Chapter Text
There was a divide in Hal’s mind regarding the Bat. There was a ruthless leader, capable strategist, and petty bastard Batman; and then there was calm, awkward, detached Bruce. He knew others had more concepts and ideas in their heads when they thought of Bruce, but Hal never much cared for celebrity gossip, so all he saw was all he knew.
Some deep part of him wanted to have as much of Bruce as the others –namely Clark and Diana–if only to make their stupidly dangerous line of work that tiny bit lighter, but they just didn’t click right . And it was not that they outwardly disliked each other –even when they scowled at each other and threw sharp words freely– they were cordial enough and could put their lives in each other’s hands easily and without hesitation. There was just… something they were missing, the pieces of each other not being put in the right order against the other’s.
Hal would have assumed that it would have been slow and casual if he were ever to form a deeper bond with Batman. He pictured a gradual development of what had already been there in some form: He imagined that maybe, after a glorious success in saving humanity, the Bat would finally accept to go out with the League. He figured that after some drinks, the Bat would have been mellowed out just enough. And then they’d finally be able to have a nice, deep conversation that officially broke that strange layer that still made them merely coworkers instead of life buddies.
That wasn’t how that went at all .
It had been a quiet day, with nothing much happening during Hal’s shared monitor duty shift with Flash –he even let Barry go on his date with Iris a full 47 minutes before their shift ended! That’s how quiet it was–. Hal was debating if he should call up Clark or J’onn, if only to have someone to chat with as he waited in the overwhelming silence of space. Maybe he could hang out with either of them, after all, Clark had been going on and on about being friendly to each other out of the suits lately –probably directed at the Bat exclusively, but whatever.
He let his mind wander. He thought of how well he found conversations with J’onn to be. Since the Martian was so interested in Earth, Hal found it refreshing to be able to talk about anything and everything and be met with the same amount of delighted interest. J’onn was just so receptive to being told about the most mundane of things that one just couldn’t find in a history book or a magazine. As for Hal… well, sometimes a man just needed to feel interesting and cool, sue him.
A pleasant chirp that signaled the end of a shift pulled him out of his thoughts. Hal was sure –without any real proof– that Spooky had made the sound nice to make the Leaguers more eager in some strange, Pavlovian way, to go happily through the whole shift even when exhausted. That thought had him thinking of the Bat as he welcomed Diana with a tired smile and a good-natured “All yours, Princess,” before going out of the room.
It was strange enough that Spooky hadn’t been there five minutes before the chirp, especially because his partner was Diana, and those two loved to chat for hours on end. They would probably deny it if confronted, but Hal knew in his heart that they were the worst kind of gossips. Then again, the last Hal had seen of Batman had been of the man in his little evil mastermind cave (his laboratory), so it didn’t seem that rare for him to get lost in his work. With that in mind, Hal decided to be a good friend and go fetch the man himself –it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do at that particular moment.
He bypassed the Bat’s security –he and Barry had learned to do that a month ago, and Batman still hadn’t upgraded his locks. That was as good as permission in bat-tongue– and was met with an empty room. Batman’s toys were still all over the table, though, so the man couldn’t be far. Hal walked closer to the main table and saw that Bruce had been tinkering with the Justice One’s design –”One” used lightly because, with the number of times it had been reconstructed, that ship might as well be Justice A Thousand.
Hal stared at the blueprints. He smiled at Bruce’s doctor-like handwriting. He’d seen Bruce’s handwriting before, but for some reason in everything other than Bat -work, the letters were neat, elegant, and pretty, in contrast, this was almost unintelligible. Hal leaned down to look more closely and found Bruce to be incorporating the warp speeds into his design. The man was probably reverse engineering bits from the spaceship they had confiscated from Vandal Savage a month ago.
Thinking about it, Hal was pretty sure Kilowog mentioned some new warp tech being developed by the Monitors so he figured he should mention that to Batman. If the League’s equipment was getting upgrades, they might as well go for the big, fancy ones instead of whatever archaic tech Savage had latched onto. Bruce would love that anyway.
He went closer to the disarray of papers on the other table to see if he could catch Bruce’s earlier blueprints of this –he found the Bat’s ability to understand technology with terrifying speed to be endlessly fascinating–. It was only when he was right beside the wall that he heard it: a faint noise coming from the closet door. Innocuous on its own, most likely a figment of his imagination, yet his gut forced him to get closer to the door and listen. There it was again! A whimper and a sniffle.
Hal immediately wanted to groan. What had the socially tone-deaf –when in his scientist mode, anyway– bastard had done this time? He didn’t allow himself to dwell much on it, in case an upset leaguer was crying at the other side of the door or something.
In a way, Hal’s suspicions had been right, there was a leaguer crying their eyes out at the supply closet, only not any he would have expected. Sprawled on the floor was a cowl-less Bruce. It was jarring to see the bulky armor and the delicate face meshed together, more so when Hal looked more closely at that pretty face and found it to be pitifully red and swollen from crying.
No, not just crying, Hal concluded, as he witnessed the crying man clawing at his own face with those sharp things at the tips of his gloves –those were kitty claws, no one could convince Hal otherwise–. He was trying not to hurt himself too much, even when he very obviously wanted to. Hal had to squish the strange urge to praise Bruce for his restraint.
Hal didn't know how to react. Sure, he’d consoled crying friends before, even other capes on occasion –although their lot tended to lick their wounds in private more often than not–, and yet he was at a loss at that very moment. He didn’t think whatever comforting word vomit he could offer to a crying Barry would go a long way with a crying Bat.
He decided to take a minute to better assess the situation. Yes, Bruce was crying and had probably been at it for a few minutes, Hal guessed 15 at most –not a lot in general, but way too much when in such distress–; Bruce was also rocking his body as much as he could in his uncomfortable clothes, so then unconventional soothing techniques were the way to go; his breathing was way too fast for what Hal was accustomed to hearing of him, even when Bruce was agitated, he forced himself to regulate his breathing as quickly as humanly possible. Finally, he had noticed Hal way too late and was now giving the most pitiful blue puppy eyes Hal had ever been subjected to –even if he hadn’t been inclined to help, this sure sealed the deal.
He had gathered his information, he was determined to act, the recipient of his kindness was expecting him to deliver, and still… Hal still found himself at a loss. He forced himself to think, going back into his own memories to find something similar to this and recreate it.
Ah! He remembered now! Jim’s son, little Howie, had a meltdown witnessed by Hal a few weeks –or was that months?– ago. It wasn’t at all as severe as the one he was seeing Bruce have at the moment, but it was the best he could come up with in his rushed panic. And yes, the fact that he decided to link a crying Bruce with a literal child in his mind may have had something to do with his prejudice of Bruce being the youngest leaguer; he would revise that prejudice at a later date.
He kneeled close to Bruce. “ Welp, here goes nothing, ” he thought to himself, not allowing his mind to focus on just how angry Batman would be once he’d calmed down and realized what Hal had seen and done.
“Hey, buddy,” he started, looking at Bruce with a gentle smile and telegraphing his movements as he settled closely –not that the closet allowed for anything else– in front of Bruce. “Are you hurt somewhere?”
Bruce stared, startled out of his desperate sobbing. As if confused by his words and his presence at the same time, he paused the clawing, opened his mouth, and then closed it again quickly. Hal was patient, he tilted his head encouragingly and waited. A minute later, Bruce sniffled and shook his head.
“Really, now? Because to me, it seems like you got that face full of scratches!” Bruce immediately tried to push himself further against the wall and cover his face, but Hal knew it was coming and had prepared for it. He held onto Bruce’s wrists gently and easily. The man seemed more confused than startled by the action, as Hal had been mindful to prioritize stopping the mauling Bruce had been inflicting on himself first.
Bruce whimpered and weakly tried to pull his wrists free to no avail. Hal shushed him.
“Now, now, none of that. We’re friends! And that means I’m here to help you deal with these big feelings. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Bruce tried to hide his face against his own shoulder yet stopped struggling.
“Can I take these mean things off your hands?”
A nod. Hal did so slowly, very mindful of just how much Bruce was trusting him.
“Can we take off this as well? It seems a little tight,” Hal said, tapping Bruce’s chest plate thrice with his pointer finger. Bruce took longer this time, just quietly staring at Hal, unseeingly. Finally, Bruce took a deep, shaky breath and nodded.
Hal, again, did so slowly, telegraphing movements and trying his best to not fumble too much. This one wasn’t as easy to remove as the gloves though, and soon enough, Bruce was crying and struggling again, this time more violently. Evidently, the crying and disorientation had Bruce weak, and that wouldn’t last if Hal messed up and forced him out of his trace of sorts.
Hal panicked. He created a construct. It was a tiny bunny, with a twitchy nose and a skittish posture –he refused to dwell on the fact that Bruce had been a direct inspiration for the impromptu bunny. Thinking of him as a toddler was bad enough at the moment.
Bruce paused. Hal made the bunny hop in circles and nudge Bruce’s foot, and when Bruce was about to touch it, Hal made it hop away and roll before hopping back. Bruce’s interested, focused eyes were shiny with tears and a faint sliver of delight as he stared at the bunny. With the man still and distracted, Hal finally managed to open the damn armor and toss it aside.
It took close to ten minutes of deep breathing and a hopping bunny until finally Bruce had more or less calmed down. There were merely residual sniffles left, so Hal made the bunny slowly vanish as Bruce once again focused his attention on Hal. Before the man could say anything, Bruce had thrown himself to Hal’s lap and was once again crying his eyes out. This time, though, he pushed his face against Hal’s soft jacket and hugged him close instead of hurting his own face.
Hal startled, but quickly forced himself to snap out of it and hug Bruce back. He started rocking them back and forth, just as he’d seen Bruce do, in hopes of giving that final bit of comfort needed.
“Shh. That’s it, darling, let it all out,” Bruce whimpered sadly in between sobs in response. “I know, I know, you’re feeling too much, right? You feel sad and anxious, right? So scared? That’s okay, I’ll hold you until you’re feeling better,” Bruce only cried harder, louder as Hal kept talking, mumbling sweet nothings and palliatives. He was very conscious of how they were more proper for a crying child than for The Dark Knight, but, yet again, it was all Hal had and he had decided to roll with it.
He kept mumbling and Bruce kept crying.
Hal manhandled Bruce to a more comfortable position, sitting sideways on his lap. And for some reason, that of all things was what made Bruce seem infinitely smaller and way more fragile than anyone Hal had ever dealt with before. He immediately compartmentalized the thought again.
Finally, when Hal’s legs were numb and his throat felt dry, Bruce pulled back. He didn’t relinquish his secure hold on the back of Hal’s neck, but he did shyly gaze at Hal from under his long, dark, wet lashes. Hal smiled reassuringly and with a gentle finger made Bruce raise his chin, conscious to make it so that they were looking directly into each other’s eyes.
“You were so brave. Are we feeling less scared now, champ?” he whispered proudly with a gentle smile to the crying… man.
Bruce breathed out a final sob and smiled back shyly. Hal thought he looked so pretty like that.