowly made her way across his fingers. “I have a whole stash of nail polish in a shoebox upstairs.”

“Better be careful giving that information to me. I might end up stealing some colors I like,” she joked. “But you can have free reign of my bottles too if you want. I’m not sure what kinds of colors you like but I’ve got plenty to choose from.”

Wally bit his lip as Iris traded one hand for his other. “Thanks, Aunt Iris,” he said, voice soft.

“No problem, dear,” she said, finishing his last pinky. She screwed the cap back on the bottle. “Now you stay here and let those dry. I’m going to grab some cookies and we can watch some t.v. while we wait.”

Iris stood and pressed a kiss to his forehead before stepping around him to head into the kitchen. Wally slid the remote across the coffee table and pressed the power button, careful not to smudge the polish on his fingers.

Aunt Iris made it back to the couch with a plate in her hand by the time Wally had found something to watch and sat down next to him, propping her feet up on the table. Wally did the same and leaned against her side, not feeling as ravenously hungry as he normally would around food.

~~

Their nails had long since dried and the cookies were completely gone when the door opened behind them. Wally immediately stiffened, glancing down at his nails still covered in the soft blue polish.

“I’m home!” Barry greeted, coming up behind them to press a kiss to Iris’s cheek. “What did the two of you do today?”

“Our nails,” Iris said, lifting Wally’s hand to show their matching colors.

Wally bit his lip, preparing himself for the reprimand.

“Ooh very nice,” he commented. “Although I would’ve thought yellow would be more your speed, kid,” he said, ruffling Wally’s hair. “Did you save any cookies for me?” he asked, walking into the kitchen.

Wally let out a shaky breath, feeling relief flood through him as something in his chest finally relaxed.

“You know I think he’s right,” Iris murmured, studying his nails. “We should give you yellow next time. It would match your suit for sure,” she added with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” he agreed in a daze. “It definitely would.”

~~

Wally wasn’t scared to hide his nails anymore. He almost always had some color decorating his fingertips and most of the time he sat in front of the t.v. with Iris as they did their own nails.

Their separate nail polish collections morphed into one that always seemed to be getting bigger since neither of them could resist picking up a new bottle that managed to catch their eyes when they were out shopping.

Wally tried to ignore how his purchases were largely developing a trend towards deep blues, some with hints of sparkles while others embraced a softer gradient.

Aunt Iris didn’t question the sudden interest in blue and he hoped she hadn’t realized why it was happening. Or if she had, she wasn’t commenting on it as he tried a different color blue each week. He knew none of them matched the color he wanted but he was happy with the blue regardless.

He was digging through their box of nail polish, frustrated that he couldn’t find the color he really wanted when Iris sat down across from him.

“Here,” she said, passing a bottle across the table towards him.

Wally stopped and looked up, freezing at the sight of exact shade of blue that somehow seemed to match Dick’s eyes sitting in front of him. He slowly raised his gaze to meet Iris’s eyes and she offered him a small smile.

“You’ve had Dick over a lot lately and I couldn’t help but notice the sudden interest in blue nail polish. I managed to find this today when I was shopping and thought it might be what you’re looking for.”

Wally curled his fingers around the small bottle and clutched it tightly in his hand. “Thank you,” he said softly, uncurling his fingers to stare at the color. “It’s perfect.”

“Have you thought about telling him?” she asked.

Wally hunched his shoulders and she chuckled. “Okay, okay. Nail polish now and love confessions later. Now pass me the box. I need to find a new color this week.”

Wally painted his nails while Iris dug through the bottles of nail polish, finally settling on a vibrant green. He stared at the blue that shined and shimmered on his nails and for a moment he thought he was looking into Dick’s eyes.

“Aunt Iris?” he asked softly.

“Hm?”

“Can Dick come over this weekend?”

He didn’t look up to see the smile that pulled at her lips. “Of course he can,” she agreed.

~~

Wally fought not to bite at his nails and chip away the polish covering his fingers. He’d just redone them the day before in the Cave with Artemis and M’gann and they still shined the brilliant blue that matched Dick’s eyes. Plenty of people had seen the color but since Dick always had to wear sunglasses or a domino with the rest of the team, he didn’t know how he felt about it and everyone else couldn’t make the connection since they didn’t know what Dick’s eyes looked like.

He knew that Dick must’ve seen the color. He was too observant to not have noticed. But Dick realizing the color matched his eyes exactly was another story entirely and one Wally wasn’t sure he was ready to know the answer to.

He was getting antsy. He knew Dick was going to get to the house soon for the weekend they’d planned together, but he wanted nothing more than to leave and go running to get rid of his extra energy.

The doorbell rang and Wally froze, going stiff on his bed. He strained to listen, picking up Iris’s footsteps on the wood floors below as she made her way down the hall.

���Afternoon Dick,” she said, pulling open the door. “How are you?”

“I’m doing good,” he said brightly.

“Good to hear it. Wally’s upstairs in his room. I’m going to order pizza later so I hope you’re hungry.”

Dick chuckled, his voice getting closer as he climbed the stairs. “If I don’t eat everything you order for me I’m sure Wally will have no problem finishing it off.”

“You’re right about that. And if it’s not Wally then it’s certainly going to be Barry,” she agreed.

“Hey dude,” Dick said, swinging around the corner.

Wally grinned, his earlier nerves and energy immediately falling away in the presence of his best friend. “It’s about time you got here.”

Dick rolled his eyes and dropped his duffel bag on the floor before climbing onto the bed to sit cross-legged facing him. “It’s not my fault. Bruce was…” he sighed. “Was making sure I had everything I needed for the weekend and reminded me that if something happens we’ll need to zeta to the Cave.”

“He gives you the same talk every time you come to stay over,” Wally said, perching his chin in the palm of his hand as he braced his elbow against his leg.

Dick’s eyes flitted towards his nails and Wally swallowed.

“Yeah I know,” Dick admitted. “And it’s probably not going to stop anytime soon. Alfred’s the same way though and I guess it can’t really be helped right now. They love playing the part as my parents. I think Bruce is watching lots of teen movies to try and get a grasp on the whole parenting thing though”

Wally let out a breath and rocked backwards, pressing against the headboard. “I mean things got a lot better when I moved in with Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris, but Bruce and Alfred aren’t exactly like my parents were.”

He saw Dick’s mouth tighten and shifted, reminded how much Dick hated the situation in the household he’d grown up in.

“Hey,” Dick said, catching his attention.

“Yeah?” Wally asked.

“Do you think you could paint my nails?”

Wally blinked. “What?”

Dick shifted. “You always seem to enjoy painting your nails bright colors and I thought I could try it too and see what it’s all about.”

“Uh, sure,” Wally said, climbing off the bed. “I’ll go get the box of nail polish and you can pick out a color.”

He waited for Dick to nod before he left his bedroom and swung around into the bathroom. He pulled the box of polish from underneath the sink, the new blue that decorated his nails sitting on top. He clutched the box tightly between his hands as he walked back to his bedroom.

Dick was sitting on the floor and looked up at him expectantly. Wally sat across from him and set the box between them.

“Go ahead and pick out the color you want,” Wally said. “You could do red since that’s your costume or maybe blue since there are a lot of those. Or maybe even green since you have so many green hoodies,” he rambled, listing all of the colors he thought Dick might like.

“Maybe,” Dick said, moving through the different bottles.

Wally glanced down and saw he’d uncovered the different pastels that Wally had bought when he’d first started his nail polish collection. His eyes flicked back to Dick’s face and he froze when a soft smile pulled at his lips.

“I think I’ll get this color done.”

Wally looked down and blinked when he pulled out a bright yellow from the bottom of the box. “Uh, sure,” he said, moving the box out of the way to take the bottle from Dick’s fingers.

He shook the bottle several times, mixing the polish together. He unscrewed the cap and set the bottle to the side, holding out his hand for Dick’s. Dick placed his slim fingers over his palm and Wally moved them gently as he started the careful process of spreading the polish over his nails.

The color was bright and stood out beautifully against Dick’s darker skin and Wally tried not to focus on how much he liked the contrast of the colors. It was the same kind of pleasure he got from seeing Dick’s blue on his own nails.

“Well?” Wally asked when he finished Dick’s last nail. “What do you think?”

He screwed the lid back on the polish, not willing to meet Dick’s eyes.

“I like it,” he said happily.

Wally looked up and saw his grin as he admired the color on his nails.

“It reminds me of you,” Dick added.

Wally swallowed, his eyes widening. “Dick…”

He watched as Dick looked away, his cheeks turning a light pink. “I didn’t want to assume anything but the color you’ve been wearing the past couple of weeks matches my eyes doesn’t it?”

“Well, I mean-that’s-I…” he started, floundering for something to say. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly.

“Why did you pick that color?” Dick asked softly.

Wally pulled his knees to his chest. “Because I like it,” he whispered. “I like...you.”

Dick huffed a laugh. “That’s good.”

“Huh?” Wally asked, looking up. He jolted when he realized how close Dick had gotten, sitting on his knees in front of him.

“That’s good because I like you, too,” he said with a smile.

Wally let his knees fall away from his chest and leaned forward, hesitating a moment before he pressed a quick kiss to Dick’s lips. Dick grinned when he pulled back and Wally laughed, letting his head fall onto Dick’s shoulder, and feeling almost as relieved as he’d been when Iris had agreed to paint his nails so long ago.

“Don’t smudge the polish,” Wally said when Dick made a move to hug him, earning a high cackle from him that echoed around the room and inside the farthest corners of Wally’s heart that felt ready to burst.

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