"Then please hurry." Green Lantern frowned. "The fighting on our end is intense. It took two days and two nights to secure this sector, and the paperwork alone is enough to crush me..."
"Hey, man, did your brain short-circuit?" The Flash ran over and said, "Batman's right here. Just dump the paperwork on him. I guarantee he's better than any of your smart terminals."
Green Lantern had just been about to come up with an excuse to refuse. He knew Batman was unlikely to agree. In the early days of the war, Batman had used that terrifying pressure to force him to earn merit on the front lines, then return to Green Lantern Headquarters to fight for power, climb step by step through the Corps, and use his status as a war hero to attain his current position.
Back then, Green Lantern had still depended heavily on Batman. Whenever there was something he did not understand, he would ask him. Batman's answer was always, "Hal, you need to do this yourself."
Now, he had almost figured everything out, including why Batman had made him do it. Or rather, the war was not the true culprit behind his exhaustion. What kept Hal Jordan awake at night was the shame of realizing how much responsibility he should have borne, only to discover that he had never shouldered it in time.
Although there was still plenty of work he could not handle, he had no desire to push anything onto Batman anymore. If he were not genuinely too busy right now, he would even have wanted to take on extra work to ease his guilt.
Just as Green Lantern was about to rush out a refusal, Batman nodded instead. "For the foreseeable future, my focus will be on the cosmic war. Send me