Chapter Text
Jaime frantically paced the area where he’d last seen Bart, his anxiety rising with every minute that passed. He’d been fine for the first thirty, but after an hour he started to worry that Bart was lost, just like Wally. What if his advice was what did it? He told Bart to think hard about the missing beta to see if that would lead to him, but if Wally was dead like they’d assumed, then Jaime sent his best friend to his death!
“Your logic is highly flawed, Jaime Reyes. Cease this train of thought at once. The Impulse is a skilled and highly reliable ally who would never perish so easily,” Khaji Da said confidently.
Jaime gripped his hair in frustration. “I want to believe you, but this is time travel and science beyond our underst—!”
“Your understanding,” Khaji Da cut in with an irritated click.
“Fine. It’s beyond my understanding. And because of that, I think it’s completely reasonable for me to freak out about this! What if he doesn’t come back? What if he gets to the future but can’t figure out how to get back?”
“Your fears are flawed and unfounded. You are compatible. He will return to you.”
“Please not this again. Bart and I are not mates!”
“I did not say that you are.” Khaji Da sounded almost smug as it pointed out that fact.
One spindly scarab leg stretched down to tap at Jaime’s wrist, accessing the computer he added to the suit to better communicate with the Team.
“You implied - what are you doing?” Jaime asked warily.
“Alerting your allies of your predicament. Human contact has proved to be an effective method of calming you down in the past.”
“What? Khaji, no!” Jaime protested, reaching to yank the leg away. His heart sank when the scarab retracted the limb on its own. “Who did you call?”
“Our allies.”
“All of them?!”
“Specific ones.”
“Are you deliberately being obtuse right now?” Jaime demanded, only to stop and roll his eyes the second he finished the question. “I don’t know why I’m asking that. Of course, you’re being difficult on purpose. What I don’t know is why you’re doing it.”
“It is a provably effective distraction. You are no longer worried about your compatible mate.”
Jaime stared out over the dunes that seemed to stretch on for eternity. No one else was around. No one would know if he broke down and screamed. It might even feel nice to let go for once and let his feelings out.
He took a deep breath instead. “You know I’m dating Traci, right? Cute brunette. Uses magic. Really cool. Does any of that ring a bell?”
“Irrelevant.”
Jaime sighed. “Right. Okay, now that you’ve distracted me from rightfully worrying about my friend , will you tell me who you called? Or do I need to start guessing?”
Khaji Da said nothing, which Jaime took to mean that he’d have to guess if he wanted answers. If there was one thing he could count on, it was the scarab’s love of correcting him whenever he got something wrong. They would have to be genuine guesses though - if he tried to be incorrect on purpose, Khaji Da would continue to give him the silent treatment.
So.
He needed to start with Bart himself, who’d come out to the desert to attempt time travel because of information he learned from Jason Todd, the Second Robin, the one who died and then, somehow, returned to life and made a name for himself as the Red Hood. It was information that Dick Grayson - Nightwing - also knew.
Nightwing was also the leader of the Team and would be the first Jaime would think to alert to any issue. It was likely that Khaji Da felt the same.
The scarab specifically said allies, so it wasn’t just Nightwing who would soon be on his way. It mentioned something about human contact being necessary to calm him down, so it was likely one of his friends was on their way as well. It’d have to be someone familiar with the situation, who knew about Jason, and wouldn’t have to play a lot of catch-up to understand what was happening.
Spoiler seemed like a solid bet. She was incredibly tactile, mostly with Robin, and her sunny disposition could brighten just about any situation.
Who else?
Robin, perhaps? To Jaime’s knowledge, his friend wasn’t aware of Jason’s return, but if anyone could quickly absorb information and react accordingly, it was Robin. He was also good at diffusing tense or uncomfortable situations and, aside from Bart, Jaime would consider him his closest friend.
Nightwing, Spoiler, and Robin. They were the three Jaime would choose to call if Khaji Da had put it on him to pick. And if Nightwing wasn’t available, next would be Tigress.
Normally.
Normally , Tigress would be second to Nightwing, but the situation involved the possibility of her presumed dead boyfriend being alive and he’d rather not say anything to her about it until they knew for sure.
But did Khaji Da understand that?
Frustratingly, the scarab continued to maintain its silence when Jaime voiced his guesses on who would be arriving.
He began to pace again.
Twenty minutes later, Khaji Da spoke again: “The Bioship approaches.”
Jaime raised his eyes to scan the clear skies, eventually spotting a reddish dot in the distance that was headed straight for him. As it got closer, he could start to make out its distinctive shape and his apprehension grew stronger.
“Please tell me you didn’t ask Tigress to come here,” Jaime gave in and begged. “I don’t care who else you called in to help, just please tell me she wasn’t one of them.”
Khaji Da hesitated, which only made Jaime’s anxiety spike.
“Does the situation not have to do with the return of her mate? I felt that it was imperative she be here for it.”
“Normally, yes, but she has no idea that it’s even a possibility!” Jaime exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “You can’t just spring something like this on a person!”
“You will simply have to inform her before the Impulse returns.”
If only it was that simple. Human emotions were complex by their very nature, something Jaime became increasingly aware of the longer the scarab failed to fully grasp them. No one could be sure how Tigress would respond to the news and it certainly didn’t feel right to drop it on her and expect her to immediately deal with it.
Bioship landed several hundred feet away and her passengers began to disembark. Nightwing and a man in a red helmet that covered his entire head led the way, followed by Robin, and then Miss Martian and a maskless Tigress.
“What’s the situation?” Nightwing asked.
Jaime breathed out and decided it would be best to start at the beginning. “A few hours ago, Khaji Da detected unusual energy spikes in this area, so we came out to find the source. We found Bart, testing his theory about time travel. He was convinced that if he ran fast enough, he could generate enough of the right type of energy to travel through time without the aid of a machine. I think he said something about, uh, something he called the Speed Force?”
He looked to the others but only saw confusion on their faces. (Well, except for Red Hood, for one obvious reason.)
“Bart’s not here,” Robin noted as he took a good look around. “Does that mean it worked?”
“I think so. He disappeared into this… cloud of lightning, I guess is the best way to describe it. It all happened so fast. But, uh, that’s not really why Khaji Da decided to call you out here,” Jaime said.
“He went looking for someone,” Red Hood spoke up, his voice oddly distorted.
Nightwing went still.
Robin loosely crossed his arms over his chest, his lips twisted into a frown. “But who? And why - well, okay. I can think of a thousand reasons why he’d want to try time travel, but why not warn us first? And which way did he go? Forward or backward?”
“If he went back in time, I think we’d know about it by now,” Miss Martian said thoughtfully. “Forward makes the most sense. If I were in his shoes, I’d want to see that things were changed for the better.”
“That’s not it,” Nightwing tersely said as he turned to face Red Hood, who steadily met his gaze in return. “You told Bart.”
“I thought it’d be a good idea to have help figuring it out. He and Bart are related, so it seemed like a reasonable choice,” Red Hood argued.
“It is, but you should have told me!” Nightwing paused to take a deep breath. “I would’ve appreciated a warning. I thought we agreed to talk about it before we told anyone else.”
Tigress looked between the two of them. “Who is Bart looking for?”
(On the bright side, it was looking less and less like Jaime would have to be the one to tell her. Still, it was difficult to stand there, knowing what was about to be said.)
“The night we brought Damian home from Nanda Parbat, Dick and I noticed something odd. An aura, most clearly attached to yours, Artemis, even as it kept coming in and out of sight,” Red Hood said. He reached up and undid the clasps holding his helmet in place and then lifted it free, his expression serious as he turned to face Artemis. “We didn’t have time to look into it then and we didn’t want to tell you until we were absolutely sure of what we were seeing, but… I thought we could use help, so I told Bart about what we saw. I didn’t know the pup would go running off to take care of it on his own!”
Robin looked at him incredulously. “You didn’t think a speedster would rush off on his own?”
“It was an easy mistake to make!”
Tigress drew herself up, her gaze sharp as she demanded their attention. “ Who. Is. Bart. Looking. For.”
“Wally,” Nightwing admitted softly. “He’s looking for Wally. He’s alive, Artemis. Aura’s can’t lie.”
There was nothing else to do but wait.
Artemis sequestered herself on the ship for a while and only allowed M’gann inside to talk with her. When she rejoined them, her eyes were red-rimmed and there were clear tear tracks running down her cheeks, but she refrained from putting on her mask to hide them. She brushed off their concern as she walked to the top of the nearest dune, where she stood and held vigil for Bart’s return.
The others waited at the Bioship and kept their conversation low as they mused about where Bart may have ended up and what he was seeing and learning. Jaime noticed that everyone took care to not mention Wally by name, but there was a clear undercurrent of anticipation, particularly from Dick and M’gann.
The sun’s rays began to take on a golden hue as it dipped toward the horizon, which was when a sound like static began to fill the air.
Jaime didn’t need the scarab to tell him what it meant, though he appreciated the warning anyway.
“Sensors indicate the Impulse is returning.”
Lightning arched up into the sky and was immediately followed by a thunderous boom which caused the ground beneath their feet to tremble.
Artemis wordlessly cried out as she ran toward the source, vanishing down the other side of the dune.
Khaji Da activated the wings of the suit so Jaime could fly up and over with M’gann, which gave him the perfect view of Artemis nearly tripping her way into Wally’s arms. The pair clung tightly together, pressed as close as they could manage, both crying too much to speak, and Jaime averted his gaze to try and give them a little privacy.
His gaze alighted on Bart and he made a beeline for his friend. “You did - ooph!”
It was only thanks to Khaji Da’s quick reflexes that he and Bart didn’t go sprawling into the sand as the speedster threw himself at him, vibrating as softly as a kitten’s purr and laughing giddily, a huge smile split across his face.
“Good trip?” Jaime asked.
“The best,” Bart responded. He held onto Jaime for a moment longer and then let go and took a step back, turning his attention to the happy couple instead. His smile seemed to grow wider as he watched Artemis take matters into her own hands by yanking Wally in by the collar for a frantic kiss.
Wally looked dazed when they separated, a dopey smile on his face. “Marry me?”
Artemis laughed wetly and kissed him again.
Jaime took a sidelong look at Bart, whose full focus was on the reunited couple. It was truly amazing how much of an impact the young speedster had in their lives. He’d almost single-handedly rewritten history, changing the future from something bleak to one full of hope and possibilities. And then he’d gone on to do the impossible again, traversing time to bring back someone they all believed to be dead.
How lucky was he, to call such a person his best friend?
“The future looks good, you know,” Bart said quietly. He didn’t look away from the scene before them, continuing to watch as Dick arrived and had his own emotional reunion with Wally. “It’s, um, I can’t say anything more than that, but I thought you’d like to know.”
A weight that Jaime didn’t know that he’d been carrying lifted from his shoulders. Even Khaji Da seemed affected by the words, its limbs tightening briefly, not in a painful way but almost like it was breathing a sigh of relief.
He was sure there would be many more trials to come, but it was nice to know that things could be good.