Chapter Text
The ring didn’t fit.
It was meant for a hand just a hair slimmer than his. Just a slight difference, but one that makes it impossible for him to wear the ring. Not unless he wanted to have the ring re-fitted, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to make it impossible for it’s original owner to wear it.
Hal being a graduate of the Air Force Academy was something Bruce had known, had understood in an almost abstract fashion. It was the school for the Air Force, Martin Jordan’s alma mater, and where Hal had strived for most of his teenage years to go. People frequently made the mistake of thinking Hal was dumb, but no one dumb ever made it to one to Air Force Academy, and especially, no one dumb made it to fighter pilot.
Bruce rolls the ring between his hands. It was a heavy ring, 14k gold with a green stone, solid in a way that Hal’s Green Lantern ring wasn’t. That was an almost ephemeral ring, the duties of the ring more solid than its physicality. This was a ring of the past, of a part of Hal’s history that he rarely spoke about.
For Bruce, it had taken him years to realize just how little about Hal Jordan he knew. He knew the early tragedies, his father’s death, and his mother’s disownment. He’d known that Hal was perpetually out of a job, down on luck financially and rarely on Earth. He’d known that Hal had been an Air Force fighter pilot, that he’d made captain and had an honorable discharge, though there’d been a rumor of Hal punching out a superior officer.
But he’d realized, for all that information, he knew almost nothing in depth. What, exactly Hal had done during his military service (he’d never realized Hal had been AFSOC, or that he’d flown in Operation Deliberate Force). If Hal was still in contact with any of his old Air Force friends, or if he’d had friends in other branches (yes to both; Mara (also AFSOC) was vaguely terrifying and Marc (Army) and Tanja (Marine) almost reminded him of Ollie and Dinah). It had never occurred to him to really look. For him the most important aspect of Hal had been his present, him being a Green Lantern, and the relationships there.
When Hal had handed him this ring earlier tonight, he’d been stunned. Hal’s Academy ring was something he’d almost never worn. Something precious and private to Hal since he left the Air Force, something he never showed anyone.
And Hal had given it to him. Asked him one simple question, and given it to him.
Bruce wonders how a May wedding would be.