"I miss you"
staggered responses to your muses death
Year One
“You’re impossible,” are the first words Bruce says when it finally registers that Hal may not be returning. He’s not at the cemetery, and he’s not at the tower, but in his Cave. The words are spoken into silence, and were anyone to have heard - they would not have registered who it was that was on his mind. “This is ridiculous, and has gone on for long enough.” He says nothing else, but resumes surveillance, his fingers absently piecing together the gadget he’d been engineering, green sparks recalling green light.
Year Five
“You were good.” And Jordan had known it. He’s staring at kryptonite, trusted from a close friend, and thinking - not of Clark, but of the idiot that had passed, what felt like yesterday. Bruce was not good with loss, had yet to say anything - had yet to visit Jordan’s grave, had yet to discuss his - death - but, the other crossed his mind more frequently than Bruce would ever admit. “You were...good.” He puts the kryptonite away, and lets his thoughts resume to the matter at hand - trying very hard not to think about how Hal’s presence would have prevented from these altercations in a way no one else’s could.
Year Ten
“You’re an idiot.” A decade has passed, and the grass is green beneath his feet, darkened by the night sky and soaking in Gotham’s rain. “You’ve always been an idiot.” An idiot, for getting himself killed, for - for not having seen all the possible ways he could have avoided being killed - all the strategies that Bruce had mapped out over the years. “You’ve always been.” There is affection in his voice, before he stepped off the grass, still green, and resumed patrol.
