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Batman had been missing for a little over a month by the time Green Lantern rescued him.
It started when the Caesians— long-time allies of the Green Lantern core, new allies of Earth and its Justice League— invited one of them on a mission to study a recently discovered mineral deposit on one of their moons. Of course, everyone (Batman) was initially suspicious of the offer, but Hal quickly reassured them that the Caesians were as peaceful as they claimed to be. Also that it wouldn’t be a bad idea, politically, to accept the invitation. To no one’s surprise, Bruce volunteered for the mission.
Also unsurprising was Superman’s objection, and Batman’s blunt counterargument: “You’re no scientist, Kal.” Superman had no defense for that. No one doubted his intelligence, but Bruce and Barry were among the League’s most scientifically inclined members. Of them, Batman had more experience with extraterrestrial operations. So it had been decided: Batman would go on the week-long diplomatic-slash-scientific mission, with an additional two weeks of travel time.
“If I haven’t contacted you or returned within a day of my expected arrival, send backup,” Bruce had said coolly as the Javelin’s door shut.
They hadn’t received many transmissions from Batman during his voyage— which wasn’t unusual— nor was the lack of contact afterward necessarily worrying. The Caesians had forewarned them that communication would be difficult, even impossible, once the scientific team reached the moons (of which there were five) because of their geology. The last message the League received from Batman was that he had safely reached the Caesians’ homeworld and was departing for the moons soon.
That had been a month ago, now.
When the deadline for Batman’s return passed, the Justice League organized a rescue mission, but there was only so much they could do. Of all their members, very few were consistently space-proof, and the usefulness of this ability was hampered by Bruce’s inability to survive space-flight without protection. So, they had to take the spare Javelin, which slowed everything down. Furthermore, they couldn’t leave Earth unprotected, which limited the number of heroes who could go. There was also the fact that five entire moons were a vast area to examine, with the added difficulty that said area was resistant to scanning. Even Clark was incapable of quickly scoping out an entire moon, and it took more time to be thorough.
Privately, Hal doubted that Bruce was still alive— it was entirely possible that he hadn’t lived long enough to crash-land on any of the moons. He could’ve been pulverized, exploded, crushed, or simply suffocated in the vacuum of space. But even if Bruce had managed to make it to the surface, surviving would prove difficult (he had been stranded on enough alien worlds to know this intimately). Though if anyone could endure thirty-odd days in a strange, most likely hostile location, it was Batman. So Green Lantern didn’t share his suspicions with Clark, who he knew harbored them too, because that wasn’t helpful. He also didn’t want to accidentally provoke Big Blue into doing something idiotic.
If he did, and Bruce was alive and heard about it, Hal was in for an epic lecture.
He was hovering above the mountains on the south-side of the fourth moon when his ring picked something up. Hal tried not to get too excited about it because he’d seen scans like this before and they’d all turned out to be animals, or geothermal activity. But his ring had also picked up large amounts of the xenomineral which Bruce had come here to study, so it made sense that Batman would be where the biggest quantity of it was. Chest tight with a dizzying mix of apprehension and hope, Hal followed his ring’s lead until he came across a clearing, and landed.
There, sitting beside the— apparently not a clearing, but the remnants of a crater— sharpening a spear, was Bruce. Other than the lack of a cowl, additional beard, shredded cape, and wild look in his eyes, he appeared to be in no worse shape than Green Lantern had seen him in after other difficult missions. Well I’ll be damned. As the mental image of Bruce in a similar state fighting giant cockroaches on a post-apocalyptic Earth jumped into his head, Hal almost wanted to laugh.
“Heya, Spooky. Long time no see,” Green Lantern said.
Bruce startled, and looked up at him with rapidly widening eyes. “Hal?”
Bruce surged to his feet, stumbled, dropped the spear, and marched over to him. At first, Hal was a little worried that he was about to be punched or otherwise attacked because Batman had a look on his face— pinched lips, furrowed brow, squinty eyes— which read as pissed off. Very pissed off. But instead, what actually happened was that Bruce barreled into him, and engulfed Hal in a slightly-smelly hug. He even patted Hal’s back a few times. Then, after a shaky exhale, he chuckled, straightened up, and stepped back.
But Bruce kept his ungauntleted hand on Hal’s shoulder. “Good to see that I’m not hallucinating,” he said absently. It wasn’t entirely clear whether he was talking to Green Lantern or not. “I doubt that I could falsify something as real-feeling as you.”
Hal blinked, and then really took Bruce in.
The Batsuit was more scuffed up than it had first seemed to be— and he’d seen what Bruce looked like after two separate alien invasions. Its special, hard-wearing material was covered in a few deep gouges, some scratches, as well as tears in the connective fabric, several dents, and mud. The cape really was in tatters, and Bruce’s boots were similarly mud-coated and scuffed up. The belt was no longer its usual bright-yellow color, either, and several of its pouches were broken. The remaining gauntlet had a long tear running up from Bruce’s thumb and was held together with handmade rope. Bruce’s hair was longer, falling across his face in wild, slightly-greasy tendrils, and his beard was thick enough to be a lumberjack’s.
“What the hell happened to you, Spooky?”
“Get me the fuck off this moon. Then we can talk,” Bruce growled.
“Fair enough. Anything you wanna grab first?”
“N— actually yes. Just a few things.”
“Alright. I’ll wait here.”
The trip back to the Javelin was silent. Bruce clutched Javelin One’s black box and his tablet with all the scientific data on it. He’d not retrieved anything else. Frankly, Hal didn’t blame him. Still, he couldn’t help but notice how tight Bruce’s grip was on his scant possessions, or the thin, tense set of his mouth. So occasionally, Hal glanced sideways at his passenger, and looked away just as quickly, lest he become distracted and kill them both.
Bruce’s gaze was even more intense than usual as he fixed his eyes on the vast emptiness of space, but this wasn’t what kept Hal looking back. Nor was it the beard and hair (though they were also quite distracting). It was the shaking. How sharp Batman’s cheekbones were. The telling absence of the Caesian scientist who was supposed to be working with him.
In short: Bruce looked incredibly worn, and though Green Lantern knew that he’d never reveal anything emotions-wise to him, he was certain that Bruce felt worn too.
The moment they boarded the Javelin, Bruce set down his belongings and made a beeline for the back of the aircraft. Hal, of course, intervened. “Where the hell are you going, Bruce? Sit down!”
“I am getting myself food and water, Jordan.”
Hal blinked, surprised and a little ashamed that he hadn’t considered that— way to go, asshole— then put on a determined expression. “Sit the fuck down. I’ll get it.” After an intense staredown (or in Bruce’s case, glare down) Batman nodded. Hal waited until he actually saw Bruce sit to jog back to the storage unit and grab some supplies. “Here,” he said a few minutes later, holding out an M.R.E. and bottle of water. “Sorry, it’s not much, but—”
“It’s fine,” Bruce said sharply. He opened the M.R.E. with trembling hands, and just… stared at the food for a while. Hal swallowed, feeling a surge of sympathy. He was on the verge of saying something when Bruce looked up, eyes hard and expression composed once more. Though it fooled neither of them.
“Shouldn’t you be flying, Lantern?” he asked, and the moment was gone.
“Right,” Hal agreed absently. “I’ll just… go do that.”
Bruce nodded, then turned back to his food.
Several hours later, Hal was finally able to reach the others and let them know he was coming back. To no one’s surprise, Clark, who had just finished up his own search, replied immediately. “Did you find anything, Hal?”
“Yeah, Supes, I did. I think Batman will be happy to see you too.”
When they landed, Superman was the first on-board, barely sparing Green Lantern a glance as he demanded, “Where is he?”
Hal gestured to the passenger compartment with his thumb. “Back there. Wanted to be left alone. Wasn’t gonna argue with Bruce about that this time.” Clark nodded jerkily and made to move away, but Hal placed a stilling hand on his shoulder, surprising himself. Clark too, from the way he blinked, eyes focusing on Hal’s face abruptly. “He’s a little rough right now, Kal.”
Clark swallowed, expression openly pained for a moment, then composed himself. He nodded. “Thanks for the warning, GL.”
They walked back together.
Bruce was fast asleep and didn’t stir even as the automatic door loudly hissed shut behind them. Hal saw that the inside of the M.R.E. container had been scraped clean. Neither was there a single drop of water left in the bottle. He frowned at that, until Clark distracted him. The Kryptonian moved forward hesitantly, as if he were afraid that Batman would vanish, and extended a hand to gently shake his shoulder. “Bruce?”
Bruce groaned. His eyelids fluttered open, and he looked up. His eyes widened, and then, the softest smile Hal had ever seen from Batman appeared on Bruce’s face. “Clark!”
Clark pulled Bruce to his feet, and wrapped him in a hug. Hal noticed, a few seconds later, that his shoulders were shaking. “I was so worried. I thought— I thought you—”
Bruce met his gaze over Clark’s shoulder, and though his voice was even and calm, his eyes were glassy. “I’m alright, Clark. I’m alright. Hal found me.”
After a particularly wet sniff from the Kryptonian, Hal averted his eyes, feeling embarrassed and faintly voyeuristic. He wanted to leave, but for some reason couldn’t make himself. The inaction was born of the same instinct or sentiment that had made him follow Clark here. When he looked up again, Bruce was still looking at him, as if he’d never stopped. And that, that for some reason, was too much.
Hal jerked his head awkwardly at the door. Bruce’s lips twitched, and he mouthed, ‘Go.’ Then he returned to the demanding— but Hal suspected not entirely unwelcome— task of reassuring Superman. He activated the ring and floated away. For some reason, Bruce’s expression, the weight of his gaze, stuck with him. As did his words, ‘Hal found me.’ Not Green Lantern, or Jordan, but Hal. The longer he considered it, the more Hal suspected that this meant something.
Hell if he knew what, though.