Batlantern but Hal kills the Joker
angst with happy ending ver // crack ver
⚠️⚠️ cw: graphic violence, allusions to homoeroticism
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Bruce had all but one condition when they got together: that Hal genuinely let Bruce take care of his city, and let him come to him for help as the Green Lantern on his terms.
They had a handful of fights about this, enough for Hal to concede. Gotham was Bruce's home, and he's protective of her the same way that Hal is possessive of his own Emerald Girl.
So against himself, Hal let the line be drawn.
Watching Bruce drag himself to bed covered by scars made by monsters who did not extend the same kindness he bled with... it chipped away at patience that Hal already didn't have. But he made a promise; one forged from respect between heroes, and trust between lovers.
But that trust mattered little now.
Not when Hal came home from a cross-sector assignment to find Bruce on a medical cot with a giant, poisoned grapple lodged through his shoulder, piercing at his erratic heart.
Not when Dick's hands are shaking as he and Alfred unwound the circus-colored beads that locked the grapple through his skin.
Not when Damian is clutching at Cass' cape while Steph nursed his own wounds, flinching any time Bruce laughed in pain, fighting a venom that might rip his mind in half.
Not when Jason and Tim both refuse to look Hal in the eye when he landed.
"Tell me."
Everyone watched around as Hal hovered by Bruce's bedside, hearing their father laugh in his sleep as Hal's trembling hands tried and failed to land on his husband's bandaged skin.
They can't see his face. They didn't have to.
An un-talkative Hal Jordan was a dangerous Green Lantern.
Hal only looked at one of them, the one he knew would be angry and spiteful enough to allow him the liberty of finally knowing.
Jason carefully handed his helmet over to Hal. The Ring enveloped it and played its lens recording.
Joker's face appeared in a dark green glow, twisted in sick sadism.
"RUN, RUN, MY LITTLE WET BAT! DROWN WITH ME, BROTHER, LOVER O'BAT!"
They watch as Joker threw a javelin and tried to drag Bruce into the water purification plant to be medicated and drilled alive.
"DROWN IN GOTHAM'S WOMB WITH ME THAT WE SHARE! LET ONE OF US KILL EACH OTHER FOR EVERYTHING TO BE BORN ANEW!"
They watch as Joker molested Bruce, licking at his cowl, laughing at Bruce's horror and anger.
"YOU'RE NO FUN, BATS! YOU KNOW YOU WANT ONE OF US TO DIE! YOU KNOW ONE OF US HAS TO!"
They watch as Bruce dragged Joker to the surface, and have him walk away with a grin forced on his tired, bloodied face, as the clown screamed at him:
"DON'T STALL THE GAME AGAIN! YOU CAN'T ESCAPE! I CAN WAIT ANOTHER 20 YEARS, BATMAN!"
Hal doesn't move nor look away.
The kids doubted he can breathe anymore.
Then he handed back the helmet to Jason.
"Stay down," was all he said.
Cass doesn't let him leave their sphere, blocking his path before he can make any move to exit the cave.
Her eyes drill deep into his own through his mask, trying to find something familiar, comprehensible in that green facade.
It is decidedly troubling that Cass looked genuinely scared of Hal.
"The Joker of Earth from Planet 2814 will be arrested and taken to Oa for trial as a threat to its planet," Hal told her, voice on the surface of polite and proper.
Cass flinched, a whole body jolt that made everyone sit up straight.
"You're lying."
"I will take him to Oa."
"You promised him, Hal."
"I will take him to Oa."
"But-"
Hal placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
"I will take him to Oa," he repeats again, in a tone that suggested that there was an or else that no one can afford to hear tonight.
Cass swallowed thickly, before eventually stepping aside.
Hal disappeared in a quiet, blink of light.
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"The only way to stop the Joker is if I die."
"And how does one stop the Batman?"
"...remind him he's human."
Hal remembered that old conversation with Bruce, on some odd night in their marriage bed.
At the time, Hal thought Bruce refered to being human as having something to lose, given the way he kissed him slow, pressed him down on the sheets, and cradled his hand in his own.
But hearing Bruce's pained laughter and the screams of fear as the monster that feeds of his legacy of love molested him... Hal understood.
The Joker can only be stopped if Bruce dies.
The Joker can only be killed if Bruce breaks.
Hal will not have either.
So he lets his ring find the clown. In his haze of fury, he doesn't hear his name or his species or what his weak spots are.
All he understood was he's alone and he can bleed.
"Ah, well, if it isn't the beau-or-not-beau of my Gotham's beloved Batsy~!" the Joker chirped, as if Hal had not just ripped through his pathetically constructed base and left most of his circus home in splinters.
Hal hovered above him like a god, but glared at him like a husband scorned.
Because how dare this clown touch his Bruce.
How dare this clown claim a city that his Bruce has dedicated his life to.
How dare this clown breathe when Bruce has to do it through tubes.
"I must disappoint, my husband-in-law, but you're a little ways too late!" the Joker cackled, "I already had my way with Batman. Oh, what an intimate dance that had been, to be born anew with him-"
Hal doesn't give him the luxury of prattling on.
One moment, he was the Emerald Knight, armed with the most powerful weapon in the cosmos.
The next, Hal was knees deep into beating the Joker bloody, throwing him against walls and furniture just to make sure he'd feel the next time his boot met his chest or his fists crack through bones.
And the Joker was crying, or maybe he was laughing. Hal can't tell if the wet was from blood or from tears.
"No! No, don't kill me! That's no fun! You can't take this away from Batman or me! You CAN'T!"
Hal doesn't dignify him with an answer.
Not if he wants to keep Bruce's name sacred. Not if he wants to keep his promise.
He hears a violent creak and a loud-
CRUNCH.
The Joker's body falls limp to the ground...
...just as the telltale sounds of an engine cutting through the quiet of the destroyed base.
"What have you done?"
It's Duke. It has to be. If Hal was teetering into insanity, which he was, only Duke can have a small shot at surviving.
Hal turned around, summoning his ring and uniform again.
"He's alive," he told him, "Oa will have medics prepared to nurse him until his trial, where if found guilty as an individual threat to his homeplanet, he will be held behind bars for the rest of his lifespan."
A green construct enveloped the Joker's limp body, and the fog across his face suggested breathing, only barely. Duke had to look away because even Gotham vigilantes can afford to flinch at exposed bone and guts.
The boy grabbed Hal's arm before he can walk away.
"Were you going to kill him?"
He can't look at Hal's face even if he wanted to. Cass must've told him, or everyone had informed him, what a rare and terrifying creature a quiet Hal Jordan must be.
Hal wants to smile, to pat Duke's hand like he always does and tell him that he's being okay and normal and responsible about all of this.
But all that was in Hal's head was the way Bruce cried and flinched from the recording of his fight with the damn clown that insists Bruce belonged to anyone but Gotham, himself, or Hal.
"I'm taking the Joker to Oa."
"I didn't ask that."
"I'm taking the Joker to Oa."
Hal walked away, knowing that Duke was going to let him.
Bruce isn't the only one of Duke's loved ones that the clown had broken.
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The holding cells of Oa were reserved for the most dangerous criminals of the cosmos, those who are genuinely better off dead but the code of the noble Emerald Knights refused to sink so low to better.
It's why everyone is surprised that an Earthling, of all creatures, was in the smallest, tightest cell, reserved for the most heinous villains.
Though that's not why Kyle was there.
"Hal came in even after he just got back to Earth, and practically threw that one into the cell," Kilowog said, "He said something about paperwork and about not bothering the prisoner until he sorts some things down with Ganthet."
"That's not strange about Hal," Kyle said.
Wog shook his head, "Maybe not, but the prisoner is."
That's where Kyle saw... it.
Kyle had never seen the Joker before, but Jason told him plenty of it, or at least he tries to when he wakes up screaming and shaking, trying to reconcile nightmare with reality.
A clown who donned the color of sickness and sadism, with a permanent grin on his face that grew wider at the sight of the Bat and his children's misery.
Said clown was currently on the floor of the cell, more carcass than human. Even from a distance, the blooming bruises told a story of handmade violence than grand accidents.
And if it's Hal who brought him in...
"Is he breathing?"
Kilowog and the others looked at Kyle.
"Well, Mogo would've said something is the prisoner wasn't alive upon entry," Arisia supplied.
Kyle shook his head and barked at his ring to scan.
ALIAS: Joker SPECIES: Homo Sapien ORIGIN: Earth, Sector 2814 STATUS: DECEASED, 12 MINUTES AGO
Kyle was speeding off before Kilowog can ask more questions.
He finds Hal speaking in some odd hallway with Ganthet and a small congregation of other Lanterns nodding along. Kyle couldn't help but freeze at the incomprehensible glow that eminated from Hal.
The power of red and pink were fighting for control with the noble green surrounding Hal... like rage and love demanding will to decide which it would serve.
It was terrifying.
It was so very Hal.
The Lanterns and Ganthet took their turn speaking, and Hal's face began to relax.
When they dispersed, Ganthet and Hal remained. It's then that Kyle inserted himself in their sphere of relevance.
"Hal, your prisoner just died in his cell," Kyle snapped.
Hal and Ganthet's eyes widened, only barely, before they turned back to each other.
"How... unfortunate," Ganthet said.
"Seems so," Hal nodded, ducking his head down, "That's my bad. I take full responsibility for the death."
"Your ring must be taken to investigation," Ganthet continued, as if prompting Hal.
"Oh, you misunderstand, I didn't kill him as the Green Lantern, I'm afraid," Hal sighed, shrugging, "Just regular old Hal who saw a major threat and ran to it. My ring will say as much. No powers were used. I must be tried in Earth's courts for this one."
"So it must be," Ganthet sighed, patting Hal's shoulder, "You must be suspended then, according to the average time it takes for a murder investigation to occur on Earth, which is...?"
"Oh, my case? I'll be done in two weeks," Hal answered.
Kyle's face contorted in bewilderment.
He only snaps out of it when Ganthet finally left Hal to his... suspension.
"Hal."
"Hmm?"
"Hal, you killed the Joker."
"Did I?" Hal hummed, tapping his cheek in wonder, "I only remember subduing him for capture. Mogo assured me that the cell he was placed in was optimal for... storage."
"Harold."
"Oh well, it seems I must return to Earth and be tried for my crimes of mishandling a prisoner and causing death," Hal chuckled nervously, scratching his nape, "If only I can find a witness! I would have to comply with Earth's courts, since I committed the crime as a citizen of Earth without Green Lantern powers."
Kyle opened his mouth to snap again, because he knew the promises that Hal made to Bruce.
He'd been there for their wedding. He'd been his soundboard for his long frustrations with Bruce's possessiveness of his city.
But he found himself speechless when Hal pat his head...
...and squeezed at it gently.
"All you know," Hal said, smile just a tad bit too tight, "Is that I submitted a subdued Joker to Oa for imprisonment and he died because of poor holding conditions."
Kyle bit his tongue.
He wasn't talking to Green Lantern Jordan, the greatest in the corps' history, the man who mentored and raised him up, the man who was basically his older brother.
He was talking to a husband of one of Joker's victims.
He was talking to Bruce's husband.
And he knew that this particular version of Hal was not one who liked to listen.
So he can only acquiese, "All I know is that the Joker died when he was imprisoned in Oa due to poor holding conditions."
Hal smiled and ruffled his head.
"Right, see you when I finish suspension~!" he chirped, already floating away to some direction or another.
Kyle stayed there long enough for Hal's presence to dissapate, before he let out a long shiver.
"Fuck, he's crazy."
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Dick woke up from his bedside watch of Bruce abruptly.
When he got his bearings, he realized who had entered the fray.
Hal sat across from Dick, smelling more like soap than space. His face was relaxed to a soft smile as he cradled Bruce's limp hand in his, eyes squinted into a sort of joyous relief.
Truthfully, he looked nothing like he'd been three days ago. Not like a monster a beast a villain an angry god.
He was Hal again. The Hal that said "yippee" when he took off Bruce's veil in their wedding. The Hal that learned how to make latte art because the kids have asked him to.
Their Hal.
Bruce's Hal.
"Where have you been?" Dick dared to ask.
"Oa," was all Hal answered.
Because of course he knew that Duke will rat him off anyways. Because of course Hal would not be the type to be ashamed, even if it was over broken promises and prolonged absences and terrifying last memories.
Dick stared at him for a long time, trying to muster the same ability as Cass had to try and see for certain if this was really the Hal they knew.
Because the last time they'd been wrong about Hal, the universe was almost ripped in half.
So what if, what if, what if, what if...
"Hal, where's the Joker?"
Hal didn't look up from tenderly touching Bruce's battlescarred face, his smile didn't waver.
"He's in Oa."
"Alive or dead?"
"He's in Oa."
Dick knew he should ask Kyle or Duke, or Uncle John, or Guy... just anyone to be sure.
But then Bruce shuffled in his sleep, chasing Hal's warm carresses on his face, and only stilled when Hal kissed the stiched corner of his eye.
Well.
It's not like Dick didn't have an answer.
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Writing exercise as I fight my writer's block... save me.