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“He once thought it himself, that he might die with grief…but the pulse, obdurate, keeps its rhythm. You think you cannot keep breathing, but your ribcage has other ideas, rising and falling, emitting sighs. You must thrive in spite of yourself, and that you may do it, God takes out your heart of flesh, and gives you a heart of stone.”
—Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies
Hal knew it was coming, and he told himself already that he wouldn’t make the others kick him out of the League. He swore that the first time he took a command in the field he would go straight to the Watchtower and put in his resignation. But now that he’s actually staring that reality in the face, giving up and letting Guy fucking Gardner be his sector’s Green Lantern, Clark and Bruce and Diana all nodding along as he tells them that the great Hal Jordan is too much of a sub to do his job—
Hal pulls his shirt over his head, trying not to think about it. In the bathroom mirror, though, he can see the red welts on his back already starting to bruise. A parting gift from the useless dom he found at the club, desperate for any kind of relief after yesterday’s unmitigated disaster.
Lex Luthor’s command didn’t break down his mental barriers; it sailed straight through them, like they weren’t even up. Hal obeyed so quickly and so thoughtlessly he almost didn’t realize what happened. Afterwards he was barely able to keep a construct together long enough to get the fuck out of there.
Hal breathes out hard, a little shakily. He gets into the shower, stumbling a little as he steps over the rim. He feels like he just went ten rounds with the Shark, and the water is too hot on his back, the skin there still tender and swollen.
At least the ring protects Hal from human infections, which is good, because the asshole didn’t bother with a condom. Hal can feel come trickling out and down his leg, and when he reaches back to clean himself up, there’s a smear of blood as well.
“Fuck,” Hal says, staring at his fingertips, and then the pointlessness of it all hits him, letting some disgusting brute of a dom beat him and fuck him for nothing, and in a fury he swipes the mostly empty bottles of shampoo and shaving cream and five-in-one bodywash all off the shelves of his tiny shower. “Fuck!”
He goes stumbling out through his nasty mildewed shower curtain, and he didn’t even manage to go down at all so he still feels like shit and his head is throbbing, and then he can’t find his goddamn meds.
“Where the hell are they?” Hal snaps, slamming open drawers and cabinet doors. He could’ve sworn he left his meds next to the sink, but they’re nowhere to be found; he only manages to unearth an unopened pack of floss and an ancient looking bottle of ibuprofen, and an enormous moth that looks dead but turns out to just be resting. He nearly trips over the rug trying to bat the demented thing away from his face, and then he remembers getting home and thinking vaguely that he must have been too out of it to lock up when he left, because the front door wasn’t locked.
Hal slaps a towel around his waist and runs out of the bathroom, slipping his ring back on his finger, to find Batman looming in his kitchen, looking through his mail.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Hal demands, and then he nearly drops his ring and his towel trying to juggle them both at once.
Bruce slips the cowl off his head, turning to face him. “Hal,” he starts.
“Don’t Hal me!” Hal yells. “What are you doing creeping around in my apartment? Were you seriously just standing in here listening to me shower?”
“I was waiting for you to return home,” Bruce says. “I noticed your—difficulties with Luthor yesterday, and grew concerned.” He pauses. “You didn’t notice me when you came in.”
“That’s personal,” Hal snaps, ignoring the pit in the bottom of his stomach that opens up, remembering. That was the first time a command got to him since Sinestro—for the first time in years. “You think because I’m a sub you can just break into my house? Tell me why you think my life is any of your fucking business, asswipe.”
Bruce doesn’t say anything. His blank face creases up in a tiny frown as he stares at Hal, who glares back at him. Hal is suddenly, intensely aware that he’s wearing a hand towel that doesn’t quite wrap around all the way, covered in some other dom’s marks and probably looking like he hasn’t gotten any sleep in the last twenty-four hours, which he hasn’t. Meanwhile Bruce is standing there silently in full body armor, with his beautiful face and his chiseled jaw, staring straight at him.
“Here’s what I think,” Bruce finally says. “I think you’re one of the ten percent of subs who require regular, reciprocal dynamic connections to maintain biological equilibrium, and,” he sets the plastic pill bottle that Hal was just frantically searching for on the table in front of him, “I think you’re one of the twenty percent of those subs for whom sublethomate does not work well. I think you’ve been experiencing increasingly worse symptoms of dynamic dysregulation for the past few years, possibly with occasional relief from unsatisfying encounters with strangers, until you’ve reached a point where your coping methods are no longer sufficient to protect you in the field. Is any of that incorrect?”
“So what?” Hal bites out. “You came here to fuck it out of me? Or are you here to kick me out of the League yourself? You’ve been pissed since day one that I won’t just roll over for you—this is probably your birthday and Christmas come all at once. Well I’ve got news for you, Batman. I’m not going to be your fucktoy, and I’m not quitting the League, either.”
“Hal,” Bruce says, and Hal turns away, his face hot.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Bruce asks quietly. “Or to Oliver, or Barry? Do you truly believe that you couldn’t come to one of us, that we wouldn’t do anything in our power to help you?”
“You don’t understand,” Hal chokes out. He gives up on the modesty towel and just sits down on it, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
“Tell me,” Bruce says, and he walks over to sit down next to him, both of them leaning against the back of the couch and staring at the bottom of Hal’s kitchen table. It isn’t a command. Hal hasn’t ever actually heard Bruce issue one, not even once.
“I can’t,” Hal tells him. It occurs to him, too late, that this is really not a conversation he wants to have without clothes on. Bruce, stoic as always, doesn’t even seem to notice, much less care. “You already figured it out, anyway. I just can’t—I can’t go down anymore.”
“Do you trust me?” Bruce asks, after a little while.
“Yes,” Hal whispers.
Bruce reaches out to hold Hal’s hand in his, and Hal can’t help but squeeze back, hanging on, even though thirty seconds ago he couldn’t have tolerated so much as a breath on his skin.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Bruce says, quiet and low. “You’re going to get dressed. If there are things here that you’d like to bring with you, we’re going to pack them up. And then you’re going to come stay at the Manor, with me, until we can create an environment where you’re able to form a reciprocal connection, without sexual violence. However long that takes.”
“What if we can’t?” Hal manages, after a long, expectant silence. What he can’t quite manage to make himself say is—what if it’s just him. What if he’s so irreversibly fucked up that’s he’s just going to be like this forever. What if Sinestro was right.
“As long as it takes,” Bruce repeats. His thumb is rubbing slow circles on the back of Hal’s hand. “Your biology does not require rape. There is a solution, and we are going to find it.”
Hal stares at the floor, which is a lot dustier than he’d like it to be with Batman here to judge his housekeeping. From this angle he can see a cheese puff abandoned underneath the table that’s also covered in dust.
Bruce doesn’t say anything about the floor, apparently content to sit in silence indefinitely, holding Hal’s hand. Most doms broadcast at least a little all of the time, but even skin to skin, Hal can’t tell what Bruce is thinking, what he wants, at all.
Hal should probably tell Bruce to fuck off and find another project. But he doesn’t think he can.
“Okay,” Hal finally says. “Okay.”
They take a zeta tube back to the Batcave, where Hal is immediately ushered into a medical bay to be poked and prodded.
“This is pointless,” Hal complains, when Bruce is done extracting what feels like half of his blood volume. “I’ve been to the doctor, how do you think I got my prescription in the first place?”
“I’d like to have a baseline on file before we get started on a treatment plan,” Bruce says. “And Alfred’s not going to accept outside bloodwork from anyone other than Leslie, so you might as well get used to it.”
“On that note, Captain Jordan, if you will remove your shirt, I will attend to the wounds on your back,” Alfred says, appearing out of nowhere. He’s already snapping on gloves.
“My back is fine,” Hal protests, but Alfred just stares at him implacably until he gives in.
“Very good, sir,” Alfred says, once Hal surrenders to the inevitable. He slathers Hal with ointment, and tuts over the welt that split open in Hal’s mad dash across the apartment earlier.
“You’ll be in better hands here,” Alfred assures him firmly, a tone to his voice that Hal recognizes.
“Wait, you’re a dom, too?” Hal asks, twisting around to stare at him, hissing when the sudden motion pulls at the bandage Alfred just applied.
“Yes,” Alfred says. “Although certainly not the type of dominant you’ve been tangling with lately,” he sniffs. His hand is still resting on Hal’s bare shoulder, but Hal can’t feel anything from him. He must be the one who taught Bruce how to keep everything pulled in.
“No,” Hal agrees. “You smell better, for one.”
Alfred shakes his head, clearly unimpressed with Hal’s sense of humor.
“Alright,” Bruce says, backing away from the miniature lab on the other side of the room, where he’d been analyzing the gallon of blood he took from Hal. “That’s as much as we can do tonight. Hal, you need to get some rest. We’ll confer with Leslie in the morning.”
Bruce must have noted the spot of blood left on the towel in Hal’s apartment, because before they head upstairs, Alfred also hands him a discreet package containing a tube of numbing cream and stool softeners. Hal closes it back up without saying anything, trying not to react to the shame that swallows him.
Alfred watches him with intent, steady eyes, the same solid stare as Bruce. Hal always thought of that as a Batman thing; it’s strange to realize where it came from. Hal looks away.
“Alfred made up a guest room for you,” Bruce says, once they get upstairs. “If you think you can get some sleep.”
“Can we be in your room,” Hal says, the words tumbling over themselves in a rush.
Bruce raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t ask for an explanation, and he doesn’t say no. He only holds the study door open for Hal, who follows him through the maze of hallways and staircases and into the pitch-black darkness of his bedroom.
As it turns out, “an environment without sexual violence” does not involve any of the things that Hal vaguely imagined he might be agreeing to, possibly being kept chained naked to Bruce’s bed or strung up in the Batcave or maybe being forced to crawl around the Manor begging for Bruce’s cock, which now that he thinks about it might actually all qualify as sexual violence. But Bruce doesn’t ask Hal to do any of that, or any of the other lurid nightmares that Hal’s subconscious can dream up, not even the ones that probably wouldn’t be that bad, like being tied up and blindfolded and locked in some quiet dark room where Hal wouldn’t even know what was coming, wouldn’t be able to brace for it at all, would just have to wait alone in the silence until Bruce finally got it over with.
Hal wakes up from that nightmare with a horrible choking gasp that wakes up Bruce, too, and then Hal has to hide his face in his pillow and let Bruce sleepily pet his hair and murmur his name until his heart stops racing.
“You haven’t even done anything,” Hal accuses, after a week of being treated like an ordinary guest and eating at the table with everyone else. “What’s your grand plan, huh?”
“We are establishing a baseline of trust,” Bruce says, spearing a piece of broccoli. “My ‘grand plan’ is creating an environment where we can safely meet your needs.”
“What does that even mean?” Hal demands. “I already know you aren’t going to—hurt me.”
“Your hesitation tells me you don’t know that,” Bruce says. “Although it’s true. I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to allow you to be hurt. That is not going to happen in this house.”
“You can’t promise that.” Hal turns away from Bruce’s solemn face and clenched jaw. There’s a new skidmark along the wall of the dining room, presumably from Damian and Titus’s rampage through the house earlier this morning. Which, come to think of it, is probably why he’s been banned from the dinner table.
“I can,” Bruce says.
“Maybe you just don’t know jackshit about subs,” Hal says. “Because it doesn’t work that way, buddy, and if you’re just going to cut me loose you might as well go ahead and do it now.”
Bruce just chews his vegetables dispassionately. Hal glares back at him.
“What did you think was going to happen?” Bruce asks.
“I don’t know,” Hal says, the anger dropping away as quickly as it came. “I thought maybe you’d keep me in your secret sex dungeon, or at least make me crawl around and eat off your fingers all the time or something. Whatever rich people get up to.”
“You’ve been reading too many romance novels,” Bruce says dryly. “And I don’t have a secret sex dungeon.”
“Whatever,” Hal says. “I’ve seen your ‘containment’ rooms, I know what’s going on down there.”
Bruce snorts, dropping his fork and pushing back from the table. “You’re overdue for a check-in, anyway. Let’s go downstairs and get your bloodwork done before Alfred comes to fuss at me about it.”
Hal surrenders another couple gallons of blood, and Bruce spends a long time staring at the test results, his face as blank and inscrutable as it always is. Hal could read them, with the ring, but—he doesn’t really want to know how bad it is. The look on the doctor’s face the last time he sucked it up and went to urgent care told him more than he needed to know about his chances of recovery, of ever flying again.
“Hmm,” Bruce says, still staring at the screen. “Your cortisol levels have increased.” He turns to look at Hal. “I’d like to try something new. Do you think you can tolerate an hour of skin contact?”
Hal shrugs. He wants to scoff, because of course he can tolerate it, he’s been tortured for a lot longer than an hour. But he also feels nauseous and lightheaded and like he might buzz right out of skin, like he really did spend the past week in an interrogation room, instead of sleeping on Bruce’s insanely comfortable ten-thousand dollar mattress and eating Alfred’s delicious food and playing video games all day.
Bruce watches Hal’s face, and then nods, apparently satisfied with whatever he sees there. He reaches for his phone to send a text. “We’ll head upstairs in just a minute,” he says. “Why don’t you take a look at this unidentified substance that Cassandra brought in last week, see if your ring can do better than the mass spectrometer.”
“What are you talking about, of course it can do better than the mass spectrometer, it can identify any known compound in the universe. How does a list of elements—” Hal cuts off when he notices Bruce’s quiet smirk, just a little upturn at the corner of his lips. “Oh, fuck off.”
Bruce laughs at that, his eyes crinkling, and Hal sucks in a breath, unable to look away. It’s almost painful, something sharp ripping through Hal’s gut at the realization that he can feel like this again.
“Something new” turns out to be taking a bath together, in the swimming pool that Bruce apparently keeps in his bathroom.
“You could fit the entire Justice League in that thing,” Hal says, trying to stare at the water and not Bruce’s package. Damn. They’re going to need some actual lube, not just body oil or whatever is in that little glass jar by the soap, that’s for sure.
“Well, that’s an idea,” Bruce says. “Maybe we’ll have a party.” He steps into the water, blissfully unconcerned about the weapon of mass destruction he’s casually swinging around.
Hal hovers awkwardly by the side of the tub, holding his bathrobe closed with one hand. He dips the other into the water, which is just barely below scalding.
“Hal,” Bruce says gently, when Hal starts reading the label of a shampoo bottle. “Do we need to try something else?”
“No, it’s fine. I’m just, you know, adjusting,” Hal says. “You could always just slip me a mickey and get it over with if you’re getting impatient.” He forces out a laugh, but it’s only kind of a joke.
“That is not something I’m ever going to do,” Bruce says seriously. “To you, or to any submissive.”
Hal looks away. “Might make it easier,” he says.
The thing is, it’s not sex that he’s afraid of. That, he can definitely handle. It’s everything else, Bruce’s self pressing into his, the lines between them blurring together and overwhelming everything that’s Hal. After the terrible, impossible relief of being in this house, left alone in his own skin for what feels like the first time in his life—Hal isn’t actually sure he can take it.
“Get in the tub, Hal,” Bruce says, leaning back. There isn’t any power behind the command; there never is, with Bruce.
Somehow that makes it possible for Hal to drop the robe and climb inside. Bruce reaches for him, and he lets himself be arranged in Bruce’s arms. Hal’s cock instantly gets with the program, probably half adrenaline and half being held against the smooth, solid length of Bruce’s body, cradled in between his legs, skin touching all the way down.
Bruce has to notice it, but he doesn’t say anything, not even when his own dick starts thickening up, a pulsing heat beneath Hal’s ass. Hal realizes belatedly that even stretched out together like this, Bruce still isn’t projecting, not even the slightest hint of desire slipping over into Hal.
“Bruce,” Hal starts, and then stops, not sure how to continue.
“Shh,” Bruce says. “Just relax, sweetheart,” and he starts rubbing his hand soothingly up and down Hal’s side, except it isn’t soothing because Hal is hard enough to drive nails, and Bruce isn’t doing anything about it. Worse than that, Hal doesn’t even know if he wants him to.
Hal’s joints are all stiff, his muscles tensed up, but eventually the heat from the water and the steady rise and fall of Bruce’s chest behind him do their work. Hal finds himself slipping into a doze, thinking vaguely of lying on the sand on a beach somewhere and only occasionally remembering where he is, in the tub with Bruce.
He stays in that state until the tub drains and Bruce ushers him into the massive shower to rinse off, only waking up properly when Bruce starts wiping him down with quick, efficient strokes, not lingering at all. The effect is pretty hilarious when Hal notices Bruce’s erection bobbing around as he moves.
“You know, seductive sponge baths are usually a little, uh, sexier,” Hal says. “And I think I’m the one who’s supposed to be doing the sponging, actually,” he adds, when Bruce drops down on his knees to get in between Hal’s toes. It tickles, and Hal grabs a handful of Bruce's hair to steady himself, and also accidentally brushes his cock against Bruce’s face. Well. Kind of accidentally.
Bruce just leans back, casually evasive, and stands up. “I’ve already cleaned off,” he says. “Sit down on the bench.”
Hal stays standing for another few seconds just to prove to himself that he can, then plops down on the shower bench, which is actually big enough to lie down and take a nap on. Bruce really is a hedonist, which you’d never know from seeing Batman brood around in leather and kevlar all the time.
Bruce uses the detachable showerhead to wet Hal’s hair, leaning his head back to keep the water off his face—and that’s a fun trigger that Bruce is avoiding, and if it’s on purpose, Hal doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to ask—and gets right down to business with the shampoo, huge warm fingers massaging into Hal’s scalp.
“Ahhh,” Hal moans. “Oh god. I take it back, you’re in charge of baths from now on. Do that again,” he demands, when Bruce’s fingers find just the right spot on the back of his neck.
Bruce chuckles, obeying, and Hal lets his head fall further back into his hands, giving himself over to the massage. Bruce even knows to use conditioner, probably because he was snooping around in Hal’s bathroom, the freak.
Eventually Hal is roused from the bench to get dried off.
“That thing can’t be good for your blood pressure,” Hal says, looking meaningfully down at the obvious tent in Bruce’s robe, still going strong. “Aren't you going to, uh, tell me to do something about it?”
“No.” Bruce’s face is completely deadpan, like he’s never thought about sex in his life.
“Not to sound too ungrateful, but I don’t really need the kid glove treatment,” Hal snaps. “I know what I signed up for, okay?”
“Not yet,” Bruce says firmly.
They go to bed even though it’s barely ten, and Hal lies awake in the dark for a while, intensely aware of Bruce’s arousal, and his own. Something in Hal is desperately grateful for Bruce’s glacially slow pace, which just makes him even more irritated, frustrated with his own irrational reaction. As if Hal can’t handle anything Bruce dishes out. But he doesn’t say anything, or try to wake Bruce up to argue about it. There’s no point; when the man sleeps, he sleeps like the dead.
Hal wakes up alone. The blackout curtains have been opened, sunlight streaming into the room, and Alfred has been up to drop off a breakfast tray. Or possibly lunch. Hal has a vague memory of waking up, and Bruce’s hand on his temple, a voice telling him to go back to sleep.
Hal can’t—he can’t breathe, can barely even think. He struggles up into a sitting position, and he hears a gasp that might be his own, or might not be. He’s vaguely aware that his cheeks are getting wet, but his skin feels far away, like it belongs to someone else. All Hal can do is bury his fists in the sheets and try to ride it out.
He doesn’t know how long he sits there before he sees the bedroom door swinging slowly open, like a train heading straight for him, but he can’t jump out of the way.
A dark head comes peeking around the frame, followed by a broad pair of shoulders. “Hey B, I’m going to take Damian and—oh, Hal!” Dick says brightly, a smile stretching across his handsome face. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were in here.”
Hal stares frozen back at him, tears still streaming pointlessly down his face. He opens his mouth to say—something, to tell Dick it’s fine, tell him to leave—but instead, horribly, a sob comes choking out.
“Oh, shit,” Dick says, the smile dropping instantly off of his face. He hurries the rest of the way into the bedroom. “Hal, it’s alright, you’re okay.” He climbs up onto the bed. “I’m going to touch your wrist, alright?”
Hal can’t bring himself to respond through the shame. Dick presses two fingers to his wrist and holds them there, then, apparently satisfied that Hal hasn’t disintegrated into hysterics at his touch, wraps an arm around his waist instead, pulling Hal against him. He’s just as much of a blank wall as Bruce; Hal knows he’s a dom, but he isn’t projecting anything, not even low level irritation from having to babysit someone else’s useless, pathetic sub.
“I’m gonna kill him,” Dick is muttering, fumbling with his phone with his unoccupied hand. “What the hell did he do?”
Hal tries to protest, managing only a stuttering gasp for air, and Dick hushes him. “Shh, not you, Hal, you’re alright. I’ve got you. Here, let’s get this around you, warm you up a little,” and a blanket is draped around Hal’s shoulders.
Hal can’t speak or even move, paralyzed by the sheer hot humiliation of being seen like this by Nightwing, by Bruce’s son, a man whose trust and respect Hal has relied on in the field, and now that’s gone, it has to be gone.
“Bruce is coming,” Dick says gently. “Just hang on, okay? You’re doing great.”
Hal closes his eyes, unable to take it, and just as unable to get away. His breath is coming too fast, choking miserable gasps that he just wants to stop. The seconds stretch out into eternities, Dick’s hand rubbing slowly across his back through the blanket. At some point Hal becomes aware that he is being transferred into Bruce’s arms.
“You’d tear me a new one if I left a sub like this,” Dick hisses, above his head. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Bruce says gravely. “I didn’t anticipate this reaction.”
“Go away,” Hal finally manages. He pushes ineffectually at Bruce, who only grips him tighter, a firm grounding hand on the center of his back.
“Dick,” Bruce says quietly. “My bathroom, top drawer to the right of the sink,” and Dick slinks off on silent feet, in ninja mode.
“What is going on in here?” an imperious voice demands, and Hal forces his eyes open to see Damian entering the room, Tim coming up in the doorway behind him. Which is just great. The whole family coming to witness his humiliation. Someone should send out invitations.
Tim meets Hal’s gaze for barely a millisecond, and those are Bruce’s eyes looking through him before he looks away. He stretches a long arm out to grab Damian by the collar.
“Robin,” he snaps, overriding the kid’s protests, and Damian shoots Hal one last scowling, confused look before he lets Tim drag him out of the room.
Dick returns and Bruce has a glass of water held up to Hal’s mouth, and then two pills in his hand. Klonopin. Hal swallows obediently. When he looks up again Dick is gone, everyone is gone except Bruce, who won’t leave him alone.
“Never,” Bruce promises, when Hal begs him to just go, and eventually the meds kick in, and Hal goes blessedly limp.
No one treats Hal any differently after his meltdown, not even Bruce, which is almost worse than being ignored or ridiculed. It feels suspiciously like pity, which Hal can only bring himself to choke down in small doses. As a result, Hal spends most of the week sulking in Bruce’s bed, or in his cavernous bathroom.
“Master Harold,” Alfred says, when he finds Hal hiding from Sunday brunch. Hal drags the covers over his head. “I could bring you a tray, but a little interaction might do you good, if you feel well enough to come downstairs.”
“I’m fine,” Hal says.
“Then you should be able to make the journey,” Alfred says firmly, and opens up the curtains. The light is blinding even through the covers, and Hal groans. After a few minutes he drags himself out of bed and down the stairs, intending to get coffee and run.
Family brunch is in full swing, and Hal can hear the clink of silverware and overlapping conversation before he even gets into the dining room. He walks in just as Dick is breaking up an argument between Tim and Damian; beside them, Barbara is deep in conversation with a blonde girl that Hal doesn’t recognize, occasionally stabbing her fork in the air to emphasize something.
Hal can feel a nauseous knot forming in the bottom of his stomach as he watches Dick reach out to ruffle Damian’s hair, then steal a muffin off his plate when he ducks out of the way.
“Grayson, you degenerate swine!” Damian yells, his little face crumpled in outrage, while Dick shovels down his ill-gotten gains.
“Settle down,” Bruce grumbles, mostly into his coffee.
Hal doesn’t understand how Batman has ended up with this, and Hal is the one left all alone, Hal is the one desperate enough for that one glimmering moment of connection to let a stranger rape him in a sketchy club’s back room. He takes one more look at the table—Dick has set his sights on Duke this time, who is evading him with slightly more success—and has to back out of the room.
What Hal wants is to fly, but first of all he isn’t in California and can’t get there without a zeta tube, not with his concentration shot to hell like it is now. And second of all he had to let his medical certificate lapse, so he isn’t actually a pilot anymore.
Hal breaks out through the bathroom window and climbs out onto the roof, which is obligingly covered with little nooks and crannies to hide in. Hal scoots over behind what looks to be an honest-to-god gargoyle and flops back on the uncomfortable slate tiles.
He still has his ring—will until he dies—but flying with the ring is too warm, too insulated. It isn’t really flying. And technically dysregulation isn’t a disqualifying condition for pilots, if you can prove the medication is working, but Hal can’t, not anymore. So—it’s over. Flying, the Corps, the League—the life Hal fought so hard to have—it’s all over. All that’s left is Hal Jordan, dysfunctional sub, who can’t even get through a sponge bath without having a panic attack.
Hal isn’t sure how long he lies there, staring up at the sun, before he is inevitably hunted down.
“Why is it impossible to get any peace and quiet in this place?” Hal demands. “This house is the size of a small country, you’d think there’d be somewhere a man could go to wallow without interruptions.”
He turns his head to see—Jason, of all people. Hal didn’t even know he was in the house.
“You know, when Bruce brought me back here for the first time, I thought for sure I was getting fucked,” Jason says bluntly, dropping down beside Hal on the roof. While Hal is figuring out how the hell he’s supposed to respond to that, Jason digs a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of his jacket.
“Want one?” he offers, and Hal shakes his head.
Jason shrugs and lights his own, taking a long drag and breathing it out before he speaks again. “I just figured it had to be better being Bruce Wayne’s sub than living on the street belonging to whoever got a hold of me first. At least he didn’t seem interested in sharing.”
Hal closes his eyes, breathing in against the sick shock of pain that rockets through him at that revelation. He remembers Jason as Robin, not even five feet tall, bouncing at Batman’s heels. How devastated Bruce had been when he died.
“Does Bruce know?” Hal manages.
“Oh yeah,” Jason says. “After a couple months I figured out that Bruce wasn’t a child molester, but that was almost worse, because by then I could feel it, you know? And I knew I wasn’t getting out of it, whatever Bruce said. Eventually I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I went to his bedroom and begged him to just get it over with.”
Hal swallows. He wants to pretend he isn’t familiar with the feeling, but that’s a tough sell, even in his own head. “What did Bruce do?”
“Well, he didn’t fuck me. Turns out it isn’t actually that hard to make a reciprocal connection with a twelve year old. It was just—normal twelve year olds don’t have dynamic needs.”
What Jason doesn’t say is, kids don’t have dynamic needs unless they’ve already been habituated to dynamic manipulation. That in homes steeped in violence and abuse, those needs come out sooner, not later.
Hal very pointedly does not think about Martin Jordan, and his bitter disappointment in Hal’s dynamic. Does not think about lying awake in his childhood bedroom, aching, desperately wishing he could be anyone else.
“I’d never been down on purpose before,” Jason says, after a moment. “I didn’t even know it could happen without getting fucked, or at least without getting beat until you couldn’t even scream anymore. So the first time it happened I didn’t even recognize it. Actually, I flipped the fuck out, is what I did,” he adds.
“Yeah?” Hal says roughly.
“Yeah,” Jason says. “It still worked, though.” He pauses to take a drag on his cigarette, and Hal turns his head away from the smoke. “I bet he’s given you all the same speeches. Your biology does not require sexual violence,” Jason adds, in a passable imitation of Batman’s gravelly voice.
Hal rubs a hand over his eyes, willing away the burn there. “How about, we are going to create an environment that meets your needs?” he says. “I think I’ve heard a couple different versions of that one.”
“That one too,” Jason says. “Look, man, I know how it is. Bruce isn’t as perfect as Dick thinks he is. You need a jailbreak, just say the word, and I’ll come bust you out. But—you know. You’ll be alright.”
“Thanks,” Hal says, when Jason looks at him expectantly.
Jason nods, apparently satisfied, and stubs out his cigarette on a shingle. “See you around, Lantern,” he says, and disappears off the edge of the roof without another word. When Hal leans forward he can’t see where he’s gone, even though there shouldn’t be anywhere for him to hide.
“Well, that was weird,” Hal says, after a moment. But some of that heaviness in his stomach has finally gone, and he thinks maybe he could go inside and eat after all.
Hal starts taking meals in the dining room again. He’s doing his best to convince Damian that the injured six-foot monitor lizard he encountered on patrol the night before is better off with reptile rehabilitation professionals than at the Manor—and possibly failing, but thankfully Alfred already put his foot down—when Bruce signals for silence and presses a finger against his ear. Because of course he’s wearing his Justice League communicator at the breakfast table.
Bruce grunts a couple of times, nodding along. “No, I haven’t seen him,” he says finally. “I’ll look into it.”
He lets go of his earpiece and turns on Hal. “Why aren’t you responding to Oliver or Barry?”
“What’s it to you?” Hal demands.
“Gardner told them you were on medical leave from the Corps, not on assignment,” Bruce says. “Barry went to your apartment and couldn’t find you, so he contacted Clark. Who just called asking me to investigate your disappearance.”
Hal crosses his arms, and Bruce stares at him thoughtfully. “I haven’t seen you use your phone once since you arrived at the Manor. It’s no wonder they thought you were out of the system.”
“I didn’t bring it,” Hal admits. “It’s in my bathroom somewhere, I think.”
Robin is dispatched on a solo mission to hunt down Hal’s phone and League communicator, and is gone for several hours longer than it should take to zeta to California and search a one-bedroom apartment, so who knows what kind of trouble he was getting into. Hal just hopes his apartment is still standing. But Hal does eventually get his phone back, and he winces when it finally turns back on; Barry probably thinks he’s dead, from the tone of the text messages. Apparently he checked all of the hospitals in Coast City looking for him.
There’s a couple of angry voicemails from Carol, too, which Hal can’t quite bring himself to listen to. He deserves it, after basically walking out on her, but he just doesn’t think he can take it right now.
He shoots off a couple of quick messages, sry forgot my phone charger, don’t worry tho batman hunted me down. Ollie responds a few moments later with a laughing emoji.
“Dr. Thompson put you on medical leave with the League as well,” Bruce says. “But I’m afraid you’ve roused Clark’s interest. He may come looking for you himself.”
Hal scowls. Exactly what he needs, Superman poking into his business. After a moment, though, another thought occurs to him: if Ollie and Barry were meeting with Guy Gardner, that was happening on the Watchtower, not just a friendly hangout.
“Wait a goddamn second,” Hal says. A brief glance at his secured email reveals that there was in fact a Justice League meeting yesterday afternoon, which Hal spent lying in bed with Bruce working beside him, and occasionally using his back for document storage. “Why are you skipping League meetings? The minutes say you were on an investigation, and you weren’t investigating shit yesterday afternoon.”
Actually, Bruce has his contact status set to emergencies only, like he would if he was undercover. Which he is not.
“Batman’s presence isn’t required at every Justice League meeting,” Bruce says. “Superman is able to chair meetings without my assistance. He emailed me the minutes.”
“Except Batman’s presence was sure as hell required at every Justice League meeting I’ve ever been to,” Hal snaps. The last time Bruce skipped a meeting was probably—when his back was broken, after Bane.
Hal’s irritation with Bruce’s hypocrisy, after all his lectures to Hal about dodging pointless meetings that could have been an email, fades away, replaced by a deep angry ball of anxiety in Hal’s chest.
“You can’t skip out on the League to stay home and coddle your sub,” Hal spits. “You have responsibilities.”
“Hal. When we created the Justice League, we made a commitment not just to the world, but to each other. And that commitment does not expire because one of us has been injured, however gravely.”
Hal turns away. Bruce reaches out to grasp his hand, achingly gentle. Hal could pull away if he wanted, but he doesn’t, letting Bruce’s warm fingers wrap around his own while he glares down at the increasingly blurry floor in front of him.
“Come here,” Bruce says, pulling Hal into his arms, and he rests his forehead against Bruce’s chest, rock hard and uncomfortable as always, and takes a long deep breath in.
“Okay,” he finally says. “But let’s be real, is that the same speech you’d be giving Arthur if he needed a dom?”
That surprises an amused snort out of Bruce, his warm breath ruffling Hal’s hair. “Let’s all be grateful that Atlanteans don’t have human dynamics, so that won’t be put to the test. I’m not sure the Manor would still be standing.”
Hal laughs into Bruce’s shirt. Of course, before this, he might have said the same thing about himself. And yet here they are—proof of Bruce’s hidden depths, or maybe Hal’s.
It seems like the low-grade terror that was following Hal around bleeds away overnight, and his libido wakes up with a sudden vengeance; the sight of Bruce getting undressed sends a bolt of lust up his spine so sharply that Hal actually gasps out loud.
Bruce grunts in response, pausing with his shirt halfway over his arms to raise an eyebrow at Hal.
“Come over here and fuck me,” Hal demands, which is a line that should have a one-hundred percent success rate, but of course Bruce has to be difficult.
“I’ve had plenty of sex,” Hal snaps, when Bruce hesitates. “I’m not afraid of your dick, asshole.”
“I am aware,” Bruce says, pulling his shirt back on, the asshole. “But I also don’t think you’ve engaged in any significant amount of consensual sex with dynamics involved, and possibly never with another man.”
Hal can’t answer that without either lying or admitting to more than he’s ready to say, so he just glares at Bruce instead, until finally Bruce rubs a thumb across his jaw and draws him into a kiss.
Bruce kisses like he’s starving for it, less like it’s foreplay and more like it’s the main event, and Hal is starting to suspect that he doesn’t actually need oxygen to breathe. It goes on for a long time, Bruce’s arms wrapped firmly around him, his hands slipping up underneath his shirt to feel the hot skin of his back. Every time Hal tries to up the stakes, Bruce pushes him right back down, until finally Hal is reduced to riding Bruce’s thigh, grinding up against him like he’s seventeen and trying to make it under the bleachers. He comes without a hand on him, turning his face to pant into Bruce’s shoulder, Bruce’s hand firm and heavy on the back of his head, holding him in place through the aftershocks.
“Ugh,” Hal says, when his brain has recovered enough to complain.
“Let me see,” Bruce demands, his voice gone low, like Batman’s. Hal realizes abruptly that Bruce hasn’t gotten his yet, and rolls awkwardly off of him and onto the bed.
He isn’t quite sure what he wants Bruce to do—his earlier enthusiasm for getting fucked seems a little misplaced post-orgasm—but Bruce doesn’t demand a blowjob or start digging around in his bedside cabinet for lube. Instead he waves impatiently at Hal’s sweatpants, and Hal pushes them and his underwear down to his thighs, grimacing at the wet feeling.
Bruce watches with hungry eyes, radiating desire. He reaches down to palm Hal’s spent and sensitive cock, smirking when Hal sucks in a breath, then rucks Hal’s shirt up to his armpits and brushes a thumb over his nipple.
“Lovely,” he says. Hal goes red, feeling exposed and a little uncomfortable in the cool air as Bruce gets his own dick out, already an angry red and leaking heavily at the tip.
Somehow Bruce knows not to pin Hal against the bed; instead he only leans over him, staring directly into Hal’s eyes and working himself with the hand that isn’t propping him up. He never looks away, not even for a second, and his pupils only get wider and darker as his breathing speeds up, almost imperceptibly. It should be weird, but Hal finds himself panting along, staring back and unable to look away, unable to move at all. When Bruce finally lets out a low grunt, come shooting in hot streaks across Hal’s bare stomach, Hal shudders and gasps and has to close his eyes against it, his cock twitching like it’s getting ready to go again.
Hal opens his eyes to see Bruce right beside him, staring. There’s a bit of a background buzz in Hal’s brain, Bruce’s iron wall of control coming down just slightly, enough that Hal could feel him properly, if he opened up himself. But Bruce still isn’t pushing.
“Um,” Hal says, and then his brain turns back on and he realizes he’s covered in come with his pants around his thighs. “I’m gonna go shower,” he gets out, and Bruce watches with tolerant, half-lidded eyes as he makes his escape.
Hal eventually feels recovered enough to hunt Bruce down, running tests in the Cave. Bruce immediately demands a blood sample.
“Ugh, fine,” Hal says. “It’s time to be honest with me about what you’re using all this blood for, though. You got a pet vampire locked up in here somewhere?”
Bruce ignores him, already entranced by his true love: expensive, shiny, state of the art equipment. Not that Hal really has a leg to stand on, when it comes to that.
Hal picks at a bump in the vinyl covering the exam table. “How did you deal with Jason?” he finally asks. “When you found out about his—sub stuff.”
“His dynamic needs?” Bruce asks pointedly, stepping away from his microscope.
“Whatever,” Hal says.
Bruce raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t argue. “It didn’t take much. We read books together—we made our way through nearly every fantasy series in the library—and worked on small projects. Building his first computer, redecorating his bedroom, those kinds of activities. Once he was down he just wanted to be close, with me or with Alfred.” Bruce looks away, and then adds, “The difficult part was getting him to come back up.”
Hal can practically see it, Jason cuddling up next to Bruce in the armchair by the fire in the library, the two of them working their way through Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings, Jason a little gangly and baby-faced, not quite a teenager yet. It’s strange to realize, again, that Bruce really is a father. Even with his little pack of teenage superheroes hanging around, Hal has somehow always imagined that as more of a Batman thing, rather than just—Bruce’s life. His family.
“I don’t think that’s going to work for me,” Hal says. If all it took was board games and cuddles, he wouldn’t be hanging around in the Batcave waiting for Bruce to fix him. He probably would’ve just let Barry talk him into joining him and Iris every once in a while, and then he wouldn’t have needed the meds or the club in the first place.
Bruce stands there silently for a long time, long enough that Hal figures he’s done talking, and almost gives up and goes upstairs. But eventually Bruce opens his mouth to speak again.
“You know, Jason was barely sixty pounds when I took him in. I thought he was misrepresenting his age, at first, he was so small. It’s almost unbelievable now, the size of him.”
Bruce doesn’t mention the obvious reason for Jason’s growth spurt, the dip in the Lazarus pit that brought him back to life. But Hal decides not to bring that up.
“The truth is, Jason went down too easily, much more quickly than he should have. After prolonged abuse by dominants he could neither effectively resist nor bring himself to accept, his dynamic pathways had been nearly blown out. But Jason was a child, and he needed what any child needs: to feel safe, and protected, and cherished by an adult he trusted.
“Listen to me, Hal—you are an adult. Your needs are more complex. But under no circumstance do they include unwanted, violent encounters with dominants who do not care for or respect you.”
It’s Hal’s turn to look away. Bruce has most of the spotlights off, except those over the medical bay, so he doesn’t have much to look at except the solid black surrounding them.
“They do,” Hal admits. “It’s—you don’t know about Sinestro. What I let him do.”
“Tell me,” Bruce says, and this time Hal does find the words to tell him, as quiet and bland as he can make it.
Korugarans don’t actually have dynamics—no aliens do, as far as Hal knows, which does raise some questions about humans in general—but Sinestro’s mild psionic abilities were enough to form a connection between them. At the time it was a huge relief, being able to train with Thaal and get the dynamic interaction his body demanded at the same time, no matter where in the universe they ended up. Hal had never felt better in his life.
Of course, that’s not the kind of thing that can last. And Sinestro’s betrayal—Thaal’s voice in his mind, Thaal pushing inside of him, enough to force Hal down, to make him enjoy it, and almost enough to bend Hal to his will—that made a space inside Hal that shouldn’t have been there. Hal let it control him, let the fear live in him. Let Parallax live in him.
“And the Guardians don’t really understand dynamics,” Hal admits. “They think it’s just psionics, and that humans are just so backwards and unevolved we don’t know how to make civilized connections. So as far as they know, I’ve just been telepathically injured. They don’t realize that I’m—supposed to be like this.”
“You are injured,” Bruce says quietly. “Hal. The more damage your dynamic pathways have taken, the greater your dynamic needs are. The unhappy truth is that misery and desperation only increase your body’s insistence on having a reciprocal connection—not the other way around. And when a dominant pushes his will onto a submissive, until his desires are reflected in the sub’s mind out of force, he is not establishing a connection. That is violence.”
“You aren’t listening,” Hal spits. “He didn’t have to make me. I let him. I let him.”
“Sweetheart,” Bruce murmurs, and Hal turns away from his soft voice and his reaching hands, because he can’t take it. He can’t take it. But Bruce pulls him into his arms anyway, and when Hal falls against him, Bruce drops his walls completely for the first time—not pushing, but relentlessly, unavoidably there, looming on the edge of Hal's peripheral vision.
It turns out that Bruce didn’t need to break out the whips and chains after all, because something in Hal snaps loose, and he can’t keep Bruce out any longer .
Hal doesn’t bother hiding anything from him—let him see. Whatever. Hal isn’t afraid of Bruce’s disgust and pity, he isn’t, so it doesn’t matter—but Bruce is showing him something else entirely, something that feels just as rotten and decayed as Hal does, where Parallax was. He lets Hal see the long years he spent as Ra’s al Ghul’s plaything, the grim satisfaction he felt as his knife sliced across a man’s throat, and the life left his eyes with a sickening gush. The sick pleasure and horror he felt as Ra’s forced his way inside.
“Bruce,” Hal chokes out, and Bruce hushes him, but he doesn’t try to hide. He wants Hal to see, to know he’s been down the same dark road.
“It’s not the same,” Hal says. “It’s not.” What Ra’s did to Bruce was torture, an abomination—but Hal is meant to be invaded, that’s what his body is made for. What he deserves.
“I know,” Bruce says aloud, “I know it feels that way, Hal, but it’s not true. I promise you it’s not true,” and Hal tries to push away, tries to tell him again, but Bruce’s arms are locked tight around him, and he isn’t disgusted at all. He thinks Hal is—beautiful, golden and shining and occasionally irritating beyond all reason. And that brings up the hot rush of fighting alongside Hal in the field, his eyes, the little smirk he makes when he’s being a shit in League meetings for no reason, that makes Bruce want to bend him over the table and have him, have all of him, not just his body but this too.
Bruce already feels proprietary about Hal, and Hal’s body—deeply satisfied to have control over where he sleeps, what he eats, to be sure that Hal is well-cared for. Hal can tell that Bruce is going to be absolutely insufferable; he’s already been snooping through Hal’s finances, and sketching out vague plans to purchase the property management company that’s responsible for Hal’s apartment. But he doesn’t have anything at all planned for the Green Lantern. Just for Hal.
Hal shakes his head. He doesn’t need a dom to take over his life. But something deep inside him is already surrendering to the unbearable relief of being someone else’s problem. All the frantic last minute moves, coming back from assignment to his stuff all thrown out or donated to Goodwill, scrambling to find a doctor that will renew his prescription without monthly appointments he can’t ever attend—whether he gives in or not, Bruce is already planning ways around Hal’s resistance, somehow more comforting than stifling.
Hal buries his face in Bruce’s chest and breathes him in. Bruce’s fingers come curling around the back of his head.
Hal pushes further, deeper, as far as Bruce will let him go. He expects to see what he found in Sinestro—a dark thing inside of Bruce that hungers for Hal’s pain. But the darkest hunger in Bruce is for Hal’s pleasure, for the sweet expanse of his body.
That drags up an embarrassingly detailed fantasy of Hal riding him, shuddering, head thrown back in pleasure; of Bruce stopping him to get a taste, and oh god, Bruce has been fantasizing about sucking Hal’s dick.
“Yes,” Hal gets out, over the haze of lust, his and Bruce’s both. “Yes yes yes, come on already,” he demands, and Bruce’s arms squeeze him tight.
“Let’s go to bed, Hal,” Bruce says, and an image seeps through their connection, Hal’s mouth open, panting. Possibly that’s what he looked like when Bruce was jerking off on him like a freak.
“Okay, but you have to actually fuck me this time,” Hal says, and Bruce laughs, a real laugh, his head thrown back and everything.
“Now that, I think I can do,” he murmurs, and Hal stares at his beautiful face, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the dark stubble on his jaw. He realizes he might really be in trouble here.
“Shit,” Hal says, and Bruce laughs again. In a fit of desperation, Hal bangs his head against his face and knocks them both over, and they never do make it to an actual bedroom.
#
Hal is finally coming back up, the rock floor underneath him starting to get uncomfortably cold even with Bruce’s cape thrown over him, when a little light starts flashing insistently above him.
“What’s that?” he asks, and then the Flash is standing right in front of them.
“Sorry for barging in, Batman, but you weren’t answering your communicator and it’s kind of an—” Barry cuts off, staring. “Hal?”
Bruce sits up with an impressive scowl—he kind of looks like Damian, actually, and Hal is manfully resisting the urge to laugh at him when the upstairs entrance comes swinging open as well.
“B, the perimeter alarm went off—” Tim calls, popping his head out at the top of the stairs, and then he clearly notices the two of them on the floor, only partially covered by Bruce’s cape. His face scrunches up in disgust. “Oh my god, ugh. Really, Bruce? In the Cave?”
There’s a slight commotion behind him, and Tim turns around. “No, you little brat, you are not going down there!”
“If Father is meeting with the League then I should attend as well,” Damian says in the background, and the door closes behind the sound of the two of them arguing.
Bruce’s already precipitous scowl grows even deeper, and Hal gets the sense that if the Cave doesn’t clear out quickly then there’s going to be an explosion.
“Let me take care of this,” he says, patting Bruce on the head. He twists his ring to get his uniform on, so Bruce can keep the cape.
Barry is still standing there in shock, but he unfreezes as soon as Hal comes over to lead him away.
“What the heck, Hal!” he hisses. “I thought something happened to you. I mean, you fall off the map after Luthor ambushes you in the field like an asshole—okay, not completely out of character to just take the first mission you can, running away from your feelings is a time-honored manly tradition, but then you weren’t actually with the Corps and you were sending me weird cryptic messages about Batman and not opening any of my snapchats—I thought it was a clue! Like a coded message! I didn’t think you meant that you were hiding down here having—having sexcapades with Batman.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly sexcapades,” Hal protests, although not for lack of trying on his part. “We had—uh—a mission. Kind of.” If propping up Hal’s emotional stability can be called a mission. To Bruce it totally was, anyway.
“Whatever,” Barry snorts. “I can’t believe you skipped a League meeting to get railed,” he grumbles. “Actually I can believe it. But I can’t believe Bruce went along with it!”
Hal can't help but laugh at that. For a moment he thinks about just telling Barry the truth, which is that Bruce broke into his apartment and then dragged him back to the Manor to give him sponge baths and blood tests, but he doesn't think Barry is ready to believe it.
“This isn’t funny, Hal,” Barry scowls, and Hal claps him on the back.
Hal wouldn’t believe it himself, in Barry’s position. He glances over at Bruce, who has managed to get most of the suit back on, minus the cowl.
“Get out,” Bruce growls. His hair is sticking up wildly in the back, which ruins the effect a little bit.
Not entirely, though, because Hal still finds himself caught, staring helplessly back at Bruce, almost overwhelmed with joy and relief, and something else he’s not ready to look at too hard just yet.
“I’m going,” Barry says. “I’m calling you later, and you better answer on the first freaking ring, Hal,” he adds, and then he’s gone, the air swirling behind him and sending Bruce’s hair into even more obvious disarray.
Hal walks over to him and thumps his head into Batman’s heavily armored chest, probably bruising his forehead. Batman isn’t really designed for cuddling. But after a moment Bruce’s hand comes up to rest in his hair, his thumb rubbing circles into Hal’s scalp.
It is almost impossible to believe. Barry is going to take some convincing, and Ollie is going to laugh his ass off when Hal finally gets around to telling him, and then probably plan a rescue mission. But Hal isn't worried about any of that, because—because somehow the lifeline that Bruce broke into his apartment to throw him was enough to pull him up after all.