Gotham was a city of isolation. Only people who lived there were really welcome, and only just barely. Outsiders were easily identifiable and, while not outright shunned, were generally disapproved of. It was fine if your were just there for business or visiting family. Tourism and moving there was a whole other situation.
Hal always marvelled at how much Batman reflected his city. He guarded it religiously from the criminals both within and outside the city, even guarding it from the heroes on the outside as well.
Studiously ignoring the aggressive car horns below, the lantern waited on the roof of the GCPD headquarters.
He was really hoping to not have to come here, but all the other major cities on the coast had been a wash. Thankfully there were enough airborne leaguers to spare to help search the other parts of the hemisphere, unfortunately they were all smart enough to avoid the section where Batman lives.
Unlike Hal.
Who drew the literal short straw.
"Let's go."
Hal's ring and uniform flickered as the spike of fear passed him. "Asshole."
He followed Batman rappelling and swinging across the city, keeping up a stream of complaints and insults in retaliation.
Everyone knew Hal could get petty and he never felt the need to discourage the idea. Sometimes a man needs to just vent and who better to annoy than Batman (at least Batman post befriending Superman and Wonder Woman).
Eventually Batman came to a stop on top of a, not so surprisingly, shitty roof of an unstable looking building. Hal tried to ignore the memories of the fucked up earthquake situation. It was like the universe needed to remind everyone that Gotham could always get worse, and good god did it. Post-earthquake Gotham plus rampant criminals plus overzealous police force minus the Dark Knight equalled a level of destruction that made every other place in the world thankful to be anywhere but there.
The Dark Knight, such a dumb name checked a device in his hand. His own ring's search feature was useless for this but of course Batman has something that can track alien power sources.
Without explaining anything to Hal he jumped off the fucking roof. Hal rushed to the edge of the building, ring ready but Batman was simply standing on a fire escape looking through a window like the creep that he was. Hal followed and was disturbed by what he saw.
It was a small bedroom with cracked walls and a single lit lamp. The only furniture in the room was a small end table, a simple dresser, and a twin bed that was clearly too big for whoever was in it. A gym bag and several textbooks and notebooks were scattered on the floor.
Hal hoped to god this guy was a college student and not the other worst case scenario in his mind.
It was no secret he didn't want a sidekick, he had his hands full with Kyle and Guy, an honest to god teenager was not on the table. The closest he'd ever planned to get was occasionally helping out with that group of hero sidekicks Batman gave the old base to. Even then he really only like Aquaman's sidekick, the other's just screamed I have teenage problems and Hal wasn't interested.
Then Batman tried to open the window and Hal had to say something.
"Jesus you're such a creep, at least knock." He came face to face with a very annoyed cowl and Hal decided to just give up and accept that his life would always be a raging dumpster fire of unwanted responsibility and babysitting. Maybe he could shove the kid over to John, he was a responsible adult. He didn't have a villain ex-girlfriend and a villain ex-something trying to kill him on a regular basis.
Batman slipped into the room and Hal tried to follow but was stopped short by a bullet to the goddamn face.
He should've picked a different straw.