[Video]

[kid_flash_found]

[A teenager with long, reddish hair and amber-colored eyes considers the camera, adjusting a few note-cards he made as he thought things through]

Hi, everyone. Wonderlanders or whatever you call yourselves, Obviously this is my first time doing this kind of thing. Hell, the last time I was talking to a camera, it was to record my own eulogy after I’d been shot.

In the knee, it wasn’t really that serious or anything. But that kind of thing does make you wonder. Maybe this is the place for that. Wondering.

[A small, awkward chuckle.]

I’m just hoping someone out there sees this, and can lend the poor noob a hand. Because, prison or nexus dimension or whatever, this place sure seems strange, even by my standards. And, um, yeah, I spent my childhood in a VR chamber because I wasn’t able to interact with the rest of the world very well.

Oh, oops, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Bart. Bart Allen. It’s short for Bartholomew, and I wanted to be different. It’s not the worst nickname in the world. I have a friend who has to go by ‘Gates’ because his name’s pretty much impossible to pronounce without insectoid mandibles.

Comments

[mrsarcastic003]

[Tim gives him a slightly confused look.]

You have a cat?

[kid_flash_found]

[Bart does his best to arch an eyebrow like Robin would, standing and crossing his arms.]

I learned a thing or two hanging out with a certain detective. Just making sure...

[Tim looks and moves right, but, well, they've seen a lot of crazy stuff in their day.]

[mrsarcastic003]

It's the glasses throwing you off, isn't it? [He assumes, at least, since at his point in time, he certainly doesn't wear anything but a mask around Bart, and Kon and Cissie had both seemed confused by them, which suggests that he doesn't wear them forever.]

[kid_flash_found]

That's one thing. Want to fill me in, or are we going to continue playing twenty questions?

[mrsarcastic003]

About why I'm wearing glasses? Bart, I think there's a very rational explanation for that.

[Yes. And it's that Tim is being a shit, since they both know that he doesn't need them.]

[kid_flash_found]

Right, and I'm not the only one who went through a reversed growth spurt.

[And you totally deserve the eye-roll for it, Tim.]

What gives?

[mrsarcastic003]

[Tim makes a face.]

Oh. That. I might be younger than you. [He pauses. After all, this is Bart he's talking to.] Well, from an earlier point in time, I mean. It turns out that Wonderland isn't especially picky about when it takes us from. Cissie and Kon are both from later in our timeline than me.

[kid_flash_found]

[Bart waves a hand in a gesture of mild dismissal]

I've kinda gotten used to playing my shoe size, not my age.

[And the comments about his big feet probably didn't hurt much.]

So that means, what? You're from when?

[mrsarcastic003]

Not long after No Man's Land in Gotham. [Totally casual. No big deal that his city was a nightmarish warzone for a while.] We're rebuilding. Uh. As for Young Justice, it still is Young Justice, and Cissie's still Arrowette, if any of that helps.

[kid_flash_found]

[At that, Bart can't really stand still any longer, pacing, although nowhere near the kind of impulsive movement he used to be guilty of, not even straining the edges of what normal people were able to do.]

Grife, that feels like lifetimes ago. How much do you--

[He stops, making a slashing gesture to say he's not going to follow that line of questioning. Because, yeah, nothing good will come of it.]

Gotham's good at surviving. Like some kind of fungus.

Mudball? Slimy? My home this is!

[mrsarcastic003]

Well, we made it through that. We can probably make it through anything now.

['Lifetimes ago.' Literal lifetimes, maybe? He hasn't forgotten the things Cissie had said are waiting for them in the future.]

...So, welcome to Wonderland?

And best friends are always there to disparage it, Yoda!

[kid_flash_found]

Anything I should know? Besides the whole welcome package.

[Anything to stop talking about the things they don't share in common.]

[mrsarcastic003]

If you read the brochure, then you probably have the important details. There's a newspaper, too.

[Should he tell Bart that the sibling editors of it have definitely figured out his secret ID? ...No, and besides, there's no reason to. It's not like George is planning on publishing it.]

Oh. It turns out that there are a lot of us from various pieces of fiction around here. Dorian Gray, for one, and a lot of us seem to be fictional in other people's universes. Apparently we're in comic books, which is both cool and kind of terrible if you really think about it.

[kid_flash_found]

I...guess that kinda makes sense. Well, the comics thing is a little disturbing. Not sure how I'd feel if Jai and Iris were reading my life story in four colors.

[Especially considering recent events. He shudders at the memory of the husks that had once been other speedsters. Better to hope that the Flash had managed to do what needed to be done.]

Oh, those are Wally's and Linda's twins. Irey has joineed the family business as Impulse. And no, that was entirely her idea. I just call it karmic justice.

[mrsarcastic003]

I don't know how I feel about anyone reading my life story in four colors. I don't find it especially entertaining.

[But that's kind of the thing. People in stories where terrible things happen wouldn't find it amusing. But drama and tragedy and humor and friendship and love are all the staples of good stories. It just happens to also be his life. he raises his eyebrow at the comment about Wally having kids.]

That's... something. Uh. How many years in the future is this, because I have a really hard time reconciling... all of that.

[kid_flash_found]

This is one of those things that's really going to make my head hurt, isn't it? It was before the thing with Superboy-Prime, if you've heard anything about him.

Linda and the twins accidentally hitchhiked with us when we trapped him the Speed Force. But the stuff after that is a bit of a jumble. Worse than when I absorbed all those sick scouts Bedlam made.

[mrsarcastic003]

Cissie told me a little about Superboy Prime.

[The part about what happened with Kon.]

But I'm from way before that, and before whatever you're talking about with Bedlam. He comes back? I thought we were done with him.

...I think this is going to make both of our heads hurt.

[kid_flash_found]

At least you only have one perspective on things. Bedlam managed to shortcircuit my scouts and used them to change our paths so we never did anything special.

[Bart looks at Tim, and realizes that most people never saw a lot of who he was as Impulse.]

Did you ever notice how I could learn something at speed and hang onto the knowledge? I mean, not just for a few hours.

[mrsarcastic003]

[He frowns in confusion. That's... a weird question, but then no one's mind moves as fast as Bart's. He's probably halfway down a conversational path Tim hasn't been following because it's happening at the speed of Bart.]

...Yeah? Why?

[kid_flash_found]

I don't forget anything. Ever. Even the stuff that got wiped out by shifts in the timeline.

[He doesn't know how else to explain it, because there's a lot to keep straight. So trying to figure out exactly what went after what is an exercise in deductive logic sometimes.]

I'm not sure I could give you a coherent series of events. Not completely.

[mrsarcastic003]

[He frowns a little. Yeah, that would make a coherent timeline difficult at best. Maybe even impossible. He shakes his head.]

Nevermind. It's basically academic to me anyway, since anything you reference that's ahead of where I am is something I wouldn't really know anything about.

[kid_flash_found]

Doesn't mean you don't have a dozen questions you want to ask. Since you were trained by the world's greatest detective and all.

[He's trying to make it a little lighter, a little easier. Bart remembers fondly the way Young Justice felt free. The Titans was never as easy, possibly even from the begining, when Deathstroke targeted them. And the shadow of Donna Troy's death had hung heavy on them all.]

All we need is Cassie and Greta to show up and the gang will all be here.

[mrsarcastic003]

Well, sure, but I also contain at least a slight amount of self restraint. [He grins.] I guess I can keep some of those questions to myself.

[He frowns slightly at Bart's next comment.]

Yeah, I guess, but I'm not sure I'd want anyone I care about to be here. [He gives him a wry smile.] I mean, it's kind of a double-edged sword. Sure, it's great to have people you care bout around, but that means they're in the same... I'm not sure what you'd call this place. But it would mean they were stuck with us, which isn't anything I'd ask for. As nice as it is to see you.

[kid_flash_found]

Considering my version of childhood, I think I can recognize a cage when I see one, no matter how seemingly expansive. So, yeah, they can stay away.

[He didn't really want to talk about that side of things.]

It's going to take some getting used to. What do you do around here, anyway?

[mrsarcastic003]

[Cage. Prison. Tim sort of likes John Blake's theory that it's some kind of interdimensional testing lab-slash-arena, though testing what, he has no idea. It all amounts to the same, though. They're stuck here at someone else's whim, and things aren't always as rosy as they are right now.

He glances around the library, then back at Bart.]

Catch up on my reading.