Disclaimer : I do not own Justice League, its characters, or anything associated.

Author's Note: This is my first story for Justice League, but I love it and this pairing, so I did my utmost to give both the best.

Please review, especially with any hints on how I can improve, because it means a great deal to me. Thank you for reading.

Monitor Duty

Wally normally really hates monitor duty.

It isn't that he doesn't appreciate the break. It's nice to relax a little instead of going after some maniac with a death ray, or a heat ray, or a freeze ray, or whatever ray it is they're selling at the evil genius conventions this week. Sitting in a pretty comfortable chair and surveying a bunch of flashing television sets isn't so bad, almost like watching one-hundred-ninety-five movies at one time.

But still, it's just hard to stay still for that long, focusing on those screens for hours when he can glance at each of them fifteen times a second. Such tedious things don't keep his attention for long, and then he can't help but let his mind wander, sometimes to places that he'd rather not visit.

Usually, his thoughts might relay their last battle, where Captain Cold froze himself by accident or something funny like that. Those sorts of memories could keep his attention for a minute at least, but even as the nostalgia blanketed around him, he would know it wasn't enough.

Luckily though, because he really can't help but grin at the thought, things are different lately. He doesn't need to dwell on dark threats and constant fears of zipping off into nothingness.

Instead he can dwell on something better. He can spend it thinking about Batman.

His boyfriend.

It's a little scary how those thoughts still don't seem to fit together.

If anyone knew, which they don't yet (even though Wally is going to change all that by screaming it out at the next meeting and speeding away before Bruce can massacre him), they'd ask him if he'd gone insane, if Batman was threatening him into it or something stupid like that. They'd be kidding, but deep down they would almost mean it, because who in their right mind would date the Batman? His grumpiness is practically a threat for parents to use on their misbehaving children.

They had a point. Bruce is probably the most relationship-challenged man on the planet. He's stubborn, short-tempered, and blunt to the point of being rude. He also never shares the remote, steals all the covers, and always takes the last slice of Alfred's pie.

But as Wally stares up at the monitors, eyes halting in their sporadic flickering from one glowing screen to the next, he knows what makes him, well, love Bruce as much as he does.

Wally loves him for the way he gives millions to charities as if it were the simplest thing in the world. He loves Bruce for the vulnerability that he never shows but Wally knows is there, tender and afraid and hiding under a shell that doesn't fit. He loves his fierce protectiveness, his intelligence, and how just knowing Batman is there sends a surge of confidence through his veins.

Wally loves Bruce for the way his blue eyes shine when he's angry because his stubborn, short-tempered-ness leads them to arguments. He loves the curt way Batman talks to people, knowing there is so much more underneath that most people just don't have the time to decipher. He loves fighting for the remote and the look on Bruce's face when he speeds away with the covers. He loves how there's always a new pie the day after.

So there are all sorts of little things that aren't really as small as they seem when they add up, but Wally knows there is more than that, and to attribute their relationship to such tedious things is almost silly.

Ever since the battle with Luthor and Brainiac, Wally can't help being afraid. Whenever he lifts a foot to run, thousands of questions race through his mind in the time most people take the blink.

What if he goes one second too fast? What if he breaks through again? What if he's gone forever and ever and he can't come back?

Because Wally knows that if it happens again, if the Speed Force manages to pull him in, a hand on his wrist (Thanagarian or not) won't be enough to yank him back out.

Superman couldn't do it. His heart's too big, and he'd probably be crushing Luthor's windpipe before he knew it since he started it all. Then everything would go the Justice Lord's way, the bad way, and he wouldn't be there to do anything to stop it.

John wouldn't be able to find a way either. Wally didn't know if he'd lose control like Supes would, but John would probably just see it as the way the cards were dealt. He would mourn him, miss him, but move on with his life as most normal people would.

Shayera might go on a rampage, toss her electrified mace into a few mountains or empty buildings until their destruction made her feel better. She'd probably cry because she cares more than she likes to admit, and she'd try the same trick as before, even though thrusting her hand through a whole lot of empty space was just plain luck the first time.

Wally isn't really sure what Diana would do. She might side with Superman, because her fury is truly terrible. It sends Wally halfway across the country, thank you very much. She'd want to fix the earth the best she could afterwards, change things so his absence doesn't leave such a gaping void in the world.

J'onn is even harder to figure out. He seems so detached already, and he'd probably just withdraw inside himself a bit more. There's been too many times where his faith in humans has been questioned, and it could send him right over the edge into dictatorship. Trust and love for humanity is so difficult for anyone, especially a martian, and so strenuous to maintain that J'onn might just give up.

And unlike the rest of the League, even though they are his family and he winces a little when he thinks about it, Wally knows that only Bruce would bring him back.

Batman came into being because of the death of the people Bruce loved more than anything. It's a burden that he carries with him everyday in the form of a cape and cowl, and the pain has never faded even though decades have passed. Ever since that day, Bruce has come to limit himself, to stay antisocial and alone to keep from experiencing the same kind of tragedy more than once in his lifetime. That's why being part of a team is so hard for him. Worrying for others, being worried about, they're all things Batman had tried to cut out of his life.

But though it rarely happens, Bruce had miscalculated.

Wally knows that even though Bruce had planned to skulk through the world alone until his death, things have changed. Batman has people who cared for him now, and in his dark, mangled heart, he cares for them. And by watching him mourn his parents, in battle, with Alfred, visiting Tim and Dick and the rest of that family, Wally knows another thing, too.

Bruce will never give up the ones he loves.

He gives them too much hidden affection, too much of himself to ever let them go. Bruce knows, just like Wally does, that the torture of losing anyone else would create something more horrible and perverse than the Batman. It wouldn't be a phoenix rising out of the ashes but something decayed and terrible.

If he sped off into oblivion and couldn't find his way back, Batman wouldn't let him disappear. He'd do everything possible to bring him back, spend billions of dollars, threaten every petty criminal on the street until they choked up some type of hidden answers. Batman wouldn't allow himself to become what he knows he can, something he knows could be worse than every villain in every city combined. More than that, Batman wouldn't allow anyone to disappear and leave him with that sort of pain again.

And Batman would be able to do it, because he's Batman, and everyone knows that Batman can do anything.

These are the kinds of thoughts Wally gets to have now, only half his attention on the barren landscape of Siberia (which is the monitor that his eye has currently landed on). If he's being honest, he knows that he doesn't hate watching the monitors the way he used to, because it's not so hard to travel through his mind lately.

And the more he thinks about it, he doesn't really hate it at all anymore, and he knows that he only has one person to thank for that.

Wally can't help but grin.

It's going to be a lot of fun thinking of ways how.