Ever To Conquer, Never To Yield

[bungakertas]

Rating: PG
Warning(s) : theft, armed robbery, minor violence, minor swearing
Pairing(s) : none
Tags: alternate universe – canon fusion, alternate universe – canon divergence, casefic
Disclaimer: All copyrighted characters, situations, settings, and events belong to DC Comics, Warner Brothers, the CW, or some combination thereof (I think that’s everybody). No money has changed hands, and no copyright infringement is intended or implied.
Summary: He was a superhero, and he was looking forward to a college football game. Bart Allen had officially lost every claim to coolness he had ever had. Granted, a lot of other people seemed to be looking forward to it, too. Including, unfortunately, some maybe-speedsters who were definitely-criminals.
Continuity: This is not in continuity with any comics or tv shows. It belongs with the DC series I've got up. Just read the fics tagged for Bart Allen in the listed order and you'll have the required backstory.
Series: The DC Stories

*~*~*

Manchester, Alabama was stupid. It had taken Bart all of ten seconds to come to this conclusion. Which was, if you were fair, a good hour for him in relative time…sort of. Or something. It didn't matter. Manchester was still stupid. Alabama was stupid. Like, really stupid.

Uncle Max (who wasn't his uncle but insisted Bart call him that) was not stupid. He wasn't totally scared of Bart the way Wally had been. (Don't think about Wally, don't be angry at Wally, it isn't Wally's fault if he wasn't ready to be anybody's mentor…) Max spent time with Bart. He helped Bart with his homework. He ran with him in the mornings, and went to movies with him when there was something good out.

But he lived in the middle of absolutely nowhere. People raised cows out here. Actually raised actual cows. With milk and everything. Cows were incredibly boring. And cow-tipping was, apparently, some kind of urban legend (or rural legend or something), because the kids at school had laughed at him when he'd asked about it.

Not, like, really mean laughing, though. Just laughed like he’d said something funny. They weren't bad people. Just sort of…boring. Probably not their fault.

And, okay, maybe it was sort of gorgeous in the fall when all the trees were going gold and brown and orange and Very Vibrant Red (because red maples were the best kind of trees ever). And yes, maybe some stuff around here was actually really nice with the sweet tea and the waving to the people in the oncoming car and the azaleas that had bloomed in a billion colors all at once this past spring. And his friends sometimes had barbecues where they cooked venison burgers from deer that they’d actually hunted themselves. So it's not like everything was all awful all the time or anything.

But why couldn't something ever happen, anyway? Supposedly there were blizzards sometimes in the winter, but all they’d gotten was the (very) occasional snow. There were definitely tornadoes. (Bart liked racing tornadoes. But he kind of hated them, too, 'cause not everyone could run fast enough to get out of the way.) But bad weather was actually the only kind of excitement in, like, all of Walker county. Concert tours all went through Birmingham or Huntsville or Mobile or anywhere that was at least a hundred miles away from him. As did, apparently, everything else. Including supervillains. He would give anything for just a tiny hint of trouble from Professor Zoom.

Well. Okay. Maybe not Zoom. But still. For a speedster, boredom was Hell.

Which was why he was actually looking forward to going to the Iron Bowl with Uncle Max.

He'd learned a lot of stuff about The South (complete with capitals) coming to live here. Like that they actually designed honest-to-goodness spaceships in Huntsville. And that people really were friendly, most of the time. You even had to be rude to people politely, by calling them “honey” ironically, or saying “bless your heart.” Apparently being rude to someone outright was completely unthinkable or something.

But above all, he had learned that college football really was a Very Big Deal.

So, there were two big colleges in Alabama (there were lots of colleges, but these two were the big ones). There was the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. They had good medical, journalism, and law departments. Then there was Auburn University in Auburn. They had good agriculture, engineering, and liberal arts colleges. Each one hated the other with a hate that would never die until the End Of The World and every year, the biggest game in the history of ever was the rivalry game between those two football teams. And that game was called the Iron Bowl.

He was a superhero, and he was looking forward to a college football game. He had officially lost every claim to coolness he had ever had.

Bart hadn't even realized how big a deal the Iron Bowl was until he'd mentioned at school that one of Max's friends had had to bail on their group, and offered his ticket to Max, who already had one. Max had promptly informed Bart that he was going to the Iron Bowl, start planning now.

“Wait, you got a ticket?” Shelley asked. It was a couple minutes before his English class, and someone had asked about Iron Bowl plans.

“Yeah, I only found out this morning,” Bart replied, forcing himself not to speak too quickly. “Last minute ticket.”

Everyone was suddenly looking at him like he'd won the lottery.

“Whoa. Lucky you,” Shelley said.

“Is it really that weird?” Bart asked.

“Yes,” Devon said, sounding very serious, from his desk on the other side of Shelley.

“Seriously?” Bart asked in surprise. “…Okay.”

“Who are you rooting for?” Devon asked curiously.

Though it wasn't as big as everyone suddenly sitting up straight and turning to look at him, Bart knew the whole room was listening for his answer. He'd started at Walker High at the beginning of freshman year (photographic memory had really helped him catch up on grades one through eight), so he wasn't too much of the “new kid” any more than any other freshman was new. But he was sort of weird, and he didn't catch a whole lot of pop culture references, and he gave a lot of oddball answers to personal questions.

(Which, okay, all of that was Not His Fault, because it was pretty much the hardest balancing act in the universe to grow up half in fast-forward and the other half in VR and only barely know who his parents were and get told by freaking Batman that he was totally unbalanced and then to try and start off high school with even a tiny amount of grace. Not a feat a human could perform. So, yeah, his off-the-charts weirdness factor was completely understandable and justifiable and logical. Unfortunately for him, it was, like so much in his life, also totally secret. Even so, if he could tell everyone the truth, they'd totally get why he was such a goof.)

That wasn't so bad, since he got along okay anyway. But here was a Big Question. Does the weird kid who lives with his not-uncle prefer to side with the Alabama Crimson Tide or the Auburn Tigers?

“I don't know yet,” Bart replied truthfully. And surely it wasn't normal to think you could hear the room deflate?

Shelley opened her mouth to say something—probably nice, because she was nice and had a nice face—but Ms. Burnett came in right then and made them all start reading that stupid Manfred not-poem again. Why did Byron have to exist?

*~*~*

The Auburn-Alabama game was at Auburn this year. To Bart's surprise, they left on the Thursday before the game to drive down for it. In the back of Max's SUV was a fairly impressive amount of camping equipment.

“Do we really need all that stuff?” Bart asked.

Max gave him a small smile and said, “You'll see.”

“Why are we driving?” Bart asked. 'Cause Auburn was only a hundred-fifty miles away. They could run that in, what, a minute? Less? Definitely less.

“We're not superheroes this weekend,” Max replied.

What. Ever. Bart had his costume ring with him just like always and he had a sneaking suspicion Max had his costume somewhere, too. They were never not superheroes, even when they were going to drive forever to get to… Wait. One-hundred-fifty miles from here to Auburn meant…

“But that'll take us three hours!” Bart burst out.

Max nodded.

Bart let out a non-verbal groan and clambered into the front seat. “This had better be worth it.”

He hated driving anywhere. It was soo slow. And, much as he tried, he couldn't entirely distract himself with pressing his nose to the glass and watching the scenery go by. It was all pretty, sure, and yes, the trees looked good 'cause it was fall and all. But it didn't help. To the point where Bart had a feeling he started hallucinating. As they made the change from I-65 to I-85, Bart could've sworn he saw someone driving a motorcycle speedster fast. Since he was in the car, he only saw them for a moment, and Max didn't see anything, so it was probably his wishful thinking.

Boring.

*~*~*

When they finally made it to Auburn, Bart had completely forgotten about weird driving speedsters he didn't recognize playing in traffic. Because Auburn was not that big a town, but right now it was bursting at the seams. Lots of people were driving RVs the size of tour buses all over. And not crashing them into every available curb, which was a lot harder than it looked, Bart figured. It was only Thursday evening! The game was not until Saturday night, but everyone seemed excited for it already. Everywhere he looked there was someone dressed in orange-and-blue (for Auburn) or red-and-white (for the University of Alabama), each group busily ignoring the other. Some people had even dressed their dogs up in one set of colors or the other.

They turned on to a road with the right-hand lane (the one going into campus) painted with orange tiger paw prints, and finally, into a half-full grass field, which was doing double-duty as an unpaved parking lot, where Max had to show a hang-tag to a bored-looking college kid to get in. But, finally, finally, finally, they could get out of the car and Bart could stretch his legs (at normal-people speed, since there were too many people around to see if he took off running like he wanted to).

He'd survived! Thank goodness!

He and Uncle Max started setting up their little camp. Most people here had RVs, so the two of them stood out a bit with their tent and sleeping bags. But everyone was friendly, and all the barbecue smelled great, so Bart didn’t mind so much. Besides, he was used to being weird. Once they were done setting up, he decided to explore campus a bit. So he dressed in running clothes and took off at a fast jog. Well, it would look fast to everyone else.

It was so slow he wanted to scream.

A little ways up the road was a little farm that was apparently really important, because it had a historical marker beside it labeling it the “Old Rotation.” On the other side was a parking lot and a football field with a scaffold beside it. Across the parking lot and down a hill was a bus stop and a lot of dormitories. But past that, finally he started finding school buildings. And students. And eventually the football stadium.

It was pretty big. Uncle Max had told him that it wasn’t even the biggest football stadium in the state, let alone the country, but it was still pretty big. It was hung with pictures of cheerleaders, band members, and football players. On the ground were a bunch of banners from sororities and fraternities wishing the team success. The one that said “Hey, Bama! Your mascot’s fat!” made him laugh.

He wandered into the biggest building he could see, called Haley Center, and started poking around the gift shop. They sold textbooks and notebooks and folders, mostly. Bart supposed that made sense, since this was a really big school. But they also sold tee-shirts and sweatshirts and pants and hats and jewelry in Auburn colors. Outrageously priced, but even so. He bought some temporary tattoos that he thought Max might get a kick out of and started back towards their campsite.

As he passed under the stadium, he saw two people come around the side. Going fast. Speedster fast. Almost faster than that.

And they were walking.

He shouldn’t stare, but he couldn’t help it. Nobody could do that. It wasn’t possible.

Two men with light brown hair. They didn’t notice him. As they passed around the stadium, Bart heard one of them say “…between the third and fourth quarters…”

They disappeared around the far side of the stadium, going downhill and out of sight.

So, apparently even impossible walking speedsters were excited about the Iron Bowl.

…Okay, Bart felt a tiny little bit less ridiculous for looking forward to it himself now.

*~*~*

Bart mentioned the impossible speedsters to Max over dinner.

“Well, we can’t be the only metas in Alabama,” Max replied quietly.

“Why haven’t we heard about these ones?” Bart asked. “Especially since they can do something as amazing as that!”

“Not everyone wants to fight crime just because they have some ability or other,” Max said. “Or commit crime, come to that. Lots of metas just live their lives.”

Bart frowned. “That’s weird.”

“You may not always think so,” Max answered, looking distant.

Bart didn’t reply to that one. He couldn’t imagine ever not wanted to be a superhero. He saved people’s lives all the time! Granted, you didn’t need superpowers to do that. Tim didn’t have powers. Neither did the police. Or soldiers. Or were you only a superhero if you had superpowers? Or were you more of a superhero without superpowers?

Whatever. It was weird not to want to be a hero. Who wanted to be ordinary?

“Bart, I want you to leave them alone,” Max said suddenly.

“But I want to meet—”

“Absolutely not.” Max’s voice was as suppressive as Bart ever heard it. “You will not go looking for any other speedsters on campus. Under any circumstances whatsoever.”

Bart scowled. “I didn’t want to look for them anyway,” he muttered.

“Of course not,” Max said, sounding amused.

Bart didn’t roll his eyes. That never helped.

There was still plenty of campus to explore the next day, and more people were coming in from all over. Bart went the other direction from where he’d gone yesterday. It wasn’t that he was running away from Max, precisely, he just liked getting to know the spaces he found himself in. And apparently Auburn had cows on their campus. (What was it with these Southerners and cows?)

But the point was, the VR he’d grown up in had been limited by the capacity of the computer that controlled it. Not that he hadn’t liked Gideon, but he just hadn’t really understood. He hadn’t been able to spot the problems from the inside. He'd assumed, since he hadn't known any better, that if you ran really, really fast, the world around you had to buffer for a split second or two sometimes. Now that he could see that reality was not supposed to slide around you, or pause as you moved through it. Interacting with the world around him was constantly joyful because it was beautifully, wonderfully real. And if he wanted, he could just keep running on and on and on, and he would never reach the wall of the real world. (Though he would, eventually, run around the planet, but that wasn’t quite the same thing.) So exploring the Auburn campus was something he had been looking forward to. It was a big campus, and he loved the ability to get out and run, however slowly.

There were a lot of other people out running, college boys, college girls, visitors from out of town, professors, and what looked like a soccer team running by in formation. He passed a row of fraternity houses, and finally found the cows behind those. He stopped to watch them graze for a few moments, and then turned back towards the central campus. He’d just decided to go back to camp when he saw someone flash by, speedster-fast, beside the woods on the other side of the road.

This time, he was determined not to lose them, no matter what Uncle Max said. He checked to be sure no one was close and then zipped across the road before reverting back to his slow pace. Since he’d become an auxiliary member of the Bat-Clan, Batman had been training him. Batman had told him to trust his instincts and his instincts were telling him to find these speedsters.

(This was, maybe, a kind of generous version of Batman’s orders, but he wasn’t going to think about that right now.)

He plodded along the road, listening until he heard the rush of air that signified someone moving at speed from within the woods. They weren’t too dense, so he simply plunged in.

It was harder to get through these woods than it looked, and he didn’t want to startle anyone when he finally saw a little camp through the underbrush.

Alarm bells started going off in Bart’s mind. The camp was set just outside the woods, next to a little building beside an enormous telecommunications tower and several satellite dishes. There was a tailgating tent in Auburn colors, a grill, several chairs, and really everything you’d expect to see at a camp set up for a football game. But it was pretty far away from the stadium and not immediately visible from the main road. The television was not on, but there was a wire running from it to an orange extension cord. That was the first of a string of cords that led to a rather complicated set of clips that were fastened to a box on a satellite dish.

Bart couldn’t parse electronics the way Tim could, but that did not look like something that should be where it was. The camp looked normal enough, but was obviously set up somewhere where people would be unlikely to discover it, generally speaking. And the building it was beside obviously saw regular maintenance, but was probably empty most of the time.

Whoever these speedsters were, they probably wouldn’t appreciate visitors.

There were three of them. The two men Bart had seen yesterday and another man, with red hair.

One of the brown-haired men was walking around the tent at speed until he came to a stop and unclipped something from his belt. He placed it on top of one of the coolers.

“I think I’ve got the hang of how these work now,” he said. “It’s an odd feeling.”

“Very good. For the heist tomorrow, there can be no mistakes. We’ll have a limited window between the third and forth quarters,” the redheaded man said.

Bart couldn’t believe his ears. Not only were they not really speedsters, they were criminals.

“All right,” the first man said. The three nodded and then moved into the awkwardly polite ignoring-one-another thing that criminals did when they were working together, had no plans to double-cross anybody, but didn’t particularly like the people they were working with.

One thing Batman had told Bart was not to depend on luck. You could not rely on luck to save you or do your work for you. Be proactive and don’t expect a lead to just fall into your lap. On the other hand, if you did happen to stumble onto something, don’t give it up for anything short of absolute necessity. Because you couldn’t depend on luck, so there was no guarantee you would stumble onto the same thing again.

So Bart settled in and watched the three for three whole hours, but no one did anything remotely interesting. The red-headed man read a book. The two brown-haired men played checkers. Then one of them stretched out on a sleeping bag while the other went on a grocery run. The red-head kept reading his book.

Bart gave up. By the looks of things, there was no reason he couldn’t just send the police after these guys. So he snuck away from the camp and ran as fast as he could get away with without drawing attention to himself.

He got back to find Max concernedly searching all through their tent.

“Bart!” Max said, coming out. “I’ve been hunting for you everywhere. You missed lunch. Where were you?”

Bart skidded to a stop. He had planed on trying to figure out how to tell Max what he’d found in a way that he wouldn’t get mad, but he was suddenly confronted with the moment of truth and he had absolutely no idea what to say.

“Tell me you didn’t go looking for them,” Max suddenly said.

“I didn’t!” Bart protested. (Lied!) He hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d found them by mistake. He hadn’t been looking. Much. Entirely. Sort of. (Liar!)

“Then where were you?” Max demanded.

Bart thought for a moment. If he told Max what he’d seen, Max would go ballistic. And it was really irritating that Max immediately assumed that he had gone looking for the speedsters. He ignored the tiny voice in his mind that said chasing one down after a chance encounter probably counted as “looking for them” which technically meant Max was right.

He wasn’t going to tell him.

“I went for a run,” Bart said, “and lost track of time. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Well, I saved you some food,” Max said, looking considerably less worried.

“Thanks!” Bart said brightly. He started eating and didn’t tell Max where he’d been.

But he was still calling the police.

*~*~*

Saturday morning was cool and crisp. Bart could tell, as soon as he woke up it was game day. Not because it was written on the sky or anything, but because a group of people were playing a song in their camp.

He crawled out of his tent to see them all wearing tubas, gray shirts, and navy shorts, instruments moving in unison. Around a stylized A on their shirts, Bart could read the words “Auburn University Marching Band.” So these were some of the students, then.

Everyone cheered when they finished and ran out of the camp. Bart turned to Max, who’d followed him out and said, “I guess there’s no getting back to sleep now?”

Max laughed.

Looking around the camp, Bart had to admit he could see game day in the air now. But he couldn’t feel very much like a participant. He was too busy wondering what had happened at the criminal camp. He could hear people getting up, and everyone greeted one another with “War Eagle!” (which nobody could explain what that meant) and he was busy looking for a way to escape the camp and go check on how the police did.

It took several minutes to get out of sight, but when he did, he decided to risk running at speed and took off for the campsite as fast as he could. As soon as he got close, he took a detour into the woods to slow down (“If you don’t take more care with your civilian identity, you will lose it,” Batman lectured in his head. “That may be something you choose to do eventually, but losing it through carelessness is not the way you want to do it.”) before creeping back to where he’d seen those guys tailgating.

There were several police cars. There were several cops combing the area as if they’d only just arrived. Maybe they’d been busy and hadn’t bothered until just now? Illicit tailgating spots probably wasn’t the worst crime going on right now. But the only thing at the campe was a half-full beer can covered in ants.

One officer was looking at another with a puzzled expression on his face. “You saw that camp here too, though?”

“Yeah, it was here,” the second cop agreed, scowling at the empty space. “How they disappeared that quick is beyond me, but we’d better call it in.”

Bart blew out a frustrated breath. Of course they’d left. They were speedsters (fake ones, but still), so they’d bugged out as soon as they saw the cops on the approach. They weren’t going to wait around to find out what made the cops interested in them until after they’d…

Bart froze in realization.

…Until after they’d gotten away.

They would probably watch. From a distance. Hidden somewhere. He scanned his surroundings, and didn’t see anyone. But that just meant he had space to leave.

Leave. Leave now. He wasn’t going to give up, but he needed to find a new angle.

If returning to their little camp was frustrating, spending the day waiting for the game to start was absolute agony. Everyone was excited, the air smelled like good food, Max had talked him into wearing Auburn colors, and none of it even mattered! The fake speedsters were going to…do something! Or other!

Great work, Impulse, Bart thought to himself. You have successfully uncovered exactly enough of a criminal plot to make yourself sound like a particularly creative mental patient if you try to explain what you know to anybody else. Max would probably keel over laughing if Bart said the words “fake speedsters” to him.

He found himself wanting to turn ten different directions at once. He had to do something. But he couldn’t give himself away. But he had to do something!

Bart felt like he was standing in the Batcave during one of the training days, looking at the logic puzzle that would open the door in front of him. Trying to vibrate through it had earned him a nasty shock and sent Nightwing into giggles.

Batman hadn’t laughed. Instead, he’d yelled, “Bart! Slow down and think!”

Batman’s voice was in his head now. “Slow down and think.”

Okay, so, what did he know? A bunch of people were going to rob the stadium. They were going to do it between the third and fourth quarters.

Wait. Why then? What was happening then? Nothing came immediately to mind, so Bart brought it up to Max over lunch.

“Does anything interesting happen between the quarters?” There. That was a totally unsuspicious question.

“Not really,” Max replied. “The band plays things. They play their pregame over again between quarters three and four.”

Somehow, Bart didn’t think the band was in danger of being stolen. Unless the red-head was a male version of Carmen Sandiego.

“You should eat more than you think you need to,” Max said. “Food in the stadium is very expensive.”

“Oh?”

“Definitely. Four bucks for a hotdog and it isn't even that good,” one of Max’s friends agreed.

“Do we have enough cash if we need something or should we stop by an ATM?” Max asked.

Cash? Oh! That was what they were going to steal. Well that was…refreshingly traditionalist. If the concession stands handled a lot of cash, then they probably got rid of it pretty quick at the end of the game. And since these guys weren’t really speedsters, then some of their plan would probably depend on them moving at normal-people speed. The concessions were probably busier during lulls in the game, which meant the workers would be distracted and easier to surprise. So they’d get almost the maximum amount of cash if they moved between quarters three and four. And the bad guys wouldn’t risk one of the concession stands getting their money away and into wherever it was stored before they could rip it off.

Okay. So that was the plan. Probably. What was he going to do about it?

He turned to Max, opened his mouth, and stopped. There were too many people around. He’d have to use some kind of really weird code. And then Max wouldn’t understand enough of what he was trying to say until it was too late.

This was so frustrating. He had no idea what to do next! And he still hadn’t figured out how those guys were faking super-speed. Bart hadn’t even known you could fake that. But these guys were zipping all over the place, just like speedsters.

On the other hand, this was an enormous school…

Bart snuck out of camp. He didn’t remember what excuse he made. It was probably lame. He walked into the corn planted in the Old Rotation field and as soon as he was obscured from view of the camp, he activated his costume ring. It was past time for Impulse to get to work.

He ran—finally, really, truly, wonderfully ran, without hiding or trying to pretend—down the road to a building he’d seen on his earlier campus tour. The library. It looked huge! If he was going to find anything about faking super-speed, it’d be in here.

Much to Bart’s surprise, the library on campus was actually full of people. He heard more than one surprised exclamation as he dashed through the doors. He zipped straight to the nearest shelf of books and began browsing through the titles. He looked through a quarter of the titles on the floor when he realized he had no idea how to begin looking things up in the catalog system that the library apparently used. He ran back to the front desk and stopped.

A bored-looking college student in an Auburn shirt looked up and then blinked at him in shock. “Ah…hi. Are you…you aren’t The Flash, are you?”

Bart shook his head. “I’mImpulse. Ineedtofigureouthowtofakesuperspeed. DoyouknowwhereIwouldfindbooksaboutthat?”

It took the guy—Jack according to his nametag—a moment to figure out what he said. Then he shook his head. “Not me. But one of our librarians is an engineering major. She might know. Let me call her.” He pulled out his phone.

Bart seized his hand. “Doesshewearanametag?”

Jack nodded, staring at Bart’s hand in fascination. “Yes.”

“What’shername?”

“Ashley.”

Bart zipped away, running down everyone wearing a nametag that said Ashley and asking if they were an engineering major. He found the right Ashley on his third try, a cheerful redheaded girl behind a desk in the bottom floor.

“Faking superspeed?” She thought for a moment, so slowly that Bart wanted to scream. “There was a time dilation device that someone invented that could do that.”

Bart blinked. “What’stimedilation?”

Ashley took him to a basement floor and sat him down in front of a huge stack of engineering periodicals. “There was a guy named Dr. Wataki who invented this machine. You could use it to alter the way time flowed for you relative to the rest of the world. You could make yourself go really slowly, or really fast. But you experienced everything normally.”

Bart concentrated very hard on speaking at normal-person speed. “Why would you want to slow yourself down?”

“If you were dying of cancer, you could slow yourself down until somebody cured it. Or maybe slowing a patient down would make it easier to do complex surgeries? You’d have to find a doctor to ask about that one,” she said.

“Can you spell his name?” Bart asked.

“W-A-T-A-K-I,” Ashley spelled.

Bart paged through all the journals in front of him at speed, ignoring Ashley’s surprised look. He found two journal articles and one reprinting of a news article. The two journal articles were by Dr. Wataki. One discussed his work in developing the devices. Another talked about the experiments he did on plants once the devices were operational. The news article, “reprinted with permission from the Gotham Herald,” gave an account of The Clock King using the devices to try and kill the mayor, only to be stopped by Batman and Robin. From the picture accompanying the article, Bart knew this was not Tim-Robin, but Nightwing-Robin who had been the one to work the case.

He nodded to Ashley. “Thanks!”

As he ran from the room he heard her shout “War Eagle!” after him. He shook his head. He still had no idea what that meant.

He took a quick detour to change back into civilian clothes, and start walking for the camp again. As he walked, he dug out his cell phone and dialed the number Tim had given him to contact one of the Bats. Emergencies only. He hoped this qualified.

The line made an odd noise as it connected, and then a friendly voice said, “Hello?”

“Nightwing? It’s Bart,” he said, trying to find a spot where he could say something about the situation without being so ambiguous Nightwing might not understand him.

“Hey, Bart!” Nightwing still sounded friendly and upbeat, but there was an undertone of concern. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine, but something’s come up. There’s some guys here using a machine that can make people who aren’t metas into speedsters using time dilation. I read a news article that said you and Batman had that case?”

“Come again?” Nightwing said. And, okay, that probably wasn’t the clearest explanation ever.

“There’s some guys. Thieves, I think. They’re using these machines made by a guy named Dr. Wataki to fake super-speed. Didn’t you and Batman work a case with a guy called the Clock King who used those?”

“Wow,” Nightwing said, sounding a bit surprised. “It’s been a while since I thought about that case. I remember those things, though. They looked sorta like an old tape recorder. You could wear ‘em clipped to your belt. Weirdest feeling in the world, wearing those.”

“What happened to them? After that case?” Bart asked.

"Oh, geez, I don't even remember. Let me check the casefile."

There was a pause and Bart heard keys clicking.

"And…here it is!” There was another slight pause and then Nightwing said, “By the time Batman and I made it to Dr. Wataki, there were three of those things left. Two were destroyed. The last one was returned to Dr. Wataki. What he did with it, we don’t have a record.”

“Could anyone else make more of them?” Bart pressed.

“They’d have to be smart, even to reverse engineer them. As in STAR Labs smart. And that’s assuming that Wataki let anyone ever look at the one he had again. And that he didn’t just destroy it outright. He was pretty bummed,” Nightwing answered. “It’s possible, though. Grodd could probably do it.”

“The Clock King couldn’t?” Bart asked.

Nightwing laughed. “Not even on his best day. No, someone would have to be an engineer.”

Bart frowned. “Do you know of any red-headed engineers?” He felt kind of bad after how nice Ashley had been, but he supposed every red-headed engineer couldn't be as great.

“Red-headed?”

“I got a look at the guys. The one that looked like he was in charge had red hair,” Bart said.

“Describe him.”

“Ah, on the tall side of average, skinny, pointy chin…”

“Was he wearing anything that had question marks? Or anything green? Or both?”

“No. I think he had a question mark bookmark. Maybe,” Bart answered. His phone beeped. He looked down to see that Nightwing had just sent him a picture. When he opened it, a mug shot of a man, holding a sign that said “Edward Nygma” lit up the screen. “That’s the guy! Wait. I know that name. We drilled on it. The…Riddler?”

“Yes. The Riddler. What is he doing in Alabama?” Nightwing sounded more perplexed than anything else. A part of Bart agreed with him. What were any of them doing in Alabama, really? Still, this time he actually had a reply.

“Planning to rob a football game, apparently,” Bart answered.

“What?”

So Bart laid out what he believed the plan was.

“That…might actually work,” Nightwing sighed, background noise suggesting he was doing something on the Batcomputer. “I can’t believe he got one of those stupid things… Bart, I’m looking at traffic patterns on the ground and in the air. Auburn has a flyover scheduled for the game, a blimp, advertising planes… They’ve blocked any air traffic without specific authorization from even coming into the area. Getting official JLA authorization would take hours, since we have to argue with the FAA and ATC and whoever's in charge of Auburn airspace all at once to get it. And even if I did just fly in anyway, between the time it would take to fly there, land, and get through all the traffic and to the stadium, I don’t think I can get to you in time to help. Superman, Kon, and Supergirl are all helping with tsunami relief in Indonesia right now…”

“I’m on my own, you mean,” Bart said.

“It looks that way,” Nightwing said. “You’ve got your communicator?”

Bart slid a hand into his pocket and then said, “Right here.”

“Good. You’ve got me and Oracle right here if you need us. We’re working on a research project, so we’ll be pretty easy to reach. Batman is going to be on patrol tonight, so he’ll be in and out, but he’s here, too. I’ll fill him in. Don’t forget that it is okay to call the police if you need back up. Remember your training.”

Bart nodded. “I need to go dark for a while. I’ll get back in touch with you once I'm inside the stadium.”

He hung up and rejoined Max as quickly as he could.

When he arrived back at the camp, Max was frowning. “Bart, where have you been?”

“Sorry!” Bart said. “I was at the library and I lost track of time.” Technically true, even if it omitted some fairly important parts.

Max gave him an odd look. “Bart, is everything all right? You’ve been disappearing a lot these past few days.”

Bart tried one more time to think of a way to tell Max what was going on and utterly failed to do it. “Everything’s fine,” he said.

Max eyed him narrowly and finally said, “All right, well, it’s time to go.”

They packed up their camp, gathered their orange-and-blue shakers, tickets, and jackets (where Bart had hidden the utility belt Batman insisted he carry because Batman was mean), because the temperature was dropping, and started heading towards the stadium.

At this point, most people were streaming towards the center of campus, talking excitedly, waving shakers, shouting “War Eagle” or “Roll Tide” at each other, or chanting through various cheers. The crowd swelled as they approached the stadium until Bart was getting bumps and jostles from all sides. The atmosphere was friendly and excited and a tiny part of Bart could see the appeal. If he were not preoccupied trying to figure out how to stop the Riddler from stealing a lot of money, this would actually be fun.

They entered through one of the stadium’s gates, handed their tickets to someone who tore off a stub, and started for their seats. And, after fighting their way through the crowd, and up a ramp, they made it to their spot about mid-way up the stands in the north end-zone.

Almost against his will, Bart found himself actually enjoying the pregame festivities. The Alabama band was already in their seats and playing music. The section for Alabama fans was actually not that far away to his left. The Auburn cheerleaders were at the other end of the stadium, leading the crowd in cheers. When Auburn's band entered, it was to shouts and cheers from most of the stadium, and boos from the visiting fans to his left.

It took him forever to get away from Max and radio in to the Bats. Batman acknowledged him casually, though Bart could tell he was struggling not to add about ten or twenty pieces of advice. It was heartening to know that Batman considered him enough of a team-member to worry about him. Bart mentioned, trying to be equally casual, that they could listen to the game over the radio if they wanted. Batman said Nightwing and Oracle already were.

Bart bought a coke to explain his absence and rejoined Max in their seats.

The first half was agony. The worst part was that he was actually watching a pretty good football game. The score remained tied or close the entire time, and Bart wished he could actually just…watch the game. Max had been right. This was fun. He was distracted, but it was pretty fun.

Halftime passed. It was fully dark, though the stadium lights were as bright as daylight. Bart had clocked the football quarters at about thirty to forty-five minutes apiece. Figuring in some breather time between them and twenty minutes of halftime, it looked like he’d had about two-and-a-half hours of downtime. He told Max he had to go use the bathroom and made his way down the bleacher steps and back under the seats to the concourse.

He wasn’t sure how many cameras there were out on the main concourse, so he ducked into a bathroom to change into his costume. Then he zipped back to the concourse and looked around.

“Okay, if I were a sneaky jerk wanting to steal a lot of money, where would I start?” he mused out loud, drawing confused glances from several people around him. He looked up. “Where would I start?” He didn’t even know where everything in the stadium was, let alone all the concessions. Bad guys usually did some studying up on their targets first, so they probably had a layout in mind of how they were going to do this. This was his first time in the stadium.

Well, he had perfect recall. Time to put it to work.

Bart raced down to the lowest level of the stadium and began to run every single inch of the place, noting where everything important was. There was an ambulance underneath the Auburn band’s seats along with what looked like the bomb squad. The Auburn locker room and a few offices were on the ground beneath the jumbotron. He worked his way around the bottom level, noting where the police and emergency workers were, and taking special account of every single entrance or exit (way too many). Just to be thorough, he also did a lap around the sidelines of the field.

There was a play in motion as he ran around, so the entire field seemed a little like a three-dimensional tv show on pause. The ball was mid-pass, frozen in the air, all the players racing around it with weird, angry expressions that people had when they concentrated really hard. And while it was always fun to look at stuff like that, Bart was not really happy with what he saw. The players on the field were running around in a crazy free-for-all, a whole bunch of camera people were running around to film things for the Jumbotron, there were three separate news channel film crews, a giant (live!) eagle, a whole bunch of cheerleaders, some hired security people, a handful of cops, all the football players who weren’t in the game just now, a nearly equal amount of coaches and staff to teammembers, some referees, and a few people whose function Bart couldn’t entirely place.

The field was absolute chaos. Hopefully, he could keep the bad guys off it.

The trouble was, as Bart worked his way upwards, the field was actually the most organized part of the entire mess. There were way too many people doing way too many things for him to have any hope of controlling the situation. He ran all the way up to the back of the upper deck behind the press box and hit the button on his communicator.

“Batman here,” came the immediate response.

“Batman, it’s Impulse.” He took a deep breath and it didn’t help him calm down at all. “There’s too many people! There’s too much stuff going on! I can’t contain a situation like this, even with my speed! And they’re speedsters too, the dirty, rotten cheaters! I don’t know what to do!”

“What have you got so far?” Batman asked in a voice that Bart suspected was intentionally slow and calm, but it did help.

So Bart explained what he knew (which he knew Batman would’ve already been told) and his survey of the stadium.

“So you know the layout of the stadium, then?” Batman said.

“Yeah, I’ve got it memorized now,” Bart answered. Some people around him were starting to notice he was there.

“Whatever their planned route is will be impossible to guess. So where can you be reasonably sure you can intercept them?”

Bart frowned thoughtfully. “I think—oh! There’s this booth over there! Well, lots of booths, but it’s full of rich people with, like, lots of expensive watches and stuff!”

There was a long pause. “On the main level?”

“No. It’s up pretty high, behind some glass,” Bart scowled. “This is a gamble, isn’t it? Nygma…he plans stuff out, right? Not a risk-taker? So he wouldn’t waste time with people who might not even be wearing anything expensive to steal.”

“Rich people love to show off,” Batman said in a way that made Bart realize that he must know that from experience. “Nygma knows that, he thinks he’s the only one in there with speed, and he doesn’t know anyone’s on to him,”

Bart blinked.

Since he’d been kinda-sorta absorbed by Team Bat, he had made himself a personal rule. He hadn’t told anyone else, and he didn’t think they’d figured it out yet, but he was sticking with it. Don’t Try To Learn Anything About The Team. He didn’t ask about their lives or what they did on the weekends. He tried not to notice anything they owned or personal marks. He just…didn’t pay attention.

But every so often, something would happen that he couldn’t miss and he’d find something out by mistake. Like just now. Something about the way Batman had said that made him absolutely certain that not only was Batman rich himself, but he’d been held up by the Riddler in his civilian identity at some point. He winced. He wasn’t supposed to know that!

He refocused on the conversation, trying to ignore the new knowledge he was not supposed to have. “I called the police on his camp this morning,” Bart confessed.

“Were they doing anything they shouldn’t have been?”

“I don’t think they were supposed to be tailgating there…” People even further away were starting to look over now.

“You should be okay. Go set up your ambush. Keep your comm line active and check in on schedule.”

“Got it. Impulse out!” He zoomed away before anyone could take a picture of him.

The time left in the third quarter was down to fifteen seconds. Plenty of time for him to get to the other side of the stadium and find somewhere good to hide.

When he arrived, Bart discovered that this section of the stadium was climate controlled, and apparently those giant windows could open, because there were hinges here and there. But even Alabama had winter eventually and it was pretty cold outside, so they were all shut tight against the chill. There was an actual buffet of delicious-looking catered food, and Bart felt his stomach rumble as he realized he hadn’t eaten anything since he’d left Max in the stands. Which was only five minutes ago, but in speedster-metabolism-time, that might as well be hours!

No. He was not a thief. Even of very tasty-looking buffet food. He was here to catch thieves. He couldn’t see anywhere to hide on the floor, but when he looked up, there was a very promising-looking recess in the ceiling that cast a deep shadow he could hide in.

Bart zoomed up the wall and dropped into the shadow, out of sight.

Much to his surprise, Batman hadn’t changed a whole lot about Bart’s costume. They’d added some armor (light, so he could still move quickly), and the annoying utility belt, that didn’t fit into his ring, and then soaked the whole thing in some awful smelling gunk that made all the colors matte. Even bright colors, like the big white jags down the sides of his costume were muted and sneaky unless a light was shining right on them. So long as Bart kept his hands and feet tucked in, he was pretty well hidden.

The last few seconds on the quarter ticked down. Bart could follow it on a little TV tucked up in a corner. And then ten minutes went up and started counting down in real time.

The time started passing. It was absolutely excruciating. At three minutes in, it was 9:30, bottom of the hour and the rest of the team started checking in on the comm. Bart quietly reported himself present and alive. Time was running out and the bad guys hadn’t shown up yet. There were only five minutes left before the fourth quarter. He was running out of time.

And then he heard it. Two minutes left and there was that odd, slightly wrong-sounding footfall of people moving speedster-fast but walking. They were coming.

Yes!

He squeezed himself fractionally closer to the wall, hoping he wasn’t squishing a spider, or getting dust in his hair, or something else that would make him look dumb. And then he saw them!

Edward Nygma was actually wearing his Riddler suit! Green blazer, green bowler hat, question-mark tie… Wow. Bart had never actually seen one of the bona fide Gotham villains this up-close before. The two henchmen he had were wearing a uniform, too. Slacks, waistcoats, and question-mark ties. It was a weird choice, given that their plan was to move so fast no one could even appreciate their stylish outfits, but maybe that was just what Gotham criminals were like? They were all wearing backpacks that looked about three-quarters full. Still, that was probably a pretty good haul. Cash never took up as much space as it seemed like it should.

They started moving down into the box, taking jewelry straight off necks and watches straight off wrists. They weren’t shy about going through wallets, either. But, to Bart’s surprise, they weren’t really going that fast. Fast for normal people, sure. But not for a speedster. He dropped out of his hiding place.

“I don’t think that stuff is really yours,” he announced.

The three turned.

“Who the hell are you?” Nygma demanded.

“I’m Impulse. Give me all the stuff you stole and I’ll go give it back instead of beating you up,” Bart replied.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever met a thief before, kid,” Nygma said, “but we don’t steal stuff and then give it back.”

“You’re not in Gotham. And you will give it back,” Bart said, his hands balling into fists. He’d never had to fight a fake speedster before. He’d probably need more of the combat training that Batman had been drilling him on, since these guys could move just as fast as him.

“Not a chance. But let’s make this interesting.” Nygma grabbed one of the people in the seats, a boy about Bart’s age, and then he and his henchmen turned their machines off.

Bart had no idea how he was going to put this part in his report. How “time went back to normal” because time had been normal for him a second ago and it was still normal for him now. He could track how everyone suddenly reacted, though.

“Holy shit!”

“Is that the Riddler?”

“You’re supposed to be in Gotham City!”

“Yes, it’s all very terrifying,” Nygma announced, clearly bored by the fear of the people scrambling away. “But I’ll make all you minuscule intellects a deal. Keep that brat away from me,” he pointed at Bart, “give me all your valuables, and make sure no one opposes me, and I’ll let this brat go.”

Bart kept his feet planted firmly on the floor, not moving. But this didn’t seem like it could last very long. Nygma’s whole plan depended on him being able to move at super-speed. While this approach guaranteed that Bart would stay back for now, it would take too long. The police would come up here any second.

He could see Nygma coming to this same conclusion. “On second thought. Boys! We’ve got enough!”

He pulled out a gun, prompting screams from the people around them, and fired four shots into the glass in a rectangle pattern.

Bart winced, hoping nothing important—like maybe a person—was currently wherever those bullets ended up.

Then the three bad guys turned their devices back on and Nygma ran—properly ran—straight at the window, shattering it outwards. Bart rushed after, bolts of lightning dancing across his arms and legs as he moved. But with the stupid cheat machines, he wasn’t going to be able to stop Nygma from getting out of the box.

He wasn’t entirely sure how this part was going to work. Speedsters could survive really long falls because they could move fast enough to translate their energy from downward to horizontal before they were squished. Nygma was speeding up his own experience of time relative to everything else, but did that mean he was about to fall a fatal distance really, really, really fast (which would mean he and that kid hostage were already dead)? Or did it mean he would fall at a normal speed, but be conscious of that fall at super-speed (which would let him do what speedsters did and get moving before gravity did something that could not be fixed)?

Training with Batman was weird, because most of the time, Bart felt like an idiot. Batman just knew so much. And he was really, really smart. But when it came to speedster stuff, Bart felt like their roles got reversed because he always knew how it worked. “Intuitive,” was the word Agent A had used. Something understood without needing explanation. But the thing is, Bart could usually explain it, too. Like how to safely run down the side of a building, or fall from somewhere really high, or phase through a wall. Even Grandpa Barry had to figure out phasing, but Bart had just known.

For the first time in a long time, Bart didn’t know how something about speed was going to work and he was absolutely terrified.

Bart was out of the broken window neck-and-neck with Nygma’s two goons. He burst out into the open air, and saw—to his relief—that Nygma was falling at normal speed. Or, what it looked like for him, floating towards the bleachers below them. Even more of a relief, the glass had broken into pieces small enough that they couldn't do more than cause minor cuts to anyone they landed on.

“Wait until you land to fight him!” Bart called to the hostage, who was squirming and struggling.

The kid’s eyes went wide, and then his arms looped around Nygma’s neck really tight. Bart grinned a little savagely. He hoped it hurt. As soon as they hit the ground, Nygma took off, running again, for the field, still dragging his hostage along.

So much for keeping the bad guys out of the center ring.

Bart hit the ground at the same time as the Riddler’s two goons, and he stayed right with them step for step for step, as they ran down right next to Auburn’s marching band in their seats. All the way until they were on the level ground of field level. As soon as they were next to where the cheerleaders were standing, he snatched their time-thingies off their belts. They’d stumble and fall and probably break a lot of bones, but they wouldn’t die. And they’d be right next to a bunch of people who’d be able to call some of the gazillion medics in here over to help.

So, now for the Riddler.

This one was going to be tricky. Bart could usually move and think so much faster than whoever he was fighting that they couldn’t put up much resistance. The ones he couldn’t outrun, he could at least outthink. But now, he had to outthink the Riddler.

He drew his gun again and pointed it at the kid’s head. “Stay there, or I kill the kid!”

Bart frowned. “Pretty dark for you, isn’t that? I mean, you do kill people, but not usually this directly. Besides, the bullets will stop being fast as soon as they leave the barrel.” He wasn’t going to press his luck on this with the hostage on the line, but he had a feeling.

Nygma scowled. “So much for that bluff.”

Called it!

“So how does this go, Speedster? You’re a scrawny kid. Your speed may solve that problem most of the time, but not today," Nygma continued.

“Let me go!” the other kid shouted, kicking his feet.

Bart frowned as he looked Nygma over. The man was kind of a string bean himself, but a full-grown adult and a career criminal. Bart wasn’t looking to trade punches. Less with a hostage to worry about.

Waitasecond… Nygma could only apply his time dilation to anyone or anything he was actually in contact with. Bart could actually move that fast. Which meant he could throw things that fast. And maybe this utility belt wasn’t actually as mean as Bart had been thinking it was, because in one of the pouches was a supply of little metal throwing disks.

Bart grabbed three out and started throwing them. The first, he aimed for the gun. The second was aimed at Nygma’s face, and the third he threw straight for that dumb speed thingy.

Much to Bart’s shock, all three hit their targets. He'd practiced aiming so they hit what he wanted, but he'd thought for sure that Nygma would duck. Apparently not. Nygma’s gun went flying off towards the visiting team’s bench. The next disk smacked into his chin and jerked his head back, breaking his concentration on the boy he was holding who started to drop to the ground.

Then the third one hit the time device and shattered it.

Like up in the booth, time "went back to normal" for Riddler, but didn't seem to change for Bart.

There was a big reaction from everyone in the stadium. A sound like a deep "Oh!" went up from all around and there were multiple screams. Bart ignored all of that and ran towards the hostage, hauling the other kid to his feet.

"My parents are still up there!" the kid said.

Bart looked around and caught sight of several police running out from under the bleachers near where the Alabama marching band was seated. "Go over to those officers. Run!"

The kid took off.

Bart turned to see Nygma headed up the middle of the field, actually making decent time. And, to Bart's dismay, there were no police over on that end of the stadium. Given that most of the break between the quarters had elapsed, Bart had a feeling at least some of the thefts had been reported and the officers were spread too thin to cover Nygma's escape.

Well. That would just have to be his job.

Bart rushed down the field, tackling Nygma mid-stride onto a giant picture painted on the grass.

Nygma struggled free of Bart's grasp and threw a punch at Bart, prompting a roar of noise from the crowd.

Bart ducked it easily, feeling confused. Sure, when he was at super-speed, Nygma had a chance of that working, but now? Bart snapped his elbow back and swung his fist into Nygma's chin at exactly the speed he'd practiced over and over and over and over on that dumb dummy Batman made him hit a thousand times.

Nygma went down like a sack of bricks, unconscious but alive.

Apparently practice did make perfect.

A deafening roar went up from the crowd, startling him. To make it even worse, somebody was on comms yelling in his ear, but the crowd noise was so loud he couldn't hear them.

He pressed his hand to one ear and tilted his head. "Say again! I can't hear you!"

"Look up! Impulse, look up!"

Bart couldn't make out whose voice it was, but he looked, half expecting to see a new problem.

Instead, he saw himself, a hundred times larger than life on the field's Jumbotron, standing in his costume in the center of the field over an unconscious Riddler with a surprised expression on his face. An enormously loud fanfare started up from Auburn's band.

"Are they…playing the fight song for me?" Bart asked.

"We're going to need to work on your stealth training," Batman said through the comm, but he sounded amused instead of serious.

Bart looked around and saw that not only was everyone in the seats cheering, but all the people on the field were too. Members of both teams were flat-out jumping up and down, and a few looked like they were about to start running over.

No. That could not happen.

Bart turned to the police he'd sent the kid hostage towards and waved at them to come over. Three of them jogged over to where he was standing as the Auburn band started up on their fight song.

"Is this really the Riddler from Gotham City?" the first asked. An officer Gibson by his nametag, who'd apparently been imported from somewhere called Beauregard.

"It's really him. I'm not sure why he didn't send any riddle clues to anyone this time, but you can ask him that when you book him. He had two other guys helping him. They're the two over collapsed by the…Auburn cheerleaders," Bart said, pointing. "The hostage he had came from up there. His parents are probably pretty worried. And all the money and stuff they stole is probably in those backpacks they have. Most of it's cash, so who knows how you're gonna get it all back to whatever booth they took it from, but at least you can mark it recovered."

"Sounds like we might as well go home, then," another one, a Makela with a shield that marked him from Opelika, joked.

"Don't do that! I'm in enough trouble as it is!" Bart said.

"Kid, they don't just randomly play the fight song for people," Gibson said, "and the Bama fans aren't even booing. And they hate that song. I don't think 'trouble' is the word for this."

Bart nodded with a shaky smile. He was thinking of Max. But he turned and waved to the stadium at large, now going through the second round of "War Eagle," the Auburn fight song, and then raced off the field.

He hadn't expected so many eyes to be on him, but now he could see people starting to react wherever he ran inside the stadium. He sighed, and ran into one of the bathrooms and then started phasing. He ran through several walls until he entered the next men's bathroom on the concourse and stopped in an empty stall. He swapped back into his civilian clothes at speed.

"Good work, Bart," Batman said.

"But everyone saw me," Bart protested.

"With your mask on. We all get spotted now and then," Batman answered.

"By ESPN?" Bart shot back.

"You did get spotted a bit more than most," Batman admitted. "Nightwing is making a giant poster of you right now."

"Oh no," Bart groaned. "Max is gonna kill me."

"We'll get Zatanna to bring you back if he does," Batman answered. "I meant it, Bart. Good work."

"Thanks. Going off comms now," Bart said. He tugged his communicator out and hid it in his coat.

It took him several minutes to fight through all the celebrating people, who were taking advantage of the extended quarter break (apparently another fifteen minutes had been added to get everything back under control) to try and buy concessions (even though only a few booths could take cards and all the ones that only took cash were now closed and turning everyone away) and compare notes with other people around them. The radio broadcasters, who were being played over some pretty loud speakers on the concourse, were dissecting every second of his confrontation with Nygma and his goons. It sounded like they were referring to a video of the action.

Sure enough, when Bart made it back out of the tunnel to the section his seats were in, he was on the Jumbotron, bursting through that stupid window right next to Riddler's two mooks. They same two announcers were being broadcast here, too, and apparently had a lot to say about how responsible he was to look around at the falling glass and the technique he used to land so that the fall wasn't fatal.

Eh, it was their job to analyze athletes, he supposed.

Bart dragged his feet the whole way to where Max was sitting. No one would suspect him for a speedster now. And then, suddenly, he was at the right row. He shuffled along past several people and then…there was Max.

He looked upset. Hurt-upset, not angry-upset.

Bart hadn't expected that.

"Uh…hi," Bart said. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get back. There was…a really long line at the bathroom."

Max nodded vaguely. "I'm glad it didn't hold you up too long."

This was really, really weird. Bart had genuinely expected him to be a lot angrier than this. "I…really am sorry about how long the line was." It was a lame excuse, but he couldn't apologize better in public. People would hear.

Max looked up at him with a very strange expression. All he said was, "Well, we can talk about it later."

Bart nodded. He tried really hard to enjoy the rest of the game. Auburn won, 23 to 17, but even on the way back to camp, most people seemed to want to talk about the Riddler, and Bart was in all the highlight reels.

Max didn't say anything as they climbed into their truck. He didn't say anything as they slowly (so, excruciatingly slowly) made their way off campus and to the interstate. He didn't even say anything when they reached the interstate, where the traffic was absolutely bumper to bumper, but was at least moving a little bit.

Bart's eyelids were drooping when Max finally said, "Tell me what happened."

So Bart told him, finally coming clean about all the times he'd tried to say something and failed. "So, I went up to that spot behind those glass windows and I hid until they came up. The rest…well, the rest the entire country probably knows about by now."

"It was a little public," Max laughed. He looked a little more relaxed. "Well, I'm glad you wanted to tell me anyway."

"Well, yeah, but… I mean. I'm trying not to be so much trouble all the time, I just… Anyway, I'm sorry for messing up the trip. It was a really cool game."

Max nodded. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"So I'm not in trouble?"

"You are absolutely grounded."

"What? But I stopped the Riddler!"

"You are grounded for not telling me what was going on. If you had and I'd ignored you, this conversation would be me apologizing, instead of you. Starting Monday morning at six and until Friday after school, you will come straight home after school. No TV. No Impulse. Texting, phone calls, and comms are okay, internet is not."

Bart blinked. "Only school nights? Only a week?"

"Do you want more?"

"No! That's…erm. I mean, I…won't complain. Much. Probably."

"You should've told me. Even if you were afraid you'd sound dumb. We're still learning to trust each other, so I understand why you hesitated, but this could've ended much worse."

Bart looked at Max, trying to imagine himself having made a different decision. Where he would've done it. He couldn't. "I'll try."

Max sighed. "All right. Progress. You're still grounded next week."

Bart nodded.

"Get some rest."

They didn't get back home until around 2 AM. Bart called Tim's personal phone, knowing he'd probably still be out on patrol. They chatted for a bit, and Tim had just finished saying that Nygma had made a statement during booking about how he'd just been trying to score some cash, so apparently this crime "didn't count" and therefore wasn't worthy of riddle clues (But was worthy of the Riddler outfit for some reason, which made Bart think that maybe Batman was onto something with his "superstitious and cowardly" thing he would repeat about twenty billion times), when Bart accidentally mentioned that Max had been upset not to be in on what was going on until it was all over.

"Wait, wait, wait, you didn't tell Max?" Tim screeched, loudly enough that Bart was sure he'd just given his position away to every lowlife in the city.

"Yell louder, I don't think Kon heard you in Indonesia yet," Bart said. Smacking himself in the head for being an idiot because he had not meant to mention that.

"Oh, Kon saw you during the game. Apparently they took a break to watch. Haven't his texts come through yet?" Tim replied.

"What? No. Nothing. Apparently weird cell phone things are normal this weekend around here."

"Big load to process through," Tim said. "Anyway, why didn't you tell Max?"

"I've messed his life up enough as it is," Bart said firmly. "Who knows where I'll end up if I mess things up any worse?"

Tim was quiet for a long time. Finally, he said, "People don't really stick around for you, do they?"

Bart flinched. "It's not so bad."

"Not the point."

"It didn't mess you up!" Because Bart didn't want to talk about this. He absolutely did not.

"I tried to steal all of Batman's junk, okay!"

Which wasn't the answer Bart had been expecting. "You stole stuff?"

"Not very well. He caught me every time. But I decided that I needed to be ready for when he kicked me out. Have a stash, so that I could get by selling or spending just a little at a time. I didn't realize until a long time after that I was trying to make him mad enough that he'd kick me out before I got attached."

Bart blinked. "You never said."

"Duh. No one talks about this crap! And if you tell anyone I told you, I'll put you in traction. But the point is, my dad had just died and Batman was the only one…who, like, didn't treat me like I was some poor little orphan one moment and then a hardened street thug the next. He just took it. Whatever crap I dished out, however mad I was at him, whatever I tried to steal. He didn't let me get away with crap, never acted like I couldn't help myself, but he never blew up at me, either. He let me figure out how to…dunno. Balance, or something."

Bart blinked, feeling his eyes suddenly way too watery. He though of all the ways he'd messed up Max's routine and gotten in his way and ruined his plans. And he'd gotten punished too, sometimes, but Max seemed to take it all in stride. And it wasn't that Bart didn't like the man, it was that he did and he wanted Max to be happy and he felt like he kept screwing that up. Even if there was a tiny voice in his head telling him that maybe it was okay to try and relax this time. "That sounds really nice."

"Batman is worried about you. Something about a lack of stable and trustworthy authority figures. He actually vetted Max. Batman thinks Max really cares about you. Like, for real."

Yeah. Way too watery in the eyes. "I didn't know that."

"Well, Batman doesn't talk about this crap either, but that's because he's a moron about people and doesn't know how. But Batman thinks Max is actually there for you, for real. And Batman knows what that looks like, because he did it for me."

"I should let you get back to patrol."

"Bart, wait!"

"Bye!" He hung up. He wasn't mad. He didn't know what to think.

A text came in a moment later.

Message Received, 2:23AM

Sorry?

Bart sighed and texted back.

Message Sent, 2:24AM

It's okay. I'm okay. I'm glad you said all that stuff.

A moment later his phone beeped.

Message Received, 2:26AM

Cool! I'm back to patrol. War Eagle? Is that a thing that eagles do?

Message Sent, 2:26AM

Apparently. Don't fall off a gargoyle.

*~*~*

Monday rolled around. The first official day of being grounded. Bart found himself back in class. Impulse had been on every news and highlight reel around the country, and the Auburn University president had taped a video saying a personal thank you to Impulse. They were holding a donation drive to give to the Justice League on in his name, and had apparently raised over $500,000 already.

Bart was clobbered with questions about what he'd seen.

He answered as best he could, until he finally got to his seat and found himself facing off with Shelley and Devon again.

"So," Devon asked, "know who you're rooting for now?"

Bart looked around. Everyone was ignoring them, too busy talking about the coolest clip of Impulse they'd seen over the weekend. He had lost the interesting-new-kid sparkle, finally. He looked up with a grin. "Well, yeah. I think so."

"And?" Shelley pressed.

Bart took a deep breath and gave the only answer he could. "War Eagle."

THE END

*~*~*

Author's Notes: The title is a quote from the lyrics from the Auburn University fight song.

I know that Manchester in the comics had a professional football team and some really weird teenage gangs. Let me hasten to assure you that there are no professional football teams located anywhere in Alabama. Real life Manchester, Alabama is an unincorporated community that, in 2010, had a population of 91. Yes. You read that right. Not even three digits. It is in Walker County, though.

Bart's particular experience of the Iron Bowl is made up out of whole cloth. No such football game has ever occured. Auburn, 'Bama, their locations, their battle cries, their colors, the building names and Auburn’s campus in general, the game day craziness, and so on and so forth are not made up. That information comes from being a lifelong Auburn fan, attending college there, marching in the band, doing some behind-the-scenes stuff for various seasons, and attending many games just for fun. I bleed orange and blue.

That being said, some of this information is out-of-date. For example, some of the places described used to exist, but have since been altered due to construction or new buildings or departments moving or…various other university things.

Lord Byron did write a “dramatic poem” called Manfred. I also hated it, but I won't bore you with the whys of that.

One of the sororities really did make a sign reading “Hey Bama, Your Mascot's Fat!” one year. I have forgotten which one and what year, but I remember laughing about it all day.