A/N: Anon prompt "When you have the time, if you could write a future bluepulse fic Jaime/Bart established relationship Bart or Jaime are subjected to scarecrows fear gas/toxin".

Tendrils of fog curled around his legs and torso, skimming harmlessly over his red and gold uniform until they reached his face. The eerie fog ghosted over his exposed flesh, leaching a fetid substance from the pores of his skin.

A rancid smell permeated, the scent of rotting flesh. Bile burned its way up his throat. Breathebreathebreathe.

A man and woman stepped out of the curtain of fog. They stared at him, drinking in his features.

The woman shared his chestnut hair. She reached a quivering hand forward to caress his cheek. "Bart," she breathed, her cheeks now slick with tears. Bart slid into her embrace. She was as cold as the air around him. He closed his eyes. He closed them and he never wanted to open them.

"How could you?" she asked softly, stroking his hair. "How could you?" she pushed him away from her, surveying his face.

'It wasn't my fault!' he tried to say.

The man wrapped a protective arm around his wife, shaking his head, more out of disappointment than anger. "How could you leave us? You let us die!"

Bart stumbled backwards. 'No! I didn't! You told me to run.' His voice failed to comply. He craned his neck to look at his mother. 'Please,' he beseeched with his eyes. But his parent's had turned away from him, their bodies convulsing with sobs. "How could you?"

Bart's legs gave away, but his parent's were gone before he hit the ground. For a second he thought he felt the gravel bite into his cheek, but when he blinked, the asphalt was gone. Instead, there was a smooth, grey floor beneath him. He felt disoriented and dizzy from pain. His head throbbed.

He rolled onto his side, but the motion left his vision rimmed with red. "Blue," he gasped, reaching for his armored friend. But there was no warmth in those amber eyes. Just a thin, black smile accentuating that dark face and a jagged, purple-tinted rock tucked under one arm.

"Hey hermano," Blue Beetle greeted him, his eyes glittering dangerously.

Bart gritted his teeth in response. Blue Beetle crouched so that they were at eye-level, his warm breath tickling Bart's skin. Usually Bart would be buzzing with nervous energy from such close proximity, but now all he felt was dread.

"How does it feel, ese? Knowing that you failed? You came back for me and you couldn't even save me. But maybe that's not the worst part." A blue-and-black hand settled on Bart's lower face, thumbing his bottom-lip. "I know how you feel about me."

"Jaime," he begged.

Blue's lips parted, as he drew nearer. "What hurts more? Your concussion? Or the fact that I could never love you back?" Blue readied the crystal key, aiming it for another blow. "Let's find out."

Bart's chest compressed, freeing a suppressed scream from his throat. He saw stars. Real stars. And something else falling from the sky, hurtling towards the unsuspecting world below. Like a vengeful angel it descended, taking hundreds of lives with it. The Watchtower. Bart remembers that day, when what was once a symbol of hope and guardianship became a sign of destruction, and that the Reach's power was absolute.

Bart's legs begin to move of their own accord. Forcing him towards the massive crater. He's startled by the sheer enormity of it, the smoking debris, the charred bits of flesh. He's seen this all before. But there's something different now. Now, there are two rows of dead bodies resting in perfect alignment, corpses belonging to his former team mates. Most hauntingly of all is a body with flaming red hair and a spattering of freckles. He stoops over the body of his first cousin once removed.

Pity and mourning are warped into guilt as Wally's eyes flash open. For a moment, all Bart can see is black rimmed with green, before he is moving through time. Bart knows instantly what day it is. June 20. He tries clawing at his skin, trying to free his mind from this relentless cage.

"Wait! Where's Wally?"

If he'd just run slower…

Artemis turns, her almond shaped eyes filling with irrepressible tears. "It should've been you." She readies her bow. "It will be you."

The arrow lodges in Bart's shoulder, but when he tries to swat it away, it's not an arrow, but a hand. A gloved hand.

"KF?" a confused voice asks. Nightwing blinks slowly, expecting Wally in the gold uniform, but instead seeing Bart. "You're not Kidflash."

It's as if every fearful thought Bart's ever had is being twisted into a full-blown nightmare. It feels like days, but maybe it's only been hours, before his throat's gone fully dry. To rough and hoarse to even scream.

—-

"Bart?"

Bart blinks a few times to clear his blurry vision. When he sees a mocha colored hand reach for his own, he flinches back. "No, he whimpers.

"Bart," the voice sounds soft. "It-it's me."

"'Course it is," Bart chokes back, his fear receding. He takes a moment to examine the room. It's white and sterile and clean. "Why am I here?"

Jaime swallows, his face pinched into a look of concern. "We were exposed to the Scarecrow's fear toxin. I was out for, maybe ten minutes?"

"HowlongwasIoutfor?" Bart interrupts in one quick breath.

"Three hours."

"Oh."

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Jaime murmurs out, "yeah. We were all pretty worried."

Bart stops to inspect the bed sheets. They're rough and unfamiliar, but still more comfortable than what he had in the future. Past. Past future. Whichever way you looked at it.

"Bart? Cariño, do you want to talk about it?"

Bart pinches the blankets between his fingers, before clenching a tight fist around the fabric, as if it had become his lifeline.

"I saw my parents, and Milagro," Jaime says when Bart doesn't respond. "They were afraid of me. And then I killed them. I couldn't control my own body anymore; like I was back on-mode. And then I hurt you. It was like-like I was reliving the months I was on mode. Trapped in a body that I had no control over."

"That's awful."

"Yeah, well, I still had Scarab's commentary in the background lecturing me on how 'weak-willed I was' and how my stress hormones were increasing. It was like any other nightmare." Sliding his fingers between Bart's, he asks softly, "what about you?"

Bart can't help but note how perfectly their hands interlock, as if they've been specially made for each other. Forcing a thin smile, Bart nods. "Yeah, samethingwithme. Just like a nightmare."

"Bart." Jaime frowns, seeing right past his boyfriend's transparent smile.

"I mean, like a really, really vivid, nightmare. In like, full-color and everything was accurate; how your voice sounded and it didn't feel right when I hugged mom, she was so cold, ya know? But she smelled the same. That mom smell. Not really perfume, or… I dunno, but—"

Bart's voice falters as Jaime pulls his head to his chest. Bart settles against him, and it's kind of weird how someone can be muscular and soft at the same time, but somehow Jaime just is. Bart takes a deep breath from his diaphragm, inhaling Jaime's scent. He doesn't have that 'mom scent' that Bart mentioned earlier, but he smells like comfort. Is it weird that Bart's smelling people? It's a bit weird when he thinks about it, but isn't scent supposed to be the strongest link to memory?

"Bart," Jaime whispers into his hair.

"Hmm?"

"It's going to be okay."

Bringing his hands up to wrap around Jaime's neck, Bart whispers back. "I know."