After roughly an hour and a half of simulation training, Batman declared a break. M'gann happily made lunch for everyone in the Cave at the time. Then it was back to training. This time it was without M'gann helping out with simulations.
Batman surprised Avery by sliding the cowl off his head when they re-entered the gym.
"Everyone in the Cave knows our identities," Bruce justified.
"Even Garfield?" Avery questioned with a smile.
"That one was an accident. A certain speedster from the future has a big mouth."
Avery snickered, knowing just who he was talking about. It's not like he was hiding whose fault it was.
"No more physical training for the day," Bruce declared.
Just as Avery was about to let out a sigh of relief, he continued, "Knowing is half the battle. We're going to be going over battle strategies." With that, they got started.
After an hour of going over plans from World War I to the Anglo-Spanish War, Avery just about lost it.
"These are plans for wars! Wars having hundreds if not thousands of soldiers involved! Why would a single person have to learn that?" She pushed up her glasses and ran her hands over her face.
"You're overthinking this. If a single person can figure out how to beat a thousand-soldier army, they can figure out how to beat a smaller group. This is necessary." Bruce crossed his arms adamantly.
After rubbing her eyes a few more times and exhaled heavily through her nose. "I guess I am just frustrated. Too much brain work for one day."
"Think back, how did you figure out who I was?" A crease formed between his eyebrows.
"What?" Avery finally took her hands away from her face in confusion.
"Just think. How did you figure it out?"
Still confused, Avery began thinking. "I have seen news articles about Batman for years, from when you first started out. Sure it peaked my interest at first, how no living soul knew who you were, or if you even existed. It was at the back of my mind, all the articles, until I had to escape Black Manta's sub. When I first started looking for you, the great, glorious Batman, I had no intention of figuring out your identity. It just fell in place. All the newspapers that had news on Batman had news on Bruce Wayne."
"You're rambling," Bruce interrupted.
"Yeah, I tend to do that, but you asked how I figured it out. Back on track, the first time I noticed was when Bruce Wayne suddenly had casts on, supposedly you had a 'skiing accident'. Give me a moment to reflect on how stupid that sounds knowing for sure who you are. At the time, I was staying with a person who liked scanning police radio frequencies from time to time. One of them said how you were shot, right where the other version of you conveniently had casts to cover.
"Then not to mention the Robins. How Batman's first Robin grew into Nightwing not too soon after he flew the proverbial coup of Wayne Manor. Then your second son," Avery looked at the steely look on Bruce's face and reconsidered her words, "Well, you know what happened. But the timing was too perfect. The only thing that threw me off there was that Tim Drake started being Robin before you adopted him, when his parents were still alive. But then you adopted him after that, and the puzzle piece fit back into place.
"Talking to you now, it is noticeable how you change your voice to fit whatever person you are at the time. And your jaw line is the same, Batman to Wayne I mean. Anybody who got too close and had a good enough memory could see that. You might want to fix that one day." Another hard look was sent Avery's direction, which she rolled her eyes at. "But the final thing was in some of my first days here. For the record, Nightwing dared me to do it, wanted to check how good my memory was supposedly. But I grabbed a map of Gotham and charted out our little joy ride from that first night. Doing the math for mph and distance was difficult given the speedometer on your Batmobile, but I did it. You actually stepped on the map when you came to wake me up for training."
Bruce clenched his jaw. "So Dick 'dared' you to do it?"
"Yeah. Do not blame him though; I probably would have done it myself given enough time," Avery said it blatantly, not caring if that would be breaking a rule or anything of the sort.
A quiet message came through the communicator in Bruce's cowl. He pulled the black covering back on to hear it better. From her spot on the floor and a few feet away, Avery couldn't make out anything specific, but she could tell the storm was messing with the clarity of the message.
"I've got to go. You get to handle your own training for a little while. How much you train is how dedicated you are, remember that." With that Batman started jogging to the zeta tubes.
Avery put two and two together, realizing how unprotected Gotham was with the storm. Looters went out in almost any weather if it meant they could turn a buck. Batman was needed. With the training thought in mind, she went to go find Gar. The plan was to play video games for a little while, and then go back to training, then bed.
It wasn't hard to find him. He was already practicing the game, sitting in front of the TV on the floor. M'gann was sitting on the couch, reading a cooking book. Her eyes shot up to her little brother, a small smidge of disapproval on her features.
Gar turned around and shot a look at his sister. "Will not." In turning around he noticed Avery and advocated her to his side, "Tell her I'm not going to ruin my eyes by sitting here."
"You will actually."
Avery laughed when Gar stuck his tongue out at both her and M'gann in retaliation. M'gann wasn't far behind in the laughter.
"Are we still gonna play?" Gar held up the controller in his hand for emphasis.
Avery was about to respond with a confirmation when the zeta tubes interrupted her. They spit out a certain speedster that knew a lot about everyone's future.
"Bart!" Garfield yelled to get the speedster's attention before he left.
The called teen appeared on cue, a textbook in his hand, "What's up?"
"Wanna play?"
"Nah, I've got homework to do. Totally moding. I'll play later though."
Gar turned back to Avery, "Take a seat. I'll grab an extra controller for you."
Bart eyed Avery, taking in all the things that changed with her: the longer hair, the short sleeved shirt that didn't cover her tattoo at all, and the small bit of bandaging she hadn't taken off yet at the base of her neck. "Uh, BB, can I just borrow her for a minute?"
Garfield was about to give his answer, but M'gann interrupted, "Go ahead, Bart."
Avery crinkled her nose, "I am right here you know."
"Not for long. C'mon." Bart started walking away at a human pace. It was painstaking for him.
Without any verbal protest, Avery followed. She caught a snippet of the siblings' conversation as she left.
"What was that for?" Gar asked.
"You'll figure it out when you're older," M'gann justified gently.
"I'm thirteen already!" Garfield protested; that was the last Avery heard.
.:Back to Life:.
A few minutes later, Avery and Bart sat on one of the cliffs that Mt. Justice had to offer, legs hanging off the edge. Bart had left his textbook inside and Avery had a jacket on to combat the falling snow and plummeting temperature.
"So why did you pull me out here exactly?" Avery asked as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket.
"Are you okay?" Bart's eyes had a seriousness Avery had yet to see.
"Just a little shaken up today, but I am fine," Avery defended.
"Are you sure?" Bart pushed, the same look in his usually bright eyes.
Avery lifted any eyebrow, "Why the third degree?"
"You just usually-" Bart was cut off.
"Usually what? Bart, we barely know each other. We literally only met last week." Avery's frustrations from the day were filtering out.
Bart lost the seriousness. "It's complicated."
"Well I have time for you to sort through all this. You talk like we have known each other for years. You knew the name I have not told anyone in over half a century. It would be really great if you could explain that." She pointed her eyes right at his, letting all the sharpness of her forming glare hit him.
The growing speedster ran a hand through his hair. He took a breath to stabilize himself and tried to speak, "In the future, I was a slave of the Reach. My bedtime stories were all about today's heroes, that's why I know so much about all of them. But you, I actually knew you. You weren't another story; you were there physically, trying to survive the same as me."
"The Reach, you mean the aliens that were chased off the planet last year?" Avery's glare softened as she tried to absorb all the information.
"And the ones that would've enslaved the entirety of the human race if I didn't have a time machine." Bart looked at his hands, almost expecting those dirty, old gloves to still be there. For the collar to pop up around his neck and enslave his speed as much as his will.
"I guess I should say thank you," Avery deadpanned. That future hadn't happened here; she didn't have a single clue what it would be like.
Bart let out a breath that briefly resembled a laugh, "Why? You're the one that helped build it."
"Me build a time machine? Did you hit your head recently?"
"I'm not kidding. You, Neutron, and another hero that shouldn't be named built that machine. Well, you guys did most of it, I helped here and there."
"Alright," Avery said skeptically, "I can acknowledge that all of this could have actually happened where you are from, but that future never happened. I am not the Avery or Cyla that you knew."
"Oh really?" Bart challenged with an easy smile. "You're still a smart mouth, you're still intelligent, and you still know your way around a med-kit. You're still the same person."
Avery put her head in her hands for a second, and then picked it back up. "Fine, so I am still the same person. But I want to know two things."
"Go ahead."
"First, why did you call me the White Eternal when we first met? Second, why do you look at me like I am going to break down any second?"
"You were the White Eternal in the resistance against the Reach. It was pretty crash. And let me do a little assessment here to answer your second question. Hair halfway down your back, there's gauze on your neck, and you have a little crease forming between your eyebrows simply because I dragged you out here. Anyone of us could see you're having a tough day. I'm just here to make sure you talk about it."
"Well, you are great at getting people to talk, not shutting up until they respond helps there." A smile drifted across Avery's face, the only sign she was joking.
Bart's face lit up at the smile, "Like you don't talk a lot too."
"Oh hush." Avery nudged Bart's arm with her own shoulder.
"Whatever you say." That same easy-going smile played across Bart's features.
Avery stood up, "Come on, it is absolutely freezing out here and you have homework to do."
With her back to him, Bart let the disappointed look slip onto his face from that last comment.
A/N: I don't even care if you guys point out this is a filler, I like it. For all you EternalPulse shippers, have at it with this chapter. Also, my one year anniversary for this site is coming up, I want you guys to suggest something for me to do. Whether it be update all my stories at once, or whatever. It's your guys' choice, mostly 'cause I have no idea what to do.
One last thing, I'm still in school. I am taking summer school to get ahead in credits. I have to remind all of you that are basically demanding an update. This whole writing thing I do, it's only a hobby. That means I'm not going to be devoting all my summer time to it. So with that in mind, please, to those of you who know that this note is for you, take a breath and wait like everyone else. Thank you. Have a great day.
Read. Enjoy. Review.
