The truth that sets us free

By,

Aestivate

Rating: T

Characters: Bart Allen/Impulse, Dick Grayson/Nightwing, Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle, Dinah Lance/Black Canary, Nathaniel Adams/Captain Atom, Ray Palmer/Atom III, Ryan Choi/Atom IV

Summary: Impulse, while conversing with Nightwing, contemplates the secrets he uses to hide the truths he's not willing to admit. Truths regarding aliens, apocalypses… and Jaime Reyes. Bluepulse.

Word Count: 3,576

"No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself." – Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

"Time for the truth." Jaime blinks and takes a shuddering breath. And here, the truth emerges: "Impulse says that sometime in the future I betray Earth and bring on a Reach apocalypse."

As soon as the word 'apocalypse' tumbles out of Jaime's mouth (just something else Bart couldn't prevent from happening) suddenly it's as if Bart has dual-vision: On one end, he sees a tidy office occupied by six others including a very pouty Captain Atom – and on the other end Bart sees flashes of his family being incinerated, one-by-one. He sees his Aunt Dawn slide a prized inhibitor collar around his neck and another into his pocket. The collar was the only thing preventing him from starving to death via his own metabolism and its speed force-stopping qualities protecting him from suspicion of the Reach due to his meta-human status. This, and only this, would be the only occasion in which the mode was actually crash.

Aunt Dawn, mouth set to a grim line, willingly accepts death. He still hears her parting words fluttering between the ashes. "You're the legacy now, Bart." The fragments of his memories cut into him like shattered glass. He's not just grasping onto the wreckage of his future anymore either; he's watching his present go up in flames as well.

"…That's not a future I can live with," Jaime finishes. Bart's hand falls to his side, and the sensation of it on Blue's shoulder lingers as his fingers become cold from the absence.

The future wasn't something Bart could live with either, which is why a boy that dreams of a better tomorrow allows himself to be stuck in yesterdays.

Jaime takes a seat in the center, under the diminished League's scrutiny, and de-armors. "So… Whatever it takes… Get this scarab off of me."

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa!" cries Bart. Instantly he's in front of Jaime, arms slightly raised, as if to protect him. But there's something inherently ridiculous about a scrawny little speedster who is all flight and no fight who thinks he can stop the inevitable. "L-Let's all settle down here, eh, hermano? No need to get ahead of ourselves."

Jaime gives him an odd look and seems to be struggling for a moment before he whispers, "You didn't pronounce the 'h' in hermano."

"I – what? Oh. Well, yeah. I've been practicing," replies Bart, arms still raised. The looks on Dinah's and Nathaniel's faces are unfathomable, and the look on Dick's face is merely pensive. Ryan and Ray are reviewing something on the computer screen. "Anyway, don't you think you're overreacting? Come on, we already agreed, I already promised, I'll keep you off-mode and it'll be totally crash and…" Bart falls silent when he realizes he's not fooling anyone.

"All done, Impulse?" says Dick softly. Dick, hiding behind his own domino mask, can see directly through Bart's. At this very moment, Bart feels irrational, corrosive anger towards Nightwing.

"Just getting started actually," he replies weakly. "I won't let you do anything to him." The desperation in his voice is reaching a fever pitch now. "I'm not going to let you cut into his spine as if he's a lab rat and not a superhero." He spits out the word for emphasis, as if his knowing it and feeling it and trusting in it will manage to convince them as well.

"Impulse, relax," says Dinah. "We're not cutting into anyone. As if we're going to blindly operate on Beetle without properly assessing his situation first. Come on, Jaime." She gestures towards Jaime so she can take a look at the scarab herself, but Bart bristles and backs up even closer to Jaime, arms still raised.

"Come on, Jaime," says Bart, and normally mocking would be unbecoming but the anxiety in his voice is unmistakable.

"I can't let this thing on my back hurt anyone. Especially not you. Trust me. Please." Bart feels Jaime tug on his hand and all of Bart's resolve evaporates. "It's fine, ese. I'll be fine. I'm sure they'll find a way." Bart's arms are being lowered; he hadn't realized they were frozen in that position. "Black Canary, Dr. Choi, Dr. Palmer, I'm all yours."

"You were right to come to us with this information, Jaime, troubling as it may be," says Dinah with a soft, motherly smile. "You are really brave. We'll do everything in our power to help you."

"Dinah, Beetle, we can do some preliminary scans and evaluations in my lab on the 10th floor." says Ray Palmer.

"I have some of the analysis of the Reach tech that Batgirl and Robin collected from the attack that I can also bring up, Ray," adds Ryan Choi.

"Perfect, we can get started now, then. This way, Jaime," says Ray Palmer, opening the door to lead them out.

"I'll join you when I give Oliver a call, Ray and Ryan and Jaime," says Dinah, pulling out a cellphone and disappearing out the door behind the two Atoms and Blue Beetle.

"I better get back to the Watchtower and do a report on the incident at the Hall – ah, and I guess this one, too," says Captain Atom, arms till folded, clearly distracted. He sighs in frustration and makes his way to do the door as well. "What a day it's been. Be careful, boys. Try to get some rest."

Still rooted to the spot, Bart sways slightly and collapses into the chair Jaime had been occupying. There are three less people in the room now, but Bart feels even more trapped. Nightwing is opening his mouth to speak, and Bart could be out of the room and halfway towards the Garricks' place in Central City before Dick has the chance to blink twice. Even if Nightwing tried to stop him, Bart is really, really good at running away. He has gone through and bypassed at least three "stop the speedster" scenarios in his mind before Dick's voice snaps him out of his reverie.

"Captain Atom and Black Canary were courteous enough to let me deal with you. And I'm going to say it right now – I will be dealing with you."

Bart gulps and prepares himself for the whiplash.

So that's how Dick's going to play it – coax out all the answers to his questions and drag all of Bart's worst fears and insecurities out and lay them dry. "First and foremost: How do you expect us to trust you when basically all you've ever done was lie to us? What are you hiding? What else do you know that you're not telling me?"

"Not enough," replies Bart carefully, softly. He bites his lip and stares into his lap. "Clearly, I don't know enough."

"No more secrets, Bart. You have to stop acting like this is on you. You're a part of this team for better or worse." Nightwing sounds slightly agitated, especially since always-optimistic-and-cheerful Impulse looks decidedly thrown. "Tell me everything."

"That's pretty crash, coming from you," snaps Bart, bristling. "Someone who's against telling his teammates his own name, Dick Grayson." Bart rips off his own goggles, suddenly wanting nothing in common with Nightwing. He glares at his team leader, his supposed ally, who doesn't seem to understand that technically… they want the same thing.

Dick's eyes narrow beneath the domino mask. "Not relevant." There's certain acidity that Bart can hear developing in his leader's voice. "You called yourself a time tourist when you first landed in Mount Justice. And look what's happened just weeks after. Why didn't you say anything? Maybe we could have stopped…"

The words are out of his mouth before he has time to assess their stupidity level – and the stupidity level is decidedly high: "I thought I could handle it. I saved the Flash, I saved Nathaniel. But Artemis Crock is dead…" Nightwing shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "…and Mount Justice and the Hall of Justice are rubble. I mean – they're dust in my timeline too. But let me be clear on something – I don't know when everything is supposed to go to hell, I just know that everything does. I don't know any minute details, but I thought… at least by knowing the outcome, I could change it. But look at me, Dick. I've been moded since I got here. I thought I was in control, that I could stop Blue from and I did but I can't be sure that's really what I did… But everything's happened so fast… it's like I'm making it worse."

Dick is trying his best to look unaffected, but Bart can see him twitching restlessly, flexing his fingers and biting his lip. Bart braces himself for the inevitable tongue lashing, but instead, Nightwing sighs deeply and the charged atmosphere of the room changes at once to a myriad of mental exhaustions.

There is a long pause. "God knows I can't blame you for that," says Dick softly, with a hint of bitterness. He intimately looks like how Bart feels – like someone who thinks he's in control of something he's not and is watching all of his careful plans unravel before his eyes. The expression is almost disappointing to Bart – he hadn't expected sympathy, or worse still, empathy, coming from the Team leader. "Or else I'd just be a hypocrite."

"Wow, uh… that wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting to be yelled at for being a coward and a liar," Bart admits. He doesn't want to contemplate what it means that Nightwing has shared a hidden truth with him, but he expects he'll find out in due time. Even though he's lived in the future, he still can't predict it. He just needs to stop it.

"I promise you, the stuff that's on me – and there's a lot on me – I'll try to make right even though from what you're saying, the whole damn world is going to get shaken up pretty badly… and in order to help prevent it, we have to get to the bottom of this first." A head is shaken. Another sigh is heaved. "Impulse – Bart – please tell me more. Tell me about Blue."

"The Reach gets him on mode. And pop! goes the team. You – we – don't stand a chance if that happens. All the Blue Beetle of my future needs to do is blink and fire the plasma cannon," says Bart, completely deadpan. "But –"

"But you – we – won't let that happen," Nightwing finishes.

"Can't let it happen," Bart corrects, absentmindedly fingering his pockets. "Not again. Or at least, for you and your team, not ever. You don't know what it means for Blue to go on mode. I do," he says, completely hollow.

"Maybe not to the extent that you do, but I know how it feels like to feel as if you lost everything, even hope –"

Bart shakes his head violently, attempting to cut-in before Dick can finish. "Nope, I can't, haven't lost that yet, nope, definitely not –"

"My parents were murdered. My life was burned to the ground before Batman took me in."

For some reason, the admission only seems to tick Bart off even more. Anger tingles all the way down to his fingers and toes. He begins to pace. Levelly as he possibly can, he practically shouts, "Is that supposed to make me feel sympathetic or something? Am I supposed to feel guilty? How you 'coped' slash 'cope' with your loss isn't what makes you a superhero, Dick. What makes you a hero? It's – it's what my grandpa did. Barry Allen. In my timeline, he dies before he even knows he's having children, let alone a freaking grandson. But I saved him and Nathaniel and I'll save Blue, too, and here's why: what makes you a superhero is how you cope with everything you have and be ready and willing to lose it all. It's… It's… what Jaime's willing to do. It's… It's what I can't let him do." And there, the admission.

Bart is breathing much too rapidly now, his breaths coming in shallow, frantic gasps. "The only way Jaime stays crash and is rid of that freaking scarab forever is if he dies." And Bart can't let Jaime lose what will inevitably cause Earth to love everything. "He knows it. I know it. The Reach knows it. And somehow I even think that you and Black Canary and Captain Atom know it, too." He lets out a strangled laugh that almost sounds like a cry and stop pacing at once, dropping to a kneel onto the floor. The thing in his pocket rustles.

With a slight hint of shock, Nightwing says the thing that's on both of their minds, the truth Bart can't admit to: "You're in love with him." And there, the truth beyond all the other hidden truths, the truth that he even hid from himself, the one he still point-blank refuses to admit.

He admits to it anyway. "Haha! That seems to be the major miscalculation on my part, doesn't it?" Bart blinks hard, and the inside of his lids feel hot; he just wants to hurl the impossibly large weight in his pocket out a window but this damn room doesn't have one and it's so stifling and small that he can't escape.

"How can a guy like Jaime… a guy who only needs to be told – without definitive proof! – that he's going to be the biggest big bad in history be ready and willing to die for the cause just like that? He's a hero, a damn good one, not a moded, psychopathic killing machine. I don't know what causes him to become that, can't even fathom what could, because someone like that is willing to destroy himself to save all of us!"

It would be so much easier to hate him.

"I would find it hard to believe myself if it didn't come from his mouth." Nightwing is kneeling beside him now, a soothing hand on his shoulder. "Bart, how do you know that it's Jaime who betrays the human race? He's not the only Blue Beetle, you know, just like how Tim wasn't the first Robin, like how Cassie wasn't the first Wonder Girl, like how I'm sure the current Batman won't be the last… Ted Kord wasn't even the first Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett was…"

"Because I know that all of you die," whispers Bart. "I grew up listening to stories about you guys. Real heroes with real, epic tales. The heroes in these stories were people who actually tried to make a difference instead of every man for himself. It was the craziest thing I'd ever heard. But definitely the crashest. You know… All my life, just hearing about you guys was motivation enough for me to come back in that stupid time machine." He punctuates by kicking the floor.

"You built the time machine all on your own?" asks Nightwing, disbelieving.

"Sort of. I just followed instructions. It wasn't my design – I wasn't lying when I said I'm not a chrono expert. And you were right, by the way, about there being new Batmen in the future. It took a combination of a bunch of geniuses, some with names you might recognize: Nathaniel Tryon – you know, Neutron, an exceedingly ancient but still somehow crash Timothy Drake, a retired Batman by the name of Damian Wayne, and the Batman of my future – a guy named Terry McGinnis – to just come up with the design. My dad and aunt, as the Tornado Twins, knew some people in high places. They all collected the parts. It took years. They'd started even before I was born. They died for that stupid piece of junk, for... for just the possibility. Of heroes. Of a life without the Reach," says Bart bitterly. The ones they keep alive they use as slaves, or use in grotesque science experiments." He jerks his head upward and locks into Nightwing's pensive glower, matching the intensity of his gaze tit-for-tat. "If you think what they did to the meat we rescued in the Reach's underground ship was bad, you're clearly not well-versed enough in the art of systematic torture."

If Dick gives any indication that he acknowledges his own name is conspicuously absent from the description of the future Batmen, he doesn't show it. Instead he looks only mildly horrified, and Bart is actually impressed at this point with his ability to keep it together. Dick is still all business. "Still doesn't explain Jaime."

"Yeah, well, you asked me about the time machine," says Bart. "Anyway, like I said, I know that all of you die, and if you want specifics I don't have them. Before he became cannon fodder, my dad slipped to me the records of the Team and the Justice League at the beginning of the Reach invasion. Jaime Reyes was listed as MIA instead of just deceased. I'm not an idiot – I may be a kid, but anyone with half a brain could put two-and-two together. The guy who was supposed to be the superhero, Blue Beetle, was mysteriously MIA and the Blue Beetle I know is an on-mode meatbag that blows up kids for fun. I'm barely thirteen, and my life is already considered long."

Dick is trembling slightly and his next words are shaky. "You talk about the deaths of the members of my Team – the team you're a part of, so 'our' team – so nonchalantly. You're right, you know. I can't sit here pretending I know even a fraction of what you've gone through. But… thanks for telling me. Here's the part where I tell you that we should tell everyo-"

"No!" cries Bart hoarsely. "No! Can you imagine what it'll be like if this stuff gets out? They'll kill Blue before even gets the chance to armor up! You know how I feel! I promised! 'Stick with me, Blue, and I'll keep you from feeling the mode.' That's what I said and that's why I can't fail him, I can't. I won't let Blue die, especially not by the hand of people who are supposed to be his allies!"

"Didn't you hear anything that Black Canary was saying? We're not going to let anything happen to Blue. He's still a member of this team, and we'll always have each other's backs. And what I was going to say was that even though the Team and the League has a right to know, we can just keep it as a need-to-know basis for now and then gradually let the others know. We can start with Black Canary, Captain Atom, and the Atoms."

"No one else!"

"No one else," Nightwing affirms. "We'll make this right. We'll kick those intergalactic jerks off our planet. We'll protect everyone. Even Blue. Trust me."

Jaime's voice echoes in Bart's head. "Trust me." That's what Jaime had said too, before he'd left the room with Black Canary and the Atoms. Trust. Why is that so difficult?

The dual-vision is back again. On one side is Nightwing waiting for a response – a smile, a nod of a head and a shake of a hand. An unspoken promise to remain whelmed. On the other side is the very person he cannot afford to lose. The weight in Bart's pocket suddenly feels impossibly heavy.

"You two acted like real heroes today, you know. You and Jaime, Bart. It… It takes a lot of courage to come out with secrets that you can't even admit to yourselves. I would know."

And here, the actual truth: The answer comes so quickly and so easily to Bart that he is reeling from the elegant simplicity of it – Bart can't trust Nightwing because he can't trust himself. Not with being able to 'make this right.' Not with 'kicking those intergalactic jerks off of Earth.' Not with 'protecting everyone.' Not with Jaime. Especially not with Jaime.

"Nightwing, there's something else I have to tell you." He reaches into his pocket. "About what you were saying earlier… about how I l-love Blue. That's true. What you were saying before that about how you can't really trust me because I hid too much. You're right about that too. Here's one more thing that I have been hiding." He pulls the device out of his pocket, a small glass sphere, about the size of a marble. The sphere is warm and hums in his hand, as if purring, just waiting to be unleashed. "This is supposed to be a contingency plan. You're the son of Batman. I think you know what this means. I don't trust myself with it, so I'm giving it to you."

Nightwing extends his palm. Bart looks at him levelly and lets out the breath he has been holding. He seems to deflate, completely defeated. "If you ever have to use it… Given time, I'm sure I could forgive you. Just promise me, it has to be the most final of final resorts."

"I promise," says Nightwing, voice sounding oddly choked up. "No unnecessary sacrifices."

The truth was supposed to set him free. Key phrase: supposed to. Instead it leaves him caged, trapped. His thin fists beat against Dick's chest at lightning speed. The recipient of the beating hardly flinches. "Are you done, Bart?"

"You promised… You promised!"

In the end they still had too much to hide.

Fin.