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Slowing down was, of course, a matter of perspective. What might have been slowing down to Bart would, in some cases, appear to be barely time enough for the average person to catch his or her breath. But for Bart, minutes ticked by slowly enough that even the tiniest of pauses had to count.

It was an entirely disputable claim. Others - among them Max, Wally, and possibly Jay and Joan - would argue that Bart considering the shower incident as a time he "slowed down" was proof of Bart's inability to distinguish real life from his video game upbringing.

Under normal circumstances, Arsenal and Green Lantern might have agreed with them. But considering their roles in the shower incident, just this once, both men were likely to side with Bart.

Not that Bart had any intention of telling them.

After all, it had been an accident. He hadn't meant to spy on them, but a person tended to see a lot of things they weren't supposed to see when speeding around a headquarters, and really it wasn't as though Bart had any reason to think that walking in on the Titan leader while he was taking a shower was a bad idea.

In his defense, Bart had slowed down once he'd found Roy and Kyle and the words "Hey, there's a giant robot attacking the city" were almost out of his mouth, and probably would have been, had they not been interrupted by Roy's groan instead. Neither noticed Bart - Roy's head was tilted back, and he was staring up at the ceiling, and the only part of Kyle that saw Bart was his butt and back, so since Bart didn't say anything, both continued what they had been doing before Bart had came in.

Bart took in the sight of Roy and Kyle, and how happy they looked, and although Bart was really worried that one of them might drown if they stayed in that position very long - and it would probably be Kyle, which was too bad because Kyle was fun when he wasn't being a jerk, unlike Wally who was a jerk pretty much all the time - and decided that while they looked like they were having a lot of fun, they probably wouldn't let him join them.

Bart hesitated enough to think that was too bad, and to hope that he'd find someone who would let him play like that someday, because it looked like a lot of fun, before speeding out of the showers.

After all, there was still a giant robot attacking the city.

****

Bart would do anything for Rose, and when Rose told him that she needed a day off from being Lian's nanny, he was more than happy to take over nanny duties.

They both pretty much didn't see the need to run that plan by Roy.

Lian, for the most part, was one of the few people who wasn't always telling him to slow down, and Lian also thought that because he was a Titan, he was one of the greatest superheroes ever. Lian thought that being a Titan was even more important than being in the Justice League, and while Bart wasn't sure he agreed with that, he was pretty sure that Lian thinking it made her one of his favorite people in the universe.

Naturally, one of his favorite people in the universe deserved to see the circuses in Madrid and London, meet Goofy at Disney Land, play on the beach in Australia, and have the entire bucket full of ice cream at the very coolest ice cream store in all of Oregon.

Eying her prize, Lian picked up her spoon and looked very seriously at Bart. "You have to eat this slowly," she said solemnly. "Else you'll get brain freeze."

"Brain freeze?" Bart tilted his head and examined his own bucket full of ice cream. They hadn't put enough whipped cream on it, otherwise it looked really good.

"It's what happens when you eat ice cream too fast," Lian explained. "Your brain freezes and it hurts your whole entire face. And your eyes too."

Bart knew that most people thought he didn't use his brain, but he still didn't want it to freeze, so he took great care to eat his ice cream very slowly.

****

Bart didn't know why liking strawberry milk made him "cute" or why Rose thought it was funny. He asked, but Rose just giggled harder, which irritated Bart.

"I've never had strawberry milk before," Bart pointed out. "But I really like it, and I don't see why that's so funny."

"Aw, they don't have strawberry milk in the 30th century?" Rose questioned. "What a bleak, horrible future."

"It really is," Bart informed her, still frowning.

Rose rolled her eyes. "It's nothing to get upset about," she explained. "It's very … cute."

"I know," Bart snapped. "You mentioned that already. Does that mean you think I'm cute?"

Rose rolled her eyes at him again before leaning forward and kissing him squarely on the lips. Rose tasted like cigarette smoke and soda, which went a little odd with Bart's strawberry milk, but he was more than happy to remain perfectly still and let Rose kiss him for as long as she wanted to.

*****

Bart hadn't honestly thought anyone in Young Justice would ever remind him of anyone from Alabama, least of all Robin.

But once Robin finally trusted them enough to reveal his identity to them, he started letting them know a lot more private stuff about him, and as it turned out, Robin loved cameras.

Just like Preston had, back in Manchester.

Bart had never thought to ask Preston why he enjoyed cameras so much, mostly because he hadn't been "mature" enough to, but also because Bart had figured that his evil mother had a lot to do with it, and since Bart wanted to make sure that Tim didn't have an evil parent beating him (or an evil Batman, maybe) he made sure he asked Tim why he liked cameras so much.

"It's evidence," Tim answered, which Bart didn't really understand until Tim clarified, "Crime scenes can be cleaned up, blood scrubbed away, but once you have a photograph, it's more permanent."

"So you like them because they help you fight evil?" Bart asked, which made sense for Tim, but not as much for Preston.

"Well, they are helpful for that," Tim admitted. "But they can capture evidence of good things, too. Like friendships." Then Tim gave his tiny Tim smile that reminded Bart more of Carol than Preston, and Bart knew what he meant.

Bart had learned, back when he'd still had Preston's camera, that trying to take shots of things while in Speedster mode only made things blurry. Thus, he spent the whole rest of the day purposefully moving slowly.

He wanted to gather plenty of evidence of his friendships, and he didn't want his evidence to be blurry.

*******

Most people thought that Bart made his weekly visit to the Flash Museum to see how much the Impulse exhibit had grown since the last time he had been there. It bugged Bart a little that people thought that about him, but he let them, mostly he didn't think that the real reason he went there was anyone's business but his own.

Well, his own and Grandpa Barry's.

Because it was Grandpa Barry's case in the museum - the biggest one, with the lifesize statue of Grandpa Barry in it - that Bart went to see every week.

Impulse didn't worry about what Jay or Wally thought of him as a hero. He had Young Justice, and his friends totally trumped Jay and Wally combined.

But Grandpa Barry was different. It was easy to shrug off Wally and Jay, but Grandpa Barry was a legend and his grandpa and the person Grandma Iris loved most. Bart couldn't bear the thought that he might be letting down Grandpa Barry.

Everyone always told Bart how nice Grandpa Barry was, though, so Bart liked to think that even if he was completely messing up Grandpa Barry's legacy, the way Wally thought he was, that Grandpa Barry wouldn't have hated him for it the way Wally did.

Bart thought that Grandpa Barry would probably understand that someday Bart was going to be a Speedster worthy of his Grandpa's legacy. It would just take a little time, that was all, and if Speedsters had anything to spare, it was time.

For four minutes each week, Bart spent some of his spare time in front of Grandpa Barry's main case, looking forward to the future.

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