Chapter Text
The space in Superboy’s mind was warm to Impulse. As a construct of the Speed Force, and a being that was never made of all that messy biological meat-stuff, engaging with the physical world was… an experience. Typically, Impulse didn’t ‘feel’ anything other than the unique vibrational hum of the universe and everything within it. But in Superboy’s mind he felt warm.
Anyone else’s head just felt like a head, lukewarm at best and gooey as tiny synapses crackled around him like static. Not Superboy’s. So long as he was in his head he felt as though he was wrapped up in blankets which was an odd thing for him to compare it to, because he couldn’t really remember ever being bundled in anything. At least he thought he didn’t.
He guessed Superboy’s mind just had that effect on him.
“Impulse! I know you’re in there. Get! Out!” the Superboy in question grumbled in mid-meeting with Robin.
“Meep!” Impulse squeaked as he exited his head. When he left he materialized like heatless fire caught in a sunbeam. “Sorry!”
“Man, why do ya gotta keep doin’ that! Knock it off!” Superboy rubbed his head in irritation and Impulse felt guilt scrape throughout him. He didn’t want to hurt Superboy, he just wanted to feel warm.
“Sorry, there’s lots of room in there,” he said instead with a grin and Superboy made an obscene gesture to him in response.
Robin threw his hands in the air. “There is no need for this language or banter! Impulse, leave Superboy alone! Superboy, don't ever make that sign again!” Superboy did it again on principle. “Oh, that’s mature! Definitely living up to your original’s legacy! What should I have expected out of Super- boy?”
Superboy didn’t even pay attention to him and it made him get even more huffy as outraged noises came out of his mouth.
“And maybe you should be more inspired by your original - the OG Robin was waaaay more relaxed! Gee, look at you! You’re gonna start steaming metal-boy!” Impulse danced around him and Superboy laughed - it was a good noise to Impulse and he wanted to hear more of it.
“And I suppose you know anything about my forebears?” Robin scoffed doubtfully. Superboy slowly mouthed to himself ‘four bears’ as he tried to piece how that even worked with him in particular.
The question still made Impulse pause as he tried to process that. He got vague images in his mind - a boy with raven black hair, fire light illuminating the dark green of his mask, a laugh from what felt like millions of years ago at the dawn of time.
“I think you broke him Rob!” Superboy laughed. “Are you actually thinking, Imp?”
Impulse elected to ignore that jab. “I know enough about history to know all about the exploits of Timothy Drake, Robin! And you know what? He got into some crazy wild reckless shit! They used to call it bat-shit crazy! He wasn’t much of a fan of rules, none of them were!”
Robin huffed and crossed his arms. “Well, you seem to be an expert now all of a sudden. Can you tell us then where the name Young Justice came from? Can you solve this long lost mystery historians have longed to solve?”
Superboy rolled his eyes. “Can we like, just get back to the meeting? I want to go back to Earth and catch some rays and maybe some waves before sunset.”
Impulse’s face turned downwards as he thought very hard on the question, images conjuring in his mind with feelings attached to them. “...It was a reporter that named us,” he mumbled distantly.
Robin and Superboy stared at him. “What?” they said in unison and Impulse continued.
“It was a misunderstanding, they said they were just us but the reporter thought they were saying justice.” Impulse paused, his fiery red eyes downcast as he lost himself in an echo. “We are young, but it’s just us. Young Justice.” When he turned to look at his friends they looked like old nutcrackers with how wide their mouths were hanging as they stared at him. “Did I say something stupid?”
Robin’s mouth closed first as he straightened upright and composed himself. “There is absolutely no supportive evidence to any of what you just said! You can’t just make stuff up about history!”
Impulse frowned. “I didn’t! That’s how it happened, and we all hated it! I mean, they all hated it at first! Not as much as I hated, I mean- Impulse hated the Super Cycle being called Super Cycle. But he did get to name their spaceship! The Max!”
“Forgive my crassness but you bring this out of me; what the fuck are you talking about?!” demanded Robin and Superboy almost hooted when he heard him swear until he noticed that Impulse looked genuinely disturbed. “A spaceship?! There is no record of them having a spaceship! Next thing you’re going to tell us is that they kept a unicorn as a pet!”
“Unicorns aren’t real! Of course they didn’t! But they did have Lobo on their team for a while and that’s sort of like having a pet!” Robin looked like he was literally going to explode when Superboy cut in and put his hand on his smoothe metal shoulder.
“Woah Rob, I think you’re getting way too worked up about this!”
“Arraaaraararararaaarrrgh!!!” Robin bellowed and right when both Impulse and Superboy thought his eyes might start glowing red and he’d explode he suddenly became as still as a statue.
Superboy and Impulse looked at each other, then back to Robin who remained perfectly frozen.
Gulping, Superboy leaned in close to him. “Hey, are ya okay Rob?” He listened very carefully then, focusing on his internal systems and was relieved to hear the distinct crackle of his electric life.
Impulse waved his glowing hand in front of Robin’s blank face and suddenly Robin straightened himself upright. “Let’s continue on with the meeting!” He declared abruptly and animatedly as if the last ten minutes had never happened. Superboy and Impulse once again shared a look to each other and Robin sat down at their small table. “Well, come on, we don’t have all day! We have a lot to go over. First order of business - open recruitment! We need more diversity on this team so we can expand our operations, what do we think of open try-outs? The Legion of Super-Heroes of ancient times were reported to have recruited multiple members in such fashion.”
Superboy and Impulse shrugged and sat down.
. . .
When Superboy made it to the beach in time for sunset everything was perfect. The baked sand eased warmth into his feet and butt as he sat and enjoyed the salty ocean breeze. As the sun descended, the sky flushed a gentle pink that turned into a bright tangerine. Superboy loved that color and he basked in the sun’s twilight rays, his skin felt like it was soaking in every photon and if he really paid attention he could swear his skin prickled in response, each hair turning towards the sun like a sunflower.
He wondered if the original Superboy felt the same sorts of sensations. He wondered if he ever sunbathed on the beach and thought about everything. He wondered if tangerine was his favorite color too. He wondered if he would have chosen to live on the physical Earth outside of the Tesseracks like he did because he loved sunsets and wind and nature and the messiness of life.
He also wondered if he ever had the problem of his friends hitching a ride in his mind.
Sighing, Superboy closed his eyes; he wasn’t even mad anymore. “Impulse, I know you’re there.”
The sounds of the waves crashing was the only reply he got for a while, and then like always, Impulse glided out of his head in a long ribbon. This time it didn’t hurt Superboy and he blinked against Impulse’s solar colors in front of him. He looked like he melted into the sunset, his red eyes were two dots like red dwarf suns cast against the tangerine twilight.
Superboy couldn’t help the pink blush that spread on his cheeks because it was one of the prettiest things he had ever seen, and most terrifying.
With a low gulp Superboy centered himself. “You gotta stop doin’ that!” he said but there wasn’t much heart into it. “It’s weird! And maybe I want to keep my thoughts private!”
Impulse’s red eyes grew large at the implication. “I can’t understand anything in there!” he blurted quickly and Superboy looked offended.
“Wow! I can’t be that bad!”
Impulse shook his head quickly and sat down next to him, folding his glowing knees into his glowing chest. “No, you got it all wrong. I can’t see or understand any of your thoughts. It doesn’t work like that in there. Even if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to.”
“Oh, well that’s good,” Superboy said with a relieved sigh. “I’m glad I have my privacy, but why do you keep gettin’ in my head? Why not Rob’s or literally anyone else’s? Why me?”
Impulse felt like he could dissolve like the dispersing photons and not answer the question; he considered it too, to fall into oblivion into the Speed Force and become pure speed to evade facing him, but he didn’t. He stayed on that beach and rested his chin on his forearms as he stared at the ocean. The words on his tongue came out of his mouth like the break of a wave.
“You’re warm.”
Superboy expected about fifty million other answers, but never that. “I’m… warm?”
Impulse nodded. “You’re warm. Robin isn’t warm, no one else is,” he sighed. “I know this sand is supposed to be warm - I can feel the vibrational energy of the heat as it radiates off each grain of sand - but I cannot feel its warmth like you can. Even if I flung myself into fire, the only thing I would feel is its energy, but not its heat.” He shifted so that he could look at Superboy, those two red suns set in his cosmic face looked right through him down past his bones and to his atomic structure. “But when I am in your mind, I can feel warm.”
Superboy stared at Impulse like he was expecting those two red eyes to nova and Impulse felt awkward.
Looking away from him, Impulse stood up. “I’m sorry for invading your personal space, I won’t do it anymore, maybe this Young Justice thing isn’t for me - I’ll go-” Impulse suddenly felt Superboy’s hand pass through his as he attempted to grab him.
“Damn it,” he swore. “You’re really just gonna up and leave and I can’t even…” Superboy didn’t finish his thought as he tried to grab him again.
Impulse looked down at Superboy on the beach trying to grab his hand but each time he tried he just passed through him as if he were a ghost. And the longer Impulse thought about it, the more he thought he was one.
An echo of someone that was no longer alive.
All matter was energy, and he was dripping in it, all he needed to do was concentrate just a little bit and suddenly Superboy’s warm flesh, plump with blood, made contact with Impulse’s approximation of a physical form.
They both gasped.
Superboy gasped because he didn’t know he could do that and Impulse gasped because it felt like Superboy burned him. When Superboy braved grabbing his hand it was almost intolerable to Impulse but he couldn’t get enough of his heat so he held onto him in return.
They were two endlings on a beach gripping each other tight because they just couldn’t let the other go.
“Stay,” Superboy finally insisted, then he laughed a little. “I cannot deal with Robin alone. If you leave, I leave with you. I’m sure Cadmus would love that, actually.”
Impulse eased back down on the beach next to Superboy silently, still holding his hand, and they sat like that for a while until the sun was almost completely swallowed by the sea and the only light on the beach came from Impulse himself. He was as bright as a fire but gave off no heat.
Eventually Superboy broke the silence. “I guess you’ll stay then?”
“I don’t really have anywhere to go, so I might as well stick around with you guys.”
“Nowhere, huh? What about John Fox? He’s on Mercury right?” asked Superboy and Impulse shook his head.
“Nope, he’s way too busy. I don’t like Mercury anyway.”
“Hey, you said some interesting stuff back there, totally broke Rob. What was all that about?”
Impulse knew he was going to have to face all that eventually and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to face any of it. With a low sigh he tried to explain himself and he hoped it made sense. “I don’t really know what I am… But I am pretty sure of what I am not. And I know I am not a random construct of random thoughts. My thoughts aren’t random, they are mine.”
“Earlier you said ‘we’ when you were talking about the original Young Justice,” Superboy probed.
“Yeah,” Impulse admitted. “Maybe some memories aren’t all… mine. Or they are, but it’s hard to explain because I’m not really sure myself. Ever since joining Young Justice, my memories have been… strange.”
“Well you’ve always been strange so I guess that’s just the trend of who you are?”
“I guess,” Impulse relented. “But I think there’s more to it, I feel like I’m remembering what, and maybe who I am.”
“Seriously?” Superboy said with a surprised smile. “Well, that’s great news, isn’t it?!”
“Uhm,” stalled Impulse and he felt like if he wasn’t holding onto Superboy’s hand he might have bolted. “Logically, yeah that’s good, very good. But y’know. Sometimes finding stuff out isn’t all that pretty.”
“What are you worried about? That you’re something someone made to hurt people? Like you’re a weapon?” explored Superboy and then he added softly. “Or a tool like me?”
“I don’t know,” Impulse sighed then he looked at Superboy. “Cadmus might have created you to do whatever they needed you to do - but you got a choice in who you are, you know that right?”
“And so do you, even if whatever you find out about yourself isn’t fun, got it Impulse? Because I know you - you got a say in everything you do and who you’re gonna be. And even if you do find out you were created by the literal worst person in the galaxy, it doesn't matter. Because you know why?” Impulse stared at him. “Because you’re my friend. You’re whoever you say you are, and I believe you.”
Impulse wasn’t sure if he could actually blush, but he felt like he was. He also felt something he only really felt when he was in Superboy’s mind.
Warm.
Every piece of him was warm.
“Thank you Superboy,” he said and his friend squeezed his hand before letting him go slowly.
“Call me by my real name, Fab.”
Impulse smiled. “Fab?”
“Fab,” he sighed and then stood up and dusted the sand off of himself. “As much as I’d love hanging out on the beach all night, I’m gonna turn in, what about you?”
Impulse shrugged. “I can exist anywhere, the Speed Force is my home. Or, your mind,” he grinned.
That was sad to Fab and something impulsive stirred in him. “Why don’t you come with me?”
Impulse stared at him, his red eyes like fire-lit rubies against his glowing face. “Are you sure?”
“Yep. Come on, it's been awhile since I had a sleepover.” Fab reached down towards Impulse offering him his hand. Impulse stared at it for a moment and then took it.
. . .
“How old are you?” Fab asked around a toothbrush later that night. His coily hair was already tucked in a bonnet and the toothbrush whirled in his mouth as Impulse sat on the edge of his king-sized bed.
“Dunno… I have memories from over eight hundred centuries ago, they come in bursts, like lightning strikes almost,” Impulse revealed.
Fab turned away from him and spit in the sink in his bathroom attached to his room. “Do you think you’re the first Impulse? Like his ghost or something?”
Impulse immediately shook his head. “No.”
“Are ya sure?”
“...No,” Impulse sighed.
“Hm,” he hummed, then rinsed his mouth. “Does it matter?”
“Maybe? If I am him, then I’d like to know. I’d like to remember the life I had. But if I’m not… Why do I have these memories?” Impulse never thought something like this would bother him, he never thought he would ever have an identity crisis because up until recently he was content to just exist and it didn’t matter who he was. Up until now, he was content to just be a construct from the Speed Force and nothing else.
Fab turned off the light to his bathroom and joined Impulse, sitting on the side of his large bed. “Speed Force weirdness? We know it is a force that disobeys pretty much every rule of physics and known reality - and if you were made from it… why wouldn’t your memories be weird too?”
“You might be right, I guess I’m worrying over nothing.” Impulse felt Fab’s hand on his shoulder and it felt warm; he resisted every last urge he had to sink into his head and merge with him so he could feel more of that warmth.
“I wouldn’t call it nothing - but honestly, listen to the guy that has spent years questioning who he is because he was cloned from the original Kon El, and he sometimes wonders if he is nothing more than a museum piece for Cadmus to fawn over. It matters, but it doesn’t. What matters is who you think you are and what you’re going to do with yourself. That matters.” Fab’s words comforted Impulse, but there was a pit inside of him that demanded that he solve this mystery. Because unlike him, Fab at least knew who he was. “Anyway, I’m beat. You do sleep, right?”
“I can but I don’t need to.”
“Do you dream?” Fab asked as he laid back into his pillow.
“Sometimes,” Impulse revealed and decided to lay down next to Fab since it was obvious he was inviting him.
“Well, I hope you have good dreams then,” said Fab and then he turned off his lamp but Impulse’s radiant light cast the entire room in a soft yellow glow.
“Oh, sorry,” Impulse said, he dimmed himself until he was a low glowing ember in the dark. “Better?”
The change surprised Fab and he wondered what else Impulse could do. Deciding to leave that as a mystery he pulled his blanket over himself. “I can sleep anywhere so it doesn’t matter,” he yawned. “G‘night, Imp.”
“Night.” Impulse liked how Fab called him Imp. It drew on an old, old fuzzy memory that he wasn’t even sure was his of another Superboy using the same nickname and it conjured up a pleasant warm feeling in his chest. He wasn’t sure how long he was lost in old memories before he was pulled to the present when he heard Fab snoring softly - it wasn’t one of those loud grating sounds that cleaved silence in half, but a lulling gentle sound like ocean waves crashing on the beach.
Impulse stared at Fab as he slept and it occurred to him that he had never seen him so relaxed, or as dumb looking with his mouth slack as he snored. He loved how his own soft light stained Fab’s skin a glowing gold. He knew under that golden skin blood rushed through him and it was so, so, so warm. He wondered if he was ever like him - extravagantly alive and warm with blood.
It was a useless thing to consider and Impulse put it out of his mind; Fab was right, it didn’t matter how he used to be because it was who he was now that was important.
Sleep finally claimed Impulse when he closed his eyes and like a candle flame suddenly being blown out his reality went dark.
But right before he did fall asleep he was glad because he was warm.