Class Ring 8
The front of the Gotham Times is a really weird way to learn about your brother’s engagement, Jim muses. Especially if your brother is the one who proposed.
Hal hadn’t told him that he was going to propose to Bruce. Since Hal’s resurrection they talk more than they had in the decades before. More than they have since Hal was eighteen and thrown out. But even with how much more they talk, the fact Hal had been planning on proposing wasn’t something he’d known about. Like his brother didn’t think it was something he needed to know ahead of time.
From Hal’s perspective, that’s probably exactly what he thought. Jim knows he fucked up years ago, when instead of keeping contact with Hal he’d listened to his Mom and Jack, throwing out Hal’s letters until one day they stopped coming. According to Hal he’d stopped writing because he knew he was just wasting the postage, and at that point, he’d decided that trying to let them know about his successes in college and the military wasn’t worth it.
So Hal is probably still not used to letting him know about his successes, Jim thinks, trying to convince himself. Hal probably just thought I wouldn’t care if he did or didn’t tell me.
He flinches at the thought; putting the newspaper down, article only half read he stares into his coffee cup, hoping that somehow in the brown liquid he’d see an answer. Because the worst thing is, he did care, but he could see how Hal would think he still didn’t. How Wayne could think he resented Hal the way Jack had.
Hal had always been paradoxically Mom’s favorite and least favorite child, both roles for the same reason; he’d been the one most like Dad. In the end he’d been too like Dad, refusing to let his feet be left on the ground, even going so far as to almost follow the same path as Dad. Air Force Academy. Commissioned Officer. Fighter pilot. Test pilot at Ferris Aircrafts. Hal always seemed to be echoing Dad, even when it wasn’t intentional, and that had always made Mom hurt. Also made her love and hate Hal the most of them. Jack had resented that like crazy, feeling like Hal should only be the least favorite. Even though he and Hal had reconciled before Jim had, he suspects his oldest brother had never stopped hating Hal for being the favorite.
Wayne had accused him of something similar. That he resented Hal for being the brave brother, the strong willed one. That he’d taken the easy way out, too weak-willed to go against Mom and Jack, too much of a coward to reach out after he was in college. Jim still isn’t entirely sure Wayne is wrong. Hell, he’d been afraid to reach out to Hal even after Jack had started talking with him again. Every time he’d picked up a phone or started to write a letter he’d stop, too afraid of what Hal would say to him, too afraid of how hard it would be to rebuild their sibling relationship.
Jim sighs, scrubbing at his face. He may not be the bravest brother, but he’s been trying to do better. Trying to not let people run all over him, to be more assertive. To be there for his brother when he wasn’t in the past.
He had a phone call to Gotham to make.
