Chapter Text
Booster doesn't actually mind the whole "he's just A Guy in a Bat Suit" thing when it comes to Batman—it's aspirational, actually. Bats can't even fly the way Booster can with his equipment, and he gets a lot of good work done. He can understand, though, how it might make the super-powered among them nervous.
He especially understands that now, standing in the Javeline's tiny medical bay, hooking Batman up to an IV drip.
"Alright, looks like you hit a vein," Skeets says from over his shoulder. He's been monitoring the situation, supplementing the ship AI's instructions as he works. Booster is technically their medical officer for this mission, being that he was most-recently first aid certified and Bats couldn't take that role because he was mission lead due to seniority and familiarity with aliens they were liaising with.
And the mission hadn't been an emergency. And it hadn't gone wrong. And they'd been on their way back right on schedule, smooth as silk when that comet had come out of absolutely nowhere and struck the side of the ship. This wouldn't have been a problem had the shields been up, and even then, it would've been fine if Bats hadn't been standing, not restrained in his seat like the rest of them. So yeah, really this was all Batman's fault for standing to get a meal pack out of one of the overhead compartments.
"Does anyone else want anything?" he'd been saying when the alarm went off. Then he'd said, "Report!" and then shortly after that "Hnnnngrr—" as he was flung forward hard enough to first knock his head into the overhead and then throw him so hard against the seat that the Javelin's medical bot had diagnosed him with bruised ribs. And a concussion. And—
"Good thing he had that cowl on," Hal says from the medbay door.
Booster can hear the way Hal rolls his eyes as he speaks, but for one, Booster isn’t really down for mocking the unconscious, and for another, he can empathize with a guy who only went by his codename, even when there were other leaguers around. If someone asked Booster his name, his first instinct was always to say Booster Gold. Maybe Bats was the same way. Maybe he didn’t think what was under the cowl was important enough to warrant taking it off.
"Well," he says. "According to the diagnostic AI, the damage should be a lot worse. He must have some concussion prevention in there somewhere." He touches his own head. It wasn't hard to believe.
Like, first of all, he's Batman. You think Batman isn't going to have a system in place to keep himself from getting concussed? And second, if you look closely enough at the cowl— which Booster did on the long stretches of their voyage where he was bored out of his mind and Skeets didn't feel like playing digital checkers with him—you could tell it isn't the exact size and shape of a normal guy's head. Booster imagines it looked a bit like the inside of a football helmet, with padding and springs and whatever else to help minimize damage.
"Oh," Hal says, and Booster can hear the way his shoulders must fall. "Sure. Okay." He comes into the room proper, slotting himself on the other side of Bats' hospital bed. "You, uh, didn't want to take it off him, though?"
Booster looks down. Bats is indeed still wearing the cowl, and in fact most of the Batsuit. Booster had managed to get the chest piece and gloves off, but the cowl refused to part with its wearer. "I tried," he says, feeling sheepish.
Skeets pipes up: "There is a mechanism to remove it, but it requires knowledge and training we don't have."
Hal scoffs. "Keeping his identity a secret at the cost of his health. Sounds like Bats."
"Uh, well..." Booster wants to explain that Bats helped design the diagnostic AI, that he'd actually enlisted Booster and Skeets' help because the tech required was so advanced. The bed had recognized Bats' biosignature and accounted for the cowl once it understood that he'd sustained a head injury. He's interrupted, however, by a growling sound from the bed. He looks down, startled, and suddenly feels like he's going to get in trouble, even though Booster hadn't been flying the ship and it's not like he tossed a rock at the Javelin himself. "Hey! Hey... you okay, Bats? Can you open your eyes?"
Bats blinks himself awake. Booster can just barely see his eyes open behind the eye shields in his cowl. The AI chirps, announcing that its patients' brain waves indicate that he is now conscious.
"Hi, Bats," Booster says, grasping desperately at his training. "Do you remember where you are?"
Bats doesn't reply, just looks around the room, his gaze lingering first on Booster and then on Hal.
Hal arches an eyebrow. "C'mon, Spooky—let us know you're still in there."
"Where..." Bats mumbles and Booster thinks this is it, this is how he gets kicked out of the Justice League: he's the designated medical officer on the trip that got Batman concussed.
"You're on the Javelin," Hal says.
"You're not supposed to give him the answers," Boosters scolds. "We've gotta let him adjust. Bats, do you remember what day it is?"
Hal looks incredulous but lets Bats answer on his own. He rattles off the date, tells the two of them that he's Batman, and recounts some details from their mission.
Booster sighs the way a drowning person gasps for air. "Okay, good. Good. You're fine. You hit your head, and your ribs are a little banged up, but there's no major damage. You're on some pain killers so you might feel a little woozy. I'll get you some water." He turns and takes the half step necessary to make it to the fridge where there's bottled water waiting alongside some meds that can't be synthesized and that need to be in cold storage.
"Where..." Bats repeats. He looks around the room frantically.
Booster stoops and grabs one of his gauntlets. "Your gloves are right here. I needed to get them off for the IV, and your chest plate is down here too. No worries." He opens the water and offers it to him.
He looks at it like it might bite him.
"What?" Hal chuckles. "You think it's poisoned?" And Bats just looks at him in that way that only Batman can look at people. Hal puts his hands up in mock surrender.
"Where..." Bats says again, looking around the room again, and at this point Booster really needs him to just finish that sentence because he can't think of anything else Bats is missing— "... I can’t stay here.”
“You don’t have that much of a choice, Spooky,” Hal says. “We’re still about two hours out. Hey, don’t—” Hal reaches out to stop Bats from pulling at his IV again.
“I can’t stay here,” Bats repeats. “I can’t—where are they?”
“Where’s who?” Booster asks. “Bats, if you tell us who you’re looking for, I’m sure we can find them.”
Hal shakes his head. “He’s not looking for anyone, he’s high off his ass.”
“My babies,” Bats says and Hal and Booster’s gazes both snap to him. “My babies—they’re out there somewhere and I don’t know where they are.” His shoulders fall like someone’s just told him the entire universe is falling apart again, and he’s the only one who can hold it together. Hal makes a noise like he wants to laugh.