#the empathy.

Bart remembers every timeline. It might sound scary or whatever, but the timeline doesn't change that much. Definitely changes much more than he would like, yet it’s not that bad.

He does remember one special timeline though. 

The end of the world. 

A fearsome beast named Phantom, destroying the world out of anger, out of hurt. They lost, obviously. How could they predict that type of being coming to attack them? It was a peaceful day too. All they were doing was watching as the new president took charge. 

A good one, they all thought. Wrong, they were. 

There was a small town, village really, left protected. A barrier that kept the monster out. They protected him and the few left after every other hero fell. Bart remembers being inconsolable. After everything he’s done to protect the timeline, it fell, just like that.

Then from the shadows there came a boy. A boy bearing a resemblance to the terrifying Phantom. A boy by the name of Danny.

Danny came to them to observe. To find out what made Phantom so angry, so hurt. He said he could save them all. He wasn’t lying.

Bart doesn’t believe in faith. Not in the way most people say it, but in the way he knows it can change. He knows Danny is something special, like him. Someone existing outside the timeline, not linear to this world.

It’s why he trusted him so much.

So they went along with his plan. Danny would face Phantom head on and Bart would go back to stop the president’s terrible decision and policies.

It worked, obviously. The world never went to disarray, he never explained why he attacked the president on live television, and Danny disappeared to the background of his mind. 

He knew he was out there somewhere.

Then his team changed. Then he had a mental breakdown. Then he became something ‘better’. Then he died. Then he came back to life. Then just so much happened, there wasn’t time to think about his teenage crush.

Until the boy himself was standing in front him. Right in the middle of the watchtower, just as floaty and disconnected from the world. A wisp ready to fly and disappear to the mist in the background.