Chapter Text
Metallo hits the pavement hard enough to crater it.
Damian “Robin” Wayne lands a heartbeat later, boots skidding across shattered concrete as Jon’s shadow sweeps overhead. The timing is precise—too precise to be luck. Jon “Superman” Kent drops from the sky with controlled force, heat vision carving a warning line inches from Metallo’s head, herding him exactly where Damian wants him.
“Left arm’s still hot,” Jon calls, already adjusting his position to shield the bystanders clustering at the edge of the plaza.
“I know,” Damian snaps back, already moving. He vaults, twists, and drives his staff into the exposed joint with surgical certainty. Metal screams. Metallo roars.
Jon absorbs the counterstrike without flinching, taking the blow meant for a city bus and redirecting it into the ground. “You good?”
“Obviously,” Damian says, finishing the sequence with a clean disarm that sends the kryptonite core skittering across the pavement. He pins Metallo with a knee and a look that promises consequences.
Sirens close in. Cameras too.
The crowd erupts—not in fear this time, but in cheers. Phones rise. Someone yells Jon’s name. Someone else yells Robin’s.
Damian straightens, chest tight.
This is the new rhythm. Since Gotham stabilized in the aftermath of Bruce’s death, Damian’s 18th Birthday, and the burning of Wayne Manor—since Dick Grayson chose to live as Batman without trying to become Bruce—things have shifted. Dick operates out of a Wayne penthouse now, high above the city with Barbara “Batgirl” Gordon at his side. Batgirl is back, fully present, and Gotham feels steadier for it. Dick trusts more. Delegates more. Tim and Damian have space—real space—to act as their own dynamic duo, operating out of Tim’s far less luxurious Gotham apartment.
And that space has put Damian next to Jon Kent more often than not.
Jon likes it. Damian can tell.
Jon appreciates having someone who doesn’t flinch when the stakes rise, who doesn’t need ideals translated into tactics. Someone who can fight Jon’s enemies without becoming collateral. Damian appreciates that Jon doesn’t patronize him, doesn’t pull punches when it matters. They are efficient together. Dangerous.
They are also being watched.
Jon flashes the crowd a quick, easy smile, the kind that softens headlines. Damian turns away from the cameras, already calculating exits. He hates how easily the narrative forms: Superman’s son and Batman’s heir. Light and shadow. Hope and steel.
“Nice work,” Jon says, landing beside him once the police take over. “You called the opening perfectly.”
Damian allows himself a fraction of a nod. Praise sits oddly in his chest when it’s this sincere. “Your restraint was… adequate.”
Jon laughs, unoffended. “High praise.”
They leave together before the questions start.
Tim’s apartment smells like stale coffee. It’s familiar territory—neutral ground. Dick’s penthouse belongs to Batman and Batgirl now; this place belongs to Red Robin and Robin. Autonomy has a taste, and Damian is still learning it, but bringing Jon back here after a mission is a new step for him.
The door clicks shut behind them. The adrenaline hasn’t faded yet. Jon’s eyes are bright, skin still humming with stored energy.
“You were incredible out there,” Jon says, quieter now.
Damian shrugs out of his gear, movements sharp. “Metallo is predictable.”
“You’re not,” Jon replies. He steps closer, careful, asking without words.
The closeness pulls something loose. Damian lets it.
The fight is still in Damian’s muscles—the precision, the timing, the way Jon moved exactly where he needed him to be without a word.
For a moment, they just look at each other.
This—this—is finally the moment they take their romance to the next level, when they take that next step they haven’t had the time or the space to take until this moment. Damian is certain Jon can feel it too, even if he can’t quite make sense of their pairing.
Jon is drawn to Damian’s sharpness, the way he commits fully, the way he never pretends the world is simpler than it is. There’s something intoxicating about Damian’s certainty, his willingness to step into darkness without flinching. Damian, in turn, is pulled toward Jon’s openness, the sheer force of his optimism, the way he believes—actually believes—that restraint is a strength rather than a liability.
It should push them apart.
Instead, it pulls them together.
Jon steps closer first, tentative only for a heartbeat. Damian doesn’t hesitate. Their mouths meet hard, urgent, all the words they didn’t say crashing together at once. The kiss is reckless, all teeth and breath and heat, the kind that feeds on momentum rather than meaning.
They break apart only long enough to strip away more layers.
Damian’s gloves hit the floor. Jon’s cape follows. Supersuits peel off in practiced motions that are suddenly anything but professional, hands slipping, grabbing, tugging fabric free as impatience takes over. Damian presses Jon back against the couch of the living room, the kiss deepening, bodies fitting together with an ease that feels dangerous in its rightness as Damian climbs atop Jon once he is laying on his back on the couch.
Whatever doubts they carry—about morality, about futures, about whether this can last—are drowned out by sensation.
Jon’s hands are warm and grounding, sliding with reverence and hunger both. Damian responds with ferocity, all focus and need, as if proximity itself is a challenge he refuses to lose as he strokes Jon’s manhood without breaking their kiss. The couch creaks under shifting weight as they give in to the moment, with Damian pushing Jon's knees into his chest, allowing Jon to open for him fully. The room narrows to breath and touch and the electricity between them as he enters his super powered beau, feeling Jon envelop his manhood the first time.
It’s not gentle.
It’s not careful.
It’s exactly what they want.
They’re half-lost in it—clothes discarded, Damian rhythmically stroking Jon in sync with his own thrusts down into Jon, the air thick with heat—when the door opens.
“—oh.”
Tim Drake freezes just inside the threshold.
Damian stiffens instantly, every instinct snapping back into place. Jon jolts, embarrassment flashing across his face as he realizes there is no quick escape from their current position that could protect either of their modesty.
Tim clears his throat, eyes very deliberately not focusing on the state of the couch. “Uh. Sorry. I can… come back.”
He turns halfway toward the door, then stops, awkwardness settling in like a shield. “I didn’t realize the apartment was… occupied.”
“It’s fine,” Jon says too quickly, cheeks flushed, Damian lowering his body against Jon at least enough to obscure Jon's erection from view. “We were just—”
“Sure,” Tim replies, nodding, already backing up a step. “I’ll just—give you space.”
His tone is light. Mildly inconvenienced. Almost amused.
Damian watches him closely.
There’s a flicker—gone in a blink—in Tim’s eyes. Something sharp. Something buried. Jealousy, maybe, or something adjacent to it. Damian sees it, catalogs it, and then deliberately looks away.
This is not the moment.
Tim retreats to his room rather than leaving his own apartment, the door closing with careful quiet.
The air in the living room settles, heavy and unresolved.
Jon exhales, rubbing the back of his neck. “We should probably… stop.”
Damian doesn’t answer with words. Instead he matches Jon’s lips with his own once more and begins rolling his hips again.
Jon exclaims in a hushed whisper, “Damian, he doesn’t need super-hearing to hear us.”
Damian, insistent, “We are all adults, and it seems to me like you and I had nearly…concluded things. Stopping seems unnecessary.”
Jon just laughs before a more intense, carnal sensation takes over. He begins to meet Damian’s motion with his own once again. Time ceases to matter as a concern for either of them, swept away by their passions, barely stifling their moans until.
Damian wonders if Tim really can hear them, and thinks back on that glint of something cryptic in Tim’s expression when he first walked in. Before the thought can settle, however, a guttural moan of pleasure comes over Jon which refocuses Damian, leading him to grip Jon's erection and stroke him rapidly as he continues to thrust into him until, finally, a powerful, intimate mutual release comes.
Outside, Gotham continues as it always does—unaware that lines have already been crossed, and others are starting to form.
Damian tells himself there will be time to think about what he saw in Tim’s eyes.
Just not yet.