Work Text:
Batboys get no privacy
by gmartinez
Bruce and Clark
Bruce kind of regretted sending the drone after Damian that night.
Originally, he and Clark just wanted to check up on their sons’ progress as a team. Bruce had secretly sent out a cloaked drone to monitor the boys on their mission. He expected to see an improvement on cooperation, teamwork, coordination…he definitely did not expect to see Robin kissing Superboy on a rooftop.
Clark sat beside him, equally stunned. Bruce wished that his friend would say something, anything, just to lift the incredibly awkward silence. Finally, Clark cleared his throat.
“Did you know?” Superman asked with forced calmness. It was obvious he was still at a loss for words?
Bruce glanced at him awkwardly. “I’m the world’s greatest detective, but no I didn’t know.”
Clark stared at him for a few tense seconds, and then he grinned.
“Bruce, that’s what you said last Christmas,” Clark chuckled.
“Every time I feel like I know Damian, he keeps proving me wrong,” Bruce said with amusement. He shook his head, and the tension evaporated.
“How to be a good father to our sons is the greatest mystery of all,” Clark said with a smile.
Dick Grayson
Dick listened to his little brother with rapt attention. He could have told Damian to stop, he could’ve asked Jon to sit down and relax, but he didn’t. Even though he knew about them already, he let Damian talk. They both needed to do this in their own way, without any interruptions.
Damian gulped as he finished, and then glanced at Jon. They both nodded with determination.
Dick watched as Damian closed his eyes and pressed his lips against Jon’s.
“Do you understand, Grayson?” Damian asked wearily. He was holding Jon’s hand tightly, the younger boy’s fingers laced through his own.
“I understand that I have a new brother now, I guess,” Dick shrugged comically. His humor had the intended effect. Jon started giggling and the edge of Damian’s mouth twitched, as if he almost wanted to laugh.
Dick wrapped both boys in a hug.
“Coming out takes a lot more courage than putting on tights every night to soak up bullets and knives,” Dick began. “I know how much this means to you, and really, thank you for trusting me.”
“Of course we’d trust you!” Jon chirped. “You’re the best big brother ever!”
“Watch it,” Damian pouted. “He was my brother first!”
Of course, Dick thought, bickering was part of the package.
“Don’t worry, Damian. You’re both equally brats,” he laughed.
Jason Todd
Jason swore. He spent the last of his cash for the week on the magazine, and this was what he saw. To be fair, he’d expected Damian to get into kissing at this age. What he didn’t expect was that Damian would be kissing Jon.
When Damian had texted him for dating tips, Jason had told Daman to meet him in the arcade. Jason already knew what he had to as an older brother—he was going to buy Damian his first porn mag. Sure, he could’ve gone online for porn, but nothing beats the classic physical porn mag to give you that “naughty” frame of mind. He was going to take one for the team and tell Damian all the ways you could pleasure a girl in graphic detail. After all, what was an older brother for?
But then yeah, Damian had kissed a boy—a Superboy. It was just a quick peck on the cheek after Jon had beaten the high score on a ring toss. It was enough for Jason to know that his plan was ruined.
He’d gotten that magazine from one of his shadier contacts who swore on five different crosses that it wasn’t probably smuggled, or illegal, or both. In Jason's line of work, it was usually both. The catch was, there were no refunds or exchanges. Jason sighed.
“Hey, kid,” Jason said to the boy nearest him. He was just another kid at the arcade holding one of those gun-shaped controllers. Jason handed him the magazine. “Here. From Santa Clause.”
The boy stared dumbfounded at the magazine, and then at Jason, who’d started to walk away.
“But…it’s August!” he called out in disbelief.
“I’m doing summer shifts,” Jason said without looking back.
He took out his phone a dialed his friend again.
“Emil, it’s me,” Jason said. “I need a new…book. My brother didn’t like the last one. Can you get me something with just guys in it? Yes, I said what you think I just said. And yeah, my brother found someone cute, don’t worry.”
Tim Drake
Everyone considered Tim to be a genius. But in this case, he’d have agreed with anyone who’d wanted to call him an idiot for coming out to the living room at that exact moment.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Tim groaned.
“Sorry?” Damian chided. “What you did was reprehensible, Drake! A complete disregard for mine and Jon’s privacy!”
Damian huffed with his arms crossed. His indignation was undercut by how disheveled he looked and the conspicuous red mark on his neck. Jon sat awkwardly beside him. The younger boy's hair was a tangled mess and his vest was halfway off his shoulders. He was staring at the floor and fiddling with his thumbs.
“You guys were eating each other on the sofa. Which is in the living room. Which everyone walks past on the way to the kitchen.” Tim said dryly.
“It’s midnight!” Damian protested. “No one in their right mind would come through here!”
“So I drink an espresso every midnight, no big deal,” Tim said nonchalantly. “That’s not the issue here. It’s you two.”
“What do you mean?” Jon asked, his bright blue eyes sparkling with anxiety.
Tim sighed. “I mean get a room. We live in a mansion, Damian. We have five guest rooms for goodness’ sake. You have a 70 square meter bedroom! I know you guys are head over heels for each other, but how do you think it makes me feel when we walk in on you inhaling each other’s faces like that?”
“You?” Damian smirked. “Jealous.”
Jon burst out laughing.
Tim rolled his eyes at the young teen and walked away. He needed twice as much coffee these days now that Damian had Jon. A sullen Damian would often annoy Tim, but a happy Damian? He shuddered at the thought.
It didn't help that the voice in Tim's head was adamantly retorting, "I'm totally not jealous!"
Alfred Pennyworth
Damian froze. His eyes flung open and he saw that Jon had done the same. It felt somewhat odd to pause just as their lips had begun their clandestine adventure, but fear and surprise interrupted their higher brain functions. They weren’t able to pull away from each other when they’d heard the door open.
It happened much too fast than was humanly possible. Alfred had opened the door, crossed the room, and set the gleaming silver tray down on the bedside table all in the span of three seconds. It took him half a second to arch his eyebrow at Jon, whose lips were still firmly locked with Damian’s as though in a paused recording. Another second later, Alfred had closed the door.
The boys had gotten over their trance and pulled themselves apart. Alfred didn’t know, of course. They’d only told Dick, and had made Tim swear to keep what he saw a secret or else Damian would throw out all the mansion’s coffee reserves. They didn’t know how Alfred would react, or if he’d tell, or if the old butler would get a heart attack. For a minute, they were silent, their eyes speaking volumes about what they’d feared.
Suddenly, the door opened once more. It was Alfred, carrying an identical silver tray as the one he’d placed before. Damian felt a sense of déjà vu as Alfred mechanically placed the tray in front of them in exactly the same way as he’d done earlier, as if repeating that instance in time. When he opened the tray, Damian saw that it was a sandwich exactly like his own.
But unlike before, there was a pastel-colored box on the tray—it was a box of condoms.
Damian and Jon’s eyes grew wide as the implication hit them. With a barely imperceptible wink, Alfred swept out of the room, leaving two very red-faced boys behind him.