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There’s something to be said about preventing the world from ending. One is that no single person in the world will tell you it was easy. Two is that mistakes were made almost every step they took, and three is that there’s no such thing as a war with no casualties.
That last one, Bart wasn’t so sure of. The war part, at least… Although the fact that the timeline had changed so drastically that the one “Flash” he knew quite well in the future was the first to die was an interesting choice. To be fair, Flashes were always the ones to die first. It had been his grandfather originally, but with that being his first mission assigned to him by Nathaniel, it seemed like that curse was abated, or at least temporarily thwarted.
Now, Wally had an empty casket buried for him and a holographic memorial depicting his image at the new grotto. It was annoying.
The death part was terrible, sure, but the theatrics afterward were even worse. Jay and Joan never let him out of their sight at home, whereas Barry kept a distance so far from him that he wondered if he’d lost the privilege of going to their house to see his father and aunt grow up. It was like being kept under watch by prison guards who either cared too much or not at all and never communicated with each other. When he asked Jay about it the night after the funeral, he was given the most stony face he’d ever seen, which was saying something considering he’d spent his childhood looking at old statues of the former Justice League.
He didn’t ask again.
Then there was the team… Wally’s team, the original mentees turned into their own heroes, looked at him with a sadness so deep it downright made him want to gag. It didn’t help that he was wearing Wally’s suit now, “in his honor,” Artemis assured him. Pity it didn’t feel that way at all. At least Artemis didn’t exactly look at him with unnerving sadness if she even looked at him at all. She seemed almost indifferent as if she was doing her absolute all to separate herself from Wally and her life from barely a week ago.
He let her be. He almost wished he could do the same but with this costume. Oh, it’s an honor, sure, to be able to run in the footsteps of those ahead of him. To take on a mantle with the title of Hero in it.
He didn’t want it like this.
The younger heroes like Garfield and those guys seemed pitiful and sympathetic to him; after all, they knew loss, too. Jaime almost seemed to blame himself in a way, and it made Bart want to smack his head so hard that even the scarab would feel it.
Annoying indeed…
It all came to a head barely a week after Wally’s funeral. They had done it quickly, and it had been a pretty full affair. He didn’t know there were so many people you could know at one time, much less who would care enough to go to your funeral. He wants to guess it was more of a Hero’s in Arm’s situation, but there’s even a young queen of another country bawling her eyes out.
Go figure.
He wishes he could join her, but he can’t, knowing it’s impossible. It almost feels wrong being the only one so close to Wally and unable to shed a tear. Thankfully, no one is really paying attention during the funeral. It’s only after that he can’t get the break he so desperately needs.
Technically speaking, he could shed this personality now. He no longer needs to pretend to be the extroverted, stupid yet secretly smart, ADHD-brained speedster who needed to fool everyone into thinking he was a clutz as he ‘accidentally’ stranded himself back in time but actually needed to save the world at the same time. He doesn’t need to trick anyone since the mission is over now. It’d be so easy to explain, too, Wally’s death being the perfect segway into his drastic personality change.
There’s nothing stopping him from going back to how he was before.
The problem is that he can’t remember how he was anymore.
Changing the timeline was always going to be a risky procedure. From building the Time Machine out of the Reach’s many spying eyes to actually using the damn thing and not vaporizing himself. It worked, of course, because he’s smart enough to make sure it did, and he even acted the hell out of his “character,” keeping the secret long enough to get settled until Jaime revealed it. He’s calculated so much and done so much to get to this moment, and because of that, the timeline has started re-rooting itself back into the stabilized and functioning organism that it is.
To do so, it’s trying to figure out how to place him.
Thankfully, he was once again born, so he’s not getting erased anytime soon, but he’s not exactly connected to his second-born self yet, even though the timeline is desperately trying to align them. He’s getting flashes of memories every so often of a life ahead of him. One that he is experiencing and one that he’s not. It felt like having dreams during the day, ones that made him feel faint and shaky and so headachy. And he knows it will only get worse the further the memories develop. Already, he sees himself with baby hands crawling around at lightning speed, and he can no longer remember if he did that in the Reach timeline or this new one.
He needs to leave to deal with this himself, but he also needs the team and, most importantly, his family to back the hell off. Explaining the change and the problems that it comes with would be nothing short of disastrous for his family already in mourning. He supposes he could tell Jaime; after all, they’re friends now, but he knows his memories of the Reach are going to make appearances, so actually, Jaime should stay far away from him until it’s settled. The last thing he wants is Jaime to feel bad again for things he didn’t do that affected him in the future. Besides, Jaime was terrible at keeping secrets. Bart had no qualms believing Jaime would spill within the first day of telling him about it.
He just has to deal with this himself, and that starts with making a plan. On the first day after the funeral, he stays in his room and writes down everything he knows about the new timeline. It doesn’t help the headaches or the near-fainting spells when they do hit him, but at least he can keep organized before it’s too late. He also finds a duffel bag and begins to fill it with nonperishables, first with cans, then with bags of food and water bottles. After heavy debating, he also adds a few candy bars and juice boxes. No point in suffering completely. If he can manage to eat a can of minced beef, he can also stomach some grape juice.
When the second-day rolls in, he remembers that he has to make sure his family stays off his back, which means tinkering with his electronics, removing trackers, and whatever he thinks looks weird. He turns his phone off, just in case, anyway. When the afternoon rolls in, Bart gets a knock on his door from Joan. She asks if he’s eaten, and he… he can’t lie to her. He knows she can probably tell anyway because she lets herself in and it takes all of Bart’s speed to remove anything suspicious out of her path and into the closet. She gives him a long speech about loss and love, triumphing over grief and coming out stronger. He thinks it must be a well-known speech because he’s pretty sure Nathaniel told him something similar when he was trying to convince him to build the Time Machine in the first place. As much as he likes talking to her and the warmth she gives, Bart’s relieved when she leaves.
The headaches have turned into migraines.
There’s still no word about Barry, so on the third day, even though he wakes up very late, he runs to his house and lets himself in. Checks on the twins, rummages through their fridge, and sits on their couch. There’s a fog that’s starting to roll into his head and after a while, Barry arrives to find him staring blankly at the wall. Bart can’t give him an answer as to why he’s there but of course, Barry makes his own assumptions and gives him a short yet stiff speech on mourning and all but kicks him out when he’s done. Well, good, at least Barry doesn’t have an excuse to want to see him now that he already has.
There’s a tightness in Bart’s chest that he can’t even force himself to feel right now. His mind is already elsewhere.
When Bart wakes up on the morning of the 4th day after Wally’s funeral, he already knows he’s out of time. The walls are swimming around him like crazy, mixing with cracked drywall marked with plasma beam hits to his bedroom wall covered in posters. He stumbles to his closet, grabs his duffel bag, slings it over his shoulder, and runs. The hallucinations follow him, of course. The grass at his feet turns into ash piles, then grass, then concrete. When he looks up after noticing the concrete won’t fade away, he runs straight into a pillar and falls on his ass.
His head rings, and he thinks he hears screams in the distance, but looking around proves he’s alone. It looks like an old mall, one that was abandoned and closed off recently. It reminds him of his timeline and the shelters he used to walk through to find a place to sleep. He sets his bag down and lays on top of it. It’s the only thing he’s brought with him, only carrying his food and a med kit. It won’t last him the week but he hopes the timeline won’t need longer than that.
During the night, the “glitching” starts, and he knows his mind will go with it shortly. His body aches as his very molecules shift, then shift back again. A pull, then a tug, and he feels as though he were hit by a truck. His very being is stretched out and then set back into reality by a force unnoticed, and he can’t help but think that it hurts before his mind takes him to the new task of finding rats to roast for dinner.
He stumbles over a duffel bag and is delighted to find canned food and actual water bottles. His environment is free of beetles, too, which is all the more delightful!
He laughs as he falls asleep even though the lamp on the nightstand is still on, and he hasn’t said goodnight to Jay or Joan yet. They’ll understand, he tells himself.
When he wakes, the lights are still on, which is crash! It means he can explore without tripping any defenses.
There’s an old escalator with a control panel he rips off and sits in front of. The wires keep zapping him, but that’s cool; he knows that’s what they’re supposed to do.
He goes back to defusing the bombs they control.
He finds himself wandering for a bit, finding a few empty rooms before returning to the control panel.
Eventually, the stairs start moving in a loop. It makes him laugh as he sits and rides it like a slide. Up and down, up and then back down again.
He sneezes, and it feels like his body is being torn apart.
He falls asleep at the edge of the moving stairs, it’s humming and vibrations comforting him like his mom’s singing.
He wakes up angry that she’s not there.
Even more angry that he can’t run to find her. Stupid Reach and their stupid collars.
He wanders again and finds actual people! A hidden door, no match for the brick he was already carrying, leads him to a busy area.
Well, with the collar, he can’t speak, so it’ll do to just walk amongst them for a while.
Eventually, he comes across his green jacket, innocently hanging on a pole in front of an open room filled with more people and jackets. He puts it on, tugs off a paper hanging on the sleeve, and walks away.
He also finds his gloves and his shoes! Good, his feet were getting cold in only his socks. Stupid Reach, taking his shoes. He didn’t know why they would go so far, was drugging him not enough?
He thinks he even hears their alarms and shouting for him to stop behind him but it’s gone in the next moment and he slows down his running. Normal running, too; how moded.
Hey, it’s Arty! Her leg is broken, and she’s stuck on his escalator.
A tug and a stop, and finds himself back in the empty room with no lights on.
There are fewer people now, but they’re all gathered in a group, waving flashlights and glowing light beams around while a speaker shakes the ground beneath him.
He almost opens his mouth to talk, but the flashlights turn into plasma beams, and the ground rips open to swallow him whole.
He screams, gets tugged in another direction, then another and another. He feels elbows knock his head and feet stomping on his. He feels the heat from the lasers burning into his skin and he knows his voice is gone for good.
He wakes up on the floor, his head splitting open and blood spilling out of him. He can’t see the blood, but he knows it must’ve been there; after all, his head is gaping open. An animal must’ve licked it up while he was out.
He’s alone again, which is nice, but his body feels so hot, and he can’t help but feel scared.
It’s gone the moment he reaches for it.
He rides the escalator laughing, delighted that it’s still running just for him, and drinks from the box with a round green sphere on it.
⋆.˚ ⚡︎ .⭒˚ ⌁₊˚⊹ ⚡︎ ⊹˚₊ ⌁ ˚⭒. ⚡︎ ˚.⋆
This is the week that Barry is certain he’s going to lose his mind. First the big battle, then Wally, and now this?? Why couldn’t the kid just tell someone if he was leaving? Why were Jay and Joan making such a big deal over this? The kid was mourning, and so were they; just because he expressed it by running away doesn’t mean he’ll never return! Barry did all sorts of stupid shit like this when he was young, it didn’t make him smarter, but it did give him sense.
Now he was pacing the watchtower floor as Nightwing talks with Oracle through the phone and Jaime and M’gann use their own methods to search for him. He thinks M’gann is using her Martian mind powers while Jaime is talking strategy with the scarab on his back. Even though he wasn’t involved, getting Jaime cured of the Reach’s control already felt like a lifetime ago. He almost feels bad for getting him involved with this so soon, but he can still hear Jay’s frantic voice as he answered his call earlier.
“He’s been gone three days Barry! Up and disappearing is not his norm, even with all this going on, you know better than that!”
Apparently, Bart hadn’t told Joan anything either and left no note or evidence of where he was going. It’s unbelievable. He just saw the kid a few days ago, and nothing was wrong. Although he did seem a bit spacey, that’s normal for a kid his age, right?
Barry huffed and continued pacing at super speed. He watches as the green kid, Beast Boy, he thinks his name is, joins the group and pulls out his phone. Ten minutes feels like an hour until he can finally skid to a stop as Nightwing calls him over. “Anything?” He asks.
“Well he’s certainly making moves.” Dick’s voice doesn’t give away anything, but he can already tell it’s not what he wanted to hear today.
Barry tried not to let his sigh turn into a growl as he asked, “how do you know?”
“He’s gone viral.” Dick taps on his tech pad for a second before the monitor lights up with a video from Instagram or maybe Facebook. There’s a bit of motion blur before the video taper rights themselves and zooms onto a boy mixing into the crowd like oil in water. Bart, Barry presumes, although he can’t really tell very well. It’s dark in the room they’re filming in, and it’s obvious the rave lights weren’t the best for seeing clearly. But he can hear someone yelling into the mic as the video continues zooming in on Bart, who’s clutching his head with his mouth hanging open in a scream. “Yo yo raves getting lit, check out this weeks technics! Man he’s glitching like crazy! Like and follow for more!”
“What the hell is he doing?”
“And what is that outfit?” Garfield chimes in, and Barry resists the urge to laugh and glare simultaneously. That is so not the question right now.
“He looks like a computer monitor gone wrong.” Oracle chimes in, “why would he go to a rave?”
“You think he’s lashing out from the emotional stress?” Dick asks, and Barry does glare this time, though he’s not sure why. Dick, because he was raised by a bat, notices right away. “Barry, we can’t ignore all the options.” God, he sounds like Joan now.
“No, no Bart’s not a stranger to death, even of loved ones. He wouldn’t act this way. He wouldn’t lash out.” Jaime answers the question for him. “Scarab also thinks it’s irrational for Bart to act this way.”
“I’m not sure he’s doing it on purpose,” Oracle says, and it makes Dick’s eyebrows raise. Barry wishes they could talk faster.
“How do you figure?”
“Look at his face. That’s not the face I’d make if I were in control of myself.”
And indeed, she zooms in on Bart’s face, and it looks like he’s in a mix of agony and unbridled joy. It almost reminds him of Joker’s gas. Bats told him about it so long ago, though, and he’s certain that Joker’s in Belle Reve at the moment. Barry cleared his throat, “that doesn’t make sense, Bart’s never not had control of his powers. He was born with them. Hell, he has more abilities than all of us Flashes combined.”
“You think he was attacked by someone?” Beast Boy asks. Barry should really thank him for finding the video in the first place. They’re one step closer to hauling that boy back home so he can give him a piece of his mind.
M’gann placed her hands on Beast Boy’s shoulders. “He should’ve had mandatory time off for the last few weeks, which meant no missions solo or otherwise.”
“No reports were logged either.” Dick adds.
Beast Boy raised his arms and clenched his fists as he spoke up, “and I mean we JUST stopped the apocalypse future! Why wouldn’t he want to take a break from the biggest mission of his life?”
“It could be related actually. I mean he accomplished his goal, one that took more work and pain than I think he’s willing to tell us about. Now that it’s over, could the emotional stress be hitting him all at once?” M’gann asked, looking over at Barry, which made everyone look at him too.
God damn it, he’s just gotten a week off after losing one of the most important people in his life. “I think it’s more than that but none of it matters until we find him,” he mutters.
Dick nods and comes closer to him, “we’re already running programs to locate the place in the video but Barry this was posted 10 hours ago. He’s probably not wherever that is anymore.”
“He’s there,” Artemis, or Tigress now, walked around the monitor, her right leg limping heavily, making Dick rush to support her as M’gann let go of Beast Boy and approached her quickly.
“Artemis? What happened to you? M’gann asked as Artemis waved her off.
“Long story that has nothing to do with this. I know where that is and I can tell you now it’s not good, Barry.”
He almost feels guilty for not reaching out to her sooner since the funeral.
Barry does let his sigh loose this time. “Then by all means, the floor is yours.”
⋆.˚ ⚡︎ .⭒˚ ⌁₊˚⊹ ⚡︎ ⊹˚₊ ⌁ ˚⭒. ⚡︎ ˚.⋆
Was going out on a mission barely three days since she lost Wally smart? Probably not, but Artemis wouldn’t even call it a mission in the first place anyway. She was just trying to get some groceries at the perfectly respectable time of 1am when some random thieves showed up and ran out with some things. Whatever, not her business except she found herself running after them anyway. She caught two, but the third was nimble and managed to vault a fire escape and get on the roof.
Now, on a normal day, she would’ve had no problem with this fire escape. She climbed worse in her childhood to be bested by a normal fire escape. Except this time, she’s tired, unmasked, and somehow managed to land wrong on her foot, and she knows a break when she feels it. She lets the thief go. She got two of his friends anyway so the third was bound to be found soon by the authorities anyway.
So she got her leg checked out, was put on bed rest, etc. She doesn’t listen, of course, and goes out to the mall. She wants to be anywhere except her apartment right now, and the distraction is nice. That is until her training hones in, and she notices something odd in the crowd.
Just on the other side of the second floor is a kid heading towards her who looks remarkably like Bart. Eerily similar, in fact, so much so that she almost finds herself turning around just to avoid that conversation. She doesn’t, of course, but as she watches him, her reluctance turns into concern.
The kid was practically blending into the crowds, hiding in plain sight, and yet he seemed different? She could see the dark circles under his eyes, his hair a wild mess, and his body tense like he was preparing for a blow. Weirdly enough, Bart wasn’t using his speed, not even to fast walk as she’s seen him do before. He walked slowly, aimlessly, until some sort of commotion reared behind him.
An employee of some store was trying to catch up to him, yelling about stolen goods. Had Bart stolen something? In plain sight? She took off running for him when his form flickered, glitching like a TV with bad reception before he disappeared. Or more accurately, he ran in the most disorganized fashion she’s ever seen. And she’s seen Wally—
Oh no, she cancels that memory out immediately. Instead, she searched for him as her concern only grew, and the pain in her leg throbbed because she was able to track him down quite easily by just following his trail. She barely needed her training for it, which meant Bart was not paying attention at all, in the public eye, no less.
That’s how she’s led through a closed-off door and into a dead part of the mall. Under construction no doubt, given the paint cans and materials everywhere. That’s how she finds him, tinkering with some sort of control panel at the bottom of an old escalator.
She called out to him, confused when he didn’t look up at her. She calls again louder and tries to hobble her way down the escalator with her broken foot. Of course, that’s when the kid notices her as she tries to approach him. Bart, at least, didn’t try to run. Instead, he laughed—really laughed—and trapped her on that broken escalator. The stupid thing goes, then stops for a second, then goes fast, then backward in a loop, and it’s all she can do to hang on and not hurt herself worse.
“You’re stuck, Arty,” Bart said, chuckling as he leaned against the rail. His body did that weird flickering thing again, as if reality couldn’t decide where he was supposed to be. “How’s that feel, huh?”
“Bart, what’s going on?” He doesn’t answer. “Does Barry know you’re here?” He doesn’t answer. Jeez, does he have wax in his ears? “He’s probably looking for you.”
“Looking for me?” Bart snorted, kicking at the ground with his heel. “Maybe I don’t want to be taken.”
Artemis tried to get closer, but Bart just grinned, mischief lighting up his exhausted eyes. “Don’t come closer, Arty. I might just trick the alarm and then the bugs will come. And we don’t want that, do we?”
“I have no idea what that means,” Artemis huffed. If she could distract him from the panel then maybe she could get to him and figure out what the hell was happening. This was more than teenage mischief, Bart genuinely looked sick.
But eventually, she wouldn’t need to distract him because, between one moment and the next, Bart left, looking over his shoulder and muttering as he walked away.
——
“It was as if he forgot what he was doing. That I was even there in the first place.” Artemis explained to the watchtower group. “When I finally got off that stupid escalator, he was already gone. That’s when I noticed the missing declaration on my phone’s remote monitor.”
Barry was silent for a moment, letting the story roll through his brain. Call it a work habit, or maybe he was spending too much time with Bats, but the room’s emotions seem divided between concerned confusion and general bewilderment. Jaime, in particular, looked like he wanted to piece together what happened through what he knew about Bart since they were friends but was getting further and further upset that he couldn’t seem to say anything.
After a moment, Jaime clenched his fists and whispered, “why wouldn’t Bart tell me anything?”
Oh, Bart’s his grandson, alright, and wow, the statement makes his chest hurt.
“I understand avoiding parents and guardians, no offense, but we’re friends! He trusted me, didn’t he?” Jaime continued as he looked at Barry.
Barry rubbed the back of his neck, “look kid, I don’t know what goes on in Bart’s head and I think I’d get a migraine if I tried. When we find him, you can ask him.”
Jaime nodded, “Yeah obviously, let’s go!”
“I’m in!” Beast Boy shouted just as M’gann shook her head. Barry barely listened as the others suited up while M’gann somehow convinced the green kid to stay behind.
He tapped his shoe on the floor and took off as soon as Artemis gave them the coordinates. Time to get his grandson back.
⋆.˚ ⚡︎ .⭒˚ ⌁₊˚⊹ ⚡︎ ⊹˚₊ ⌁ ˚⭒. ⚡︎ ˚.⋆
His name is Bartholomew Henry Allen the second.
He wonders who was the first.
He needs to punch something.
Where’s his punching bag hanging off the metal rebar in his hideout?
Yes! He’s found screws!
They’ll work perfectly on the sidebar panel for the machine.
What a lucky find.
The ceiling is falling.
He wishes he had an umbrella.
He kicks a can and empties a bag.
The box with liquid is delicious.
He wants his mom.
There are people after him.
If they catch him, he’s going to be hurt again.
There’s a hole at the bottom of his shoe.
Where’d that come from?
It’s smoking and he laughs at it.
He climbs on a railing to escape the people.
He remembers Arty and knows the rat is out of the bag.
Pity, he won’t have dinner tonight now.
The ceiling is falling down, falling down, falling down, he sings.
The screwdriver in his hand is unscrewing nails.
They’d be good to save for later.
The hole in the ceiling is revealed and goes straight up.
He could climb it.
It’s small and he’s small.
Why would he?
He’s a Flash.
He can just…
Run
Run
Run
The air is chilled, he’s glad he has his jacket.
There’s a drop right at the edge of his feet.
He stops.
This must be the roof of his shelter .
He walks the edge.
There’s a cigarette in his hand that’s holding the box of grapes.
He hears voices coming closer.
He knows they’ve found him.
He brings the ash stick to his mouth, watches the smoke float in the air and grins.
⋆.˚ ⚡︎ .⭒˚ ⌁₊˚⊹ ⚡︎ ⊹˚₊ ⌁ ˚⭒. ⚡︎ ˚.⋆
Barry can see what Artemis meant when she said Bart looked sick. The viral video did not do him justice; he looks genuinely awful, which is strange for a speedster.
Sure, they can get hit and break bones or pass out from the heat, and they’re not immune to every poison, and they’re not able to handle psychic attacks, but illness? No speedster has ever been foiled by illness. But Bart looks genuinely like he’s running a fever. He’s sweating, his face is flushed, hair a wild mess and the outfit he’s wearing looks so trashed compared to what he usually wears.
Barry can practically feel the parental instincts crawling up his neck as he notices the cigarette he’s started smoking. He’s stuck staring at him and wonders how they even got to this point. Eventually the rest of the team arrives in a similar fashion as they stand next to him and just stare.
They get to see firsthand Bart’s form glitching like a broken computer screen, and they all leap forward as it seems Bart’s going to fall. But he rights himself and turns his head towards them. The grin on his face is nothing short of manic, and his eyes scare Barry down to his bones.
“Bart come down so we can talk,” he finds himself saying. He’s almost proud that he managed not to stutter.
But Bart just scoffs at him, “what makes you think I want to talk to you? You’re just a bunch of martyrs trying to cure another one to trick yourself into thinking you don’t have your own complexes too.”
His voice is rough, and his statement stuns Barry for so long that the others have to chime in.
“That’s not true. We’re worried for you,” Artemis goes first, stern and so terrifyingly grounded.
Jaime follows her when Bart doesn’t even look at them. “You’ve been avoiding us. What’s going on?”
“They removed my tear ducts. Did you know that? I can’t cry but I feel like I am. It’s so weird! Is it working? My face feels dry and my eyes even dryer.” Bart whispers and it sounds like he’s in genuine wonderment. Like what he’s said doesn’t make Jaime take a step back or for Barry’s insides to curl. Bart never truly let on what kind of monsters the Reach really were, probably for Jaime’s sake, but Barry knew it was also just to protect himself from the memories. Now when they came out, broken and detached, it was so much worse.
M’gann, ever the gentle one takes a single step forward with her hands raised, “Bart you’re sick please come down.”
“Come down? Where have I heard that before-”
Jaime shakes his head and walks towards him without stopping until he’s barely a few feet away from the overhang. “Bart, it’s Jaime, you’re friend, can I come up there?”
Bart answers in rough singing, “My bodies a changin, my times a wastin.”
Dick, who had been silent this whole time, moves closer to M’gann and whispers, “M’gann can you try to see what’s wrong?”
“I’m trying, everything in his head is flashing too quickly to tell what he’s thinking.”
Dick nods and unveils an inhibitor collar he'd apparently brought with him. Barry hopes beyond hope that they don't have to use it but then Bart speaks again and that hope dies quickly.
“I don’t know how I ever kept up with your language. Interlac is so much easier. Did you know it was my native language?” Bart suddenly says as he raises his hand to take another sip from the juice box he’s holding. When he speaks again, it’s in a whole other slurry of words they can’t understand.
“Bart we don’t understand you…”
“Yeah, I know you don’t,” Bart answers, thankfully in English, although his tone starts to sound agitated and Barry knows that’s not a good sign. “You’re just a bunch of 
“Bart amigo please, you’re scaring me,” Jaime says. He’s almost able to reach up and climb to him when Bart’s body twitches.
“Yeah well that’s your problem not mine.”
And then Barry’s heart leaps straight into his throat for the 5th time that day when the cigarette and juice box falls and so does Bart, right off the ledge.
⋆.˚ ⚡︎ .⭒˚ ⌁₊˚⊹ ⚡︎ ⊹˚₊ ⌁ ˚⭒. ⚡︎ ˚.⋆
Bart’s not sure when this conversation started but he finds himself gaining clarity right in the middle of it. Or maybe it’s the end of it. His voice tapers off as he talks about some sort of alien movie, and then he hears Jaime, of all people, talk about how he’s scaring him.
He can’t remember why this bothers him, but he feels the remnants of anger in his mind and chokes out that it ain’t his damn problem or something like that and then falls silent.
He feels another glitch coming on, but this time, it’s different. His brain is fogging, his limbs are shaking harder and harder, his heart rate is skyrocketing and he’s suddenly drenched in sweat as if an invisible rain poured down on him.
He knows what this is and closes his eyes in defeat, accepting the inevitable. Fighting it now would only make things worse, and his strength is all but spent. His feet scuff the ground briefly before he’s plunged into a weightless void, barely feeling himself tip backward. All he can hope is that this, at last, is the final glitch.
But it isn’t, not by a ruler, or a meter, or even a kilometer. He drifts between consciousness and disorientation, the fits and shifts of memory overlapping in waves. Still, Bart tells himself this must be the last round, the end to it all—things usually get worse before they’re better, after all. For the first time in what feels like ages, his thoughts start to stretch beyond a single fleeting sentence. The haze thins, his mind piecing together fragments of understanding, and he clings to them, hoping the worst is finally behind him.
He opens his mouth to speak, to tell the hands he feels on his neck to back off, but it comes out in his mother’s tongue, and he almost thinks his secrets are in the clear because no one can understand him anyway—
“We can understand you, Bart,” a voice says, soft but firm. “That collar is fitted with a translator.”
And oh— OH, that makes him mad. They’ve strapped this thing on him—this collar, he thinks bitterly. How dare they collar him again. How dare they take the one thing that was his. The one part of him that didn’t require pretending, that held some scrap of his real identity. How dare they think they can just take that from him, slap a collar on his neck without his consent, and translate the words he’d chosen to keep for himself. How dare they. He jerks his hand, half-delirious, intent on ripping it off. But he can’t remember which hand to use; his body’s trembling too much, his vision a murky darkness. And his jaw—he realizes his jaw aches, teeth clenched, and the words he’s been shouting at them must have kept pouring out, wild and nonsensical. He’s not sure what he’s been yelling, only that it’s been going on and on, his voice scratched raw with anger.
One blink and then another, and he can see again. He’s flat on the ground, staring up at concerned faces hovering above him. They’re obscuring the night sky, he thinks, and that’s such a shame. He doesn’t want to look at them, but he’s caught in their worried stares, and one face stands out like a beacon of insanity . Wally fucking West, his expression tight with genuine worry, it makes Bart start laughing. His chest heaves as an oxygen mask descends over his face, something deep and broken spilling out with each shaky breath. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop laughing again.
⋆.˚ ⚡︎ .⭒˚ ⌁₊˚⊹ ⚡︎ ⊹˚₊ ⌁ ˚⭒. ⚡︎ ˚.⋆
He does stop laughing eventually. When the pain gets to be a bit too much to handle, he clenches his mouth shut and stays quiet. He’s strapped to a bed, and the restraints are tight and bring too many old memories to the surface. He sees everything, re-feels all that he’s felt before and he’s so angry yet resigned. He has a fire inside him that burns hotter than anything, but the flame is so low it’s a candle one backhand away from burning every house and bridge he’s ever built. He can’t decide if he wants it to or not.
He goes with the flow because he has no choice otherwise, and when it’s finally over, it brings in a rush of emotions and tinnitus.
It’s eerily cliche to think, but he feels like he’s waking up from a bad dream. He’s alert again and feels so much better already.
He opens his eyes and finds the same faces from before, looking exhausted and staring back at him. He smiles genuinely this time, and they sigh in relief, knowing that it’s finally over. His restraints are off, the collar is gone, and now he can rest freely.
Despite everything, they didn’t leave him. They found him at his worst and brought him back from the brink. He’ll explain everything to them in time and knows that extra sessions will be booked with Dinah if they aren’t already. For now, though, he can breathe and slow down. He can rest and eat something and watch the sunrise from his window.
Despite it all, he knows they’re home.