Chapter Text
When Damian had opened his eyes and made his way to the bathroom, he had screamed at the top of his lungs to see the reflection in the mirror that had returned his gaze.
Panicked, he had begun to touch his face and cheeks, checking the inside of his mouth, his teeth, even opening his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger, and had begun to feel his own body from his chest down to his hips, not daring to touch any further before he had once again seen the reflection of Jonathan Kent staring back at him through the mirror.
"Jonny? Are you okay, sweetheart?"
Lois Lane's voice made him jump, and for a long moment he gasped, glancing around the bathroom that, now that he was definitely more awake, he realized was definitely not his own.
"Y-Yes, Mothe... Mom!" he exclaimed in Jon's voice, only to return to staring at the mirror when Lois, seemingly reassured and reminding him to hurry since she had to go to work soon, told him that breakfast was ready and retraced her steps. He could hear them ringing in his ears as if she were in the bathroom with him, and it was fortunate that having had them for a limited time when he had come back to life, he knew how to control them enough not to use them inappropriately.
But the point was different: what the hell had happened? He put his hands on the edge of the sink and tried to think back, staring into Jon's blue eyes as they frowned at him. He had gone out on patrol with Nightwing the night before, he remembered it well. They had foiled a couple of robberies, put the Penguin's henchmen on the run, and put Clayface back behind bars in Arkham. Then they'd gone back to the Batcave, and... no, they hadn't gone straight back to the Batcave. First, there had been this guy... a wizard... some guy.... Houbi? A new guy, not from Gotham, whom they had captured with such embarrassing ease that Damian couldn't help but sneer at him. And at that moment, the wizard had spoken words in a language even he didn't understand, before the GCPD cops had put him in the car and dragged him to the police station. Only then had they returned to the cave, and when he had gone upstairs to his room, Damian had fallen onto the bed without even taking off his costume. Why the hell was he in Metropolis, in the Kents' apartment, in Jon's body?
"Think, Damian, think..." he muttered to himself, massaging his temples to ward off the migraine. Okay. First, the Kents shouldn't suspect anything. He should act exactly like Jon - Pennyworth's acting lessons would definitely come in handy - tell his parents he was spending the night at Wayne Manor for hero stuff and leave the house as if nothing had happened. Nothing simpler. Or at least it was in theory, what was missing was the practice.
Damian wasted more time in the bathroom than he should have, taking off his stupid pajamas with the egg on his shirt to go back to his room and get dressed, rummaging around for Jon's cell phone. When he found it, he scrolled through the phone book looking for his own number and decided to call without thinking twice; Jon - at that moment in Damian's body - answered immediately, talking excitedly and too fast to be understood, so much so that Damian had to call him back again and again to calm him down. So he began to explain to Jon what had happened the night before and his doubts about this body-switching, he told him about the magician they had captured and handed over to the G.C.P.D. cops, but it was at this point that he let slip an expletive in Arabic, a symbol that he was really pissed off when he heard Jon's low reply about it. The damn sorcerer had escaped.
With all his calm, he had tried to tell his friend to behave as much as possible like he would have done and to keep a low profile, so that no one would eat the loss or understand that something was wrong; he would reach him during the day, so he better keep quiet and not mess up. He hung up and took another long breath through his nose, crossed the long corridor of the apartment and peered through the large kitchen where the smell of scrambled eggs and bacon filled the room. It was certainly different from the usual breakfast he was used to.
He looked around, vaguely uncomfortable as he approached: Kent Sr. had already left for work, which was partly a good thing, since he wasn't sure he could handle both Kent spouses in this situation; Lois, on the other hand, had just put her plate on the table and was giving him a bright smile.
"Good morning, sweetheart," she greeted him, planting a kiss on his forehead that made him blink a little. He knew the Kents were affectionate types, but he wasn't used to such outward expressions. "Scrambled eggs and crispy bacon," she hinted with a wink, inviting him to sit down before doing the same.
"...thank you," Damian replied a little embarrassed, but only because this "Kent breakfast situation" was not in his wheelhouse. So he sat down and began to eat slowly and thoughtfully. Okay, that mage was definitely to blame for the whole mess, and so far he had no doubt about that. So he just had to find him with Jon and everything would be fine, they'd be back in their own bodies and they'd never talk about it again.
"What's the matter, Jon? Don't you like it?"
Lois' voice snapped him out of his thoughts and he raised his face to meet the woman's gaze. "Mhn? No, it's exquisite." And he meant it, even though he hadn't touched the bacon. "I was just... I'm staying at Damian's tonight. I mean... mhn... can I sleep at his place?" he quickly corrected himself, remembering that Jon always had to ask his parents' permission for everything he had to do. Even though they were both fourteen, he was used to doing what he wanted - even when his father tried to assert his authority, which he promptly ignored. "It's the weekend."
Lois looked at him and picked up her cup of coffee. "Will you two be on patrol?"
"Maybe."
"Then try not to stay out too late, you know how your father and I feel about that."
"What? I'm fourteen, that's not fair!" he replied with a slightly higher tone in his voice as he wasn't used to being told things like that, but the look he got was unyielding.
"You may be fourteen, but remember, I can still spank your super butt," Lois replied with a hint of sarcasm, and Damian blushed a little.
"...okay," he mumbled and looked away. Lois Lane had a bizarre superpower: making herself heard without giving her interlocutor a chance to respond.
"That's my boy. You're my hero," Lois smiled. "Don't forget your phone."
And oddly enough, Damian listened to her.