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Chapter Text

Termites, one of the oldest, largest, most secure homes in all of Gotham, and it was overrun with termites of all things. Jason suggested blowing the place up with TNT. Then again, he also had an apartment to sleep at. So did Dick and Barbara, though all three refused to let anyone stay with them. So, everyone else had no choice but to temporarily relocate. The hotels were fully booked, and there was only one place they could go on such short notice.

"I'm really sorry about this, Lois," Bruce apologized for the fourth time as they dropped their bags by the door, the old wood creaking under their feet as they entered the house.

Of all the places they could have gone, the Kent's farm in Kansas was at the very bottom of most of their lists. It wasn't that the Kent's weren't nice; it was just that their house was rather small to house the five of them, even if it was just until they found something better.

She waved him off, closing the door behind them. "It's not a problem," she reassured him.

"You're sure you've got enough room?" He asked once again, making sure that they weren't just allowing them into their home to be nice. They were Midwesterners, after all, almost sickeningly friendly people. His kids had all instantly spread out around the house, going towards the television or the barn, paying almost no mind to the fact that this wasn't their home.

Lois nodded. "The guest room is all made up for you, there are blankets on the couch for Cass, Duke can take the futon in Connor's room, and Damian and Tim can room with Jon."

They had recently redecorated the boys' room, getting him a new bed and everything. But they had yet to remove the old bunk beds from his room yet, and as a result, it would be just the right number of beds and couches for everyone to sleep on.

"Thank you, again," Bruce told her, looking towards her two boys who were sitting at the table doing homework. He couldn't recall the last time he had ever seen any of his kids act so calm about math, or history, or whatever it was that they were both studying so seriously.

"Clark will be home soon," Lois added. "How do you feel about pot roast for dinner?"

"That sounds fine," he responded.

●・○・●・○・●

Later that evening, Tim shuffled into the bedroom, still freezing, even under his sweatshirt and with his fuzzy socks. "Is your house always this cold?"

Jon nodded as he got ready for bed, piling another blanket onto his bed like he always did. "Heat's too expensive out here," he replied casually. It was second nature for him to sleep in layers, under heaps of sheets.

Tim grumbled something under his breath, reaching to climb up the ladder, but Damian stopped him, mid-step as he entered the room. "I want the top bunk," he declared.

He was dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants, which wasn't out of the ordinary for him, but struck Tim as slightly odd since he could feel like goosebumps crawling up his arms even though he was dressed warmly. He could already envision Damian getting cold and stealing his blankets in the middle of the night. He couldn't wait until they could go to a hotel.

Tim scowled slightly, not angry, simply curious about why seemed to feel so strongly about it. "What difference does it make?" he asked. Damian didn't give him an answer, just climbed up the ladder, claiming the top bed as he fluffed a pillow, eliciting a small snort of amusement from Jon. "Fine," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "Take the top bunk. Doesn't matter to me."

Tim pulled the cover back, settling into the bed as best he could given how uncomfortable he was. He hated sleeping in a bed that didn't belong to him. He was almost never able to fall asleep, let alone stay asleep.

"Goodnight," Jon chirped, turning the light on.

Unsurprisingly, Damian said nothing in response. "Night," Tim told him on behalf of them both.

How the two of them had ever become friends, let alone managed to stay as such for so many years, he would never know. Tim and Damian were technically brothers, legally speaking, at least, and he still struggled to put up with him. He couldn't believe that someone, especially anyone as bright and positive as Jon would ever befriend someone like his brother.

Messing with the blankets, Tim tossed and turned for a while, the silence of an unknown room proving difficult to get used to. He had eventually found a comfortable spot and tried to stay there for as long as he could, trying everything he could think of to fall asleep. Counting sheep never worked, he always lost count. Box breathing made him light-headed, and imagining himself drifting to sleep only made him feel like he was falling.

Eventually, he started to get tired, feeling himself drift in and out of consciousness. He truly thought he was going to fall asleep, and then, there was a squeak. It was faint, but it was enough to untangle all of the progress Tim had made and render him wide awake once more. There was another squeak and the rustling of bed sheets and before he could try to figure out what it was, he saw a dark figure climbing down the ladder. Damian couldn't sleep either, it seemed.

Tim assumed he was going to steal his blankets, get a drink of water, or maybe even take a walk, the way he sometimes did when he was restless, but he didn't. No, instead, Damian quite rudely jabbed at the mound of blankets Jon was under, earning a small groan from him.

Damian hushed him quickly. "Scoot over," he whispered, reaching to move the blankets so he could get in the bed.

Jon, still lightly dazed, squinted, looking towards Tim's bed. "What about your brother?" he mumbled, nearly incoherently.

Tim squeezed his eyes shut when Damian looked his way, he knew there was no way he could see if he was awake or not in this darkness, but he still felt like it was necessary to close his eyes, just until his brother looked away.

"He's always out like a light after half an hour," he responded. "It's been thirty-five minutes."

Tim frowned as he realized Damian was right, he really did fall asleep within half an hour, at least when he was in his own bed. Here, laying in a bed he'd never slept in, he could only try. Then, another thought crossed his mind. If Damian knew it took him half an hour to fall asleep, then he had purposely waited a few minutes longer than that, just to make sure he wouldn't see or hear whatever it was that was worth waking Jon up for.

Trusting him, Jon moved over and Tim watched as the two shadows moved the blankets around, making more room. Damian crawled into the bed, laying shoulder to shoulder with Jon. His skin was warm, despite the cold temperature and his poor choice of clothing.

What is happening right now? Normally, if anyone ever so much as fell asleep on Damian's shoulder, he would threaten to cut their hand off.

Jon let his hand slip around Damian's waist, resting it underneath his shirt. "How are you always so warm?" he asked, his cold fingertips grazing his hot skin. "It's like you're immune to the cold."

Damian wasn't sure why he always ran so warm, he'd always tended to sleep with the barest amount of sheets possible, overheating if he had too many layers on him. It felt suffocating to him, and even now the piles of blankets that were weighing him down were nearly unbearable. He wouldn't have been able to stand it at all, had it not been for Jon's grip on him, dragging him away from feeling the heavy blankets and instead allowing him to focus on his touch.

"I guess I just have a sufficient reason for being feverish," Damian quipped quietly, moving closer to Jon. He hated how many layers he was wearing.

Tim's eyes widened at the comment. Was Damian really flirting with Jon right now?

"I'll say," he mumbled back.

And Jon was flirting back? Tim was partially convinced he was dreaming. After all, that was the only logical explanation for any of this.

Jon pressed a soft kiss to Damian's jaw, causing him to hum slightly, pulling him even closer until their chests were pressed together. "I missed you," Damian admitted, a rare vulnerability lacing his voice.

Jon smiled against the front of his neck. "It only took your house being eaten by termites for you to come see me," he joked, pressing another kiss to his skin.

It had been weeks since they'd last seen one another; when they weren't training or fighting, finals and college applications had taken up the majority of their free time.

He sharply inhaled. "No marks," Damian said gently, like it was a reminder that he'd given countless times before. "Not on my neck."

Tim wanted to shove his head under his pillow, or better yet, leave the room altogether. But he was worried that the slightest movement would alert them to his awareness, and he didn't want to have that happen. He was afraid of the awkwardness that would ensure. Though he wasn't sure if anything could be worse than this.

"Then where can I leave them?" Jon asked, a slight desperation in his voice as he pulled Damian into a deep kiss, holding his cheek with one hand as his other held Damian's waist.

"Not anywhere anyone can see," he responded suggestively as Jon tugged at the bottom of his shirt.

Tim had been very wrong.

Not only could it get worse, it just had. He watched in horror as Damian's shirt fell to the ground and Jon nestled his head in the crook of Damian's neck, slowly leaving a trail of kissing down his chest.

Damian shivered as Jon softly traced his scars with his cold fingertips. "Sorry," Jon mumbled, as he kissed him while dragging his hands down his sides, holding him gently.

"No, you're not," Damian whispered, knowing exactly how much liked to see him react to his touch. Either his hands or his lips, even the feeling of his breath on his skin.

"No," he confirmed, a slight arrogance in his voice. "I'm not."

Tim's thoughts raced a mile a minute as he tried to put the pieces together in his mind. Damian and Jon had known each other for a long time, they had been friends for five years, give or take, at least that's what everyone had thought. They could still be friends, he thought feebly. Friends kissed, right? He knew it was no use. A part of him had always assumed Damian had no romantic desires towards anyone at all. Clearly he was wrong because whatever was going on between them was clearly serious enough for them to have a kind of intimacy that Tim didn't even know Damian was capable of.

Damian sighed heavily in content, chuckling softly as Jon whispered something unintelligible in his ear before he went back to kissing his neck. He very gently tugged at Jon's hair, moving his lips to a place he could freely mark his skin without fear of anyone finding them.

Tim wondered how long this had been going on, how serious it was between them, who knew. No one, he guessed. Lois and Clark would never have stuck them in the same room if they had known about this. Bruce probably wouldn't have even let Damian in the house. He would have demanded he sleep in the barn with the animals. Maybe Conner knew and had kept his knowledge of it hidden, but out of their family, Tim was definitely the only one who knew. None of his siblings could ever keep something like this a secret for long.

"We should get some sleep," Damian told him, realizing how late it was getting. He knew from past experience that the Kent's ate at an unusually early hour.

"Not yet," Jon replied almost immediately, only barely removing his lips from his skin for a single moment before pressing another one to one of his fresher scars, feeling for them all in the dark, following them as if they were a map.

Damian chuckled again softly, and it was a sound so unfamiliar to Tim, having rarely heard it throughout the years. It seemed like he'd heard it more in one evening than he had, well, ever. Damian had often faked a laugh for the sake of feeling included in jokes or banter, but no one believed for a second that it was genuine. This laughter, as quiet and brief as it was, sounded like he truly meant it. It was begrudging, like he didn't want his happiness to slip out, yet it did anyway. It was pure gladness.

"Why do you insist on doing this every time?" he asked curiously. He didn't know what Jon's obsession with his scars were, he didn't really care either. He liked the feeling of his soft lips and the way his hands traced them, his fingertips calloused from all the work his father forced him to do on the farm. "They'll keep fading no matter how hard you kiss."

Every time. The word echoed in Tim's head, the pieces still not fitting quite as well as wished they would. This was clearly a frequent occurrence. One that it seemed neither had any intention of putting a stop to long term.

"Then I'll just keep leaving more," Jon responded, coming up to kiss his lips. He said it so easily, like he could imagine doing this every night for the rest of his life, never getting sick of it.

"I'm serious," he muttered after breaking away from him. He looked up at him, his eyes softening with curiosity. "Why?" he whispered.

Jon didn't respond right away, kissing him again deeply, dragging it out for as long as he could. "I love your scars," he admitted, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the small scar Damian had on his neck. "I love you too."

Jon didn't mean to confess his feelings, but the words slipped out so easily. He shouldn't have been nearly as surprised with how natural they felt to say; after all, he'd been in love for some time now, he was just waiting for the right time to say it. That time probably wasn't now, but there was no taking them back now that they had been said.

Tim was so thankful they'd stopped kissing that he barely even heard Jon's quiet confession through the silence, but once it registered in his tired mind, it stuck. He inhaled sharply, listening intently, waiting to see how Damian reacted to his words.

"You do?" Damian asked, his breath hitching at the sudden revelation.

He nodded slowly, worried he might have scared him.

Damian was quiet for a while, but after a moment he just smiled, wrapping his arms around Jon's neck, pulling him down until he collapsed on top of him, smothering him with entire weight. "I love you too," he whispered.

The two of them rolled over, still holding onto one another, and Tim sighed a breath of relief, staring at their bed for a while. The occasional whisper or laughter came from them, but eventually it subsided, and they fell asleep. Tim still couldn't sleep, but for new reasons.

●・○・●・○・●

The next morning at breakfast, nearly the entire Bat-family was exhausted, with the exception of Damian who was well-rested and bright-eyed. Tim looked even more exhausted than usual.

"Would you pass the syrup, please?" Damian asked respectfully to Clark, who gladly obliged, handing him the bottle. "Thank you." The Kents were always up early; none of them ever seemed to drag their feet to the table either. They always had cheerful expressions and wide awake attitudes. Although, Jon was yawning a little more than normal.

Tim squinted, staring at him. There wasn't a single mark on his neck. If it wasn't for what he'd unfortunately witnessed the previous night, he would have said that his brother was acting like a total suck-up, but maybe he truly just wanted to make a good impression on Jon's parents. There would be a first time for everything, he supposed.

Bruce huffed. "A please and a thank you?" he questioned in confusion. "The country air seems to be affecting you."

Tim hummed skeptically, resting his chin on his hand. "Something is affecting him," he mumbled. "That's for sure." Some of them looked at him curiously, but didn't question the comment. He looked rather tired, and they were used to his thoughts sometimes not making complete sense.

"So, how did everyone sleep?" Lois asked, bringing over a pitcher of orange juice and filling a few people's glasses.

"Pretty good," Duke said, still tired but slowly becoming more awake.

Cassandra gave her a thumbs up as she stabbed her pancakes. Conner did the same. Jon muttered something about falling asleep quickly. Tim ignored the question entirely, staring at Jon intensely.

"Very well, ma'am," Damian told her sincerely.

Bruce choked on his coffee. "Damian!" he exclaimed, as though his son had said something wrong or insulting in some way. He'd never heard him be so polite in all his life, not even in front of diplomats or politicians. "What is going on with you?"

Lois frowned in confusion, ruffling Damian's hair. "This is how he always is," she told them. "He's turning into a very respectful young man."

He somehow managed to choke a second time. "Respectful?" he repeated. "My son?"

Clark seemed equally confused, nodding in response. Conner just smirked to himself as he sipped the coffee from his mug. Tim decided that he definitely knew.

Bruce tried to compartmentalize the idea of them thinking his son was polite. Apparently, when he was at the Kents' he said please and thank you, used words like ma'am or sir, even allowed Lois to ruffle his hair without threatening her for it. It was like he was an entirely different person. "Must be the cold air," he muttered, his skin going pale as he tried to keep eating.

Tim shook his head. "Couldn't be that," he stated, staring at his brother. "It's like he's immune to the cold."

Damian's eyes shot up, widening. "What did you just say?" he asked, trying to keep his voice sound calm and rational as he convinced himself it was just coincidence.

He picked up his coffee, slowly taking another sip. "I said, 'It's like you're immune to the cold,'" Tim repeated, glancing towards Jon's embarrassed, slightly frightened eyes for just a split second, long enough that Damian could tell but not so long that anyone else caught on. He smiled coyly. "Must be something else that's affecting you. Maybe the beds are softer here, and you got a better night's sleep because of it."

Damian opened his mouth, pausing for a moment. It seemed no one else aside from Jon and Conner had any reaction to the comment. "Maybe," he mumbled feebly, swallowing the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat.

"Well, whatever it is, I'm glad to see you're up on the right side of the bed for once," Tim joked, giving him a small smile. "I could get used to this version of you."

"Really?" he asked, the weight on his chest dispersing slightly as his brother nodded, as if giving him his approval.

Bruce looked between them. "We really need to go to a hotel," he said. "The country does strange things to this family."

Chapter Text

Bruce was grateful for Lois and Clark's willingness to let them stay with them for a while, until the manor was finished being fumigated. That said, he knew upon returning home that he would never do it again. Not only was the house small and cramped, as if the air was too thin for the number of people under one roof, but the country air had an odd effect on his kids.

Mostly, Tim and Damian, who ever since returning home, had been alarming, pleasant to one another. They still didn't consider themselves brothers, by any means, but they hadn't been at each other's throat even once since leaving the farm. It was unprecedented.

"A whole week at the Kent farm, what was that like?" Dick asked Tim, sitting on his younger brother's bed while watching him review a case file at his desk.

Tim thought back the week he'd had, the discovery he'd made of his little brother's relationship, the images of the two of them kissing which he wished he could scrub clean from his brain, and the way he'd spent the rest of the week watching them sneak around together, usually at night.

"Worse than you possibly imagine," Tim responded, not yet looking up from his work even though he could feel Dick staring at him, trying to get an answer without asking a question.

"It couldn't have been all bad," he argued. "You and Damian seem to be getting along pretty well lately."

His tone was curious, but Tim ignored it. "Yeah, I guess," he mumbled. "I haven't really thought about it."

There was this odd sort of unspoken bond that had formed between Tim and Damian in recent days, and everyone, not just Bruce, saw it. They had begun to pair up on patrols, and it seemed like in some twisted way Damian trusted Tim. At least, more than he trusted the rest of the family. Tim would occasionally give him a glance that almost made it seem like he knew something no one else did and for a family of detectives, not knowing what had brought them closer, was maddening.

"C'mon, you have to realize that Damian has been nicer to you lately," Dick told him. "What's going on between you two?"

"Did you come home just to badger me about the demon-spawn?" Tim questioned sharply, hanging his arm over his chair as he finally lifted his head from his work. "I thought you were here for dinner."

He and Damian may not get along the best out of everyone in the family, but he'd never betray him by telling anyone, especially not the family gossip, about Damian and Jon. He was actually rather protective of them both. He liked to see young love flourishing.

"I can multitask," he retorted. "Seriously though, are you blackmailing him?" Tim huffed, looking away and Dick's eyes widened. "You are. You're totally blackmailing him!"

"I am not blackmailing him," Tim clarified. "He trusts me because I respect his privacy, you should try it sometime."

Truly, he now knew more about his younger brother than he had ever wanted to. Damian had threatened to kill him for saying a single word about his relationship with Jon, which he expected, but afterwards, once he realized Tim wouldn't say anything, he relaxed quite a bit. Tim would never out his little brother, no matter how much he despised him. And oddly enough, ever since Damian figured that out, he felt comfortable confiding in him from time to time.

Dick scowled, standing up. "Fine, don't tell me," he grumbled, walking away to leave.

With his hand pressed to the doorknob, about to turn it, the door opened abruptly and with an absurd amount of force, smashing Dick against the wall and pinning him behind the door. Oddly enough, it wasn't the first time he'd been trapped behind a door in this house. He forgot how heavy their solid oak doors were compared to the cheap kind most folks had.

"Tim," Damian said, his voice laced with a slight urgency. "I need a favor."

Dick thought he must have a concussion from how hard he'd slammed his head against the wall. There was no way he could have heard that correctly. Tim and Damian may have been growing closer, but certainly not close enough to ask each other for favors, right?

"Uh-" Tim frowned, raising his hand to point to the door that Dick was trapped behind, but Damian didn't notice. "I don't think-"

"I need you to lie to father for me," he interrupted, clearly in somewhat of a rush to leave.

Tim glared at him in confusion, looking at him as though he'd lost his mind. "You want me to what?"

Lying to Bruce was the fastest way to get pulled from the field. No matter how good the intentions behind the lie or how small it was, to him, a lie was a lie and if he couldn't trust someone, he couldn't work with them. At least, that's what he always said right before benching one of them after being caught in a lie.

"I have told him I have a headache and won't be having dinner with the family tonight," Damian explained. "I just need you to keep him from checking on me later."

"Keep him from-" Tim frowned for a moment before realizing what he meant. "You're sneaking out, aren't you?" he questioned, his eyes fleeting to door which was still crushing Dick. He hoped Damian had hit him hard enough to knock him out, because this would lead to a lot of questions otherwise.

Damian nodded, not even attempting to lie or hide it. "Yes, but I'll be gone for a few hours," he said hoping to convince him. He saw the perplexed look on Tim's face and reluctantly clarified. "I have a date."

"Ohhh," Tim nodded, slowly catching up. "And you want me to make sure no one finds out that you left the manor because if they knew you snuck out, they would go looking for you and find you on a date which would complicate things for obvious reasons."

Obvious reasons. Dick wondered what that meant. At least he now knew what Tim had on Damian that had helped keep him in check lately. He found it hard to believe his little brother could even have a girlfriend with the lack of interest he'd always shown, but maybe someone special had caught his eye.

Damian nodded. "Precisely," he confirmed with a small nod. "You'll help me, right?"

Tim seemed hesitant. "I don't know," he admitted. "Keeping your relationship a secret is one thing, lying to Bruce about it is another. We could both get in a lot of trouble for it."

Damian seemed rather sad about his response, though he tried not to let it show. "I'm already in trouble with him after not following protocol on patrol last night," Damian stated, not sure how another week or two of being grounded could affect him very much. "At least this way I get to see-"

"Okay!" Tim suddenly conceded before he could finish his sentence, his eyes glancing back to the door Dick was still flattened behind. "I'll cover for you."

He knew that Damian was going sneak out with or without his help, he might as well get involved. Tim may not be the most responsible person in the family, having made some very bad decisions in the past, but it was better that at least someone knew where he was going late at night, in case something happened.

Damian perked up ever so slightly. "Really?"

He nodded weakly, already regretting this. "Yeah, but I need to know where you're going, what you're doing, and how long you'll be gone."

Damian rolled his eyes, even at seventeen, everyone still treated him like a child. "We're going to the carnival downtown; I'll be back after the fireworks," he told him, hoping that would be enough information to satisfy his curiosity.

Tim thought that sounded like a reasonable date. A public one, at least, which meant they couldn't get into too much trouble. "Alright, but be careful and whatever you do, don't come back with anything that doesn't belong to you," he urged suggestively.

A couple of days ago he and the family had caught Damian wearing a flannel shirt that definitely did not belong to him and Tim had to make up a lie about them having a bet which Damian lost so he had to wear it. Knowing something about Damian that no one else knew could sometime be nice. Everyone was right, they had been closer. But he wished he could go back to being oblivious rather than needing to cover for him.

"That happened once," Damian noted defensively, still embarrassed by the entire thing.

"Once was enough," Tim quipped. If it happened again, he might let him fend for himself when it came to secret keeping. He had enough of his own to keep without collecting his little brothers, too. "Just...try not let it happen again."

"Duly noted," Damian acknowledged, as he began to leave. He turned back with a meek expression, fighting with himself for a moment to vocalize his appreciation. "Thank you," he managed to say, quickly leaving before Tim could respond.

The door shut and Dick, his head still aching from how hard he'd gotten hit, crossed his arms, glaring at Tim as though he'd finally discovered Damian's biggest secret. "Not blackmailing him, huh?" he questioned sarcastically.

Great. Now Tim had yet another problem to worry about.

"I'm not!" he exclaimed, having enough of the insinuation. "I found out by accident and I'm keeping it a secret because he doesn't want anyone to know. That includes you."

Dick frowned at how protective his voice sounded, almost like he genuinely cared. "You- you really aren't strongarming him about this?" he questioned. Tim shook his head no. "You're doing this to be nice?"

He didn't think poorly of his brother by any means, but Tim and Damian had never gotten along. Dick couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea that he was keep quiet about something this big just to be a good brother.

The way he said it made Tim roll his eyes. "I can be nice to Damian," he stated, momentarily pausing. "Sometimes."

Dick nearly scoffed, sitting back down on the bed in disbelief. "I don't believe this," he muttered, resting his chin on his hand in a huff. "Damian is dating someone?"

Tim knew it was no use to try to lie to him after everything he'd just overhead. "Yeah," he confirmed with a slight nod. "It took me by surprise too."

"Who is it?" he asked, wondering if he'd ever met the girl before.

Maybe she was one of Damian's classmates. He knew there was one girl, Maps, who he considered a friend ever since meeting her in middle school. But other than that, he wasn't aware of any other girls who he might have had an interest in.

"Sorry," Tim said, despite not being the least bit apologetic. "He kept it hidden for a reason."

"You're really not going to tell me?" Dick questioned in disbelief at how willing he was to keep this is a secret.

"Nope," he responded, waving him off. "Now, shoo, I still have work to do." He looked over his shoulder. "Oh, and don't tell anyone about this," he warned, his playful tone replaced by a serious one. "Just let it go, don't try to find out."

Dick stood to leave. "Fine," he agreed, walking out.

His brother might want to keep this a secret, but Dick was a detective and if Tim wasn't going to tell him who Damian was seeing, he'd figure it out for himself. It wouldn't be hard. After all, he already knew exactly where Damian was going to be. The carnival.

●・○・●・○・●

Damian didn't have much of a childhood until he moved to Gotham, even then, his youth wasn't spent the way most kids were. He was peculiar in the eyes of the public, and his peers. Even his siblings, who he thought had no room to judge, often viewed him in a distressed, overprotective manner. That got better over the years, but back when he was younger, the only person who seemed to truly accept his quirks was Jon.

Most people wouldn't think an alien and a former assassin could be friends, let alone more than that. But the feeling of being out of place was one they'd bonded over. No one got them the way they got each other. Their quirks weren't so out of the place around each other, noticeable yes, but never frowned upon.

Damian smiled in amusement, watching as the puck of the high striker went flying into the air when Jon hit the base with a large hammer. He had tried to control his strength, truly, but it didn't seem to matter.

Jon grimaced as the puck came flying back down, knocking the man in the head. Hard. "Sorry," he apologized meekly.

The man working the game glared at them, rubbing the top of his head and without warning Damian grabbed a stuffed animal from the man and took Jon by arm, scurrying away and getting lost in the crowd of people.

"That was even better than when you shattered the glass of the dunk tank and hit the man in the face," Damian said, adding the stuffed animal to bag of them they'd been collecting.

Jon wrinkled his nose in embarrassment. He was sure that by the end of the night, every vendor downtown would have him on some kind of carnival blacklist. "Glad I can amuse you," he grumbled, hiding a small smile at the absurdity of their evening.

There were a lot of things people could and most likely would say about their relationship, if anyone other than Conner and Tim ever discovered it, but no one could ever say they had boring dates.

Throwing away the finished bag of popcorn he'd been eating, Damian pointed to the swing carousel. "How about we take a break from the games?" he suggested, counting how many ride tickets they had left. "It might be safer for the vendors."

With an eye roll, Jon nodded, taking Damian's hand to make sure he wouldn't lose him in the crowd as they made their way across the fairgrounds filled with people. "Alright," he agreed, following his lead. "But there's no way it beats flying."

"Nothing beat's flying," Damian replied, recalling the many times Jon flew him around.

●・○・●・○・●

Dick thought about telling his family he wasn't feeling well and skipping dinner. It wasn't a lie, after all, since his head was still sore from how hard he'd gotten smacked by the door. But he decided against it, thinking there were enough fibs going around. Besides, if he didn't show up for dinner, Tim would be able to make the connection between his absence and him going to trail Damian. Staying also gave him time to brainstorm the people he thought Damian could be seeing and all the possible ways he'd use his newfound information to embarrass his little brother.

It was his job as the oldest, after all.

After dinner, he got to watch firsthand as Tim lied to Bruce about Damian's whereabouts. He did it with such ease, it made Dick wonder how long Tim had known about their little brother's secret and how many times he'd covered for him in the past.

When he got to the carnival, just a little while before midnight, it took longer than he'd anticipated to find his brother and his date. It was a big carnival filled with a sea of people and a plethora of places for them to be. Part of him thought maybe they'd left, or Damian had lied to Tim about ever being there in the first place. It wouldn't be the first time.

Then, after several minutes of searching, he finally saw Damian, not with a girl, but with his best friend, seemingly having a conversation as the swing carousel spun around and around quickly several hundred feet in the air.

It wasn't his first assumption that Jon could be the person Damian was on a date with. In fact, it wasn't even his second or third assumption. Other ideas, like him getting stood up, or being on a double date crossed his mind first. Not because he was against the idea of them dating, but because it seemed to come out of nowhere. They were friends, they always had been. Seeing the two of them hanging out wasn't odd.

Dick watched as they chatted, their banter seeming to continue, even way up in the air as they talked. When they finally came down, however, their seatbelts were unhooked, and they stood to leave, Jon stumbled, slightly dizzy from the experience. Damian immediately grabbed him by the arm, pulling him back before he could stumble down the steps.

That was when the light bulb went off in Dick's head.

Damian's grip was unyielding, and the look in his eyes showed a slight concern before he began to tease him. "I thought you were used to being in the air," he mocked, still holding Jon's arm as they walked down the steps.

Dick moved through the crowd, trying to keep up with them as they navigated through the sea of people, wandering aimlessly, it seemed. They were out of earshot, and if he got any closer, he thought they might notice him.

Jon looked over at him, his eyes glancing down to where Damian's fingers were digging into his skin. It didn't bother him. If anything, it brought him a sense of peace. "I don't spin," he retorted, his voice equally as teasing.

Damian saw the nauseous look in his eyes and stopped for a moment. "Do want to sit for a second?" he asked, motioning to a set of steps nearby that they could rest on for a bit.

Jon followed his gaze, hesitating before he shook his head. "No," he said, suddenly, a smile tugging at his lips, and he grabbed Damian's arm, pulling him into an unoccupied alley.

Dick frowned, losing sight of them within a second. He went towards where he last saw them, looking around, his eyes widening when he saw what looked like two figures hiding in the dark alley, pressed dangerously close to one another. There was a chance it wasn't them, and as slim as they were, Dick held onto that hope when he started walking towards them.

Immediately marching closer, he had to remind himself that he was only here to observe, not to interfere. But that was growing harder to do when he got close enough to finally recognize the two shapes hidden in the shadows as Damian and Jon, who were indeed making out against a wall.

Surprise didn't even begin to cover how astounded he was to finally figure out who his little brother was dating. The shock was enough to knock him over with a feather, or maybe that was the concussion still causing him some slight distortion. Either way, he ducked out of view and froze, still able to overhear their breathing, which seemed heavy despite them only kissing for a short amount of time.

Dick supposed it didn't matter how long they were kissing but how intensely. He had assumed that his little brother would be able to sense his presence with how close he was, but it seemed he was too occupied to care about his surroundings.

"And to think, I was having such a bad day," Damian quipped, wrapping his arms, around Jon's neck, pulling him closer.

"Good thing it isn't daytime anymore," Jon responded, one hand gripping his waist tightly and the other tugging at his hair opening his mouth more. "Do you have patrol later?" he mumbled against his lips, not giving him time to answer.

Damian couldn't get a word in, barely able to breathe through the sloppy make out. He shook his head, making a sound of disagreement.

He had been grounded last night after failing to follow orders and spent most of today upset about it. But suddenly, the mocking from his siblings and the speech about being disappointed his father had given him seemed to fade into the background, disappearing from his mind. There was no where else he'd rather be right now.

"Good," Jon muttered, digging his fingers into the skin on his waist. "Because we're going to be here for a while."

"Mhmm." Damian hummed against his lips in contentment, still unable to get a word in edgewise with how hard they were kissing. "Shut up," he mumbled, switching their places and pushing Jon against the wall.

"Or what?" Jon murmured just before their lips crashed against each other's again, bodies pressed firmly together.

Dick didn't know exactly what Damian's answer would be, but he was quite sure he wouldn't like it. So, feeling thoroughly whammied for the evening having had Damian deliver not one, but now two surprise blows to him in the span of a few hours, Dick left before he overheard anything else. He wasn't sure how much worse it could have gotten since they were technically in public, but he didn't want to risk it either way.

A few seconds after Dick left, they pulled apart, staring at each other for a moment before Damian burst out laughing, wheezing as he wrapped Jon in a tight hug. "That was hilarious," he declared burying his head in his neck to keep from laughing.

"I don't think he'll be following us anymore," Jon added also chuckling, just now realizing just how flushed his cheeks were by the whole ordeal.

"Good," he said, finally managing to contain his laughter. "Having Tim and Conner to worry about it is bad enough."

"Still, it would be a shame to waste the rest of our night just because of one interruption," Jon muttered, their faces still just a few inches away from one another's.

With a smile, Jon pulled him into another kiss. This one wasn't messy or rushed, it was gentle and deep, as explosive as the fireworks that had suddenly been launched into the sky, painting the night with a bright display of colors. It felt safe.

●・○・●・○・●

Back at the manor Dick slammed the door of Tim's room shut, waking him up from his peaceful slumber. "Why the hell didn't you warn me!" he exclaimed, flipping the lights on to make sure he was fully awake.

Tim groaned, squinting at the bright light as he sat up. An entertained smile tugged at his lips once he realized what was going on. "Now you know how my week at the Kent's was," he responded, unable to hide his amusement.

His eyes widened, the insinuation causing him to grimace. "Oh, God," Dick realized, putting his hand on top of his and pacing back and forth. "You shared a room with them!"

Tim nodded sleepily. "Mhm, the disgust will fade," he assured him, noticing the slight relief on his face. "Then you'll get a second wave of it in a few hours and be stuck in denial about it for a while," he added, aware that they all sometimes still considered Damian to be a kid. "But in the morning, you'll get over it and be glad you know the truth. Even if the truth is traumatizing."

As often as he wished he could go back to the days when he knew nothing about his little brother's love life, he didn't regret discovering the truth. He didn't want Damian hiding who he was from any of them and something as important as who he was in love with was worth knowing, no matter how much covering for them sometimes made Tim want to rip his hair out.

Dick ran his hands down his face, as if to rub the memories from his eyes. "Ugh, why didn't I just let it go?" he wondered, regretting his decision. He should have just gone home, the way he had planned.

"Family of detectives," Tim replied simply with a shrug, the drowsiness in his voice coming through. "We can't let things go."

"I am never going to be able to go to the carnival again," he thought in horror. "Or face Superman either," he repeated, getting riled up all over again. "Damian is dating Jon," he said out loud for the first time since spotting them together. "They're dating and making out and... Oh God."

"Glad you're taking it well," Tim quipped, observing as he kept repeating it over and over.

"You are in no position to talk!" He screeched. "You're lying to Bruce, to everyone! Including me."

"I did try to warn you," Tim reminded him.

Dick grabbed something off the nearest shelf and threw it at his brother. "You didn't try hard enough!"

As much as Tim was enjoying the disturbed expression on his brother's face, he wanted to sleep even more. So, catching the flying object being hurdled toward his head, he fell back on his pillow, shoving his head under the covers.

"Turn the lights off on your way out," he mumbled, his voice muffled by the blankets as he left his older brother to cope with his new revelation on his own, the same way he had.

Chapter Text

Damian hated the galas his father hosted and attended for a number of reasons. For starters, he despised the suffocating attire he was stuffed into, strangled by ties and shoes that pinched. Another reason was how he loathed all the mindless chit-chat he was expected to partake in, the never-ending pomp of other socialites who felt it necessary to say he was growing up to look like his father and grill him about his future education and role in his father's company.

But perhaps the worst part of all was seeing the one person who could make it all bearable, standing at the other end of the room, being unable to speak to him, let alone hold his hand or kiss his lips.

God, he hated it. Watching from a distance as Jon laughed out loud, throwing his head back at something Clark had said. He couldn't stand seeing the slightly crooked tie that hung around his neck a little too loosely, and not be capable of fixing it for him. Most of all, he hated how friendly he was getting with a diplomat's daughter that was about their age.

"Trying to decide how to cause a minor emergency to sneak out without being spotted?" Jason asked, appearing beside him out of nowhere. His tone was teasing, but he really wasn't kidding.

"Yes," Damian mumbled in response, taking a sip of his drink, which despite all the bubbles in it, was merely sparking apple cider.

He hadn't actually heard the question his brother asked, he just assumed it was some nonsense involving a scheme to escape the party. That was usually what he spent hours talking about during these functions.

"You could start a small fire in the bathroom to make the sprinklers go off, leave something beeping under a table to mimic a bomb, pretend to faint," he began to list some examples of his former experiences.

All of which, for the record, had indeed succeeded, even if there was hell to pay the next day. In his defense, he'd rather deal with an angry Bruce than a roomful of stuffy rich folks for an entire night.

Damian nodded absent-mindedly, still not listening very well, only hearing every other word. "Good ideas," he murmured.

It did sound quite appealing to see the girl flirting with his boyfriend drenched from head to toe, her makeup running, and her fancy dress ruined.

No, unfortunately that would be too far. But it was still fun to imagine.

Watching as the girl Jon was talking to squeezed his arm, Damian's breath hitched slightly, trying to keep his cool.

Why wasn't he pushing her away?

"Everything okay demon spawn?" Jason wondered; his head tilted a little. Something seemed off about him. Usually, his brother was just as bored at these ridiculous parties as he was, but for some reason he looked pretty enthralled in the event this evening.

He nodded again. "Yes," he repeated, the slight gritting of teeth not going unnoticed.

Damian saw the way Jon smiled at the girl, a familiar grin that was usually aimed at him and felt his frustration building. He wasn't just being nice; he was entertaining her delusion that she had a chance with him.

Of course, she didn't. No one did. He knew that. But it didn't make him feel any better to see Jon blush at her compliments, knowing he was the only one who should be causing his cheeks to redden. He clenched his jaw, gripping the glass a little tighter in his hand.

"Mhm," his brother hummed skeptically, not believing him in the slightest.

Jason stared at him, confused, following his line of sight and trailing it to Jon and some girl standing by the dessert bar talking, no, flirting. Definitely flirting. Even at a distance too far to hear what they were talking about; it was clear the conversation was not platonic.

Eventually, Jon excused himself, removing her hand from his arm politely and walking away, leaving the room all together. The tension in Damian's shoulders lessened as he exhaled slightly, clearly relieved and a flicker of realization crossed Jason's face.

"You like Jon," he said quietly, mostly to himself.

Damian, no longer occupied with other thoughts, snapped his head towards his brother. "What?" he exclaimed, as if it was the most preposterous idea he had ever heard. "That's absurd. I do not."

A small smirk tugged at Jason's lips, amused by the reaction. "You definitely do," he proclaimed, now certain of it. "You think he's cute."

"No, I don't," he responded defensively, his tone sharp. "He isn't."

He was. Jon had the softest blue eyes, the fluffiest hair, the goofiest grin. How could anyone not think he was good-looking?

"You like him," Jason repeated, teasing him about it, finding it funny how flustered he got by such simple words. "You want him to be your boyfriend."

"Stop that!" Damian hissed quietly, getting a little upset. The last thing he wanted was for someone, especially his father, to overhear. "He's just a friend."

A bold face lie, of course. His brother had been entirely correct. Damian was attracted to Jon, but more than that, he was completely in love with him. But only a few people knew that, and he wasn't about to willingly add anyone else to the list.

Jason put his hands up in surrender, seeing he had struck a nerve. "Okay," he backed off a little. "But Dami, if you like him, you should tell him." His voice was softer as he gave him genuine advice, having his best interests in mind.

Damian huffed. He had already told Jon months ago; it was what had led to them dating. But his brother didn't need to know that. Dick, Tim, and Kon all knew. And truly, the three of them were enough of a headache, constantly barging in when the either were over at the other's house, asking stupid questions, trying to pry information out of them.

"I have no intention telling him he is...cute," he grumbled, setting down his glass.

He found it a little difficult to say the word aloud when he wasn't out to his brother yet. Jason didn't need to know the extent of how deep his feelings for Jon ran or how many thoughts he consumed. He just needed to think it was a fleeting attraction, the kind that was going to be suppressed and forgotten about.

Jason frowned slightly, crossing his arms. "Why not?" he questioned. "Don't you want him to know how you feel?"

"I don't want to ruin anything," Damian told him, trying to convince his brother to let it go. "It would be unrequited."

"You don't know that," he argued. "You should tell him."

Damian ran his fingers under the band of the bracelet Jon had given him months ago to calm himself down. The one he wore constantly and kept hidden under the sleeves of whatever he always wore, including suits. Why wasn't Jason letting this go? He should just think it's a crush and move on.

"Fine," Damian eventually agreed bitterly, dropping his voice even quieter. "I'll go tell him, but he isn't going to like me back and we are never going to speak of this again. Got it?"

Jason crossed his fingers over his heart, in a slightly mocking gesture. "Got it," he replied.

He let out a deep breath and cast his brother one last glare before going to find Jon. Later, he would tell Jason that Jon did not reciprocate his feelings and they were going to stay friends. That, he hoped, would be enough to make him forget about the entire discussion.

Of course, he wasn't just going to find Jon. No, he was also going to give him a piece of his mind, because deep down, no matter how hard he pretended it didn't bother him, he was absolutely pissed that he'd had the gall to flirt with anyone else.

●・○・●・○・●

There were plenty of places in the manor that Jon could be found in, he knew this place as well as he knew his own home after all the time he'd spent in it. But there was only one place he would be when he sought a reprise from the restrictive, pretentious lifestyle that was his boyfriend's entire life. Damian's bedroom.

And sure enough, when Damian pushed the door open, there he was, inside the dark room, sitting on the window seat, looking out into the garden, breathing in the fresh air he got from the unlatched window he'd opened.

His head turned as he heard the door open, and he stood up. "Hey," he muttered softly. "I hope it's alright I came up here, I really needed to get away from-"

"The pretty girl you were flirting with?" Damian interjected, his voice laced with malice and hurt. "I bet that was unbearable for you."

Jon's face dropped, sensing the jealousy radiating off him. "She was just being polite," he responded, trying to reassure him it meant nothing. "We were making small talk."

He was just trying to play the part of a single guy, the way he always did when they were in public, especially when they were attending the same event.

"She was touching your arm," he reminded him, mimicking the gesture. "That's not a polite gesture, it's flirting."

Jon's eye flickered down to where Damian was touching his arm. At first it was gentle, the way the girl had been with him earlier, then a second later he gripped him harder, more possessively, angered by the fact that he'd shown attention to someone else.

He sighed, putting his hand over Damian's, dragging it off him. "My dad was watching," he explained, holding his hand tightly in a comforting manner. "He thought she seemed nice and pushed me to talk to her. I didn't know she was gonna flirt with me."

Damian's irritation eased slightly but didn't fade all the way. "You didn't have to flirt back," he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper.

It hurt more than he'd ever admit seeing someone he loved so much smile so tenderly at another person. He knew it was irrational to try to be so upset, after all, he was the one who insisted they keep their relationship a secret. But God, did it kill him inside. As stupefying as it seemed, he never wanted to see him bare his teeth like that to anyone but him.

"No," Jon agreed, softly, clearly regretting it. "I didn't."

"I don't like watching you get flustered by other people," he admitted quietly, avoiding his eyes.

He smiled softly, lifting his jaw slightly. "You're the only one who I want to be flustered by," he swore, meeting his eyes and leaning in to kiss him softly. "I'm sorry for making you jealous," he mumbled against his still lips.

Damian didn't move, their lips barely grazing each other's as he absorbed his apology. "I wasn't jealous," he lied, even though he had already confessed to it.

Of course he was jealous. How could he not be? The last thing he wanted was to witness the person he was in a relationship with flirting with someone else, smiling and laughing at her the way he should have been staring at him.

"Mhm," he hummed, smirking as he kissed him again, letting go out his hand so he could hold both sides of his face as he kissed him again. "Too bad," he murmured. "If you were, I'd have to keep apologizing."

"Alright," he admitted begrudgingly. "Maybe I was a little jealous."

Jon nodded softly, finding his admittance more enjoyable than he thought he would. It had always been a bit difficult to get him to open up about his feelings and even though he'd gotten far better at it, it was still fun trying to drag the truth out of him.

"Then let me make it up to," Jon murmured, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss as they stumbled backwards through the dark room.

Damian felt his heart thump louder and he was sure Jon felt it too, their chests pressed together through their suits. That damn tie he had on was still crooked, but Damian didn't care about fixing it anymore. He just wanted to take it off.

As his back crashed against the door with a loud thud, Damian untangled one of his hands from Jon's hair, reaching down to lock the door before he broke apart from their kiss out of breath.

He tugged at Jon's tie, pulling it over his neck, tossing it on the ground. "I hate it when you wear ties," he said, kissing his lips again.

"What's wrong with when I wear ties?" Jon asked, breathlessly as he forced the jacket off Damian's shoulders, letting it fall to the floor while unbuttoning his creaseless, white shirt he knew Alfred pressed just for tonight.

"You're...from Kansas...." Damian mumbled in between kisses, trailing them down his neck, his hands finding his belt, unbuckling it as the metal clicked, ringing out throughout the room. "I like you...in flannel."

Jon scoffed, breathing heavily as he felt Damian's hand on his skin, under his shirt. "You think I'm attractive in flannel?" he questioned, a goofy grin playing on his face as he looked at him.

God, that would make his ego so much bigger.

●・○・●・○・●

Jason's eyes lingered on the staircase for a while after Damian left, then he went back to plotting his escape. He'd set off the smoke detectors before, numerous times. There was no way he'd get away with it again. He'd sneak out of a window or walk through a door, except Bruce had been watching him all day, like always, glaring at him whenever he got too close to an exit.

He finished another glass of champagne. It was disgusting, yet it helped make the evening more bearable, so he was willing to overlook that tiny detail. Setting the empty glass down on a tray as a waiter passed by his eyes glanced back at the staircase.

How long did it take to get rejected? Maybe they were talking things through, trying to figure out how to not make things awkward after Damian revealed his feelings.

Almost immediately after he left, Jason had begun to feel guilty for insisting his little brother reveal his attraction. It was clear Jon was flirting with that girl, he probably didn't even like boys. And even if he did, what were the chances that Damian of all people were one of the boys he liked?

Approaching, Dick and Tim, he had a slight look of apprehension. They were going to be pissed at him for this.

"I think I may have made a mistake," Jason confessed, taking the Champagne out of Dick's hand and drinking it. They both looked at him curiously, clearing biting back some quips about him always making mistakes or hell, even being one. "I told Damian to tell Jon he liked him."

Tim choked on his drink, lifting his hand to wipe the corner of his mouth with sleeve. "You did what?" he asked, not sure if he heard them correctly.

When did Jason of all people find out Damian liked guys?

Jason glanced over his shoulder to gaze at the staircase again, expecting to see his little brother walk down any minute, pissed off or even in tears. Alright, not in tears. Damian didn't cry, no matter how much pain he was in, physical or emotional. Still, he would be upset, and he would take it out on him.

"I know, it was stupid. It's going to break his heart when Jon turns him down," he muttered, the flavor of champagne leaving a bad taste in his mouth. "But you should have seen the way he was looking at Jon watching him flirt with this girl."

Damian was clearly jealous, and it was actually a little troubling to see. And since Jason had always employed a take what you want attitude, he thought there was no way to know for certain wat Jon thought of Damian without the two of them having a conversation about it.

Dick raised his eyebrows. "Jon was flirting with someone?" he wondered, exchanged looks with Tim. That wasn't good. No one liked to see their partner showing attention to another person.

At least that explained how Jason knew Damian wasn't straight. Anyone who saw him staring at Jon for long enough would be able to tell. Most of their family just never paid very close attention because they had seen them as friends for so long, they never assumed they could be anything else.

For a family of detectives, Damian had flown right under their radar for quite a while.

Jason nodded. "Definitely," he remarked, recalling the way that girl touched his arm. "It's sad though," he said. "Getting rejected hurts."

What hurt even worse was getting beat up by a teenager who just got his heartbroken and wanted to take it out on the person who forced him into it.

Tim suppressed a scoff. "Yeah," he agreed, nodding.

He doubted anything Jon and Damian were doing right now hurt either of them. And God, he wished he would stop having flashbacks of seeing them making out in bed. Months had passed and he still couldn't scrub those images from his mind.

From the disturbed look on Dick's face, he could tell his brother was thinking the exact same thing. Well, sort of. In his mind, it wasn't the sight of them laying horizontally that plagued him, it was the sound of labored breathing and playful teasing that made him grimace to be reminded of it.

"What was that face?" Jason asked, picking up on Dick's slight shudder that was in response to his comment about rejection. "Do you think Jon will actually like him back?"

Tim finished the last of his champagne. "I'm out," he declared, giving Dick a knowing look as he excused himself to fetch another glass.

Jason turned, watching him escape the conversation. He glanced back at his brother who was obviously hiding something. He never was the best liar among them. Or maybe he had just known him so long he could always tell when something was amiss. Either way, there was definitely something they both knew and weren't telling him.

"Okay, what is it that I don't know?" he asked, perplexed.

Dick exhaled, trying not to think about what his little brother was probably doing away from prying eyes. "Nothing," he muttered, his shoulders deflating slightly. "You don't want to know."

"Don't want know what?" Jason pressed. He hated not knowing things. He hated even more being on the outside of a secret, especially one involving family. "Tell me," he demanded.

His brother reached to take back his champagne, his head a little fuzzy after his fourth glass. "It's not important," he muttered, finishing his drink. "Just be glad you haven't seen anyone feeling up Damian in a dark alley."

Jason grimaced in disgust and confusion, having no clue why he would say such a thing. Or why he said it in a way that made it seem like a memory and not a hypothetical.

"Why would someone-" Jason's eyes widened, his mouth dropping open as realization hit him like a bolt of lightning. "Oh. My. God."

Without another word he turned around, going straight upstairs to find his little brother.

It wasn't like Dick was outing his little brother or anything, Jason already suspected Damian's sexuality. Still, he was sure he would regret saying that later when he was sober. But in his defense, alcohol always lowered his verbal filter. He wasn't responsible for anything he said when he was under the influence.

Bruce walked over to Dick. "Where's he going?" he asked, his eyes narrowing is suspicion, assuming he was about to sneak out of another window. He'd have to start bolting them when they had galas at the house if he kept this up.

"He'll be back in a minute," Dick assured him, handing him the empty champagne flute. "I'm going to go get some cake."

●・○・●・○・●

Damian's cheeks were still slightly red as he sat on the edge of his bed and buttoned his shirt back up, watching Jon search in the dark for his discarded tie that had been tossed onto the floor earlier.

"Couldn't throw it any further, could you?" he grumbled, finally finding it by the leg of the bed, next to one of Damian's missing cufflinks which grabbed his attention as the gold caught the moonlight filtering through the open window just right.

Standing back up, he sat next to Damian, looping the tie loosely over his neck, which Jon knew would drive him up a wall. He never could stand formal attire being worn incorrectly.

"Are you ever going to learn how to tie a tie on your own?" Damian retorted.

"No," he replied without skipping a beat.

Why would he? He hardly ever came to these events and when he did, he liked having Damian help him fix his tie. Sometimes he even messed it up a little on purpose, just because he knew Damian would pull him aside to straighten it. But he'd never tell him that.

Jon reached out, taking Damian's hand, stopping him from getting to finish buttoning the last few buttons on his shirt and gently put his cufflink back on for him. The silence enveloped them for a moment as Damian watched him quietly, his green eyes still easy to see even in the darkness.

After a moment, Jon dropped his hand and Damian reached up to help him fix his tie. This is what started everything. This stupid blue tie that brought out his eyes and made it impossible for him to look away when he saw him show up tonight. He wasn't sure if this tie was a blessing or a curse.

"Fool," he murmured, tugging on the fabric to tighten it around his neck.

Jon hummed softly, a tiny smile tugging on his lips. "Mhm,"

He felt Jon's hand resting on his thigh comfortably, and glanced down at it for a moment before he kept adjusting the tie. Definitely a blessing, he thought to himself as he straightened it and gave a brief nod of satisfaction.

Damian dropped his hand, putting it on top of Jon's, squeezing it lightly. "Please don't flirt with anyone else," he whispered, his voice practically pleading. "Even if your dad pushes you towards a pretty girl."

He shook his head lightly. "I won't," he breathed softly, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. As enjoyable as seeing him jealous had proven to be, he couldn't stand the hurt in his eyes when he thought he was genuinely interested in that girl. "I swear."

Sliding his other hand up to cup his face, Damian kissed him back, slowly but deeply, still holding his hand.

Then, without warning the metal of the doorknob jingled. It was the sound of someone trying to open the door.

Jon bit Damian's lip by accident, the sound catching him by surprise, and they pulled apart quickly. There was a loud banging on the door, followed by the sound of Jason shouting through the door, telling him to open it before he broke it down. That thoroughly ruined the quiet, intimate moment.

"Shit," Damian cursed, trying to close the remaining buttons on his shirt quickly. As fast as he moved to get them buttoned, it still wasn't fast enough for someone as impatient as his brother, who continued to bang on the door with his fist.

"Open the door Dami," he hollered, rolling his wrist before he kept hitting the wood.

"What the hell is he doing?" Jon asked in a frantic, hushed voice, grabbing his jacket off the floor and putting it on, before looking in a mirror, trying to fix his hair. "Does he know?"

Damian looked up, muttering something under his breath about being given the strength not to kill his brother, then grabbed his own jacket to put it on even though the top three buttons of shirt were still undone.

"I don't know," he muttered, pissed about the interruption. At least he had the courtesy not to bother them any sooner. That would have been far worse.

Another loud banging sounded through the door, which visibly shook. "You better not be doing what I think you're doing!" Jason exclaimed.

Jon turned around quickly, his eyes wide in terror, waiting for Damian to say something, anything.

"Okay, yeah," he nodded after a moment. "He definitely knows about us."

He was by no means any calmer about the situation than Jon was, he was just doing a better job of hiding it. All his panic was internal, feeling like his heart was about to thump out of his chest. This was worse than when Tim and Dick found out. Way worse.

"He's going to kill me," Jon murmured to himself in horror, swallowing the lump in his throat.

This was how he died, being killed by Jason Todd after he fooled around with his little brother. Why couldn't he have had more restraint? He was too young to die.

Damian grabbed his hands which he was running through his hair in worry and looked him in the eyes. "Calm down," he said as he let go of his hands and adjusted the collar of Jon's shirt tenderly, taking a deep breath. "Just walk past him, it'll be fine."

Easy for him to say, he was family. Jason wouldn't kill him. He probably wouldn't even be mad at him. It was Jon he would crush under his abnormally large hands, furious that he dared to even touch Damian.

"Fine," he repeated, dumbstruck, still looking like a deer caught in the headlight. The window looked like a better way out to him, but he trusted Damian.

"You have five seconds before I break the door!" Jason told them.

Damian took another deep breath, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror and grimacing at his own appearance. Three buttons still undone, his hair messy, his lip bleeding slightly, his cheeks flushed. His own tie was a mess, but he didn't have time to fix it.

Damnit, why did Jon have to be the one of them who looked more presentable? This was humiliating for him.

He wiped the blood from his bottom lip with his thumb and before his brother had a chance to destroy his door, Damian unlocked it, opening it calmly. "Yes?" he questioned, trying to pretend everything was fine.

That would, of course, be easier if his clothes looked the same as they did when he went upstairs, or if his cheeks weren't bright red. If they weren't caught in the dark with the door locked or if the bed behind them wasn't a complete mess. Those were minor details, though.

"What the hell is going on?" Jason asked, taking in his brother's appearance, which was slightly disheveled even though he was acting like it wasn't.

He had rarely seen his cheeks so bright outside of training and he never saw him wear a tie done so messily before. He looked over his shoulder, eyeing the unmade bed behind them that Jon was slowly inching further away from.

"We were talking," Damian told him, his voice steady and unwavering as he glanced back at Jon. "Didn't you say you needed to go find your dad?" he asked, giving him an out.

Jon nodded quickly, going along with it. "Yeah, yep, mhm," he agreed. "Need to find him," he mumbled incoherently, moving past them, his shoulder grazing Damian's as he tried to squeeze past his brother while avoiding eye contact.

As he left, making his way down the corridor and heading back to the party, Jason glared at his brother, crossing his arms. "What were you two really doing?" he asked, expecting a real answer instead of some bullshit excuse.

He quickly ran his hand over his lip again, more blood pouring out of it from how hard Jon had bit it my mistake. "Talking," he repeated, sticking to his story, his shoulders stiffening. He couldn't prove otherwise.

"Right," Jason drawled out, not believing him in the slightest. "You went to tell Jon about your feelings for him, expecting him to reject you right?" he surmised. "How'd that go?" he asked, his voice laced with a sharp edge.

He found it absurd that he'd actually bought that anecdote earlier. In his defense, his brother was a decent actor. Clearly a better one than he gave him credit for, at least.

Damian looked at him for a moment, staying silent. Then he nodded. "Turns out he reciprocates them," he muttered casually, with a shrug, brushing past him.

Jason turned, staring at him in disbelief as he walked away, running his hands though his hair, trying to fix it. Damian tugged at his tie trying to straighten it as he went back to the gala, pretending as though nothing had happened.

Chapter Text

It had been a bad week. Well, really, a bad week was an understatement. A bad week was getting caught in the rain, having your car run out of gas, or failing a test. The week Damian was having wasn't just bad, it was terrible. God awful, some might say. The kind of week that made it seem like the heavens were conspiring against him.

He had been thrown off three roofs, stabbed six times, broken two of his ribs, been dangled over a vat of acid, sprayed with fear toxin, and he still took three finals. Which somehow was the worst part of the week.

Oddly enough, it all seemed irrelevant now as Damian leaned his chin on Jon's shoulder looking at the long row of ice cream flavors displayed in front of them.

Jon tried the sample on his spoon and passed it to him, noticing his grimace. "Just try it," he urged, inching the spoon closer to him.

Reluctantly, he opened his mouth, letting him spoon feed him the ice cream. Peanut butter was a disgusting choice of flavor. Why he wanted to try it, Damian wasn't sure.

"I want mint chip," he muttered quietly in the loud shop. "In a cup. Extra chocolate chips, hot fudge, and whipped cream."

It was strangely busy for a Thursday night. And yes, it was only Thursday. All the awful shit that had happened to him happened over the course of four days. How he'd make it through the next three days he didn't know. At this rate, he might not.

Jon nodded, humming in agreement with his request. "Predictable," he responded.

"As if you aren't going to get triple chocolate with rainbow sprinkles," Damian retorted, closing his eyes for a second and listening to the clamor of people in the shop, focusing on the hum of the fan. "You're just as predictable."

"Maybe," he murmured. "But at least I try new things."

"Mhm." Damian opened his eyes, pulling out his wallet, putting it in his hand. "I'll meet you outside," he told him, lifting his chin off his shoulder and wandering out of the shop.

His ribs were killing him as he sat down on the bench outside. He'd been up for over twenty-four hours, but the exact number was illuding him right now. It was under thirty, he was pretty sure. He'd broken his ribs on patrol and spent most of the night trying and failing to fall asleep because the pain killers weren't killing the pain properly, then taken his history final at eight am.

Could he have napped during the day? No. Because his family kept bothering him, asking him how he was feeling, trying to make him more comfortable, which just made him irritatable from all the interruptions.

Really, he couldn't be blamed for sneaking out to get some ice cream with his boyfriend. And yes, this time he was smart enough not to tell anyone where he was going. Not Tim or Dick and definitely not Jason.

"Mint chip, extra chocolate chips, hot fudge, and whipped cream," Jon recited handing him his ice cream as he walked out of the shop. "And I got them to throw some cocoa powder on top for both of us."

He took it before extending his hand, making a grabbing motion as if to gesture for help getting up and Jon pulled him off the bench, watching him wince slightly. "I'm fine," he promised before even letting him ask the question. "Where do you want to go?"

Jon could tell he wasn't fine. At least not in comparison to how well he could be feeling. He was half alien; he'd never had the problem of breaking one of his bones. He couldn't even begin to think about what it might feel like.

But it likely wasn't pleasant since everyone he knew who ever broke a bone, had complained about it extensively. Everyone aside from Damian, who just pushed through it even when he shouldn't.

He looked around at the busy street they were on, then motioned to one of the rooftops above them. "How about up there?" he questioned. "It's quieter. You can suffer in silence more efficiently," he joked.

Damian would have rolled his eyes or smacked him if it hadn't been so true. He nodded, taking a bite of his ice cream before looping their arms together so they didn't get separated in the crowd of people. And yeah, maybe a little bit because it was nice. But only a little. If anyone asked, he would say it was because he needed the support to stand and walk.

"I'm not climbing a ladder," Damian told him. "You're flying me up there."

"Bridal style?" Jon quipped, taking a bit of his ice cream. Chocolate, as he'd correctly predicted.

For a second, he thought about making a joke of it being practice for their wedding, but he figured that would be pushing it. He had only just gotten him to accept using the word 'boyfriend' in front of his brothers. Up until now he'd find a way to vaguely say they were seeing each other in a romantic capacity or emotionally involved in a less than platonic way.

Damian smirked at the comment "If it pleases you," he replied in a slightly teasing tone as they stepped off the curb, jaywalking through the street as a car honked at them.

●・○・●・○・●

Stephanie had been having what could quite possibly be the most boring patrol of her entire vigilante career that same night. She lived in Gotham city. It was like the city where crime never slept. Not on the weekends or holidays. Never. Except for the night. The one night she really needed to vent some of her pent-up anger, there wasn't a single decent criminal to beat up.

There were no muggings, no robberies, not even a lousy old lady being tripped by some juvenile delinquents. Nothing. She'd let Barbara go offline early since it was slow, and she doubted anything interesting was going to happen on the way back to her house for the night.

She was wrong. Something interesting did happen. Damian, who was sick, crippled, and supposed to be asleep in bed after taking a shit ton of pain medication making him drowsy, was sitting on the bench outside the ice cream shop.

At first, she thought she had been wrong. She must have been. There was no way he would sneak out-especially not when he was supposed to be on bed rest-and risk upsetting Bruce. But he did.

What's more, he was in Stephanie's part of town. Granted it wasn't all that far from the manor, but still, there were ice cream shops far closer if he was craving it. And he could have just sent Alfred to get some if he wanted it so badly. Hell, they probably had nine different flavors already in the freezer.

She was about to do something, call him on his cellphone or drop down and say hi, just to see if he would squirm when seeing her. But before she could, Jon walked out, carrying two cups of ice cream. Her eyes narrowed in confusion as she watched him help Damian up from the bench and they linked arms.

What the hell was he doing in Gotham at this hour? There was no way Clark could know about it.

Watching them begin to stroll down the street, she began desperately wishing she had a telescope so she could read their lips. And that she actually knew how to read lips. Jon motioned directly towards her, and she ducked behind the chimney of the rooftop.

What was she doing? She hadn't done anything wrong. Damian was the one who snuck out. He was the one who was using Jon as human crutch to help him get around with his broken ribs. This was ridiculous. If they saw her, so what?

She peered out from behind the chimney, but they were already gone, disappeared from the street without a trace. At least, she thought. No, they hadn't disappeared, not completely, anyway. They just relocated. To the very roof she was on.

●・○・●・○・●

Setting him down gently, Jon made sure Damian was steady on his feet before taking his ice cream back. "You know you weigh like a pound to me, right?" he questioned, shoveling another bite in his mouth as he spun around, taking in the view of the street from the rooftop. "I could carry you across the Atlantic Ocean without my arms getting sore."

Damian scoffed. "The Pacific Ocean is bigger," he responded. "You should carry me across that."

They sat down on the ledge, shoulder to shoulder, staring down at the city. It was quiet for a moment as they ate their ice cream in peace, listening to what was a remarkably calm night for a change. Which was lucky for them, because Damian probably would have hurt himself further trying to stop a criminal if one decided to show up.

"How are your ribs?" Jon asked after a bit of silence, turning to face him.

He shrugged. "Sore," he answered. "I've had worse." This wasn't enough to inhibit him from doing anything, it was just going to make him miserable for a while.

"Not something to proudly state," he quipped, brushing his fingertips over the scar that was visible on his neck. "But I'm glad you didn't cancel on me. I had a shitty week." He winced at his own words, wishing he could take them back. "Not as shitty as yours, obviously. I just mean-"

"I know," Damian interjected, nodding. "Finals suck for everyone."

Even for him. His math teacher spent the entire test time staring over his shoulder. He had always disliked Damian. He was convinced he was cheating since he got perfect grades on almost every test.

The thought that he was incredibly smart simply never occurred to him it seemed.

Another stretch of silence passed and Stephanie, who was still hiding behind the chimney, popped her head up above it to glance at them. Their backs were turned to her, thankfully, but she couldn't for the life of her figure how what she was still doing there.

Maybe she was curious about what was so important about getting ice cream that Damian would risk getting in trouble with his dad, or perhaps she liked the idea of having something to hold over his head. Although, she thought the most likely possibility was that she was delirious from the boredom of having nothing to do all night.

Even if it was just a conversation between friends, this was fascinating to her bored, meddlesome brain.

"How can you eat that stuff?" Jon wondered out loud, kicking Damian's foot as they dangled their legs off the rooftop. "It tastes like toothpaste."

He scoffed again. "It does not," he said defensively.

If he had a nickel for every time someone he knew mocked or made fun of him for liking mint chip ice cream, he would be able to afford a lifetime supply. His friends were bad enough, but his family lost their minds over it for some reason.

"Do you eat toothpaste too?" Jon joked, tilting his head. "Is that why you brush your teeth twenty times a day?"

Damian kicked him back, a little harder, though still playfully. "You're supposed to brush after every meal," he informed him. "Not all of us have alien DNA keeping us from getting cavities."

That was just one of the many things he was jealous of him for. Along with his ability to fly, function on half the sleep a human needs to have and have bullets bounce off him. That last one specifically would be incredibly useful.

He rolled his eyes. "You won't have to worry about cavities either if you get all your teeth knocked out fighting crime," he teased. "Ever think about...not?"

"Not?" He repeated, his voice incredulous. "My father is Batman," Damian reminded him. "My entire family fights crime. Why wouldn't I do the same?"

Jon let out a sigh that was less weary and more concerned. "I don't know, I was just wondering," he admitted. "Is it- do you actually want to do it?"

Damian blinked a few times, letting the ice cream in his mouth melt on his tongue to avoid answering. No one had ever asked him that before. Ever. Did he want it? Did he even enjoy it? He just sort of did it. He was taught too. Trained too. Expected too. He didn't mind it. And he did like spending time with his brothers, even if he would never admit it.

"I..." he trailed off and thought about it some more. "I do," he finally confirmed. "I do want to do it. I like it. Helping people, putting criminals in prison. I'm good at it."

Jon nodded. He never doubted that part for a minute. But sometimes it seemed more like he did it because he was told to, rather than because he wanted to. Jon had begged his dad to let him help when he was a kid, never did it cross his mind not to be like him. But Damian learned to swim in the Lazarus pit. It wasn't a choice, not then and hell, he doubted now.

He knew it, Damian knew it. Stephanie knew it too. And she had to admit this was some weirdly personal stuff to be talking about while eating ice cream. Or at all, considering the most personal conversation she had with Damian was over his favorite sword.

She had considered it a big step, since up until then he had flat out refused to speak about what made it special to him. But now, she was beginning to rethink that position. This was freaky to her, seeing him talk so openly about his feelings.

Usually, he cut off anyone who asked anything even remotely relating to his feelings. But not Jon. She knew they were close. They had been best friends since childhood. Or, whatever twisted version of friends that tried to kill each other a few times before starting to tolerate one another. Still, she had mostly assumed they talked about surface level stuff. Like whom was better as video games or which one of them could hold their breath the longest.

Okay, clearly, she didn't know what boys talked about in their spare time. But she was pretty sure it wasn't this. The weirdly tender way Jon was caressing Damian's scar was odd enough, but the fact that he was letting him do it, hell, even seeming to enjoy it was throwing her off in a way she never anticipated being thrown.

"You are good at it," Jon agreed softly, looking back down at the city, contemplating something for a moment. "Ever think about just taking a break?" he questioned softly.

He frowned in confusion. "I do," he said. "Every time I get the flu or break something I can't walk off." Breaking his ribs clearly didn't count. Even if his father disagreed.

Huffing a laugh, Jon nodding. "Uh huh, that totally counts," he muttered, shaking his head as he took another bite of ice cream. He was eating much slower. "I mean a serious break. Like a month."

"What would I do for a month if I wasn't being Robin?" Damian questioned, the confusion in his expression deepening, even as he elaborated.

Jon exhaled, dipping his head for a moment. Sometimes Damian's inherent inability to read social cues and tone indicators was a tad charming. He knew that at the very least he would never pick up on someone else trying to charm him. It had taken months of subtle hints for him to realize that Jon was flirting with him. Other times, it made him say things out loud. Questions he was frankly, a little scared to ask in case he got turned down.

"You mentioned the Pacific Ocean," Jon recalled a little hesitantly. "And I've always wanted to see Asia," he added, then paused for a second, as if in thought before finally saying: "We should go this summer."

School was almost over, after all. They were nearly done with finals, there were just a few weeks until graduation and they had all summer to spend together before college started. Surely, they could spend a few weeks traveling.

The realization suddenly hit both Damian and Stephanie, who were, up until that point, equally confused about what the hell he was talking about. Taking a break from being a vigilante? No one did that. Ever.

Damian perked up immediately but tried not to let his interest show too much. "You're serious?" he asked, unsure if he was kidding or not. If he was joking, he didn't want to get too excited. "You actually want to go to Asia?"

Jon shrugged as if he asked him if he wanted to go to the movies or get dinner, not fly across the biggest ocean on earth just for fun. "Why not?" he asked, a bit of hopefulness in his voice. "We can see Indonesia, Nepal, Laos. You can show me Nanda Parbat. You're always saying the sunsets there are beautiful."

He had seen about a thousand drawings of them in Damian's notebooks, all variations of the sun going down from different windows in his old home or mountains he climbed as part of his training with the league. And he was sort of enjoying the disbelief sprawled across Damian's face. So rarely did he manage to render him speechless, let alone seem to truly astonish him.

Damian just stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment, trying to wrap his head around the offer. "You're insane," he retorted flatly. "You've lost your mind."

He couldn't fathom what led him to ask such an absurd question. It was completely unreasonable to imagine the two of them traveling to Asia over the summer.

Jon's smile dropped. "Is that a, no?" he questioned, trying not to let his disappointment show.

"Yes," Damian responded, quickly frowning. "Wait, no, I mean no."

"What?" He squeaked, tilting his head in confusion.

Before he could fully comprehend it, Damian tossed his empty cup off to the side and kissed him, grabbing both sides of his face, harsh and slowly.

With a surprised, almost strangled sound Jon kissed him back almost immediately. And thank God that he was taken off guard or else they would have heard Stephanie's gasp which was more than just audible but also quite loud.

She slapped her hand over his mouth, squinting her eyes, as if questioning what she was seeing. This couldn't possibly be happening. She was starting to hallucinate from how starved for entertainment she was. She hoped that was the case, at least.

Stephanie didn't have anything against Jon, really, she didn't. But if Bruce or Jon's parents didn't know, then Jesus, she was in trouble. She couldn't just keep this to herself. She hated secrets. Having them, keeping them. They were awful.

Jon set his ice cream down slowly, so as not to spill it. Though really, he wasn't nearly as interested in it as he was a second ago. It tasted good, but this was better. Far better.

Reaching up, he wrapped one arm around Damian's neck, and the other around his waist, pulling him closer as they kissed. Damian sharpy inhaled at the feeling, his broken ribs killing him for a second.

He reached down to push away Jon's hand, before realizing he really didn't give a shit about the pain his grip caused. Instead, he snaked his hand up Jon's arm, squeezing it tightly, trying just as hard to get closer to him.

It was a cold kiss. Literally. But the flavors in their mouths went well together. For a second, Jon forgot entirely about his disdain for mint chip ice cream. It was tolerable when the taste was on his tongue. Most things he hated were more tolerable if Damian liked them, really. This wasn't an exception or a new experience. In fact, it was a very old one.

Some people might get sick of it, kissing the same person over and over again. It might get boring or monotonous, but it wasn't for him. Quite the opposite, really. He found every kiss enjoyable, from the sloppy and desperate ones to the quick ones stolen when their families were around.

The slow ones, like this. They were his favorite. It wasn't rushed or provoked by lust. It was tender and sweet, the kind he didn't want to ever break away from.

His grip got firmer, his fingers sliding through Damian's hair as he felt his lungs start to burn. Pulling him closer somehow made it feel better. He slid his hand under his shirt, desperate to feel the warmth of skin instead of the shirt he was wearing.

How on earth his skin was still so damn soft, even with all the scars littering his skin, his abdomen especially, Jon didn't know. But it didn't really matter. He'd grip him tightly regardless.

And he knew Damian was okay with it. He liked it, even- the possessiveness of Jon's grasp while his fingers dug into his skin, the slight tugging on his hair. For a guy with commitment issues and a fear of abandonment, being held like he was the most important thing in the entire world didn't just make him feel wanted and loved, it also made him feel safe.

He hated to admit how much that feeling could affect him. But he would, if it meant making sure he got it more often.

As his lungs burned worse, aching for oxygen, Damian finally pulled away from him. "Of course I want to show you Nanda Parbat," he told him as a definitive yes, resting their foreheads against each other's. He closed his eyes, a little out of breath from the kiss.

"And Loas," Jon murmured under his breath. "Don't forget Laos."

He nodded, still holding the back of his neck, keeping him from going anywhere. "And Laos," he agreed softly. "And Indonesia, and Nepal, and Yemen. We'll go wherever you want," he promised.

"Yemen?" Jon questioned, his eyes glued to his lips, watching his wet them as he caught his breath. "You want to go there?"

Damian shrugged. "Why the hell not?" he asked with a small grin.

He huffed a small laugh, relieved and elated by his answer. Jon couldn't help it, out of breath or not, he wanted to kiss him again. It wasn't hard, what with their foreheads pressed together, their noses practically touching, and lips barely an inch apart.

Leaning a bit closer, Jon's grip on his side tightened again as he kissed him once more, very, slowly. Some people might have even called it painfully or excruciatingly slow. A tease. But it wasn't. It was just the kind of kiss he wanted to savor, while taking in the feeling of his warm skin under his fingertips, his hair tangled in his hand, the mint on his tongue.

Pulling back again, Jon nuzzled him slightly. "I love you," he whispered into his ear, his warm breath sending an involuntary shiver down his spine, making him chuckle as he laid his head on his shoulder.

They stayed there a moment, the silence between them comforting and the sound of taxi's honking not bothering either of them in the least. It was hardly even noticeable, really. It was more of a background noise. A fuzzy sound that was barely audible when coming from so far below them.

Damian, still in pain from having his broken ribs jostled, held Jon's hand, squeezing it tightly. "Still think mint chip tastes like toothpaste?" he asked.

He scoffed. "Yes," he mumbled, lifting his head just enough to kiss his neck a few times, causing him to hum a bit while a smile pulled at his lips. "But I can tolerate it, for you."

●・○・●・○・●

Stephanie grimaced slightly, watching as Jon left a small love bite on Damian's shoulder, tugging the fabric of his shirt out of the way to leave it in an inconspicuous place. Maybe she and Damian weren't technically related through blood or law. But she considered him family and viewed him as her baby brother.

Seeing someone, let alone someone who she thought he was just friends with wasn't just shocking, it was slightly disturbing to think of someone she considered family, someone who up until now she didn't know could have human emotions, let alone enjoy physical affection, was making out on rooftops late at night. Especially when he was supposed to be on bed rest.

The way Jon had gripped him could not have been good for his bones. It must have hurt, she could tell from how he reacted to the touch, jumping slightly in pain when it happened.

While they sat there, holding hands, heads nuzzled in one another's necks, Stephanie slowly lifted her phone up, snapping a photo for evidence. Maybe blackmail. That was to be determined.

Careful as not to alert them to her presence, Stephanie ducked down behind the chimney for a moment before she backed away from the roof. She was still processing what she had seen and part of her still didn't believe it, the further away she got the harder it seemed to believe for some reason.

But then she glanced back down at the photo she took, nearly tripping over a trash cash when she did, and realized no matter how bored she was, not even someone as creative as her could make something like this up.

And she couldn't just keep it to herself. She wasn't capable of it. Bruce, she would never tell. But Tim? He had a boyfriend already. If it was alright to tell anyone, it was okay to tell him.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up," she whispered to herself once she was a safe distance away from the all the romantic stuff that was making her feel nauseous.

Tim's phone went to voicemail, and she swore under her breath, sending him the photo as she snuck into her house through her bedroom window. Just as she shut it behind her, she heard her phone ring. She frowned, glancing at the caller ID. Tim.

She wasn't sure if she should find it funny or insulting that he originally declined her call only to call back so quickly.

"Oh, now you suddenly want to talk?" She quipped, trying to tug off her shoes while still standing. Failing, she fell back on her bed banging her head against the frame by accident. "Ow, shit."

Tim heard the clatter and her curse but didn't ask what she'd done. She had always been accident prone and right now, there were more important things to discuss. Like Damian.

"Where the hell did you get that picture?" he asked in frenzy.

Stephanie finally got her shoe off and threw it across the room. "I just took it like six minutes ago," she told him. "Can you believe it?"

"Yes, I believe it. I've known they were dating for months." Tim stated, brushing past his awareness of the situation rather quickly. "But why would he sneak out when his ribs are broken? He'll make it worse."

"Woah, woah, woah," she sat straight up. "You knew!?"

She winced at the volume of her voice, glaring at the alarm clock on her side table. Her roommates were definitely asleep by now and she really didn't want to hear another lecture tomorrow about her nocturnal habits disturbing their sleep schedule. Just one of the many problems of rooming with people who don't know she's a vigilante.

"Yeah, I've known since we fumigated the manor," he elaborated, eager to move past that part. "Did he seem like he was in pain? Because if he prolongs the healing process, I swear I'll-"

"You guys' fumigated months ago!" Stephanie exclaimed, whisper yelling as best she could, trying to keep her voice down. She ran her hand down her face. "I can't believe you didn't tell me that Damian was dating Jon-freaking-Kent. How long have they been seeing each other? Does Bruce know? Or Clark? Do they know you know? Does he sneak out a lot?"

So many questions were popping into her head, and he couldn't answer them fast enough for her liking.

"It's been like a year, I think. No, Bruce and Clark don't know. Yes, they know I know. And yes, it's a frequent occurrence," Tim answered her inquiries as succinctly as he could. "Now, would you please tell me if he seemed like his ribs were hurting him?"

She rolled her eyes, sighing as she thought back. "A little, yeah," she told him honestly, then added: "But only when Jon was groping him."

Tim made a disgusted sound. "Gross," he mumbled. "I don't need any more details of what they do in their spare time, believe me I have enough stories."

"Meaning?" Stephanie prompted, slightly intrigued.

"Meaning half our family has been traumatized by their inability to keep their hands to themselves," he clarified. "I think I got the worst of it, but Jason has a close second, considering he unknowingly encouraged their....canoodling."

Oh, this kept getting better and better.

Or, worse and worse, depending on how one chose to look at it.

"Did you just use the word canoodling?" she asked, then did a double take. "Wait, what do you mean half the family knows? Who all knows about this!"

Tim heaved a heavy sigh, exhausted by the number of times he's had to discuss his little brother's love life. Once or twice was bad enough but this was practically a monthly subscription conversation at this point. At this rate he'd be their PR manager before the year was over.

"Me, Dick, and Jason," he told her. "Bruce has no clue, and you can't tell him, or else Damian will kill all of us in a massive group slaughter." It would likely be a painful way to die, too. Especially for him.

"The world's greatest detective has no clue his son is dating his best friend's kid?" Stephanie bit back a laugh, covering her mouth for a moment to keep from guffawing "This is comedic gold."

So much so that she almost forgot how pissed she was at him for keeping it a secret from her. Although, she did understand, in a way, why Damian would want to keep it hidden. Besides, she loved knowing things Bruce didn't know. It was one of her favorite hobbies.

"Yes, hilarious," Tim deadpanned. "I'm glad you find his scandalous behavior entertaining."

"Scandalous behavior," she repeated in a posh, British accent, mocking him. "He's a teenager with a boyfriend. They were talking about traveling around Asia this summer, not taking over the world."

But if they decided to try, she would probably root for them. If any two people could achieve world domination, she had no doubt it would be them.

"Wait- Asia!?" Tim exclaimed in astonishment.

"Oh, did I not mention that?" Stephanie asked, feigning innocence. "Must have slipped my mind, the way it slipped yours to tell me Damian and Jon were dating," she said.

"That was different!" he shouted. "What do you mean Asia? They're not seriously making plans to travel together, alone?" he paused, glancing at the quiet line. "Stephanie? Steph, are you there? This is important!"

She bit her cheek, trying to keep from laughing while listening to him panic. Eventually she put him out of misery and simply hung up, not bothering to say goodbye. It was the very least he deserved after letting her find out about their relationship for herself. What kind of friend was he?

Stephanie fluffed her pillow, laying down before putting her phone on silent as Tim called her back. Twice. This would be so much fun to hold against him.

Chapter Text

Duke rested his forearms on the wooden rail of the Kent’s porch, overlooking the backyard. It was a nice day for a barbeque and the food was a nice reprieve from the fancy stuff Alfred always cooked. He stabbed some potato salad off his paper plate with a fork, shoveling it into his mouth as he observed everyone for a bit.

He’d been away with Cassandra for a few weeks and hadn’t seen or heard much from anyone in that time. It was nice to just stand and watch. Especially when there was so much to see. The Kent’s were always chaotic, even more so when they had guests over.

But today seemed to yield more excitement than usual, starting with Kon showing up late and slightly on fire, which then lit the yard on fire, which then made Clark use his freeze breath to put it out, which resulted in their summer barbeque taking place in the snow.

There wasn’t much of it, and it was slowly melting, but it was still an interesting way to start a gathering. The snow had caused Bruce to trip over Krypto who was hidden under the white powder and fall over a table.

That was also amusing. Though, Duke found himself getting the most entertainment through Jon, who was carefully taking pieces of food off Damian’s plate every couple of minutes when he wasn’t looking. Knowing each other for as long as they had, most friends would be okay sharing food, but Damian wasn’t most people, and he really hated sharing. That didn’t stop Jon from occasionally reaching over and snatching from his plate, be it a roll or French fry.

Damian had clearly noticed a long time ago but had yet to say anything. Verbally, at least. There was a scowl on his face that was getting larger and larger with every piece of his meal stolen. This was more amusing than watching Lois put Bruce’s dislocated shoulder back in.

“What’s got you self-isolating?” Tim asked, walking up the stairs of the deck, resting his arms on the rail next to him. “I thought you’d be down there mocking Bruce with the rest of us.”

It was an appealing thought.

“I’m waiting to see how long it takes before Damian hits Jon for stealing his food,” Duke replied, pointing towards the fence the two of them were sitting on, as far away from everyone else as possible. “I’m thinking one or two more fries should do it.”

Tim glanced at them, a somewhat stiff expression encroaching on his face as he saw how close they were to each other, their legs practically touching as they dangled their feet off the fence. Damian was technically an adult who could make his own decisions, that wasn’t the problem. Hell, his choice of a boyfriend wasn’t even the problem.

No, the problem was how high Tim’s blood pressure kept spiking every time they were in the same room making subtle romantic gestures with each other for too long. Someone was bound to notice eventually. Actually, multiple someone's already had. Basically everyone at the barbeque knew about them but he was still stuck trying to keep those who didn’t know from finding out.

“Wow, you must have been starved for entertainment on that trip,” Tim responded.

He nodded, taking another bite of food from his plate. “You have no idea,” he murmured. “I love Cass, but one more round of charades where she ends up hitting me and I might lose it.”

“Yeah,” he drawled out, nodding. “She does get competitive about charades.” He noted the way Duke was still staring at Damian and Jon, then cleared his throat. “Looks like the snow is melting,” he commented.

Duke glanced at the ground where the snow was still piled at least 3 inches tall and frowned. “Is it?” he questioned, turning his attention back to his younger brother, watching as Jon kept pushing his luck, taking more and more food from Damian.

The scowl on his face grew slightly each time, but he hadn’t snapped yet. Soon, though, Duke assumed.

Tim could tell there was some tension building between the two of them, but in his and most of their family's experience, tension between Jon and Damian usually never ended in a fight. “Think there’s gonna be dessert?” Tim asked. “I hope it’s not ice cream.”

Duke gave a small chuckle. “I could actually go for ice cream,” he admitted. “At least it wouldn’t melt.”

“True,” he muttered, watching as Jon stole one more fry from Damian’s plate, which caused him to sigh heavily, giving him a dejected look of annoyance.

Duke was expecting to see Jon get slapped for it, or at the very least pushed backwards off the fence. But instead, he just grumbled something under his breath and passed his plate to Jon all together.

“Huh,” Duke tsk’d lightly. “That was underwhelming.” It wasn’t like he wanted to watch them argue or anything, he had just come to expect it.

Tim breathed a sigh of relief internally, relaxing slightly. “Yeah, Damian’s been surprising a lot of people lately,” he noted, looking down at the clumps of snow that were building on his shoes, making the legs of his pants damp.

“I’ll say,” Duke suddenly exclaimed, tugging at Tim’s sleeve.

He looked up quickly, his eyes immediately darting towards the fence they were sitting on, where Jon had gone from stealing Damian’s food to feeding it to him. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered to himself.

His eyes widened and he quickly glanced around, making sure no one else was watching. What the hell were they thinking?

“What are they doing?” Duke wondered, both confused and amused by the gesture, not to mention, a little disturbed.

“Friends share food,” Tim retorted, sliding to the other side of him, blocking his view. “Kon and I do it all the time.”

“Kon is secretly in love with you and you’re ignoring it because you’re afraid of ruining the friendship,” he reminded his brother, his eyes growing a little larger as he looked over Tim’s shoulder. “Do you think Jon likes Damian?”

Wow. The deja vu was hitting Tim hard. Why was it always him in these situations? How come Dick was never around to handle this shit? Or Jason? Hell, Stephanie knew now. She could play mediator just fine. Actually, no, she couldn’t. She was not only busy making a snowman, but she’d also cave and tell Duke everything the second he had made that comment.

“What?” Tim fake snorted a laugh. “That’s absurd. It’s Damian, no one would like him. Let alone someone like Jon.”

“Really?” he questioned, grabbing him by the shoulder and turning him around to see how Jon was using his thumb to wipe something from the corner of Damian’s mouth.

Tim wrinkled his nose in frustration. This was just ridiculous. He couldn’t believe that they would do something so utterly stupid in front of so many people. He had half a mind to go drag them inside by their ears and scold them for making him go gray before he hit thirty.

“That’s probably just a joke,” he tried to explain. “Mocking couples who actually do cheesy, gross pda.”

Duke hummed, not quite convinced. “I think he likes him,” he reiterated. “Look at how red his cheeks are.”

“Jon’s cheeks are always red,” Tim defended. “You’ve been away so long you probably just forgot that this is how they always interact.”

“Or maybe you’re just in denial that Damian is growing up,” he replied, his eyes narrowing as the two of them jumped down from the fence, treading through the snow. “I wonder where they’re going,” he muttered.

Tim could take a guess. He was pretty sure that regardless of whether he was correct or not, he didn’t want to know. They walked up the steps of the deck and Damian glanced at Tim for a brief second before passing by him, following Jon into the house, closing the door behind them. Oh, hell no. That was it. He was done covering for them.

“I’m going to mock Bruce for a little bit,” Tim told his brother. “Have fun with...” he motioned vaguely to the door. “...that,” he quipped, turning on his heels to walk down the snowy steps, getting as far away as possible from Damian as he could. This was just too much for his heart.

No wonder Bruce had gone gray at forty after raising so many kids.

Duke frowned in confusion, finishing the last of the potato salad on his plate and leaving it balanced on the railing. Why was Tim acting so weird? So, what if Jon had a crush on Damian? Jon was a good person. Too good for Damian. And knowing his brother, Damian probably didn’t even realize that being fed was something that only couples usually did.

He also probably didn’t notice the slight flush in Jon’s cheeks. Or thought it was from the cold. That was understandable, though, he thought. It was extremely cold for June in Gotham. He hadn’t anticipated the yard being covered with snow and foolishly forgot to bring a jacket.

Sliding the back door open, Duke wandered inside where it was hopefully warmer, looking for one of his brother’s jackets to steal. Dick always brought one everywhere because Bruce had always made him as a child, claiming he needed to learn to be prepared for every time of weather. That lesson had stuck and for once he was finally happy about it. If only he could actually find where it was.

The hall closet was empty, and it wasn’t on the back of the sofa or on any chair. He knew Dick, being the freak he was, wasn’t wearing it because he didn’t mind the cold. So, where the hell was it? Ah, upstairs. He remembered when Lois took a few of their jackets to the guest room so they would be out of the way.

Duke climbed the stairs, looking either way trying to recall which way the guest room was. He was pretty sure it was to the left. Pretty sure. He turned in that direction, glancing at all the shut doors. The one that was clearly still Kon’s even though he didn’t really live here anymore and just stayed over from time to time, the one that was an office not a bedroom at all, the one where Damian and Jon were squabbling.

He froze, backing up slightly, peeking through the crack in the door. They weren’t quite fighting, just bickering over something. Some countries, it seemed. His eyebrows knit together. What kinds of weird discussions did they have?

• ・○・●・○・●

“I’m not saying no to Shanghai, I’m just saying we have to see Limassol too,” Jon told him.

“Limassol is in Cyprus,” Damian reminded him. “That’s practically Europe.”

If they wanted to go try every cheese in existence and turn into winy’s, then sure they could go to Europe like every other generic tourist on vacation. But that wasn’t their plan. It wasn’t his, at least.

“It’s west Asia,” Jon countered. “People just call it Europe because of cultural ties and geopolitics.”

Maybe it was a little more on the European side, resembling Greece or the Maldives in comparison to some of the other places they planned to go, but he still wanted to go. The beaches were supposed to be great and what was a vacation without at least one beach with clear, blue water?

He scoffed, shaking his head, appreciating the argument. “Alright fine,” he agreed, uncrossing his arms, letting them fall to his sides. “Cyprus is on the list,” he swore. “Anywhere else you’re dying to go, or will you leave the rest of the planning to me like we agreed?”

Jon held up his hands in surrender. “I’m done, I swear,” he responded. “I trust you.”

“Good,” he muttered in return with a small, satisfied nod. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to rummage through the coats and try to steal of my brother’s.”

Damn, it looked like Damian had the same idea as Duke did. Bruce really should have done a better job of raising them to be prepared. One would think with all the tactical training they would be able to remember to all bring their own jackets instead of playing hot potato with Dick’s.

“Or you could just take one of mine,” Jon prompted, reaching for one that was hanging over the back of the chair by his desk. He handed it to him, observing the small look of skepticism on his face. “Oh, relax. It’s freezing outside, no one will read into it.”

Damian debated a moment. “Fine, but only because Tim will have a heart attack,” he agreed, before putting the flannel jacket on.

He never quite liked the look of the pattern on him. It made him look like a farm boy and that always been Jon’s thing, not his. But he couldn’t deny how much he liked to wear his clothes. His shirts and jackets always smelled like him. It was why he liked staying over too, wrapping himself in the sheets or blankets that lingered with his scent, the mix of his shampoo, soap, and whatever detergent he used.

It was pleasant.

Jon’s small smirk widened a fraction seeing it on him. “It looks good on you,” he commented, stepping closer reaching out to even out the laces of it. “You should keep it,” he mumbled.

A small heat crept onto his face. Even though hearing him flirt wasn’t uncommon, it still sent a shiver down his spine. “Really?” he murmured back softly, a smile pulling on his lips. “You want to flirt when the entire house is full of both our families?”

“We flirted at that gala a while ago,” Jon replied, boxing him in against the wall, his smirk turning into grin as he kept fussing with the lacing. “We did more than that, too.”

“That was different,” Damian insisted. “There were enough people there to keep everyone busy.” He rolled his eyes. “Almost everyone, at least.”

Jon grimaced at the memory. Getting caught by Jason after making a mess of Damian’s bed had definitely not been on his list of things to do that night. In fact, it was probably more likely to be on the list of things he would do if terminally ill or actively seeking death. He still got some pretty terrifying stares from him. From all of his brothers, actually.

“Not our finest moment,” he admitted, his hand dropping from the laces to the bottom of his shirt. “I could make it up to you, though,” he said quietly, staring at him intently.

Damian’s smile got a bit bigger at the thought. He’d been babying him ever since he broke his ribs, barely even using any strength to hug him. “How long before someone comes looking for us?” he questioned, knowing all too well that his parents liked him to be present at all family gatherings, not just hide upstairs in his room.

Jon glanced at the alarm clock on his night stand. “About fifteen minutes,” he replied, slipping one of his hands under Damian’s shirt while loosely draping the other over his shoulder. “Twenty, if my dad keeps mocking yours for busting his ass in the snow. Even longer if Bruce breaks out the kryptonite to retaliate.”

Really, he would much rather prefer an hour or two to truly get lost in each other, that way they could take their time and have plenty afterwards to simply lay in bed, arms wrapped around each other in complete silence. That was arguably his favorite part.

He liked the simplicity of the moment, the rush of endorphins that lingered, the stillness of the moment. And yes, he even liked the vulnerability of it. But he would never admit that to anyone aside from Jon. Anyone else would judge him.

He scoffed. “Seems a bit on the quick side to me either way,” he remarked, the glint in his eyes growing as he reciprocated the gesture, wrapping both of his arms around Jon’s neck. “But I don’t mind a challenge.”

Fifteen or twenty minutes was better than being back downstairs in the snow, with no more than their knees touching as they sat next to each other, anyway.

Pulling him closer until their bodies were flushed together, Jon nuzzled his neck gently, nipping at it slightly. “I should buy you more turtlenecks for your birthday,” he mumbled into his skin.

“Or you could stop biting me,” Damian replied, trying to act serious about it even as he instinctively tilted his head back a little so he could have better access to it. “That’s an option.”

He shook his head lightly, his lips moving back and forth across his skin. “No,” he said simply. “Too much fun.”

Damian huffed, his canine teeth showing as he couldn’t resist a full smile any longer. “Alright, Kansas, cut it out or we’re going to visit an early grave instead of Cyprus.”

“Fine,” Jon agreed begrudgingly, his grip on his waist tightening a bit and he pulled him backwards towards the bed. “How do you feel?” he questioned, a flicker of concern overriding how badly he wanted to pull him down on top of him.

Damian knew he was referring to his ribs, which were still not fully healed even though he’d been allowed to go back out on patrol. They hurt, honestly, but his father knew one more night of being banned from going out and he would start to talk to the pictures on the walls, so he cleared him as long as promised to take it easy and check in twice as often.

“Not all the way better,” he admitted begrudgingly. Jon was one of the few people he would lie about it to. “But good enough.” He could see the concern still lingering and he pressed their lips together for a moment. “Seriously, I’m fine,” he assured.

Jon nodded. “I’ll be careful, I promise,” he replied, sitting down on the edge of the bed, pulling Damian with him until he was basically in his lap.

He let out a soft groan, immediately leaning forward to kiss him again, gently at first, until it grew deeper and deeper, slipping his tongue in his mouth and tugging on his hair.

Jon’s hands roamed under Damian’s shirt but he tried his best to not put any pressure on his ribs as he pawed at him in different places— his waist, back, hips, thighs. He couldn’t help it, he just wanted to feel him. In any way, really. But he’d be lying if he said it hadn’t been a torturous few weeks with Damian’s ribs being broken.

Settling on leaving his hands on thighs where there was no risk of injuring his by mistake, Jon looked up at him, his cheeks flushed and his eyes filled with want. “I’ve missed you lately,” he confessed, a bit out of breath as their chests pressed together. “Missed this, I mean.”

They saw each other plenty, but actually having time to be alone with each other was more rare than one would think. And it always seemed to be interrupted or cut short.

Damian pressed their foreheads together. “Yeah, me too,” he murmured under his breath, pulling him in for another long, deep kiss before pulling away and placing a kiss on his cheek, then his jaw, until he was peppering kisses down the front column of his throat. “Better make the most of it.”

• ・○・●・○・●

As they fall backwards on the bed, Duke had seen enough and pulled the door closed the last bit of the way, trying to grant his brother the privacy he so clearly was hoping for.

He stood there for a second, his mind blank as he stared at the wood of the door and then, in shock and horror, slowly made his way back downstairs, having long since forgotten about needing a jacket to endure the cold.

In an almost trance-like state he slid the backdoor open and walked down the steps of the patio, his jaw still open, his eyes unblinking, too scared of what lingering memory he might see if he dared to close them.

Approaching Tim, who was talking to Steph, he put his hand on his should to steady himself from the shock, turning him so he’d face him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, frowning a bit. “You look...upset.”

“Am I okay?” Duke repeated slowly, his eyes somehow growing wider. “Am I okay?” he said again, his voice getting higher. “I just saw Damian being molested!”

Tim’s eye's widened, not because he was particularly surprised, but because they were outside and there were several people outside who didn’t know about Damian and Jon’s relationship. And by that, he meant their parents. And no one else. Because Cass, being Cass had always known, probably before they even did.

Looking around, he caught Lois meditating a friendly squabble between Clark and Bruce and instantly relaxed a bit. He sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Yeah, that happens,” he grumbled.

“Technically it’s not molestation if it’s consensual,” Stephanie chimed in. “Also, Damian is a legal adult so it doesn’t count.”

“Fine,” Duke amended dramatically. “Ravished. He was being ravished by Jon in the bedroom and—”

Tim grimaced, the word not doing much to help his aching head. He put his hand up, waving it at him. “No, no, nope. Stop. Please,” he pleaded, shaking his head. “I can’t know more. My brain can’t handle it.”

“If I had to see it, you have to hear about it!” Duke whisper shouted at him. “It was awful, it was disturbing, it was scarring and you...do not look surprised. Why do you not look surprised?” he asked.

After having just seemed to have a small heart attack, his brother was eerily calm all of a sudden, looking more exhausted than off-put by the whole thing.

“Because he knows,” Stephanie told him, pointing her thumb around. “And I know, and Dick, and Jay, and Cass. Basically, all of us. Alfred too.”

“He...and you...them...but how?” Dukes' words came out as messed up as his head was right about now.

She shrugged. “Really bad timing, mostly,” she answered. “But uh- welcome to the club,” she told him with a cheery smile. “It absolutely sucks to be a part of and being scarred is sort of the initiation.”

“So, everyone knows about this except for uh...” he vaguely motioned to Bruce, Lois, and Clark who were on the other side of the yard. “Wow. That is...so unsettling. I am unsettled by all of this. By the sight of Damian in flannel and hearing him flirt and, oh god, the straddling of Jon’s lap was just—”

Tim thumped his ear harshly, pointing his finger at him, “NO!” he exclaimed succinctly before he walked away, still shaking his head.

If he had to personally witness or so much as hear about someone else catching them even one more time, he was going to drag Damian to Nanda Parbat and kill him in front of the Lazarus pit, then throw him into it, drag him back out and kill him again.  

Chapter Text

Even after twenty-five years of marriage, Lois and Clark still had their traditions. The side of the bed they preferred to sleep on, the little nervous habits they could recognize the other having from time to time, the date nights they still had at least two or three times a month no matter how busy life got. It was how they stayed connected, even when so much around them was changing.

Jon knew that. He knew they'd go into the city for a nice dinner, maybe a movie or dancing at least a few times. He knew they stayed out until midnight, sometimes later. They, without fail, did this every second and fourth Friday night of the month since he was old enough to remember.

When he was younger, his grandparents or neighbors would watch him and when he got older, they let him stay home alone, under the stipulation that he behaved. No parties, no opening the doors to strangers, call if there was trouble, get to bed at a reasonable hour. It was the classic parent spiel they seemed fond of giving.

It was never really a problem for him. He didn't care about having some loud, house party with friends from his high school and no one ever knocked on the door of a farm this many miles from town. The one thing he did do when they were gone, was invite Damian over.

"We watched that movie last month," Damian reminded him, lighting the stove and shaking a few kernels of popcorn into a pan.

Jon huffed lightly, sitting further back onto the couch, flipping through the movies on the tv. "Yeah, but it was good," he retorted, leaning his jaw on top of the remote and turning to look over at him.

He watched quietly as Damian maneuvered around the kitchen, making popcorn like he did every month. He insisted on doing it himself every time because Jon didn't make it correctly according to him. He didn't mind the criticism. In fact, for some reason, he really enjoyed watching him travel around the kitchen so easily. He knew it as well as Jon did, maybe even better since he was a far better cook as a result of the lessons Alfred gave him when he was much younger.

"What about that new one you wanted to watch?" he suggested, shaking the popping kernels to keep them from burning, completely oblivious to the utter devotion Jon was staring at him with at the moment.

When he did glance up, turning the burner off and pulling the pan off the stove, Jon instantly looked away, nodding. "Alright," he agreed, pointing the remote at the tv, trying incredibly hard not to look back over again at him again to ogle him in what was, in his opinion, an extremely attractive shirt which exposed the majority of the scars on his arms.

Damian flipped the lights off and he walked into the living room. Sitting down beside him, he set down their drinks on the table in front of them and sat back on the couch, instinctively leaning into Jon, fussing with the blanket until they were perfect like he always did. He hated being hot but hated even more to watch a movie without a blanket for some reason.

Jon didn't care how much he moved it around, it all felt the same to him. But regardless, he waited patiently for him to wrestle with the blankets making sure there was enough for both of them while trying to get it how he liked them before finally sighing contently, placing the popcorn between them.

"Comfortable?" Jon questioned, a light teasing in his voice as he wrapped his arm around his shoulder.

He hummed slightly, as if to confirm. "Mhm," he nodded slightly, grabbing a handful of popcorn. "Hit play."

Jon did as he asked and started the movie before setting the remote down on the side table and getting more comfortable. He pulled Damian a little closer, letting him rest his head on his shoulder like it was a pillow. One of the many perks of dating someone far shorter than him, he found. He liked the way Damian was always leaning on him, enjoyed bending down to kiss him, especially because of how much it annoyed him. He kept saying he'd grow taller, but he never did. It seemed he was perpetually stuck four inches shorter than Jon, which drove him crazy.

As the opening credits rolled, he took a few kernels of popcorn with one hand while running the other up and down Damian's arm slowly. He barely even realized he was doing it at first, it was just a habit by now.

With a small, involuntary shiver, Damian, who had immediately noticed the action, turned his jaw slightly to look up at him. "How is it?" he asked softly, seeking reassurance that he had yet again made the popcorn flawlessly.

Jon glanced at him, taking in his features in the dim light, how his eyes seemed to glow, illuminated by the television screen. "Perfect," he responded. "Like always."

That satisfied his curiosity and Damian turned back to watch the movie, nestling his head back against Jon's shoulder comfortably. Jon's gaze, however, lingered a little longer. Okay, for the entire opening scene, really. Still, he didn't pay much attention to the screen. He kept staring down at Damian every few seconds, getting distracted.

It was moments like this that made everything feel so calm, so normal. Like Jon could genuinely imagine doing this forever. They'd known each other for so many years, acted in so many ways around each other. From despising one another to having a begrudging respect between them and eventually friendship. This was better than all those stages. Way better.

●・○・●・○・●

It was a little past 11:30 when Lois and Clark came home that night. It was earlier than their normal date nights concluded. Much earlier. But an emergency had dragged Clark away before dessert came and by the time he made it back he was far too tired to go dancing.

There was nothing like a good older fashioned rouge missile headed directly towards the city to ruin the fun. He wouldn't be surprised if Lois's dad purposely orchestrated the whole thing just to annoy him and keep him from spending time with his wife. Some called him paranoid, but he seriously wouldn't put it past the man.

Clark opened the door for Lois, offering his hand to her to help her out. "I thought the date was over," she quipped, taking it anyway. "No need to be so chivalrous."

"Date or no date I can still be polite," he replied, closing the door behind her. "I'm sorry about tonight."

"Don't apologize," she told him. "Dinner was great, I especially liked the part where you tripped the waiter."

Clark grimaced sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck as they walked up the steps of the porch. That had, obviously been an accident. The table was just so small his legs didn't quite fit under it correctly and he needed to stretch them a little...into the middle of the waiter's path. He gave the man a good tip though, which should have made him happier, even if he did spend all evening scowling whenever he came to their table.

"He should have been paying better attention," he grumbled jokingly to her while unlocking the front door, being sure to open it quietly in case Jon was asleep. He seemed to be going to bed earlier and earlier these days, as soon as nine-thirty some nights. It wouldn't have shocked him at all if his son was already upstairs fast asleep.

Opening the door, the house was completely dark but immediately, the loud sound of the television filled their ears. They exchanged a look and Lois frowned in confusion. Jon was never up this late and he certainly didn't watch tv downstairs ever since he got a small television in his own room a while back.

Walking inside, Clark closed the door behind them, and they went towards the living room, the sound of what seemed like a violent fight getting louder and louder. As they got there, he spotted Jon lying on the couch and was about to tell him to turn the volume down when Lois grabbed his arm pulling his back a little further back out of sight.

"What?" he whispered in confusion.

She pointed back at the couch where Jon was laying, and he immediately realized it wasn't their son's presence she was put off by. It was Damian's.

Clark's jaw fell open a little, the disbelief on his face clear. Not only had his son broken their rules but he was in an oddly intimate position with a friend. It wasn't that he didn't trust Damian, he just didn't like the idea of Jon disobeying the rules and inviting him over when he knew he wasn't supposed to.

They watched as the two of them laid there, watching a movie. They had shifted from sitting up to laying down sometime after finishing their third bowl of popcorn and starting their second movie. Propping his head up on the arm rest of the couch, Jon had his hand under the blanket and Damian's shirt while he ran his hand up and down his back absentmindedly.

Damian had his head laid on Jon's chest, resting comfortably on it as he breathed, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat. On the screen something gory happened and Jon grimaced, turning his head away, making him chuckle.

Damian shifted a little, lying flat on top of him so their bodies were flushed together. He rested his jaw on Jon's chest and stared up at him with a slight smirk. "Still can't stand the violence," he muttered, his voice laced with fondness, noticing the way Jon's hand had stilled on his back.

He found the reaction adorable. Jon had always disliked violence in movies, even when they were younger. He was better about it now but still looked away at extremely gory or gross scenes. Damian was honestly a little surprised he even agreed to watch the movie at all, but figured he'd allowed it since they had watched something Jon wanted to see first, and this made things fair.

As the scene ended and cut to another, Jon looked back at him pretending to be irritated for a moment. "There's enough bloodshed in the real world, don't you think?" he asked, his face wrinkling in disgust. "Besides, putting a head on a pike and roasting it like a pig to eat is just wrong no matter what the political context is."

Damian huffed lightly in amusement. "Fair enough," he replied, pushing himself up a little to reach over his head to grab the remote. "Want me to turn it off?"

He was shocked enough that he was willing to watch this movie in the first place, but he really hadn't expected to get this far into it before he fake gagged the way he did whenever something grossed him out. He would have thought he'd ask him to turn it off by now.

Jon glanced at the tv for a second and used his free hand to grab Damian's wrist, stopping him. "No, it's fine," he told him, shaking his head slightly. "I don't mind. I'll just stare at you instead," he joked as he resumed running his hand back up and down his back, causing him to shiver again.

As he laid back on Jon's chest, the blanket, which was previously covering them both, fell slightly and Lois and Clark could better see them both, including the fact that their son's hand was under Damian's shirt, caressing his back. It took Clark's mind several seconds to catch up, his mouth going dry as he swallowed harshly.

"Stop that," he insisted, his shoulder twitching involuntarily at his gentle touch.

"Stop what?" Jon asked, feigning innocence as he dragged his fingertips up his spine. "This?" he mumbled, trailing them back down. Damian glared at him and Jon tried and failed to suppress a smile. "C'mon, you can't expect me to keep my hands to myself all night. It's been ages since we've had a movie night."

Jon reluctantly laid his palm flat against his back, feeling the warmth of his skin under hand. He missed this. The two of them laying on the couch, watching movies and mumbling commentary to each other when not much was happening on the screen. It usually ended in some kind of intimacy too, which he always enjoyed. It had been forever since they just laid on the couch and made out like two normal teenagers who weren't constantly fighting crime and stopping evil forces.

"It's been three weeks," Damian recalled bluntly, keeping their faces a few inches apart.

Alright fine, it might not have actually been very long. But it certainly felt like forever.

Jon leaned down closer to him. "Like I said...ages," he whispered, his eyes fleeting to Damian's lips.

The last time he was over-When his parents went to some late-night thing that kept them out until three in the morning-they spent hours watching movies and letting their hands wander under the blankets.

But the only thing his parents could think when hearing Damian's words was that this had not only happened before, but it happened when they were gone. Like Jon was purposely timing it so they wouldn't be home. But that was preposterous. Their son was a good kid, he didn't do this sort of thing. This whole thing was preposterous, really. It seemed like some illusion or trick meant to shock and freak them out. It was doing both.

"You have attachment issues," Damian told him quietly, fiddling with the hem of Jon's shirt. "You're codependent and can't function without me."

He nodded, not even trying to hide it. "Definitely," he agreed, looking back down at his lips again, trying to focus on his eyes and failing. "Are you complaining?"

Damian shook his head, slipping his hand under his shirt, gripping him tightly. "Never," he swore earnestly. "The day I complain is the day I've suffered too much brain damage."

Jon smirked, leaning up until their lips brushed against each other before grasping his cheek, pulling him in and kissing him.

Opening his mouth slightly, Damian slipped his tongue into Jon's mouth which was still salty from the popcorn they ate earlier. He propped himself up more, grabbing the remote and pointed it at the tv, turning the movie off and tossing it onto the floor.

As the television turned off, the room got darker, but unfortunately Clark could see in the dark and the lack of light didn't stop him from seeing Damian push Jon down a little deeper into the couch, grabbing the back of his head to keep their lips pressed together, keeping him from pulling away.

Not that he wanted to. Jon's hold on him was just as tight, keeping both of them from breathing. That felt sort of redundant anyway.

Jon's hand fell from under Damian's shirt, coming up to shove some of the pillows off the couch and onto the floor making more room. "How are your ribs?" he managed to mumble, before being cut off with another kiss.

Damian hummed, pulling away for a split second. "Fully healed," he assured him before recapturing his lips.

"Good," Jon whispered, flipping him over so he was on top. "Wouldn't want to hurt you by mistake." He collapsed on top of him, his weight crushing him as they kissed again.

A short while ago, his ribs would have been killing him by now, even if he wouldn't admit it. But now, after very reluctantly listening to his family's advice, they were completely better. Good enough to fight, or to endure an alien laying on top of him.

He hummed content, pulling him closer, his arms wrapped around his neck while they kissed. "Should've started this sooner," he told him. "Your parents will be home soon."

Jon groaned at the reminder, kissing him harder as if that would make time slow or suddenly make his parents stay out later. It was always a tossup of what time they'd be home. Sometimes it was midnight, sometimes it was one or two am. Occasionally as late as three.

The lights suddenly flipped on.

Sometimes it was half an hour earlier than they had ever gotten home before.

Jon sat up quickly, pulling away from Damian, accidentally biting his lip yet again, causing him to curse under his breath. He glanced towards the threshold of the room, seeing his parents standing there, wearing expressions that somehow managed to capture their disbelief, horror, and anger all at once.

"Mom," he squeaked, his voice high pitched and surprised. "Dad. Wha- what are you doing home?" His cheeks were even more flushed than Clark had initially thought, and he wasn't sure if they were reddening from lust or embarrassment. Frankly, he didn't want to know.

They were too stunned to even think about forming an answering let alone actually stringing together an intelligible response. Lois just pointed at Damian; her eyes still wide in shock. "I- he...what?"

Damian immediately sat up as well, touching his fingertips to his lip. "Again?" he questioned.

He looked at Jon who instantly noticed the blood he'd drawn by mistake. He grimaced bashfully, apologizing quietly and reaching out to wipe the excess blood off with the sleeve of his shirt. That was the second time that had happened. Well, actually it was more common than that. But it was usually on purpose, and this was the second time he'd done it by accident when startled.

"Again!?" Clark exclaimed; his voice higher than his son had ever heard.

Jon let his hand fall from his lip to his lap, resting on his thigh for a second before he realized what a bad idea that probably was and pulled his hand away quickly, remembering his parents were in the room and they suddenly looked a lot less shocked and lot more pissed.

"I- I can explain this," Jon told them, even though he wasn't exactly sure how yet. His parent gave him a look that suggested he should get on with whatever story he was going to spin but his mind was blank, still hazy from the make out they had interrupted. "It- see, it's like this...Damian came over and we- well I know it's not allowed but..." he trailed off, at a loss for words.

He glanced at Damian who gave him a small shake of his head, equally lost on what to do. Until now, the only people who had found out about them were their siblings and friends. They were easy enough to explain to. But this was Jon's parents. Damian had spent months trying to make them like him so when they eventually come clean about their relationship it would hopefully be met with little resistance.

But now, they'd caught the two of them horizontal on the couch, their hands under each other's shirts and anyone with eyes could see they were clearly intending to do more than kiss. It was like all his hard work and schmoozing had disappeared without warning.

He cleared his throat, merely offering Jon a sympathetic look. "I should get home," he said calmly, despite every fiber in his body being more panicked than he'd felt in his whole life. He didn't want to make things any worse by staying, and a small part of him thought Jon's dad was about to barbeque him alive for what just happened.

Trying to stand up, Clark shook his head, grabbing his shoulder and forcing him to sit back down. "No one is going anywhere until we sort this out," he said, finally finding his voice again. He motioned vaguely between the two of them, his voice slightly disturbed. "What exactly is this, anyway?"

Neither of them answered immediately and Lois sat down in the chair beside Jon, reaching out to take his hand. Despite how confused her thoughts were with dozens of questions bouncing around in her head, she tried to quiet them and focus on her son who looked rather small sitting there, glancing at the floor. If she didn't know any better, she'd say he almost looked afraid.

"Jon?" she said softly, trying to get him to look at her. "What is going on?" she asked. "Is this...do you two do this often?"

He swallowed nervously, not expecting the overwhelming fear to swell in him the way it had. They were just trying to keep their relationship quiet to avoid making a big deal of it so no one else would notice much of a change or treat them differently. He didn't think his parents would get mad or reject or disown him. They weren't like that. So, why was he suddenly so nervous?

"Sometimes," Jon managed to murmur quietly, still not meeting her eye.

She squeezed his hand tighter and glanced at Damian who, for once in his life, looked almost shy. Almost. He still looked her in the eye, kept his shoulders straight, and his breathing steady. But there was something apprehensive in his body language. His hand had intuitively tried to find Jons and vice versa. Their fingertips were a few inches away from each other but stayed that way so as not to make things worse.

"Sometimes, hm?" Clark repeated, his voice softening. "So, you two are...together?" he questioned, the idea still somehow seeming unbelievable in his head even though he had witnessed them making out just a few seconds ago. "Like-like a couple?"

Jon nodded lightly, looking up to stare his father in the eyes. "Yes," he eventually admitted, moving his hand a little further, finally taking Damian's hand, squeezing it so tight he felt like he might crush a few of his bones.

The gesture, despite being painful, managed to soothe some of Damian's panic. At least he knew Jon wasn't going to lie or reduce what they had to a mistake or something casual. He was admitting it, even though Damian could see how afraid he was to do it.

"For how long?" Lois asked, her voice tinged with hurt.

Jon wetted his lips, hesitating for a moment. "Nine months," he confessed quietly.

"Nine mont- and you didn't say anything?" Clark was more than a little upset by now. Not because his son liked a boy, but because he hadn't felt comfortable enough to tell them from the start. "Did you think we'd be angry?" he questioned after a moment; his voice much quieter.

It was more complicated than that, really. Of course, he was apprehensive of their responses. They hadn't been the biggest fans of Damian when they were just kids. His parents had always thought he was troubled, and Jon shouldn't get too close. He was worried they'd look at him differently if they knew he was bisexual. And mostly, he was worried about what this would do to their two families' relationship.

Jon didn't want his relationship with Damian to cause problems with their father's friendship and didn't want them too involved in case it changed their dynamics, which, for the last nine months, had been pretty good. Better than good, actually. Way better.

He lightly shrugged. "We just...didn't want very many people knowing."

"We're not people, we're your parents. You should have told us," Clark told him sternly, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Who all knows?"

Jon practically flinched at the question, realizing he'd have to come clean about everything. He gripped Damian's hand tighter. "Kon, Dick, Duke, Tim, Jason, Stephanie, Barbara, Cassandra, and Alfred," he mumbled, glancing back down for a second.

He was expecting to hear his father shout, but it was completely silent. His lack of words saying more than he ever could. Clark sat down on the arm of the chair Lois was in, staring at them in disbelief. This just kept getting more and more insane. Monsters he could battle, saving the earth was easy. But this? Finding out Jon was dating his best friend's son, that they'd been lying about it, and he was the last to find out. The parenting books did not prepare him for this conversation.

"So, everyone," Lois muttered softly, running her thumb over the back of his hand soothingly. She wasn't sure if it was for his benefit or her own. "Everyone but us."

"Mom, I didn't mean to hide it, we just thought-"

"I don't follow," Clark interrupted, still struggling to comprehend this whole thing. "All those times you two hung out, the times you were talking to girls you seemed interested in, the- the number of sleepovers..." he scrubbed his face. "Oh, Rao. I cannot believe this."

A look of horror crossed his face as he realized what must have gone on during them. Most of which, right under his own roof while he was completely oblivious and was just happy that his son had a good friend who knew the truth about their heritage and understood him in a way others didn't.

He didn't want to even imagine what would have happened had he and Lois not come home early. How long this secret relationship of theirs would continue for or how far their little rendezvous would have gone. He was disturbed to even think about sitting on that couch ever again. The thought of throwing it out, or better yet, burning it crossed his mind.

Damian sucked the blood off his lip, glancing at Jon, his eyes lingering on how red his lips still looked and how disheveled his hair was. It would have been a pretty sight, had it not been for how ashamed he clearly was.

Without really thinking about it, he used his free hand to fix Jon's hair slightly, hoping if he looked a little more put together things might be less awkward. That was probably wishful thinking. Jon leaned slightly into his hand as Damian ran his fingers through it, pushing down a few strands to make it look neater.

Lois felt a pang of acceptance run through her as she saw. Knowing Damian for as long as she had, she knew he was a troublesome child and that he had grown to be a much more respectful, kind young man. Jon had always liked him, at least in the capacity of a friend. Now clearly as more.

She hated to think she had done something to make either of them think she wouldn't be okay with their relationship. As worried as she was about it, about the consequences of them getting involved with how different they were and how much history they had, she knew she wouldn't be able to stop them from seeing each other. And she didn't want to.

"You could have told us," Lois said to him. "We never would have been upset over something like this."

It may have caught her off guard, which, for an investigative journalist stung greatly, but she had never seen her son interested in anyone before. The sight of them simply laying on the couch, the teasing tone they used lovingly, the way they were staring at each other with affection, and the comfortable way they held each other was something she'd always wanted for him. Something special, like she had with Clark.

She knew it was no small feat for Damian either, to trust someone enough to let them get that close. It meant he really did trust and care for Jon. And the things he cared for, he protected with his life.

Jon met her eyes, giving her a small, apologetic nod. "I'm sorry," he muttered earnestly.

"It's okay," Lois whispered, motioning between the two of them. "This is okay with us, I promise." She just wished she had known sooner and been able to witness her son falling love for the first time, no matter who it was with.

Damian squeezed Jon's hand tighter, his knuckles fully white. This was going oddly better than he expected it to. Then again, maybe he was just always imagining the worst-case scenario. His mind wandered to what his own father's reaction would be and if he would take it half as well.

Clark noticed the slight furrow of his brows and the look of contemplation that was sprawled across his face. "Does Bruce know?" he asked, as if reading his mind.

It wouldn't surprise either of them if he knew and kept his mouth shut. The man was a vault, and this felt like the kind of thing he'd keep from Clark just to screw with him.

They all turned to him and Jon watched Damian, for once in his life, hesitate. "No," he answered. "I haven't told him yet."

"We will though," Jon added. "When it's right."

When that would be, they weren't sure. It hadn't been right in nine, almost ten months. They were planning a trip to Asia over the summer and still they hadn't found a way to broach the topic to Bruce. He was just a difficult man to talk to about these sorts of things. There was no way of knowing when he would be in a good mood or how he would react, if at all to the news.

Clark frowned, slowly coming to terms with this new aspect of his son's life which he had been completely oblivious to. "If this is serious," he told them, his tone suggestive. "Which it seems to be, he deserves to know."

Jon nodded in agreement. "We'll tell him," he swore. "Just...let us do it, please."

The last thing either of them wanted was for Bruce to find out through someone else. They'd already sworn Damian's entire family and then some to secrecy just to keep the news from accidentally getting out before they were ready.

Clark and Lois exchanged a look as if thinking it through. Lying to another parent, especially one he worked with seemed like a violation of some unspoken rule, but the look in Jon's eyes made him think his first priority should be his son's comfort. "Fine," he conceded. "You have two weeks to find a way to tell him, then I will."

"Fair enough," his son responded glancing at Damian. "Is now the right time for us to discuss Asia?" he questioned; his tone sarcastic in an attempt to eliminate some tension. "Or are you still secretly plotting?" That was something his parents would have to take a few days to wrap their heads around.

After agreeing to travel over the summer with him, Damian insisted on creating the itinerary, not letting Jon have any part of it. He didn't mind, of course. He knew Damian was a perfectionist and that he was excited to show him his home and some of his favorite places before they saw some new places together for the first time.

Damian shook his head. "Probably not," he replied, a small smile tugging on the corners of his mouth. "Later though, I promise." There were just so many countries to visit and cities to see it was hard to narrow it down.

He gave a small nod. "I'm looking forward to it," he admitted.

"Asia?" Lois repeated, slightly confused at the sudden change in topic. "Like the band?" She couldn't possibly think of anything else they would be talking about.

Jon cleared his throat a little. "The continent," he clarified, pausing before finally telling them: "Dami and I were going to spend a few weeks there together this summer.

They both froze, their brains not properly comprehending their son's words. They made sense, strung together in a proper sentence but for some reason it wasn't quite clicking in their heads.

"I'm sorry.... you're doing what?!"

Chapter Text

In the wake of what was sure to be known in the history books as yet another eradication attempt that the planet managed to survive, was a wreckage of dirt, metal, and concrete. The people, as they always did, survived. They were resilient like that.

The city, on the other hand, had been destroyed. Yet again. It was crushed by a massive spaceship, not to mention a hoard of hundreds of smaller ones, the kind that was easy enough to take down individually, but difficult to dismantle with how many they had in total.

Crawling out from under the debris, Bruce would look to Clark and complain as he always did. He would blame him for being the cause of yet another alien invasion because they hadn’t started trying to take over, enslave, or otherwise decimate the earth until after Superman was brought to light, and therefore, he would forever pin every extraterrestrial attack on him. Clark would fire back, reminding him that he wasn’t the only alien on Earth and that other planets would invade regardless of whether his presence was known or not.

Neither of their words held any malice. It was simply a tradition.
Diana would mutter a quick and quiet "Thank Hera," though she planned to thank her properly once she wasn’t covered in blue alien blood and pulling her friends out of odd, spider-like cocoons.

Climbing on top of one of the smaller ships that had been shot down, Dick would scan the area with his eyes to account for every member of his team, feeling a rush of relief when he spotted Donna leaning on Kori and Garth carrying Garfield who was in the shape of a sloth, absolutely exhausted in his arms as he held onto him. 

"Victor?" he called out, before spotting him lying under a pile of parts waving his arms to signal he was fine.

Duke would call to call, who threw a piece of scrap metal at the back of his head to let him know she was alright, even though her leg had been scratched up pretty badly when it got hit by some kind of laser beam the aliens used as weapons.

Wally was, as always, trying to find one of the said weapons that still worked so he could take it home as a souvenir, which earned him a smack from Oliver, who pulled the gun from his hands and told Barry to get his sidekick under control. 

That, of course, got Wally shouting back, "I'm not his sidekick anymore!" and if anything Bart was his own sidekick. Bart obviously disagreed. Loudly. However, that could just be because he couldn't hear in one of his ears after being a little too close to an explosion that went off. 

Or because he was obnoxious, as Tim told him while helping Kon dig Cassie out of some concrete that fell on her, which, frankly, annoyed her more than anything.

Jason picked Roy up off the ground, or tried to, before nearly falling to the floor with him because he weighed a lot and was currently bleeding a fair bit which made him too disoriented to stand properly. "Do not take me down with you," he grumbled. 

And Damian, well, he was searching for Jon. Rather frantically, although he was trying to hide it and apparently that was working since no one, not even Jon's own family really seemed to notice that he wasn't around. 

Which, he supposed was understandable. Everyone was simply getting their footing back after what was one of the most taxing invasions in a really long time. 

They would notice eventually, he knew. Damian just happened to notice first. 

He pushed back some of the rubble with his hands, tearing off his gloves to make it easier to search. Sometimes he really wished he had the same kind of super hearing that Jon did; it would make him so much easier to find. 

With a grunt, he flipped over a heavy piece of concrete, trying to look inside the ship to see if he had gotten trapped inside it. He shouldn't have. He was freaking invincible, he could punch through a dozen buildings without breaking a sweat, fly across the whole world in a couple of minutes, get shot, and not bleed. Yet, he wasn't here. 

Jon wasn't in the ship, he wasn't under the rubble, he wasn't anywhere in sight. And that made Damian panic. Because of all of his numerous abilities, he was still half-human, and that meant he would never be quite as strong as his dad. 

"JON!" he finally shouted, starting to worry when he had done a once-over of the immediate vicinity and couldn't find him. He didn't even care about code names, he just wanted to lay eyes on him and make sure he was okay. "Where the hell are you!?" 

When he yelled, heads turned. Clarks and Kon's faster than anyone's, although his siblings also looked up quickly when hearing the tone in their brothers' voices, filled with concern. That was when they realized Jon had been unaccounted for the entire time. 

Damian swallowed harshly and could feel his heart start to pound a bit harder, which Clark certainly heard as his ears listened harder, trying to locate his son's heartbeat. He knew the sound better than his own, he could hear it among eight billion people, even further into the galaxy. 

But suddenly, he couldn't find it at all. All his heart was the ones around him—Kon's which stuttered, as if confused and unsure if he should be afraid, Bruce's, steady as always, no matter the situation, Damian's which was rapid, sort of like he realized it always was when he thought about Jon. 

Clark instantly walked over to him, trying to ease the rushed thudding in his chest so he could concentrate better. "It doesn't mean anything if I can't hear him," he assured him, his hand finding Damian's shoulder. "Those ships were soundproofed so heavily I couldn't even hear through them. If he's still in one of them, it'll muffle his heartbeat."

That was a bullshit answer in Damian's opinion. Yeah, the ships were all high-tech, built to be as difficult as possible for someone like Superman to see or hear through, but they were all also out of the air now. They were either in the immediate area, with a few scratches or ruined pieces, or they had gone up in a fiery blaze when they crashed abruptly after Cyborg cut their power source. 

So, Jon would either be here, with them. Or in one of those decimated ships. The ships had kryptonite weapons on board as well, as any self-respecting alien attempting to eradicate Earth would bring to an invasion. 

"It means he could be hurt and you wouldn't know," Damian snapped, as Clark's attempt to get his heart rate to steady, failed. 

He knew that. Of course, he did. This was his son they were talking about. If there was even the slightest chance he was hurt, Clark would break down any door, or crush whatever bones he had to in order to get him back. But Damian was worrying enough for the both of them. 

"I know that," he clarified, his hand falling back towards his side. "But he could also be perfectly fine and we can't jump to conclusions." For his own sake, he couldn't think of his child getting hurt.

"You really want to take that chance?" Damian questioned, his tone laced with disbelief. "What if he was in one of the ships that had kryptonite?" he asked. "Or- or one of the ships that just crashed through four fucking buildings!" The ones that caused such a massive fire it was currently being tended to by about a dozen first responders. 

"Then we'll make sure he'd stuck on bed rest," Kon chimed in, refusing to believe for even a second that his little brother was anything aside from fine. He tugged on his dad's arm. "Come on, let's go find him."

Clark nodded. "Try not to panic," he urged. "I promise we'll bring him back."

Damian knew that. He just wondered in what condition it would be.

They flew off in the direction of the fire and his shoulders deflated as he tried to take a deep breath and calm himself down. His chest felt heavy and tight, his throat, likewise, dry with a harsh lump he couldn't get rid of no matter how many times he swallowed. 

It was far easier said than done, to not panic. This was Jon they were talking about, after all. The only person in perhaps the entire solar system he cared about more than his own family and himself. He couldn't lose him. 

Without even realizing it, all of his siblings as well as Stephanie had crowded around him, with sympathetic glances and quiet murmurs of comfort. 

"I'm sure he's fine," Tim told him, keeping his voice a bit soft. "They'll find him any minute."

Everyone, even Jason, the least sentimental of them all, nodded. "He probably just got caught up helping some civilians," he added. 
"He'd never leave you," Duke agreed with conviction. 

Damian tensed, feeling Cassandra's arms wrap around his neck from behind, leaning her jaw on his shoulder. "He loves you too much," she mumbled. 

He exhaled, allowing her to coddle him, even if he was a little unused to the affection from her. An action he felt he really shouldn't have indulged since it soon gave everyone else permission to touch him as well, leading Dick to put his hand on his brothers' other shoulder and Stephanie to hold his hand which was covered in dust and dirt from looking for Jon. 

Bruce frowned from afar, a bit touched by the support they seemed to be giving Damian. He had always been a bit out of place as a child and hell, even as a teenager, due to his upbringing, but recently, they had all gotten along much better. Almost even acted like actual siblings. 

He made his way over and their muttering died down slowly. Damian, who had been staring at the dirt, feeling his anxiety settle into quiet apprehension, was too worried to do much speaking or push any of them away. For once, their overbearing nature actually brought him a bit of comfort. Although, he would never admit that.  

"Don't worry," Bruce assured him. "Clark will find your friend."

No one said a word, exchanging brief glances and tightening their grip on their brother. 

●・○・●・○・●

Clark could still hear the sound of Damian's heart pounding in his chest as he got further and further away. The rhythm of it was still fast and filled with worry, despite being less erratic and more consistent. Over the past two weeks, he quickly had to come to terms with a lot of new information. 

He had to realize Jon had been pretending for a long time to be someone he wasn't, forgive his son for some of his more deceptive lies, and keep his promise to keep the truth from Bruce, which was a lot harder than he had thought it would be. 

Most of all, he had to get used to seeing his son's shift in demeanor—how much more genuine his smile seemed, how often he had Damian over, how good the two of them seemed to fit, despite his immediate concerns. 

He still donated the couch he found them making out on and bought a new one. He also made sure that if Damian stayed for a movie, all four of their hands were above the blankets at all times. Lois mocked him for that, of course, reminding him of their own youth, but that really just cemented the decision. 

Still, he found himself a bit happier seeing the subtle change in Jon and if Damian was the reason for it, he would never do anything to get in the way of them being together, if he hated coming to terms with his little boy basically being an adult now. 

"Over there," Kon pointed to the fire, which hadn't gotten any smaller, regardless of the firefighters. "You'd think after we did all the heavy lifting, they could handle a measly fire."

Measly was the wrong word, Clark thought to himself. It was pretty damn large, in fact. But it was still nothing they couldn't take care of much faster with a quick spray of freeze breath over the entire area.

With a heavy layer of snow settling over the flames, they slowly evaporated, disappearing under the flakes. "There," he muttered. "Let's find Jon."

His son nodded, nodding towards one section of the wreckage. "I'll take this side," he said, darting down to the ground, landing in the powdery snow, and looking around for any remnants of any of the ships that had caused the fire in the first place. 

There was a lot. 

Most of which were completely obliterated, smashed to smithereens that couldn't be put back together even by whoever created them in the first place. The few that had survived were in varying degrees of sturdiness, ranging from entirely fine to lightly smushed, and what was possible to survive but would lead to severe debilitating injuries. 

Clark ripped the hinges off the door of a single-driver ship that was completely okay, quickly flipping it over when some kryptonite from the weapons sent a wave of nausea over him. 

Any kryptonite from the totally destroyed ships had been burned back into a harmless form by the fire or submerged under several feet of snow. The weapons in the vessels, however, seemed as potent as ever. 

Even walking past a ship that had its windshield busted induced a rush of weakness in Kon, who tried to quickly peek through the cracked glass, looking inside of it for his brother, to no avail. 

Clark rushed through numerous other machines, each one making him more dizzy than the last as more kryptonite filled the area. He just wanted his son. That was all. And as much as he hated to, he was starting to worry that Damian could be right and there could be something really wrong. 

If there was, and he hadn't even figured it out until it was too late, he would never forgive himself. He wouldn't even know how to survive losing his own son.

Tearing the hinges off the last capsule, he coughed, inhaling more kryptonite, but seeing no sigh on Jon.

He flipped it, a bit more anger in his motion than before. "He's not in any of them," he breathed in frustration and a bit of fear.

He ran a hand through his hair, unsure what to do or where else to look. He had to get back to check the mothership again. Maybe he had somehow ended up on it and was somewhere inside still.

There was a beat of silence as he took a deep breath to compose himself before turning to go.

"Wait," Kon shouted, keeping him from leaving. "Do you see that?" he asked, pointing across the intersection, to a pile of snow that was moving ever so slightly. "It's shaking."

His eyes narrowed, trying to see what his son was seeing. At first, he didn't, it had gone still the second he turned back around, but a moment later it started again, subtly knocking off the tiniest bit of snow. 

Clark ran towards it with Kon not very far behind. Brushing the snow off the tall mound with his hands, he realized there had been another ship hidden under it the entire time, quivering slightly and going unnoticed.

He rushed to the other side of it, ripping the door off, getting hit by another wave of kryptonite, this one nearly debilitating after all the other slight encounters began adding up. But that didn't matter to him, not when he finally saw his son, curled up in a ball, kicking at the metal in a weak attempt to get out. 

Wrapping his arms around Jon, he pulled his son out and Kon flipped the ship over, kicking up a small puff of cool snow. Clark held him tightly, squeezing him as relief flooded his body and the sound of Jon's heartbeat echoed in his ears again. 

"Are you okay?" he muttered, finally pulling away, looking him up and down for any visible sign of injuries aside from the kryptonite still lingering. 

Jon nodded weakly, stumbling back a little and resting against the safe side of the ship he'd been trapped in. That's what he got for trying to save the alien inside of it before they crashed. 

"I'm fine," Jon told him, feeling better by the second now that he wasn't locked in there. "I just need a minute."

They gave it to him. 

"You scared the shit out of us," Kon informed him, with a slight huff of relief. "Especially Damian."

"Is he alright?" he asked, his face instantly contorting in concern. "He didn't get hurt, right?"

"He's fine," Clark assured him. "He's just worried. Waiting for you."
Jon pushed himself up, trying to take a deep breath even though he was still sore and in pain from the kryptonite. "Where is he?"

●・○・●・○・●

Damian had shrugged off his family's affection sometime around when he started getting anxious again. He could feel the nerves affecting him, making him restless and feeling the need to move, to do something productive to get his mind off of Jon and his unknown whereabouts and condition. 

He ended up patching up Roy's leg injury, wrapping it in some spare cloth torn from someone's cape when they weren't looking, and then lined it with the thickest sticks he could find to stabilize it enough for him to walk on it. It would hurt, of course, but it was better than nothing. 

"Give me something else to do," Damian requested, scraping at his cuticles with his thumb without even realizing it. He felt like every single nerve in his body was tense, on the verge of making him scream to get the excess energy out.

"There isn't anything else," Dick noted sympathetically. "You fixed Roy, Cassandra, and Cassie. No one else is hurt."

He sighed, resting his hand on his forehead, pacing back and forth. "I can't do this anymore," he muttered, the lump in his throat still prominent. 

"I can't wait, I need to know that he's alright."

"Just be patient," Bruce advised. 

Damian scoffed a bit harsher than he meant to, shaking his head. "You don't understand," he told him, the truth on the tip of his tongue. He was just so damn sick and tired of lying. "Jon is—"

"There!" Stephanie exclaimed, pointing up toward the clouds. "I see him!"

Damian followed her gaze, searching the sky for him, spotting him after a few moments. It felt like the wind got knocked out of him as he exhaled so deeply he thought he might melt into the floor. 

The anxiety mostly dissipated, only a small bit remaining as the need to scream left him, replaced by an overwhelming urge to cry that came out of nowhere. 

Tears pricked in his eyes and he sniffled to keep them from falling, the sound drawing his father's attention. Bruce frowned, his forehead creasing in confusion. 

He had hardly ever seen his son cry. In fact, while trying to recall a single instance, the only one that really came to mind was when Alfred the cat ran away for a few weeks when he was thirteen. As soon as the cat came back though, his son denied shedding a single tear of concern for his pet. 

"What's wrong?" Bruce wondered, his voice tinged with perplexation. "Are you alri—"

Before he could finish asking the question, Jon toppled into Damian so quickly and hard that they nearly fell over, speeding him a couple of feet away by accident. He didn't care though. Neither of them really did. 

"I'm so sorry," Jon apologized as his hands instinctively found his waist, holding onto it tightly. "I could hear your heartbeat, I didn't mean to—"

Without waiting to hear his explanation, Damian cut him off, capturing his lips, pulling his face forward with his hands placed firmly on either cheek. He didn't care about the reason, he just wanted to make sure he was okay. 

Jon kissed him back immediately, his grip getting even stronger, as his tongue slipped in his mouth, finally settling that dreadful lump that had been lodged in Damian's throat ever since realizing Jon was missing. 

The tension in Damian's shoulders disappeared, fully melting into his arms, finding comfort in them, intending to kiss him for as long as it took for his mind to catch up and realize what his body already knew—Jon was safe. He was right here and he wasn't losing him.

His hand slid upwards, snaking around to Damian's lower back to pull him closer, their chests pressing together. His heart was still thudding heavily, just like Jon had heard the second he was out of that damn ship, but he knew the different tempos of his pulse. He knew this wasn't fear, it was relief, fueled by pent-up anxiety and a rush of adrenaline.

Not that it was a bad thing. 

In fact, it was a rather nice kiss. 

It probably would have been better if three dozen of their family and friends weren't watching. 

Bruce's jaw fell open and Dick took a step back, not wanting his dad to look to him for answers. He would absolutely not be the one to give him any. Tim just raised his hand, covering his father's eyes for a moment so he wouldn't have to watch. Bruce just pushed it away, hearing a few faint 'awws' in the background. One of which, he was sure was Diana's. Another Stephanie's.

Clark, meanwhile just scrubbed his face, having seen this particular scene play out one too many times at his own house. He was no idiot, of course, and expected this kind of reaction. After all, it was rather similar to how he acted after a crisis forced him away from Lois. Still, he knew Bruce would struggle to process it and he really did not want to be around when the full realization set in as soon as whatever state of shock he was currently in ended. 

They had to come up for air at some point, surely, he thought. 
Rao, they strong lungs.

At last, pulling away, their eyes fluttered open, resting their foreheads against each other. "Don't scare me like that," Damian breathed quietly, his nose gently brushing against Jon's as he nuzzled it slightly, the action just barely noticeable from a distance.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, apologizing a second time. "I didn't mean to."

His eyes closed for a moment, his heartbeat finally slowing down to a somewhat acceptable pace. Jon kept one hand on his back, keeping him close, while dragging the other to his chest, pressing it flat against Damian's heart. 

Damian's hands finally let go of Jon's cheeks, slipping one down to hold his shoulder firmly while covering his other with his own hand, squeezing it tightly. "I felt like I couldn't breathe," he admitted. "I hate worrying about losing you."

That ache in his chest that he sometimes felt when they were together could be pleasant, he found like complete and total content. But when that ache got worse, muddled with fear, it grew into a feeling he despised. Like there was no way to escape it because he loved Jon in such a way he could never properly untangle their hearts.

"You're never going to lose me," Jon assured him gently, pressing another kiss to his lips, this one much softer, although it still lingered for a few seconds, causing his eyes to flutter shut for a moment. "I promise." His hand ran up and down his back in a soothing gesture. "I love you too much."

He let a soft huff leave his lips, as a smile tugged at them, turning into a grin. "Let's go to Asia," he suggested, pulling back just a bit further to see him better. 

"We're already doing that, remember?" he teased with a slight grin, grateful to be holding him after the invasion was over. 

"Yeah, but let's do it now," Damian proposed, eyes fleeting to his lips, which had gotten a bit puffy from the kiss. His eyes widened a bit, his expression incredulous. "I'm serious," he went on. "You're always saying we need a break. Let's just go. Right now. We can rest on a beach in Cyprus, I'll show you Laos, then Thailand and Indonesia." 

He wanted to travel with him. Ever since that night on the roof where he had mentioned it, rather casually, not quite joking but not quite serious either. He liked the idea more and more each time he thought about it. Just the two of them for several weeks, with no siblings to pester them and no parents to tip-toe around. 

Just them, trying new food, getting lost in different cities, wandering through shops, and still managing to be back in a comfortable bed by nightfall, laying next to each other without worrying about who could break down the door to keep them from cuddling. 

"Now who's insane?" Jon mumbled, his eyebrows furrowing a bit, but not shutting him down. He was suddenly acutely aware of the number of eyes on them, including Damian's entire family and his own father and brother. Oddly enough, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"We did our jobs," Damian stated, entirely serious, a bit more enthused by the idea. "The world isn't ending anymore; let me show you some of it." His voice dropped to a whisper. "C'mon, Kansas, don't chicken out now."

Jon huffed, rolling his eyes but found himself nodding, his grin widening before he could even register what was happening. He pulled him into another kiss that was hungry but brief, not lasting nearly as long as it could have. "Alright," he agreed after pulling away, nodding his head.

"Yeah?" he muttered softly with a slight tilt of his head.

"Yeah," he repeated with a slight laugh. "Let's go."

Damian's own smile broadened at the realization that they were in fact, finally, going. It was one thing to suggest it, talk about it, and plan it, hell, even get permission from Jon's parents and, well, Tim—after a long back and forth with both of them banging their heads against a wall at separate points in the conversation—but going was an entirely different thing altogether. 

"Should we tell your dad?" he asked, very briefly glancing over Jon's shoulder to where Clark was standing with a mildly disturbed look that he couldn't seem to get rid of no matter how many times he saw them kiss.

Jon raised an eyebrow. "Should we tell yours?"

There was a slight pause. He had very conveniently avoided even looking in his father's direction to hopefully keep from seeing whatever his expression was—horror, anger, complete and utter acceptance. He wasn't quite sure, but he figured it couldn't be completely terrible if he hadn't trudged over and torn them apart to start scolding them.

"Send them all postcards?" Damian suggested, his tone light and teasing, though entirely serious behind it.

Jon definitely knew that, and he nodded in agreement, sweeping him off his feet and leaving without looking back at the mess they left behind. He figured he could send a quick text from the beach once they got to Cyprus and let his mom and dad know they had decided to leave a bit early. And abruptly. They felt they had every right to after helping save the world, again. 

Bruce's jaw was still open, his eyes still glued to the place in the sky where they last were before disappearing entirely from his view. He didn't speak, didn't move, didn't even blink.

He couldn't. 

Jason snapped his fingers in front of his face a few times, failing to pull him out of his daze. Cassandra poked him a couple of times, too. He didn't react. 

"Well," Kon said, clicking his tongue. "I, for one am glad to finally get some peace and quiet for a change without being worried about catching the two of them in compromising positions."

That did it. 

Bruce's head snapped towards Kon, narrowing. "You knew?" he asked, his voice low and threatening, not entirely unlike the one he used to interrogate rogues. 

"I- uh," Kon glanced at his dad and then the rest of Bruce's kids, who were all standing behind their dad, shaking their heads, mouthing words, seemingly having forgotten that he couldn't read lips. "We all did."

He froze again, this time for far less time, before his eyes flicked to Clark who just gave a nervous laugh, taking a step further away and rubbing the back of his neck. "In my defense, I told them I'd give them two weeks to tell you before I did and that was...well, fourteen days ago." Bruce kept staring and he was oh so glad that only aliens had heat vision or else he was pretty sure Bruce would have burned a hole straight through him by now. "Besides, I was the last to find out—" he pointed to Tim, Dick, Jason, Duke, Cassandra, and Stephanie. "—They knew before me."

Bruce turned around, his eyes fleeting from person to person with no discernable target. Meanwhile, Kon gave his dad a look of disbelief for pushing the blame onto the others, to which Clark gave him a wide-eyed, panicked shrug, emphasizing it with his hands and mouthing: 'What the hell was I supposed to do?' 

Yeah, Kon still couldn't read lips. 

"Alright," Bruce began, his voice even and his expression passive. "Which one of you are 'they'?" he asked calmly, expecting two of them to raise their hands. "Who here knew Damian and Jon were...canoodling?" The word felt strange but seemed fitting after what he had just witnessed.

Tim slowly raised his hand, along with Dick and then Jason. Bruce's eyes widened when he realized it was more than just two. Stephanie raised her hand as well, followed by Duke and Cassandra. His eyes only got wider. 

"Sorry, Dad," Cassandra mumbled apologetic for lying, but not for keeping her baby brother's secret.

"All of you?" he asked, his voice a bit higher in its pitch. 
Duke cleared his throat, a bit hesitant to speak up. "Uh..." he pointed to the right of them and Bruce's head turned following along to where Cassie and Bart were also raising their hands. 

"Wha—" Garth, Raven, and Kori raised their hands, followed by Garfield and Victor, then Diana, Donna, and Roy. Wally, Barry, and Oliver's hands went up, along with Kendra and Dinah before Hal and Arthur's hands rose as well. "HAL?!" Bruce screeched.