Work Text:
Jon Kent is having the greatest day of his life. His best-friend-turned-boyfriend (!!!) accepted his bumbling confession, taking both hands in his and telling him that yes, he felt the same even though Jon was an incompetent idiot who still couldn’t file paperwork correctly after a decade of vigilantism. And then Damian had leaned in to kiss him and his lips had been incredibly soft and he had tasted sweet like the cherry popsicles they’d bought after patrol and Jon had thought that this was the happiest a person could ever possibly be. He hasn’t told his parents just yet but he can already picture their reactions–his mom will be proud, a small smile tucked onto her face as she warns him to be careful and his dad will probably be comatose on the floor until they manage to call Batman to revive him. It’s gonna be awesome.
Jon Kent is having the greatest day of his life until someone throws a cloth over his head, scoops him up into their arms and hollers “Don’t puke on me, kid!” before speeding across state lines. He tries to wriggle free but the darkness is disorienting and he’s also still riding the adrenaline of being newly not-single. He manages to wrangle his foot loose enough to plant a kick in his attacker’s ribcage before they come to a screeching halt and the cloth is abruptly yanked off of his face.
Standing in front of him is Dick Grayson and Wally West, dressed in civvies. The stress bleeds out of his muscles as he feels himself visibly relax.
“You owe me so many Chicken Whizzies,” Wally says, jabbing a finger at Dick’s chest. “He’s a baby! You made me kidnap a baby. That’s gotta be morally unethical, even for you.”
“Hey!” Jon protests because just ‘cause he was late to the superhero game doesn’t mean that everyone who’s two or more years older than them is omniscient. “I’m not a baby!”
Wally ignores him as Dick flashes a credit card that mostly definitely does not have his name on it.
“Done,” he says and Wally snatches it up, his hand a blur.
“My job here is finished then, see ya later!” he hollers, offering them a two-fingered salute. “And good luck, Superboy, you’re gonna need it!”
Wally is gone in a cloud of asphalt and dust and Jon is left coughing in the aftermath. Dick stares into the distance for two more seconds before shifting his attention back to him. His usually bright eyes are tinted with something manic today and Jon swallows hard.
“So, coffee?” Dick asks, arching his head towards the building in front of them. There’s a question mark at the end of his sentence but Jon’s not quite sure he has a choice.
“Sure,” he replies, wobbly, even though he’s never had coffee before and probably never will. It’s Damian’s preferred choice of poison but he manages just fine without the adrenaline rush. He’ll probably just get a lemonade or something. “Where, uh, where are we?”
“Bludhaven,” Dick says casually like it’s the next town over instead of 60 miles and 5 EZ-pass lanes over. Jon was in the middle of his free period, he’s still got AP Chem and then world history after this.
“Right,” he echoes as they pass through the doors. “We’re in Bludhaven. On a Tuesday.”
They don’t go to the counter. Dick instead corrals him into a seat by the corner, bypassing the menu entirely. So it looks like Jon’s not getting that lemonade after all.
The mood shifts without preamble as Dick’s face drops into something uncharacteristically serious. Jon starts mentally cataloguing the exits.
“It has come to my attention that you are dating my brother,” Dick says except he says it like “It has come to my attention that you are doing drugs and running an underground smuggling ring.” His voice is pinned halfway between scandalized and appalled.
“What?” Jon gasps because it’s true but it also happened less than 24 hours ago and there’s Batman-levels of surveillance and then there’s being a goddamn oracle.
“It has come to my attention that you and Damian are dating,” Dick repeats. There’s a war on his face as his mouth struggles into a half-hearted grimace, his eyes not quite in it as they continue to glare daggers at the table. “And I want to stress that I’m happy. For him, for both of you. I was a little bit shocked considering you’re both practically babies but who am I to stand in the way of love? After all, I lost my virginity at–”
“I’m happy that you’re happy,” Jon cuts in because TMI. He does not need to know about his boyfriend’s brother’s sex life, especially when it will probably feature some of the people that Jon respects most in his life. He doesn’t want to taint all his role models in one day. “Do you mind if I head back now? I’ve got–”
“I’m happy but I think that we need to establish a baseline of knowledge first. I’ve brought something along with me today,” Dick says, reaching into his bag. Jon swallows, waiting for him to produce either an escrima stick, knife or all of the above. Instead, what he pulls out is a small paperback. It’s got a cartoonish drawing of a boy and girl kissing on the front, the whole thing done in jarringly bright colors. “This is ‘Kylie’s First Kiss’.”
Jon realizes with the slow-motion that accompanies most horror films that it is a picture book for kissing. There are drawings. There are diagrams, detailing the anatomical structure of the human mouth because somehow that’s prerequisite knowledge for making out.
Dick begins reading from the first page, unprompted.
“Kylie hasn’t had her first kiss yet even though she and her boyfriend, Kyle–wow, that’s kind of egotistical–have been dating for three whole days now. Kylie really wants to have the perfect first kiss but in order to do that she needs to follow the three S’s. First, she needs to set the mood–”
“Thank you for the, um, visual aid,” Jon interrupts before they hit the second S of Kylie’s Kissing Rules. “But Damian and I already kissed.”
Dick gasps like Jon’s just punched him in the gut with super-strength. Several of the cafe’s customers turn to stare at them and Jon is acutely aware of how ‘Kylie’s First Kiss’ is still very much visible on the table in front of them. This is worse than the time he flubbed his end-of-semester English presentation in front of the whole class. This is worse than the time Marvin dumped his entire tray of chili down his back in the lunchroom. This is worse than the time Lex Luthor broke his nose in front of Damian. They should invent a whole new category of humiliation to describe the slow, agonizing pain Jon is experiencing in real-time.
“Well,” Dick says when he manages to form words again. “I guess you’re moving faster than Kylie. All the kids are doing it these days–how old are you again?”
“18,” Jon replies, pained. Dick nods solemnly.
“I remember when I was 18.” Jon’s pretty sure that he hasn’t even hit his mid-30s yet. “So young, so naive, so… unknowledgeable. Let’s talk about something else.”
All hope of the conversation ending there is dashed to pieces along the shores of Jon’s dismay. He watches in horror as Dick shoves his hand back into his bag, withdrawing a pack of DVDs this time. They look incredibly poor-made, the covers done in Comic Sans lettering and laughable CGI. Dick lines them all up in a row on the table like they’re pastries.
The first one reads RIDE THE WAVE with two shirtless surfer bros locked in an incredibly sexually-charged arm wrestle and that’s exactly where Jon stops looking before he explodes from embarrassment. He doesn’t need a mirror to know that his face is beet-red right now. How can Dick cart these around in public? How can anyone parade these around freely in public, especially Gotham’s golden boy that has twenty different cameras trained in on him at all times?
Jon rips at the napkin dispenser frantically as he tries to cover the plastic lid up. Unfortunately, the smile of the surfer is still visible through the thin paper layer and the white only makes it look like a Halloween ghost special of the porno. Not that Jon ever wanted to think about ghost sex. Ever.
“Thanks for the… films,” he says, wadding up the paper in the hopes that it’ll block the content out better. “I’ll watch these on my own time and get back to you.”
“I expect a report,” Dick says and Jon bobs his head along frantically, anything to end this conversation as fast as fucking possible and trash the pornos in the nearest dumpster. “Three pages minimum, 12 point Times New Roman, single-spaced.”
“Of course, Mr. Grayson, sir.” The honorific seems to have the opposite effect as Dick pales at the prospect of being called sir. “May I be excused now?”
“Just one more thing,” he says because Jon’s life is a never-ending joke where he’s the punchline. Dick sticks his hand once more into that damned bag and slaps a pile of condoms on the table, clear as day.
Jon bolts out of the cafe with his super speed, secret identity be damned.
Jon thinks that’s it. He accidentally lets the incident slip to Damian while on the phone–to which Damian swears vehemently (and adorably) to enact vengeance on his behalf–and gets a paragraph-long apology text from Dick that sounds like he’s being actively held at katana-point. Case closed. Jon is free.
Not. He’s at the end of patrol when someone gets the jump on him, the syringe in and out of his neck like a blade. That shouldn’t be possible given, you know, invulnerability and all, but he gets a glimpse of green as his vision swims. Ah. Kryptonite-pointed syringe then, that’ll do it.
His attacker’s got their hands hooked under his armpits as they lug his half-conscious body backwards. He manages a sluggish punch with one arm that barely connects with the person’s chestplate, his fist bouncing off Kevlar uselessly.
“Damn, kid,” his attacker huffs. “This is kinda embarrassing for you.”
The voice sounds too young to fit any of Metropolis’ Rogues and he doesn’t remember any of them being this stealthy either. Normally, it’s hard–though clearly not impossible–for goons to get the drop on him.
God, I need better situational awareness is the second-to-last thought flitting through his mind before he hits the ground. Damian is going to kill me is his last.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Jason Todd says, sitting the wrong way on a fold-up chair. His helmet’s on the ground next to him, a peeling domino mask still plastered to his face, and relief washes over Jon in waves. Thank god his father won’t have to embark on another crazy rescue mission. The last time that happened was when he was going through a rebellious stint at fifteen and he’d run away for a grand total of 18 hours before his father mobilized half the Justice League. Damian hadn’t let him live it down for weeks.
Jon tries to push himself up to a sitting position but his hand gets caught halfway, chained to the wall. The metal seems like standard-issue so he tugs, expecting the bolting to peel straight off the bricks but his wrist ends up just chafing against the cuff instead. He tugs again. And again. An ugly red mark starts to appear on his skin.
“Serum’s still in your system,” Jason supplies, watching him struggle.
“Serum?” Jon stares at him. The lighting in the warehouse is poor and he has to squint to make out the details of his face. “What serum?”
Jason looks at him like he’s sprouted a second head.
“I can’t believe the Demon Brat’s type is ‘idiot’. Has Talia heard?” At the mention of Damian’s mother, Jon pales. The Bats’ uncoordinated shovel talk would seem like a walk in the park compared to whatever hazing Talia al Ghul would put him through. He hopes she hasn’t heard. He hopes she’s incredibly busy with running her entire shadow league of assassins and doing whatever it is assassins do to notice any new changes in her son’s love life.
Obviously, Talia is a very important figure in Damian’s life and he would like to win her approval eventually. Key word: eventually. Like maybe after two years of extensive research and training, he might be ready to attempt to convince her not to impale him on the spot.
“I don’t think so. I hope not.” Jason nods along in sympathy.
“For your sake, I hope not too.”
The room lapses into silence after that, Jason staring at him hard like he’s searching for something and Jon struggles not to squirm under the attention. He tips his head around to study the rest of the room instead. It looks like a standard-enough warehouse, the room a little larger than his living room. Jon estimates that they’re somewhere in Gotham so hopefully his mom won’t freak out too much when she checks his location on FindMyFamily, probably chalking it up to another late-night patrol with Damian. God, he wishes he was on a late-night patrol with Damian instead of chained to the wall of one of Red Hood’s safehouses.
“So, uh,” Jon starts when it becomes clear that Jason isn’t going to be the one to start the conversation and Jon would like to go home before midnight. He’s got like two more levels to clear in Cheese Vikings or else Damian is gonna poke fun at him again. “You’re not going to read me ‘Kylie’s First Kiss’, right? Cause Dick already covered that so we don’t need to do it. Again.”
Jason gapes at him.
“What? Kylie’s First–oh. Dickhead’s still doing that? I told him he should update his sources, Kyle looks like he’s trying to eat her face off rather than kiss her. Be grateful you got the PG-version at least. Roy got the sequel.”
He pauses and Jon knows he’s taking the obvious bait, feels the anxiety settle in his stomach even as he steps into the trap.
“What’s the sequel?” Jason grins at him.
“Haley’s First Hook-Up.”
A shudder passes through Jon’s body as he pales in horror. The gay pornos were bad enough but a picture-book equivalent of the WikiHow page on sexual intercourse sounds awful.
“Anyways,” Jason says, clapping his hands together. “I wanted to introduce you to my good friend, Smithy.” He pauses to slap a foam head that has clearly been pilfered from Party City, or whatever the Gotham equivalent is. It’s been hot-glued onto a wooden stake that’s conveniently leaning against the wall. Jason either doesn’t seem to notice or doesn’t care, treating the prop with an off-putting solemness.
“That’s a Halloween decoration,” Jon points out. “I can see that the blood’s been painted on.”
“It’s symbolic. Blame the real Smithy for decomposing too fast.” Jon clamps his jaw shut at that, every urban legend of the Red Hood and the way he wrangled Crime Alley into submission overnight flitting through his mind.
“I only have one thing to say to you, Superboy,” Jason says and the title sounds comically small on his tongue. He lifts Smithy’s stake for emphasis, waving it around in the air and Jon feels himself fold in on himself. The mark around his wrist is red and angry now, peeling at the surface. “If you make the Demon Brat cry, I’ll give you a high-five because I thought it was impossible and then I’ll have to kill you. You’ll join Smithy in the back fertilizing Poison Ivy’s plants. Got it?”
Jon nods, paralyzed in fear.
“I need verbal confirmation.”
“Got it,” Jon squeezes out of his throat and Jason nods, satisfied.
“Okay, we should probably get you back now before your dad freaks out on me,” he says, tossing him the key. “It’s a school night after all.”
Jon’s eyes go wide at that. He hadn’t thought Red-Hood-the-law-is-meant-to-be-played-fast-and-loose had strong opinions about Metropolis’ public education system.
“You care about school?” he asks as he scrambles to his feet, dropping the open cuff. The height difference is jarring and Jon barely comes up to his shoulder. Obviously, Jason hasn’t been in school for a while, busy being legally dead and all that. “I mean, before you, uh..”
Before you died, he fills in inelegantly in his mind. Jason doesn’t seem to care though, smiling at him again only this time with an expression twice as manic.
“Kid, I was fucking awesome at school.”
Jon accidentally lets slip that he and Jason had a less-than-friendly chat when they’re on the phone talking about his AP Lit presentation. He’d scraped an A for the first time in like, ever, and he’d been excitedly prattling on about themes in the Odyssey when Damian halted him straight in his tracks.
“And Jason was so right to bring up the motif of–”
“When did you speak to Todd?”
“Uh…” Jon trails off intelligently. He’s fumbling for a lie but between the two of them Damian’s the trained assassin and he’s been able to read Jon like a book since he was ten.
“Don’t lie to me. What would your mother think?”
“Honestly, I think she’d be proud,” Jon deflects. “So about the Odyssey–”
“Jonathan.” Jon swallows hard and sends out a silent prayer for Red Hood’s soul.
“Sohemighthavekidnappedmeandheavilyimpliedthatifihurtyouhedkillme and also there was a lot of Halloween Party City decor everywhere but yeah haha! And did you know Penelope–”
The line goes dead and Jon doesn’t hear from Damian for the rest of the day. What he does get is an incredibly stilted text message from an unknown number at 2 am. (And Jon is totally not up playing the latest Halo release because it’s a school night and he would never play video games past midnight on a school night, haha!)
Unknown Number [Today at 2:03 AM]
Sorry about the mild death threats and the Halloween Party City decor. I accept the fact that you have decided to stick your dick in my little brother even though I don’t understand why anyone without a massive concussion would ever decide to do that. I am definitely not being actively threatened by said little brother with way more knives than anyone would’ve let me have at 20. Please accept this token of my apology.
Below is a QR code for two tickets to Christopher Nolan’s new Odyssey movie. Jon blinks once and then twice in disbelief but the pattern doesn’t disappear. He has no clue how the Red Hood has his number. Honestly, he didn’t even think he was the type of guy to carry a cell.
It’s Meatloaf Monday at Metropolis High, which should honestly be rebranded to Weekly Food Poisoning Day. Only transfer students and poor freshmen dared by their reckless peers touch the stuff. It’s a formless and tasteless mishmash of the kitchen’s leftover ingredients and it’s sent more than one student hurling in the direction of the nurse’s office. Jon unpacks the lunchbox he filled this morning–take that, Damian, he’s a perfectly functional adult capable of packing his own lunch–and unwraps his peanut butter jelly sandwich.
“So,” Kathy says when he’s only two bites in. The way she’s staring at him feels vaguely reminiscent of a hyena waiting to pounce. “How’s the boyfriend?”
The unfamiliarity of the word has Jon reeling. He chokes on his bread–whole-wheat because it was on the clearance aisle, apparently being the world’s most renowned superhero does not guarantee you premium produce, who would’ve thought?
“My–” he wheezes out before another cough cuts him straight off. The word boyfriend is on the tip of his tongue but the shock of it keeps it contained. He still can’t believe that Damian agreed to be his boyfriend. Damian, who is cool, calm, collected, can kill a person in twenty different ways and single-handedly better at Jon in every field except maybe social interaction.
Kathy slides him his Apple Juice box out of sympathy and he takes a swig of it, red liquid shooting up the plastic straw.
“He’s, um,” Jon says when he can breathe again. Kathy arches one eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “He’s good.”
He practically shoves his face back into his apple juice to avoid talking, taking another long sip. The straw is bright red–
Wait. Bright red? Sure, the cafeteria’s boxed apple juice is pumped full of preservatives and food coloring but even that shouldn't make it this radioactive color. Almost like it’s not of this world, almost like it’s… extraterrestrial. The dread pooling in his stomach practically feels like an old friend.
Kathy’s face shimmers in his vision.
“Jon?” she calls but her voice sounds like it’s two feet under water. Oh my god. There’s no way this is happening again. He’s a freaking superhero, there’s no way he gets pseudo-kidnapped by his boyfriend’s crazy family three times in the span of one week, right? At this point, he’ll have to hang up the S cape out of pure shame.
All he can think about as he goes hurtling towards the ground is how he’s going to face Damian, or anyone, ever again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice, implode of embarrassment on the spot.
Jon wakes up to Tim Drake dressed in a Metropolis EMT suit standing over him, shining a penlight in his eye.
“Oh good you’re awake,” he says calmly, flicking the light off and slipping it into his pocket. “I was worried I’d miss my 2 o’clock.” Yeah and Jon’s about to miss his AP Chem test because instead of being in Dr. Feuss’ basement classroom that has no windows and a cockroach infestation, he’s in–actually, where are they?
The room jolts forward and Jon comes face-to-face with a pair of bolted, metal doors. They’re in an ambulance, his limbs strapped to the plastic gurney he’s seen them load so many civilians onto after battles. Jon gives his wrist a tug and is disappointed but not surprised when it refuses to budge.
He turns to find Tim Drake staring at him. Tim Drake, who is still wearing a navy blue jumpsuit with the red EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES patch emblazoned onto his bicep. He knew that Tim dropped out of high school to pursue another career but he thought that included manning a Fortune 500 company, not doing house calls in his free time.
“I didn’t know you were an EMT, Tim,” Jon decides to open with.
“I’m not,” Tim snaps back. “Tim Drake is not an EMT but Albert Smith is.” He taps his stitched-on nametag which Jon is only now realizing says ALBERT across it in white block letters. “Albert Smith is a college student at the nearby Met U, studying to become a trauma surgeon. He spends his free time and weekends volunteering for Metropolis’ EMT services and the route he runs every Friday puts him right in the vicinity of Metropolis High, ensuring that he would be on shift for all emergency calls, including one about a student passing out from suspiciously made meatloaf.”
Jon blinks at him.
“Are you okay?”
Tim’s face falters for a split-second before he claps Jon on the shoulder.
“Are any of us really? Now, onto more important matters. It has come to my attention that for some godforsaken reason, you have chosen to date my little brother. I’m sure that Dick has already given you the Sex Ed talk, Jason probably made some vague threat while waving around a fake body or something, but I am here to introduce to you fear. Real fear.”
Jon, who has seen Tim drunk off his ass, boldly insisting to Kon that he can fly too before jumping off the top of their backyard’s playground, fights valiantly to suppress a smile.
Tim directs him to the wall, where he has somehow managed to project a 2010-themed PowerPoint presentation entitled A 29-STEP PLAN OF HOW I WILL DISMANTLE YOUR LIFE, TURN ALL THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE AGAINST YOU AND MAKE SURE YOU NEVER FLY THE S CAPE AGAIN IF YOU SO MUCH AS BREATHE WRONG ON DAMIAN.
Jon learns real fear by slide 12.
Jon [Today at 6:28 PM]
how do i develop immunity against kryptonite
Kon [Today at 6:32 PM]
oh boy it’s that time
Kon [Today at 6:32 PM]
best of luck
Jon [Today at 6:33 PM]
KON
Jon [Today at 6:33 PM]
DONT ABANDON ME
Kon [Today at 6:38 PM]
it’ll pass quickly
Kon [Today at 6:38 PM]
i hope
Jon [Today at 6:39 PM]
your boyfriend literally drugged me AT SCHOOL
Jon [Today at 6:39 PM]
i missed my AP CHEM TEST!!
Kon [Today at 6:40 PM]
honestly seems like a W in my book
Kon [Today at 6:40 PM]
also he says hes sorry :(
Kon [Today at 6:40 PM]
cant u forgive him?
Kon [Today at 6:40 PM]
doesnt he have such a forgivable face?
Jon [Today at 6:41 PM]
NO!!!!
Jon dashes into the kitchen on Tuesday evening with just the tiniest bit of his powers.
“NO SUPERSPEED IN THE HOUSE!” his mom hollers from upstairs because apparently the investigative journalism doesn’t stop when she leaves the office.
“SORRY MOM!” he calls back and opens the fridge. And then closes it again. And opens it. His dad, who currently has his face buried in his crappy Dell laptop from 2012, is thankfully oblivious.
“Hi,” Jon starts, trying to find a way to ease himself into the topic at hand. When it becomes evident there’s no easy way forward, he decides to throw caution to the wind and bulldoze straight through. “Um, do you know any way to avoid getting drugged?”
That gets his father’s attention immediately, abandoning his screen which has turned an ominous shade of bright blue.
“Drugged?” he asks, voice shifting gears easily into Superman mode. Jon can practically watch the worry etch its way onto his face in real-time. “You should be immune to most human sedatives.”
Haha, that’s what I thought too, Jon thinks bitterly.
“Well.” His father pauses to correct himself, half-smiling. “Unless it’s a Bat, of course! They’ve developed their own Kryptonite-sedative. Bruce has had to use it on me a couple of times–mind control and the likes.”
And there goes any hope of Jon making it through the next few weeks unscathed.
“What’s this about?”
Jon’s sweating buckets at that, he’s a bad liar on a good day and a really bad liar on every other one.
“Um no reason, thanks Dad, this was super helpful!” he says and zips off to his room before any further suspicion builds.
“JONATHAN SAMUEL KENT, NO POWERS IN THE HOUSE!”
Jon [Today at 10:13 PM]
i am terrified of ur family
Damian <3 [Today at 10:15 PM]
Who was it this time?
Jon [Today at 10:15 PM]
i feel like i shouldnt answer that
Damian <3 [Today at 10:15 PM]
Tell me.
Damian <3 [Today at 10:16 PM]
I will find out eventually.
Damian <3 [Today at 10:16 PM]
I am the World’s Greatest Detective.
Jon [Today at 10:18 PM]
no hate but i think your dad would beg to differ
Damian <3 [Today at 10:18 PM]
He couldn’t even figure out that Richard stole the last cookie from the kitchen jar yesterday.
Damian <3 [Today at 10:18 PM]
He is not worthy of the title.
Damian <3 [Today at 10:22 PM]
I assume it was Drake who you met today.
Damian <3 [Today at 10:22 PM]
He has been acting shifty lately.
Damian <3 [Today at 10:22 PM]
*More shifty than usual.
Damian <3 [Today at 10:23 PM]
Thankfully, I have already taken proactive measures.
Damian <3 [Today at 10:23 PM]
But I will
And then the messages abruptly stop, like a dam plopped suddenly in front of a stream. Jon blinks at his phone but the three bubbles disappear, Damian’s side of the screen suspiciously blank. He tips his head and listens–there’s Damian’s heartbeat, strong and steady at the Manor. So he hasn’t been abruptly kidnapped from his desk–or at least, he probably hasn’t, trust Damian to maintain a steady BPM while knocking the lights out of his assailants–which means that maybe he’s just busy?
Thirty minutes later, he’s gotten the heading on his AP Lit paper typed up–sue him, literary analysis is a lot harder to do without a Gothamite vigilante half-threatening, half-coaching you from the frontseat–and still no response from Damian. He’s about to call it a night when his phone buzzes and Jon’s across the room in an instant, abandoning his beaten-down Mac to leap onto his bed.
Damian <3 [Today at 10:55 PM]
Father has claimed I have lost “phone privileges” for the day due to my completely warranted aggression towards Drake.
Damian <3 [Today at 10:57 PM]
How is it my fault that he launched his motorcycle into the garage door of the Batcave?
Damian <3 [Today at 11:00 PM]
I may have switched the accelerator and brake but a worthy driver would have been able to navigate the situation.
Damian <3 [Today at 11:01 PM]
Further proof of his incompetence.
Damian <3 [Today at 11:05 PM]
Regardless, Father does not realize that the idiotic “Smart Fridge” he had installed on Friday can send text messages and
The bubbles disappear abruptly once more and Jon winces. He has a sneaking suspicion that that last message is no longer true. His phone pings again a few minutes later.
Damian <3 [Today at 11:10 PM]
Sorry about that, Jon. I’ve banned Damian’s access to the fridge for non-related food purposes. He should have his phone back by tomorrow. Thank you for your cooperation.
Jon cracks a smile at that, he can practically see Damian’s expression right now: mouth curled into an absolutely adorable pout as he’s corralled back into his room.
Oh well, he’ll have to tell Damian about Tim’s medical escapades tomorrow.
Like a naive fool, Jon thinks that the worst has come to pass. With Dick, Jason & Tim out of the way, he assumes that the brunt of the humiliation has been dished and bitterly swallowed. After all, they’re the first 3 Robins–harbringers of chaos, responsible for striking fear in the hearts of Gotham’s worst criminals. He hasn’t had as much interaction with the rest of Damian’s family but they were pretty nice to him the few times they spoke. Spoiler had offered to teach him how to pick a lock, Signal had thrown him over one shoulder and carried him back to base that time he collapsed from exhaustion after (one of) the Apokolips invasions (seriously, can’t Darkseid get the memo that Earth is off the market?) and Orphan had saved his butt from a Krolotean in his blind spot. It wouldn’t have done much damage but it still would’ve been annoying.
This is all to say that Jon’s lulled into a false sense of complacency as he walks with Kathy to World History. A complacency that is completely shattered by the sound of a radio boosted to the max.
“Jesus Christ,” Kathy says, poking her head out the window. “Is that Lil Nas X? Who the hell is playing that at 9 in the morning?”
“A crazy person,” he replies instantly.
“Is Lex Luthor here to try and sweet-talk you again? I can’t think of anyone else who’d pull up to Metropolis High in a Ferrari.”
“Yeah, I can’t think of anyone–”
Jon’s sneakers skid to a halt as realization dawns on him. He can actually think of someone rich and flashy enough to pull up to Metropolis High in a Ferrari. A couple of someones actually.
He’s out the door before Kathy can stop him, shoving his way through the crowd of confused students to reach the exit. The metal hinges creak ominously as he throws them open, like they’re heralding his doom.
It turns out that there is something worse than Dick, Jason & Tim hunting him down for sport and it’s Stephanie Brown, Duke Thomas & Cassandra Cain jam-packed into a luxury car, blasting music like they’re trying to redefine the term “noise pollution” in front of his school. They’ve got the roof pulled back despite the fact that there are rain clouds bunching up in the sky.
Jon is fairly confident that he astral-projects into another realm from sheer embarrassment. When he finally returns to Earth, he makes the slow walk of shame to the car that’s brazenly labeled DOLLAB1LLZ on the license plate. He’s pretty sure you can’t even have that many characters on it legally.
Stephanie’s wearing aviators in the passenger seat, her feet kicked up on the dash. Duke manages a sheepish wave from the driver’s spot and Cass just stares at him blankly from the backseat.
“Hi,” he manages to squeeze out, fully aware of the entire student populations’ eyes boring holes into the back of his skull.
“Get in loser, we’re going shopping,” Stephanie says, jerking her thumb.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope,” she says, popping the “p” and Jon reluctantly climbs into the backseat, tugging at the seatbelt. At least if he dies, he’ll die following proper safety precautions. His mom would be proud. “Attaboy.”
Duke guns it like the Joker is on their heels and Jon hears the wheels squeak for dear life as they shoot off the main road. He’s never smelled burning rubber before. Now, he can confidently state that it’s even worse than how the movies described.
“Don’t look so grim!” Stephanie laughs, hair whipping out behind her in the wind. A handful smacks Jon in the face and he struggles not to joke. “We’re just here to make an assessment–this is actually light work compared to what we did to Kon.”
Jon recalls with horror Kon’s disappearance for a full week shortly after he started dating Tim. His dad had nearly torn Metropolis to shreds looking for him until Kon had appeared on a stilted FaceTime call, assuring him that everything was fine and he was simply “taking a vacation”. His dad had naively been appeased but Jon Kent was no fool. Jon knew what the fear of god looked like and he saw it etched onto the pixels of his dad’s iPhone 16.
“Right.” He tries to swallow and finds his throat inexplicably dry. “An assessment. What happens if I don’t pass?”
Stephanie throws back her head and laughs even harder. Duke, at least, manages a sympathetic wince from the rearview mirror. And Cass? Cass grins at him, flashing all her teeth and draws one slow line across her own throat.
Okay. Got it, yep, message received. Don’t fail this assessment no matter what, his life literally depends on it.
“First question, who’s Gotham’s best vigilante?”
It’s over. Jon supposes it’s been a nice life. He’d been hoping to breach his 20s but honestly he should be grateful that he even got 18. Some people don’t even get that many.
“Um…” he trails off, fully aware that Cass is eyeing him like a shark that’s sniffed out blood. He’s the blood in the metaphor, dead in the water. “Robin?”
“Write down the uncertainty in his voice,” Duke supplies from the front seat because apparently no one in this car is on his side. He nearly steers them straight into the guardrail when he turns around to tell Steph this, jerking his wheel at the last minute and sending Jon flying across the backseat. Cass helpfully shoves him back into his seat.
“Hmmmmmmmm.” Steph twirls an invisible mustache as she pulls out an honest-to-god legal pad from the glovebox and a fat Red Sharpie. “Subject answered ‘Robin’. The answer ‘Spoiler’ would have gotten him an automatic pass.”
Of course it would have. Jon’s mentally kicking himself in the shin. Actually, mental-Damian is kicking him in the shin, probably yelling at him for getting in the car in the first place.
“Next question. Would you take a bullet for Damian?”
Thank god, a freebie. Maybe there is some mercy left in this world.
“Of course,” Jon replies easily. “I’m bulletproof, it’s a given. Plus, I think Damian’s thrown me in the way of a bullet before.“ Duke snorts at that and a bit of the tension bleeds out of Jon’s shoulders. He and Damian have settled into a rhythm over their years but their early missions together left much to be desired.
“Favorite thing about Damian?” Jon frowns.
“I have to pick just one?”
“Please, we don’t have all day,” Stephanie snorts although it’s 9 in the morning on a Wednesday and they’re currently doing donuts around the city.
“He’s… strong,” Jon eventually settles on because it’s always been that. Even at the tender age of 10 years old, dressed in a Superman zip-up, he could sense that there was something different about Damian. A certain resilience to the way he talked, a certain resoluteness that left no room for questions, an impressive confidence that Jon certainly lacked. “He comes from one of the darkest places I know and yet he’s the kindest person I know.”
“Damian? Kind?” Stephanie snorts incredulously but Duke elbows her in the ribs.
“Let him finish!”
“He comes from so much hurt and pain and he chooses every day to push past it and be good. It’s not an easy battle and it’s not a short one and yet Damian fights it every day. He chose to reject what the League tried to mold him into and choose good and for that, he’s the strongest person I know.” Jon smiles a little at the irony. “And I’m the one with super-strength.”
Cass, at least, seems appeased by his answer even if Stephanie mimes an over-exaggerated yawn.
“Think fast–your mom and Damian are hanging off the edge of a cliff, who do you save?”
“Both?!” Jon yelps, off-balance at the abrupt change of pace. “I have super speed!”
“Cheating,” Stephanie murmurs to herself, making another note on her pad.
“But it’s not cheating, it’s true!”
“No buts! Next question–which color is better for a bathroom?” Stephanie asks, whipping out two paint swatches. One of them is a baby blue and the other one is a peachy beige color.
What the hell is the reasoning behind this question? Maybe Jon should have paid more attention to this in his psych class.
“Um, blue?” he asks, pointing at the swatch. “I feel like blue is pretty standard for bathrooms.”
Cass smiles, smug, and Stephanie shoves them back into her bag sourly.
“I think we’ve already established that Jon has questionable taste.”
“We’re running out of gas,” Duke reports casually as the CHECK ENGINE light appears on the dash, like a sign heralding Jon’s impending doom. “Last question.”
“Intentions?” Cass asks, pointing at him.
“To marry him,” he replies instinctively. Duke gawks at him, abashed.
“Didn’t you guys start going out like last week?”
“Well, yeah, but he’s…” Jon stops, at a loss for words. “He’s Damian.”
Stephanie writes down DELUSIONAL on her legal pad in large, capital letters. Duke cuts the engine as they roll in front of a seedy-looking gas station, the pumps deserted. Well, this is it. Jon hopes they’ll hold a proper funeral for him, maybe even haul the body back to a Metropolis cemetery, and put him in a nice plot.
“Get out of the car, Jon,” Stephanie says and Jon unbuckles his seat belt, crawling out of the car slowly. Anxiety cuts away at him like a knife.
“Are you going to kill me now?” he blurts out and Stephanie whips around to face him, shocked.
“What?! No, no, you passed the assessment. I just wanted a bag of Fritos,” she says and slaps a wrinkled 20 in his palm. “Make sure it’s the original flavor too, not one of those strange limited-edition ones.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jon replies dutifully, beelining for the door.
“And remember!” Stephanie calls after him. “If you for some reason ever decide to hurt Damian, just know that Babs still has the footage from the time you thought you could fly and fell off the roof of the Daily Planet!”
The embarrassment shooting up Jon’s face leaves more of a lasting impression than any physical threat.
“I can’t believe Cain did this to me, she’s supposed to be the sane one,” Damian growls, arms folded across his chest. It’s adorable. He’s adorable. Jon would gladly go through three more rounds of hazing if it meant he got to keep him.
“It wasn’t… that bad,” Jon says, trying to laugh it off awkwardly. It was, in fact, the most embarrassing thing to happen to Jon ever, beating out the time he forgot to lower the toilet seat at the Hall of Justice and got chewed out by Wonder Woman in front of the entire League.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Damian snaps. “Just wait. The lot of them are laughing like fools now but when I–”
“Whoa, slow down D,” Jon says before he accidentally incites Batfamily: Civil War edition. “They had good intentions–I think–and look at me, I’m fine!”
“Your cape is crooked.”
“It–what?” Damian makes another disgruntled noise, reaching up to straighten the clip.
“Uncivilized farmboy can’t even get his clothes right,” he mutters but the redness of his ears gives him flat away. Jon’s grin feels like it’s about to split his face.
“Thanks, Damian, where would I be without you?”
“Dead in a ditch somewhere. Like Brown will be when I’m–”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble again,” Jon cuts him off, employing the puppy-eyes because these are dire times. He knows they’re effective, despite Damian’s insistent claims otherwise. (He caves every time.) “I wasn’t even sure your dad was gonna let you out for patrol tonight! We shouldn’t risk anything further.”
“Tt. An unnecessary concern. Even Father in his senile age recognizes that crime doesn’t sleep.” Jon frowns at that.
“Your dad’s like barely 50.”
“Tt.”
“But can we agree, no more attacking your family members at least for now? I like to text you good night before I sleep and I can’t do that if your phone’s confiscated.” There’s a crack in Damian’s facade, a foothold and Jon is more than ready to grab at it. “Pleeeeeeeeease?”
“Fine,” Damian snaps and turns, his cape swishing in the wind behind him. “Enough trivial talk, we’ve got a bank robbery on Main and 4th to stop.”
“Aye-aye,” Jon says, miming a cheeky salute and striding forwards. Damian catches him by the lapels of his cape as he passes, pulling him in for a quick kiss.
Damian has to stretch up on his toes to reach him–a sight that will never not make Jon dizzy with exhilaration. He pulls back entirely too soon, red behind his domino mask. Jon can hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears. Rao, he loves him so much.
“Wipe that idiotic expression off your face, habibi. We’ve got criminals to catch.”
When Jon gets the official notification through the Justice League’s emergency channels, he’s off like a rocket.
BATMAN
Superboy, report to the Batcave immediately. Superman has been kidnapped.
Is Darkseid back? No, that probably would have warranted a JUSTICE LEAGUE ALL-HANDS and Damian would have messaged him. Maybe Luthor again? He’s been suspiciously quiet since his last stint in jail.
Regardless, he needs to get his father back first and he can pinpoint the culprit afterwards. He changes into his suit–honestly his diploma might be in jeopardy with all these unexcused absences he’s racking up–and zips over to Gotham in the blink of an eye. Jon uses the Cave’s entrance they had installed for metas after Kon had broken the sunroof and essentially become persona non grata in Alfred’s eyes. He’s been to the Manor plenty of times but he can count on one hand the times he’s been let into the Batcave–there was, of course, that first time Damian kidnapped him and all and then there was that thing with Starro and their dads being mind-controlled and–
“Good,” Batman says, locking the computer and standing up. Jon jumps, he hadn’t even noticed him tucked into the shadowy alcove by his desk. Damian may have been the only one raised in the League of Assassins, but the whole ninja thing seems to run in the family. “You’re here.”
“Where’s my father?” Jon asks, itchy with anxiety. He’s tapping his foot hard enough against the ground that his sneaker’s actually starting to make a little dent. “Is Brainiac back? Should we call the rest of the Justice League?”
“Not yet,” Batman says, pulling up a screen on one of the Bat-devices strapped to his wrist. “Come take a look at the footage.”
Jon zips over and sees… nothing? The footage is blank, the entire screen light blue.
“I don’t–”
And that’s when Batman, Jon’s childhood hero, flips a switch and the lamps above them switch from a fluorescent yellow to a ghoulish red. Jon feels all the strength seep out of his body and the last thing he sees before he falls unconscious is Batman’s gloved fist coming straight for his face.
If Jon had a nickel for every time he woke up strapped to a chair in the Batcave, he would have two nickels–which isn’t a lot but it’s strange that it happened twice. His vision is bleary as he blinks awake, the Batcave coming to life in front of him in fits and starts.
“Good, you’re awake.” Batman says when he manages to keep one eye open for longer than five seconds. He’s standing next to a gigantic projection against the wall. “While Superman is a long-standing member of the Justice League, there are certain areas that I find him lacking in. As I have recently found out that you are… romantically interested in my son, I’ve taken matters into my own hands to explain them to you.”
He clicks the pointer in his head and a title slide that reads SAFE SEX FOR GAY MEN fills the whole screen. Jon blinks. And blinks again but the words remain. No, there’s no way this is happening right now. The past two weeks are a cakewalk compared to the levels of mortification he’s currently experiencing. They should rip out the definition of humiliation in the dictionary and just stick a snapshot of this moment in there instead. Who even gets the birds and the bees talk from your boyfriend’s dad?
Well, Batman’s got a point that his father had admittedly glazed over some of the more important details but Jon is a teenager with unrestricted access to the Internet. He filled in the gaps and whatever was missing was more than covered in his Times New Roman, 12 pt single-spaced report to Dick. There’s no need for a lecture on safe-sex practices from The Batman. This is why they say you should never meet your idols. (Or date your idols’ sons.)
Before Batman can even make it through the Table of Contents–and Rao, why is the presentation long enough to warrant a Table of Contents–Jon decides he needs to take action before his retinas are scarred permanently.
It’s a cheap shot but he takes a deep breath and then screams at the top of his lungs.
“DADDDDDDDDDD!”
Bruce’s thumb slips against the clicker at the noise, flipping to the next slide which displays a diagram of different sex positions. There are green check marks and bright red X’s next to them respectively because of course there are.
Jon’s dad comes sailing in through the ceiling of the Batcave, Alfred’s wrath be damned, shattering more than a couple of red lamps loose and real, blessed sunlight streams through the cracks.
“Jon!” he calls, rushing towards him with a strange sense of deja vu. He rips off the restraints in an instant and Jon rubs at the red marks they leave behind me. “Are you hurt? Are you okay? What’s going on?”
He turns around as he takes in the whole situation, glancing at the remains of Jon’s chair, the slide deck with helpfully diagrammed sex positions and finally Batman standing in a corner, pointer still in hand. (The clicker’s got a Bat insignia inscribed into it because of course it does.)
His dad’s face goes an otherworldly shade of purple, wagging one finger angrily in Batman’s direction.
“HOW DARE YOU TRY TO PROPOSITION MY OWN SON?!” Oh Rao, there’s a reason why his mom’s the one with the Pulitzer in the family.
“THIS IS NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!” Batman yells back, waving one arm frantically. “DICK TOLD ME DAMIAN AND JON WERE DATING!”
“THAT DOESN’T MEAN–” His dad abruptly stops talking, the gears in his head turning slowly. Jon feels dread loom above his head like the blade of a guillotine. “Wait, what?!”
And right, amidst the chaos of being kidnapped every few days and interrogated by his boyfriend’s family, he may have forgotten to give his parents his latest life update. Sue him, he’s a high school senior overloaded on credits and balancing a life-threatening part-time job since he was 10.
“Um…” Jon trails off eloquently. “Surprise?”
“JONATHAN SAMUEL KENT, YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO DATE UNTIL YOU HIT DOUBLE DIGITS AT LEAST!”
“DAD, I’M LITERALLY 18! I TURNED 18 LAST MONTH, YOU WERE AT MY PARTY!”
“WHAT?! WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?”
“Now, if we could get back on track, this is a picture of–”
“BRUCE, CAN I HAVE TEN SECONDS WITH MY SON? ALSO, CAN YOU GET THAT IMAGE OFF THE SCREEN, IT’S… embarrassing.”
“This is exactly why I made this presentation.”
Amidst all the chaos, Jon watches as a smoke bomb is thrown from the side, obscuring the whole room and someone latches a hand on his wrist and drags him backwards.
Damian, because of course it’s Damian, doesn’t let go until they’ve safely holed themselves up in his room, sliding all three deadbolts across the door.
“Damian!” Jon says, throwing his arms around him because there’s literally no one else in the world he’d like to see more. (This is always true but it’s especially true after nearly ending up in a double-lecture from their dads.) “You’re my heroooooo. How’d you know I was stuck down there?”
“Tt. Release me.” He takes no real action to loosen Jon’s grip so Jon takes it as a sign to hug him tighter. He squeezes him so tight he lifts him straight off the ground and Damian finally struggles angrily at that, landing them both in a tangled heap of limbs on the bed. “Pennyworth tipped me off. You are an idiot for falling for Father’s trap.”
Jon rolls over on the covers to face him. The bed smells like Damian, like their fancy luxury-brand detergent and Alfred’s homemade cooking and the slight tinge of metal because Damian refuses to go anywhere without five different knives strapped to his body. It’s Jon’s favorite smell in the whole wide world.
“But I’m your idiot, right?” He grins dopily at him.
Damian tips his head away but they’ve known each other too long for him to be able to hide anything. Jon knows there’s a small smile etched into the curve of his mouth, that he’s only tipped his face away to the window to hide it, although they’re both well-aware of how he feels. Jon gives the hem of his shirt a tug.
Damian finally turns to face him again, smiling softly as he reaches up to stroke his hair.
“That you are.”