Chapter Text
He always got the boring jobs, and The Flash didn’t know why. What about ‘super speedster’ did people not understand?
As Barry sat next to Batman’s medical bed, watching the bat’s vitals flow slowly on the screen in the corner, he had nothing else to do but go through every interaction he had ever had with each JL member in his head, and try to figure out which hero he had pissed off to get this duty. It probably wasn’t the main JL members, and even though he had broken one of Hawkwoman’s weapons not too long ago, Barry didn’t think she took grudges this far.
Really, the person most likely to delegate this torture out to him was the man he was currently watching.
The Flash hadn’t gotten the full story, just something about Batman getting hit with a truth drug, but he didn’t think the Bat was conscious enough at the time to make any choices for himself. If he had, Barry was sure he would’ve vanished into the darkness in the creepy way he does instead of letting anyone help him.
But as it was, he was unconscious in the med bay, with Flash there to supervise.
As Barry readjusted himself in his chair for the third time that minute, he noticed a waiver in Batman’s pulse line. That meant something, right?
He moved his gaze onto the Bat’s face, and didn’t move from there until he saw a muscle twitch in his jaw.
“Hey, Batman. You waking up?” Flash said uncertainty. He hated this part, where his voice felt unnatural and he didn’t know if he was talking to himself or someone else yet.
Thankfully, the other man groaned deeply, and shifted on the bed. He did that weird thing mask-wearers do, where he brought his ungloved hand up to his forehead, felt that his mask was still there, and brought the hand back to his side, all before opening his eyes.
When Batman did open his eyes, his head moved and white lenses fixed onto the Flash in an instant.
“There you are, B. Glad to see you’re awake.” Barry was telling the truth, but as the silence after his statement stretched on, he began to feel more uneasy.
“I- I don’t know-... Flash. Report.” His voice was gravely and tired, and his tone was clipped.
Oh; that was okay. Batman was simply confused.
“You had a mission in Star City with the Green Arrow. You were going after traffickers, of some sort? Anyways, something went wrong and you got injected with a foreign substance. The mission was completed, but-”
“The substance,” Batman cut him off, “What was it?” He had inched himself bodily up the bed, and now his head was drooping down and twitching back up, like he was having difficulty staying awake.
“We had a blood sample taken and it was identified as a mix of common truth serums.”
Batman’s head continued to bob, but he moved his gaze down to himself. “Thought so. I don’t like truth serums. They make me talkative.”
That? That was cause for alarm, in Barry's book. The admission alone was evidence that what Batman was saying was true.
“I thought you had resistance to common truth serums? It says so in your medical file.” Flash jumped up out of his chair and went to the nearby computer, the one not displaying the Bat’s vital signs. While he had to wait in real-time for the damned thing to turn on, the narcotized man replies.
“I’m resistant to them one at a time . Different inhibition drugs will attack the body in different ways. If they're all active at the same time, my brain can’t compensate for them all.” Batman condescended, “I’d think that would be obvious, to a chemist like you.”
That was way out of character for Batman. Not the part where he talks down to someone, or where he gives easy-to-understand explanations unprompted, or where he drops insane deductions into conversations like it’s no big deal. It’s the part where he does it all at the same time. Usually he wouldn’t talk so much, like he said, and more alarmingly he wouldn’t show all of his personality traits at the same time like that.
What else might he accidentally share?
Barry abandons his project of finding B’s JL member-access medical file, and instead thinks up a plan to get himself out of there. There was no way that Barry was gonna allow himself to learn anything Batman wouldn’t want him to know.
“Heyy…” Flash looks back to Batman uncertainly, “How about you stop saying more than you mean to say and I go get you a glass of water? I’m sure you’re dehydrated.”
Barry is more than out the door before the Bat can start a response.
_
Barry slows out of superspeed when he gets to the cafeteria. He looks around. The tables are sparsely populated and the food station is empty. After grabbing a water bottle, he feels an emptiness in his stomach.
Well… Barry thinks to himself, I’m already here, and I can grab something for Bats too, to keep him occupied.
He fills a container with indian food, then another with just spaghetti. Perfect combination, if you asked Flash. He then grabs a stack of chocolate bars, dark chocolate of course. While balancing his mountain of food, he remembers to grab utensils and a refreshment for himself.
_
He speeds back to the pseudo-hospital room, and is glad to see the grumpy bat where he left him.
“I’m back!” Flash says cheerily, setting everything down on the computer desk.
“And you brought food.” Batman grumbles. “You know,-”
“I even got you a treat!” Flash speaks over Batman, hoping it would stop bat’s train of thought.
It does, and he looks expectantly (or maybe even hopefully?) at the Flash. Flash suddenly feels like he’s been charged with watching over a kid, or a sick or drunk friend. And that's what Batman was right now, wasn’t he? Someone who was dependent on the Flash, and needed his help.
Flash started to feel guilty for not taking this job seriously, and for running away for a bit. The fact that Batman hadn’t even gotten out of bed was a testament to how bad of shape he was in, even if he was really good at hiding it.
Barry walks over to the bed and hands the man a water bottle and half the stack of candy bars. “It’s chocolate.”
There’s a twitch at the corners of Batman’s mouth as he pulls everything into his lap. He takes off the cap to the water and drinks quickly.
Flash uses his speed to open one of his containers and sits back down in his chair to eat with the Bat. He’s taking his first bite of curry and naan when he sees the out-of-sort man move his focus onto the chocolate.
Batman opens the chocolate and he freezes, looking down at it.
“Are you okay?” Flash asks, concerned.
“No.” He answers immediately. The bat begins to breathe fast and deep.
Barry doesn’t know what changed.
“It’s just,” Batman starts, voice tight, breathing frantic, “There’s something I need to tell you. I feel like I've been misrepresenting myself to the whole league for so long…”
“Stop speaking that nonsense. You’re fine.” Barry’s scared.
“I know It’s wrong. And now’s the best time to get it off my chest…” Batman’s voice continues to become more strained, and the tension rises.
“Keep it to yourself. Please?” He doesn’t want to be the first to find out that the bat’s been a villain this whole time. It would be terrible.
“But I have to tell you…”
“You really don't.” Flash interjects one last time.
“I have to tell you…” Batman’s face crumples and he starts sobbing out tears, “I don’t Like dark chocolate! I like white chocolate! ”
What?
“I know- all of you see me as the Dark Knight!” He gets out between gasps for air, “And I know this is stupid and I know this doesn’t sound like me- and I know it’s not even real chocolate but-”
He can’t go on because of the sobs.
And Barry? Barry is shocked and relieved. Batman Isn’t a supervillain. Or, at least that wasn’t what he was trying to say. It’s not an immoral thing at all.
Batman doesn’t like dark chocolate. Which, now that Barry thinks about it, isn’t something he would expect of the man. Sure, white chocolate is universally seen as the wrong choice, but it’s not deviant. All of the tension and theatrics is just because of the drugs. Really, the whole situation is ridiculous.
While Batman continues to cry, Flash starts to laugh.
It starts as a little shudder of the body, but builds until it’s fully formed. It keeps going after that, until he’s loud and his breathing is just as messed up as B’s.
It doesn’t stop.
They both sit there for what feels like minutes, laughing and crying respectively, urging the other on with their contrary emotions. Flash laughs at the lunacy of why Batman is crying. Batman cries from the humiliation of being laughed at.
It only slows when Batman exhausts himself, and he turns over onto his side away from Barry. It’s enough for the sane part of Barry's brain, the one that says he shouldn’t be doing this, to gain control. He doesn’t quite come back to himself all the way, but it’s a close thing.
Flash slowly comes to the realization that he’s the one that needs to change the situation. He then wracks his brain for a plan, one that will solve all of the problems he’s created today.
It’s quite simple.
To execute part one, Flash jumps up out of the chair at superspeed and zooms out of the room. He grabs what he needs and zooms back in.
Batman still isn’t facing him.
Barry rounds the bed to face the miserable bat. He’s scrunched into a ball on his side and he has his arms crossed childishly. He refuses to look at Barry.
“Hey man,” Flash says awkwardly, “I’m uhh… I’m sorry for laughing at you. My brain just stopped working there for a sec.”
No movement.
“Anyways. I heard you, and so I hope this can make up for it.” Barry holds the white chocolate bar in front of Batman’s face. (He would’ve gotten more, but it was the only one he could find on the whole space station.)
This act does not see a shift in Batman’s attitude. Unbelievably though, it does get him to talk.
“You’re…like… an asshole. And also… my mental state is more compromised than I thought.” He doesn’t move his gaze away from the candy bar, but he seems to stare through it rather than at it.
“Yeah.” Barry responds lightly, “I agree with you on both of those positions.”
He drops the candy bar onto the bed and walks back to his chair. He drops into it sideways, so his legs hang over an armrest while the other digs into his back. He ignores his food that had miraculously gotten to the table during the emotional hubbub.
“This situation was not what I was expecting from today.” He thinks aloud, for both his and Batman’s benefit. “I didn’t expect to have to watch you today. I didn’t expect you to be so out of it. And you didn’t even show it in the beginning. I didn’t expect your big secret to be that you didn’t like dark chocolate. I didn’t expect you to cry over it…”
Flash sighs and watches his knees change shape while he waves his legs in the air. He doesn’t look to the side when he hears the tell of a wrapper crinkling.
“But I’m sure you had it worse. You get exposed to something in a fight. You pass out and when you wake up you’re out of it. Then you have to deal with me, and I am less than helpful about everything.”
“ Mhm, ” Batman hums deeply in agreement. He sounds like he’s still chewing when he says, “And you leave me alone twice to get food. That’s against the injury watch code, which you should know since you helped write it.”
“Yeah. I really messed up today.” Barry says it factually, like he isn’t feeling all types of bad about it now.
“You did one thing right though.”
“And what was that?” Barry asks skeptically.
“You bribed the patient into feeling better.”
Barry takes this as the sign to look back at Batman. He still had his back to him, but the chocolate bar wrapper was tossed to the end of the bed.
“So you really like white chocolate?”
“No; I love white chocolate. And I absolutely despise dark chocolate. You really ruined my day when I opened it up and saw it was the disgusting kind.”
“Well, now I know.” Barry sighed. “I’ll keep it in mind in the future. You good now?”
There was a pause before Batman answered truthfully, “Yeah. I’m good.”