#hawkbat

The first time it happens is after battle…

It had been a hard fight, but when wasn’t it? And now they had to do cleanup. Which is. Great. Barry wasn’t complaining, of course! Cleanup is just as important as winning the fight itself! Superhero rule number. . . Uh, number something. He couldn’t bother to expend the energy needed to remember the number he was at now. It didn’t really matter all that much anyways.

. . . Still though, cleanup wasn’t very fun when the Justice League just barely managed to get a scared, threatened, lashing out fifth dimensional being to calm down while trying to keep themselves, their teammates, and the general populace safe.

Especially not while injured, weary, and tired. Luckily, Barry wasn’t hit too hard -no one was, thankfully- but it all still ached.

Barry gently set down another small -“small,” yeah, right- piece of rubble, hissing as a half-broken metal prod scraped him through his suit on the way down.

Hal -partnered up with Barry for safety (and protocol) reasons- gave a short, questioning yell and Barry gave an equally short, “I’m okay!” In return, even as he rubbed the feeling back into his arms.

Barry groaned. This was gonna take a while.

——————————————————————————————————

It takes hours -well, two or three, but still- for the Justice League to reconvene and it’s clear at that point that everyone is tired. Well, everyone except Batman, of course, because he’s more godly than the actual god (and god-like figures) in the League. And Hawkman, oddly, who seems fairly comfortable with invading Batman’s space and attempting to smother the human with his wings.

Bruce is still lecturing them about something -efficiency, technique, damage control, something else: Who has enough energy to care right now; answer, not Barry- when it first happens.

The abyssal black of the military grade weapon that is the Batsuit™ had long since been melded into the Thangarian’s more colorful side -if you counted a mostly gray, brown, faded metallic costume with a little bit of gold and red sprinkled colorful- and had been not so subtly sifting grime out of Katar’s feathers for a while now.

Now, Barry is sure that both of them were fully under the assumption that literally everyone else was too spaced out to notice, and, granted, most people were. However, being a speedster meant even just losing yourself in your own head could be difficult at times, and when you did, it usually wasn’t for very long.

Barry also knows, however, that Superman too barely swallowed a choked noise when Hawkman dipped down and gently pressed the beak-like protrusion on his headgear to Batman’s cheek, making a short, comforting (?) call, barely above a stage whisper in volume, against the man’s cheek.

It felt like, in that moment, Katar had a death wish. Because who the hell would eskimo kiss The goddamn Batman and get away with it. If nothing else; he was in for a long, excruciating lecture and several months of various punishments.

Barry made eye contact with Clark, who had a face that said “What the fuck” as much as Barry is sure his did, and then went back to attempting to space out for more thirty seconds all the while trying to bleach the new image that invaded all of his attention out of his memory.

Batman continued to lecture them for about ten more minutes, before Hawkman tapped him on the shoulder, and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like: “No one is listening.” At which point Batman disappointedly grunted and then demanded everyone get checked up at the Watchtower before going back home.