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Oliver looked up as the door to the gym slid open, nearly missing the quiet ping.
Bruce padded into the Watchtower gym in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, completely unbothered by the fact that he’d just bypassed Oliver’s private gym session.
The fucker had built the system, so Oliver couldn’t truly blame him for leaving in an override. But it was still rude.
“Private session,” Oliver called out, dropping the massage gun he’d been using on his shoulder and waving it at the other man. “I’m jerking off.”
Bruce snorted. He came to a stop in front of Oliver's bench, giving him a cursory once-over. Oliver tried not to shrink under his attention, however brief it was.
Sometimes the cowl was a good thing. It shielded Oliver from that piercing, all-knowing gaze. Even when Bruce was being kind, his eyes were always just a little too sharp.
“No, you’re not,” Bruce said, glancing up at the cameras on the ceiling. “You’ve been sitting here for the last forty minutes.”
“I could be,” Oliver insisted, hiding his discomfort with a tabloid-bright smile. “What can I help you with?”
If Bruce wanted to spar, it was going to be difficult. The half an hour he’d spent massaging his left shoulder had barely touched the pain deep in the joint. Even proceeding on the lowest setting hadn’t stopped him from gritting his teeth, an ache spreading through his shoulder and out into his chest.
Instead of answering, Bruce joined him on the bench. Oliver raised an eyebrow as the massage gun was pulled from his hand and set aside, surprised by the casual contact.
“You need to consider surgery,” Bruce said quietly, nodding at his shoulder, “The more you keep trying to push through the pain, the more scar tissue forms.”
Oliver felt blood rush to his face and looked away. Of course Bruce had known; Even when he’d taken painstaking care to use his right shoulder for grappling and fights on missions, his form was still ever so slightly off.
Not enough for a normal League member to notice -- but enough for someone else with training. Someone who’d trained countless vigilantes and could recognize a slight deviation in their form before even they did.
“You gonna bench me?” Oliver asked between clenched teeth. He stared at the gym door, cursing it silently for letting the other man inside so easily.
“No.”
“So it’s a lecture, then.”
“Only if you want one,” Bruce replied, sounding amused. “Does Dinah know?”
Oliver shook his head. His right hand found its way to his shoulder again, digging in at the aching muscles around the joint on instinct. “She’d have to take over my patrols.”
Bruce made a quiet, understanding noise. That, at least, they both had in common. A need to be elbow-deep in their city at all times, regardless of sickness or injury. Leaving Star City to someone like Dinah was only a band-aid.
All the love and respect he had for her couldn’t touch its place in his heart. Bruce was even worse about sharing, even with his own children.
“It’s from the grappling lines,” Oliver said, feeling helpless as the silence between them lingered. “I went to a doctor a few months back. They said it was from repeated over-use. Too much weight on the joint, yada yada. I've been trying to keep off it...”
He hadn’t exactly been able to tell them why he was routinely putting so much weight on his non-dominant shoulder. Or how sometimes that weight doubled or tripled, depending on who he had to carry to safety on a single grappling line.
There wasn’t a single part of him that resented those extra pounds. But now, under the scrutiny of Bruce’s too-silent understanding, he felt weak. Stupid. Careless.
He was a liability -- or close to being one, soon. It would only take one mission. One failed grappling line, trying to lift a civilian to safety, was all it would take for his entire shoulder and arm to give out. There was no way to draw a bow with one hand. He’d be down for the count and vulnerable in seconds.
“Can I do something that might help?” Bruce asked, breaking the silence.
He sounded more like a parent than a veteran vigilante. Oliver suddenly couldn’t bear to face him.
“You can pretend this didn’t happen,” Oliver said, harsher than he’d intended. “Just leave it alone, Bruce.”
“Ollie.”
Ollie.
“Fuck,” Oliver said, giving in before Bruce made it an order. “Not like you can make it worse at this point.”
Bruce rolled to his feet, offering him his hand. Oliver took it with his right, letting himself be tugged upward and toward the cooldown section of the gym mats.
He followed Bruce’s quiet directions, sitting on one of the mats as the other man knelt next to him. Bruce pulled a thin metal object from one of the shelves, rotating it in the light for Oliver’s approval.
Oliver nodded his assent, surprised that Bruce had even asked. If Bruce had wanted to electrocute him at this point, he probably would’ve agreed. That was how much his shoulder ached.
“Bring your arm across your chest,” Bruce said. “Hold onto your elbow with your right hand and keep it taut.”
Oliver did as instructed, feeling somewhat ridiculous. Bruce carefully telegraphed his approach with the metal object, laying it at the junction of his shoulder and neck.
“Deep, even breaths,” Bruce said quietly, like he was instructing one of his Robins. “This will hurt. Tap out if you need to.”
Oliver had only a moment to process that before Bruce dug the metal into his shoulder, slowly sliding it down into the meat of his shoulder and digging it into the muscle.
The noise he let out was embarrassingly loud.
It hurt. Almost worse than the actual strains themselves. But as Bruce’s hands slid down his arm, dragging the tool with, he could feel the sudden looseness in their wake. The tension seemed to drain from his shoulder, burning pain softening into the ache of bittersweet relief.
God.
“I know,” Bruce said, sounding amused as he increased the pressure at a new angle. “It’s the best kind of pain.”
Oliver turned to jelly in his hands, eyes clenched shut. Everything still hurt -- the ache in his shoulder never truly seemed to fully go away -- but now he could feel the edges of the pain deep inside the joint itself beginning to soften.
“How,” Oliver winced as Bruce’s tool dug deep into his shoulder, tugging at what felt like the inside of his shoulder itself, “the hell do you know how to do this?”
The tool slid across a particularly sensitive tendon. Oliver flinched, feeling Bruce’s other hand reach up to steady his shoulder.
“Multiple torn rotator cuffs,” Bruce said, bringing the tool back up. “Alfred got sick of trying to force me into PT and learned how to do it himself.”
Oliver swore he heard something in his shoulder pop. He cracked open an eye, peering at the side of Bruce’s face.
“And you just picked it up for funsies?” Oliver asked.
“Something like that.”
The treatment continued until Oliver could barely keep his head upright. Every cell in his left arm and shoulder seemed to ache. When Bruce gently manipulated his arm forward, Oliver barely held back the low, trembling noise he wanted to make as his shoulder rotated without catching.
He -- he hadn’t felt that in months. Years, even.
“Jesus,” Oliver whispered, overcome with sudden emotion. “Bruce, I--”
“Pay me back by going back to the doctor,” Bruce said, guiding Oliver’s left arm back down with great care. “And telling Dinah. Someone other than me should know about it in the field.”
Oliver felt the blood rush back to his face. He nodded, accepting Bruce’s help up again when it was offered.
“Thanks, man,” Oliver said, clearing his throat. “I’ll -- I’ll do that.”
Bruce never truly smiled on the Watchtower, but the thing his lips did seemed to be a somewhat genuine attempt. Sharp grey eyes stared back at him, cataloging his own expression. His level of gratitude, maybe?
“Don’t mention it.”
Oliver waited until the doors slid shut behind Bruce before collapsing back onto the mats. He let out a groan as his shoulder hit the edge of the mat, feeling every single inch of Bruce’s handiwork at once.
Don’t mention it. For some reason, he had a feeling Bruce really meant that.