#hourwave

[ID: Fanart of Hank King Jr and Rick Tyler from DC Comics. In front is their hands, parting from a hold. Behind is Hank and Rick walking in opposite directions, Hank is looking over his shoulder and Rick is starting to turn back. In the background is the front steps of the JSA headquarters. End ID]

Rick woke up to an empty bed, which wasn’t a good sign, especially not when the storm outside was lashing so viciously. Sure, it could have just been that Hank couldn’t sleep, and that he’d gone to the kitchen to get a glass of water, but Hank had also been known to engage in some very self-destructive behavior, especially when he was dissociating, so Rick knew that there was always a chance that he’d gone out in it. 

Yawning, the superhero swung his legs out of bed, heading slowly towards the kitchen. There was a light on inside, so he had a moment of hope. Only for it to be immediately dashed when the kitchen was empty. 

He stepped forward, feeling a spray of water hit his face. Embarrassingly, Rick just stood there for a moment, as that thought buffered in his brain. His eyes flicked over to the balcony door, which was open, after a minute or two. 

So Hank had gone outside. 

Rick stood at the doorway for a while, scanning the ground below, wondering exactly how far Hank could have gotten in the time he’d been out of bed, and how long he’d even been up in the first place. Since he could levitate, he probably hadn’t jumped down, but he could still be hurt out there. 

“Rick?” Came a voice from the darkness. “Did I wake you?” 

Rick almost jumped out of his skin. Hank was on the balcony, still, just hanging back in the shadows, pressed right up against the wall. As Rick’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized Hank was completely soaked through. Great. He needed to find a way to coax him back inside. 

“Yeah, your side of the bed was pretty cold. I accidentally stuck my foot in it.” he watched the way Hank’s body shifted in the rain. “You seem like you’re pretty cold, too. Come back to bed, let me warm you up.” 

“Just a moment...” Hank said, a little too softly, and with a little bit of a closer look, Rick could see that his eyes were red-rimmed. “I’m just... thinking about something...” 

Right, well, whatever he was thinking about outside, at night, in the middle of a rainstorm, couldn’t be good, and Rick was going to make it his mission to distract him from it. 

“Come back to bed, I promise you can spend all the time in the world catastrophizing as long as you don’t freeze to death right now.” 

Hank snorted, but did let Rick grab his and pull him back into the warmth and the dry of his apartment. Rick wrapped his arms around him, burying his face in Hank’s neck. As the telepath sank into his embrace, it finally became clear just how cold he was. 

“First things first, you need to have a shower. I’ll join you.” 

“Taking advantage of the situation there a bit, aren’t you, Tyler?” 

Rick rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right, if you want me to do that, you’re gonna have to tell me what’s up with you, and we both know you hate talking about anything.” 

There was a pause, and then Hank reached up to squeeze his hand.