Work Text:
Al had several regrets.
Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have since Alan Scott had offered to buy him food. As much food as he wanted. Alan had invited all the Infinitors out, presumably because he was going to ask them about joining the JSA now that they were all back in the universe, but it wasn’t going particularly well. For some reason, Kyle Rayner was here, despite the fact that only about two of the Infinitors knew/liked him.
Hank had been pale from the moment he arrived, and about ten minutes ago, he had said something about going out for a smoke and hadn’t come back yet. This was strange because Hank didn’t smoke, and in fact, as far as Al knew, Hank had never smoked.
Hec and Todd were in some kind of argument that Al wasn’t paying attention to, and if he was honest, he didn’t really have the energy to catch up. He glanced at Jade, who was in Kyle’s lap, and sighed. This wasn’t fun at all.
He stood up. “I’m gonna go see if Hank’s cigarette is damp or something,” he informed the group. None of them even looked up. Realistically, the telepath had probably gone home since why Alan had even invited him was a mystery, but Al was still going to go check anyway. It would get him away from the awkward evening.
It was raining outside, and Al almost tripped over the curled-up body on the ground. Hank was crouched, his shoulders shaking, and he was whispering: “I can’t do this,” to himself over and over again. Hank seemed terrified. He looked like he wanted to just run away from here; it didn’t matter where, just as long as it was far away.
Ah. Al crouched down next to him. “Hey,” he murmured, “you doing okay?”
A stupid question all around, the man who was actively in the middle of an anxiety attack was almost certainly not okay. He changed tack to: “Is it because Jade is making out with Kyle at the table?”
Blue eyes flicked up to his, and it soon became apparent that Hank had been crying: “Jade’s making out with her boyfriend at the table?”
Okay. Obviously not then. “So... why are you hanging out here then?”
“I just- look, it’d be a pretty rough start to have an old man physically drag you out here by your hood, even if you didn’t hate that old man-” Hank trailed off. “Everyone thinks that because I’m fixed, it’s fine now; everything goes back to normal. Alan thinks if the twins want to see me, the twins get to see me. We all pretend that... how you found me never happened, and- we all have to pretend like I don’t know that as a person I’m worth absolutely nothing to them.”
Without thinking, Al pulled him closer. As far as Al knew, Hank had never mentioned to anyone that Al had been the person who broke him out of that asylum. Alan would certainly have confronted Al if he knew. It was hard not to think about Hank back them, sedated, with no attempt made to actually cure him of his affliction, treated as more of an experiment than a patient, and definitely not treated like a human being.
Al remembered carrying his unresponsive body out of there, light like he hadn’t eaten in months. He’d taken Hank to Black Adam, and by that time, the meds that kept Hank sedated had started to wear off. He’d made some kind of deal with Adam, one that Al hadn’t been allowed to hear. They hadn’t ever talked about what had happened, either in Kahndaq or directly before.
Hank swallowed. “It was nice seeing Hec and Lyta again, but I think if I ever see Jen and Todd again, it’ll be too soon. That sounds awful. I was trying to build up the courage to go back in, but-”
Al stood up. “You know what, I don’t really feel like fancy food anyway. Feel like hotdogs?”
The telepath narrowed his eyes at him. “You didn’t bring any money. You were planning on letting Alan pay for everything himself. Which I applaud but-”
“You don’t have any money either?”
“Someone, who shall remain nameless, did take my inheritance away.”
Al laughed. “You wanna see if Hec wants hotdogs too? I think another five minutes with Todd, and they’ll murder each other.”