Chapter Text
Jon Kent was a boy of few responsibilities. At least, he thought so. He went to school, did his homework, worked on the farm some days, and (when his parents allowed it) went on missions with his partner of over four years. Some would describe the boy as a sunshine child, however others would describe him as a disobedient one.
As Jon woke up at the crack of dawn, the glittering sunlight leaking through his curtains in his room on the farm, he felt a sense of familiarity and warmth spread throughout his entire form.
Until he remembered school.
Jon sighed, then dragged himself out of bed, his Superman pajamas loose on his lithe body. However, despite his thin frame he was still taller than Damian. Barely, but still. Jon walked to the bathroom, doing his morning routine then going back to his bedroom to change into his school clothes, consisting of a pair of worn out jeans, a t-shirt, a heavy jacket, and tennis shoes. He ruffed up his hair before rushing downstairs to have breakfast with his parents. Lois was sitting at the wooden dining table, carefully reading the paper, while Clark was cooking a copious amount of eggs and bacon for his family.
Jon, just before he sat down on the chair across from his mother, greeted his parents. “‘Mornin’, Mom and Dad!”
Lois put down the paper and leaned into her son across the table, picking up her cup of joe in the process. “‘Morning, Jon. How’d ya’ sleep?” She asked tiredly. Jon could tell from the dark circles under his mother’s eyes that she didn’t sleep very well. Most likely worked on an article the entire night.
Jon smiled, a simple quirk of the lips, and replied, “Good, Mom. Dreaming of saving the world.”
Clark chuckled as he moved the two pans onto the table, making sure to put the mats under them as to not damage the table even more. Jon looked down at the food, up to his father, then murmured a thanks. Clark put a heavy hand on his shoulder, then sat down next to his wife.
Jon could tell his mother put a hand on his father’s thigh under the table, but said nothing. They were always like this, and Jon guessed it was a way adults showed their...affection.
Breakfast passed in a blur, Lois and Clark gulping down their coffees before they both left for work in Metropolis. Jon put the dirty plates in the sink, making sure to at least rid them of crumbs, and ran upstairs to grab his brightly colored backpack.
Jon stood at the front door, not quite outside yet, and turned around to face the empty house which was vacant of his family. At times like this, the house felt impersonal and detached without his mom and dad. Yet the family photos were still there, as were the remnants of their breakfast, and Jon couldn’t help but smile. He left in a blur.
Sadie Hawkins was coming up in a few days, he had realized halfway through the school day.
“Oh Rao,” Jon muttered tiredly to himself, sounding too much like his father. Before school dance, so many boys and girls were pressured to ask out their long-time crushes. And Jon didn’t like that. Because his crush doesn’t even go to his school.
Plus, Sadie Hawkins was an absolute scam! What if you were a boy who wanted to ask out another boy? Hm? “Scam, I tell you,” Jon muttered angrily to himself as he stared at a poster promoting the stupid school dance.
“What’s a scam?” A girl—Valerie, if he recalled correctly—asked him. Her black, sleek hair was tucked behind her olive-toned ears, displaying a ridiculous amount of makeup that proved she had so obviously attempted to make her Asian eyes not seem to thin. That’s a scam, Jon thought. Why would someone want to change who they are?
Jon blinked quickly and shook his head, as if to rid himself of those thoughts. “Sadie Hawkins,” he answered shortly.
Valerie nodded along wisely, as if she knew exactly what he was talking about. “Yeah,” she said, shrugging her shoulder, “it seems like a scam to me, too.”
Jon lips quirked upward, and she smiled back at him, their eye contact unwavering. “Do you wanna go together?” Valerie blurted out, and Jon’s eyes widened. “I mean...” she stuttered through her explanation, grabbing a piece of her own hair nervously. “Since we both agree that it’s kinda stupid.” Jon stared at her blankly, which made Valerie drop her shoulders and sigh loudly.
“Look, Jon,” she stated, surprising the boy. “I want to go with my friends, but they won’t let me in if it’s just me,” she explained. Jon nodded slowly, still processing that someone wanted to go with him. His mind drifted to Damian, but he shook his head again, not wanting to remember him in these moments. When he’s about to get asked out by a girl. “Plus,” she said, pulling Jon out of his own head, “maybe we could have fun. The two of us.” Her tone held something that he couldn’t quite identify, so he nodded along with a hesitant smile.
“Sounds good, Val,” he replied lamely. The young woman gave him a warm smile, then left in a hurry to get to her next class. Jon’s face fell when the implications of going out with her hit him, and he felt more disappointed in himself than he has in months.
Jon told Damian to meet up with him in their own base, and Damian could tell by what Jon was saying that he was adamant that they meet tonight. Damian’s heart beat faster, and he felt some breath leave his lungs suddenly.
He rushed to the base, only barely managing to tell his father. When stopped by Bruce’s hand to ask what was going on, Damian shoved it off his shoulder and ran to his bike.
Bruce sighed as he saw his son leaving the cave in a hurry, wondering how much time had truly passed since he first got Damian.
Jon heard the bike rolling into their base, dread filling his stomach. Why did he call Damian, again?
Damian stopped smoothly, as to not make any horrendous noises, and meticulously placed his helmet on the handle of his bike, checking twice that he kicked down the kickstand. Jon waited with a bouncing leg, his posture radiating anxiety.
Damian, when he saw the perfectly fine state of Jon, furrowed his brows and asked, “What, Jonathan?”
Jon jumped a bit. “Um,” he stuttered and Damian looks really mad and obviously worried why’d I invite him over just to tell him-
“Kent,” Damian growled. Jon’s chest filled with worry all over again.
“Okay,” the boy breathed out, attempting to take control of what little breathing he had experienced in the past minute. “So there’s this school dance we have every year. Only the ninth graders can go because they’re the eldest in the school and...” Jon hesitated, avoiding eye contact with Damian.
Damian frowned, a pout beginning to form on his face. Jon lifted his eyes to meet Damian’s, and they both turned their head to avoid the eye contact. “A girl asked me out,” Jon finally admitted, a heavy breath leaving his body. Relief spread through his body as he finally admitted to a good friend what had been bothering him.
Damian’s eyes narrowed. “Is it not a norm for men to ask out the women?” He demanded.
Jon bit his lip. “Yeah,” he muttered, “usually. But Sadie Hawkins is different. That’s when the girls ask out the boys.”
Damian stilled, the furrowed brows still etched onto his countenance. “American schools are stupid,” he stated, and Jon sighed in agreement.
“Yah. They are, Dami.”
Damian frowned further. “What if you were homosexual? Or not attracted to people?”
Jon, suddenly tired, shook his head sadly. However, his eyes snapped up to meet Damian’s when the older boy said, “You shall not go.”
Jon tilted his head, confused. “Why, Dami?”
“I do not know this girl’s name,” he answered as he broke the eye contact, as if that were a proper explanation. At Jon’s lack of reply, Damian growled under his breath and involuntarily grabbed his silicon necklace, and continued, “She does not deserve you if I do not know her.”
Jon’s cheeks heated up, the words making him feel butterflies in his stomach. Until his partner’s first declaration hit him yet again. “She wants to be with her friends, Dami. She can’t go in if a boy doesn’t go with her.” At Damian’s stubborn scowl, Jon continued. “I know nothing besides friendship will happen with her, Dames. She just wants me as company. Nothing else.”
Damian huffed, pulling his arms into his chest where the necklace was circled around his neck, fiddling with the disc. Before Jon could say anything else, Damian swept out of the room, carefully placing the helmet over his head and kicking up the kickstand before the tires rolled away in a hurry.
What did I do wrong? Jon asked himself, his mind searching for a solution already.
Damian hurriedly drove away from his and Superboy’s base, his head pounding painfully and shoulders tense beyond what they normally were. Damian, as he was passing a warehouse on 35th, heard the sound of gunshots, and was suddenly determined to ignore his own pain in that moment.
Damian lifted the helmet from his head, then kicked down the kickstand. After carefully placing the helmet onto the same handle, he plugged the almost imperceptible earplugs into the proper place and ran into the fray.
His fighting style was graceful by the influence of his mother, a controlled ruthlessness with the training from his father, but perfected in a way determined by himself. Just as he did a kick to knock out the last henchman, he felt more shots hit the ground around his feet.
Damian shifted to the upstairs, where at least six men were standing at the metal railing, AKs and glocks in their jumping fingers. “Get the little brat!” Damian read from their lips, and he rolled to his side to evade the bullets. He sprinted to a space under the railings, and climbed his way up from there. The men, with their weapons still drawn, immediately began shooting as Robin reached their level.
Robin used his cape to block the bullets, then rolled towards the men, feeling the bullets ricocheting off the metal railings. He quickly disarmed two of the six men, using the pressure points to knock them out quickly. It was not very skilled, which he greatly disliked, but was also aware that he needed all of them out fast.
It was not before long that all six men were on the floor, either groaning painfully or refusing to make any noise at all. Robin grabbed the collar of a conscious henchman, demanding, “Why did you begin shooting? Who is behind the operation?”
The henchman’s face stretched into a sadistic smile, the blood covering his teeth making him hard to look at with the average eye. But Damian’s learned to look anywhere at the blood, instead focusing on the man’s crooked nose.
Damian huffed when there was no response, then hit the henchman’s head onto the metal. Damian felt the metal vibrate. The henchman groaned painfully, then muttered out, “Oh what the hell. I’m getting beaten up by a fuckin’ kid.” Robin narrowed his eyes, but the henchman didn’t seem to deterred by that. He continued, “He’s on 30th and Dahlia. He’s probably high off his fuckin mind.”
Robin’s jaw clenched. “That does not explain-“
“Look, kid,” Damian growled under his breath, “he sent us to kill some competing ring.” Damian furrowed his brows, curiosity sinking in. The henchman’s face morphed into something more tense, his eyes wide and lips pursed as though he regretted what he had just said.
Ring could mean a few different scenarios to Damian. All of them being cruel and inhumane. “Ring?”
The henchman gulped, his fear beginning to kick in as the adrenaline died down. “I can’t tell you that, kid. I promised the boss I wouldn’t say anything. A contract n’ everything.”
Damian scowled, dropping the man by his feet and kicking him in a half attempt of justice. “And yet you have told me enough.” Damian let out his grappling hook and landed onto the first floor.
He walked to the door in which he had entered, turned around, then announced to the entire warehouse, “Goodbye, scum of the earth.”
He left for 30th and Dahlia.