-This is the end-

"I have a warrent, open up!"

"One sec!" Artemis pulled her hair out of its messy bun and opened the door. "Come in, I'm still getting ready."

Dick leaned in the doorway. "You look hot." He observed.

"Thank you!" She smeared on a layer of lipstick. "I haven't seen you in a few."

"Nope, it's... it's been rough." Dick sat on the edge of the couch. There was a framed photo on the coffee table; it was one of their favorite pictures: Kaldur's eighteenth birthday, right after getting a tattoo of his fishhook symbol. Now that Dick was over eighteen too, the whole original had their symbols tattood, right over their right hips. 

"Oh, that's a good picture." Artemis grabbed her bag. "Okay, let's go."

They met the others at the resteraunt, it was pretty unpopulated since most people were downtown, watching the fireworks.

"Dick?" M'gann asked.

"Right, right." He stood up. "Five years ago..."

"Six." Conner corrected.

"Right, six years ago... you know what? I can't do this. Mr. Teamleader?"

Kaldur looked surprised. "I'm not the team leader. I'm not on the team anymore..."

"Please, Kaldur? I can't carry on this tradition myself. Not anymore."

Kaldur sighed and stood up. "We're all here... except...."

Artemis shook her head, pulling a framed photo from her purse. "We're ALL here."

She set Wally at the empty place at the table.

"Good." He muttered. "We're all here because six years ago, three inexperienced children broke into a dangerous, privetly owned, facility. Once there, they found and freed yet another powerful, inexperienced, youth." He nodded at Conner.

"AnD ThEn wE gOt GiRlS!" Dick jested. Giving M'gann a side-hug. "And very thankfuls we were about it!"

"We're all here because we directly disobeyed orders, inspired by Speedy's revolution."

Dick nodded. "I invited Will to come, but he said no, So I asked Roy, and he said no. Jim said no too, so we're going Harper-less tonight."

"HEY!" Artemis punched his shoulder. "I'm basically a Harper! Like, Ollie invites all of us over sometimes."

"Do you go?"

"Not a lot, but Will takes Lien up there every month or so." She smiled. "What about the Waynes?"

Dick rolled his eyes. "Me and Tim text a bunch, and we hang out on missions, and I DO visit, but..." He shrugged. "Work and Bludhaven and stuff."

M'gann smiled an Conner. He reluctantly smiled back. Their relationship was still mending itself.

"Kaldur, How's you been?" Dick tried to engage him in the conversation. Things were still uncomfortable between M'gann, Conner and Kaldur. The undercover ploy had fucked them up. Badly.

"I'm still alive." He replied. "I'm trying my best."

"I'm glad." M'gann muttered, plunged into guilt at the memory of her old friend's mind.

"Shall we order drinks?" Artemis asked. "Hey- remember that time we went to Denny's, SUPER HIGH?"

Dick laughed. "Yeah, we were accidents waiting to happen!" His face slowly fell as the expression resonated in his mind.

"Remember when Dianah came to get us?" M'gann asked. "Dick tipped ghe waiter fifteen dollars on a ten dollar tab!"

"She caught us doing a lot of things." Conner pointed out. "I remember having water fights and stuff and having her track us down to scold us."

The waiter approached to take their drink orders, asking whether they's like alcohol, soft drinks, and coffee.

"Decaf drinkers scare me!" Dick laughed. "Can I get a Shirley Temple?"

"You're gonna get your drink on with a Shirley-fucking-temple?" Artemis teased. "Can I get a glass of red wine?"

"Alcohol messes me up." Dick defended as the others  ordered. 

"A Shirley Temple? dude, all that sugar will screw you up even more!"

"I was like FOURTEEN!" He rolled his eyes. "HEY- remember the youtube channel?"

There was a pausse as they all remembered. 

"NO!" Conner objected. "that channel was SO BAD!"

"I didn't know how to cook yet, so all my videos were just me burning things!" M'gann giggled.

Artemis perked up. "DUDE, OUR SERIES! The, Uhh, the..."

"Gotham Explorers?" Dick asked

"YES! THE GOTHAM EXPLORERS!" She screamed with laugher. "God, That was SO fucking dangerous!"

"FOR REAL!" Dick replied. "I got in SO MUCH trouble for those!"

"Oh yeah, Ollie fucking snitched to my mom when he saw me smoking, like, come on, man! Roy-Will, had CLEARLY been smoking for, like, forever!"

"Yeah." Dick reached into his pocket. "Oh- so, the other day, Bruce made me come over to help him sort through some stuff, which is fun...... even when I quit and moved out... he's still telling me what to do!" 

"What did you find?" M'gann asked. 

"THIS!" Dick pulled out a miniature, scuffed up,  pin.

"Holy Crap!" Artemis exclaimed. "SUPERMAN HATE CLUB?"

"Those were the days." Conner chuckled, inspecting it. "Now he takes me out for pie twice a year and I have to think up conversation topics."

"You two are adorable now." M'gann grinned. "The first time he called you 'son', I swear you went to heven!"

"It was a big deal at the time." He stated. "Now we're mutuals, and meet up to hate Lex Luthor together."

"is that... FATHER-SON BONDING TIME!" Dick smiled.

"Yeah, yeah." Conner dismissed. "Hey, remember when R-Will used to pick us up and he'd blast bad music to try and embarass us?"

"YES!" Artemis exclaimed. "He did that shit SO MUCH!"

"Yeah, I remember one time when I jumped out of the moving car to avoid the embarrassment of him playing KidzBop!"

"Oh, yeah, that was at Wally's science fair!" 

The conversation died.

Dick's eyes lingered on the framed photo at the empty seat.

"I'm gonna go wash up." He inched out and headed to the washroom. He closed himself in the disabled washroom. Dick let out a shaky breath, forcing himself to stay calm. He'd gone two months without thinking about him. He can't forget him.

He looked up at the cealing, a tear drizzling out the outside corner of his eye.

Wally West.

It's been seven months.

Seven months since Wally West died.

He thought of the framed photo at the table. It wasn't fair. That should be Wally In that seat. It wasn't fair. Why was it Wally?

-

"Dick, Stay awake! Please!" Wally was pleading, leaning over him. "Stay awake, I can't live without-"

With the last of his strength, Dick clutched a handfull of Wally's hair and forced Wally's mouth against his own.

Dick held him there, tears streaking down both their faces. Wally didn't struggle. He just held Dick's wounds and best he could, hands full of blood. Wally didn't want to stop, scared that if he did, Dick might not have a pulse. He held the pose, wanting time to freeze Dick there forever.

-

"Dick? Are you in there?" M'gann asked, leaning against the door. "I can feel your emotions -I'm not trying to, I just can't help it. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, M'gann!" He faked a steady voice. "I'll be out in a second!"

"Okay, Um, Okay." She backed off.

Wally West. Still ruining Dick's life seven months after his death.

Dick went to the sink, splashing water over his face. It was okay. There was nothing he could've done. He forced himself to calm down, and returned, faking a smile, to the table.

Artemis let him into the booth. She was fiddling with the picture frame.

"Dick." Kaldur put an arm over his shoulder.

"I'm fine." He croaked around the lump in his throat. "Thanks."

He felt something nudge against his leg, and looked under the table. He leaned back to see a hand poking him with a folded peice of paper. He took the paper.

It was Wally.

He looked up at Artemis, and nodded at her. His vision got blurry with tears, as did hers.

"I can't believe this is the first aniversery we're having without him." He felt the tears pour over, flooding his vision.

She nodded mutely. "This was his favorite place in town." She snatched up her wine glass and took a hasty sip, wiping the wetness away from under her eyes.

"Wally would love this." Conner stated. 

Dick gasped in a breath. "I really miss him." Tears gushed down his cheeks. 

Artemis grabbed her napkin and thrust it at him. "Here, Rob."

He laughed through the sobs. "I haven't been Robin since I was fourteen!"

"You're still Robin to us, dipshit." She sniffled.

Dick fell backwards against his seat, grinning with tears streaming down his face. He gripped the Wally closer. 

"I love you guys."

-THE END-

-ANNOUNCEMENT: I know what y'all are here for, you want to know what my next book is. So let me explain-

Okay, when I was making the poll, I got a few requests to make one of the options a 'SHIP BOOK'. I added it to be polite, but I didn't expect the idea to become to popular.

Regardless of what was requested I shouldn't have put it on the list if I wasn't interested in writing it. I'm sorry if it's letting you down, but I will not be writing it

Thank you so much for being so understanding.

I'm going to go eat a whole meal for once, and brainstorm what I'll write next. Stay tuned for that.

Thank you so much for reading.

                                                                                              -The Author