Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’m telling you, that wasn’t there when we were coming through.” Hal gnashed his teeth, tired and ready to go home to Coast City.

“Well perhaps if you’d paid better attention you would have realized that yes it is the Sigma constellation and it is supposed to be that color-” Bruce argued back at him.

“Don’t get smart with me Spooky! Who is the guy that travels the cosmos and has seen more of space than everyone in Gotham? That’s right, me, and I say that wasn’t there before-”

Bruce grits his teeth, “Well if you would stop backseat flying-”

The rapid fire retort Hal is about to spit dies when the air knocks from his lungs, the ship roughly jostled by space debris. He is thankful for the seat belts when he almost plants himself face first into the glass. As if he’d ever want to give Bruce more reason to dislike him on principle.

“What did you-” Batman turns back.

“I didn’t touch anything.” Hal glares, gesturing to his seat belt. ”And even if I did- My driving would be way better than yours.” Bruce holds his gaze for all but a second when something strikes the side of their spacecraft, and it veers them dangerously off course. 

“Shit.” Bruce curses twisting a knob, and swivels to the back up panels, “Can you get a replica of the engine running? The debris wasn’t enough for it to be fully damaged, but if it spread it out the other engines could--”

Hal is already nodding along to the half cocked plan before he swan dives for the pilot stick, and jerks them to the side, tacking Bruce to the floor as well, - just in time for an asteroid to go hurtling past them into the cloud of shimmering purple matter that certainly hadn’t been there before.

“What the fuck is that, Spooky?” Hal wheezes from on top of Bruce, as Bruce rolls him off, and stands on unsteady feet. The space around the cloud does the inexplicable, - it changes, distorting in a way space Hal knows shouldn’t .

“I don’t -- That shouldn’t-.” Bruce tries to say, to come up with anything that will explain their current predicament and Hal can already tell he’s scrambling for purchase. Bruce gives up trying to explain in the moment, cutting his own thoughts off, “Just get the engine running we should-”

An alarm finally blares into the cockpit, and in the blink of an eye, a planet appears. A planet that hadn’t been on their scans. 

“Hang on, Spooky.” Hal swallows, as the planet comes into closer view, ”And buckle up. This is going to be one hell of a bumpy ride-”

“We don’t have time for dramatics, Hal-” Bruce reaches for the control panel like it will do anything but flash red emergency signals at them.

“That planet--” Hal points to the glowing giant, “We’re already in its gravitational pull, Spooky, and there’s nothing we can do about that. No matter how much we thrust our engines.”

Bruce stills at his words, a frown forming at his lips, “What would you suggest?”

“You? Buckle up. Stay down,-” Hal takes a breath, as the metal craft begins to creak around them, groaning as they begin to enter the atmosphere, “Cause we’re gonna come in hot, and if we’re lucky, -- alive.”

“But hey,” Hal gives a thumbs up, because he always has to have one last word in, “With me, that’s more than double the chance you ever had.”

Hal gives Bruce one last smile, enveloping him in an awkward hug, before his ring goes ablaze, the blinding green surrounding them-

They’re falling.
Crashing,
Metal and glass caving in and disintegrating to pieces around them.

They’re burning hotter than an inferno, and the heat of it dances on his skin, his will slipping over the flames like oil on water.

Hal can feel the g-force tearing into every last bit of his concentration, muddling his brain as he holds on for just one more second, just one more--

Hal tries to hang onto the very end, cognizant that Bruce’s life solely depends on his ring, on his consciousness, on his will, and no matter how much they’re always at each other’s throats, or how often Bruce is always an asshole, and a stickler for the rules, Hal would rather come back with him alive, or not at all.

It ends in a plume of smoke and flames. Hal has just enough time to see Bruce knocked unconscious next to him, and to think fuck the planet from no-where, before he too, is pulled into inky darkness.

Hal wakes up to a rasping cough. He blearily looks up to a blurry figure of Bruce, and then promptly rolls over, emptying his stomach of all its contents, the backlash of using up all of the rings power, and then some, hitting him hard.

“I’m alright. Anything broken?” Bruce rasps out, and for once, Hal doesn’t think he’s faking the stupid gravelly tone.

“Nothing I haven’t noticed. How long have we been out?” Hal quips, trying not to vomit out the stomach acid eating him alive, and Bruce staggers to his feet, looking at the site of impact.

“I don’t know, and...thank you, Hal.” Bruce bites his cheek, and Hal groans from his place on the ground, “Whatever, Spooky. Just give me like, five minutes alright? I think my body is literally trying to cannibalize itself right now.”

Bruce doesn’t answer him, instead choosing to hobble forward step by step, slowly looking through the smouldering wreck left behind.

The five minutes pass in a haze of trying not to choke on the vomit wanting to come up his throat, before Hal decides he’s not getting any better and that he should help Bruce look through the wreckage before Batman had the sense to nag at him.

The world tilts to and fro as Hal walks unsteadily to where Batman’s cowl stands out in the distance, “How fucked are we, Spooky?”

The frown comes back again, and Batman gingerly sits on a half melted seat, “Massively.”

Hal takes a deep breath, and concentrates . He was not going to pass out because of a little g-force sickness. He wasn’t . “What can we do?” Hal asked, leaning against the skeleton of metal that survived.

“Assess what we have, what we don’t, find a safe place for shelter, food-” Bruce begins to list off, growing more and more irritable.

“I wasn’t asking for an itinerary. What’s the most important?”

“Assessing what’s left of the ship, and if we can use it in tandem with your ring to make it back to Earth or at least a hub capable of intergalactic travel.”

“That sounds reasonable, and not at all too complicated.” Hal eyes Bruce, “Do you have a concussion?”

“Don’t be stupid, Jordan. I’ve trained myself to fight through concussions.”

“Of course you have.” Hal sighs, “There’s only one thing…”

“What?” Bruce growls out, reaching into his belt and pulling out two energy bars before tossing one to him.

Hal catches it in midair, and looks at his hand, the ring on his finger dull and lifeless. “I don’t think I have any juice left.”

No one in the Justice League is ever going to believe that Batman curses like a sailor.  Except maybe, Diana.

Every part of Hal aches . His clothes are torn and frayed, he’s covered in bits of rubble and soot, and all he wants to do is lay down and sleep.

“Is that the last of it?” Hal sighs, lugging out a half charred box of medical supplies.

“Yes.” Batman answers shortly, looking unhappy as he drags out another box, this time, sealed, “Unfortunately, none of the rations survived impact. There could be a chance of rubble being strewn about, but it is unlikely, as we were burning up coming into the atmosphere.”

“And just how many of those energy bars do you have in your bat-belt?”

“It’s a utility belt, and not enough. If we ration them and cut our calories, they could last us up to a month. We have to find clean drinking water.”

“Says the bat motif, Batman. Right, food, shelter, and look for water. What about my ring?”

“There’s nothing we can do about it right now, Jordan. We need to find water, and shelter in place while there’s still daylight. We don’t know for how long we were out, how long the days last, or if there’s hostile natives.” Batman looks around the plain area, “And we’re on open ground. Fantastic.” He grits out, “We need to sleep on watches, I’ll take the first shift.”

“What?” Hal flounders. “Are you just deciding things without me now?”

“ Jordan, we can deal with your powerless ring later . But if we don’t get food, shelter and water, in that order, then we will have no later as we slowly starve to death. I’m certain I could function at least a month without food and only water, but you -”

“ Oh? ” Hal interrupts sarcastically, “You’re certain, Batman? Well someone call the rest of the Corps, Batman thinks he can out will a person whose superpowers literally depend on will power-”

Batman lets out a strangled noise, and Hal savors it like every bite of a Big Belly Buster he will probably never have, being trapped on a planet with Batman. Batman. It was his worst nightmare come true.

“Stop fighting me. We need to get moving.” Batman snaps sharply.

Hal throws his hands in the air, and rises from his seat slowly, and without grace, “Where to, fearless man-bat?”
 

“We each go a mile out, in opposite directions. Mark your location, or make landmarks to find your way back. Anything more than a mile and a half, Jordan, and I’ll tie you to whatever is left of the hull of the ship. If you encounter natives-”

“Yeah yeah, I know how to diplomatically treat natives, Spooky. See you in thirty?”

“Thirty.” Batman nods, and gives him a narrow look, “And not a minute more, Jordan.”

Hal tries to smooth back his hair from the gnarled mess it is, “You’re acting like an overbearing parent again, Spooks. I’m not Robin remember? This isn’t my first rodeo.”

“Then act like it.” Batman stomps off, snatching a stick from the nearby foliage. Hal rolls his eyes as Bruce walks away, and then turns around, grabs a rock and crosses an x on the tree. 

 
They find water. Well, more specifically, Bruce finds water because of course he does. Come to think of it, it’s probably why he needed the stick in the first place. At least Hal seemed to remember some farmer’s tale needing a stick to find water.

Hal whoops with joy when he sees the river.  He jumps into the soft stream, as Batman pulls something collapsible out of his bat-belt. 

Hal dunks his head under the water for a moment, before coming back up, wet, and smiling like a lunatic. “Sweet life giving water- Wait, what's in your hands?” He yells, and Batman says nothing, continuing his own ministrations. 

Hal jumps into the small river, wading closer, as Bruce steps leans over the bank, carefully unlatching the silicone container. He removes the lid, and pushes out the pot.

Bruce fills the pot with water, and Hal blinks, “What the fuck, why do you have a pot in your bat-belt? And how the hell is it collapsible but also water tight?”

“The miracles of modern technology and silicone.” Bruce grumps, setting the pot of water onto the dirt before pulling something else out of his belt. It was flint and tinder. This magical, mess of a bat-person had flint and tinder in his belt.

“Why do we call Clark the boy scout? You’re the one with the belt!” Hal said in amazement, scrambling out of the river and towards Bruce, making grabby hands at his belt, “Do you have a tent in there by any chance? Found a way to build one of those Harry Potter tents yet? What else is in there?”

“None of your business,” Bruce said, avoiding his grasp, “-and if you call me a boy scout I will tie you to a tree and leave you hanging upside down until you get a cramp in your stomach trying to untie yourself. Now grab the pot, and don’t trip. We’ll have to boil it before we can drink, and for that we need kindling.” Batman walks away from Hal’s dripping form. Hal cheerfully grabs the pot of water and jogs behind him.

They were still screwed, but hey, they had water.

 
Hal slung up cables through whatever was left of the ship’s frame in a complex pattern, trying to make the best of a makeshift hammock.

“Thoughts?” He said, gesturing to the mess of cables, and then looking back to Bruce.

“You’re gonna get electrocuted in your sleep.” Bruce said, sitting over the pot of water and feeding wood into the campfire.

“Well,” Hal shrugs, “It’s not like we can use your cape as a hammock, can we?” Hal sighs, before looking at the latches on Bruce’s cape with much more seriousness, “Can we?”

“I’ll put it in the next suit.”

“So, that’s a no?”

“Go lay on your hammock and try not to get electrocuted.”

Hal meanders through the charred clearing, trying to find anything to pad the hammock with, “Do you think if I get struck by lightning it could potentially charge up my ring? Like for emergency’s sake?”

“In all likelihood, and statistically speaking, you would die, for being an idiot and because of cardiac arrest. And your ring still wouldn’t be charged.”

Hal scoffs, “I’m just trying to go outside the box here, Spooky. My ring is dead, and I can’t call my battery to me. I didn’t expect one long ass diplomatic voyage to turn into being stranded on a planet. Ya feel?”

Batman grunts, and Hal takes it as close to an agreement as he’ll ever get. Hal feels a small urge of pride, a day together in the wilderness and they hadn’t killed each other...yet.

Bruce crumbles the dry ass energy bar into the water and they watch as it turns a muddy color.
Hal doesn’t bother complaining as Batman ladles the soup into a pair of small bowls. A chunk of hydrated energy bar floats in the soup, and if Hal wasn’t so hungry and on the verge of a blackout he’d- well, he didn’t know he was just hungry, okay?

Batman passes the bowl in silence, and they sit over the campfire slowly sipping from their bowls. Wordlessly, Batman presses him to have more soup, and Hal doesn't grumble, the gnawing hunger still present but slowly subsiding.

Hal is halfway through his second bowl by the time he decides to talk again, “What’s our next step? We have food, water, a passable shelter for the time being, what’s next?”

Batman takes another sip from his bowl and doesn’t answer, the crackling fire filling the expectant silence. “You know this ship the best, don’t you Jordan?”

Hal balances the bowl in his lap, and asks, “What of it?”

“Theoretically speaking, if the right pieces didn’t burn up on our entry into the atmosphere, we could cannibalize the ship and attempt to create a satellite powerful enough to broadcast a message to outer space, correct?”

Hal scratches his head, “That’s a big assumption, Spooky. But yes, assuming the parts we need aren’t ash, but also theoretically , we’d only have one shot. And another thing, -- space is big , a message from a small satellite from nowhere to Earth, -- that could take centuries, light years . We’d be beyond dead. Just the message of two ghosts echoing out into dead space. We’d have to be exhumed. ”

Batman stops eating, spoon an inch from his mouth, “They’ll notice we’re missing sooner rather than later, Hal. They’ll give us a week of grace, assuming the diplomatic mission took longer than expected. But after that? The JLA will come looking. We just need to make sure they can find us.

“Then, I suppose.” Hal stares into the fire, puts his bowl aside, and stands, headed to his hammock, “--It sounds like a plan I can get behind. We should get some rest. We’ve got a ship to cannibalize tomorrow.”

Somehow, Hal didn’t expect that they would share the hammock.
Didn’t expect that they would use Batman’s cape as a blanket to cover themselves against the chilly air. He didn’t expect to be tucked into the crook of Bruce’s neck as the night grew cold and the fire burned softer.

The warmth of Bruce’s skin blistered on his, and Hal wondered how he ran so hot. Was it just him? He wanted to flinch from it, but there was nowhere to run but to the unforgiving cold. There was nowhere near as comfortable.

He could feel Bruce’s breath on his skin. He tingled with the itch to move, because he didn’t cuddle. Not really. The few times he had with Carol, they’d both been drunk and more than a little maudlin that they both kept coming around expecting something different than the ruins of their romantic relationship.

Carol had been great, fantastic, even. It was Hal that was -- well, he was a fuck up. And Carol deserved better, and he knew that. Hell, she knew that. Yet somehow, they both still hoped that something would change.

They tried, -but Hal wasn’t ready. He hadn’t felt ready to be in a stable relationship. He wasn’t sure he ever would, ever could. Home wasn’t home, it wasn’t Earth, or OA. Home was old murky feelings of warmth, and misplaced love, so pushed away from his everyday life that Hal rarely thought about it.

Now he wasn’t sure he’d ever see her again. If they got back- No, when they got back, Hal would stop being such an ass. He wouldn’t be her mopey ex-boyfriend. He’d be her friend, like she’d always been his.

Hal stared at Bruce’s unmasked face, and snorted, closing his eyes as the fire dimmed to soft lapping flames. Of course staring at Batman would make him brood, it was in Batman’s DNA. Hal turned away, wrapping his arms around himself, and felt Bruce shift closer to his back letting out a half aware grunt.

Hal stopped thinking about the lumbering warmth behind him, and settled.

The thinking could wait, sleeping couldn’t.

Hal woke up to more bubbling ‘soup’, and a small twinge in his neck. He balanced himself on the hammock as he stretched out his muscles, Bruce nowhere in sight. He stumbled off, towards the pot of ‘soup’ and gratefully served himself.

Drawing in the dirt, Hal started making a diagram of the surviving parts of the ship as he sipped on breakfast. A small bundle of uncharred clothes were plopped next to him, and Hal blinked as Bruce stepped out of the foliage, hair still dripping water.

“You slept past daybreak for several hours. We have soap, but it’ll have to be rationed. I’ve already put aside a chunk for medical emergencies.” He said plainly, “I also had an extra set of clothes. Since yours are...charred.”

Hal puts aside his bowl after cleaning out every bite of porridge, “What about you?”

“The suit is more than sufficient, and I have more than one set of clothes in case of emergencies.

“How the hell does it fit in your belt?” Hal gestures, watching the pockets with curiosity.

“Atom and I did an experiment concerning compressed storage space.”

“Right.” Hal then pointed to the floor, “I charted out the places of the ship that didn’t burn and the things we could salvage from them. We’ll have to go over the ship slowly, to make sure some of the more delicate circuitry survived, and if we’re lucky,- we get out of here alive.”

They stand in silence for a moment, and Hal subconsciously watches the droplets of water crawl down Bruce’s neck. Bruce watches something in the distance. Turning away, Hal asks, “You like the odds, Spooky?”

Bruce cracked a small smile, “They’re survivable. That’s better than what we had yesterday.”

Something in Hal lightens at that small, practically imperceptible smile, “Then let’s get to work. That satellite won’t put itself together.”

Chapter Text

It’s long laborious work to pull apart the ship. It takes days, five days to be precise, but Bruce isn’t willing to rush it. They have rations, water, and shelter. No matter the physical strain, they’ll pull through.

It has to be done methodically, there is no room for mistakes. Not with it being their only chance.

Which piece can withstand the weather longer? He wonders, circling the ship. Which circuitry is too delicate to leave to the weather conditions? He asks, running his hand on the surprisingly intact control board, thankful for Hal’s foresight, or sheer dumb luck. Which parts of the Satellite cannot wait to be built? He thinks back to the diagram Hal wrote in the dirt, thoughts running a mile a minute.

There are so many questions, and not enough time to think on the ramifications, but that is survival, and Bruce needs to survive. Not indefinitely, thankfully, but at most a week or two. Just enough time to have the JLA rescue them, not enough time for starvation to settle in. Enough to live off ration bars, chalk full of calories and meal necessities if not taste.

The question of shelter comes up again, rattling around his brain. If they pull apart the ship, what shelter will they have left? And yet, if they don’t build the satellite as soon as possible…

Bruce carefully removes a panel from the communications center, hiding it in the twisted and warped metal of what used to be the hull. If there is rain, at least it will be protected.

Hal comes up behind him, and passes him a bowl of soup. “You haven’t eaten all day.” He says in a chiding tone. Bruce would grumble, but with Hal, grumbling would turn into arguing and he had little patience.

“I’m fine.” He says, and he is, but he takes the bowl anyway. Regardless the small voice of reason still tells him to conserve his rations, because they don’t know the local flora or fauna. If the flora or fauna will be safe to eat or hunt. They barely have a reserve of water and a shelter that is slowly being converted into pieces that will hopefully turn into their salvation.

Bruce ignores the small voice for a moment, and enjoys the boiling hot soup, scalding his tongue. There is barely any taste but chalk, as the rations were not made to be delicious but efficient. Bruce eats it with gusto anyhow.

“Will you be able to get the receiver?” He asks, as Hal waits for him to say something, standing in his peripherals.

Hal nods at him, distractedly looking at something up in the trees. “Yeah. I should be able to squeeze through and grab the receiver if it’s not warped to molten alloy, and maybe even the antenna.”

“Good.” Bruce says, remembering Hal’s weight of 186 lbs. His slimmer shoulders and waist would be small enough to make his way through the corroded supply chamber, and hopefully retrieve the tiny delicate circuitry encased in the flight recorder.

Hal’s attention drew back to him, and he looked at him with nervous eyes.

“What?” Bruce narrowed his eyes at Hal’s look, cleaning out his bowl with some reserved water before taking more drinks.

“Do you happen to have a plan if I get stuck in there? I mean,-” Hal walked over to the ship and knocked on the metal. “I might have helped plan this ship, but we crashed into this planet…”

“What of it?” Bruce led Hal to explain himself, thinking of an efficient and resourceful way to build the satellite, grabbing a stick from the kindling pile and drawing in the dirt. He would have used his notepad, but paper too, was now precious. Too precious to waste on a plan that might not work.

“It might not be structurally safe! C’mon, Spooky-” Hal all but jumps at him. “Are you even paying attention to me?”

“I can pay attention to two things at once, Step- Hal.” Bruce stops himself from fumbling their names, Hal sounding more and more like his teenage daughter.

Gods, his daughter. His family. Alfred, Dick, Jason, Barbara, Tim, Stephanie, Damian, Cassandra, Duke - How long would it be until he saw them again?

He had to believe that it would take no time at all. Had to believe that he would only live his worst nightmare of being stuck with Hal Jordan on a planet for a week or two at the most. If he didn’t… how would he remain mentally sound? He breaks himself from his thoughts. It wasn’t the time to contemplate worst case scenarios. Not yet.

Hal pouts at him while he thinks. Pouts at him. Bruce resists the urge to grind his teeth, shaking away the thoughts of a life left on Earth, “If it survived, it’s structurally sound enough to travel through, Hal. The ship won’t rust to pieces in less than a month. Especially not for what it cost to build. It’s resilient.”

Hal huffs at his words, and Bruce goes back to drawing in the dirt as Hal decides to argue under his breath rather than with him, saving him a headache.

It had to work. It was the only chance they had.

They stop at sunset, setting up more soup over the fire and resting on the dirt. It was too dark to see most nights, the world free of light pollution, and to Bruce’s knowledge of intelligent life as well. Small critters came back within several days of their crash, and Bruce had watched Hal scribbling their likeness into the dirt with a concentrated look on his face.

Hal quickly settled himself in the cable woven hammock after dinner, and Bruce threw a small bunch of kindling over the fire. It slowly puttered out as the dual moons rose high over the head of the planet.
 
Bruce didn’t settle into the hammock until Hal was fast asleep. He used a small bucket to scrub at his body before bed, having heard enough of Hal’s gibbering over having dirt in the hammock.

Then he changed in what little firelight was left, wiping himself down of sweat and dirt as he turned the shirt inside out and let the water trickle down his calves, to his feet, and finally to the corrugated metal flooring of the ship. With a clink, he pulled another shirt out from it’s small compressed tube, a simple linen tank and pulled it over his head.

Sighing gratefully, he carefully balanced onto the hammock and molded himself to Hal’s side, as the cool night air swept onto his damp skin.

Bruce’s eyes no longer flitted at every scuffle in the clearing. The chirp of small feathery almost-capybaras but with too blonde fur and pudgier bodies, coming into ear shot as the night pressed on and the nocturnal wildlife woke up. Hal had seen a group of them around sunset a couple days before, cooing over their ‘friend shaped’ likeness. The breeze filled with rattling flora, too heavy to actually carry in the wind but light enough to make a sound like a knife faintly cutting through air as the wind picked up.

Hal snored softly in his ear, slowly curling up into his shoulder blade as he had every night since the first. Bruce let him, the warmth and feel of Hal’s skin too tempting to pass on as they shared his cape that was barely big enough for the both of them.

Bruce craved to bury his fists in a tree. To watch the tree splinter and his hands bleed, but Hal didn’t need or want his helplessness, no matter how hopeful they were at the thought of building the satellite.

They were doing everything they could. They were doing it right.

And yet, it didn’t feel like enough.

The night wore on and like a tsunami, thoughts endlessly flooded his mind, and Bruce felt he would have another sleepless night. Another night to think of everything that went wrong, and everything he could have done in those moments before they were pulled in.

Then Hal cracked open his eyes, and Bruce met his gaze.

“Shut up,” He said voice breaking his train of thoughts like a freight train, “I can hear you thinking in my sleep.” Hal yawned like a cat, loud and high. “Think about it tomorrow morning, Spooky.” He ended, grumbling and went back to sleep.

Bruce listened, a tepid smile at his lips, “Alright, night light. ” He teased, and knew Hal would be enraged come morning. If he remembered, that was.

It takes another week, a long and arduous week of pulling together the parts needed for the satellite. Some are too charred or so delicate, a harsh tug would break them, but Bruce is slowly and surely gaining more hope as the pile grows bigger.

Hal takes most of the heavy lifting, rearranging the pieces of the ship to and fro as Bruce grabs a small laser and begins to fuse together the circuits and mismatched wiring that will let their message carry out into space.

Hal had barely talked to him for that time, his anger no doubt having to do with Bruce using Bizarro’s nickname for him.

“You don’t even like the name.” Bruce points out, tired of the silence for once, resting his eyes after having stared at tiny circuitry most of the day without the correct microscope.

“Only Bizarro can call me that, - and not even because I let him. It’s because his... his whole self!” Hal throws his hands up in exasperation failing to find an explanation for Bizzaro, and then looks up to the sky. “But I don’t know if Bizarro heard us and happened to save us… I would let him call me any nickname he wanted…” Hal trailed off into pointed silence and then quirked an eyebrow at Bruce.

Bruce said nothing as they waited. A minute turned into two, and then into five.

Hal cursed, shaking a fist at the sky, Bruce sighed.

“Also,” Hal spoke again, trying to straighten the deformed door recently added to the hull and its fused hinges. “You don’t do nicknames, Spooky . You barely even do names. More like grunts in a direction. Leave the nicknames to the professionals.”

“Professional? On what Earth do you qualify as a nickname professional?”

“All of them.” Hal points his nose in the air, “No one else came up with Spooky did they? Nope, just me. I’m allowed to be arrogant about the one nickname that encompasses your personality.”

Bruce scoffs, and turns away, rubbing his temples. How had he fallen so low as to pick a fight with Jordan, to alleviate boredom and eye strain?

“When do you want to crawl through the supply chamber?” He says instead of continuing the previous conversation, ignoring the small ache of relief in his chest at hearing Hal’s voice..

"Whenever you're done squinting at those wires." Hal takes a deep breath, tired of re-arranging the door.

Bruce stretches from his position on the floor and rises with ease, carefully walking over to their living quarters and putting the wiring inside, on the hammock. 

“I’m suddenly grateful we phased out the fuel in the pre-planning. We would’ve been in more shit if the ship had leaked gasoline too.” Hal said as he led the way.

Bruce followed after him, as they arrived at the remnants of the supply chamber. “Hmm.” Bruce hums in agreement, “Relying on SEP certainly saved our lives. Did any of the solar panels survive?”

“Uh. I gave them a cursory once over. They were very severely mangled, but I can check again?” Hal says, as Bruce nods and waits for him to crawl into the chamber.

Hal hesitates before the opening, “If anything happens-”

“It won’t.” Bruce hopes it’s reassuring. 

“If anything happens,” Hal tries again, “It won’t be your fault, and I am haunting the rest of the JLA to make sure they find your ass. Also, if I do get stuck, try and get me out. I did not survive an inferno crashing into a planet to die in a squashed up chamber .”

“Right.” Bruce says quietly, by way of having nothing else to say.

“C’ya, Spooky. I’ll be back with the flight recorder and I’ll check to see if the antenna lived too.”

Bruce tries not to show his worry, taking a flashlight from his belt. He hands it off, hands lingering as they clasp Hal’s fingers.  “Yell if you need something...I’ll be here.”

Hal nods his head and turns away, squeezing himself into the narrow opening, flashlight in his mouth.

He goes into darkness as Bruce waits at the opening, a long day barely halfway over.

Bruce waits an hour out in the sun, before he grabs another shirt and soaks it with water, aware of the dangers of sunstroke. He wrings out the extra onto the dirt before wrapping it around his head, letting it settle over his head like a makeshift turban.

The damp cloth was a relief against his skin, as the sweat pooled in his shirt and at his arms. There was little shade to find in the clearing, and he would try not to move until Hal returned.

He waited with unease growing in his gut. He waited to hear a scream, a cut off cry for help. An exclamation of pain. Yet, even when he pressed an ear against the hot metal, when he tried to stick his head in just a fraction more, there was nothing.

He didn’t dare yell into the chamber, a split second of concentration could be a choice between life or death. A choice Bruce couldn’t change. The sun began to shift, and another hour passed. For all he guaranteed Hal it would be safe, had it been? Had he sent Hal towards an indomitable task? And yet, who better than Hal to face the impossible and live to tell the tale?

Bruce could barely look away from the opening when he got up from his spot, and went to grab the circuitry. A headache from focus seemed better than pacing a mile back and forth, or simply sitting in wait. He had calories to conserve after all.

He attached a circuit with great precision, nestling the small laser into it delicately. With a soft click, the laser turned on, and the circuit and rest of the wires fused. It was slow and tedious work, but without a machine...without even Hal’s ring… it had to be done.

Circuit after circuit, countless wires and threaded metal, tired hands and pinched fingers, Bruce’s arms goose pimpled while his mind focused in front of him, suddenly aware of the change in temperature.

He sat up from his crouched position, and took off the sweaty shirt from his head, enjoying the rapidly cooling breeze. Curling his hands protectively over the board as he waited for the wires to finish cooling. Then he heard a knocking against the metal. He scrambled from his spot, moving despite the protest of his cramped muscles.

He raced to put down the circuit under the hull, before turning back and sprinting for the opening, just in time to see Hal pop out covered in grime, face first into a half dried puddle of muck, clutching a thick bright orange flight recorder, and a slick metal web of antenna cascading over his back.

Hal looked disgusted for a moment, before they caught each other’s eyes. He lifted up the flight recorder with a vicious cheer, a smile bright enough to rival the sun on his lips.

“She’s all yours, Spooky.” Hal pants, splashing most of the bucket of water in his haste to glug it down. Bruce’s hands roam the flight box, looking for the subtle notch to crack it open.

“Everything went okay?” He asks, not bothering with a debrief, as he knew Hal would make it as informal as possible in retaliation.

“Oh yeah.” Hal says in between drinks of water, spilling some on his shirt, “It’s a maze in there, and a shit show of melted metal proportions but I made it.”

“I knew you would.” Bruce says, ignoring the almost flush of Hal’s cheeks at the praise, under all the grime.

“How long did I take?” Hal asks, finally putting down the bucket of water, and taking off his shirt, using it to wipe the grime off his skin before throwing it onto the floor.

“About 5 hours, give or take thirty minutes. It’s probably around six right now.” Bruce muses, as Hal groans. 

“I don’t think I have the energy for an ice cold bath.” Hal whines, throwing himself onto the hammock.

Bruce rolls his eyes, but says nothing for fear of breaking the good mood. Overhead there is a rumbling, and then the sudden harsh clap of thunder. The rain begins without a warning, and Bruce scrambles for the newly moved metal door to their living chambers, slamming it shut with haste.

They sit in silence and half darkness as Bruce strikes a fire with careful hands. “A couple more hours and I’ll finish the board.”

Hal sits comfortably, and tilts his head, nearly dropping himself out of the hammock as he sputters. “Are you serious?” He asks, voice full of disbelief.

Bruce simply smirks, and steals the cape from under his grasp.

“Spooky!” Hal gripes, as it slides from his fingers.

“You’ll have it back in a minute.” He says, throwing it over his head, “I’m going to go grab the board, and then I’ll dry it by the fire for you.”

The tin-tin sound of the rain hitting the ship drowns out Hal’s curse at him, as he runs toward the hull, hands twisted into the cape as the winds pick up.

The door creaks open in the distance. “Don’t fall, spooky.” He hears, and tries to shake off a laugh, as the ice cold mud seeps around his boots.

He opens the door to the hull, and presses inside trying not to let any of the rain in.

He lets the cape fall to the metal plating, and walks to the board, hands reaching, before he pauses.

He lets the darkness fill the room, the flashes of lightning illuminating the room in half seconds. There is a slow, constant drip and he looks up. His eyes scour the ceiling, and that’s when he stops.

He trembles. Eyes fixed right above the board.

He tries to take a breath. His heart doesn’t feel like it’s in his chest anymore. It’s in his throat but also sinking to his feet, there is blood rushing to his ears drowning out all of the world except for -

The constant drip-drip-drip , dripping onto the board, the smallest of cracks above it, the wires coated in the soft sheen of wet.

He lets out a scream of wordless anger.

Hal startles from his light doze, falling onto the floor as he upends himself out of the hammock and races for the door.

He barely remembers to close it shut, before balking at the ice cold sheets of rain pouring down from the skies.

His head swivels in every direction before it catches a dark shadow, and Hal runs towards Bruce with everything he has.

“What’s wrong?” Hal reaches for him, and freezes at the look of pure unadulterated fury that marrs his face.

“Bruce?” He stops in his tracks, as Bruce lets out another scream and turns away from him.

Hal watches as a tree falls to a blur of his fists. He tries to pull him away, locking his arms under his shoulders, and Bruce rips him off without a backwards glance. -Sends him sprawling into the mud. Hal waits for a moment, before getting up to try again, and again, and again.

Bruce’s anger was relentless and if Hal was perfectly honest, terrifying.

“Fucking damn it, Bruce! What the fuck happened?!” Hal yells over the rain, soaked through and covered in mud.

Bruce’s form trembles, but he finally turns away from the line of trees. “I was careless.” Bruce yells hoarsely, over the torrent of rain, and Hal flinches back for a moment at the depth of emotion in his eyes. Bruce twists back, and strikes the tree with everything he can. With all the anger and mounting frustration. He had set them back. He had potentially doomed them to death. He had-

“What the hell happened?” Hal asks, trying to reach for Bruce, trying to turn his face to see --

Bruce snarls at him, throwing him off, and Hal had enough . 

He pushes right back. He knows it’s the last thing he needs to be doing, picking a fist fight with Bruce of all people, and yet he does.

Hal draws away his anger, and turns it into a spar. He tries not to think about how helpless he feels. How Bruce feeling helpless makes him feel. Bruce sucker punches him in the stomach, and what’s left of Hal’s common sense snaps like a twig underfoot. He locks his elbow and goes for his smug, terrifyingly angry face with a ferocity. The satisfied feeling of his elbow connecting for a split second is wiped out as he gets the air knocked out of him. Bruce slams him into the mud over and over, but Hal, - he doesn’t give in.

They fight each other wildly, barely above biting and scratching, for what seems forever, but what Hal guesses barely anytime. It isn’t long before Hal feels bruised and tender, when Bruce slumps into his arms, uncaring of the mud.

“What happened, Bruce?”

Instead of answering Bruce stands with shaky legs and offers out a hand. Hal takes a shallow breath and clasps their hands together softly. They slowly amble, drenched and exhausted back into the ship. They slip out of their clothes in silence, passing the bucket of water and small nibs of soap, scrubbing with Hal’s old charred shirt.

Bruce rests by the fire naked as the day he was born, as Hal wrings out their clothes, and soaks them in soap to get rid of the mud. Still damp, Hal reaches for the half melted box of emergency aids, and pops it open, grabbing the gauze, an alcohol pad and ointment. Bruce doesn’t speak as Hal plops next to him, setting down the supplies.

“Leave it.” He says, pulls his hands away, as Hal reaches for him.

Hal gives him a look. “Don’t be an ass, Spooky.” He scolds, yanking at Bruce’s wrists. He looks over Bruce’s hands tenderly. “I need you right now.” Hal pauses as they both digest his sentence. The crackling fire fills the silence. Hal coughs. “As a matter of fact, we both need your hands.” Hal covers awkwardly, “Sure, I can do anything I can put my mind to… and right now I’m doing the heavy lifting, like taking apart big components of the ship and hauling them to make shelter, and-” Hal is ready to go on but stops himself, “-but, it’s gonna take infinitely longer if you want me to do all the delicate work on those circuits. We both know I don’t have the patience.”

Bruce tries not to show how off guard the comment catches him. It was one thing to see Hal...kinder. It was something else entirely to see him humbled.

“Spooky, I know this is...scary and for fucks’ sake, we only have each other to depend on, but we’ll get through it. We’re not the most stubborn assholes in the galaxy for nothing.”

Bruce almost smiles before his face becomes a mask of ice. “I-- You don’t know what I--”

“What’d you do then, that’s so horrible you had to go out in this awful fucking rain and punch a tree like you’re in a video game?”

“The board got wet.”

“What?” Hal asks, flummoxed.

“The. Control. Board. Got. Wet.” Bruce repeats, emphasizing every word. He waits for the inevitable punch to the face. For the explosion of anger, and hate. For a barrage of questions and pointed blame. It doesn’t come like he expects it to.

Hal’s jaw is clenched, and his nostrils flare as Bruce finally gathers enough courage to look him in the eyes. Hal tries to mask his face into something kinder as they look at each other.

“It’ll be alright.” Hal says choked, something a lot like grief in his eyes, perhaps the grief of having a dream die so soon. “We’ll find a way, Bruce.” Hal stops talking, taking acute care of Bruce’s hands, swabbing them with the alcohol pad, and gently rubbing in the ointment.

“You’re lucky you don’t have splinters. What the fuck were you thinking, B- Spooky? What the hell could we have done if you broke your hands?” Hal chides and Bruce feels uncomfortably cowed as his hands are wrapped in gauze.

Bruce lets a small thank you slip between his lips, as Hal packs up the supplies. “Don’t do it again or I’ll elbow you somewhere a real nice bruise will grow. And next time you won’t almost dodge it.”

Bruce chuffed, as they get ready for bed, setting the clothes to dry within range of the fire’s warmth. “Alright.” He says after much silence.

“We’ll think of something, won’t we, Bruce?” Hal whispers to him, as they both settle into the hammock, trying to get as much skin contact in the chill of the night air. Without the cape, they wrap around each other sharing warmth, there was no room for shame in survival, and even if there had been, they weren't modest men.

“I hope so.” Bruce says, in spite of how much he is hurting, the now-familiar weight of Hal’s head resting on his shoulder,  “I hope so.”

"We could let it out dry in the sun?" Hal says the next morning, stretching and balanced like a cat in the hammock. 

"And let it catch dirt particles?" Bruce grumps, wincing as he tries to lift off his shirt from the makeshift rack, his hands feeling tender.

“I mean it’s not like you have a blow dryer in there do you?” Hal asks, looking fondly at his belt. 

Bruce pauses, looking thoughtfully at the rack.

Hal’s mouth flies open, looking back and forth between Bruce and his utility belt with an incredulous look. “You’re kidding right? Who carries around a blow dryer? And in your belt of all places? Are you secretly a pack of hoarding raccoons in a man-suit?”

“I have several hair conscious teenagers, who lead double lives and who occasionally attend social events, Hal. It’s a possibility.” Bruce shrugs, as Hal grabs his belt from it’s hanging place. 

“Which pocket?”  

“Number six, is most likely.” Bruce rubs his chin, “I remember Tim needing a quick touch up before a press conference.”

“Well you're just a modern day Mary Poppins aren’t you?” Hal tsks, pulling out a small folded appliance. “Is your belt some kind of Deus Ex-Machina? Next thing I know you’ll tell me you have a miniature broadcasting beacon in there as well. Hell are you sure you don’t have an extra power battery?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you know they’re only given to Green Lanterns. It simply pays to be prepared.” Bruce says with a smirk.

“Well, that’s good and all, but how are we going to plug it in when we don’t have electricity?” Hal asks, pulling out a small cord on it’s side.

“It’s also solar powered.” Bruce says, gingerly grabbing it from Hal’s hands and laying it in front of a cracked window. “Give it an hour or two and it should have enough power to get going."

“Cool.” Hal beams, finally getting dressed. “You think the wiring is still gonna work? Isn’t it supposed to be weather resistant or something like that?”

Bruce slips his shirt on with great care. “Just because something might be weather resistant doesn’t mean you should expose it to the elements.”

“But it could still work.” Hal continues on, bullheaded.

“Yes.” Bruce agrees. “But we should think of alternatives, just in case.”

“We can do it over breakfast,” Hal fishes out a ration bar, and tosses it to Bruce. “I’ll go clean the bucket out and get some water.” Hal gives him a thumbs up and leans too close, before he nabs the flint and tinder from Bruce’s pockets.

“I can-”

“Nope. You are lucky your hands aren’t more messed up then they are right now! Your only job today is to wait for that hair dryer to charge up, dry the control board, and let your hands heal up.”

Hal makes quick work of the fire before he leaves with the buckets in tow, “I’ll grab the board on the way back- Don’t do anything!” He yells as he walks into the distance.

Bruce looks at his hands, and says nothing the bitter self-disappointment inside of him isn’t already saying.

Hal boils the soup into a thick sludge and Bruce regrets ever punching the tree. Still manners ingrained, Bruce says nothing and swallows it down with half a grimace, the chalky aftertaste lingering on his tongue.

“So,” Hal starts, clearly incapable of staying quiet for long after almost a week of angry silence over a childlike nickname, moving his sludge from side to side. “We just need to wire up the antenna, record a message, and we’re in the clear?” 

“It’s the gist of it.” Bruce grumbles, “That is if the control board still works.”

“Okay,” Hal rolls his eyes, “Hypothetical worst case scenario, then. The control board doesn’t work, and we can’t find any parts to replace it. Can we still send an S.O.S signal out with just the flight recorder and the antenna? For 200 hundred points, what are your thoughts?”

”One, this isn’t a game of jeopardy, and two, it could be possible but the scope and distance of the message would be so short, it might die before reaching anything capable of receiving it.”

“I’m trying to lighten up the mood, Spooky. Live a little won’t you?”

“Jordan.”

“Wayne.”  Hal says mimicking the stern disapproving tone.

“This isn’t a funny situation and I would like you to remember that.”

“And I’m not insinuating that it isn't serious, but I need to make jokes, or I’ll go crazy.”

“This is no joking situation, need I remind you, we’re in life or death stakes.” Bruce cuts back, and he can feel the old tension creeping in between them. Two headstrong personalities clashing, at each other’s throats and fighting for the arguments sake. There was a reason he didn’t like to partner with Green Lantern, at least not this one. John was more than alright.

“Look.” Hal takes a deep breath, backtracking, “I’m sorry I crack jokes, and it makes you think I’m not serious.” Hal straightens his back, and drops his lilted tone. “-I understand we’re in danger, and the odds of us being found really don’t look good but I think you’re not being an optimist on purpose. Sure, we’ve crashed, and we’re stranded on an alien planet, but we’re looking for a way out, - and even if we aren’t saved in a week or in a month, hell, there’s a whole planet around us. Anyways, I’m just trying to cope alright? What’s one joke or two?” Hal fiddles with his hands. “Compared to that time in Chechnya, this is one hell of a cake walk, especially since you’re here… and you know, I’m not getting tortured. But mostly, cause you’re here and you’re making life a hell of a lot easier with all your gadgets.” Hal mumbles.

“I should really get a belt like that.” Hal says in a much louder voice and picks up his bowl with a sweeping gesture. Bruce feels distinctly off balance as he walks away.

“Nice talk!”  Hal says, as Bruce sits there with his disgustingly thick soup. “Don’t forget to dry the board!”

Bruce dries every inch, and nook, and cranny of the control board as he can. He had to hope that the wiring was weatherproof, though he couldn’t remember. He had to hope that the night it spent soaked in water hadn’t ruined it so completely that nothing could come out of it.

He had to hope against hope, and his own logic, that said electronics were just as, if not more so, infallible than their creators were.

Bruce was terrified however. A moment of carelessness could have killed them, and they would never realize it until they were half way to starving. He should have checked the hull for cracks. He should’ve slept with the damn thing on the floor, if he hadn’t been so sure of himself and the safety of the satellite.

For Bruce, the terror outweighed the hope, it was a scale and hope was a feather against a stack of ever mounting bricks. He liked to think of himself as a reasonable man. Reasonable enough to know that the statistics of being rescued alive were-- Well, on an alien planet, with a crashed ship he might have gone so far as to say they were nonexistent. There was an alien planet around them. In the air, air they breathed, in the dirt, familiar but ever so slightly off. In the animals and flora that while enchanting were distinctly unsettling in their diversity.

If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?
If they were to die on this planet, alone and so removed from everything they’d ever known, would they be found?

Bruce holds the hair dryer close to his chest, staring at the circuit board that could save them. He turns the power back on, and dries it again.

Hal washed his bowl by the river, mindful of the chubby almost-Capybaras, and sat on a rock by the stream. And then he wept. Out of relief. Out of fear, of the sheer hope still left in him, kicking and alive. He lived to believe. To make his will his way, and that hope was just a facet of it. Hope, to him, always started strong. Always. But hope could be stripped away too.  

Just like in Chechnya, he’d called the ring for two days. Nothing answered.

This time, Hal knew better than to hope for the Justice League to come. It sat funny in his gut, to be so callous of their potential rescuers...but he knew better. Who could save them but themselves? And failing that, who could make a life here better than Green Lantern and Batman?

Hal looked at his hand, and struggled to keep the ring on. He remembered the words Ollie had told him. You should have kept the ring on.

Those words burned through him in all his misery then and now. His ring glinted in the sunlight, a beacon of will made useless. This time he had.

They come together around sunset, and it feels right to finish the satellite when the world around them is growing dark.

“It’s the moment of truth.” Hal bites his lip as Bruce hovers over Hal’s fingers, looking down sharply at the last wire to be welded. “Want to make an early birthday wish, just in case? Find a shooting star?”

“Just connect it.” Bruce snaps, and Hal wastes no time. He still hopes Bruce has enough tact to ignore his red eyes.

His fingers don’t shake, as the laser turns on, and the last wire is soldered on, but it’s a damn near thing. The antenna blooms, spreading out like an inverted fan, and the Flight Recorder kicks to life, a small click indicating its activation.

Hal swallows as Bruce crouches to meet the small microphone and speaks in an urgent, if cracked tone. Only he can see the fragile spark of hope, struggling to live in those pessimistic eyes.

“This is Batman speaking, and on April 25th, at approximately 7:38 pm, after leaving the Brani civilization on a diplomatic mission and approaching the Sigma Constellation we encountered an Unknown Space Phenomena. A planet that wasn’t on our scanners or maps, materialized from nowhere. We were hit with space debris and pulled into its gravitational orbit too quickly to correct our course. As a result Green Lantern and I have crashed and landed on a planet, that is while hospitable for life to some degree…”

“--If you take away anything from this message let it be this...Please, send help. We are stranded, without hope of rescue or home. We will live for as long as we’re able. We will keep on sending messages as long as we can. Find us. We’re alive.”

 

 

Chapter Text

Days, nearly another week had gone by, and still there had been no response. Even though Hal had expected it, it still hurt. And worse yet, he could see the way it wore on Bruce. He slept less, well, less than he always had. He stayed up late into the night, sitting by the fire carving things out of wood with a distant look on his face.

Hal could barely stomach watching him, as he dried grasses, reeds, and thickets twining them into baskets under Bruce’s occasional razor sharp guidance. The days Bruce woke, if he’d bothered to sleep the night before, he would pace and pace, speaking into the Flight Recorder with a measured tone that never matched his stormy face.

It made him, distant, and unreachable, a lighthouse out in a storm that would tear out it’s foundations. It scared him. So he hid it, like he always did. Like he always would.

Bruce had decided to record a new message every morning and night, and sometimes, he got to speak into the recorder too, and watch the small metal needle tick up, as it recorded their messages and saved them. Hal wondered how long they would be there. How it would survive their impermanence, if they never made it back.

He shook his head, shook out those thoughts, and did what Bruce told him with mild arguments in every in between of too much silence.

“You know, Spooky.” He said one day, before dawn, about six days after they’d sent the first message, “You never told me what I’m doing all this basket weaving for.” Hal placed aside a completed basket made of reeds that gave the worst splinters when he worked it with dry hands. They worked by small firelight, but far enough away that the baskets wouldn’t burn by accident.

Bruce wet his hands by dipping them into their shared bucket, and continued weaving the dampening reeds, “The weather is getting hotter, and that usually indicates a growing season on most habitable planets. Considering we can breath well enough, and from the slides I’ve been able to get from my microscope, the composition of this planet is similar enough to Earth that we shouldn’t face too much trouble growing food.”

Hal salivated at the thought of eating something other than ration soup. “When do we start?” He said, furiously grabbing another reed and then cursing as it stabbed at him. “Motherfucker-”

“Wet your hands, Jordan. You don’t have your ring to protect you from harm. Take precautions.” Bruce chided him, “We have to finish the baskets soon, and then we can begin the process of disassembling the plants.”

Hal brushed his words off, “I know how to disassemble things ...not plants. How do you disassemble a plant?”

“When you’re in the wild, you have to follow a procedure to make sure what you eat doesn’t kill you. Step one, make sure it isn't poisonous. If you get a reaction, leave it. Second, you have to disassemble the plant into categories. Stem, leaves, pistil, stamen, bud, root, and produce. We have to test all of it.”

“Oh.” Hal said, enthusiasm slightly smothered by the arduous task that lay ahead of them.

“Third, if it passes all of the previous criteria, we can move to testing the flora with our mouths. If we get no reactions from those tests then we may eat a slight amount of it, cooked in boiled water. Or raw, if we have no other choice.”

“Spooky… all of that is going to take at least a week. Maybe more. We’re running out of rations now .”

Bruce let out a grunt, as if to assuage his worry, “We’ll also begin fishing and hunting for meat. At the very least, we can stretch the rations an extra two weeks provided we hunt, while we test the flora.”

“Won’t we have to test the animals themselves? You know, since we’re going through all the trouble for the plants.” Hal asked, frowning.

“Eating wild animals is very different from eating plants. Watching the food chain will be our biggest advantage in choosing the easiest and most efficient prey to hunt. As long as the fauna don’t look visibly sick, or poisonous, and we look through their organs for signs of illness, if we cook them well, they should be safe to eat. I’ll teach you how to build a fishing hook later, or perhaps it’ll be easier to start with our hands--”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk so much except when you’re giving someone a dressing down.” Hal talked without thinking, and watched as Bruce’s mouth snapped shut. He let out a grumble, and then focused on his basket.

“C’mon! It’s not a bad thing! It’s almost like we’re fr-”

“We’re not.”

“Co-workers?”

“Acquaintances.”

“Nice try but we’ve seen each other naked, pal. We slept naked, together. Without the cape I might add.”

“Associates, then.” Bruce said with a sharp look.

Hal threw a bunch of snapped reeds in Bruce’s direction, and hoped he got a splinter. “That’s literally a synonym for co-workers. Does skin-ship count for nothing with you? Are you deliberately trying to aggravate me?”

“Take it or leave it, Jordan.” Bruce growled, and Hal gave a grudging sigh before Bruce turned away to look at the world becoming awash in the light of dawn.

“It’s time to record the message.” Bruce said, and finished his basket, without nary a splinter. Cocky man of a bat, Hal thought, looking down to his own basket. He’d need at least another hour, and another bucket of water. Somehow he could never get his hands wet enough.

“Don’t forget to tell them I’m still alive. And that we haven’t killed each other...yet!” Hal shouted, and Bruce waved back at him, already hurrying back to the camp.

God, he missed civilization.

“I’m so tired of rations.” Hal griped, as he lowered himself into the river, around noon, when the sun was highest, and waded to where Bruce stood. “I could eat anything.” He said, and his stomach grumbled to prove it.

Bruce chose then to pull up the fish in his grasp, and watched with concern as it squirmed out of the water. It had gone near him due to curiosity and had paid the price.

There was a high pitched warble, ringing in their ears. The fish. Bruce almost dropped it in surprise. Hal’s scream joined it.

A man and a fish screaming in unison. Bruce and his sanity between them. Hal’s scream quickly died when he flailed into the water, and then down under. He splashed his way hiding behind Bruce, sending a disgusted look to the fish flailing in his hands.

“Anything except that.” He said, looking at the blobby fish. It’s whole body, seemingly one gelatinous blob. He pointed at it, like his finger would do something other than point. “I will not eat that...that thing! ”

“Jordan-”

“No!” Hal let out a small shriek.

The blob-fish writhed and Hal’s stomach shrunk.

He wasn’t hungry anymore.

Not if he had to eat that .

The blob-fish kept screaming.

Bruce spun the gutted and skewered fish on a soaked wooden rod, and Hal tried not to look at what they would have for dinner. Off to the side, on a smaller fire, sat the ration soup. It might’ve been exciting to have something different, but different was also a monstrous blubbery, gelatinous fish-like creature that looked like it could have come from the depths of the Mariana trench and should have stayed there.

Hal didn’t look, because if he looked he would feel the bile try to crawl up his throat.

“I really thought you were more mature than this, Jordan.” Bruce says, sounding particularly put out, as they wait for the fish to finish cooking.

“Maturity has nothing to do with it, Spooky. For fucks’ sake, it literally looks like it’s melting! That ‘fish’ is 90 percent fat!” Hal motioned at it viciously, as the fat from the fish dripped off of its body, rendered and dripping into the fire. “How can you expect me to eat that?”

“We don’t have the privilege to be picky about what we eat. You don’t want to eat the capybaras because they’re ‘friend-shaped,’ so be it. You will, however, eat this fish out of your own free will, or I will grind it down to a paste, tie you up, and feed it to you, Jordan. You won’t starve on my watch while I can prevent it.”

Hal sniffed, and turned up his nose. “Just don’t let me look at it roasting.”

Bruce rolled his eyes, and they lapsed back into silence, hungrily counting the seconds.

For such a monstrous fish, Hal decided it tasted delicious, except the charred parts. But Hal could forgive Bruce for that. It was delicious as it could be without any salt or spices. He missed Tabasco. Cholula. His mouth watered and it had nothing to do with the fish.

Hal tore into the soft meat without a care, spitting bones out like a barbarian compared to Bruce’s steady mannerisms, of picking apart his fish. The bones were soft, almost like cartilage instead and he-- He didn’t want to think about it. Bruce could handle the butchering, and skewering. Hal didn’t want to know. He was a Coast City boy, and the most unprocessed meat he’d ever gotten close to was at a Noks’ banquet, one of their plates still squirming.

He licked the grease off of his fingers, and it tasted like the wood that they burned to roast it in. He wondered if he should name the tree they’d been cutting down like frontier settlers.  There was no way in hell he was going to let Bruce name it. It would end up with some sort of bat name. Nothing deserved to suffer that. Except Batman, of course.

“For someone who was so squeamish they couldn’t even touch it, you sure look like you’re enjoying it.” Bruce said to him, and Hal gave a sheepish grin.

“I’m from Coast City. I might have eaten fresh fish but I sure as hell didn’t kill it. Promise I’ll do most of the gathering.” Hal harrumphed at him, fish bones in between his teeth. He spat them into his bowl, and then blurted out loud, “At least we have toothpicks now.”

“Only you would think of something like that.” Bruce said, and dunked a chunk of blubber fish into his ration soup. After that he didn’t talk, and it suited Hal just fine. 

“Did I ever tell you about Itty?” Hal rubbed his chin.

“ Diana, help me. If it’s one of your one night stands Jordan, I don’t want to know.”

“No! No! Why would I ever talk to you about one night stands?! No Itty was an Ayries. He was an alien, but he looked like a starfish. He saved me back when--”

Hal could talk enough for the both of them.

Hal rinsed their dishes in the river, and buried the bones in a deep hole, covered with mud. Rinsing his hands again in the water, Bruce approached him, and handed him a basket, with his gloves inside.

“What are the gloves for?” He asked, as they walked to the ship and Hal put their dishes away.

“You’ll gather some flora, and when you’re done, and feel you have a good enough variety, bring it back and I’ll separate the parts. We can try feeding the berries and such to the capybaras.”

“It’ll kill them!”

“Would you rather be the guinea pig?”

“No.” Hal sighed, putting on the gloves, “What if I pick the wrong ones?”

“Then we’ll figure it out together. Grab whatever is plentiful, or what you see the animals eat. I’ll be here.”

“Yeah.” Hal stretched, and swung the basket in his hands, walking towards the trees on the edge of the clearing. He stopped a couple feet away, as Bruce watched him go.

“Don’t spend all day by the Satellite, okay?” Hal tried to not sound so worried. He knew what it did to a man to cling to hope and have it torn away.

Bruce juggled a piece of wood, and a knife, “I won’t. And if something tries to kill you, scream.”

Hal had to quip. He had to. Bruce was going to hate it. He smiled, and tried not to think about how he’d only been able to rinse his mouth with water. He yearned for minty fresh toothpaste.

“I knew you always wanted to hear me scream your name.”

Nice.

Hal had hidden himself in a copse of trees, before breaking out into a run, catching leaves as he went. He watched the trees, waiting for low hanging fruit, barely blowing in the breeze.

He almost smashed into the trunk of the tree he’d been looking for, the sound of knives cutting through the air sending a zip down his spine. He curiously approached the fruit, silver almost metallic in color. He’d watched the capybaras chow down on it as a stable food source. He wearily poked at a half smashed fruit, as it slowly ripped open under the stick and it’s purple insides flooded out.

He scrunched up his face, as it’s insides mushed together with the repeated prodding. He put on the gloves, and picked a range of the fruits in different stages of ripeness. One perhaps almost overripe, as it seemed to bulge at his light touch. He gently covered them with leaves, and turned to collect the next thing he’d seen the capybaras eat, a thick dark yellow root they dug out of the ground. He followed the capybara at a distance, and waited until they moved onto the next hole to harvest what was left of the root. He shook it out of the dirt, and it sprawled across his hands, getting thicker in the middle of the root system. He peered at it closely, rubbing the dirt off and squinting at the color. Maybe it would taste like cassava. That needed to be roasted to eat, right?

He carefully broke off the root limbs, and parceled it into the basket with half a mind. Keeping an eye on the capybaras who were up earlier than usual. Next, he gathered thick blueberries, that was if blueberries were the size of oranges and smelled too sweet. He resisted the urge to bite into one, images of the animals eating bushes of it clean off, fresh in his mind.

He strolled through the trees, marking his way with a small sliver of rock and keeping an eye on the sun, as it filtered through the trees. A strong breeze blew through, and Hal froze, at the sounds carried by the wind.

Hal looped his elbow through the basket, and perched on a tree. Using the height to his advantage, Hal scanned his surroundings.

There. A pair of long furry ears swiveled in different directions. Hal left the basket on the thickest limb, and climbed higher.

The deer-like creatures were long limbed, even as they sat in beds of grasses. They were lying almost strategically around the grass, heads raised high and ears swiveling, letting out a constant stream of noises. And then Hal realized why.

There were miniature versions of the long limbed deer frolicking around their parents, eating the curly grasses. The herd was protecting their babies. Babies that looked like dik-diks.

Hal melted.

“You are never going to believe what just happened!” Hal ran back to their camp, and Bruce put down a newly carved bowl, patting the gathered shavings off of his lap.

“Was it dangerous?” He asked, standing up.

“Worse!” Hal sulked, and set the basket down, tearing the gloves off with his teeth.

“What?” Bruce scrambled, and tensed as strange warbling sounds came from the small forest. “What did you do?” He asked, and reached into his belt, fingering a grenade.

The trees shook, and everything around Bruce slowed, as he counted the seconds until some angry alien animal burst out of the trees on a rampage for Hal. Instead, a herd of small Ungulates crept through into the clearing. They were long limbed, and dainty. He could take one down with a bow and arrow, and not have to shoot twice. They had large noses, and out of place hooves, too large on their legs. Bruce still tensed, ready for the herd to come charging towards them.

“Jordan…” He said through grit teeth, “What did you do?”

“Well, one time I went to a petting zoo and I got to feed some deer. So I thought, why not approach slowly and what do you know? The moms really like the Stabby’s, and so the babies tried to eat some--”

One of Ungulates approached Bruce and nosed his chest, while another licked at his hair. Bruce slowly slipped his hand out of his belt, and gently raised to the creature. They gently nibbled on his hand, before they determined he had no food, and ambled over to Hal, snapping at the basket covered in leaves.

“Hey, now-- This is ours. I’ll go get you guys more Stabby’s later. Those things must be good if you guys like them this much.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate you leading the wildlife into our clearing so I don’t have to track anything down before I hunt-- but what exactly is a...Stabby?” Bruce asked, and crouched when one of the babies knocked into his legs. He ran a hand through it’s fur with a small smile, as it let out a small nik-nik.

“There was this one plant the capybaras kept eating so,--” Hal paused, and put a glove on, reaching into the basket. He slowly pulled out a silver, almost metallic fruit. “This is a Stabby. I found out the deer don’t really react to it when it’s covered in skin. But boy, let me tell you, once you peel it they go ape shit. i named all of them Niks, cause of the noise they make.”

Hal passed it over, and Bruce slipped the other glove on as he observed it. It had a thick skin, sharp and heavy. He gently squeezed his fist around it, and found it slightly lax. If he were to judge using Earthen standards, the fruit was barely ripe.

“And let me guess you found all of this out by experimenting, alone, surrounded by an alien species?”

Hal looked vaguely uncomfortable now, and Bruce pushed on. “What would you have done if they were dangerous, Hal? We have a limited range of weapons, and I would rather not use my arsenal until a worst case scenario.”

“I would have screamed?”

Bruce frowns, and makes his displeasure known. He rubs his temples, “You don’t have a ring, Hal, and we’re low on any sort of defensive weapons. You can’t approach wild animals and expect them to be friendly and domesticated.”

“I know I don’t have my ring. You don’t have to keep throwing it in my face--” Hal gnashed his teeth. “They don’t even look dangerous--”

“Just because something doesn’t look dangerous doesn’t mean it can’t be. You need to think about the potential consequences to your actions, Jordan. There is a reason people don’t go wandering off into the wilderness to interact with wild animals. What happens when the next one isn’t so docile? Will I find you bleeding to death, or so injured I can’t fix it?”

“I wouldn’t let it get to that--”

“Your words and actions speak volumes differently. We need to survive, Jordan. Do you know what that means?”

“I know what it means, I’m not some-” Hal tries to defend himself, and Bruce steamrolls into him.

“I’m going to cut you off, because I know you’re not a child. You’re not a Robin. No, they would know to listen and be cautious in a new environment, like I’ve trained them to be. We survive by making sure the odds are always with us. Stacking them in our favor. We can trap animals, farm plants, build structures to keep us safe from the weather and this planet. And we wait for someone to rescue us. To hear our message. We don’t reach out to wild animals when we are alone and defenseless, not knowing whether or not an action could be misconstrued as hostile!”

“It’s my choice to make!” Hal snarls now, poking Bruce in the chest. The herd scatters as his voice rises in volume. “Newsflash, you don’t get to control me, asshole.”

“It’s not a matter of control, Jordan. It’s a matter of survival, and like it or not, we’re in this together. Throw your pride away, it has no place in survival.” Bruce spat with a finality, and picked the basket up, striding into the shuttle.

Hal went quiet at Bruce’s scolding, and went to the hull to sulk. Like hell he would let Spooky tell him what to do.

Chapter Text

Bruce was angry and disappointed, but in dealing with Hal it was as always, usual. So what if the Ungulates were docile? Remarkably cute and big eyed? Dainty and weak limbed? For all Hal had known they could’ve had a second jaw and liked to lure their prey in before the hunt. And yet, he’d still lured them to the camp. To their safe haven. The only place they could call theirs on this god-forsaken alien planet.

The disappointment chafed at him. He wanted to go back outside and yell at Hal again. Maybe he could make him see reason. Why did the disappointment chafe? Had he expected too much? Was asking Hal to be careful really too much? Had he deliberately misconstrued or ignored what he had said? How were they supposed to survive if one half of the team, reckless and knowingly walked into danger?

Bruce questioned himself in circles, as he used his glove to pull out the layers of fruit in the basket. He worked with them methodically, pushing away the anger, and focusing in its place.
He slowly turned the fruits as he searched their skin for any marring and tried not to think about how Hal would have probably given them a stupid name already.

Stem, leaves, pistil, stamen, bud, root, and produce. He repeated it over and over, as he arranged the fruits, and prepared to dissect them.

He cut into the unripened silver-metallic fruit with a small knife from his belt. It sliced through with little give. He grabbed his notebook with his un-gloved hand, and paused, pen hovering over the blank pages. The notebook only had so many blank pages. Was this really what he should waste them on?

He sat with his thoughts a moment more, before he pushed on. His pen clicked, and he began to catalogue. Silver-metallic fruit, a cross between the Earthen standards of Pepo and Hesperidium . It had a peel-able rind, but it was heavy and would require a bite with force to eat, at the very least, in the animal kingdom. The flesh went all the way through, like a melon, and there was a sticky pulp of seeds in the middle. The insides were an off putting purple color that made the hairs on Bruce’s arms stand up. He made a mental note to ask Hal which variety of animals had eaten the fruit before deciding to consume it themselves.

He used his knife to separate the rind from the flesh and sticky seed pulp, setting them on their own leaves and slowly writing out their characteristics. It was perhaps about two hours before he decided to turn to another fruit, tired of tearing apart the specimen in front of him.

Bruce pulled the fruit out with an incredulous trepidation, refusing to show the surprise on his face though no one was in the room with him. It was a blueberry, the size of an orange. Bruce ignored his first instinct to bite into it and undoubtedly feel the juices run down his chin. He swallowed back the saliva, grabbed his knife and tried not to feel satisfied as the knife cut into the fruit and out came a small torrent of purple juice.

The skin was paper thin, and when peeled off, revealed a light purple fruit on the inside, instead of the normal green an Earth blueberry was. It had seeds the size of a quarter, and Bruce put them aside on a leaf, cutting the blueberry into segments. He poked at the fleshy insides, and marveled when they seemingly sprung back. He itched for a good microscope, to study and understand their evolution.

He sighed, and pursed his lips at the small microscope with him, strong enough to do rudimentary readings while on patrol but not much else. He chided himself, and focused back on his task.

He reached into the bag, and grabbed the last thing wrapped in leaves. He blinked at the root, broken into manageable sections. It was white and grey all the way through, and thicker in the middle where it would have connected to the rest of the system. He peeled a good half section of the skin off of the root and put it on the leaf. He poked at the flesh and it remained unyielding. He cut it into pieces and took out his microscope.

He would work a while yet, and maybe he’d actually want to talk to Jordan at the end.

Bruce did not, in fact, want to talk to Jordan after he finished looking at what he could have of the flora with the microscope. The time apart, had only compounded his reckless nature and it rankled at him. Did Hal not understand life or death- Bruce stopped that train of thought, neigh on disrespectful, because yes, Hal would know life or death stakes. He tried not to feel the old guilt at the thought of Chechnya.

But he supposed it was another matter if he cared.

“Hal.” Bruce waited at the entrance to the hull, and very nearly threw his glove at Hal when he saw an Ungulate curled up with Hal, eating fruit from his gloved fingers.

“What the fuck, Jordan. Did you listen to nothing of what I said?”

“Why do you always have to have the first word?”

“Because I’m right. ”

“Well fuck you too, Spooky. I’m thinking ahead. This lady is very old, and she’s not as fast as the herd. You said you wanted to hunt? Here you go.”

Hal’s callousness threw Bruce for a loop. “Are you sure?” he ended up asking in a softer voice, instead of the reaming he had planned on. “You haven’t formed an unnaturally fast connection or are going to comment about it’s ‘friend shaped’ nature?” He talked back sarcastically and Hal’s frown turned fiercer.

“I don’t know if there’s any big predators, but even so she won’t survive long in the wild much longer. Better we eat and find a way to preserve the meat than her dying out there away from the herd.”

Bruce finally noticed a small twine of dried grassed around her neck, like a roughshod rope.

Hal refused to look him in the eye, as he led the Ungulate to him. “Just, make it quick, alright?”

The Ungulate started nibbling the ends of his pants, and Bruce’s heart squeezed. They were stranded, and they needed to survive. To hunt and gather, just until they could be rescued. What was one animal compared to starving to death?

Bruce looked at the animal, and then back to Hal. “I’ll be as gentle as I can.”

Bruce does it kind and quick, but it is different, he thinks to kill an animal even for survival than it had been to gut a fish. There is a disconnect, he acknowledges. What was one fish to millions more? What was an old Ungulate to it’s herd but the next meal for a predator? And yet, he’d seen its’ herd- its’ family.

What was anything compared to a chance to survive, even just one more day? To see the faces of his family, of Alfred, of his children, and the streets of his city, dark and austere, alive and hale?

He heaves as he ties the rope around the hind legs of the Ungulate, and then pulls, hanging it up to bleed. He leaves before he can hear the drip start, and walks to the river to rinse the blood off. He comes short of breaking the tree line when he catches sight of Hal looking over the muddy bank.

Bruce tries to approach silently, but mud is mud, and it cannot be changed. His steps echo and slap against his wishes, and Hal looks at him as if he hurts.

He steps back for a moment, unprepared for the sheer emotion radiating off of him. Hal is a supernova, always on the brink of destruction, a combination of explosive and unrelenting matter.

“It’s done.” Is all Bruce manages to say, the weight of his words carrying on the wind. “We can gather more wood and try smoking the meat. The first couple tries will be more of a test run, but we have more than enough to experiment with.”

“Right.” Hal says, and Bruce stoops to the river and scoops water into his hands, watching as it washes away the blood and makes him clean again. He doesn’t think he’ll ever feel clean without a good amount of soap, no matter how many times he rinses.

“We can bury some of the bones.” He says. They would need the meat, sooner or later. And the fur. “We can eat from their flesh, and give them the respect they deserve.”

Bruce doesn’t say that digging a grave will take hours of work, if Hal wants it done right. He doesn’t comment that it will be back breaking work, and that their calories and time would be better off elsewhere...because there is not much else Bruce can offer...but he can offer this one kindness, for life needs kindness for all it needs bellies filled too.

Hal sniffs, and Bruce tries not to cringe. It is discomforting to see someone on the verge of tears, to see them so open and emotional, when they were barely more than strangers, barely more than associates.

“Thanks.” Hal says, and Bruce looks away. “Do you need he--”

“No.” Bruce says, and it comes out final. Somehow, he thinks, for all their arguing, Hal is grateful.

Bruce never wants to dig a grave without a shovel again. His hands ache and ache and ache . It is all they can do, not even so strong as to close around themselves. To grip something. He doesn’t look forward to dinner, undoubtedly, Hal would lap out of his bowl like a dog. Like Titus. It almost makes a smile creep onto his lips, before Bruce taps down on his reminiscing. 

It is nearly an hour to sunset when they finish digging, and Bruce wastes no time. He washes his hands in the bucket, and is cutting the meat into the thinnest slivers he can manage. He works through the pain of his hands, cutting the meat with gangly and rustic movements, hitting bone and fat. He can feel his fingers pinch together, so very tired, but he perseveres. They had only today, and then the meat would spoil, he had to be practical, efficient, and not clumsily holding a knife, with quivering hands. No matter how much they lost on the first Ungulate, as long as they could hunt the next, they would live.

He counts every cut of meat he can finish with the sun’s last rays. Every piece of meat is a meal, and every meal is another day lived. Another chance to be rescued. Hal returns from his trip to the river with wet sticks and a bucket of water. All Bruce all wants to do is lie on the hammock and never get up. He doesn’t.

Instead he starts the smoking pit, and wraps dried weeds around sticks, using them as rope to form a tripod. He settles it over the smoking pit, different from their usual fire, lower to the ground and mostly small scraps of wood, coal, and bunches of smoking leaves. They wrap wet, green branches onto the tripod for a grating, puzzling them together to hold the meat up.

Hal squirms, but lays the meat out onto the sticks, as Bruce desperately wishes for salt. They put all the meat they can on the smoking pit, and a sense of relief washes over him. He wraps the pit in his cape, and almost smiles when the smoke rises from the small home above. Another meal, another day. His relief however, is as always, broken by Hal.

“We’ll have to sleep in shifts again won’t we?”

Bruce pauses, as he starts up the fire for dinner, frustrated at his hands failing to strike the tinder. “What do you mean again? Have you been sleeping on your shifts?” Bruce can feel the irritation coming back, sinking into the murky waters of his exhaustion. He might be too tired to argue. It doesn’t mean he won’t try.

“It’s not like you’re sleeping , Mr-I-Can-Go-72-Hours-Without-Sleep. You snore. ” Hal jabbed at him, and if he were any less tired, Bruce might feel offended.

“I’m not the only one who snores-” It’s a weak come back, but still.

“Yeah, but you’re a chainsaw made of man-beef! And if you’re gonna pace the length of the entire camp and not sleep, fine, but I am sleeping. Besides it’s been three weeks, I think we can rule out predators attacking us in the wild.”

“You can never be too careful, Jordan, or too well prepared. You only need one thing to go wrong to die, after all.” Bruce said, melting the little fat he’d found on the Ungulate, and using it to brown the fresh meat. Bruce found no matter how hard he tried, his eyes wouldn’t lift from the pot. “Would you mind ration soup mixed with-”

“Not at all.” Hal said, and Bruce could practically hear him swallowing back the saliva. Bruce opened a loop in his belt, and rubbed his poorly made wooden spoon with care. He poked at the meat, looked at Hal, and almost wanted to pass the spoon.

“Do you know when it’s ready?” Bruce asked, and they both watched the meat cook with blank stares.

“Isn’t it all supposed to be one color?”

“When Alfred cooks venison, it’s usually pink in the middle.”

“Maybe we should cook it full stop. It’s an alien deer so…”

Bruce nods, and they fall into a silence that for once, Hal doesn’t break.

Bruce does.

“Why did you lead those Ungulates to our camp, Jordan? Give me a good reason, some sort of senseful decision making--”

Hal almost looks at him remorseful, but not cowed, never cowed. “First, what the hell is an ungulate? Second-”

“An Ungulate is a hoofed mammal, as we don’t know their name-”

“It’s a Nik-Nik, which I named, and… You’re always so serious, Spooky. Is it so wrong to see a little beauty on an alien planet despite our circumstances?”

“That’s it?” Bruce says, and has half a mind to scoff, another to sigh, and yet another to flick Jordan’s temple.

“That’s it.” Hal shrugs, “I don’t really know what you were expecting to hear beyond, hey, it’s cute, and also Bruce says we need to hunt. Although, I didn’t really want to hunt them, isn’t it reason enough?”

“Fine. Fine. ” Bruce repeats to himself more than Hal, “However, you can’t keep doing it. Wild animals, creatures, are dangerous things, Hal, and we have precious little resources to help if something does go wrong.”

“You asked me once, what you would have done, if I’d broken my hands. I’ll ask you this in return, tell me, Hal, what would I do if you were too injured to move? To hunt? To live?”

“We have more than ourselves to think about now, we must think about each other too. We are all we can depend upon in this world.”

Bruce looks at the dangerously dark color the meat has taken, and saves Hal from answering by pouring in a fresh bucket of water, alongside another ration bar. They stare at everything but each other as they eat, and Bruce doesn’t think to see if Hal had lapped at his bowl.

The meat is tough, and dry. Overcooked and over boiled. The soup is thankfully not salt less because of the ration bar. Even still, with chunks of chalky soup and tough meat, it is the best meal he has had in a long time.

He thinks about Alfred’s cooking, and wonders, if and when he eats it again, if he’ll ever want to eat anything else.

Bruce drags the remains of the Ungulates body behind him as Hal lead the way with a stick on fire. More dangerous yes, but Bruce wanted to conserve their technology as much as he could. The short trip to the grave they dug was quiet, but it was not eerie as it was out of place.

They had never traveled at night, and it raises every hackle Bruce has. He catalogues every gust of wind, the creak and shuffle of the trees, the scuffling gait of Hal’s tired legs. If he concentrates enough, he can almost hear the sound of the capybaras carrying down from the river.

Bruce lets out a gasp of relief, when they finally reach the grave, unraveling the rope around his waist and shoulders, dragging along the Ungulate.

Hal hesitates as he stares at the grave, and Bruce catches his breath.

“Is there anything you’d like to say?” He says, when he finally has enough air in his lungs to speak.

“I don’t really know what to say. I- I- I just never really think about it you know? Where all the food comes from. I realize, conceptually that of course it comes from an animal-- I mean, what am I supposed to say, sorry I need to live, so I ate you?”

“That’s the food chain, Jordan. Only most animals don’t feel remorse or apologize, they just eat. But, it’s ...alright to be...sad.” Bruce struggles to say. “Having respect for where or what your meal comes from is a good thing, but don’t let it blind you. Even if an animal is cute, or friendly, or ‘friend-shaped,’ I want you to know if there comes a day when we have to eat them to survive, we will.”

“Yeah.” Jordan agreed, and Bruce untied the rope holding the remains together.

“Would you like to help?” He asked, pushing it closer to the edge of the hole.

“Not with that, not today, but I’ll fill it back up.”

It is not as ceremonial as it could be, Bruce muses, when they return to the camp, ready to wash the dirt from under their fingernails, but it is all they can give.

Bruce cares for the smoking pit with care bordering on too much, he knows, but it is important. That, and there is nothing much to do by what little firelight and moonlight they have, besides carve, tend the smoking pit, or think. Jordan shifts from the other side of the fire, shivering against the night wind. “Go to sleep, Jordan.” Bruce says, opening a small part of his cape and poking at the coals with a twisted piece of metal.

“Not yet.”

“I won’t burn it.” Bruce promises.

“I’m not worried about that.”

Bruce gives him a look, and Jordan scoffs.

“Okay, not only about that.”

“Then what?” Bruce asks, and doesn’t really expect to be answered.

“Do you think we’re the only ones on this planet?”

“Realistically? No. For all this flora and fauna to have evolved, it would make sense for an intelligent, and sentient species to have evolved alongside them. However, just because a planet can support life, and does indeed have life on it, doesn’t mean we should automatically assume there is intelligent life.”

“But we’re in a Goldilocks zone. I mean, the air is breathable, and it doesn’t kill my lungs... much. We can hunt and eat the animals. They have rivers, and fucking blueberries the size of oranges!”

“There are a million things that go into evolution, Jordan. Despite how smart Humanity has become, we don’t know the start of it. There are some planets, no matter how livable they are, that will simply never have sentient species.”

“I guess so...it’s just, should we go looking?” Hal rested his chin on his hand, eyes turning molten as they reflected the firelight.

“And just leave the crash site? It’s a lot to gamble, on nothing. We don’t know what’s out there, and we’ve barely started to hunt our own food, it’s too early.”

“But, we might?”

“We’ll talk about it when we have more supplies.”

“What about the fruit? When are we going to try them?”

“Tomorrow. Now go to sleep.” He grumps, and Hal rolls his eyes. He rises from his seat across the fire, and slowly shuffles away.

“Wake me up when it’s my shift!”

Bruce tenses his jaw to hide a yawn, and settles in for the rest of his shift, a pile of leaves at his side and the door to the ship echoing in the clearing.

Bruce looks to the stars and misses home.

Chapter Text

Their only constant companion beside each other was boredom. There was so much they needed to do that at times it made him lag behind. Hal didn't mean to obviously, but it wore on him in a way it didn't Bruce. All their planning, and resources, time, and hopes and dreams depended on some nebulous far off rescue Hal might not live to see the day of. It ached that he couldn't grasp the beautiful hopes and dreams that would come with a rescue, but he’d been burned before and he didn’t dare try again. Bruce was thoughts, planning, motion and reaction, long and steady steps towards a future he built on a monumental foundation of unbroken trust. But that wasn’t Hal. He wasn’t steady, he didn’t plan for long. Not like Bruce did. He tried to. Tried to find some way to help that wasn’t just gathering the fruits, or cleaning the hull or sending out one more message using the Flight Recorder when Bruce was otherwise occupied. He tried and failed to build furniture from sticks, and then tried again until his hands had splinters and he wanted to light the entire thing on fire, but he got through it. No one told him how hard it would be living day to day, waiting for the future to come. For their plans to come to fruition. Turns out, he had to live it to know, and it had been every bit as tortuous as he’d never imagined it was.

His nerves were alight with impatience, and he bit into a blo-orange with the snap of his teeth, the juices gushing down his chin and grounding him away from his thoughts. The fruit popped in his mouth, and despite it’s deeply blue-purple color, tasted milky and barely sweet. The fruit was average in comparison to anything from Earth, but he didn’t have to force it down in between gags, so he counted it as a win. Grilled Blobby, smoked meat, and ration soup be damned, it felt nice to eat something fresh and perishable that wasn’t meat. It almost made him feel healthy, though he and Bruce were far from caring about ‘health.’ The wind picked up again, and Hal shrugged off his shirt throwing it onto a tree branch, and rolled his pants up to his calves. He swiped the juices away with his palm, and tried not to grimace at the growing scruff on his jaw. He debated eating the rest of the blo-orange and then remembered the pile they had back at camp, - he threw it into the river, and the half eaten fruit bobbed in the water before Capybara emerged from their holes on the other side of the river, and got into a squeaking fight over it. Hal paid them no mind despite the break in their normal sleeping cycle and squatted in the river. He tensed as the cold water pooled around his limbs, but then relaxed as a chill climbed up his spine. It felt divine in the heat. His stomach let out a grumble, enough to make a point, and Hal tsked. Sunset wasn’t far behind, and he wanted fish for dinner.

He’d catch something like Bruce taught him or he’d trek back covered in mud and disappointment. He couldn’t have Bruce doing all the work now could he?

Hal whistled a jaunty tune as he poked his head into their living chamber, and saw Bruce hunched over the Flight Recorder.

“Anything?”

Bruce’s frown was as always, enough of an answer.

Hal raised the bucket in favor of dealing with Bruce’s grumpiness, “I caught dinner,” He said, shaking the bucket lightly. “And I was thinking, do you think we could try marinating Blobby-4, 5, and 6, with some of the fruits?”

Bruce’s face remained impassive as he rubbed his chin, and the quickly growing half stubble half beard. “We don’t have refrigeration, Jordan.” Hal rolled his eyes, “Then we can stew some of the fruits down and eat fish with some fruit compote.”

Bruce’s face twists with distaste verging on curiosity. “Will it taste good?”

“The blo-oranges? Probably not, but I’ve been meaning to try the Stabbies and it seems like the perfect time. Besides, I don’t think we have to worry about poison with them, the Capybaras eat the hell out of them.”

Bruce seemed apprehensive as he put down the recorder and clicked it into its place. He peered out into the distance, from inside the hub, and saw the falling dusk. “If this doesn’t turn out well--”

“I caught extra.” Hal groaned, “Now come on, I’m hungry and you have to teach me how to gut a fish, Bear Grylls.”

Bruce snatched the bucket from his hands and jostled the Blobbies that stared up at them with accusing eyes. “I resent that comparison.” He grumbled but pulled Hal along with his other hand.

Bruce was wrapped around him, arms under his and guiding his movements. If they had been in any other situation, Hal would’ve taken it as an invitation. The fish was laid out on a stick table bound with dried reeds and Hal’s furious two day attempt at furniture. As it was, Hal was hungry, going on hangry, dinner would take at least another hour to thoroughly cook, and all there was to eat was mildly burnt smoked meat, a paltry amount of rations they needed to stretch an extra two weeks, and fruit that wouldn't quench his hunger.

So he ignored the urge to flirt. Which, really, was a first for him, because wow, yeah, Bruce was built, and built in a way Hal very much liked, despite his off putting general ass-holish Bruce-ness. Hal digressed, and put his focus back onto the fish. Bruce held a sharp knife, turned it over in his hands and gave it to him. It wasn’t the time to find Bruce attractive.

“First,” He said, and Hal had to truly concentrate and not just on the voice in his ear, but on the fish that were supposed to be dinner. Bruce radiated stifling warmth, and Hal needed to concentrate. “If Blobby were a normal fish, we would have to descale him. However, seeing as the Blob-fish doesn’t have scales we can skip this step. Second, we remove the fins.” Bruce flapped them with his hands as if Hal didn’t know where to find them. He pulled out another knife, and cut it clean off. “All of your cuts should be one motion, straight as you can manage. As this is your first time, I doubt they’ll be everything but.” Hal scrunched his nose and huffed but did as Bruce told, trying not to mangle the fish too badly. He screeched as he felt the knife cut through some of its flesh, and the fin came out with a jagged finish. He wanted to gag, but ended up puckering his face as he felt Bruce’s sharp gaze turn on him.

“You can do better,” Bruce chided, as Hal moved over to the next fin. “Remember, one movement.”

Hal let out a small noise with the back of his throat as the knife went clean through the next fin, Bruce’s rough and calloused fingers curled around the back of his knuckles.

“Good. Next, we have to cut out the gills.”

“The gills?” Hal wanted to wretch. Bruce took his knife and made two neat incisions on the sides of it’s blobby gills. He pulled, and the gills came clean out. Hal didn’t want to think about the inside of the fish. “I think I want to quit.” He said, and turned around - away from the fish, knocking noses with Bruce.

“You have to learn how to do this.” Bruce stonewalled him, posture tense and ready, arms caged around him. “I won’t let you run from it, and I can’t do everything alone. We need to share the burden.”

Hal swallowed down his disgust, even when it bobbed in his throat, nausea souring his stomach. He hated when Bruce was right. He stared at Bruce a moment more before he turned back in a slow circle. “Teamwork, right. So, the gills?” He said, voice sounding weaker than he intended. Bruce grabbed his hand and helped his fingers clutch the knife. “Two cuts, and a pull, from one end of the gill to the other. Nice and clean.” Hal did as he instructed, eyes wanting to focus on anything other than what his hands were doing. “Now clean it out.” Bruce said, as Hal pulled the gills out with a look of dismay.

“With?” He asked.

“Water from the bucket.” Bruce said nothing more, and Hal stretched to reach the bucket and pour it in between where the gills used to be. The other fish inside stared back, and Hal finally put it aside.

“Then we find the anal hole. Usually with the anatomy of a fish, it is next to the anal fin.” Bruce used a finger to point out a small hole, almost unnoticeable, next to the fin he’d cut off. “Make a piercing incision, and then a longer cut almost to the bottom of it’s head.”

“Right.” Hal forgot to joke as he made a short incision into the fish and then a long cut.

And then he threw himself into Bruce’s arms, screaming into his ear. “Everything is coming out! Bruce--” He gagged, and the knife went spinning into the blood that pooled out of Blobby before dripping to the floor.

“It’s the innards, Jordan.” Bruce said, immovable as a mountain. He reached for the fish, and gave a testing yank. “We have to remove them to have a clean fish. Usually since we grill and only eat soft flesh, we don’t have to worry too much about the innards, but if you want to prep it with some fruit compote, we should be thorough.”

“I won’t let you off of the hook that easily, Jordan. Learn how to prepare this fish, and I’ll deal with the others. You can go chop more wood for dinner after.” “Okay.” Hal whimpered and felt clammy. He made a face as he picked up the knife still coated in blood, as Bruce let go of the organs to be removed.

“Remove them and if they stick cut them away. Then you’ll go upwards to the head, and get rid of the rest of the gills left behind inside. Do that much, at least.”

“Fuck-fuck-fuck. I’m squeamish when it comes to animals.” Hal wanted to stomp onto Bruce’s feet and use the distraction to escape to the river.

“I realized that.” Bruce said, and Hal stomach soured even further at the dejection in his voice. It couldn’t be that hard to find something he was good at, was it?

Hal worked through his nausea as he chopped wood by the last rays of sunlight. They’d cleared a good amount of trees from their crash site in the month they’d been stranded. Uprooted and debranched them, stacking them in a roughly made storage shed. He would’ve felt proud, if he hadn’t felt like such a constant disappointment. He felt like a disappointment to Batman and it rankled. Hal had never cared what anyone thought. Not unless he cared first. And somehow, without any care on his part, Batman had wormed his way in. It fucking sucked.

He couldn’t stop the feeling of being useless in the face of their survival. Without Bruce, he knew, he’d be just another number in the long line of Green Lanterns that had died with their uncharged rings. He probably could’ve gotten by with the bare minimum of survival tactics, but gutting fish? Skinning an animal? Preserving meat? Making a working, solar powered satellite from spaceship scraps and a flight recorder? Okay, maybe he could’ve pulled the last one off, but the rest of them?

He had doubts. Hal knew his limits, had to learn them to break them, and still he felt left in the dust. Hal was geared toward engineering, building something piece by piece until everything clicked together seamlessly. When he couldn’t fly, he could build, but what was there to build in a place that didn’t have technology?

Without his ring...without Green Lantern, what use did he have aside from being a wood cutter, and fruit gatherer?

Hal unpeeled the ripe Stabbies with a carefully gloved hand, and dropped them into the pot over a low fire. He twirled Bruce’s wooden spoon in hand, and gave them a good mashing, separating flesh from the pit, and flicking them out of the pot.

It wasn’t long before they started to cook down from their mashed state into something looser. Hal wasn’t a cook, and the compote was a half remembered thing from a night with Carol spent on the couch, but all the same, he watched eagerly. It bubbled in the pot, and when Hal ducked his head to smell it-- there was an undercurrent of heat. Bruce meandered into the clearing, and from the corner of his eye, he could spot the fish, now cleaned, gutted, and prepped in his hands.

“Spooky, come smell this!”

Bruce turned, and laid the fish on a wooden rack that they would place over the fire. He watched Hal with a careful eye, and carefully leaned over the pot as the fruit bubbled away. His face instantly turned into one of confusion.

“It smells spicy.”

Hal could barely contain his excitement, nodding like a fool. “Interplanetary hot sauce!”

“Don’t get too excited, it might smell spicy but we haven’t tasted it yet.”

Hal immediately sticks the spoon in further and lifts it to Bruce’s mouth, “Be my guest?”

Bruce stares at the spoon covered in ominous purple goo, and then looks Hal in the eyes as he eats from the spoon. His face gives nothing away as he tastes the Stabby, and Hal gives up on watching him eat, sticking the spoon in for himself, and licking it clean.

He isn’t ashamed to let out a suspiciously porny moan.

“It’s delicious.” Bruce finally says, and he coughs a bit. Hal can see a slight red fill his cheeks.

“It’s perfection.” Hal corrects, and the spice of it dances on his tongue. “I am going to rub every ounce of my fish in this.”

Bruce hums and wonders. “If we had salt…”

“Can we put that on the metaphorical list?” Hal moans, as he eats another spoonful of fruit.

Bruce shakes his head, and stands to put the rack over the fire, and moves the pot onto the smaller embers. He takes the spoon from Hal’s hands and spoons the bubbling fruit over the fish.

Now all they had to do was wait.

Hal feels heavy with food and the good cheer it brings. Fish and savory fruit, Hal would have never guessed went so well. He settles across from Bruce, the darkness encompassing everything but the few feet from the fire.

“Bruce?”

“Yes?” Bruce answers, and stares up from the flames. “I was thinking--”

“Something stupid? Or dangerous? Both?”

“One, No! Two, also no. And three, fuck you.” Hal scoffs, “When are you going to go all caveman and make a spear?”

“...”

“Having basic survival skills is not ‘going caveman.’”

“So says the Batman. Anyways, I was going to ask if we could start a garden.”

Bruce pokes at the fire with a half charred stick, eyes fluttering in disbelief. “I didn’t think-- That is a good idea.”

That smugness comes creeping back in, for thinking of something Bruce hadn’t realized. “You don't have to act so surprised, I know I'm awesome. As soon as tomorrow comes, I’ll dig up the Garden and then we’ll go crazy.”

Bruce rolls his eyes but nods anyway. "We have to start thinking about more long term measures anyhow."

Somehow, it’s all that needs to be said.

Hal wakes up early for once, enjoying the fresh breeze and morning dew. He scoops the first layer of dirt off of the ground, and tosses it into the ground behind him. Hal is a machine, and he cannot be stopped. He dug the garden out furiously, every so often checking the dimensions written in the dirt in a far off corner. The sun steadily beat down on him when he finished with his work, and Hal gratefully took off his shirt and wiped down his body. He tousled his sweaty hair, enjoying the breeze that passed through it.

“Spooky, how are the boards coming along?” Hal pops his head into the Hull room, and snickers at Bruce. Shavings cover his legs, as he whittled down a log at a quick pace. “They’re coming.” Bruce let out a wheeze. “We could always just stick them in the ground.” Hal mentions, for the fifth time since they woke up. “You don’t need to kill yourself for raised beds. We’re not winning any awards here.”

“They have better drainage and make for a longer growing season. It’s worth it.” Hal shrugged, prodding the seeds into the small baskets littering the room, turning the hull into a makeshift nursery of sorts. “If you’re so insistent.”

“I dug the first layer out like you said, want me to go make breakfast?”

“Only if you promise not to burn it.” “Like you’re any better,over boiling meat--”

“At the very least, I don’t scream at the sight of fish guts. Are you sure you can do it?” The sarcasm drips off of Bruce, and Hal all at once remembers that he’d really give anything to punch his beautifully punchable face. If he punched him right now, there'd be no Superman Look of Disappointment™. Hal almost gave into the temptation. He could feel the urge to curl his fist.

“I’ll show you screaming at the sight of fish guts asshole!” Hal snapped instead, and stomped off, determined to make the best damn breakfast they’d ever had, out of pure spite. Bruce had no idea the hell that was coming to him.

"This is Green Lantern speaking, I know you're probably all missing the hell out of me. It’s been a month after all." Hal licked his chapped lips. "We’ve been holding up good, scruffy and everything. B is an asshole who doesn’t appreciate my breakfasts though. Spooky thinks we can stretch the rations another two weeks if we hunt more. We’re still figuring things out. We started a garden. All alien. We’re gonna be a real farm to table in the next few months. Organic too." Hal tries to joke, but he just feels tired. "I never noticed how much work surviving took, but I guess that should teach me, yeah? It's doesn't help that I'm half way useless half the time. Not that I'm hurt-- We're not injured--" Hal cuts himself off.

"I’d be really nice if you guys proved me wrong and dropped out of the sky right now." Hal pokes his head out and stares up at the sky. "It bothers him a lot that we haven’t heard anything. He thinks you’re planning a rescue right now. Gearing up the next best spaceship, and coming at us full throttle. Or maybe Clark’s going to come breaking through the atmosphere. Okay, the last one is a lie, but-- he still believes. Can you imagine? Batman believing everything is going to be alright? If I didn’t see it myself, I would have trouble believing. You know me and him. Can’t live with or without him. At each other's throats with a word or two. Flash...if you hear this...could you-" Hal takes a deep breath, biting his lip. "Could you tell Carol I’m doing all right? I- I don’t want her to worry like last time. She-- She doesn’t deserve that. Anyway I gotta go, keep this quick. Can’t keep this thing running for long, or Spooky will kill me for using up all the recording time. If you want to hear the truth though... I don't think you're coming. Any of you. Call me a bigger pessimist than Batman, but my gut feeling says it's true. So,I’ll say this for Bruce’s sake... Please send help. We’re stranded without hope of home or rescue. We’ll live as long as we can. We will keep sending messages as long as we can. We’re alive.”

Chapter Text

Hal was right. They weren’t winning any awards, but perhaps it was his pride, or the hours spent whittling the wood down to an even thickness and height-- The garden was beautiful. Small shoots had shot up quickly. The off putting silver color of the Stabbies were gems swinging in the breeze. The blo-oranges were starting to grow a thick bush, and the roots barely had a tender white shoot between them, squeezing up out of the dirt. The plants seemed to defy logic, in the raised bed. They grew fast and strong. The woven baskets from the Hull room, turned plant nursery had barely been able to contain them after a week, and he and Hal had to work by torchlight to finish the wooden boards that would be the basis of their beds. Thoughts of primitive methods of irrigation crossed his mind, but it would have to wait, until they had a more permanent dwelling.

The clunk of a spoon broke Bruce from his thoughts, as Hal slopped a breakfast porridge of their dying rations and fish into their bowls. He faintly made the connection to an un-amused lunch lady, but held his comment back. The slop, pardon, porridge, didn’t look appetizing, turning into a thick gelatinous off-white soup, but he steadily got used to it, as Hal picked breakfast as his meal of the day to cook and serve.

“Breakfast is ready.” Hal yawned, and handed over his bowl.

“Thank you.” Bruce said, out of habit. He raised to bowl to his mouth and sipped, before snapping his mouth shut as a firm clump passed his lips. “What did you put in this soup?” He asked through gritted teeth, refusing to swallow the unknown clump.

“The roots I dug up, remember? Don’t worry, I tested it out on the Capybaras and the Nik-Niks. Raw and cooked like your poison testing said. I thought you noticed, I shoved them in the fire and you’re literally right there.”

Bruce chewed hesitantly, and hummed as the root smoothed the texture of the porridge into something creamy. “I didn’t notice… That was ...thoughtful of you. I expected the regular.” Bruce had flashbacks to eating fish and ration porridge turned charred glue, as Hal took over their morning meal for the first time. Hal had been too proud to admit it went wrong, and Bruce too worried about wasting rations. They’d eaten that breakfast in horrified silence.

“I’m getting better.”

“Yes.” Bruce replied automatically, and acted like they hadn’t been playing angry chicken at each other since the week before. He ate another mouthful and took out his notebook. “Remember how I told you we needed to start thinking long term?”

“Yeah.” Hal answered him cautiously. Flipping his notebook upside down, he showed Hal the diagram he’d been working on.

Hal’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline, and he set aside his bowl. “Is that a fucking cabin?” He could feel a smirk tilting his lips up. He didn’t try to stop it. “Of course.”

“And you’re sure we can do that? We’re not exactly a team of construction workers.”

Bruce ate another spoon of porridge, “You’d be surprised what two people can do together.” He said, minding his words. They ate breakfast quickly, and Bruce put aside all talk of the cabin until the afternoon.They parted ways for the moment and Bruce walked to the Hull room. They had a hide they needed to deal with first.

Building the frame to stretch the hide was as easy as breathing. Simple. Calming. A square was always a square and nothing but the measurements changed. Nothing about it was theoretical. He hung the measuring tape from the sides of his belt loops. They only had one hide, but the possibilities were immense. Clothes. Armor. Shoes. A blanket. What was winter like on an alien planet? Was there winter, or had they landed close enough to its own equator to not have to worry about the changing seasons beyond a rainy season? Did it have different poles? If there was a rainy season, had they crashed too close to the river? Come monsoon season would they, and the wreckage be washed away?

“Why can’t we just wait until later to build the frame?” Hal asked, with genuine curiosity, breaking his train of thought.

“We need to have a good idea of how big the hide is, and I would prefer to not have to wait until it’s completely soaked, or during the tanning process.” Bruce wrinkled his nose, but did not specify, knowing Hal would only turn squeamish and quit if he knew what was to come. From the corner of his eye, Hal gave a nod and ran his gloved fingers through the matted and dry fur, before resting it over the frame to make sure the measurements matched up. He twirled a sharp and straight lock pick in his fingers, indenting into the wood where the hide lay.

“Measured?” Bruce asked, and rubbed the back of his head.

“Measured.” Hal answered.

“Help me roll it up, and we’ll dump it in the river and let it soak for a couple of days.” Bruce grunted out, as they worked as a team, rolling the hide smoothly, and carrying it to where the water ebbed.

“How are we going to let it soak without the water carrying it away?”

“We’re going to stack rocks high enough to where the hide will be submerged, but the current won’t be able to take it away.”

“I still think it might float away. The stream can get pretty strong and one of the capybaras might get curious.”

“They usually stay on their side, but I suppose we’d have to keep a close eye on it.”

They stood under the early morning sun, and despite the cool breeze, he felt impatient. He let the breeze carry off his preposterous idea, down the river, like the hide could have gone. “Never mind. We’ll make a pool deep enough to fit the hide, submerge it in water, and hide it away with some branches. We’ll keep a close eye, just in case the Capybaras get too curious so close to their own territory.”

“That sounds way better than the first plan.” Hal said, and ran a hand through his sweaty hair.

“Let’s start digging then.”

“And then we can have lunch?”

“And then we can have lunch.” Bruce agreed, unwilling to acknowledge the hunger gnawing on his insides.

“So, talk to me, Spooks. How are we gonna pull this off?” Hal was petting a baby Nik-Nik, against his better wishes, opinions, and numerous looks of disapproval. The notebook was in his other hand, as he reread the diagram. Bruce hoped they didn’t eat paper. He also hoped the Ungulates didn’t have alien fleas, or they’d be in for a miserable time. Come to think of it, why hadn’t he seen any insects? Pollinators? Where were all of the primary consumers? He made a mental note and focused back on their conversation. “The main decision was between a house of stone or wood. The cons of stone would be less maintenance and a firmer structure, as well as less of a fire hazard. However, I had to take into account the workload we’d have to even begin building such a structure.”

Hal’s brows furrowed, and he released the baby Nik-Nik, setting it aside. It let out a faint noise of contentment, rubbed Hal’s leg, and ambled out of their living quarters, hopefully back to it’s herd. Bruce pulled his eyes away from the ungulate, and met Hal’s.

“Such as?”

“We’d have to gather the materials to make a kiln. No matter my microscope it would be a test of trial and error to see if we could fire the bricks for the right temperature and time. Assuming we could get it right, we’d still be using the new bricks to make bigger and bigger kilns, until we could fire enough to make a home. Not to mention the amount of wood we would be using, to sustain such frequent fires.”

“As you can see here, assuming we made a kiln of about 50cm, about 19 inches, with a 25cm square cross section, around 3.8 sq.inches, we’d only be able to fire 4 bricks at a time. Over time we would be able to make more bricks, and thus bigger kilns but the manpower and time is a drawback.”

“And this isn’t taking into account the amount of work we’d have to do to make the kilns themselves right?”

“Right.” “Well, shit.” Hal said, and flipped over to the next page. “This isn’t even the start, Spooky. What the fuck is all of this?”

“The steps we’d have to take before we could get to making a kiln, in the first place. We would have to gather the right materials to make the bricks, assuming this planet as an equivalent to clay and grog. We’d have to make appropriate mold for the bricks, and then wait for them to dry before they could be handled, fired, cured, and rinse and repeated for every batch of bricks.”

“Ugh. How is that barely the beginning?” Hal pinched his nose, and flipped through the small script and diagrams of the brick house, “Forget it then. What about wood?”

“It’s easier,” Bruce said, and flipped to the next page, detailing the wood cabin. “Much easier. There is a reason frontier settlers chose to build their houses from wood.”

“Pros?”

“At most, collecting all of the wood we need would take a week. From then we’d have to strip the area we’d plan to use. Which has mostly been done for us, via our crashed ship. Then comes the processing of the wood, and building a series of woodworking tools, a planer, iron nails and chisels, which we already have, and the thin ropes you’ve been making.”

“Cons?”

“Wood houses are less resistant to weathering. We don’t know how badly storms could affect the landscape, or what type of weather systems and patterns coincide with the area we landed in. Wooden houses are also very vulnerable to pests. Rats. Termites. Any other insects. Birds, looking to nest, even. I don’t know if there are equivalents on this planet, but it’s possible. There is also a curing step for the logs, which usually would consist of leaving the logs to dry in a safe space for several months. However, considering we don’t know how long we’ll be staying, and our urgent need of a shelter, I have opted to skip this step."

“I vote for wood and maybe we can work our way up to a brick house? Have you tried looking for a cave yet?”

“A cave would be possible, but we would be at the mercy of this planet, and we don’t know if earthquakes are commonplace. That being said, cave-in’s are possible and a rather dangerous hassle.”

“Says the man that has a Bat-cave?”

“The bat-cave wouldn’t simply cave in. There are supports in place in case of earthquakes or other natural disasters.”

Hal let out an exhausted sigh. “What about just staying put? We stay in the ship and we don’t have to build anything else.”

“I would rather prepare for a more permanent residence that we could build around or next to the ship if need be, than have the ship be our end all be all. The hull room already has cracks that we failed to see until the first storm. We don’t know what other problems could potentially arise if we keep staying in the ship, and I for one, would like the Flight Recorder to have the best chance we can give it.”

“Good idea, thorough. Could we build around the garden?”

Bruce flipped to a small subsection, showing a crude, and mostly blank map, a growing smile on his face, “We will.”

“What the hell is in your hands? You look like you’re going to garrote me.” Bruce turned and flashed the object in his hands. “This is a chainsaw.”

“A chainsaw?” Hal repeated, before shaking his head, “You didn’t say no!” “I didn’t say yes, either. It’s a pocket saw.” Bruce rolled out the saw, and clicked the handles onto the grooves.

“Your body is the motor.” Hal said with widening eyes, and a thoughtful look, “That is cool, but please don’t murder me with it.”

“This is not for playing.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we play with it.”

“You had that glint in your eye.”

“It was the sun!”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Usually working with a pocket saw would be more than a little dangerous, as one person would have to practically embrace the tree they wanted to cut.” Bruce sped up his walk, to a relatively thick and tall tree at the edge of the clearing, he straddled it with ease and demonstrated. “A position like this, especially with a live tree, would be significantly more dangerous, as the tree would have a greater chance to fall on top of the person cutting it. However, with two people some of the danger will be abated.”

“And how exactly are we going to do this?” Hal asked, staring up at the tree.

“You’ll grab one side, and I’ll grab the other.” Bruce gestured to the chainsaw’s handles. “We’ll cut here,” He crouched down to the base of the tree, imitating an axe strike, “And then here.” He pointed a little ways above it. “That way we’ll be able to control the direction of the fall, or at the very least, give it the best shot we can. We’ll have to be very careful. Loggers have one of the most dangerous jobs for a reason. I wouldn’t want to see you get crushed by a tree when a little awareness could have saved your life.”

Hal gave a thick swallow and a nod. “Good. Now, we’re looking for trees of relative thickness, and strength, which are long, and straight. We’ll get the most out of these trees without having to exhaust too much manpower. Right now, we’ll start looking deeper into the forest, and mark any trees that match what we’re looking for. Maybe we’ll cut a couple so we can get a feel for the chainsaw.”

“But under no circumstances are you to cut any tree alone. The risk is too great and I only have a limited amount of medical knowledge and supplies.” Bruce took a minute to catch his breath after the long lecture.

Hal grabbed two stones from the ground, and tossed one to him, “Want to give me some more examples, so I don’t fuck up what we’re looking for?”

Bruce nodded and let out a deep exhale. The atmosphere tickled his lungs, and vaguely made them ache. He ignored it, there was nothing he could do. “In a minute. We’ll be out most of the day. We should pack some food for the walk, a weapon, and some emergency supplies just in case.”

“Should we leave a message?” Hal asked, and looked back to the Flight Recorder.

“Just in case.” Bruce said, and wrapped back up the chainsaw, tossing the small marking rock with it.

 

This is Batman speaking. The time of day is currently mid, but we have been stranded for a total of 5 weeks and counting. We are currently about to embark on a small excursion to scout the surrounding area for appropriate trees to build our potentially permanent shelter. We are bringing with us an emergency supply of medical equipment, food, a chainsaw, and a spear. I am not expecting anything to go wrong on this walk, but if it does, we will do our best to get back to camp. Signing off, B.

It was dusk when they finished marking all the trees they could find within their parameters. Every last tree marked off with a small arrow, pointing back to the direction they had come. “How many did you mark?” Bruce asked, as they walked back to camp with a trail of Nik-Niks. The ungulates were following the small pieces of the fruit Hal dropped onto the floor like breadcrumbs. Licking them up with unsettling narrow tongues, the color of Persian Pink. Bruce reminded himself to take a note of it.

“About twenty. What about you?”

“24.” Bruce mentally counted off all the trees he’d found acceptable and within a certain distance. Aside from the river, it’d been the farthest they’d ever been from camp.

“How many logs are we going to need?”

“Fifty, maybe more, but twenty is a good start. I’d like to double it, if at all possible. If something happens, or we mess up, it’d be better to have extras instead of having to go find another acceptable log. If we end up with too many, we can build a storage shed, and set them aside for another day.”

Hal nodded, and then scrunched his face, “Can we make it two stories?”

Bruce scratched at his scruffy chin, “I wouldn’t hold out too much hope. We’re not exactly architects.”

“True enough.” Hal said, and then looked back to the Nik-Niks, a sly look on his face, and purple juice dripping off of a gloved hand.

“Can we domesticate them?”

Bruce tripped.

“We can’t just domesticate a wild alien species of Ungulate, Jordan.” Bruce said, teetering on the edge of sounding scandalized.

“And why not?” He said, petting the Nik-Niks, as the fruit ran out and they went their own way, away from the camp. “I don’t see the problem with that.” “There are so many problems, Jordan, I doubt I would be able to count them all. First-”

“Oh my god, you’re going to lecture me and list them anyways, aren’t you?” Hal muttered under his breath.

“Have you ever read anything about the food chain? Biodiversity? Once animals become domesticated they may never re-adjust to being wild. They’d need human intervention to survive. It could cause a massive disruption in the natural order of this planet! These are the reasons why we are told time and time again to never feed wild animals. They can become too dependent on humanity, and that is the last thing that we’d need. Especially when we're barely on the first stages of providing for ourselves.”

“Look, I screwed up,” Hal said, and raked back his hair, “I said domesticate, which is a big word, with heavy connotations and I’m sorry about that. Truth is, we’re probably not going to be here long enough to have a lasting impact on a wild alien species of deer considering it took humans way longer than a month to domesticate wild animals on our own planet!”

“It doesn’t matter, Jordan! The lasting effects this could have on the planet-- on an ecological scale--”

“It’s not like this place has an intelligent, and sapient species to notice the problem, Spooky!”

“We don’t know that.” Bruce grumbled, as they both stomped into camp, yelling over their shoulders at the other.

“I thought you of all people would have seen the benefit of this?”

“What benefits? You’re asking me to knowingly tip the scale of an alien ecosystem without knowing the consequences it could have!”

“A. We could have a constant supply of potential food, and with a fence they wouldn’t run away B. There is no way the environment would change that fast, so stop lecturing me! C. They could be an early warning system against a natural disaster or predator, since I doubt you’ve ever seen a disaster movie, and D, asshole, they could help us move the logs we’ll cut down as long as we dangle a little bit of fruit in front of them with ropes around their necks. Have you ever heard of a stick and carrot?”

“Goddamn it B,” Hal yelled, stomping in front of him and crossing his arms. “I’m not trying to become an evil mastermind and destroy this planet using nefarious business practices that pollute the environment! I just want life to be a little bit easier, and if it means we maybe domesticate an alien life form and get a stable shelter built easier, why can’t you just take the damn chance? Let me offer some fucking potentially useful advice and stop carrying this entire fucking situation on your shoulders you ass-hat.”

“And you know what? If I’m saying the fucking truth anyways,” Hal snarled in his face, practically turning red with emotion, once again, pointing a finger angrily in his face, “You and your constant need to control everything make me feel so fucking useless Bat-face. Just because Clark or Diana aren't here doesn't mean you get a free pass to take a go at me whenever I fuck up on something!” Then he stomped off, slamming the doors to their living quarters. Bruce felt shame twist in his gut, what could Bruce begin to say to that?

Chapter Text

Hal was pissed. And emotional. And he’d just gone the fuck off on Bruce I-always-have-the-last-word Wayne. It felt amazing, but also kind of shitty. Like the flying high of getting a weight off his chest. He told himself to shut up. He didn’t need latent guilt about laying his burdens on other people harshing his newly found bravado. When the fuck had he stopped being him? And what the fuck had he turned into? A doormat? Hal nestled in the hammock, and tucked the cape into his sides selfishly.

There was no way he was sharing tonight. Not with that asshole. He swallowed, and laid back to think his thoughts. Maybe it had been when he realized they’d crashed, and his only hope of relative survival was Batman, of all the OA-forsaken people in the universe. But that didn’t explain his being a doormat, did it?

He’d known vaguely, that something felt off between them. That their relationship had changed, only, how could he care about cataloguing their relationship when literally everything else was more important? Was it because he was annoying? Too cocky? Did bat-face think he was a reckless, irresponsible mess who skipped out on JLA meetings? Hal scratched at his chin. Had he not proven time and again, that he took the whole saving-the-world thing seriously? Or had he simply not been believed from the start? Hal sighed, and crossed his arms, hugging himself in the dark, feeling distinctly alone. And most importantly, did the entire Justice League really think of him that way?

“Jordan…” Hal could feel Bruce looming over him, hesitant to get into the hammock they usually shared. He turned away from his hulking figure, facing the wall to the ship instead of the man. “I don’t feel like talking to you.”

He could faintly hear Bruce’s steps on the corrugated metal, heading to the other end of the room, and settling by the smouldering fire pit. “I understand. I’ll give you space.” Hal pursed his lips in silence, and didn’t budge an inch in acknowledgement. The fire filled their frigid silence.

Coast City stretched on for as long as he could see into the distance, and so did the road he drove on. The palm trees swayed in the wind, and the smell of fresh ocean air hit him squarely in the face as he opened the window. He ached to crane his head out, and breathe it all in. Instead, Hal pushed the gas down on a car he didn't own, no less, with a ferocity and his face lit up as he ripped down the road, headed straight towards the sparkling ocean.

His tires spun out when he finally hit the beach, but Hal didn’t care. How could he? He opened the door, and ran towards the warm sand, letting his hands drag through the fine granules, creeping closer and closer to the lazy waves.

He could feel a laugh coming up through all of him. He was shaking, vibrating, so tremulous in his joy. His laugh broke free when the ocean spray finally hit him. It soaked his face with a salty kiss and he could barely breathe so overtaken with emotion. Hal could smell it all so vividly, so truly that when he woke alone, in an uncomfortable cable hammock, the smell of burning alien wood musk in the air, it took everything in him to gild still and clench his jaw else the scream escape his throat.

Coast City was but a dream away, and even that was too far.

Pre-dawn breakfast was a new type of silence between them, words waiting to be spoken and thrown. Bruce bored holes into the side of his head. Instead of speaking he took his time with breakfast, as Bruce huffed and opened his journal running his hands through the blank pages. “I understand that you don’t want to talk about...feelings, however, we can’t just let the rest of this sit between us.”

Hal licked his wooden spoon clean and set it down onto his roughly carved bowl. “Why not?” Hal said cavalierly, “It’s not like everything else doesn’t.”

“This is serious. It’s changing the face of a planet.”

“An uninhabited planet.”

“We don’t know that.” Bruce shook his head, staring out into the thick brush of trees. “I understand to some extent that it would save us a ...considerable amount of time and physical strain...but I can’t in good conscious change the way any of this planet is supposed to evolve.”

“Survival is the name of the game right? Shouldn’t we do what it takes to survive?”

“It’s never enough to just survive. It never will be. I refuse to domesticate these animals, and if you try, I will not help.” Bruce said with a tone of finality. “Have you ever seen Star Trek?”

Hal unintentionally snorted, “You think I haven’t seen Star Trek? I'm an intergalactic space cop. Of course I've seen Star Trek.”

“Above all else the Prime Directive is a moral obligation. So we know, as aliens, to this planet and potential culture, that we leave a planet how we found it. That we not interfere with natural development. I know we had no choice in coming here, and each day is another battle to overcome, but-”

Hal took in a deep breath, and succinctly thought, Fuck. And then, Of course he was right.

“You think I did too much damage?” He tried not to wince. To feel cowed and chastened.

“It hasn’t been months. They’re still not completely accustomed to it. Don’t go out of your way to feed them, or let them into our camp and they should go back to their regular behaviors.” Bruce strokes his chin, before looking him over. “Just like that?” Bruce asks, meeting his eyes in surprise. Hal winced internally, clearly he’d expected another argument.

“I’m starting to recall some tenants of the Lantern code too, and yeah, it sucks that we can’t just use them but we’ll make do, right?” Hal looked down to his bowl and finished his cold slop with quick bites.

“Of course.” Bruce said, slightly bewildered, grabbing a bucket at the side of the fire and washing out his bowl. “And about the other-”

“Yeah. I don’t actually want to talk about that.”

“But I-”

“I don’t even want to hear what you have to say right now. Still too fresh alright? Let me cool off.”

“Right.” Bruce said, and gathered the bucket and his bowl. “I’ll do that then.”

Hal stretched out the kinks in his back in front of the garden, his back to the rest of their camp.

The wind carried a cool tinge, and he took a deep breath as it passed over him, the sun had barely broken the horizon. He let the ache of stretching his muscles consume him, instead of the ache to go soaring into the sky.

He’d never felt so grounded before. So helpless in his fight against gravity. There were no planes to carry him into the sky, and there wasn’t a ring to carry him past his frail mortal limits, shooting into the infinite abyss of stars. He was just a regular old human, and what could be worse than that? “Are you ready?” Bruce asked, stepping into his view wearing his cape and clipping on his belt, sans the suit, a heavy water bottle hanging down to his knee. Hal briefly wondered what else hung down to his knee before shaking his head.

“Yeah.” Hal said, and smoothly put on a scratchy dried basket, hanging off his back, a makeshift backpack.

“We’ll start with the farthest trees and work our way in." Bruce began to order. "We’ll drag them as close as we can to the next trees and peel them east of camp. Be aware, and no matter what, don’t get distracted. If I yell-”

“Run sideways. Yeah, got it, still remember when you told it to me the first time.”

Bruce nodded and fell silent, “Then let’s get going. We have a long day ahead of us.”

Despite his tangible excitement at using the chainsaw with said body motor, Hal felt himself gasping for breath as a splintering crack echoed throughout the forest.

A thrill of adrenaline pumped through him as they ran back towards the relative safety of the clearing, the tree coming down with a harsh thunk too quickly to track with his eyes.

"Not bad for the first try, huh?" Hal said, and walked over to inspect the tree as Bruce slowly began to peel off a piece of bark, inspecting the thickness. He quickly flipped to a page on his journal, and wrote down an illegible number, before tucking it back into his utility pockets.

"It took us around half an hour for the first tree, going at full speed. We'll spend the next thirty recovering and peeling the bark off. We should be finished with around 13 trees today, if we push. 12 if we take a lunch."

Hal nodded, and they crouched to their feet as they lifted the log carefully between their shoulders. Rolling the log onto the peeling racks, he quickly took the knife he'd lifted from Bruce's belt.

"You should've had an industrial strength vegetable peeler instead." He said, twirling the knife between his fingers. "Would save us way more time than a machete and a hunting knife."

Bruce scoffed and straddled the tree beginning to peel his side of the tree. "Better a machete or a hunting knife than a sharp rock. Get peeling, and remember we have to pace ourselves."

"I'm excellent at pacing myself."

"Your ring usage would disagree." Bruce grumbles before wincing. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for."

"It was a ...fair point, Bat-face, and 'sides," He joins Bruce in straddling his side of the tree, "You wouldn't be the first person to point that out. Thanks for the apology anyway, I guess."

Bruce says nothing returning to his job with a laser focus, and Hal leaves it at that.

Bruce is pursing his lips, and Hal runs his fingers through his rapidly growing stubble, staring at his hunting knife with a pensive eye.

"Did something go wrong?" He asks, as they crouch in the shade of a perfectly rooted tree. They’d finished peeling a tree early and decided a water break was very badly needed.

"Would you prefer to transfer each log as we finish, or wait until we process what we can and then transfer them?"

"Any pros or cons?" Hal tilts his head, keeping an eye out for any stray Nik-Niks.

"Cons, we'd have to plan to finish early to set aside enough time before sunset to transfer the logs safely. Not only for caution of local wildlife and potential predators but any weather systems as well."

"What's the worst that could happen if we didn't set aside any time to transport the logs? If we waited until everything was done?"

"We're chased through the forest and to camp by an unknown nocturnal predator. Or a rain storm passes through and soaks the logs, thus making the day's work null and void with wood we're unable to build with until it dries out."

"I'm going with 'setting aside time before sunset to transfer everything.' I'd rather finish early than be outside late or caught in a rainstorm. And like hell I’m walking back with a single log on my shoulder, when I know we can pull at least 2-3."

"Alright, then." Bruce says, and takes a sip from his water bottle, passing it over without a word, and a raised eyebrow.

“Don't give me that look, I’m not about to pour our only drinkable water over my head.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking about it.” Hal grabbed the water bottle, and took a grateful chug of the semi-cool water. “Tell me about your kids.” He asks abruptly.

“What? Why?” Bruce looks him over with narrowed eyes.

“I know shit about you other than you dress like a bat, live in a really crappy city, and have like ten million sidekicks. Excuse a guy from being curious.”

“And you ask about my family, why?”

Hal rolled his eyes. Boredom, he thought. “It’s not like I have any kids.” He said. It’s not like I have anything waiting to miss me on Earth, he didn’t say. Bruce opened his mouth before he closed it, clearing thinking about the next thing to say. Hal watched him, before Bruce finally nodded.

“My oldest is Dick. --Richard.” Bruce corrects, “But he hates being called Richard. He was my first Robin.”

“The first one? The jumpy one right? Kick flips and all.” Hal said, fondly remembering the small brat that used to cling to Batman on the rare meetings he’d show up to in the early days of the Justice League..

“Yes, that would be him.”

“He’s all grown up now right?” Hal said, counting the years in his head, unwilling to believe they’d passed so quickly.

“Yes… yes he is.” Bruce looked up to stars they did not know the names to -- as if he could chart their way home only on sheer conviction. If it was him, - maybe Hal could believe. For a second, Hal saw a chasm of emotion flicker on Bruce’s face. So open, and yearning. Desperate to escape a planet, but not having the means to leave. Something full of longing hope.

It was more beauty than a human could contain within themselves, and so Hal looked away, almost ashamed at having seen.

For a second, but only a second, they reflected each other.

Hal looped over the last of the days’ logs, and checked to make sure they wouldn’t slip out of their place. He pulled tighter, making sure the rope was as taut as it would go. “Ready?” He yawned, as Bruce rose from his crouch with a fatigued gait.

“This’ll be 13. If we keep at this pace, we can finish preparing everything before the week is out.” Bruce grabbed a hold of two of the ropes, and tied them to Hal’s waist and shoulders, speaking at him. He watched carefully as Bruce tied the ropes around his own body, his tired hands clumsily failing to tie the knot. Hal reached over and tied it for him, and tried not to feel as tired as Bruce looked. They were both flagging, starving for food, with three more logs to get back to camp. Who would have thought hard labor was hard? He chuffed, and lined himself up with Bruce, willing himself to start dragging the last of the days’ haul. “You have more than one right?”

“More than one what?”

“Kid. Child. Children. Sidekick?” Hal huffed alongside Bruce. “Unless it’s just one kid, but they’re a shape shifter? Or perpetually shrinking. I can’t tell which.”

Bruce snorted before he cut himself off, taking a deep inhale instead. “No. I have seven children. Dick, Jason, Tim, Duke, Cass, Stephanie, and Damian.”

“I thought there was a redhead in there somewhere? I could’ve sworn one of them was a redhead? Or is that Batwoman?”

“No. Not Batwoman. Barbara.” Bruce said. “She’s Commissioner Gordon’s daughter…she’s… family all the same.”

“So which one is the bitey, feral one?”

“Damian.” Bruce said without a pause.

“Ah.” Hal heaved, and tried not to think about how far away their camp seemed. ”He seems...nice. You know, dangerous, and battle ready?” Hal tried to find something complimentary to say and quietly floundered.

“He is. They are.” Bruce huffs, and their muscles strain to push the logs.

“So…”

“Jordan, is there a reason for all these questions about my family?”

“Well, I’m bored, like I said, I know nothing about you and it’s too dangerous to go exploring alone, it’s all the entertainment I have.” Bruce scoffed, and Hal maturely stuck his parched tongue out.

“What do you want this to be reciprocal or something? Twenty questions?”

“I wouldn’t mind silence.”

“I would.” Hal shoots back.

“How’s Coast City?” Bruce asks, and Hal very nearly stops the urge to tug on the ropes attaching him to the logs, and trip Bruce up.

“Really?" He rolls his eyes. "How’s Coast City?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, associate. It’s fine.”

“Fine?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I decide to engage in your conversation and you say fine?”

Hal throws his hands in the air. “Excuse you, as soon as I got done with my rotation I had a message box full of ‘Get your ass to Earth, Jordan! You haven’t come to meetings and your paperwork is months overdue! You need to go on a diplomatic mission, Jordan!’ I’ve been busy alright?’’

“If you were a bit more diligent--”

“Me?! You did not just-”

Bruce raises his index finger, as he catches his breath. “I don’t mean it as an insult. I...am trying to give you...helpful input.”

“Oh.” Hal tries not to die inside. “Helpful input from Batman. What lecture awaits me?”

“If you don’t want to hear it-”

“No, no.” Hal shakes his head, “Go right ahead.”

“I don’t appreciate your passive-aggressive attitude.” Bruce mutters flatly.

“I’ll take that into consideration.” Hal grouches, but stops complaining, “I promise I’ll try to hear you out. Lecture or not.”

“Thank you.” Bruce says after a brief, if awkward pause between them.

“If you could be a bit more diligent in your responsibilities, it would make it easier for a lot of people. Not just me. Or the League’s administration, but the other Lanterns as well. John is usually helping you pick up the slack. Gardner, as much as he pains me, does do his job, if not timely. Sometimes though, he forgoes reports entirely. Rayner and Cruz are constantly in flux depending on their duties. If you could simply make a schedule or, at the very least set a daily percentage of paperwork to complete… I am not the only one who would find it extremely cooperative.”

“I’ll think about it.” Hal finally says. “And that’s all you’re getting from me. Space-time emergencies don’t care for paperwork deadlines, Man-bat.”

Hal had never felt happier drinking water than he had the moment they let the water cool enough to not burn their esophagus'. They’d done the bare minimum for dinner, cooking what would’ve been their lunch instead of gathering anything fresh. A pot full of ripe Stabbies, peeled white root, and strips of dried meat, hastily thrown on with a bowl of clean water and set to simmer on a slow fire. They watched the pot hungrily, as the sun finally started to go down, their first harvest of logs safely shoved into the hull room, the cracks filled with a makeshift paste of dried grasses and mud.

“How many more days of this?” He finally asked, wanting to melt into the ground. His muscles ached. His lungs felt heavy and tired. His side had a stitch. His everything ached.

“Bat-belt, how many more days?”

“Assuming we can keep up the pace? Not getting injured? If we keep pulling constant hours, around 4 days.” Bruce made to take out his journal, and Hal mimed a no.

“I don’t need you to pull the numbers out. I just need to know how long I’m suffering.”

“The construction will be better.”

“Will it?” Hal asked, disbelieving.

Bruce frowned, as his shoulders rounded. “At the very least, it won’t be so labor intensive.” Their dinner simmered away, and Hal sighed, slumping to the floor and off of his chair. Watching and waiting. He couldn’t wait until the week was over.

I am tired. So tired. And we have to do it all again tomorrow. This is Green Lantern, by the way. Bat-face is still polishing off dinner. I called in early. I didn’t want him to think we had to have an emotional talk. Screw ‘em. I think I would kill for a pillow, though. For something comfortable. Soft. Squishy. Unfortunately, there’s only my ass and I’m not that desperate. I’ve been keeping an ear out for birds. I haven’t seen any. Or heard anything. I’m trying not to think about you guys. I get too jealous, thinking about you assholes living it up out there, while we’re stuck down here. With this shitty recorder, and we don’t even know if you’re getting these messages-- I’m just-- We're alive you know? And it's barely been more than a month and a week, but it feels like we've been forgotten. Like none of you care. And I know maybe no one in the league besides the Corps, Ollie, Dinah, and Barry care for me, but-- Fuck! Why can't you at least come for Bruce? Why the fuck-- He has kids! People who need him. Everyone knows Gotham is a hellhole, and there's no-- I'm getting off course. Just hurry up. I've waited through all of Chechnya, for a sign, for a single piece of hope to end the suffering. I got tired of waiting then, so what the hell am I now?

Chapter Text

Barry sighed into his 15th mug of coffee, waiting for anything interesting to happen. The dull minutes passed him by, as the world (thankfully) lived in peace. That was, except for his own boredom.

“Long shift?” Green Arrow popped around the corner, and through the door.

Barry swiveled in his seat just in time to fist bump Oliver. “Like you wouldn’t believe. I hate monitor duty.” He said, practically vibrating off of his seat. “There is literally nothing happening.” He continued to complain.

“We could play go fish?” Oliver took out a pack of cards and set them aside the control panel, leaning over Barry and looking at the screens, with a dull gaze.

“Ugh.” Barry slid down his seat.

"Tell me about it." Oliver sighed in commiseration, and ran a hand through his hair. "I love that Starling City is peaceful, but it feels like something is approaching. Like something is just waiting to happen. Dinah keeps telling me to relax, and enjoy the silence. But it's hard."

Bobbing his head rapidly, Barry begins to talk, “I’ve--”

The control panel lit up as the screen went through a series of pings. Barry and Oliver quickly stood at attention, watching the screen with rapt attention, their earlier conversation forgotten.

“Something interesting- something interesting-” Barry crossed his fingers. “--But not life threatening!”

Oliver snorted from where he stood as the white noise of static parsed through the speakers. “This is Watchtower--.” Oliver started to say, but paused when a voice finally passed through all the static.

“This is Green Lantern-”

“It’s Hal!” Barry beamed, smacking the control panel with rapid movements, pressing a familiar chain of buttons to center in on the message. “Should we adjust the satellites?”

“Again? How many times has it been already this month? I’m pretty sure he’s not supposed to be using the comms to call us when he’s on a diplomatic mission. Remember the bitch fit Batman had when he did it last time?”

“The conversation was interesting and he needed a refresher on his manners!" Barry defended Hal, and furiously typed a long chain of satellite adjustments. "There's too much static to get anything concrete. I thought B got someone to fix that?!”

"You and me both."

“I would kill…” Hal’s voice faded out, as they tried to adjust the satellites to receive the message. “Assholes…”

Hal’s voice continued to short through the speaks, fading in and out with unintelligible words,“-Stuck down here...for Bruce-”

They broke into laughter, because of course, of course, Hal would complain about being stuck with Batman of all people. “I don’t envy him.” Oliver said, and relaxed back into his chair.

“How far along do you think they are to murdering each other?” Barry asked with a furrow in his brow.

“They’re probably hanging by a string.” Oliver laughed. “Let's hope they never find out Big Blue set them up to it.”

“Oh.” Barry exclaimed, head flipping back and forth like a badly looped gif. “Really?!”

“Yeah.” Oliver nodded along. “Everyone and their mother knows they’d rather give each other a black eye than get along. Supes was hoping they’d 'extend each other an olive branch' while they got to deal with the Brani.”

"The Brani? Wow, I really hope B hasn't lectured Hal about their conduct. He’s going to be insufferable about it until we can finally catch up together.” Barry snickered fondly, into his hand.

“Absolutely. You wanna catch a drink when they come back?”

“Yeah!” Barry cheered, and turned the dial to shift the satellites degree by degree. “I’m pretty sure Hal’s going to be desperate for a drink when they get back. It’s barely been a week, but he just got off rotation too, didn't he?” Barry said, pursing his lips as the signal failed to connect, letting static fill the air. “I’m surprised he’s held out this long.”

“He did, yeah. He might crash at mine and Dinah's for a bit. It's probably felt like forever to him and Bats both. We shouldn't call back though, last thing we need is getting raked over coals from B on why Hal should be allowed minutes instead of free access while Superman stares at me in disappointment because we're wasting resources.”

“Ugh.” Barry groans, but raises his coffee mug in agreement. “We need to lock them in a closet with a couple’s therapist.”

“They’re not--?”

“No, but the way they argue makes me wonder.” Barry hums, before the transmission cuts entirely. He groans, slumping in his chair, sending a ping into space, waiting for a reply.

“Right.” Oliver shuffled the deck of cards, and called out the start of their game. “Bruce probably killed it. C’mon, Go-fish, it’s not like he’s going to let Hal call anytime soon.”

"Yeah, I'm going." Barry polished off his coffee, and quickly started on his 16th mug, sitting across from Oliver as the cards were handed out. "I'm just worried about them."

"They'll be fine." Oliver promised. "The most danger they'll be in is trying not to murder each other." He snorted, and they started an arduous game of Go-Fish which was, in fact, much better than staring at a boring screen, waiting for something to happen.

Chapter Text

Bruce took in a fortifying breath of fresh air before he re-adjusted the peeling stand, sliding the damp hide on top of it. The sun had yet to break for dawn, and here he was in the firelight, with a ripe and wet hide. He almost felt silly, dressed in his boots, gloves, and half of his suit.

Hal whistled as he passed by scrunching his nose up at the smell, unkempt with his bedhead. “So happy I don’t have to do that.” He said, as he got started on gathering remnants of their early breakfast, popping in and out of the ship.

Bruce rolled his eyes, and angled himself to pin the start of the hide - the neck - with his body. He chose his dullest knife, one he’d been thinking about replacing, and gingerly started to remove the layer of flesh. He was careful not to move his knife sideways or risk gouging a hole into the skin. With the sounds of Hal cooking in the background, Bruce lost himself to the repetitive motion of de-fleshing the hide, letting the time quickly pass him by. Step one, accomplished.

“The plants are growing quicker than expected.” Bruce mused, later that day. Alongside him, on his knees in the soil, Hal tenderly fondled the new shoots of growth, measuring them with the length of his fingers. Bruce almost urged him to use the ruler, but decided against it. Dawn was breaking overhead, and Bruce knew they needed to get a move on. Trees wouldn’t cut, peel, or process themselves, unfortunately. Neither would a hide pin itself.

“How long until they start giving us food?” Hal asked, and then peered up into the sky with a worried look. “Can they give us food? I haven’t seen any bugs...or birds.”

“I can't give any empirical evidence, but they might fruit soon enough." Bruce nodded along to his words, looking at the plants wishfully. "They took to the beds and nursery very well, exceeding any expectations I had for them."

"I'll say." Hal grumbles.

"And Hal?

"Yeah?"

"Stay up tonight.” Bruce clicked his tongue, as they finished wrapping up their daily garden tending.

“Why?”

“Not everything on this planet is diurnal, Jordan.” Bruce stood aside letting Hal wash his hands in a bucket full of tepid river water as he continued to explain. “Even the capybaras themselves are crepuscular. Meaning, they’re active mostly at twilight.”

“Not all of them?” Hal looked in the direction of the river. “There was one in particular that looks pissed off every time I go to collect water and its' pretty damn awake during the day.”

“Perhaps this species of ‘Capybara’ is extremely territorial and sees us as a threat. Either way, some part of their pack must be aware of our presence and adjust accordingly to the danger we present. Anyhow, the reason you don’t see the pollinators, or primary consumers is because they’re nocturnal.”

“You’re joking? I’ve stayed up with you! This place is so silent I would know if I heard crickets fucking.”

A vein Hal’s temple begins to throb, and Bruce rolls his eyes, and settles for giving a large, hopeless sigh. “You haven’t stayed up long enough.”

“See if I go to sleep tonight then.” Hal smarts like it’s a challenge, and Bruce resists the urge to curb his lecture on undue competitiveness. Honestly, Jordan, he thinks .

“We have one more thing to do in a couple days before breakfast.” Bruce mutters squinting as Hal windmills his wet hands in the air, setting a hesitant schedule.

“Can we do it after breakfast?”

“Not unless you want to throw up.” Bruce washes under his fingernails with a determination to be rid of all of the dirt before giving up. The dirt would be the least of his problems compared to what was about to be under his nails in a couple days.

“...And you’re not going to tell me what we’re doing?” Hal asked with a weary grin, edging on a grimace.

“You won’t like it. It’s better for us if we keep you clueless until it’s actually happening.”

“That- that doesn’t bode well for me, does it?”

No it does not , he thinks, and let’s his silence speak for itself.

They move in tandem, shifting into the age old dance of survival as they hold the hide onto the frame. And then Bruce is alone, holding the hide up, as Hal flutters around, piercing holes into the skin, with a needle made of Nik-Nik bone. He loops makeshift bush twine around the frame, pulling the hide taut in the smooth practiced motion Bruce had taught him. A gratifying surge of pride nestles within him when Hal does his part of the work correctly. The lantern was slowly learning, and adapting to surviving on the planet.

He was still clumsy, and accustomed to failure. Prone to frustration when he couldn’t build anything right, or he didn’t have the correct muscle memory for it. Hal Jordan was still and by far, too emotional to hunt any other animal than a fish, but he was learning.

Bruce noted it all down with a lax gaze, almost hyper aware of every look or twitch, of the very language Hal’s body couldn’t hide from his eyes. Yes, Bruce found, Hal wasn’t the only one learning.

The dark of night enveloped the world, carried on cool drafts of wind. Bruce sat in the moonlight and took in a crisp, shuddering breath of air. The window was cracked, letting the cold air seep in slowly. While their living quarters were still habitable, the nagging problem of temperature regulation refused to stop bothering him. Another one for the mental list.

Hal was nodding off beside him, and he debated the merits of waking him. The campfire had all but dimmed to embers before he found himself throwing in a small bundle of kindling.

Merit, he marked in his head, Hal would see the various, dizzying, and frankly, fascinating array of terrestrial species.

Demerit, Hal Jordan would undoubtedly complain of being woken in the dead of night. 

Merit, the annoyance and complaints would cease to exist as he’d be too enthralled to complain, and his face would open with excitement. Bruce was no stranger to the thought that Hal Jordan’s happiness could be oddly contagious.

Demerit, if Bruce didn’t wake him he would complain in the morning but he’d be fully rested.

Merit , He would finally stop complaining about there being no fucking birds. There were birds, many birds with strange whispering calls, and jewel tone feathers. The forest around them teemed with a constant titter of life that was so alien that Bruce, had not for the first time, wondered if it had all been a fever dream.

Bruce let out a sigh, forgot his thoughts, squeezed Hal’s shoulder, and started to shake.

 
“I can’t believe you actually woke me up.” Hal marveled at him, Bruce couldn’t believe it either. “Sorry, I fell asleep though. I was sure that I wasn’t going to go to sleep.”

“It happens.” Is what he says, unwilling to draw something out by accidentally putting his foot in his mouth. “Now do you want to see the birds or not?”

“You’re shitting me.” Hal exclaims, and then he’s running out of the ship, and--

He stands there in the light of two moons, and Bruce can feel amusement curl in his chest, at the gobsmacked look on his face, softened in the moonlight. “Do you see that bird there?” Bruce asks, pointing above to the tree line.

“Where? Where?” Hal urges him to point fiercely.

“The glistening in the trees, the slightest ray of silver when the moon hits the leaves.”

“I see it! Holy shit-- What is that?”

“A bird, Jordan. It’s not a plane. Or Superman.”

“I thought you were above making those jokes.” Hal snickers, and Bruce feels something like an easy camaraderie fall over them. 

“Don’t tell Clark.” Bruce all but whispers, and when the glint of silver finally reveals itself fully in the moonlight, they both fall quiet. It’s a frail looking bird. A delicate build not unlike the Nik-Niks. It looks so very thin that if Bruce strained he could make out some of it’s anatomy. It’s feathers are a shiny silver, and-- every thought of classification is wiped away as it calls out.

A strange traveling warble breaks the normal chatter of the night. Bruce had heard it before, on those nights he wouldn’t sleep, but he’d never quite imagined the noise to come from such a bird. A migratory flock maybe, of a species he didn’t know, but his expectations had once again, been de-fanged and set correct,

“How in the hell--” Hal whispers at him, before a smirk overtakes his confusingly awed expression.

“I’m calling it Doppler.”

Bruce sighs. “Because its’ cry sounds like the Doppler Effect?”

“Exactly.” Hal grins.

Bruce had counted the days until the hide was at the perfect stage for tanning, and they were ready for the next step. They woke a little after dawn, and Bruce turned away from Hal’s questioning gaze. They hadn’t been waking at dawn lately, Hal’s eyebrows all but said, why now? Bruce delayed answering, instead getting dressed and counting down to yet another impending argument with Hal.

Hal took his example, and got dressed with him, looking listlessly to the campfire, before focusing back on him. Bruce jerked his head, in the direction of the river, and Hal wordlessly joined him. He crossed the river with a relentless stroke, Hal following closely behind.

“What are we doing over here?” Hal finally asks, when they finally breach land, looking vaguely uncomfortable with his wet clothes. Bruce carefully watched the Capybara nests in the distance, and unclasped the spear from his back.

“I told you several days ago that we had something we had to do before breakfast, and that you wouldn’t like it. Before I do what it is I need to do, I want you to consider what you thought I would do. I want you to think about what will happen if I do not do this, and instead choose to let the hide go to waste.”

“Imagine it’s winter on an alien planet, if you would.” Bruce stalks closer to the nests, Hal trailing listlessly behind him. “We have shelter, and enough provisions to hopefully last however long the season will.” He takes a deep breath, and tenses his arm. “We have wood, food, and enough water. But we don’t have a usable hide. Can you imagine how… unpleasant such a thing would be? The cape can barely cover the both of us, and that’s in relatively warmer weather with a fire beside us. Can you imagine potentially dying or getting sick because we lacked access to something we could have had, if not for an emotional constraint?”

The guarding Capybara started chirping, and slowly, two furry animals surrounded them with insistent chirps.

“I get it.” Hal licked his lips, watching helplessly. “But what does this have to do with the hide?”

“One decision can be life or death, and refusing to survive is sentencing us to a preventable death.” Bruce wishes he could make Hal acknowledge this. “This is going to make you angry.” Bruce says with finality, hoping something will get through to Hal.

“Upset even, because I understand you have a great deal of compassion for life that is not your own. However, we need to survive, and deciding not to, isn’t an option.”

The chirping reaches a high, a warning if he’d ever heard one and Bruce lunges. He strikes with the sharp twist of the spear, aiming for the quickest death he can offer them. The Capybara don’t stand a chance, barely able to threateningly snarl before he pierces the soft skin of their bellies.

Bruce stills himself, back turned to save from seeing Hal’s expression. He swallows with a dry throat, waiting for Hal to erupt.

“Why- Why would you do that?” Hal asks with a despondent voice. “They haven’t done anything to us. You said we wouldn’t eat them.”

Bruce shuffles, and stabs the spear into the murky river banks. He turns and crosses the distance between them, still unable to look Hal in the eyes. “We need them. I know you didn’t want to hurt them-”

“Then why did you do it?” Hal’s voice cracked, as Bruce caught the movement of his hands wiping tears from his face. “Is it-" Hal struggled with is words, "Do you just want to make me feel miserable?” 

“I don’t.” His jaw clenches. “I don’t want to make you feel worse, but we need them. We won’t be able to finish the hide without them.” Bruce said plainly, refusing to let the guilt settle on his conscience.

“I know it’s distressing to kill an animal, to watch an animal die, but we have to consider our survival first and foremost.” Bruce grasps Hal’s shoulders, trying to be comforting, to be pragmatic.
“In normal circumstances, I would show compassion. I would let them live, but we don’t have that option here. I’m sorry that it...hurts you.”

“I’m-- Why am I like this?” Hal knocks on his head. “It’s just an animal. They didn’t even like us-”

“It’s not a shame to feel compassion for another living being,” Bruce squeezed his shoulders,  “It’s okay to wish that our circumstances were different.”

“We already had this conversation already, remember? With the Nik-Nik. And I understand. I really do.” Hal sobs, “But it’s so hard-”

“I know.” Bruce sighs, staring down at what will undoubtedly be a lynch-pin in their survival, “I know."

Bruce as he had anticipated, did the brain tanning alone, huddled over a smouldering fire, a scant two cups of water in a pot. Hal had wisely made himself scarce.

The water must be warm, he remembered, but not boiling. Cool enough to not scald his hands, though the exact temperature eluded him. The hide must be stretched over the frame, and almost dry but not quite, porous enough to accept the tanning solution, or it would all be for naught and he’d have to start over.

He took the water off of the fire, and gently dipped his pinkie finger in as he had every five minutes. It barely bit him. Perfect.

Add more brain than you think you need, Bruce recalled, and so he did. He wasn’t a squeamish man by any means, but -- well, a fresh brain was hardly the best thing to experience, in texture, sight, or smell. He was glad his stomach was empty, as he gradually mixed the brain matter into the water, until there was nothing but a milky slurry left.

Bruce carefully detached the hide from it’s frame, and knelt over the fleshed side of the hide. It was all a new experience, and if it hadn’t been entwined with his very own survival, Bruce would have enjoyed the meticulous care and time needed it took to create. 

He could feel his nostrils and gut alike twist with displeasure. The smell wasn’t strong, or off-putting, but it was the very action itself that gave Bruce a sense of nausea and visceral distaste. He persevered.

They needed this hide. They could barely stay warm with the two of them huddled under his cape. His sense of urgency made for focused work, as he rubbed the solution into the hide, fingers digging into the nooks and crannies.

Soon enough he was finished, and gingerly folded the hide over itself, careful to prevent any of the tanning liquid from falling onto the fur. Finally, he felt a surge of heady relief, he could check something off of his list.

Breakfast had been a quick affair, as they packed up for the day, and went on their final trek for logs away from the base. They had spoken little, and Bruce didn’t mind giving Hal the space to make sense of his thoughts and emotions.

His muscles ached and pulsed in only the way hard continuous labor could make them. His back strained constantly from the days of heavy labor. If he’d been in Gotham, Alfred would’ve given him an unsubtle rebuke about his well being and a patch of icy-hot.

But Alfred wasn’t there, and he never would be if Bruce gave in and stopped moving. He worked through the pain his body told him to heed. There was no way he was going to stop. Bruce couldn’t. Survival was a constant, leeching drain on his mind, body, and soul. And yet, he couldn’t choose to walk away. He had a family, a city, friends and world alike that needed him. For duty, for love and family, Bruce found he would push through any obstacles the universe put ahead of him.

He conservatively took a sip of what was left of the scant water supply they traveled with, and wiped the sweat dripping down his temples. He resisted the urge to wring his shirt out, knowing it would only disgust him.

Bruce should’ve felt happy, accomplished even, that they’d finally finished preparing all the logs, and hauling them into camp. He could only feel tired. They were barely at step one. Despite how streamlined his directions made the plan seem, nothing could save them from how grueling the work had been.

And yet... even against the physical and mental strain things had, against all of his expectations, progressed smoothly. The first frame they cobbled together carefully. It wasn’t high or anything exceeding his best expectations, but it was a start. A general shape to guide them, and correct. Enough to keep the fire of hope stoked.

It laid out flat on the ground, while they measured every log, and every center for every log, where there would be carved joints because there wouldn’t be enough nails for it all. How tall and how wide, where the door was, if there was a window here, would it help the ventilation? Would a chimney be better, and what if they wanted to add a second room? There was a hundred other miscellaneous details that suddenly bombarded all of his carefully considered plans, and so Bruce scrapped them, and took only the best of his cherry picked ideas.

It came over him slowly, that it wasn’t going to be just a place to huddle in, while they waited, but a place for them to stay. A real cabin, their hearth and home. And well, - if they’d already cut down the trees, stripped them of their skins, and processed them to hell and back, even without the curing stage, what did it matter if they took a bit longer to make sure they would truly love what they’d built?

If it would make their wait bearable, if it would lessen the lead in his gut, the growing alarm that could not be silenced with simple reprimands when their only answer was radio silence, Bruce would do it all.

Survive, survive, survive , every part of him chanted. Bruce felt the kindling in his chest roar into a wildfire, -he didn’t want to survive.

He wanted to live.