Chapter Text
It had been a very long day for Hal Jordan and all he wanted in the world was a quiet drink at his favorite bar. What he did not want to do was have a conversation with the overgrown gargoyle they called ‘Batman’ right now. Unfortunately, it seemed fate had a sense of humor tonight because the last person he wanted to see just walked through the front door. Well, Hal thought to himself sardonically, at least he still had the drink.
“Hal.” Bruce came to a stop a few steps from him, hands in the pockets of his dark jeans like this was some friendly visit. The Gothamite was dressed down in a black t-shirt that hugged all his muscles on top of his jeans and a leather jacket of the same ebony hue, a far cry from his usual glittering playboy mask. Maybe this was a casual visit. Hal nearly snorted to himself. Yeah, wouldn’t that be some shit.
“Whaddaya want, Spooky?” Hal sighed, turning on his barstool to look at Bruce. He had forgotten that under Batman’s cowl lay the most fascinating pair of eyes Hal had ever seen. The color of them was like sunlight glinting off submerged icebergs in the vast Arctic Sea, and he’d never seen anything more beautiful. Not that he’d ever tell Bruce that. The man’s ego was big enough as it was.
“Mind if I join you for a drink?” Bruce took a pale hand out of his pocket to gesture at the empty stool on Hal’s left. He wasn’t proud of it, but for a second there Hal just blinked at Bruce. Like an idiot. “I’m buying if that’s what you’re worried about.” That was not at all what he was worried about. Hal blamed the shock for what he said next.
“Sure, why not?” Why not? Why not? Hal could think of a million reasons why they should not have this drink and not a single one for why he’d said that. Bruce sat down beside him before he could take it back.
“Thank you.” Hal didn’t know what Bruce was thanking him for so he said nothing. Just sipped his whiskey highball and waited for the dark-haired man to explain why he was really here tonight. “I thought you might say no,” Bruce said when he had a beer in his hands, looking anywhere that wasn’t at Hal. An odd choice for him, Bruce was usually more of a scotch man. He only drinks beer when he doesn’t trust himself with liquor, a faint voice from the past hissed. Bruce continued on, oblivious to Hal’s examination, “I wouldn’t have blamed you. Not after… everything.” Everything. What a small word for all the sordid history between them.
“I don’t know why I didn’t,” Hal responded honestly, looking down at the melting ice in his glass. “Why are you here, Bruce?”
“I don’t know,” Bruce echoed. Any scathing retort he’d had died on Hal’s tongue when he finally took in the other man’s tepid pallor and the empty look in those gorgeous eyes, underscored by smudges of a purple so dark it looked black in the dim light. In short, he looked haunted. Hal knew the feeling well.
“Are you ok?” Hal asked Batman that often, about as much as he asked any other League member. He never thought he’d say it to Bruce with such gentleness ever again. But, he looked like hell and the part of Hal that would always love him cried out to see it.
Bruce didn’t answer.
Hal wasn’t surprised.
So they sat in silence and stared at the wood-backed wall of multi-colored liquor bottles behind the bar together until their drinks were empty.
“You wanna get out of here?” Hal asked, without looking at Bruce.
“Where to?” A gravelly voice answered. A shiver ran down Hal’s spine, when they were alone they were either going to kill each other or fuck each other’s brains out.
Hal was hoping for the latter.
“My apartment. You drive here?” A nod. “We’re taking your car.” Hal didn’t have one. Bruce only nodded again and pulled out his wallet to pay their tabs. He didn’t ask for directions. Hal didn’t ask why.
He found himself almost vibrating with other questions on the drive to his apartment, however. What had put that tormented look in Bruce’s eyes? Why had he come to Coast City? Why had he come to Hal? What would happen when they reached Hal’s apartment? Did Bruce even know? The Gothamite was as silent and unforthcoming as ever. Only after he’d turned the engine off and pulled the keys from the ignition did Bruce look at him. Hal promptly decided any conversation was best left for inside, so he shot out of the car and started toward the building. Bruce’s footsteps and the chirp of the car’s locking mechanism echoed behind him.
Hal unlocked his front door mechanically and opened it for Bruce to enter ahead of him. A raven head dipped in silent thanks as he crossed the threshold and politely waited by the wall of the entryway for Hal to join him. It felt wrong for him to be so respectful. More questions piled up behind Hal’s teeth. He dared not ask them yet. Clenching his jaw to keep them from spilling out, Hal led them to the living room where he flopped onto one end of his beat-up brown leather couch. He didn’t turn the lights on some conversations were better had in the dark so the space was illuminated only by razor-thin shafts of moonlight cutting through the gaps in venetian blinds. His frayed patience for the silent routine ran out right about the time Bruce sat gingerly in the thrifted armchair next to him, perched on the edge with his elbows resting on his knees, as if he were sitting on a porcupine.
“Why are you here, Bruce?” Hal asked again tiredly. He just wanted this whole conversation to be over with and to go to bed. Before they’d left the bar he’d thought about fucking Bruce, for old time’s sake. Now that he’d had time to think about it, that would only dredge up a whole lot of shit Hal would really rather stayed buried.
“I had a nightmare.” That didn’t explain anything, actually. Bruce had nightmares all the time, just like everyone else in this line of work, so if anything the statement only raised more questions. Hal waited for him to go on, but as always it was only a waste of time.
“Ok? You’ve had nightmares for longer than I’ve known you. What was so different about this one?” Hal asked, resigning himself to the fact that the only way this conversation was ever going to move forward enough to get Bruce Wayne out of his living room was if he pushed it. Unfortunately, extracting information from Bruce was like trying to perform a root canal with two rusty spoons at the best of times, so Hal mentally braced himself for a long night. And not the fun kind.
Bruce, frustratingly and predictably, remained silent. Hal could just barely make out in the gloom that the vigilante wasn’t looking at him, rather he was staring unseeing into the darkness of the kitchen opposite them. What the hell had happened to him?
“Fine. New question. Why are you in Coast City in the first place?” Hal assumed he had either Bat or WE business here and, for once, rooted for capitalism. He really didn’t want to deal with any bat-branded bullshit in his city right now.
“I needed to see you,” Bruce replied hoarsely.
What. The. Fuck. They’d been broken up for seven years. What the hell kinda game did Bruce think he was playing right now? That aching, bleeding piece of Hal’s heart spoke up. None, it whispered, he isn’t playing any game and you know it. Hal did know. That’s what scared him.
“Why, Bruce? Don’t make me talk in circles all night, please.” Hal leaned his head against the hand he had propped on the arm of the couch and rubbed at his temple with his fingers. They sat in silence for another moment before the Gothamite deigned to speak again. Thank the Guardians.
“You died in my dreams and I needed to know you were ok.” Why now? The League had formed over two years ago, too long ago to be the reason old wounds were now resurfacing. They’d agreed right at the start not to let their personal history interfere with their work anyway. So why the hell was Bruce sitting in his shitty apartment talking about nightmares?
“You couldn’t have called?” Proof of life was easy to give over a phone call or facetime, there was no need for him to have apparently flown all the way out to California in the middle of the east-coast-night to sit at a dive bar in silence with Hal. Bruce pressed his lips together and shook his head, but did not elaborate. Of course. At least he’d gotten that much out of him. Now to decide what to do with that information.
There was still something nagging at him, though.
“Ok. If that’s all you wanted, why have a drink with me? Why come back here?” Despite his burning curiosity Hal didn’t really think he’d get an answer, Bruce apparently having used up the remainder of his daily word limit on his confession.
But he was full of surprises tonight it seemed. “Will you hate me if I say I missed you?” Bruce asked quietly, still staring into the yawning abyss of Hal’s kitchen. That. That was not what Hal was expecting. The bloody piece of his heart that still belonged to this man swelled with hope at the words. The rest of Hal was more practical.
“Did you really miss me or did you just miss my cock?” Hal raised an eyebrow at him, even though he knew Bruce couldn’t see it. Bruce was a horny bastard and Hal knew he didn’t get to scratch the itch as much as he would like because of all his scars. Couldn’t have people asking why Brucie Wayne looked like a battered crash test dummy underneath all those pretty clothes after all, could he? Hal wouldn’t put it past him to be thinking with his downstairs brain now that the upstairs one had been soothed by the confirmation of Hal’s continued existence. No, he was not going to think about the implications of that, thank you very much.
“Why can’t it be both?” Bruce drawled seductively, finally leaning back in his chair. Now this was a tone Hal knew, an intimate dance whose moves were as familiar as brushing his teeth even though it had been years since they’d last done it. Hal had told himself when they first stepped into this living room that he wouldn't fuck Bruce tonight, that it would only hurt in the aftermath, but fuck it. He mentally shoved that voice of reason into a box, chained it shut, and dropped it to the bottom of the ocean. He could worry about the consequences in the daylight.
“If you want it, come get it.” Hal settled back against the couch and waited. Bruce jerked minutely in Hal’s direction, as if he had started to move and abruptly thought better of it. Hal kept waiting, he knew Bruce needed to fight whatever internal war he was waging with himself in his own time. That was something about him that hadn’t changed in all the time they’d known each other, he never could just let go without wrestling with himself first. When he was sober, at least. He was probably weighing the pros and cons of taking the distraction Hal offered and the potential fallout effects on the League if he did.
“If you want it, come get it,” Hal said again. He didn’t have to wait for long this time. The final word of his challenge had hardly left his mouth before Bruce was out of the chair and on his knees in front of him. Apparently, distraction had won the battle. Guardians, Bruce’s eagerness was just as hot now as it had been all those years ago. Suddenly, Hal wished he’d turned the lights on so he could watch as Bruce sucked his cock.
The ravenette wasted no time in unzipping Hal’s jeans and pushing aside his boxers to free his soft cock. Ivory fingers trailed lightly up the shaft to toy with the head and disappeared. Bruce’s hand came back wet with spit when it wrapped around Hal’s cock and stroked him loosely, mindful of his calluses. The feeling of those crooked fingers around him was one his body still recognized and he was half-hard in the span of a heartbeat. A hot, wet tongue joined the fray as it swirled lazily around the head of Hal’s cock. He’d forgotten how indulgent Bruce was during sex, even in something as rushed as this. Nothing like how he was when he donned cape and cowl.
He was rock hard long before Bruce stopped playing with him and dipped down to take Hal in his mouth fully. Guardians, that mouth. He still used memories of Bruce sucking him when he jerked off sometimes. Especially after particularly nasty fights with Batman. Hal had no idea how much time Bruce had spent on his knees to get this good but, Jesus, if he wasn’t a billionaire he would have made a killing as a call boy. He bobbed his head at an even pace, swirling his tongue like Hal’s cock was a goddamn x-rated popsicle that he couldn’t bear to waste a drop of, and went a little further down each time. Bruce seemed content to sit there, nose pressed in copper curls, when he eventually reached the base. Hal’s thighs shook with the restraint it took not to thrust up into his tight throat.
An impatient hum- Hal swore it traveled all the way up his spine -swiftly reminded him of two things. One, that Bruce really liked a hand in his hair when he was giving head, and two, he liked it even better when that hand controlled his pace for him. Hal’s bronze fingers twined in midnight strands, somehow even darker than the black night all around them, and pulled Bruce’s head back. He cursed himself again for the lack of light to let him see more than the broad strokes of Bruce’s features when he paused with the head of his cock on the billionaire’s lower lip. A flicker of tongue in his slit set him in motion again, settling into an easy rhythm of push-and-pull while Bruce used every trick of tongue and teeth he knew Hal liked to bring him to the edge embarrassingly fast. Hal tugged at the inkspills coating his fingers to warn Bruce of his impending climax but, as expected, he didn’t budge. So Hal pressed him down to the base and came down his throat. Bruce kept swallowing around him for a moment until Hal’s trembling hand pulled him off.
They breathed raggedly together in the ensuing silence. Bruce’s head was resting on his thigh and Hal could feel the warm puffs of the older man’s breath against his cooling skin. It felt nicer than he’d expected to be so close to the Gothamite again. After that massive fight that ended their relationship Hal had told Bruce he never wanted to see him again and meant it. Now, he wasn’t so sure. The movement of Bruce pulling away distracted him from his thoughts.
“Hey, where you going?” Hal called softly to him, watching as Bruce gracefully rose to his feet and the bulky shadow of him retreated toward the door. A flash of light from the building’s hallway and the click of his front door closing behind Bruce were his answer.
What. The. Fuck.
Hal sat there, limp cock still out in his lap, and gaped at where Bruce had just disappeared. The boardwalk in Santa Cruz had nothing on the rollercoaster of emotions Hal went through as he stared fruitlessly into the dark after him. For the thousandth time he asked himself what the everliving fuck had happened to Bruce tonight. It didn’t seem like he’d be getting the answer to that now. Hal just couldn’t let it go, though. Something had to have really spooked Bruce to bring him out here. And then there was the whole blowjob-and-run thing to consider too.
He needed to talk to Bruce.