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Part 1 of Arrowbat Childhood Sweethearts
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Published:
2024-04-01
Completed:
2024-04-02
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2,351
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2/2
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let's kiss (for practice)

Summary:

“We should kiss.”

Oliver, who had been reading a comic while hanging his upper body out the edge of the bed, falls down to the floor.

“What?” he croaks, scrambling up.

Bruce blushes violently, but he stands firm, and his jaw sets with determination. “Neither of us have had our first kiss yet, and in your own words: ‘We’re fifteen, it’s getting embarrassing.’ We should kiss,” he repeats, “for practice. So we don’t suck when we actually kiss someone.”

Notes:

Recently stumbled upon the headcanon of Oliver and Bruce being childhood friends and also having dated at some point. To my surprise, there's not nearly as many fics here following that particular idea as I thought there would be.
Sometimes, if you want things done, you gotta do it yourself.

Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“We should kiss.”

Oliver, who had been reading a comic while hanging his upper body out the edge of the bed, falls down to the floor.

“What?” he croaks, scrambling up.

Bruce blushes violently, but he stands firm, and his jaw sets with determination. “Neither of us have had our first kiss yet, and in your own words: ‘We’re fifteen, it’s getting embarrassing.’ We should kiss,” he repeats, “for practice. So we don’t suck when we actually kiss someone.”

“Oh,” he says, blinking. Oliver can follow that logic. “That makes sense.”

The relief in Bruce’s blue eyes is palpable. “You’re okay with it?”

“Sure, I mean. Right now?”

It’s Bruce’s turn to blink. “Um, if you want to.”

Oliver shrugs, casual against the whirlwind of his insides. “Yeah, why not.”

“Okay, good, yeah.”

“Do we just…?”

“Okay.”

He takes a step towards Bruce, who hasn’t moved an inch since the beginning of the conversation. He doesn’t move now either, sticking frozen in place but his eyes glinting with the stubborn determination that is so very Bruce. Oliver walks into Bruce’s personal space, his eyes flicking between his friends mouth and eyes, but it’s Bruce that closes the distance between their lips.

It’s a bit awkward, since neither of them closed their eyes, and it's just green staring into blue. Just the quick touch of their lips before they separate.

“That’s what all the fuss is about?” Bruce asks, bewildered. Oliver doesn’t mention he’s blushing. Thankfully, Bruce doesn’t mention it either, even though Oliver can feel his ears burning.

“Well, no. That was just a peck.” He thinks about how people in movies kiss, how Tommy and Laurel kiss, looking like they’re licking eachother’s throats, how he always made a point to remark ‘Gross’. He blushes harder.

Bruce frowns “Then what…?”

Oliver looks at his friend's mouth. “I can, um, try?”

He nods.

This time Oliver closes the distance, closing his eyes first. At the warm press of his friend's lips against his, this time, he tentatively sticks his tongue out between the boy’s lips. Bruce opens his mouth immediately and, oh. Maybe Tommy and Laurel were onto something after all. He gasps as he feels Bruce’s tongue exploring his mouth, yet the sound is drowned to his ears since the only thing he can hear is the rushing of blood. His hands are shaking in fists by his sides because if Bruce isn’t touching, he won’t touch but then the boy bites into his lower lip and–
His self control snaps and Oliver's hands bury themselves into the nape of Bruce’s black hair, using the hold to bring the boy closer. A sound escapes his friend's throat and Oliver swallows it. He feels Bruce’s entire body untense and shivers into the feeling as Bruce’s hands finally take a hold of his waist, exploring his sides, his back, his neck. Oliver feels like he’s drowning with too much feeling, burning up under his friends hands. Until he remembers that he needs to breathe. Maybe he’s actually drowning. He parts with a gasp.

“Okay, we definitely need more practice,” Bruce says, breathless.

Oliver can only nod.

***

“We should have sex,” Bruce says in the exact intonation he used two years ago. As if it’s just like that. As if it’s no bigger deal than a kiss.

Oliver doesn’t fall out of his bed this time, but it’s a near thing.

“For practice?” he asks.

“It worked with the kissing.”

It did, Oliver now had a reputation between the girls at his school for being an incredible kisser. He knows it’s the same case with Bruce, even if his friend doesn’t excitedly relay the story every time like he does.

“My sister is home,” he says. Thea’s room is right beside his, he does not want her to overhear. He would not hear the end of it from his parents.
Bruce doesn’t look surprised at his response, like he knew he would accept. Oliver wonders if this is something he should have thought twice about.

“You’re going to that gala in Metropolis next month?”

“Yeah.”

“Staying the night?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?” He shakes his head. “I’m getting my own room.”

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah.

Bruce smiles. “Okay.”

***

“You know,” Moira says, and Oliver immediately knows something is wrong. “I got an interesting call from Alfred this morning.” Oh no. “He said Bruce came home quite disheveled, wearing the wrong tie.”

“He did?” Oliver's voice is an entire octave higher than usual. His mother's mouth twitches in amusement.

“And I seem to recall sending you out with a black tie, not the blue one you came in with yesterday.”

Oh shit. Oliver's hand instinctively raises to where the tie would sit, forgetting he's not currently wearing it. He hastily drops it with a pink face. They must not have realized they took the wrong ties. 

In their defense, it's not like either boys were thinking clearly five minutes after having sex with their best friend for the first time.

“Um,” he scrambles for a response.

“I'm not mad, sweetheart. You're both almost eighteen, you're allowed to have sex with your boyfriend, I just hope you were smart and safe about it.”

Oliver has never wanted the ground to swallow him up more than he does now.

“We're not dating,” he manages to say, because what.

“Honey, I've walked in on you boys kissing more times than I can count. No, Alfred and I both saw this coming.”

He doesn't know what's more embarrassing, letting his mother believe he's dating Bruce Wayne, or trying to explain the truth. Wait. Is he dating Bruce Wayne? No, he would know that, wouldn't he? But Bruce did say he wanted to try the other way around next time…

Wait, Alfred too?

“Oh my god, Alfred is gonna shoot me.”

His mother actually laughs at him, Oliver just stares, pleading.

Alfred doesn't shoot him, thankfully. On the contrary, next time he visits Oliver gets an extra cookie besides his tea even though he can’t look at the butler’s face without his ears burning.

He never gets an answer on whether they’re dating or not. Oliver just can’t come up with the courage to ask the question, not with how Bruce is slipping away lately, not when the answer might be no.

It doesn’t matter in the end, because only days after Bruce’s eighteenth birthday, the boy disappears off the face of the earth without a warning.

Months before the prodigal orphan returns to Gotham, twenty-two year old Oliver Queen is shipwrecked along with his father and his girlfriend's sister.

Notes:

I want to make it very clear that the only piece of Green Arrow media i've ever watched is the CW show, which im certain is Very off form comic-characterization, but alas, it's the only base i have (for now)

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

‘B-02.’ The Watchtower sound system announces the activation of a Zeta tube.

Confused heads rise and look at eachother. Usually, when a member of the JL comes through the tube, the system announces a name as well as the code. Also usually, the code starts with an A.

An intruder? Oliver thinks. But that shouldn’t be possible. Not with the Bat’s security and paranoia. It’s the one time he’s grateful for the grumpy fuck.

Oliver looks at his coworkers and makes a signal with his hands at the speedster. In less than a half a second, he’s got his bow and arrow in hands after a blur deposits them there. Hal, Barry and him make their way to the sides of the door, waiting for the intruder to make their presence known.

It doesn't take long, a few seconds after they’ve positioned themselves, the door slides open and a man steps through, whistling. He’s got a red domino mask covering his face and brown leather jacket over a dark blue suit. His dark hair has a tuft of white at the front.

The man stops in his tracks when he realizes the scene before him.

“Who are you?” Green Arrow asks.

He doesn’t seem phased to have an arrow pointed at him. “Oh hey! Just the man I’m looking for.” Oliver doesn’t get a moment to wrap his head around that sentence because between a blink and the next, the Flash has tied the man on a metal chair. “Oh, come on, dude. That’s rude.”

“I think breaking into the Watchtower is ruder, dude.” Green Lantern scoffs.

The man rolls his eyes, and it’s weird that Oliver can tell through the white lenses of his mask. “I didn’t break in. I have a code, didn’t you hear? I walked in through the door at best.”

Because that’s not worrying at all.

Hal and Oliver look at eachother, sharing the sentiment.

“Flash, get the Bat," Oliver says, and Barry nods before rushing away.

“Shit, B’s here?” His eyes widen. Again, weird. Wait, did he just call Batman B? Only Superman calls him that.

Hal narrows his eyes at him. “How do you know Batman?”

“Met him at Nunya.”

Oliver is too late to warn Hal. He has teenage apprentices, after all.

"Nunya?” Hal, who has spent more time in space than on earth lately, asks.

“Nun-ya business!”

Hal scowls. Oliver sighs.

At that exact moment, Flash returns with Batman in tow. The man that can put fear into the strongest man takes one look at the boy tied in a chair and… sighs?

“What are you doing here, Hood?” he asks, but it sounds more tired than his usual growl, more resigned.

“Don’t worry about it Pops, just getting Uncle Ollie’s blessing to marry his son.”

Oliver’s world stops. Huh?

He can hear Hal hissing ‘Pops?!’ to a slack-jawed Barry, but it all seems very far away at the moment.

“...You’re proposing?” And Oliver’s world stops again. That is the softest he has ever heard the Bat’s voice.

“Trying to,” he mumbles, then turns back towards Oliver. “So what'd ya say, Uncle Ollie?”

Oliver manages to unfreeze his mouth. “Who are you?”

The boy lifts an eyebrow. “Jason? I’m dating Roy?”

He blinks, he does think Roy might have mentioned a Jason, but he definitely didn’t mention that he was dating a vigilante. Nor that they were serious enough to get engaged.

"Uh,” his mind supplies.

“Wait, this might make it easier.” The kid lifts his hands –which were supposed to be tied– and takes off his mask. Oliver’s world stops for the third time. He drops the bow.

He knows this boy.

He definitely knows this boy.

Except the boy in front of him died more than half a decade ago.

“Hood–” Batman growls. But Oliver interrupts, his brain finally catching up.

“Jason?”

“Yes, that’s what I just said.” Jason shimmies out of the rest of the ropes tying him to the chair. “C’mon, old man, I’m marrying in, he deserves to know.”

“How?”

“Long story, better for another time. Do I have your blessing or not?”

"Arrow, you know this kid?” Asks Barry.

Oliver feels dizzy. “Yeah, he’s…” Batman puts a gloved hand on his shoulder and. Oh. If that’s Jason, and this is his father, then– Oh my god. “...dating Roy,” he finishes weakly. Batman squeezes his shoulder and Oliver swears he sees the hint of a pleased smile at the edge of his lips, usually expressionless.

“Spooky, you have a son?” The almost-smile disappears like it never was there. Batman scowls at Hal.

Jason snorts, and Barry stares at him like there’s a joke he isn’t getting. Oliver gets it, because if Batman is who he thinks he is, who he must be, then that means that he doesn’t just have a son, he has half a dozen of them, maybe more. He wonders for a moment why his coworkers aren’t catching on, but then the cogs in his brain start turning.

Jason is dead. For all the world knows, for all Oliver knew five minutes ago. And he looks nothing like the scrawny fifteen year old he was when he died. Besides, Jason never liked being in the public eye, and Bruce tried to keep him away from it as much as he could, –being the newly adopted son of famous billionaire Brucie Wayne– so there weren’t all too many pictures of him. The only reason why Oliver recognized him at all was because of how often he saw the kid when he visited the Manor.

That must be why Mr. Paranoid isn’t biting their heads off right now.

“Sooo, Uncle Ollie?”

“Yeah, yeah, you have my blessing.” Oliver still feels dazed, but Jason beams, and it warms his heart. The kid definitely didn’t need his blessing, was probably going to propose no matter what. But he wanted Oliver’s blessing, he wanted him to know who he was. He smiles back.

Then it hits him all at once.

He knows Batman’s identity. The biggest darkest secret in the Justice League that only Clark and Diana know.

Batman is Bruce Wayne.

Batman is his childhood friend.

Batman was his first kiss.

Oh my god, the Batman took my virginity.

“Oh my god, I took Batman’s virginity.”

There’s a moment of silence where Oliver realizes he did not mean to say that out loud.

Jason’s face scrunches up immediately.

Hal and Barry yell simultaneously. “What?!”

Oliver clasps a hand in front of his mouth. Oh fuck.

“Him?!” Jason says, pointing at Oliver but staring at Batman, who is currently rubbing his temples through his cowl.

“We're leaving,” says the bat. “Don't make it worse,” he growls towards Oliver.

Batman basically drags a disgruntled Jason out of the room towards the Zeta tubes.

There's a moment of quiet before hell breaks loose.

“What the fuck just happened.”

***

Gossip travels fast in the Watchtower.

It's not long before every member of the Justice League has heard of what happened. Oliver has been questioned by an incredible amount of his coworkers on his relationship with the Bat, but he remains tight lipped. Now, when he catches Batman in the hallway, he gets a grunt and a nod instead of the cold silence and zero acknowledgment he's used to.

If Oliver catches Clark frowning at him, he assumes it's just the man not understanding why the Green Arrow has been deemed worthy of the Bat's secret.

Oliver doesn't care. He has a wedding to attend.

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