Every night, I tell myself to just keep dreaming. To Ana.

Second chapter soon to follow if not already posted.

Silence strung itself about the cave like poorly hung Christmas lights in mid-July. It seemed out of place and out of season, nearly haunting, and it was absent in some parts, but none of the occupants had the energy needed to take it down. That would mean addressing what had happened, and acknowledging it would make it real.

What no one was going to admit was that they had gotten someone killed on their last mission. It had been just one person, and they had saved so many more, but that one body was someone with a family and a life, and truth be told, their real thought was that it could've been one of them. No one said that, of course, but no one had said anything since they got back to Mount Justice.

Once inside, everyone had handled their guilt separately.

Conner had bandaged the cut on his forearm and collapsed on the couch in the living room. He had found the remote and turned the TV to a station with nothing but static, muting the roar and just watching the snowy effect on the large screen.

Megan had hopped up on the counter, turning her back to him, and with eyes glazing white, ingredients flew around the kitchen without her raising a hand. Spoons followed the eggs and milk around the area and she just stared forward with only a slight furrow in her brow.

Kaldur had turned on two of the shower faucets in the locker room and laid out across the tile, his gills fanning greedily as he seemingly tried to drown himself beneath the thick streams.

Artemis had been in the gym for the longest time, going at the punching bag with an unnamed vengeance, but she had wandered back to her room after Dick had sauntered in. She had found a nice pair of headphones and was blaring what music she had on her phone as loud as she could get it, staring emptily up at the ceiling.

Dick had made his way into the gym to work out at first, but once he had gotten to the top of the high beams, he simply kept climbing until he was seated up in the comfort of the height the rafters provided. Once he was situated, he took out his phone and turned on the swing music he often played when he was upset. It was quiet, but it knocked the Christmas lights down on his half of the cave, and those who could hear it knew how serious their predicament really was.

Wally had been pacing for the most part, trying to jog his mind onto a path with new thoughts, but once he heard the swing music he was done with sulking. He left his room, contemplating taking the silence, but he left it where it hung and followed the music into the gym, looking around for his friend.

It admittedly took him a while to find the bird nestled up high, but when he did, he put his hands on his hips and stared up at him for a moment.

Dick had one leg curled up under him, the other swinging loosely in the air, and he was staring even higher as who Wally thought to be Frank Sinatra crooned through the phone speakers. Admittedly, he didn't know very many swing artists, or if Frank Sinatra was even swing, but it didn't matter now.

"Rob," Wally tried to call, but he got caught on the Christmas lights and had to collect himself for a moment before trying again, louder.

Dick tensed for a moment, but when he recognized his caller, he relaxed and folded his arms over his lap and looked down at his friend. He didn't offer anything verbal in return, but he waved his fingers kindly.

"We're going out," Wally called up.

The teen hesitated on the board, as though he hadn't heard, but Frank wasn't singing very loudly about his paper moons, so he obviously heard well enough.

"Now?" Dick asked, after a moment.

Wally shrugged. "Yeah, now. Unless I'm interrupting your sulking."

Dick chewed on his lip and stared up at the ceiling, thinking on it. A small conversation later, or maybe just some inner contemplation, he paused the music and scaled his way back down to the ground.

"Anywhere specific in mind?" he asked as he slipped his phone in his pocket.

"Out," Wally offered, and it was enough.

Without further disrupting the Christmas lights, they ducked their way out of the cave through a natural exit in the rocks, and made their way down the mountain side until they reached a path worn into the rocks. A look to each other and they took it without a word, and they let the crunching of rock beneath their sneakers serve as conversation for the better part of their trek as they made their way down off of the mountain.

Every so often, Dick would glare distastefully up into the branches of the surrounding trees, and sometimes he seemed as though he were going to say something, and sometimes he would look as though he were going to lash out at something Wally couldn't see, but he never did. He would glare, and then he would look to Wally, and then he would stare back to the path. It kept on like a cycle for a good part of their walk, up until they were a little over halfway down the mountain. Only then did Wally feel it was safe to talk, or at least to see what was going on with his friend.

"You doing all right?" he tested the waters.

Dick stopped in place, apparently just now realizing he had gotten ahead of his walking partner, and turned to look at him. He raised an eyebrow.

"Do I look not all right?" he asked, maybe a little testily.

"You never look all right. It's part of your bad boy charm," Wally shrugged, and laughed at the face his friend made in response. "C'mon, dude. You were playing swing music. You only do that when you're not all right."

The dark-haired teen jammed his hands into his jean pockets and shrugged, looking back up into the trees. He stiffened again, like he had done the past few times, only this time he didn't seem as able to stomach whatever it was he saw up in the branches.

"What do you keep looking at?" Wally started to ask, voice jumping in pitch as his friend suddenly chucked a rock up into branches with a shout.

"Maybe I'd be all right if there weren't cameras everywhere on this mountain!" Dick yelled up at the tree.

For a moment, Wally questioned his friend's sanity, but a red beam quickly shot down out of the branches and scanned the young hero's face. The computerized voice that they had become familiar with from their use of the ZETA teleports identified him as Robin and politely recommended that he not harm Justice League technology.

"Scan this!" Dick yelled again, proceeding to flip the camera off.

The red beam came down again, but it ignored the crude gesture and scanned his face again, repeating the same message from before. It drew a frustrated shout from the young hero, and he rolled his eyes, flipping it off again before gesturing for Wally to follow him farther down the path. The speedster did all he could think of to not laugh.

"How'd you know there were cameras?" he asked, biting the inside of his cheek to try and lessen his grin. "I still don't see any."

Dick stuffed his hands back into his pockets with a little huff and shook his head.

"Got 'em all over the house," he bit out, obviously a little jaded.

Wally thought he knew his friend pretty well- or at least enough to know that he didn't just blow up at nothing. A few cameras weren't the source of this anger. Cameras were littered all over the cave, and if they were at Wayne Manor, the Dick Grayson in the contact list on his phone never seemed too bothered by them. He knew what was really digging at his friend's skin. It was the same thing digging at his, and the rest of the team. Knowing his friend as well as he did, though, he knew he wouldn't just get a solid answer about feelings out of him like this.

Without so much of a second thought, he threw the acrobat over his shoulder and ran the rest of the way down the mountain, hugging the skinny thighs to prevent the small teen from taking off like a kite. As soon as Dick realized he was being hauled off, he was quick to wrap his arms around the speedster's middle and cling for dear life. It took a whole of fifteen seconds to get the rest of the way down the mountain to the beach, and even then Wally ran a bit farther until they were headed off towards the city. Only then did he let Dick down, and he held onto his shoulders until his balance had caught back up to him. When the young sidekick was standing steady, the two of them started walking together towards the city.

"No cameras this far out," Wally assured his friend, a little surprised that he hadn't been punched for the sudden grab. "Can we talk now?"

Dick seemed a lot more at ease now, walking with his arms swinging idly at his sides and staring off towards the city or up at the redhead. The run seemed to have shaken him out of his funk, at least according to Wally's reasoning. He even seemed to consider the question this run around.

"I'm... fine, Walls," he said, a little less sure than he should've been. "Really. I just..."

He trailed off and didn't make much of an effort to pick up the tail end. Wally jogged after it and gave it a tug.

"You just...?" he pressed, nudging his friend lightly.

Dick looked up at him over his shades, his blue eyes suddenly clouding over with doubt, and Wally recognized the walls that were being put back up. He knew those walls all too well, and the effort needed to knock them down.

"Forget it," the acrobat shrugged.

"No, no, come on," Wally said hurriedly, grabbing his friend's arm. "What is it?"

Dick stared at the freckled hand on his arm before pulling himself free, shaking his arm out. He looked away from the both of them and stared down at the sand to their left.

"It's dumb," he excused it.

"I'm dumb," Wally offered as a rebuttal.

Blue eyes met his again and Dick laughed a genuine little laugh. He shook his head and grinned down at his feet.

"Not going to argue with that," he murmured before lifting his head again, grin simmered down to a half-cocked position.

His grin might have lowered, but the walls hadn't, and Wally knew that no amount of teasing or jokes could make a mark on it. After brief pondering, he decided that the only way to lower them was to lower his own.

"All right. I'll go first then," Wally said before he could stop himself. "I'm not okay."

Dick looked over at him very quickly, the surprise a sharp contrast against the blue in his eyes. He had obviously been caught off-guard. Nobody expected the goofball to say anything without a punchline. That was a punchline in itself, only it was the kind that hurt a little. It merited the "I have feelings, too!" response, and no one likes being a cliché.

"We got a guy killed today, Dick. I mean, we didn't do it, but we didn't stop it, either," he went on, and he found himself rubbing anxiously at his neck. "I didn't know him, and you didn't- well, probably- but he died because of us. That's on our hands. My hands."

He could see Dick reach for him in his peripheral, but he side-stepped it. No one ever asked if he was okay. It was about time that he was asked, even if he was the one who had asked himself in the first place. It felt good to get to answer after all this time.

"If I had been a little faster, I could've knocked him out of the way. If I had been slower, it could've been me. It could've been you," he paused at the thought, and he found that he couldn't look over at his friend- only tighten his brow. "It could've been Bruce going through your closet to find the suit to bury you in, arguing with the guy at the cemetery on the phone to make sure you were buried next to your parents. Him and Alfred trying to pick out the right color casket to put you in. What they were going to say in your eulogies. What I would say in your eulogies. My best friend, the one I got killed... what would I say?"

Wally stopped walking at that point and bit hard into his lip, staring hard off into the silhouette of the buildings up ahead. His eyes misted at the thought and he saw it all, all the way to the casket lowering down into the earth with all of their tears and flowers on top. He coughed lightly into his hand once he caught himself and blinked it off, continuing to walk with a little huff.

"We got lucky, but he didn't," he managed, and then he looked down at an utterly speechless Dick, "and I'm not okay."

They held eye contact, the green watery and the blue shell-shocked, and then Wally found himself wrapping an arm around his friend's shoulders, maybe a little tighter than he meant to. He swallowed hard, biting at his lip again.

"So... whatever you have to say... isn't that dumb."

Dick grabbed Wally's wrist and for a moment, the redhead assumed he would be thrown off, but the acrobat instead squeezed comfortingly and rubbed the inside of his friend's hand with his thumb. The redhead closed his eyes with a sore smile and took a deep breath. It felt good to get that off of his chest, admittedly.

They continued walking, Wally's arm still slung around his friend and his friend's hand latched onto his wrist. After a moment, Dick leaned in towards him, and let his head rest against the redhead's chest. It was almost too perfect.

"I was just thinking... I mean... we're kids, Walls," Dick finally said, hesitantly.

"I prefer to think we're 'strapping young gentlemen'," Wally interjected lightly.

Dick rolled his eyes with a breathy laugh that Wally could feel vibrate against his chest. The acrobat leaned off of the speedster after that, but he stayed close all the same.

"You know what I mean, though. Like... when did you get into this hero business?"

Wally thought for a moment that he could see what was beyond the walls, and he tried to not seem as excited as he was about his friend slowly starting to open up. The thumb on the inside of his hand slowed, but it still felt just as nice.

"You mean you're not obsessed with my life?" he feigned hurt, but he dropped it with a little laugh, and stopped to think. "Ah... I'm not sure, really. A few months after the accident, at least. I was maybe... thirteen? Fourteen?"

The thumb pressed a little harder unintentionally.

"So you won't completely get it, but... I started when I was nine. I mean, I was... I was a kid. I am a kid," Dick got quiet for a moment, and he let go of Wally's wrist.

"Try me," Wally encouraged.

He took his arm away and stuffed his hands into his pockets, as he was unsure of what else to do with them at this point. Dick had gone quiet again, but this time it seemed to be that he was thinking, and not that he was diverting the subject.

"When I decided to become... Robin... I signed over any chance of a normal childhood... of a normal life. I traded my blocks for bullets, I guess," he continued, and Wally nodded slowly. "I gave up my normal life so everyone else could have one. I just... wish... someone could do the same for me."

Wally stared at him and blinked slowly, processing what he had been told. "Let me get this straight. You want to be... 'normal'?"

"I- it's not like I want to stop being a hero- not yet, at least... but I just want... a day... where everything's..." he gave a weak shrug, "normal. A day where I'm... the average guy, and not some kid nursing broken ribs. I'm sick of playing Atlas, Wally. I can't keep the whole world up for long."

Putting an arm around Dick again, Wally managed to stop the both of them on the very outskirts of the city. He studied his friend's face, trying to draw more out of his features, and then he looked over everything he had been offered. He thought, and then he nodded.

"I understand, I think," he said after a moment. "Want to go for pizza?"

Dick seemed a little disheartened at first, but he brightened up fairly quickly and returned the nod. They walked the rest of the way into town looking for a pizza place, looking like two average guys, but feeling like two Atlases.

-F.J. III