Nothing Lasts Forever

Rainy Surprises

Disclaimer: All rights go to DC Comics.

WARNING: there will be mentions of past character "death", along with grieving and swearing. Nothing extremely graphic/violent, no sexual content.

(Cross-posted from my Archive account, Alfreds_Mustache. Also, special thanks to CoyoteFang1987, also on Archive.)
***

Rain pelted the gritty sidewalks of downtown Bludhaven, puddles springing up just as fast as the drops fell from above. The evening sky was gray and thick, humid air smothering the city from the steepest skyscrapers all the way down to the street gutters. There wasn't a single person in the dank cityscape that didn't feel the immediately depressing effects of such bland weather, even if such weather wasn't out of the ordinary for 'Haven.

Dick Grayson hiked the plastic grocery bag higher up onto his shoulder, being mindful of the two other grocery bags in his left hand and the steaming thermos of coffee in his right. He had walked nearly five blocks just to get to the market, plus another two blocks to get to the coffee shop. On his way back, an unexpected rain hit, pelting the traffic-jammed streets, busy sidewalks, and shuffling pedestrians-- and, subsequently, him.

He sighed. That would be the end to this day. He couldn't seem to catch a break lately, what with new villains and drug lords and muggers sprouting up around town like spring flowers; Officer Grayson had arrested and detained nearly 30 criminals within just the past three days. That was an insanely high number, even for Blud--and those were just the arrests he'd made, not the department total.

There was so much going on and so much that he still had to do, and it was all so exhausting.

He was overwhelmed with police work -- he still had to write, file, and submit six new reports in full before lunchtime tomorrow -- and with family matters -- he'd agreed to help Tim reorganize WE's entire filing system later today, take over Damian's training for tonight while Bruce was on patrol, and meet up with Roy, Kori, and Jason tomorrow on his day off to hang out and spar. Plus, he still had to patrol and protect Bludhaven as Nightwing, he needed to clean his apartment (like he'd been trying to for three weeks now; he just couldn't find the motivation to actually do it), restock his fridge (which was actually why he'd gone to the store in the first pace, so at least he had one thing done), fix the weird rattling sound coming from the exhaust pipe of his bike, do his laundry...

As he plodded along the muddied, puddle-strewn sidewalks, water seeped through the thin mesh of his navy-blue Converse. With each step he took, his feet squelched uncomfortably against his soaked-through socks.

Small droplets from his hair beaded down the back of his neck and onto his nose. Every five seconds, another drop would make its way from his forehead to his left eye, stinging it briefly and painfully.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip-drip.

Drip.

Drip.

He huffed in annoyance, yearning to swipe one of his now-drenched jacket sleeves across his brow. Almost home, he reminded himself, hurrying his pace in the direction of his apartment building.

In his rush, however, he failed to notice a particularly haphazardous puddle between the uneven halves of a cracked sidewalk square. No sooner had he caught sight of his building that the toe of his shoe caught on the cracked bit of sidewalk, and he -- along with his grocery bags and hot coffee -- tumbled to the wet, unforgiving ground.

He hissed as his knees and palms scraped hard against the concrete, then proceeded to silently curse the stupid rain and the stupid sidewalk and his stupid shoes.

His jeans were soaked from the knee down, as were the sleeves of his jacket (at least, more so than they already were). He cursed again -- louder this time -- as he struggled to sit himself up. Blinking flecks of mud from his bleary eyes, he shook his head at himself, at his situation, at the utter mess he was, at how close he was to the apartment -- he was always so close, so goddamned close, and it just wasn't fair --

He forced his thoughts to the back of his mind (compartmentalizing -- that was how he survived), at least long enough to take a deep breath. He closed his eyes.

Breathe in....1..2..3.... And breathe out.

He repeated this several times before opening his eyes once again to the torrent downpour and the scattered groceries that lay strewn about his crumpled form.

The seconds dragged by slowly with the cool rain, as he collected himself and his spilled groceries.

Slowly, he pulled himself onto his scraped knees (which were now throbbing and quite possibly bleeding, but of course nothing at all compared to his usual, "occupational" injuries), scrunching his nose at the amount of water that had sopped through his clothes and onto his clammy skin.

He found himself sighing, again, as he bent over to scoop every item he could reach back into the cheap plastic bags, not caring however jumbled and disorganized they ended up.

Almost ten minutes had gone by before he finally managed to gather up all of the awkwardly-filled bags into his arms. He couldn't find his thermos, though, which he might have been more upset over if he weren't so utterly fed up with this god-forsaken rain. Honestly, all he wanted to do now was take a hot shower and nap on his couch while binge-watching New Girl.

*

"Jesus Christ, Dick— why the fuck did you pick the top floor?" Roy complained, out of breath from climbing up five flights of stairs with a box labeled 'kitchen stuff' in his arms.

Dick snorted, "So I can laugh at you every time you complain about it."

Roy leveled a gaze at him. "Fuck you." He dropped the box where he stood, completely uncaring as it clanged loudly enough to echo in the mostly-empty room.

Dick rolled his eyes and pushed the box a couple of feet into the kitchen.

Roy sat down cross-legged on the floor, propping his elbows on his knees with his head in his hands. "That'd better be all of 'em," he eyed his friend, "because I am not doing those goddamned stairs again."

"Whatever you say, Roy-boy," Dick smiled cheekily, walking back into the room.

"Hey, guys!"

They both turned expectantly to the front door.

*

By the time he'd wrangled his keychain from his pants' pocket (all while keeping hold of the groceries) he had reached the top of the fire escape, winded and wet. He chuffed, immediately thinking of Roy.

"Arp!"

Dick stumbled, nearly dropping the grocery bags at the sudden noise at his feet. What he saw was not at all what he'd expected to come home to.

There, on his back door step, shivering and practically drowning in its own wet fur, was a dog.

***
Thanks for reading!
So basically Wally's a dog. Yup. Based on a prompt from CoyoteFang1987 (Archive of Our Own).