Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice, that's probably a good thing
He'd been in the past for one month and ten days. He'd been keeping count. Food here was plentiful, so he didn't have to go hungry, but that didn't stop the feelings in his stomach and the rest of his body telling him what he was eating wasn't right. It was annoying at first, but he put up with it, he'd lived with the feeling in the future, in between the rations. The food he ate here was right he tried to tell his body, this was how food was meant to be. It didn't listen to him. His brain knew that the food was fine, but his body wanted –needed. He wished it didn't need it – something that wasn't there.
Stupid Reach.
Once upon a time, a younger Bart had wondered why his parents and his cousin tried to make sure he ate as little of the rations as possible, as long as they had enough scavenged food. Now he knew. They'd been trying to protect him from the effects.
It hadn't worked.
So, when he saw the 'Reach Enhanced' food during the mission his mind and his body had had a falling out of epic proportions. His mind told him to stay away from it and not let it go any further, but his body told him that he had to eat some just to get even a little of what the Reach added to it.
He wished that his mind had won, even if he'd then had to suffer the feeling even more. It always started out as an annoyance, but it was starting to get to be more. He'd heard horror stories back in the future about people who went without rations too long. It was how most runaways ended up being caught again, they sneaked back to get some.
So, when they were offered free samples he took advantage right away. He told Jaime –and himself- that he was just maintaining their cover, but a treacherous little corner of his mind just rolled its eyes and said "Yeah, right, that's what it is,". Okay, he was helping their cover but it was more so about helping himself when he ate that apple. It was stupid, but he did it anyways. The effects went away and he felt better, but really he knew he was making it worse.
He wanted to tell the Team about what the additive did, but he had a timestream to protect. Even if they were starting to know more, like the Reach Apocalypse, he couldn't reveal too much. If they figured it out on their own...well, that wasn't his fault was it? And they would figure it out once they analysed the additive.
So, he'd just have to wait until they figured it out and then he could tell them. It was a large part of the Reach's invasion plan. They didn't come in guns blazing, they integrated themselves and changed your diet until...
Until you became dependant.
And however much he loathed to admit it, even in the confines of his own mind, Bart was, like every other human being on earth (in his time at least), dependant on the additive. Not as much as others but still dependant.
He hated it, but he had to live with it.
Medical facilities were better here than in his time, for humans at least. Maybe, once they found out, they'd be able to help him not be but for now, he had to live with the fact that he was.
So, I watched True Colours yesterday and then I wanted to write a fanfic about something to do with the episode but I couldn't think of anything. Then today I remembered something I read about the Reach somewhere, how they add things to the diet of a planet they want to take over until they become dependant on it and there was the comment about how the bottles hold everything the Reach needs you to need. So that made me think that they're adding something to make Earth dependant on it, and if Bart comes from a future where the Reach are in control...
Yeah, then my brain ran away with it and the story practically wrote itself.