Title: It's hard to be nostalgic about the Future
Summary: When Wally has to bring Bart back to his house for the night, a run in with Artemis Crock is inevitable. And the dog.
Characters/Pairings: Bart Allen, Wally West, Artemis Crock, some spitfire
A/N: Totally figures my first full story on here would be the byproduct of FlashFam feels and Artemis. It's got some banter, fluff, and angst in it, as almost all fics involving future kids do, and I might have gone a bit overboard with the word count. And I think that's all I need to say, so without further ado…
Read if you dare.
Disclaimer: I do not own nor am in any way affiliated with Young Justice. This story has been posted on both my Tumblr and now Fanfic accounts.
-.-.-.-
It's Hard to be Nostalgic about the Future
-.-.-.-
"Okay, first thing's first: ground rules."
It had gotten late enough in the day that the only way to discern the two figures on the steps of a Palo Alto school house with was by the small porch light; Wally was thankful for this. If Artemis stepped outside now, he wouldn't have to see the look on her face when she killed him for bringing the kid back.
But Bart looked excited though.
Having finally died down from the adrenaline the battle had struck up in his blood, Bart had immediately taken to absorbing everything mundane thing in sight. He was constantly poking and touching everything, babbling nonsensically (okay, it probably wasn't nonsense, but Wally had stopped listening) about the way things moved, and functioned, and making little notes out loud about what the people of this time knew and didn't know yet for future reference.
And when he wasn't speaking a mile-a-minute about the innovations that could be made to make gas more fuel efficient, or improve the speed and quality of T.V., or get that nasty aftertaste out of microwave dinners, he was trying to drop hints as subtle as train wrecks on Iris' twins.
"And and and he's going to fail grade three time, which is so crash, and – haha, you're gonna love this – in grade five–"
"Okay that," Wally interjected, cutting Bart off flat by pointing his house keys at him, "that's gonna be rule number one. Keep those futurey details to yourself, okay kid? Reveal too much and you'll mess up our time stream."
"No but see, I can't!" Bart argued, sounding far too happy about the prospect of cutting a giant tear in time as they knew it. "That's what's so great! I'm already here – the time stream's already different! The future is subject to constant change, and because I can't leave, time's starting to flow in a new vein and now even I can't predict everything! Like, take your future, for example. I could tell you all about how you're gonna get married and what your kid's names are going to be –" Wally's mouth opened to stop him but Bart charged on "–but it's not set in stone anymore! I probably have the best guess because you're you and she's her so I can't be too far off but I still –"
Wally's hand crashed over his mouth.
"Stop!"
Bart blinked once then grinned behind Wally's hand, shrugging. "Oh," he said. Then, because it came out as a squished mumble, he slowly lifted Wally's hand off to be clearer. "Sorry. My bad. Spoilers."
"Yeah," Wally agreed, drawing his hand back. He looked at it then wiped it on his pants. "Spoilers."
He looked anxiously back at his door and sighed; then took a deep breath, determined to get everything out at once before Bart could jump in again. "Okay," he started, trying to say out every word carefully, "so because we're gonna be nice and give Barry and Iris the night off, and because no one wants to call my mom at one in the morning and explain all this, you're going to spend the night here. We don't have a spare room and I share with my girlfriend, so we'll set up the couch for you to crash on."
Bart looked like he was about to interject–
"You spent your time in that time traveling containment unit, so don't even diss my couch."
Bart stopped.
Wally continued, though there was a definite grin on his face now. "Now, there's not really enough food for the both of us, so you can take tonight's and I'll just restock tomorrow morning. Try not to break anything, don't kill the plant, the dog's name is Nelson, the dog is actually a girl, and, ugh… I think that's about it."
Bart's hands were tapping so quickly at his sides Wally guessed he was a minute off from vibrating so badly he'd fall through the floor.
"You can talk now."
"I DON'T REQUIRE AS MUCH FOOD AS YOU DO BECAUSE I TOOK THESE SUPPLEMENTS WHEN I WAS A KID THAT MY DAD'LL INVENT LATER SO WE CAN SPLIT AND I PROMISE NOT TO BREAK ANYTHING AND I TOALLY KNOW WHY YOU NAMED YOUR DOG THAT BECAUSE YOU'VE ACTUALLY TOLD ME THAT STORY BEFORE AND WHEN YOU SAY 'YOUR GIRLFRIEND' DO YOU MEAN A –"
For the second time that night, Bart Allen's face found himself intimately acquainted with the palm of Wally's hand.
"Aaaannnddd that's where I cut you off," Wally said. "Final rule I forgot to mention. My girlfriend's name is Artemis Crock, I don't want to know what she is to me in your future, and I don't want you to tell me or anybody. Capiche?"
Bart rolled his eyes, but before Wally could pad out another "capiche?", the young speedster had darted out from behind the red head's grasp and into the flat.
"Bart what did I just –" Wally sped into the house right behind the boy, but stopped as soon as he saw what he was doing – nothing. Bart was standing stock still in front of his couch, not moving, not saying anything.
"Bart?"
Wally walked over until he could see what the young speedster was covering. There were two definable lumps on the couch: one, wrapped up tightly cocoon-style in a large blanket, with only a blond head visible, and two, curled up at the latter's side, snoring loudly. Both were asleep.
For a second, Bart could only hear Nelson's breathing and his own.
"Crap." Bart turned and looked at Wally, who was running his hand through his hair, somehow managing to pull off looking happy when sounded so exasperated. There was a lopsided smile on his face when he regarded the girl. "I forgot she had one of her exams today. Ugh… I don't really want to move her."
He looked around the room, like he was trying to figure out what to do now.
"I'll sleep on the floor," Bart offered.
"What?" Wally said. "No way dude, you're a guest. Listen, I'll get the bed ready and you can sleep there. I'm cool with the floor."
"No, no – man, it's fine. I spent all that time in the time traveling pod, remember? I'm used to roughing it."
"But–"
"No. Really. It's, ugh… it's totally crash. I'll stay here. I'll see you in the morning."
Wally regarded him with a quirked eyebrow. "You sure? It's really not a problem…"
"Yeah. I'm fine."
"…Okay." Wally consented his defeat with a sigh. "Just, give me a sec and I'll go get you a mattress or blankets or something–"
There was a quick gust of wind, then Bart was standing exactly where he was before, except now his arms were cradled to the brim with a comforter and pillow.
"You mean these?"
Wally's smile turned into a grin and he ruffled the speedster's hair. "Yeah I mean those, smart-ass. You sure you're good here?"
Bart dropped down all the belongings and good-naturedly shooed off Wally's hand, heaving a dramatic sigh. "For the zillionth time, yes. You are the most repetitive first cousin once-removed ever."
The two looked at each other, but after a seconds pause Bart sped closer and hugged Wally quickly. His head only reached the read head's chest.
"Thanks for letting me stay here."
Wally awkwardly held his hands in the air for a moment but eventually hugged back with a squeeze. "Yeah. Anytime."
The pair separated and Wally looked between Bart and Artemis. After a slight hesitation, he walked over to the woman on the couch and leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Night, babe," he whispered. She stirred lightly when he stepped back.
"I'll see you in the morning."
He left, leaving Bart and Artemis alone.
For a while, Bart continued normally. He proceeded to lay down the pillow and blanket correctly and sit down to get under them. Lift up blanket, slide under blanket, lay down on pillow, close eyes on pillow, sleep – the usual routine.
But soon it was obvious sleep wouldn't come. And when he finally heard the padding of Wally's feet in the other room stop, and saw the final light die out as the switch flickered off, he sat up in his makeshift bed-nest area.
He'd situated himself not very far from where Artemis laid sleeping, and maneuvering himself to her side wasn't very difficult, even in the dark. When he stopped so their faces were eyelevel – with her laying down on the couch and him crouching – he slipped two fingers out to her neck and checked the flutter of her pulse. Heart rates decreased in sleep, and she was moving normally.
There was a small rumbling sound and he turned to see Nelson there, eyes wide open and claws making small compressions in the comforter. The growling got pronouncedly louder.
"Shhh," Bart said quickly and low. "Shh, it's okay, it's okay. I'm a friend. I'm not going to hurt her. It's okay."
He removed his hand from Artemis' neck to prove the point, even letting the dog sniff it to make sure. Nelson looked unconvinced, but after recognized scents similar to Wally's and Barry's, slowly laid her head down. She didn't stop looking at him, but it was a sign enough that she wasn't going to kill him from getting close to the blond archer.
Bart chuckled. "You're a really good girl, you know that?"
The slight huff Nelson made was reason enough to believe that yeah, she did know that. Bart smiled wanly, not really sure if he'd just made a friend or not, but turned back to Artemis.
For a minute, he just looked at her. At how peaceful she seemed here – not at all like how he'd seen her constant times before. It didn't look like she had gotten any of the obvious scars yet. Maybe he could prevent that.
After the silence got too heavy, he spoke.
"I promised Irey," he said. "You don't know who that is yet, but she's important; you'll be really close to her. …You know actually, if things go south like they did for my time, you be really close to everybody. I don't know if you know that.
"…I don't really know what to say because I didn't really plan this far… but I guess I just want to tell you I got your back. Irey'd kill me if I didn't give her half the credit for getting me here, so she told me I have to watch your back twice as much to make up for it. Which I would even if she hadn't said anything, by the way. She just doesn't shut up, so I couldn't tell her that.
"Um anyways, I'm getting off track. I don't know exactly what I'm allowed to tell you, because of the time thing and all, but… I just. I want you to know you were like a mom to me." Bart felt the words start to get weighed down in his throat so he pushed to get them out. "I mean, after Aunt Dawn's… accident, and when mom was away and you always fought with me, I just want to say thank you. Cause I was stupid and never did then.
Something stung at the corners of his eyes and his arm came up to wipe furiously over them. His voice cracked. His throat seemed to get tighter. "You were so… stupid, Arty. I could've saved myself. I could've…I would have been fine. But you were so stupid and like – did you ever think about your kids? Or Wally? I wasn't…"
Bart backed up before he let this get too far. He'd changed the time stream. The World wasn't going to get desecrated. He'd saved Barry. Everything was different now. Nothing was going to happen to Artemis. He needed to stop panicking.
Nelson was still blinking curiously at him when he stood up and walked back to his bed to lie down. He pulled the cover up as far as it would go to cover his face, his eyes, his ears. He just wanted to block everything out and go to sleep.
He knew it would be okay now, but for some reason he couldn't twist that wrenching knot out of his stomach.