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”I have this small issue. Ok, it started small, and it has now snowballed into something so large it’s hovering over my life like the gosh darn LOOMING DREAD I already deal with thanks to my superhero-ing… (don’t mention that in therapy) Why am i beating around the bush I HAVE A HUGE CRUSH ON MY BEST FRIEND DAMIAN AL GHUL WAYNE AND I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!!!!!”
Jon groans loudly and slumps down onto his desk, the paper of his journal shifting with a slight crumple that he knew would later be irritating. He smacks the pen between his fingers repeatedly, the tapping sound whacking away as a constant. He has no clue what to do. His therapist recommended journalling, so far the pages are filled with scrambled notes and reminders, or tear-stained spots with jumbled words when he was feeling utterly shit. Some pages had barely a sentence, just the date and a brief recap of the day. Sometimes he did a full morning to night briefing, updating the journal every chance he got throughout that day.
Over the past couple months, the pages became more filled, more ink scribbled in the lines as he gushed over his best friend. It was halfway through those pages that the hearts began, and then the fantasies, and then the ripped out pages from where he had gotten too worked up over all the risks and complications this crush brought. Now, he’s here, back to the paragraphs that start neat and end in chaos.
He’s got no clue how to handle it. His therapist is a therapist, not a love doctor, and Jon suspects none of his friends would be any help either. How does he explain that his crush is a great detective—and assassin, and vigilante, and caretaker of animals, and he’s so sweet, and he’s a vegetarian, and he curses in other languages when he’s frustrated, and—but is completely clueless when it comes to emotions of any sort. Not that he’s clueless—He’s very, very smart. So smart. Jon doesn’t mind feeling dumb if it means he gets to stare at Damian while he scolds him mid-patrol with that mostly annoyed expression yet still with that slightly amused glint in his eyes—Damian just doesn’t pick up on the more obvious social cues, a reflection of his youth. He wasn’t trained for personal connections, and 7 years after becoming Robin—at 16 years old—he still struggles with what many would consider normal things, socially. And Jon? Jon is…
He lifts his head up off the paper. His laptop is pushed to the side haphazardly, an old cup nearly tipping off the edge behind it, stacks of books in one corner of the desk, homework littered along the back of it against the wall, the other corner housing his few trophies from school activities. A few old baseball ribbons and certificates hang on the wall above the desk, barely centred, put up in a rush in the excitement of when he had first moved into the Metropolis apartment with his family. It was a new start, far from the Smallville farmhouse. He places the pen down and spins in his chair to look at the state of his room. The bed isn’t made, posters are taped or tacked up with barely any care, sticky notes filled with reminders are slapped around anywhere they’d fit, his laundry is spilling out from the hamper in his open closet, the few articles of clothing that are hung up are crooked and messy. Comic books and trinkets line the bookshelf shoved into the closet. Dirty clothes and old papers have been kicked under the bed, at least they provide a thorough cover of the box that houses his suit. His bedside table is a mess, too, a tie strewn across his alarm clock. Is that even his tie? When did he last wear a tie?
Jon is a mess, shortly put.
All his life he had been warned about the dangers and struggles being a teenager would bring, especially being a super, that only amplified it all. School stress, social anxiety, ADHD, medication, likely depression, and on top of that: He’s an alien.
Jon swivels back towards his desk as a familiar pinch begins to pull in his face. He picks up the pen, and it takes forever to write out one sentence. His hand shakes, the letters are sloppy and they slip, the ink has definitely bled through in most spots, and it’s a pathetic little sentence.
”im in love with my best friend”
He wants to add more, scream and yell into the page and hope the words would appear—he’ll never love me, he barely likes me, he tolerates me at best, why would he ever love me. It’s a horrible feeling, it burns inside. Jon’s felt Kryptonite before, felt it melt his skin, poison his blood, screamed as it was burnt out by the sun.
Damian’s eyes are green. The perfect, crystalline shine of green that makes Jon weak, makes him collapses, defeats him and leaves him as a useless heap of a hero. But Damian’s eyes don’t burn. They soothe. They make his stomach flutter with the flapping wings of butterflies, they make his skin crawl with lovebugs, they eat away at his heart until it grows back triple in size with Damian’s entire being engraved into it.
Jon is never going to be that to Damian.
“Kon.” Jon chokes out his sibling’s name as he stands from his chair on weak knees, feeling tears gather in his eyes and push against the dam holding them back. It’s only when the streak of colour and the gust of air stills in front of him that he lets the walls break. They crack, choking in his throat, they burst, releasing a sob as trembling hands grip the leather of Kon’s jacket, face pressing into their shoulder.
“Woah, hey!” Kon tenses up, then realises it’s just.. a hug. “Hey,” they repeat, softer that time, as their arms lift under Jon’s shoulders to hold him closer. “Hey, it-it’s okay.”
Jon likely would have called for their dad, if he was actually on Earth and not off with their aunt on a space mission. He isn’t sure, honestly. Maybe he still would’ve called for Kon. Kon understands Jon in a way Kal doesn’t, maybe it’s because they both have similar issues on their shoulders. Filling in the footsteps of a man still very active and present in the superhero world. The expectations, the comparisons, all of it.
“What’s going on? Are you- are you, like, hurt?” It’s not common for Jon to cry, at least not in front of someone, though his family is an exception. He still prefers to be alone for it, because it could get ugly.
“Okay…” Kon seems to look around the room after Jon shook his head to say no. They tilt towards the desk, one hand moving to smooth over the words on the page. “Oh.”
“Oh, Jon-El.” Kon murmurs, and suddenly wraps Jon up in a much tighter hug, warm and confining, but in that comforting way. “It’s okay.”
Maybe that had been the main reason why Jon called for them. Because Kon went through this exactly—falling in love with a Robin. It had worked out for them, sure, Kon is happily dating Tim to the day, but Jon’s luck with romance is dogshit. And Damian isn’t exactly the type of guy it’s easy to have a crush on.
Jon can feel his eyes get fuzzy with fire, hears the sizzling of heat, and Kon catches it, too. They quickly turn Jon around, hugging him close again and resting their head onto his shoulder. Their hand clasps over his eyes as they burn red, the heat vision pooling in his eyes like the tears that had been there before being evaporated from the heat. Steam drifts up from underneath Kon’s hand, it wafts towards the open balcony door but vanishes after mere seconds.
There’s a low hum that Jon hears and feels from Kon, the low purring meant to soothe, a contrast to Jon’s panicked clicks and chirps deep in his throat that he can’t control. He’s always had a harder time with the Kryptonian vocals, his human half fighting against them, but they take over every time.
Regardless, Jon sobs, lifting his hands to grip onto the arm Kon has wrapped around his chest. It takes a few minutes, and Kon stays put the whole time, but Jon’s cries softly die out. The clicks and trills are now a low purr that matches Kon’s, the only sound audible to humans. His eyes return to their blue hue as the heat vision stops being a risk.
“Better?” Kon asks quietly as they lift their head from his shoulder, removing their gloved hand from his face to wrap around his shoulders as well. They look at Jon carefully, studying his side profile from the angle they’re at.
“Yes,” Jon’s voice is a whisper. He takes a shuddering breath, hitching on the inhale, shaking on the exhale. A few more, synced with Kon’s own slow breathing, and he’s calm enough to trust himself to not explode into an emotional outburst of heat vision that would surely make their neighbours very angry.
“Alright.” Kon pats his chest lightly as they draw their arms away, stepping and shifting to the side of Jon, facing him. “Hey. Look at me, kid.”
Jon’s head is heavy as his neck swivels over, knowing he’s got the most pathetic pout on his face.
“Things will work out.” Kon isn’t sure of their words, Jon knows they’re only not confident because they don’t trust themself to give serious advice, but he trusts it anyways. “Follow your gut. Do what you think s’right. If that ends up… If that ends up meaning you have to let it go, then…” Kon leaves the rest out there, not needing to say it for Jon to understand.
“Thank you.” Jon knocks his forehead against Kon’s, who gives him a soft grin and punch to the arm, but there’s a quiet purr in their throat that doesn’t escape Jon’s senses. He echoes it, the natural sounds from both of them alien to anyone else, but perfect for them. Had Clark been on earth, he would have been there so quickly from the sound of the crying alone, but hearing the disturbed trills and clicks followed by purrs would’ve been the icing on the cake.
“Don’t—“ worry about it, is what Jon assumes Kon meant to say, had he been paying attention.
“Solar—We can’t locate Robin, we need you in Gotham. Now!”
Kon may have not been the intended recipient of the message, but their superhearing is usually tuned towards that area as well, so they don’t need an explanation when Jon zips through the room and off the balcony, disappearing out of Metropolis with his suit already on.
The flight is quick, Gotham is just seconds away for the Supers. Jon quickly zeroes in on Damian’s heartbeat—it’s too quick for his liking—and flies to the location in a blurry gust of wind. The first thing he catches is the smoke, thick and gross, but he blows a lot of it away with cold wind produced from his own powers. He inhales fresh air—fresh as it can be in Gotham—and then lowers further into the smoking remains of a collapsed building. It takes just another moment to locate exactly where Damian’s heartbeat is coming from, but the moment he has it, he’s there.
Batman spins around when he feels it, watching the blur of color work to clear away some rubble they hadn’t yet checked, and it stops as Jon has to be slow to pull Damian out of the collapsed architecture. Looks like some old apartment complex, targeted by whichever villain the Bats were currently facing off. The lack of residents and general life was good, few casualties, though Jon suspects most enemies wouldn’t have cared for that.
So why had Damian been under the wreckage?
He’s far from dying, barely even injured at that, he got lucky. There’s not even a thanks uttered to Jon as Damian dusts himself off as if he’d just took a walk in the park. There’s literal billowing smoke around them, fires that hiss and bark against old, infested wood and already-cracked concrete. It produces a smell Jon clocks as something poisonous to humans if they inhaled enough, though Damian already knew that, as he’s putting on a gas mask.
“Robin!” A voice calls out, not Batman’s, and Jon watches Nightwing scramble over to them. He envelops Robin in a hug, who huffs at the contact, rolling his eyes under his domino mask. The older vigilante also wears a similarly-constructed gas mask, quite on brand for both Nightwing and Batman, Jon remembers seeing them before. Damian had used one a couple years ago during a trek through polluted tunnels. Jon doesn’t need any such thing, none of that poison or pollution would harm him, but the stench is foul and it always made his lungs feel like they were struggling to expand, so he opted to take breaths of fresh air and holding it before doing what was needed to be done.
Damian had been trapped under the rubble, unable to equip the mask, but the smoke in this section isn’t as harsh, and since it travels upwards, Damian likely was relatively alright. It was the dust he probably inhaled that Jon worried more about. Nightwing shares his worry, releasing Robin from the hug to question him, though he gets interrupted.
“We can talk about this momentarily.” Batman’s gruffness returns to the scene as he gets their attention, shooting a grapple up. He makes his way onto a nearby rooftop, and though Nightwing looks like he wants to interrogate Robin as soon as possible, he heads up as well.
Jon doesn’t even get to offer helping Damian before he’s halfway to the roof, and Jon can’t help the frown that stays on his face when he reaches the rooftop as well. It seems tense, the near-silence thick and heavy like the smoke nearby, aside from Batman checking in on comms for Red Hood and Cardinal, both of them giving confirmation and brief nods from a rooftop across the street. They’re doing some surveillance from above, closer to the rubble site.
“Robin, report.” Batman says without turning to look at any of them from where he stands by the ledge. He looks real p’d off. Nightwing looks just as confused as Jon feels, yet a bit more frustrated. They had been there when it happened, they knew what Jon didn’t, for the most part, he assumes. Damian takes off his gas mask before replying.
“The explosion was set to blow, and the building was already evacuated, meaning only our team had to clear out. There had been a piece of evidence worth saving, though my teammates insisted on leaving it. I was confident there would be time. I miscalculated multiple steps and risks, and ended up in the crossfire, however, I—“
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jon suddenly spits out—surprised at his own words and actions—briefly smacking Damian’s shoulder with enough force to have him angle towards Jon, but not near enough to actually hurt. Damian winced, anyways, and Jon regrets the action. The guilt is overruled by the intense emotions that make Jon’s stomach flip with anxiety and squeeze his heart.
Nightwing stares in shock. Batman looks shocked, staring in silence. Damian fully turns his head to glare at Jon, lips pulled back in a confused sneer at the sudden interruption.
“Excuse me?” Damian huffs, tongue resting behind his teeth as though ready to tsk. He doesn’t get the chance.
“You let yourself stay in an exploding building for, what, evidence?” Jon stares as Robin produces what had been so important; a piece of paper with scribbles on it. “Are you serious? Risking your life for that?”
“This is the Riddler we are dealing with, Superboy, I wouldn’t expect you to understand how important every puzzle piece is for these—“ Damian is once again cut off, much to his clear irritation.
“It’s Solar, not Superboy.” Jon knows that correction is petty, they all do, but they know he knows as well. It’s a sensitive topic, a tightrope of a subject that even Nightwing struggles to walk. But Jon doesn’t linger, instead going right back into what matters.
“Do you understand how important your life is? How important you are?” Jon can’t stop his words, stood right in front of Damian in his most challenging stance. It isn’t too difficult, Robin being shorter than him helps. “I’m sure the Riddler would be more than happy to produce the hint again, otherwise his game wouldn’t play out, but you possibly getting fatally injured, or worse, plays right into his games!” Jon grabs the front of Damian’s Robin suit, glaring at him so intensely he’s surprised his eyes aren’t glowing red yet.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Damian scowls, grabbing Jon’s wrists and tugging, not that it went in his favour. “You aren’t apart of this, you were called in as backup, nothing more. Don’t scold me for my own damn mistakes.” Neither of them like to swear in suit, Damian because it isn’t proper—though he still spits the curses out under his breath in foreign languages Jon has yet to teach himself—and Jon was raised that way, he still corrects himself on it. But the situation at hand is different, the tension of the rooftop has now concentrated between them, ready to blow like the building behind them had.
“I’m your best friend, I’m not going to let you put yourself at such a huge risk like that!” Jon wants to groan and scoff, sneer and roll his eyes, wants to shake and smack the sense into Damian. He’s always been like that, always throwing himself into danger, always acting invincible, always being so Damian.
“So, I messed up!” Damian spits back, venom laced in his tone, but Jon hears the subtle shake under it, the tense of his muscles as he admits it. “I get it! I knew it before anyone else, so why are you so angry—“
Jon pulls Damian up by the collar, and to the others, it looks like he’s going to throw him to the ground, or punch him. Neither happens. For a moment, nothing happens, but Damian is braced for some physical attack. His family is on standby. He’s ready to receive harm, simultaneously ready to fight back. It’s like the world has gone silent, as Jon holds Damian by his collar, his boots barely scratching the ground.
The tension eases ever so slightly when Jon lets Damian stand solid on the ground again, and he almost lets go. He almost releases the fabric, but seeing Damian all dirtied and roughed up from the explosion makes something in him break. Looking under the mask at those green eyes makes him melt, his anger dissolving into an exhausted worry, shrinking down half an inch. It seems everything settled.
But Jon adjusts his grip, instead wrapping his arms around Damian, pulling him close, abruptly launching into the air. He hears Nightwing shout out an objection, and laughter from the other rooftop, and, gosh, Red Hood tried to shoot a grapple at him.
He slows above a patch of low-hanging clouds, hovering there with a rabid Bird in his arms. He’s set on an action his brain hasn’t even caught up with.
“What are you—What’s your issue, bring me back down, you- you- hayawan!” Damian pushes at Jon’s shoulders, trying to scramble from his arms, though that wouldn’t end well for him. Jon narrows his eyes, irritated even more, but it dissipates quickly when the tornado of emotions makes his head dizzy again.
Damian is still spitting more Arabic at him as Jon leans closer, Damian leaning back, stuttering as his words die out. Would Jon be naive to think that’s blush on Damian’s face? His skin blossomed a deeper red, and it’s not just on his cheeks, it’s practically his whole face. Jon removes Damian’s domino mask, slipping the arm around his back again, which is arched away from Jon. His eyes are scrunched, lidded, eyebrows furrowed, his lips are parted in the sudden silence. Jon looks at them for a few moments longer than he would have, but he looks back up at Damian to see that Kryptonite shining with sudden realisation.
“I care about you. A lot.” Jon blurts out awkwardly, holding Robin close. “And you’re not invulnerable like me, even though you say you are; you’re not, and it scares me, and you do all this stuff as if you’ll always get lucky, and somehow you almost do every time, but it still terrifies me.” Jon can’t help the tears that well back up in his eyes, blinking as they spill over. “I don’t know what to do watching you put your life on the line over and over again, because you can’t just be flung into the sun to heal, that’d kill you, and—“ Damian’s hands unclench around Jon’s shoulders, allowing his cape to shift back, his gaze so soft as he listens.
“—And, one day you’re going to get shot, or stabbed, or something, and I’m gonna have to watch you recover, and I won’t be able to do anything, and I’d have to sit there and watch as I lose you, and it—mmphhf-”
Damian holds his face in his hands, eyes shut as he presses his lips into Jon’s. They fit there perfectly. Jon melts against him, and it almost feels like everything clicks in that moment. It’s perfect. They’re perfect. Damian is perfect. This feels right. All of Jon’s worries fade away, everything is gone, everything is Damian.
And Damian is kissing him, Damian is holding him, Damian is gasping against his mouth as he tugs at Jon’s hair, Damian is holding him closer, Damian is—
Pulling back. Abruptly, for good reason. A quick purr had escaped Jon, and he clears his throat awkwardly, suppressing the noise. He never means to do that, not unless he’s with his family. Damian stares, blinking in confusion, but then he smiles, one eye naturally squinted more than the other, that uneven trait Jon loves dearly.
“What was that?” Damian asks, voice quiet, like he’s still processing everything, and he’s only asking to cover up internal panic.
“Uhm. Purring?” Jon squeezes Damian closer, feeling his ears burn in embarrassment. “It’s, uh, a thing. That Kryptonians can do. Usually it’s for communication, comfort, there’s kind of different tones and versions to it, uh—“
Damian’s finger presses over his lips.
“I get it, J.” Damian smiles, letting his hand thread back through Jon’s curls to rest at the back of his head. “You seriously need to stop talking so much.”
Jon is more than happy with that, smiling giddily before Damian kisses him again. He keeps a hand at his lower back for support, but the other moves up to press him closer, resting at his shoulder blades.
Damian winces, hissing against Jon’s lips suddenly. He groans with a wheeze, head tilted down and away. Jon blinks in confusion, but the concern quickly swoops over, and he begins to lower back to the roof as Damian cradles his torso with one arm.
“You said I get lucky a lot. Well, I didn’t get so lucky earlier. I think multiple ribs are injured.” Damian admits as they land on the concrete. Dick snaps his attention to them at those words. Jon stares in exasperation, gaping at Damian, because he would not have flown him up—and made out with him—if he knew he was injured like that. Damian blinks. “I’m sorry.”
The apology wipes the frustration right from Jon’s face, so sincere and genuine, and Jon wills his tears to stop, because he’s already cried enough today, and he’s not going to cry in front of The Batman.
“Don’t be sorry.” Jon sighs, leaning down to scoop Damian’s legs up and pick him up with no struggle at all. He looks down at Damian’s chest, squinting, then he blinks to adjust to the x-ray vision as he studies the injured ribs. Sure enough, one has fully cracked, the three surrounding it fractured less and less the further they grow away.
“There’s one main fracture, here.” Jon goes to gesture but realises his hands are full, so instead tries to recall all medical information he’s learned in his life. Thankfully, there’s no unnecessarily complex name for each rib bone. Just numbers from top to bottom. “Uh, fifth rib. Sixth has a lesser fracture, same for the fourth, and your third rib has a barely-visible one.”
“That one is probably from an earlier encounter during this case.” Damian states, voice unusually quiet. Jon isn’t sure if it’s from being so openly vulnerable, or from the actual injuries itself. Why hadn’t he just checked beforehand?
“I hate you.” Jon blinks away his x-ray vision, frowning. He feels a tear catch in one of his dimples before falling through the air. He still looks at Damian fondly, but embarrassment returns to burn his cheeks as he has to look up at the older members of the Wayne family. Crying, clearly emotionally exhausted, and having just confessed what was essentially half his entire life’s worth of yearning and pining in the form of intense care, Jon thinks Kryptonite wouldn’t be such a bad thing in the moment.
Regardless, Nightwing gives a knowing smile, one both approving and comforting. He’s content to not say anything on the subject, knowing how messy falling for a Robin can be, though his view is from being a Robin. Even though Dick shows a calm understanding, Batman stays fully neutral, no expression, no hint of emotion—except possibly confusion at what possibly happened above the clouds to have Damian so calm—standing there like a shadow with his cape wrapped around him like a bathrobe. Jon is terrified.
“I’m going to fly him to the Batcave?” He squeaks out, clearing his throat afterwards as if it would fix the already-spoken voice cracks. He lifts up slightly, Damian wrapping his arms back around Jon’s shoulders to hold on during the flight. He jolts slightly, lips pressed together to suppress a pained grunt, but Jon had caught it.
“Let Dr L fix him up, if she’s there, if not then Penny-One is capable.” Dick’s a bit too focused staring at a nearby rooftop with a winning smile, Jon now realises Batgirl and Spoiler are perched on the ledge up there. Had they been there the whole time? Why is Spoiler staring at Dick so intensely? He looks like he’s got money owed to him from her. Knowing this family of vigilantes, he absolutely does if they made any sort of bet surrounding Jon and Damian’s… relationship.
“Fly faster.” Damian taps Jon’s shoulder rapidly, staring over at the other rooftop where Jason is staring daggers at Jon while Tim is laughing and leaning on someone. Jon knew he had felt Kon’s presence, he had brushed it off because there were more important matters, but now he wished he hadn’t, because Kon is sending the biggest shit-eating grin over. Cloud cover wouldn’t have blocked Kon from seeing them. He takes that cue and flies off, getting to the Batcave in record time, even quicker to the medical area.
It’s empty, everyone must be out for this case. Alfred is likely up in the manor itself, and their doctor is probably too busy being an actual doctor at an actual hospital to be idling around in a Bat-themed headquarters. Jon slowly glides towards the nearest bed, laying Damian down. He begins to help him out of the Robin suit, undoing the countless clasps and buckles while Damian takes off the easier things such as his gloves, and unhooking his cape. Jon stops when Damian has been stripped to just his pants.
There’s dark bruising along his ribs, swollen by the looks of it, and Jon feels his face scrunch with worry. He’s had his own ribs break before, under Kryptonite’s poisoning, being beaten by an iron-toed boot. Just another reminder that the only good Luthor’s ever done was make Kon.
“Do you feel okay?” Jon finally breaks the silence, asking a rather stupid question. Of course Damian wouldn’t feel okay, he’s got multiple fractures, and other injuries, though he had likely deemed them unimportant compared to the priority of his ribs. It’s progress from when Damian used to deny harm until passing out, at least.
Damian stares at him, a blank yet tense expression on his face so similar to that of Batman’s, the only difference being that Damian’s chewing on his bottom lip in silent pondering. Or brooding. Pouting, Jon thinks when Damian’s eyebrows crease and furrow in the opposite way, it relaxes his eyes, head tilting forward just enough so he’s now looking slightly up at Jon. Jon feels his heart skip a beat at those Kryptonite eyes, rounded and holding some mischievous emotion in them that makes Jon anxious for all the right reasons.
“Your ribs are—!” Jon can’t even protest properly, because Damian has yanked him from his spot in the air to kiss him. Jon feels his belt buckle grabbed, and suddenly he’s not flying, instead sitting above Damian as he’s kissed senseless.
“You’re hurt,” Jon insists, but Damian just insists on his goal, making Jon squeak in surprise at the bite of his lip. He can’t help it when he begins to purr, the barely-there sound rumbling in his chest and throat as Damian reduces him to nothing but a puddle of mush with just a few licks into his mouth.
It’s, minutes later, when someone clears their throat that Jon jolts up, his hair a mess of curls, tan skin flush and with a bit of a sheen to it. He whips around to see Alfred standing there, completely unfazed, holding a first aid kit in his hands. Damian grabs Jon’s shoulders and tosses him off the side of the cot where he hits the floor.
He contemplates staying there, hoping if he curls up enough he’d simply die, but maybe it isn’t the best course of action. So, with his pride hanging on by a thread, he stands back up and dusts himself off. Damian is propped up now, looking smug as ever, though Jon hears his rapid heartbeat, sees the twitch of his smirk, and knows damn well he’s just as embarrassed.
“Master Bruce called in to say you’ve collected quite the number of fractures in your ribs.” Alfred walks over, placing the box down to instead look through one of the drawers of the room.
“Yes.” Damian frowns, and Jon once again scans through his chest to check the fractures.
“These ones,” Jon barely rests one finger along the uppermost rib, the one with the smallest fracture, then he hovers another finger over the sixth rib, not risking touching such a tender area. He may have let Damian get carried away with him, but he had refused to even risk grazing the areas.
“Thank you, Master Jonathan.” Alfred doesn’t bat an eye as he begins his work, and Jon only watches.
He stays in the room the whole time, watching the process Alfred walks through with great care and precision. It’s about half an hour later that he finishes, and Damian is given a black turtleneck to carefully slip on over the fresh bandages of his torso. Alfred is very clear about it when he orders Damian bedrest, sending a sharp look towards Jon. He wants to shrink away and disappear.
Alfred did allow Jon to carry Damian up to his bedroom despite this, trusting them, and somehow Jon suspects he knew that there were unspoken words between them. Jon knows he has a lot. So he carries Damian up to his room, he had insisted on walking, but Damian gave him a frown, so he flew them there quickly, zipping through the halls. Once there, he lays Damian onto the bed carefully, lifting the blanket over him to tuck him in. Damian raises a brow at that, freeing his arms to rest over the blanket. Jon only grins, though he’s the one to appear confused when Damian whistles two sharp notes, looking towards the doorway.
Alfred the cat jumps from the chair at his desk, walking over. Damian silently gestures for Jon to change, so he backs away to get out of the sweaty mess that is his suit. All the while, he watches as the cat hops up onto the bed and lick Damian’s cheek as he sits there on the pillow beside his head. Jon hears the paws before Damian, watching as Titus trots into the room as well. He, too, hops onto the bed, but upon Damian clicking his tongue and whistling a different tone, the dog stops in his path of lying atop Damian. Instead, he settles to his side, resting his head on his paws by Damian’s knees.
Jon trips as he hops out of his jeans, falling against the dresser. Various trinkets shake before tipping over, and Jon has to sacrifice holding onto his suit to grab each one before the hit the floor. Suit-less yet shameless, he turns to return them to their—what he thinks are their—correct spots on the top of the dresser. He looks over at Damian for silent confirmation everything is back in it’s right spot, just to find Damian’s attention far from that situation. He’s not even subtle about staring at Jon’s body, his suit and jeans pooled at his feet. Jon suspects, with the pure venom in Damian’s eyes when he does look back up, that without Alfred’s warning, Damian would’ve pounced onto Jon without a second thought.
Jon forgets about the trinkets, tossing the fabric towards the laundry chute—though he doesn’t toss them down, just lets them hit the wall and sit in a pile by it, because he knows it pisses Damian off—before digging through the drawers for some clothes.
Finding some pants and a baggy green t-shirt, he first steps into the black athletic shorts. He walks towards the bed as he puts on the shirt, his head popping out the collar as he sits down, curls settling down after the struggle.
Damian smiles up at him, a stupid smirk that Jon knows is the same lovestruck look he’s been giving Damian for years.
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