Years Away

So, I don't own Young Justice...Damn.

Thanks to those who have followed, favored, and/or reviewed.

I apologize for the long wait for this chapter. I've been dealing with my last semester at college and haven't had much time to write.

Previously...

Time had always been a funny concept for Bart. It was too slow for his liking. With a rapid thought process that was caused by his testy, speedster abilities, everything around him was slow. Everyone spoke slower than turtles, and hardly ever moved when walking. When he had his inhibitor collar wrapped around his neck, he could slow down with everyone else for a while. At first, he liked the feeling the demented device brought him. His thinking was slower, which meant he had more time to process what he was going to say and do before impulsively jumping into fires. His metabolism wasn't eating away, which gave him a decent amount of energy he wouldn't have had with his powers. He liked being normal, for a minute, before he was subjected to the tests the Reach gave him.

A strangled sound heaved its way out of Bart's vocal cords as his back involuntarily rose a few inches off his bed. The room was colder and the atmosphere death-like as he attempted to push his thoughts further into his mind. A part of him wondered if Miss Martian ever detected anything abnormal within his memories. He was always reluctant to let her link his thoughts up to everyone else, but on the rare occasion, he allowed it when no other option was available. He wondered if she had seen any lingering memories that refused to fade away at that moment. If she did, nothing ever came of it and Bart was grateful.

He had a character to play, of course.

Central City

April 2, 2019, 06:26 CDT

The Garrick home was quiet as sixteen-year-old Bart Allen walked down the stairs. He could smell the burnt bacon from where he was, and it made him nauseous. Joan had been the one who cooked every meal, and after she died, Bart realized why. While Jay was great, he couldn't boil water without burning it.

Of course, Bart never complained. Food was food and he never knew the next time he was going to eat.

As he entered the dining room, Bart smiled as he stared at the piles of food on the table. Jay was in his normal chair, at the head of the table in front of the buffet cabinet filled with Joan's antique plates that were never used for meals. Joan's chair was on the other side, unused and unmoved since her death, though a plate was set for her.

Bart sat down next to Jay, where a third plate was placed on the oak table.

Pulling a grin on his face, Bart said, "Morning Jay," before he began piling food onto his plate.

"Morning, Kiddo," Jay said, his eyes examining him as though he were some painting in a museum. "Ready for school today?"

"Nope," Bart said as he gave his guardian a genuine smirk on his face, making the older speedster chuckle.

Even though the two speedsters were missing their favorite non-speedster, the morning was normal. No trouble coming from Central City's merry band of villains, and Bart felt safe as he sat with Jay, eating food that didn't have alien origins or outdated tastings to them. Despite Irey's claims, Twinkies didn't last forever. Then again, she once promised to never leave him and she couldn't keep that promise, so her words didn't really matter now. Words stop mattering when the speaker's dead.

He looked away from his breakfast and up at the clock next to the buffet cabinet. It was wooden and shaped like a house. A red bird would shoot its way out of the little door every hour and scream its plastic head off. Bart knew the bird wasn't real, but he always found entertainment in watching the red bird, waiting for the day it stopped coming out of the little door despite the hour ticking away slower than Bart could comprehend.

As his eyes followed the thin second's dial on the clock, he couldn't stop looking at it. It was slow, despite it being the fastest dial on the damn device. Every tick and tock the clock made every second was like an hour to Bart, and it drove him insane sometimes, but it was calming if he were being honest. It gave him something to focus on when he had nothing better to do. Of course, he knew he should be eating, he had a plate full of food that would get cold if he didn't eat it quick enough.

He wondered if Irey ever had issues with her food going cold. She had spent some time in a time like the one he was in now before everything went to hell and screwed everyone over thanks to the Reach invading. He doubts it, though. He knew Artemis well enough that, had she had Irey, she would never let her speedster daughter go without finishing her food before it got cold.

"...Bart? Earth to Bart?" he heard Jay saying. "Come on, Kiddo, finish your food."

Bart blinked. He looked at his guardian, whose wrinkles were protruding from his face. Jay was worried, and Bart had made him worry.

His shoulders fell as he muttered out a "Sorry" as he picked up his fork and began shoveling pieces of over scrambled eggs onto it and dumping it into his mouth.

"Are you okay, Kiddo?" Jay asked, his eyes examining Bart closely. Bart was always Kiddo to Jay, everyone called Wally "Kid" and Bart never wanted to take Wally's place, despite him taking over the mantle of Kid Flash. His teammates always called him Kid when out in the field, but it never sat right in Bart's mind. The Outsiders knew he wasn't the first Kid Flash, he just wished they would stop calling him Wally's nickname. He never corrected them, though.

Nodding his head, Bart forced a smile on his face, despite knowing that his guardian would never believe his sudden change of emotion. "Of course!" he lied. "I was just remembering I need to go and see Tara later. She's having some trouble with science and asked if I could tutor her."

"The Markov girl?"

Bart nodded, inwardly grateful that Jay wasn't pushing him to tell the truth. "Yeah," he answered as he shrugged his shoulders. "I guess Cassie told her I was good at science or something."

"Well," Jay said, nodding his head as he wiped invisible dirt off his hands. "That's really nice of you, Bart. You're a very helpful young man."

Bart awkwardly grinned at the praise his guardian was giving him. He was used to Jay saying things like that, but it was always strange to hear.

"Thanks, Jay."

"It's nothing, Kiddo. Now, hurry up and eat. You don't want to miss the bus."

"Why can't I just run to school?"

"You can't solve everything with your powers."

Bart couldn't argue on that as he continued eating his breakfast, ignoring the growing coldness on his tongue.

Central City

April 2, 2019, 12:07 CDT

As Donnie and Dawn ran around the living room, chasing after one another to see who the faster toddler was, Iris eyed the blank document in front of her. While she was grateful for the day off from the office, she couldn't concentrate with her speedster babies' footsteps away from running through the walls again. She had a deadline for this story, and her children desperately needed a nap. Well, she needed a nap, too, but she wasn't a toddler with the energy of ten Flashes.

Sighing, she tore her eyes away from her laptop screen and smiled as she watched Dawn laugh as her brother spun around like a mini-tornado, causing everything around him to fly into the air. She was relieved that she and Barry bolted the furniture down in advance of the twin's birth. After seeing how chaotic Bart was at thirteen, she and her husband could only imagine then how two mini speedsters would be like after the babies discovered they had legs and took off before either of their parents could blink.

Unfortunately, Iris couldn't staple her notes to the coffee table and promptly sighed as papers began hitting her in the face and floating up to the ceiling faster than she could raise her arms and grab at them.

"Look, Mama!" Dawn giggled, pointing a finger up at the flying papers.

"I see, sweetie," Iris said, laughing at her daughter as she excitedly jumped in the air.

When Donnie stopped spinning, he promptly fell over his wobbling feet and landed on the ground. Iris braced herself for a meltdown, but when none came, she let out a gasp of breath she didn't know she had been holding in.

Examining her son's features, she could see traces of Bart in the boy, which was to be expected considering Donnie was one day going to have Bart with a woman Iris could only hope was the love of his life.

It was terrifying, thinking of the future both her children will one day have. She imagined Donnie would have his hands full, raising an energetic and intelligent boy like Bart. She wondered who he would end up marrying, or if he didn't get married, who was the woman who would one day run away with his heart. She could imagine a thousand things about her, but she would never ask Bart. She didn't want to damage the future more than it already was, with him coming to this time and being unable to return.

Curiosity would get the best of Iris one day; it always did for her. She, after all, was a journalist, and she always sought after the truth no matter what.

Iris was pulled away from her thoughts when she heard the doorbell go off.

Wondering if she was expecting someone and forgot about it, she got up from her spot on the couch and made her way towards the front door. She glanced at her twins, who were too preoccupied with catching the sheets of paper to notice her leaving the room, Iris walked up to the door and opened it to find Jay Garrick standing on the other side with a relaxed smile on his face.

"Afternoon, Iris," the retired hero said. "Is it a bad time for me to be here, I can–"

"No, you're fine, Jay," Iris interrupted, momentarily grateful for the break from work. "Please, come in."

Iris let her friend and husband's mentor in and closed the door as the old speedster walked to the stairs.

"Do you want anything to eat or drink? Coffee, perhaps?" Iris asked as she began her way towards the kitchen. "I need to get the twins' snack prepared and to be honest, I am in need of some caffeine."

"A glass of juice is fine, Iris," Jay said as he followed her into the kitchen. "I ate before coming here."

"And did you run here, by any chance?"

Jay sighed as a laugh escaped past his lips. "Joan's rubbed off on you," he said.

"She had a few good tricks up her sleeve," Iris rationalized as she went to the refrigerator and pulled out the gallon of orange juice and the caramel-flavored creamer for her coffee.

"She did, my Joan," Jay commented, a wave of fondness not going unnoticed to Iris' ears. "She always knew what to do."

"That she did," Iris agreed as she turned on the coffee pot and scooped a few teaspoons of coffee grounds into the pot. As she went towards the sink to pour some water for the pot, she glanced at the first Flash and said, "Penny for your thoughts?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Afraid so."

Jay sighed as he leaned against the island in the center of the kitchen. "It's Bart," the man said, causing Iris to stop what she was doing and look at him.

"Is he alright?"

"No," Jay admitted. "I don't think he is." He ran a hand through his grey hair, sighing. "Iris, has Bart ever spoken to you or Barry about his past–the future?"

Iris frowned. "No," she admitted. "He's never mentioned it either of us. At least, not after him telling Barry and me that we were going to be having twins."

Jay chuckled. "Yeah, that was one hell of a night," he said. "It was mine and Joan's anniversary, too. The first time we all met him, us and..." He stopped himself and Iris immediately knew who Jay was going to mention.

"Wally."

"Yeah, him."

There wasn't a day where Iris didn't think of her nephew. How he brightened up her day so many times in the past, how he was becoming a great man, much better than his own father had been.

Iris shook her head and fought off the urge to cry as she looked back at Jay. "What's going on with Bart?" she asked, and Jay sighed again.

"I don't know," he revealed. "And that's the problem. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with his past, though."

"Why do you say that?"

"Sometimes," Jay said. "Joan and I would check on Bart in the middle of the night. Sometimes, he was knocked out cold, but other times he would be...I don't know, panicking in his sleep. He'd be mumbling things that didn't make sense." He shook his head. "He'd say "get away from mom" and "don't go, Irey", he mentions her a lot. Irey. Does the name mean anything to you?"

"No," Iris said as she tried to remember if she had ever heard the name come up in her previous conversations with Bart.

"Joan always would comfort him when he woke up," Jay added on. "And he'd claim the next day he didn't remember any of his dreams, or Joan coming in and calming him down."

"Has he had any of these dreams lately?" Iris asked.

"Last night," Jay revealed. "Bart was pretty restless the entire day. I checked in on him before I went on my morning run, roughly four I'd say, and the boy was just saying the girl's name. Irey, Irey, Irey. Over and over again until he stopped out of nowhere. I thought about waking him up, but I could tell just by looking at him that he didn't get much sleep that night." He shook his head as he looked down at his feet. "I didn't want to push him for answers, but he was pretty spaced out this morning."

"Spaced out?"

Jay nodded. "He kept looking at that old clock next to Joan's buffet–you know it, the irritating one with the red bird, anyways," he sighed. "He was staring at it and I couldn't get him to talk for a good minute or so. When he snapped out of it, I asked if he was okay and he lied and said he was. God, I don't know what to do, Iris. Joan, she always knew what to say, and she was good with Bart."

"Do you want me and Barry to talk to him?" Iris asked.

"If it's not too much trouble," Jay said as his eyes caught hers.

Iris nodded. "Bring him over tonight," she said. "We'll keep him here for a few nights, see if we notice anything, and try and see if there's anything we can do."

"Thank you, Iris."

"It's nothing, Jay," Iris insisted. "You and Bart are important to us." She paused for a moment. "And he's mine and Barry's grandson. You both are our family."

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Until next time...

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