So we lay in the dark,
Cause we've got nothing to say.
Just the beating of hearts,
Like two drums in the grey.
I don't know what we're doing,
I don't know what we've done.
But the fire is coming,
So I think we should run.
- Run by Daughter
Bart remembers the nerves he had meeting Blue Beetle, no Jaime, for the first time. He fought the urge to run away so badly, running away was his instinct and instincts kept you alive where he was from.
But in this past, running away from a teammate is frowned upon so he stays in character, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt, as Tim Drake introduces him to the brown-skinned boy currently mumbling to himself. Bart thinks it's so strange that he isn't more than a couple of inches taller than him, the Blue Beetle of his past, their future, was a looming figure ever-present and ever terrifying.
This Blue Beetle just nods at him with a small smile saying something about welcome and ese, which Bart is certain he hadn't heard when studying slang from this era with Nathaniel, but he smiles his cheek splitting smile and tries to hide his shaking hands in his pockets.
The next time he sees Blue Beetle the confrontation is planned, a simple scavenging of his food, that Bart is certain would earn him a conversation, still he works to hide the fear on his face when Blue Beetle pulls him roughly aside. Bart allows the character to take hold, speaking quickly and gesturing wildly, the way Wally used to in all those old news feeds he'd found. He forces himself to put an arm around Blue Beetle, fighting against his own repulsion.
But Blue Beetle is nothing like he expects, the annoyance he showed at the Cave was less directed towards him and more on the subject of mentors. Once away from it, Blue Beetle brightens, and even buys Bart another bag of Chicken Whizzies, he's grateful; a lifetime of never being full makes his stomach feel always empty, even in this time of abundance.
He discovers that Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes as he reminds him, is serious but not stern. More worried than anything else, and he has a lot to worry about. A family that he's close to, but doesn't know about his superhero identity a concept Bart still struggles with; in the future you advertised the strengths you had, even ones you didn't for the sake of safety, hoping to avoid confrontations when you could.
Blue Beetle also goes to school along with being a hero, another thing Bart is unfamiliar with, still he bemoans the institution, as everyone he studied in his books had. Bart would give anything for a chance to learn about things from someone who knows more than he does, and not from the aged pages of words he didn't always understand or from old legends that could hardly be trusted. The Garricks plan on enrolling him soon enough however, and though internally elated, Bart wonders if it will interfere with the plan.
The Plan as Bart thinks of it is to find Blue Beetle and kill him, but he always had his doubts about his own capacity to do so. He came from a long line of heroes and had learned about heroes his entire life and was surrounded by heroes now. Above all else, heroes did not kill. So even though Blue Beetle trusts him enough to be alone with him, unprotected, he doesn't take advantage of the opportunity.
Instead he asks everything he can about him. Hoping that his speedster voice and his speedster smile and his speedster mannerisms, are enough to divert suspicion that he is anything but a curious speedster. Blue Beetle seems surprised by the attention, and Bart notices it's because he doesn't speak much to the rest of the Team, he's the newest addition, aside from Bart, and he spends quite a bit of time alone.
Bart continues to observe him after that first interaction, watching as he mutters to himself and others avoid looking at him directly. Bart already knows that the scarab is speaking to him, as the history books report will soon render its host powerless; but he doesn't let on; after all he's nothing more than a stranded tourist. Still he sees Blue Beetle struggle to fight the scarab attached to his spine, and he sees no one showing any real concern for what he's battling.
Forgive the unobservant heroes, Bart tries to remind himself; they have other missions, other teammates, problems of their own that are presently more pressing than the lonely newcomer muttering to himself. But he doesn't want to forgive them, Bart doesn't care about their problems or the rest of the Team; he cares about his future and preventing it, and right now that means saving this boy. In his anger, he finds himself in El Paso, Texas, knocking on a large wooden door, using fake Impulse impatience to cover the nerves that are settling in the bottom of his stomach.
Bart rushes through his words faster than usual as he registers the anxiety on Blue Beetle's face, again about secret identities. Bart wants to question him again, but when he watches him look back inside and he sees the warm glow of life inside and smells the beginnings of a home cooked meal before Blue Beetle closes the door behind him, he begins to get an idea why he's so concerned.
He runs, feeling Blue Beetle flying at his heels, but surprisingly it doesn't give him the chills it did when Blue Beetle flew above him in the past. His body doesn't sense any danger and he runs not because he has to, but because Blue Beetle's-Jaime's echoing laughter eggs him on.
He fells himself smile as Blue Beetle works to impress him, not the ear to ear Wally grin he practiced, but a genuine smile he hasn't felt since he really ran for the first time. He hears himself speak about his past, a minuscule hiccup that wouldn't really mean anything to anyone, but means something to him as he proves to both Blue Beetle and himself that it's better to create than destroy.
It's all a blur after that, such a speedster thing for him to think he almost laughs; a blur of the cave, a blur of a fight, a blur of familiar electricity; then a blur of new pain, so much like the old pain, but unbearably worse, like inhibitor collars wrapped around every inch of his body. Relief as Miss Martian saves him and next the heightened panic in his throat so heavy he can't swallow around it.
Because he has to save Blue, he has to save Jaime; for them, for himself, for him.
When he finds him, he swells with it, like the gasp after being underwater, he can't stand everything he just felt because of Blue Beetle- no because of this tawny colored boy who is so weak he can't stand without Bart holding him up- he's full to the brim. He bursts at the seams with the knowledge he's been hiding and avoiding and screaming in terror of in the middle in the night, long after the Garricks have fallen asleep.
And Jaime barely has the strength to move, but he conceives the strength to protest and even though Bart has seen it with his own eyes, lived it in his own skin, he wants nothing more than to drown in the sincerity gleaming in the boys black-brown eyes. He carries him as far as he can, then a little more, but Jaime stays behind to give them all a chance to get out. And there is shouting to leave, but Jaime isn't back, he runs to get him. but a mass of water knocks him out and all he sees is black.
He wakes up a minute later, Garfield Logan hovering over him and he fells the knot of anxiety form in his throat and a punch to his chest and tears swelling in his eyes before he can even begin to sputter at high speeds about Blue. He chokes on his words and turns on to his side, his body threatening to go fetal as his mind reels back to the world covered in dark gray clouds, raining ash. And there's Blue, knocked out in one of the seats on the bioship, and he's certain it's the same boy because he has never seen Blue Beetle close his eyes like that, never seen him be in any state of vulnerability.
He's barely blinked before he is right at his side, relishing in the sweet relief of knowing that Jaime is alive and himself and the world hasn't ended and the Reach hasn't won; at least not yet. But he stops that thought in its tracks when he sees Jaime shakily inhale and shift; beginning to wake. He monitors him and, poor Jaime worried as ever, shouts that it's him, it's him, and Bart can't help but smile, the real smile he only shows Jaime, and reassures him that of course it's him, it can't be anyone else and it never will be.
Bart doesn't have to force his smiles with Jaime at all anymore, they come to him as easily as he come over and eats all his food- the pang in his stomach finally starting to calm after months of steady food from the Team, the Garricks and Jaime. He meets his parents and his sweet little sister that grins gap tooth grins and pokes fun at Jaime. The smiles don't come so easily when they walk his streets in the orange setting of the Texas sun. Little groups of boys are always there, sitting on stoops or straddling bikes, and they whisper to each other and sometimes shout to Jaime.
Things like 'maricon' and 'pato' that Jaime shrugs off and won't tell Bart what they mean- but Bart doesn't need a translation for the 'faggot' they sneer in his direction. He worries he may be causing Jaime more trouble than he's worth; he knows his family doesn't know about him being El Paso's own hero and, though his parents don't say anything, his sister jokes that he must have found the only white boy in the whole town. He knows that Jaime isn't doing well in school because his parents reminded him daily to go to sleep early so they won't get more reports of him dozing off in class, Jaime nods and walks him to the door and Bart knows he's about to go out on patrol anyways.
Still Bart doesn't think he could last a day without seeing Jaime; at least he hasn't tried since the therapy sessions they had to sit through and the look of fear on Jaime's face when he thought Bart had told them about the monster he's supposed to become. He promises he won't tell anyone, he wasn't even supposed to tell Jaime in the first place, and he thought Jaime agreed.
But Jaime told the League and Bart starts to fret about his own effect on this past. Time-travel research had been in its early stages when the Reach decided to start harvesting; so he has little to go on aside from theories from long dead scientists and his own anxiety ridden instincts.
He doesn't know what he'd do without runs out to the dessert on slow crime nights in Jaime's city or video games he doesn't really know how to play, but button smashes his way to victory anyways, or the smell of El Paso in the late afternoon: the lingering smoke of barbecue and heat waves rising off of the hot asphalt.
He doesn't know what he'd do without Jaime's exasperated smiles or the sound of him laughing till it hurts or the color of his eyes when the sunlight hits them just right, the muttering of Spanish phrases and asides to the scarab. Sometimes he wonders if he can just run far enough away from the future, and if he can carry Jaime with him. Sometimes he gets the urge to try.
He knows Jaime worries, knew it from the moment he met him, but he has added a mountain to the world on his shoulders. Bart always says that together they can manage the weight, between the two of them the world won't end and they'll be happy and there will always be Chicken Whizzies. But he knows when Jaime stays silent for too long and stares at nothing, when Jaime's laughs fade on a sour note, when Jaime just looks at his family without saying a word; he knows that all Jaime can see is the future Bart promised him.
When he finds Green Beetle probing at his best friends back, he shouldn't be surprised. Jaime would do anything to save the world- had already suffered a sufficient amount of pain in an attempt- because he's just that kind of hero, the kind that expects nothing in return, but is willing to give everything he has and more, to save generations he'll never meet. Jaime is that sincere, that selfless, and it's what made Bart trust him. What made Bart love him.
He swirls that thought around his head, trying to get a taste for when it happened and never finding the answer. It was definitely never part of the plan, but he couldn't have really planned for Jaime. He certainly doesn't plan for the past month; where he sees less and less of Jaime. Bart writes it off on having found his lost friend and tries not to feel jealous about suddenly sharing Jaime. He had always shared Jaime; with the Team, with his family, with his city, but the burn never ebbs.
When he does hang out with Jaime, it's the same and somehow different; like the shortening breaths leading up to suffocation. Jaime smiles the same, but his eyes tighten in an ugly, foreign way; Jaime laughs the same, but the edge of it is sharp and cold; Jaime's eyes never catch the light now. He wonders if his mind is playing tricks on him, if this is how his paranoid and psychotic instincts handle love, making him see dark shadows so he won't hurt too bad from the loss of him. Bart refused to lose Jaime, he won't allow the Reach or the future or his mind to take Jaime away from him, no matter the cost
But when he opens his eyes in a Reach pod once more, a splitting pain at the back of his head, and Jaime- no Blue Beetle- grinning sickly at him from the outside; he regrets not trying to carry Jaime with all his strength and running when he had the chance.