Chapter Text
“Hey kids,” Hal said, smiling at Cassandra who had waved at him when he had entered the room.
Bruce was standing right next to him but they weren’t touching in any way.
“Hi, Hal !” Dick said, fist bumping him like a ten year olds. “Nice to see you here.”
Well, he was the kid with the sunniest disposition. Or the best one at faking it, anyway. Hal wasn’t certain, but he doubted Dick would bother to fake the open friendliness he displayed around Hal if it wasn't real.
“Jordan,” Damian nodded, less enthusiastically.
Hal tried not to squirm. Damian was becoming a teenager so the angst issues may have already started. According to Bruce, though, the lack of warmth was just in his youngest’s nature or the result of his early childhood, or probably an interesting mix of both.
“Have you been working with Bruce in the Cave ?” Tim asked, smiling at Hal friendly.
Hal smiled back naturally.
“Ah, not exactly,” he said.
And since he was a grown up and not a teenager with an embarrassing crush, he didn’t blush as he discreetly laced his fingers with Bruce’s.
“Are you staying for dinner ? Alfred’s spaghetti alle vongole is amazing, just saying,” Barbara said, from another corner of the room.
She was reading some comics, twirling a strand of hair around her finger but had looked up at Hal expectantly.
“Oh,” Cass finally whispered before Hal had a chance to answer.
In the silence of the room, the sound seemed to reverberate against the walls. Hal felt Bruce squeeze his hand silently.
“Hum ?” Stephanie, who had been the closest to Cass, asked in a puzzled tone, turning her head toward her.
“Look,” Cass said, pointing her chin at Bruce and Hal.
There was a few seconds of contemplative silence before chaos erupted and voices intermingled.
“Wait, why are you holding hands ?” Dick nearly shouted.
"Are you two… dating ?" Duke asked, looking dumbfounded, at the same time, his eyes going from Hal to Bruce and back to their intertwined hands.
"Since when ?" Barbara asked, a note of curiosity in her voice.
"What ??" Steph audibly gasped. "I’m so happy for you !" she added and went to hug -squish- Bruce and Hal.
The sheer muscle density of those kids was impressive.
"Gross." Hal heard Damian mutter just as Stephanie released them from her tight embrace.
He grimaced. He hadn’t expected much better.
“Damian.” Bruce reprimanded his son quietly, and the kid apologized a bit reluctantly.
Hal finally took notice of Jason in the corner of the room, looking wholly unconcerned and completely unaffected by the situation. The kid nodded gravely when their eyes met. Hal turned to Bruce to say something and when he looked back, Jason had disappeared.
Apparently it was a family feature, not just a thing Bruce did.
“Hal ?” he heard Bruce murmur against his ear and he realized he had been lost in thought.
“Sorry. I’m good.” he said, brushing his thumb over Bruce’s.
Alfred had walked into the room at that moment, congratulated them and urged the kids to take their seats since dinner was about to be ready.
Hal had sat next to Bruce and Damian had taken the chair next to him. Hal hadn’t interacted with him much as Damian, and only a couple more times as Robin. He knew the kid was smart and brave. As he listened to him talking about the animals currently in residence at the Manor, he also saw the passion that drove him. Damian talked about his pets the way Bruce talked about his kids.
Hal tried to make an effort and remember their names as he asked some more questions about Damian’s mini-zoo. He caught Bruce’s glance and smiled at him.
“Excuse us.” Bruce said, and he grabbed Hal’s arm and dragged him into the corridor despite Damian’s protests and a few quizzical looks from the others.
“Is there an emergency ?” Hal asked, confused, when Bruce stopped dragging him behind him in a hallway.
He didn’t know the Manor that well but he was quite certain they weren’t taking the direction of the Cave. Hal’s sense of direction made him suspect they were closer to the family’s rooms.
He hadn’t been wearing his comms and he hadn’t thought Bruce was, but what else would have made Bruce react so impulsively ? Why would he have left the table and took Hal with him if it wasn’t for Justice League matters ?
“Yes.” Bruce said, and Hal was about to ask what they were doing in this hallway, then, but Bruce was faster.
Right in the middle of the hallway, he put an arm around Hal's neck, the other around his waist and kissed him. It didn't take Hal long to meet him there and kiss him back just as hungrily.
Hal had never thought of ranking their kisses before, but it was definitely one of their best ones.
“Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.” he muttered under his breath when they eventually separated.
"Um ?"
“Nothing. Leaving the dining-room was a good call. We had quite the emergency here.” Hal said, recovering his breath first.
“I had to - I couldn’t not -” Bruce said quietly, stumbling upon his words.
“Hey.” Hal said, letting his palm caress Bruce’s cheek.
Their eyes met. A torrent of emotions passed between them. Hal read hesitation in Bruce’s eyes for a brief moment before it flickered away and he could only read determination in the oh so familiar blue irises.
And then Bruce got down on one knee. Hal just stared at him in puzzlement.
“What are you doing ?” he asked, transfixed and unable to look away as Bruce took his hands into his.
“What does it look like ? Hal, I -”
Hal interrupted him there, understanding brightening his gaze.
“Ah. Ah. Are you…” Hal started saying tonelessly. “Are you proposing to me ?”
The last words were anything but toneless, in a way higher pitch than Hal’s usual one.
Bruce didn’t say anything as the pressure accentuated on his hands.
“Are you ?” Hal repeated in a whisper, kneeling next to Bruce, still holding onto his hands.
“If it’s making you uncomfortable we can always pretend I needed to lace my shoes.” Bruce said, looking away.
Hal's answer was prompt.
“No.”
Bruce nodded dejectedly and moved to stand up, letting go of Hal’s hands, but Hal stopped him, pulling on his wrist.
A man with lesser reflexes would have fallen on his ass. Bruce just turned around and finally looked Hal in the eye.
“No ! Well, yes. I didn’t mean no to… I’m saying yes, okay ? I’m saying yes.” Hal said, stroking Bruce’s jaw with his thumb. “Yes, I will marry you. There, I said it. And you didn’t even ask properly.”
Hal was laughing nervously. Bruce kissed him briefly and sighed against his lips.
“I had plans. Great plans. But what can I say, your lack of impulse control is rubbing on me.”
Hal shook his head and stood up before helping Bruce up.
“You planned to ask me just before I left for my next mission to give me some time to freak out and get used to the idea before we had to talk about it again, um ?"
Bruce shrugged. Hal knew him too well.
“I won’t confirm or deny your working hypothesis.”
This time, Hal was the one leaning in for a quick peck.
“Am I freaking out a little bit ? Yes. Do I need more time to think about it ? No. I know what I want.” he said, smiling at Bruce.
God, was it possible to be this happy ?
“Shares of Wayne Enterprises ?” Bruce said in a knowing tone.
Hal laughed against his neck before planting a kiss here.
“Sure. The hot billionaire fiancé doesn’t hurt either. Bruce ?”
“Yes ?” the vigilante asked, his arms wrapping around Hal’s waist.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." Bruce said.
"Do you even know what I'm thanking you for ?"
"I can make an educated guess."
Bruce knew Hal was much more observant than most people - including himself, at first - gave him credit for and could reason soundly.
"Surely you realized I would notice they were only pretending not to know and see through their little act ?" Hal asked Bruce.
"Maybe I did." Bruce admitted.
"But you figured that it wouldn't matter because the fact that they would all agree to pretend to make me comfortable would make me feel good."
Hal could read Bruce better than most people. It was part of his charm. And also what made him irritating at times.
"That's a possibility."
"You know that you're wrong ?" Hal said softly.
"What do you mean ?" Bruce asked, frowning.
Hal laughed. Bruce hated being wrong.
"I really like your kids. But you're aware they didn't do it for me, right ? They did it for you. And honestly, it makes me like them even more."
Bruce shrugged, a bit uncertain.
"Come here." Hal said, and they kissed some more in the hallway until Bruce decided that making out wasn't enough and dragged Hal all the way to his bedroom.
In the dining-room, the rest of the family was wolfing down Alfred's pasta.
"Do you think Father and the Green Lantern will be back soon ?" Damian asked.
Steph almost choked on her last mouthful as Barbara and Tim shared an amused look.
Either Damian hadn't seen the way Bruce had been looking at Hal or he had yet to figure out a few things about his father's body language. Not that Bruce had tried to mask his interest in Hal in any way.
"Don't expect to see them again tonight." Dick replied diplomatically as Barbara coughed.
"You're okay, Babs ?" Jason asked pointedly.
"Yes, yes, it's nothing." the young woman said, elbowing him discreetly.
"That was for sure an interesting evening." Jason added.
"Come more often. We have plenty of those." Dick suggested.
Jason shrugged.
—
Twelve months before Bruce and Hal made their relationship official
Barbara had been working a case for 26 hours when she noticed something on her monitor.
"Wait, what's that ?" she murmured.
She had seen it before. Traces of magic ? No, she remembered now. The thing that was throwing her detectors into a panic was a Lantern's signature.
Was it Hal Jordan ? Probably. She wondered what he was doing here, it had been quite some time since they had had a case involving alien artifacts or aliens themselves in Gotham.
But she would have expected the Lantern to go to the Cave and meet Bruce, not wander in the city.
Bruce wasn't going to be happy about this. She'd better warn him immediately.
She decided to try finding video footage to confirm Jordan's presence in the city before doing it, just in case they had another Lantern to deal with.
Maybe she should ask an ex-Robin to do some surveillance if she didn't find anything. She was considering contacting either Bruce or Tim when her own supercomputer pinged, announcing it had spotted what she was looking for : the Green Lantern Hal Jordan.
She took a second to look at the screen appreciatively. Jordan looked really good in that uniform.
The image quality was good, mainly because it was from one of the cameras Tim had installed for her and not from the city's CCTV.
She was about to open a channel to finally inform Batman of Jordan's presence in the city when she noticed Jordan's change of attitude on the screen.
The angle of the camera wasn't a good one and she couldn't see much of him but suddenly his posture looked more relaxed.
Barbara didn't have much time to wonder why before another figure appeared on her CCTV.
Wait, that looked like a cape. A vigilante ? It was coming closer.
That… that was Bruce, actually. He wasn't even supposed to be on patrol at that time.
Maybe his own monitors had alerted him of Hal's presence.
She could be wrong but he didn't look angry.
Oh no. Lantern was walking toward Bruce at a rapid pace. Ah, floating actually. He landed just in front of Bruce.
"Camera 207, other angle." Barbara muttered.
There, it was better. She was going to be on the front row to see the two argue.
Or maybe not. What were they doing ? They… Fuck, they were kissing.
Barbara would lie if she said she didn't find it at least a little hot.
Yeah, it was probably better for her not to go down that path and to go back to her case.
"Well done, Bruce. Hal Jordan. Solid choice." she said to herself, shaking her head with a smile.
Bruce had been acting a bit different lately and it had seemed quite obvious from the CCTV that Bruce and Hal were quite comfortable in each other's space and not kissing for the first time.
She couldn't wait for Dick to figure this one out. Hopefully that relationship would last long enough for him to notice.
—
Ten months before Bruce and Hal made their relationship official
"Nightwing, this is Oracle. B knows you are in town and asked if you could replace him tonight."
"Let me guess : League's stuff ?" Dick sighed deeply in her ear.
He sounded tired. It was early in the morning. Dick had been up all night following a lead in Gotham for an investigation he had started in Blüdhaven.
"Yeah." Barbara said in what she hoped was a neutral tone.
She knew it wasn't and Bruce was probably aware that she wouldn't believe him. Either he didn't mind her knowing or he hadn't had the time to make up something more convincing.
"Funny. Supes wanted intel on a case and we had lunch yesterday. He said that Hal would come back from Oa today and that the debrief would be tomorrow, which would let Lantern rest and allow Clark to work on his investigation."
"Um um. Codenames, honey." Barbara said gaily.
So, Dick had finally figured it out. She had been dying to tell him.
"You're not surprised." he said suspiciously.
Barbara laughed lightly. Dating a detective was quite fun at times. And not so much at others, when he could just look at her and tell what was wrong even when she didn’t want to talk about it.
"I wouldn’t have expected it two months earlier."
"Wait, they've been together for two months ?" Dick nearly shouted.
"Ow, my ears !" Babs complained.
They all seemed to forget all the time. It was a wonder she still had two functioning eardrums.
"Sorry, babe. But you could have told me." Dick said in a whining voice that he knew she hated.
It was a bit muffled and she could hear the rustle of fabric which made her think Dick was changing into more comfortable clothes after a night in Nightwing’s costume.
"I could have but I like letting you do the detective work. And I've known for two months but l'd say they had been together for about six months before that." Barbara said distractedly, letting her mind wander to times where Dick had stripped out of his suit in front of her.
"And your reasoning is based on what ? Your detective instinct ?" Dick asked her.
She had actually tried to look into Bruce and Hal’s relationship discreetly but without much success. It wasn’t like Bruce would mention their dating status on social media or in his database and she would bet they hadn’t told the League.
"B sounding happier." she said.
She knew it was kind of a terrible thing to say, especially to Dick, who had spent so much time of his life trying to make Bruce happy.
She heard her boyfriend snap his fingers.
"That was that. The strange thing about him I couldn't pinpoint !” Dick exclaimed, his thoughts apparently taking another direction than hers.
“Um.”
“That's awful, when you think about it. Do you think he’s ever been happy before ?” Dick asked after a few seconds of heavy silence.
Barbara sighed. It was what she had feared, that Dick would misinterpret her words and somehow make Bruce’s loneliness all about him not being able to be enough. Enough what, she wouldn’t know. She doubted Dick knew it himself.
And she also knew that Bruce would never blame Dick for that. A therapist would have a field day with this family's self-blaming tendencies alone, and it was probably one of their most garden-variety mental health issues.
“Yes. Dick, you know that. The good memories you have with him, he has them too. Bruce would have been a lot sadder and Batman a lot darker without Robin. He’s been happy before, I just think he’s just happier. Maybe he felt a bit lonely, but hey, it wasn’t your fault and he had the League. He has friends there. And he has Hal, now.”
“Yeah.” Dick said, but he didn’t sound that convinced.
He sounded sad. Dick had a wealth of empathy and Babs would sometimes spend hours cheering him up. She wished she could hug him through the comms, kiss his forehead and run her hands through his hair.
“Hey, are you terribly busy today or can I see you ? Or maybe tonight after patrol ?”
She nodded absently. She was busy, she’ll just try to make time for him.
“You’ll stay the night ?” she asked in a hopeful tone.
“Why not ? I took a few days off.” Dick said, nodding uselessly.
“Let’s do that then. Dick ?”
“I love you too. See you tonight, beautiful.” he told her.
—
Seven months before Bruce and Hal made their relationship official
Hal Jordan was leaning above Bruce’s shoulder and pointing at something at the screen in front of him and Bruce had yet to dislocate his jaw.
“You’re starring.” Dick said, giving Jason’s shoulder a small tap.
Jason could have snapped and told him not to touch him but he doubted he would obtain results. Dick had always acted like he was touch-starved all the fucking time.
Speaking of…
"They're fucking." Jason observed, pointing at Bruce and Hal in the other part of the Cave.
Dick looked at them and tried to imagine them from the point of view of a person who wouldn’t have known that they were together.
There was a lot of familiarity in their proximity and the way they moved around each other. Sure, it could be part of being brothers-in-arms. Fighting alongside people tended to make you comfortable around them but Dick was quite certain Bruce wasn’t that comfortable with any other Leaguers, except maybe Clark, and Clark wouldn’t just invade your space as Jordan did. Was doing.
"Definitely." Dick nodded, but he didn’t think ‘fucking’ would resume the entirety of Bruce and Hal’s relationship.
“How long has it been ?” Jason asked as he turned a page of the casefile Bruce had asked him to review.
“A while. According to Babs’ calculations, it’s been almost a year.”
Jason looked up and whistled.
“Impressive. I don’t think Selina stayed with him for that long.”
If Bruce was staying with someone for any length of time, Dick was glad he picked Hal over Selina.
—
Six months before Bruce and Hal made their relationship official
“Hey, is that just me or…” Duke asked Tim, gesturing towards Bruce and Hal discreetly.
The two young men were spying on the informal League meeting happening in the Cave. Ollie, Clark, Diana, Victor, Hal and Bruce were all reunited there, in costume, but so far, nothing important had been said.
Tim and Duke hadn’t known about the reunion and had only realized when they had passed the door. They had silently decided to fake their exit and to come back discreetly.
Tim was quite certain that both Bruce and Clark knew they were there, Clark because of his super senses and Bruce because of his parenting sense. He always knew where his kids were. In any case, none of them said a word.
They couldn’t hear well from where they were but they had the advantage of seeing without being seen. Bruce and Hal had been sitting next to each other.
“No, it’s not just your imagination. Of course B hadn’t said anything but they’ve got something going on.”
“Something ?” Duke asked, an eyebrow raised.
Tim shrugged helplessly. It was the best description for it that he could think of.
“It’s unclear what but it’s been going on for more than a year. Steph would probably say they’re engaged. Jason would bet on them being fuck buddies because God forbid anyone could actually love Bruce and his myriad of faults. The others are mostly undecided or unaware. Well, I think everyone knows but Damian, now that you’ve found out too.”
Tim had found out because of Steph. The young woman couldn’t help but tell someone when she had deduced it and Tim was under no illusion that he would be her first choice to discuss that kind of matters but Cass had been on some secret op for Bruce at the time, so Steph had just barged into Tim’s room in the middle of the night.
Tim had amorced an attack move before realizing it was her. She was frantic and at first he had thought someone had got hurt, maybe her. They had sat on his bed and she had told him how she had stumbled upon Bruce during patrol.
Which was strange because Bruce should have already been home, but otherwise not much concerning.
Stephanie had then proceeded to tell him that Bruce hadn’t been alone. Tim had thought she meant he had been with Selina and that she had interrupted them during an intimate moment. Not great news, but Bruce was big enough to make his own mistakes, and Steph shouldn’t have sounded so excited.
“No, not her.” Steph said, apparently reading his mind. “Hal Jordan.”
That was a bit unexpected, but Steph had insisted, saying she had been called away by Oracle before she could see much, but that they looked captivated by each other on that rooftop. Probably seconds away to kiss.
“This family is so strange. I’m still not sure whether you guys love the hell out of each other or whether you all hate each other’s guts.” Duke commented.
“Yes. And this is your family too, now.” Tim said, smiling brightly at the older guy.
“Smart-ass.” Duke said, elbowing him. “Do you think they’ll say anything about it before next year ?”
“If Bruce was the only one involved, he could easily not say anything for five years. But I trust Hal to not put up with his shit.” Tim said. “You want to bet ?”
“With a Wayne ? Who does that ?”
“Ill-informed people.” Tim said.
—
A month before Bruce and Hal made their relationship official
A round of ex-Robins and current ones were waiting in the shadows for a signal. Bruce had asked them to stay put as he and Lantern took care of today’s villains. Aliens, apparently, even if they didn’t look like it. Well, you wouldn’t think of Wonder Woman and Superman as aliens easily either.
So they were all waiting on the glass ceiling as potential back-up, looking at Bruce and Hal knocking out aliens in perfect synchronization, ready to intervene at any moment if things went wrong.
"Disgusting.” Damian said, making a face, after a while.
So he had realized Bruce and Hal knew each other much better than they let on. Well, their current fighting moves were quite complementary. Not quite as complementary as Bruce’s and any of his Robins, but that would require years of training together regularly.
Tim wondered briefly if Damian was actually jealous that someone else was obviously spending time with Bruce.
"Should I add homophobic asshole to your neverending list of qualities ?” he snarled nonetheless, because he couldn’t let the kid get away with that.
"I do not mind Lantern being a male. Strategically speaking, he still is a better choice than Catwoman since he’s in the League. But relationships are a distraction.” Damian stated, and Dick looked away, which probably meant he didn’t want to laugh at him directly but found the situation quite funny.
No doubt Bruce had served him a similar sentence time and time again during the course of the Boy Wonder’s relationship with Barbara.
"I feel sorry for the girls you'll date. Even Nightwing isn’t that bad, and he’s quite terrible as it is." Jason sighed, shaking his head.
"What ?" Tim asked, looking sharply at Jason before focusing his gaze back on what was happening under their feet.
Bruce and Hal were making progress. Most of the aliens had now been knocked unconscious and bound.
"It was for a mission. N was seducing our prey and I was on comms. I'd rather shoot myself in the head than hear one more of his pick-up lines. That poor girl didn’t deserve that.”
That poor girl tested her illegal drug mixes on street kids and the only reason she had ended up in jail and not in a puddle of blood was Dick so that poor girl probably deserved that and all the horrors of this universe, but none of them mentioned it.
“See what I have to live through ?” Oracle’s voice said in their ears.
“I know. Maybe you should reconsider my offer.” Jason said.
“You hit on B- on Oracle ?” Dick spluttered.
“You were on a break. The twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth, I don’t know.” Jason said with a smirk.
“It was right after the Sabitov case. And I thought I’d been clear enough, Hood.”
Dick winced. They had made up since but the Sabitov case was still a sore point between them.
“Sure, beautiful.” Jason said and Damian groaned.
Jason had his Red Hood’s helmet on but Tim was quite certain he was smiling. Antagonizing his siblings - even if Jason would rather die again than call them that - was one of his favorite activities. Ruffling their feathers was probably his raison d’être.
“Do you think he’ll ever talk to us about it ?” Tim asked, looking at Bruce punching the last standing criminal.
It was obvious that what he meant by “it” was the relationship Bruce had with Hal Jordan.
None of the others answered, but a few weeks later Bruce had reunited them all, including Jason to talk to them about him and Hal.