Interlude: Bart

AN: Surprise! Special interlude chapter this week before the regular chapter!

I wanted to give a (very little) something back to you guys for all your awesome support. When I started this, it was just a little something I wanted to do to deal with Endgame. I never really thought people would like it, or that you'd want to keep reading more of it. Fixations now has over 150 comments, 100 favs and almost 150 followers. I even have an awesome beta! Maybe that's not a lot to some people, but for me, it's mind blowing. Y'all are the best!

In other news, I'm trying not to write any non-canon pairings in this, but I do like bluepulse, so read this however you will. It should be able to go both ways.

XxXxX

"There you are, ese."

When Red Robin had mentioned that Kid Flash dropped off the radar this morning, Jaime had immediately guessed something was up. Guardian tried to assure him that the speedster's distress beacon hadn't been activated, and that he probably just wanted some quiet time. Jaime knew Mal was probably right, but when he hadn't found his friend in any of his usual hangout spots, he decided to play his hunch. When his aerial sweeps confirmed his guess, the hero quickly found an alley, deactivated his armor, and headed for his disheartened friend.

"S'not like I'm hiding or anything. Just being me," Bart grumbles from his seat on the steps leading up to Artemis's (not Artemis and Wally's, not for a while now) flat.

"Right, you moping on a staircase in a random city is 'just being you.'"

"I was out here anyways. I needed to water the plant." Bart says without missing a beat.

"Uh, you know the plant in the window is fake, right?"

"What! That's not- Are you- gah!" Bart crosses his arms and continues muttering indistinctly at his ruined excuse.

Jaime sits down next to the outraged speedster, and puts his arm around his friend's shoulders. "Why are you really here, Bart?" The younger boy shrugs, but doesn't throw off his friend's comforting arm. "Oracle sent out an update. Artemis checked in. She's fine. Has good news, even."

"Yeah. I heard."

"Why aren't you smiling, then?" Bart immediately flashes him a very bright, very fake grin. "Funny." Jaime says, not amused. The smile drops.

Finally, Bart sighs. "Y'know, in the bad timeline, my grandfather was supposed to die on the day I came back?" Jaime raises his eyebrows at that shocking bit of news. Bart doesn't often speak truthfully about his past-future, but every time he does, it's usually bad. "That's why I chose to come back then. We had some leeway with keeping you off-mode, but I thought, as long as I was coming back, might as well save my granddad, get Nathaniel off-mode... Save the word and my family and friends all in one fell swoop."

He laughs bitterly. "One of the first things I talked about when I got here was how much the Flash had taught my dad, and that's true. It's just that I was talking about Wally. He taught my dad and Aunt Dawn everything he knew, even the stuff he couldn't do himself, like vibrating through solid objects. He… He was more of a hero to them, to me, than anyone! And I killed him." Bart's blinking his eyes rapidly, but Jaime can still see them shining with unshed tears.

"He had years left, Jaime! He and Artemis were some of the greatest heroes of the resistance! They figured out how to turn Reach tech against itself! They taught tons of young heroes, kept us safe even as the League fell! They went toe-to-toe with Black Beetle, once! No one else has ever done that! Not to a fully-mature, moded Scarab!" The younger boy shakes his head in disbelief. "More than that, though... They were supposed to have a family; Irey Paula and Jai Oliver West. I didn't just kill my hero, or Artemis' husband. I killed their two little children. Artemis' whole family; gone because of me!"

Jaime exhales slowly at the confession. "Wow, that's... how long has this been eating at you? Why is it just coming out now?"

"…I should have been there for her."

"Whoa! Ese! Let's back it up a minute! You know why you can't go with them!" Jaime jumps up in outrage. Bart follows the older boy to his feet, getting up in Jaime's face as much as he can.

"I don't care if the Anomaly gets me by mistake! I'd deserve it!" It feels so good for Bart to finally say this out loud. He should be shouting it from the rooftops. Take me! Take me instead! Give us my cousin back!

"Don't ever say that!" Jaime snarls. He's breathing heavily, his hands shaking as he tries to calm back down.

The threat to the Kid Flash is raising your heart rate. We should eliminate it. The scarab says in the back of his head. Jaime wants to agree, but can't, so he says nothing in reply.

Bart just stands there looking shocked (not scared, there's no reason to be scared of Jaime, not anymore). Jaime recovers first, and so he continues, gently, "Bart, I could give you a million reasons why that's not true, and that it's a bad idea, and so on. But I think you know all that. So instead I'm just going to remind you how much that would hurt Artemis too." Jaime tries to meet his friend's eyes, but Bart has suddenly decided that the ground by his side is incredibly interesting.

"Bart?"

"It's not fair!" The boy suddenly wails, sinking to his knees. Jaime follows him down, pulling the crying speedster into a hug. "I killed him and she's smart so she has to know that, but she's still so nice to me – she's like my big sister – and she can't even move on because she has to keep watching him die. I can't even help her because the stupid Anomaly gets us confused! Then she disappeared and no one was saying it but everyone was thinking that she was dead, and I can't let her die. I owe her and Wally too much, and I can never repay those debts, but I should try and right now I can't even do that, I can't do anything!"

Jaime's glad for the scarab's ability to record and play back sound at slower rates; Bart was probably completely unaware of how much his words sped up as they poured from his mouth.

"Shh, ese, it's okay. Nobody blames you – not Barry or Iris or the Wests or Dick or even Artemis. They know it's not your fault. You're the only one who still needs to accept that fact."

Jaime continues his stream of comfort, until Bart stops shaking, and the front of Jaime's hoodie is more than a little damp. Bart sniffles one last time, and rubs at his eye.

"Feeling better?"

"…Yeah."

"Still blaming yourself?"

"… A little." Jaime frowns, but lets it go. At least it's improvement.

They sit together on the stairs for a while longer. Neither makes a move to leave, they just think.

"Jaime?" Bart eventually asks.

"Yeah, ese?"

"You know how all the other universes went on mode after Wally was killed, but ours didn't?"

"Wait, how was being invaded by Apokolips and everyone almost dying not on mode?"

"Yeah, but that's like, villainous on mode, not, like, crazy-League on mode."

"I guess. Yeah."

"Sometimes… I like to pretend that we're still crash because Wally's not really dead." Bart admits. "I mean, theoretically, the high levels of energy Wally's particles were dissipating could have ripped holes in the space-time continuum instead of just disintegrating him. If certain theories are right, I mean."

"Okay..."

"Yeah, I know it sounds crazy. But I just want him to still be out there, y'know? Maybe Artemis will find him, and they'll stop the Anomaly and she'll bring him home and everyone will live happily ever after. I like thinking that way."

Bart's smiling a little at the happy scenarios in his head, and Jaime can't bear to ruin it.

"Yeah. Yeah, maybe."