Chapter Text
Barry, naturally had been the first person to notice. It had only been a few days since Hal had taken the pregnancy test. He couldn’t forget the strange blur of excitement, fear and anxiety he had felt as he sat on the bathroom floor and stared at the positive test. He’d even taken a second and third one, just to be sure, but it seemed like no amount of peeing on things was going to change anything. He was pregnant. He thought back to the last heat that he’d spent with Bruce, only a couple of weeks ago. It had felt different than the other times, special. Hal had just figured that the new, intense feelings had been due to the fact that they hadn’t had a chance to spend a heat or rut together for a while, both of them so engrossed in their own work. But now, Hal realized that it must have been the hormones in his body changing already.
He sighed as he rested against the elevator wall for a moment. Carol had somehow cajoled him into attending some business meetings for her in Central City (likely by guilting him about how often he’d been absent from work over the past few months, away on Green Lantern missions), and Hal was hating every moment of it. He couldn’t understand how Bruce managed to grin and bear through them, but then again, Bruce was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He was allowed to tell people that they were being insufferably boring and needed to shut the hell up. Hal was just a lowly test pilot and had no such luck. He could barely even focus on the damn meetings he was supposed to be attending anyway. His head was still buzzing thinking about what was going to happen now that he was pregnant. How was he going to tell Bruce? How was he going to tell the guardians? Did lanterns even get maternity leave? Hal had never seen a pregnant green lantern before, but he’d never heard about them taking time off to have children, either.
After another meeting, he bade his colleagues farewell and rushed out of the building as quickly as he could without running. The bright side of being in Central City was that he was close to Barry. Barry had promised to take him out to dinner after all his meetings, and he couldn’t be more excited.
After his last meeting, Hal all but ran out of the office building. He hurried over to meet Barry at his office, where the speedster had promptly promised Hal to take him out to one of his favourite spots in town.
“You can’t leave Central City without stopping by.” Barry had explained. “I promise you, they do the best burgers this side of town.” Hal let Barry drag him to his desired restaurant, which happened to be a greasy, filthy-looking diner.
“It looks a little rough, but the food is amazing, I promise.” Barry said as he pushed open the door. Immediately, the scents of grease and deep fried food hit Hal’s nose, causing his stomach to turn. Hal frowned. Usually, if Barry brought him to a place like this, Hal would find the greasiest item on the menu and happily chow down, but today the thought of even going anywhere near something fried made him want to throw up.
“Hey,” Barry frowned as they sat at a table. “Are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah, yeah.” Hal replied. “I uh, guess I must have eaten something funny recently, because my stomach’s acting up.”
“Okay.” Barry said cautiously before looking down at his menu. “But if you aren’t feeling well, we can totally do this at another time.”
“No, no. I’m okay, really. I promise.” Hal assured him before he looked down at the menu, trying to find the option that would be less likely to induce vomiting. After a few minutes, he hesitantly decided on a grilled chicken sandwich and a side salad. Barry cocked an eyebrow when Hal gave his order to the waitress.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Barry asked again. “I’ve never seen you order a side salad before in your life.”
“I’m fine, I promise. I’m just, uh, trying to cut down on the fried food.” Hal lied. “We all can’t have inhumane metabolisms like you.” Barry nodded and seemed to drop the subject for the moment, at least. Instead, he switched to chatting with Hal about work, Iris, and everything else in between. They continued chatting when their food arrived. Hal’s sandwich and salad, which normally he’d find depressing instead looked surprisingly appetizing compared to Barry’s triple cheeseburger, fries, and onion rings. Hal stifled a gag upon sight of all the fried food that he once loved, but now apparently could not stand the sight of.
“Are you sure you don’t want one?” Barry asked, “They’re delicious.” Barry waved an onion ring under his nose. Hal couldn’t fight the urge to gag as he was overtaken by the scents of oil and grease.
“Woah,” Barry noticed Hal’s reaction and took the onion ring away. “Sorry, bud.”
“It’s okay.” Hal smiled and speared a tomato with his fork.
“Ya know, the same thing happened to Iris’s sister when she was - wait, hold on a sec -”
Hal looked down at his salad while Barry pondered.
“Are you,” Barry dropped his voice to a whisper and leaned over the table. “Are you pregnant?” Hal chewed on his salad for a moment before he nodded carefully.
“Wait, seriously? Congratulations. Should I be congratulating you? How far along are you? Does Bruce know?” Barry whispered hurriedly. Hal sighed at the onslaught of questions.
“Yeah,” He replied. “I’m happy, I guess. It’s just been a little overwhelming lately. It’s only been a few weeks since my last heat, so I guess I’m barely a month along. And no, I haven’t told Bruce yet. I wanna tell him when the time is right.”
“You mean that you’re scared of how he’ll respond.”
“Maybe a little.” Hal replied, taking a sip of his soda.
“Hal, the man has like, what, fifteen kids by now? I don’t think he’ll be too opposed to another one.” Barry reasoned, his mouth full of burger.
“I know, I know.” Hal said, “But I can’t help it. It’s scary.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Barry replied. “I get it.” For the rest of their meal, Barry needled Hal with questions about his pregnancy. He asked how he was planning on telling Bruce (he didn’t know yet), what he planned on doing regarding Green Lantern missions (he didn’t know yet), how he was planning on changing his life now that he was carrying a baby (he didn’t know yet), and how he thought Bruce’s other children would react when they found out (Hal didn’t even want to think about that one yet).
~
Hal flew over to the manor after his meetings that night. It was date night, and Hal wasn’t going to say no to seeing Bruce all dressed up in one of his overpriced suits. However, when he got to the manor, he found Bruce in the cave, sitting at the batcomputer in sweats and a tee. Hal wasn’t complaining, of course, Bruce could wear a potato sack and still look incredibly sexy.
“Hey baby.” Hal approached Bruce. Bruce turned around and got up to greet Hal with a hug.
“Hi Sweetheart,” Bruce smiled, “I was thinking, I’ve been working on a case all day and I’m sure you’ve had a long day of meetings. How about instead of going out for dinner, we just order takeout and stay in for the night?”
“You know, that actually sounds perfect.” Hal replied. Snuggling with Bruce all evening sounded fantastic.
“We can even order from that fried chicken place you love so much.” Bruce usually followed a strict dietary regiment to keep his body in peak condition, which meant that he rarely ate junk food. This meant that Hal very rarely got to share a meal of deep fried, unhealthy food with him. And while normally, Hal would have jumped at the chance to chow down on a bucket of deep fried chicken from his favourite place in Gotham, right now the thought of fried and greasy meat made him gag a little.
“Hmm, can we get Thai instead?” Hal asked. Bruce raised an eyebrow.
“Hal, are you okay? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you turn down Cluck Bucket before in your life.” Bruce asked.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Hal assured him quickly. It just wasn’t the right time to have a conversation about the pregnancy yet, Hal told himself. He just needed a little more time to process it first. Then, when he was ready he was going to tell Bruce everything. “I just had a big lunch with Barry today. Thought I’d grab something light for dinner.” Bruce hummed and nodded but seemed to believe him, or at least saw no reason to pursue the issue further.
They ordered Thai food from one of Bruce’s favourite places, and Hal curled up on the couch with him as he ate Green Curry. Telling Bruce about the pregnancy could wait a while, Hal decided as he snuggled closer to Bruce, as long as it meant the he could enjoy moments like this a little longer.