His legs burned but it was easy enough to ignore. He could handle the assignment, no matter what Oliver or the rest of the guys said about him. He wasn't a kid anymore; not after joining Oliver's little gang of heroes. He refused to just be a thief for the rest of his life. For the first time, he felt that he had meaning.

So what if that meant he was the one sent into the dangerous situations simply because he could run away if something went wrong? He was the fastest person alive, after all.

"Impulse, do you copy?" Oliver's voice was loud in his ear, suddenly breaking through his jumbled thoughts.

"Come on kid, I know you can hear me." Oliver continued. He never was the type to wait patiently for a response.

"Not…a kid!" Bart panted, regretting saying anything.

"Bart! Please come back," Clark's voice was there, meaning that everyone was in Watch Tower following his every move. Instead of making him feel cared about, it only made him feel more like a child in their eyes.

Bart tried to focus his breathing, keep pumping his arms as his legs started screaming at him to rest, but he knew he wouldn't be able to keep this up much longer. He'd been going non-stop for two days and his body wasn't strong enough for that. He knew that. Oliver knew that. That didn't mean he was going to stop anytime soon.

"Bart, stop being stupid!" Oliver shouted, his frustration coming out. Bart would've laughed if he had any breath to spare. It was hilarious that the leader of the gang was suddenly worried about him. Oliver had willingly sent Bart into a situation that he knew was beyond dangerous, possibly beyond Bart's skill level to handle. Chloe and Clark had both voiced their opposition, but Bart had agreed to the mission and refused to back down. No one was going to call him a kid ever again.

"Bart?" Chloe's voice was soft, sparking something and Bart stumbled, his legs too weak to keep him steady anymore. He stopped, standing in a field somewhere outside of Mexico City. His legs felt like jello, barely holding him up, but he refused to show any sign of weakness. He wasn't going to pass out.

"What?" he asked, his dry throat scratchy.

"Bart, come back. It was an accident, you didn't mean it, we all know that. You have nothing to prove to us," Chloe said, speaking Bart's worst fears. He knew the rest of the team thought he was a kid and couldn't handle big missions on his own. He was surprised it had taken him as long as it did before he made a mistake. Hell, he'd expected to be kicked out a long time ago.

"Chloe?" he whispered, the small remnant of his energy quickly fading.

"Yah Bart, I'm right here," Chloe said, her voice strong in his ear. He closed his eyes.

"Can you come get me?" he asked, knowing that he sounded like a 5 year old but he was beyond being too tired to care. His knees buckled and he crumpled to a heap on the dusty ground. He could see his hand lying close to his face, his fingers caked in dried blood. The blood of the man he'd killed.

The last thing he remembered was Chloe calling his name.

"Exhaustion, minor concussion, dehydration, dislocated shoulder…he's lucky. It could've been a lot worse," a strange man's voice said, filtering through the cotton in Bart's head. He shifted, groaning slightly. His whole body ached, one giant bruise covering every inch of him.

"Bart?" someone else asked, and he thought he recognized the voice as Oliver's. "Bart, we need you to open your eyes."

Bart tried, his eyelids feeling like they were each held down by a ton of bricks. Slowly he opened them, blinking a few times in the bright light.

"How do you feel?" the man asked, placing something cold on Bart's chest. That's when he realized he was lying on the infirmary bed in Watch Tower, wearing a pair of blue sweats and no shirt. Electric leads were on his chest and an IV was in the crook of his right arm.

"What…" Bart asked, his voice dry from lack of use.

"We used your GPS signal to find you and bring you back here. You've been unconscious for four days," Oliver said, all business.

Bart sat up, his vision blacking out. He closed his eyes and grabbed his head in his hands, willing himself to stay conscious. He refused to look weak in front of them.

"Hey, Bart, can you hear me?" Clark was asking, and Bart had a feeling he had been saying Bart's name for a while.

"Yah, I hear you," Bart quipped, looking up at the team. The doctor once again placed the stethoscope on his chest, listening to his breathing.

"Dude, I'm fine," Bart snapped, just wanting everyone to leave him alone. He felt too exposed, with all of them standing around him watching him.

"You're so not fine," Victor said.

"He's right, you were beyond thrashed," AC added.

"You almost died," Chloe said. Bart refused to look at her, to see the worry in her eyes.

"Well, I think with some rest you should be just fine," the doctor said, checking the IV line before turning to Oliver. "When I say rest, I mean no exertion of any kind. Keep him calm."

Bart had the IV pulled out of his arm and the leads off his chest before anyone had blinked, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing up before anyone could stop him.

Thankfully Clark was right there to catch him when all the color drained from his face and he collapsed. Clark got him back on the bed, and Bart laid back against the pillows, wishing the world would stop spinning long enough for him to get his bearings.

"I said rest!" the doctor admonished, quickly inserting a new needle into the IV then Bart's arm. Bart tried to argue, but suddenly everything was slightly out of focus. He blinked up at the team, wondering why they looked so worried, before he blacked out.