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Bruce had woken up just before his new bed partner and rolled on his side to face Hal's relaxed form. As he did so, Hal's eyes fluttered open. His lips stretched into a smile when he caught sight of Bruce.
They hadn't drawn the curtains at night and the morning light was now caressing their skins lazily.
Bruce's gaze trailed down Hal's exposed body, registering what he had missed the night before. He soon felt his heart tighten at the sight of Hal's chest.
They hadn't taken the time to put the lights on as they found their way to Hal's bed the night before and the moonlight and city lights hadn't been enough to reveal the extent of his scars.
Bruce and Hal had been rather impatient and they had kept their clothes on as they brought each other to climax for the first time. They had got rid of most of their clothes as the night went on but Hal had only put his shirt off just before they went to sleep.
Had he been self-conscious about the scars ? Had he tried to hide them from Bruce ?
He must have felt at least some of Bruce’s under his fingertips last night, even if he couldn’t see them clearly.
"How could you have -" Bruce whispered in horrified fascination, his fingers stroking Hal's abused skin.
Hal wore a Lantern uniform when he was doing vigilante work. He wasn't supposed to have all those scars on his body. And when he did get them, they didn’t exactly look like that. Gunshot wounds. Stab wounds. That kind of scars… you got them by fighting in the streets in the dead of the night.
Bruce had stopped talking as the terrible familiarity of the scar his fingers were touching had struck him. His words choked in his throat.
Hal's hand closed on Bruce's, frozen on Hal's scarred torso.
"I'm so sorry, Hal," Bruce whispered, and he looked away.
He could only hope that they weren't, but his eyes felt watery.
He knew it was a possibility, he knew that someone else could get the marks of his vigilante life on their bodies. Soulmates were quite common.
Not having one was more unusual but not unheard of. Bruce had hoped…
No, he had thought. He had thought he didn't have one.
Honestly, who would want a soulmate like him ? Well, it wasn't like Hal wanted to be his soulmate, he hadn't really had a say in the matter.
Hal. His soulmate. Hal was his soulmate. Had probably known it because no one would see this amount of scars appearing on their skin without asking themselves a few questions and Hal was far from stupid.
Bruce's worst injuries must have matched Hal's ugliest scars.
He felt Hal's other hand reaching for his face.
"Okay, is it existential crisis time ? I know it's a lot to absorb but I wasn't sure how to break it to you," Hal said, sitting up.
"Don't joke about it. Christ, Hal. What I did to you…" Bruce said, shaking his head as he sat up too.
Hal cut him off.
"Don't feel bad about it. Some of those scars are mine," Hal said firmly, and he reached out for a thin scar he had sustained from an alien being with needle-like claws as he laid unconscious.
Thankfully for him, John had got him out of the way and took the alien criminal out before taking him to Soranik. She had done a great job, you could barely see the scar now.
Bruce had opened his mouth, probably to protest. Most of the scars on their bodies were his doing, not Hal's.
Not that it mattered much. As soulmates, they had to share scars.
Some people would carve up small and distinctive patterns on a visible part of their skin -the wrist, as a rule- to find their soulmate more easily. Bruce had always found the practice abhorrent. How could you decide to mark someone that way ? How could you do that to your soulmate willingly ?
But he had done much worse. Hal's skin was branded with all his mistakes. Every misstep, every miscalculation Bruce had ever made could be found on his body.
Hal's hand started stroking his clenched jaw, catching his attention.
"Bruce, I don't mind getting your scars. They’re part of you. I wish you didn’t have to suffer to get them but they represent who you are and don’t change how handsome you are,” Hal said. “Or I, for instance,” he added jokingly under the blue stare.
Bruce didn’t laugh, he just kept staring at Hal.
“Each new scar that appears on my body lets me know you're still alive when I'm off-Earth. After all, corpses don't get scars."
Bruce nodded and didn't say anything about Gotham's criminals. Those ones wouldn't mind marking a dead body. In any case, marks made on a dead body wouldn't appear on the soulmate of its owner and it was what Hal had hinted at.
He wouldn't get any more scars from Bruce if the vigilante was dead.
Hal was looking at Bruce. Bruce looked right back.
"For how long have you known ?"
Hal bit his lip.
"Ah… Well, you can imagine I was quite concerned at first. I knew I'd share scars with my soulmate when we'd both reach eighteen. I just didn't expect that many of them. For years, I thought you might be self-harming. Or abused. Anything that would leave so many traces on our bodies. And then we got to know each other and well… I got it."
"Hal, we've known each other for years. A decade, even."
Had Hal figured everything out so quickly when Bruce had been so oblivious about it ?
"Um, twelve years, actually. And it's not like I found out right away or was certain about it. You weren't the only human vigilante I knew. I grew suspicious over the years. I pieced some details together. You favored your left arm when my right arm looked like it had been slashed overnight. That kind of thing."
"But last night, you knew ?"
Hal nodded. Bruce already knew the answer to his question, that was mere confirmation.
"And you didn't tell me."
Bruce sounded quite vexed. Hal sighed.
"Maybe I should have. I'm sorry. It's just… You know, it was never the right time. At first, you had your thing with Catwoman and then Carol and I were together. We broke up but… lots of things happened after that."
They both lost themselves in their thoughts for a little while before Hal spoke again.
"After so much time, I thought any shift in our relationship would be doomed. And then last night happened and as it was happening I didn't want to do anything to stop it. I thought it could be our only chance. I realize I should have told you we were soulmates. That it changes things for you. I -"
Bruce stopped Hal before he could ramble some more. It would have never ended otherwise.
"Hal. It's fine. I wish you had trusted me, though," he said quietly.
Hal got closer to him.
"What would you have done if you had seen my scars last night ?" he asked.
Bruce looked at Hal's face and his eyes full of concern.
"I don't know," Bruce admitted. "But it doesn't mean you were right to keep that from me."
"Are you mad at me ?" Hal asked.
A man less brave wouldn't have but the years had proven Hal to be quite fearless.
"We're naked in your bed. It's hard to be resentful," Bruce said, stroking Hal's thigh absentmindedly. "I'm just not sure I like the fact that you figured things out so long before me."
Hal laughed and kissed him longly.
"Barry said it's quite obvious," Hal said after they pulled apart.
Discussing Bruce with Barry had never been a thing Hal had planned for. Which was probably the reason why Barry had finally brought up the subject himself instead of waiting for Hal to talk about it. Barry was smart like that.
"Wait, Allen knows we're soulmates too ?" Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Ah, no, he doesn't know about the soulmates thing," Hal said, silently cursing himself.
Why did he say that ? He didn't want Bruce to find out more than he needed too. He had been quite understanding about the soulmates stuff, it would be best not to force his hand any further.
"What's obvious, then ?" Bruce asked.
Hal had almost said it earlier but he couldn’t, now. His throat felt dry.
"That's a conversation for another day," he said, pushing Bruce down onto the mattress to distract him.
Bruce let him. You couldn’t win all your battles and Bruce didn’t really mind losing this one to Hal. Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t win the next one.
"Hal," Bruce said later as his head rested on Hal's torso and the Lantern's fingers drew slow patterns on his back.
Hal kissed his head as Bruce looked up at him and smiled.
"Um ?"
"I've been in love with you for years too," Bruce said, and Hal's hand stilled on his back for a quarter of a second.
“And the soulmates thing’s great too,” Bruce added when Hal didn’t say anything.
Hal had just frozen entirely at Bruce’s sudden declaration but something in Bruce’s tone as he uttered his second sentence made him react.
“You don’t mean it,” Hal accused him, but his voice was soft and he was smiling slightly.
His hand was rubbing Bruce’s back again. Bruce pressed his free hand.
“I love you and I mean that. As for being soulmates… I would rather it didn’t come with so many scars for you,” he said, tracing one with his right hand.
“I love you too. And as deranged as it sounds, I’m hoping to get many other scars in my lifetime,” Hal said, and he started tracing one of the scars on Bruce’s back.
Bruce looked at him. Hal was still smiling. It was no wonder that Barry had found out how his friend felt, Hal wore his heart on his sleeve. But then Bruce hadn’t known, so maybe Barry’s investigative skills deserved some praise here.
Bruce tended to think that showing your feelings so openly was dangerous but he couldn’t fail to recognize what it was here : open trust. Hal was allowing his feelings to show on his face without making an attempt to hide them. Despite all the scars he had sustained, he trusted Bruce not to hurt him.
So Bruce decided that he could show some vulnerability too, here, in Hal’s bed, in his soulmate’s arms.
“Do you want me to tell you how I got them ?” he asked.
“Sure. I’ll tell you about mine,” Hal nodded.
Bruce took his right hand into his.
“I got this one when I was 7. My mother was reading in the gardens. The door was made of glass panels and I accidentally put my hand through one as I pushed it open,” Bruce said, grazing the scar on Hal’s wrist.
Hal took Bruce’s own wrist into his and kissed it.
“Keep going,” he said, and Bruce showed him an old scar on his elbow and started talking about a childhood story of finding a baby bird in the grass and climbing up a tree to put it back in his nest.
Hal wrapped his arms around Bruce and asked if the bird was a robin or if he had changed specialities. Bruce glared at him before carrying on with his tale, Hal’s laughter filling the room.
Bruce chose to take it as a sign that Hal had been wrong and that their relationship wasn’t doomed to fail.