Work Text:
Quandary
Bart Allen could run faster than anyone on Earth. At least until the 30th Century, when his cousin Jenni would be born. She was as fast as him. Would be. But currently Bart was the fastest person alive, even faster than Wally when he wanted to be. It was the one area where he was actually better than Wally at something, and he'd show off all the time except that Wally really didn't like it. Wally was always complaining that he wasn't good enough, and then when he got better, Wally complained about that, too. Stupid Wally. Bart had long ago decided that Wally was just jealous of him for some reason, and didn't consider it a problem anymore, so much as something that he had to tolerate because he couldn't change it. There were some things he could change, though, like himself. Bart was fast, but as Kon had said back when they were still Young Justice, he wasn't always too...swift. Even after reading all the books in the San Francisco Library, Bart wasn't all that much smarter than he had been. More knowledgeable, yes, but knowledge was hardly the same thing as wisdom, as Bart had quickly found out. He may have spent a subjective year and a half in there, but it was subjective. No human - or other sentient being - interaction, just books. And books didn't think for themselves. Experience counted for a lot more than theory, at least when it came to real life. Why the real world couldn't be as easy as VR, Bart would never understand. Humans created VR, after all, so presumably they knew how to make things that easy... So Bart could run fast, and he was really smart, but that didn't always translate well into understanding people. That was Bart's problem; he wanted to understand the world so he could better live in it. He tried to slow down and 'smell the roses' but that was for normal people who weren't speedsters. Running everywhere wasn't even second-nature to him; it was first nature. So Bart figured he could use some help. And Robin was really really smart. And he didn't know how to interact with people, but he understood them better than anyone Bart had ever met. Only, when he was explaining stuff, he occasionally got bogged down in explaining things that Bart already understood. That was why Bart liked VR so much; he could just skip the stuff he already knew, like fast-forwarding through the commercials on TiVo. Still, it'd be easier if there was a book on human interaction, but considering all the problems people still had trying to overcome gender diversity, Bart wasn't going to hold his breath. And if he had to be stuck learning things so slowly...at least he was getting to spend time with his friend. Though Robin could probably use the hang time more than...well, just about anyone who wasn't a Bat. Definitely more than him. Maybe his problem wasn't such a problem after all. And even if it was...he had time to solve it. All the time in the world.