The Leaden Thunders Crashed
Chapter 1
A/N: This should be considered in-continuity with my other YJ!Bart fic, Just Say No, but neither of them requires the other.
You spent a lot of time alone, when you were the fastest human left alive.
It wasn't that he got rejected for having powers, of course not, no way. Well, just by a few people, but not enough to be important. Ever since he'd gotten his collar deactivated and gone off the grid, he'd been one of the most valued members of the resistance against the Reach, at all of thirteen years old. He was the best courier, the best scout, one of the best thieves, though he liked to call it 'proactive scavenging.' And no one else could do what he could do. No one could keep up.
So he spent most of his time on solo missions, sprinting and hiding and never letting the Reach get a look at him. #478193 was dead; Batman had seen to it. Forward Agent ran like a rabbit and was never, ever caught.
Bart Allen knew the faces of all the most prominent members of the resistance. He knew where to find them. He knew most of their names and most of their secrets. And he'd never betrayed a one. He'd quite cheerfully have died first.
He'd known about the time machine since it was around half-built. He'd stolen or carried most of the sensitive parts at one stage or another, but he hadn't known what they were for until pretty late in the project.
"We should send Allen," Batman had been growling, as Bart scurried into the most secure base he knew of (there had to be ones he wasn't cleared for; anybody could be put on-mode) with a backpack full of scrounged microchips.
The Bat was a big man, which was actually pretty rare these days, with ropes of muscle that would probably have been bulkier if he'd been more willing to call leader's privilege on the protein rations, and ribbons of scars, but he wasn't that old. He only ever wore a mask when dealing with the Reach, but the tattered black cloak he wore all the time was totally practical and kinda crash, so Bart completely endorsed it. It was hard to tell how old a person was for sure, but Batman's hair was mostly still dark and the skin between the scars not totally weathered, and there was no way this was the original Dark Knight, who'd be about eighty and Bart was pretty sure had died off-world anyway. Rumor had it he was the son. Bart had often wanted to ask—he was the Flash's grandson, after all; it was practically a family connection—but he had enough too much information already without getting branded as completely nosy.
Or rather, Batman would only give out necessary information, so there was no point trying. Bart was waiting to catch him in a good mood. (Some of the other scouts told him 'good luck with that,' but Bart was nothing if not an optimist.)
Arriving in the middle of an argument about himself wasn't actually that uncommon. He wasn't attached to any particular cell, but leaders could get possessive, especially of something as rare and tactically valuable as meta agents. Especially the last speedster. Bart had loped over, hoping to hear more. They'd tell him everything he needed to know if they sent him anywhere, probably, but he'd learned never to underestimate the survival value of knowing extra.
"He's vital to the resistance!" Red Condor had snapped back. Bart wasn't sure why she went by Condor, which was apparently some kind of huge extinct bird, but she was the only person who never seemed to back down from Batman. Condors had been bigger than bats, he was pretty sure, but she wasn't that tall. She was somewhere between thirty-five and fifty, had red hair that she kept under a hat to avoid catching attention, and was a master of improvised weaponry. Bart had once seen her take down a fully active Reach patrol 'bot with three rocks and four feet of steel cable.
"Tt." Bart had always been kind of impressed by how scornful Batman could get a single consonant sound. "The resistance does not stand or fall with any one of us, Harper."
"Except you?"
"Including me."
"Oh, saints and stars, was that humility?" Condor rolled her eyes. "The world must have finished ending while I was distracted. That boy is the single most valuable agent we have. You are not treating him as expendable."
"You want me on a suicide run, Bats?" Bart interjected. Keeping his tone light. He wouldn't be the first or the last to run into death with his eyes open for the cause, and while privately he felt Condor had a point about how useful he was, Batman wasn't wasteful. He generally only expended something if he was going to get something more valuable in return, and if he was ready to throw the last speedster away on this, it had to be big.
"No," Batman answered curtly. "Harper is being melodramatic."
Well, that was a relief. Bart wasn't excited to die. Life right now was better than it had been since he'd been seven, when the Reach had gotten Dad on-mode and finished off both the Tornado Twins in one blow, and he wanted to do everything and see everything that was possibly worthwhile before he clocked out. Bart knew how lucky he was, to have gotten out, to have these powers and the chance to use them. He'd die, if that was what it took to pass some of that luck around. But doing it sooner than necessary was way too in-line with the mode. "Crash. So what's the mission?"
Condor's face pinched. "Oh, no. You are not doing an end-run around me by getting the boy on board before—"
"If the mission succeeds, we won't need him anymore," Batman interrupted. And okay, now Bart was really interested. What could possibly change the face of the world so much that the resistance had no use for a runner? Some kind of incredibly fine-tuned teleporter? That would be better than him, if they could secure it. No risk of moving through open country, and no problem with walls, and replicable, if it was a machine and not a person. He wondered how fast Batman, Condor, and the tech squad could build bombs, because assembly speed might actually become the only limiter on blowing things up. "So the question is, Harper, do you think the mission is worthwhile, and do you think Allen can handle it?"
Condor flung her hands up without bothering to open her fists. "Your arbitrary conviction that we need to deceive the targets is what's in question!"
"They will not automatically trust a mysterious interloper warning them of an imminent catastrophe. Even if they accept our agent as genuine, our agenda will then be known. It will be subject to criticism, restriction, and doubt from people who do not have the perspective to judge the situation appropriately."
"You are talking about your own father," exclaimed Condor.
"A great man," Batman acknowledged. "Who let the world end."
Bart couldn't take the time to absorb this perspective on Batman because he had just started to suspect he knew what they were talking about. "Are you building a real actual time machine?"
Okay, so sometimes his mouth was faster than his brain. He blinked again. "And you want me to use it?"
Yes, he was valuable, but he was thirteen. Sensitive missions fell into his lap because his powers made them so much easier, not because he was enormously skilled or brilliant or anything. Short of the machine needing superspeed to work, he didn't see how his name had come up. And if it did, then Condor wouldn't be arguing it shouldn't be him because there wouldn't be anyone else.
"You seem surprised," Condor said, almost smiling, which for her was smiling.
"Well, yeah. I'm...just me, you know?" With an embarrassed smile, he shrugged, making the carefully packed microchips shift but not rattle. He should get those delivered, already, and were they going to be in the time machine? They were absolutely going to be in the time machine. Crash.
"Your completed mission record is longer than those of most agents twice your age," Red Condor told him. Bart hadn't known that, but it made sense. He had an unfair advantage, though. He grinned and tried not to fidget, feeling very on-the-spot.
"And I am told," Batman added, "you are one of our best infiltrators."
No one infiltrated the Reach, of course—you'd need to subvert Reachtech before it could subvert you, for that. But the resistance did have to infiltrate other groups of humans all the time, because the fact was, most people didn't dare stand up to their alien overlords, and a community caught harboring human terrorists…well, it wasn't pretty. For news, for supplies, to position a strike or pass unnoticed through a checkpoint, you needed to be beneath notice. Even someone as striking as Batman could do it, if he needed to. There was a lot of shoulder-hunching, head-hanging, and shuffling involved.
Bart shrugged again. "Only because I look so harmless."
"Precisely," said Batman.
And Bart started to see what he meant.
"Ideally," the commander continued, "we want you on their covert ops first-response team."
Bart fidgeted. "Wouldn't Tre do better, then? Not that I'm trying to get out of the mission! Just…infiltrating a slave camp is different than infiltrating a guard unit." He could tell he was missing something. Batman and Condor had passed on at least a few elements of 'ninja training' to basically everyone in the network, but Tre Hawkins was the best; everyone knew he was being groomed to take over when Batman fell.
"He's too old," Batman replied. Tre was twenty-six. "Their covert strike team was also the junior division."
Wally's team. Wally and Artemis' Team, they wanted him to infiltrate that? Really?
"Also, you have meta powers," Condor interjected. Still not pleased with the plan but clearly aware of its underlying logic. "They won't require you to prove yourself to nearly the same standards as they would a normal human."
Some people would have twisted the 'normal' a little, because most surviving metas were part of the mode these days, and metahumans were the whole reason Earth had fallen within the Reach in the first place, but Condor was just rude. Bart was okay with rude. He grinned.
"Especially," said Batman, "considering your family."
His family was Justice League. Bart knew an in when he…had it explicitly pointed out to him.
"You have that, too," he pointed out in turn. "Uh, sir."
Batman's mouth twitched; Bart wasn't sure if it was amusement or anger or something else. "True, Allen. But I do not look harmless."
Bart heartily agreed. "You've got that right. Okay, then." He gave a sharp little nod, just slow enough for everyone to see, and stood up straight. "Mission accepted."
Condor growled, softly, but she'd already given in, or she wouldn't have been explaining the advantages to him. And really, from what he knew, there really wasn't anyone else.
He smiled. "So…what is the mission exactly?"
"Broadly," Batman answered, with a quelling look at Condor that said he realized there was some debate about the specifications still but this was not the time, "to disrupt the Reach conquest of Earth in its early stages."
Well, yeah. Obviously. "Okay."
"Tt." Apparently Batman found acquiescence annoying. Or he'd seen through the smile to the 'obviously.' "You are aware of the Reach infiltrator known as Blue Beetle." Bart nodded. "At the time of the invasion, he was a member of the covert junior unit."
Bart rocked on his heels, uncomfortable. Taking the Beetle out of the equation would help, of course. Being betrayed by one of their own had always been the thing that most crippled Earth's defenders, whether the betrayal had been voluntary or not. "Uh. I don't think I'm really cut out for assassination, Batman."
"No," Batman agreed. "But you would be capable of it, as a final resort."
Bart dropped his eyes. "Yes, sir."
"Consider the prospect motivation to succeed in your primary mission," the Bat suggested dryly, and Bart ducked his head a little further in acknowledgment.
"First of all," said Condor, "you need to know…"
A/N: Tre Hawkins is, incidentally, Virgil's sister's son.
