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«I don't know what the fuck was in that cigarette Roy rolled for me, but I assure you I didn't dream it. The demon spawn was putting on makeup,» Jason exclaimed as he entered the living room with the same grace as an elephant in a china store, drawing attention of the other brothers.
It was theoretically their movie night, and as much as the girls had forfeited, all the Robins were there, bar none. Well, except for the youngest of them who, according to Jason, was putting on makeup in his room. Dick, who was sprawled in his own chair with a bowl of popcorn abandoned in his lap, was the first to look up, lazily extending a hand toward his own strawberry milkshake.
«You had better ways to get attention, Little Wing,» he said with a yawns, and Tim chuckled.
«Not least 'cause, if it were true, I don't think you would have lived to tell us about it,» he replied, but Jason thinned his eyelids.
«You laugh, but that demon was putting on fucking eyeliner.»
«First of all, it's called kajal, Todd.» Damian's cold, detached voice boomed through the great living room, as if they'd found themselves in the cave. When the hell had he arrived? «Secondly, I don't see how this is supposed to be of any interest to you.»
They tried not to did it, but all of them turned to the threshold at the same time to find Damian's straight and composed figure there, wearing a black shirt that clung to his lean, long muscles in the same way that his elegant pants hugged his hips perfectly. They knew that he looked good in whatever he wore, and it was nothing new, if it weren't for his eyes. The dark line that contoured them set them off in a way that none of the brothers had seen in years, and if they could have, their jaws probably would have dropped to the floor as they stared into those emerald eyes that scrutinized all of them with a knowing frown. One corner of Damian's mouth was slightly raised and made his nose wrinkle, resulting in an expression mixed with contempt and deep disregard. Dick didn't want to admit it, but in that moment he saw in Damian the elegant beauty that only Talia could show when she assumed such postures... and the make-up of his eyes made that feeling much deeper.
It was Dick the first to compose himself, especially since none of his brothers seemed ready to open their mouths and say anything. It was hard to tell if the reason was Damian's gaze or the situation itself. «Can I ask you why you.... mhn... you look all spruce up?» he had the nerve to ask, feeling the atmosphere cool down sitting around him from Tim and Jason. Against all odds, though, a sarcastic smirk was painted on Damian's lips.
«Isn't that what you do when you've a date?»
If they had been puzzled before, now the other three Robins had the distinct feeling that Mr. Freeze had entered the room. Had Damian just said he had a date?
«Do you have a date?» it was Tim who asked with a hysterical note in his voice, as if he had struggled not a little to voice the words that had formed in his head. Damian was still a kid, for heaven's sake!
«You're a brat, what date do you think you're going on?» Jason rejoined, at which point Damian looked at him indignantly, curling his lips.
«...I'm seventeen years old, you idiot.»
«And who gave you permission to have seventeen years?»
Damian squinted his eyes. «Are you serious?» he retorted, muttering something in Arabic before turning his back on them. «I don't have time to waste on your bullshit, my date will be here any minute.»
«Hold your horses, Little D, hold your horses.» Dick's voice overpowered whatever questions Jason and Tim might have asked on the spot, as his dazed look seemed to make his eyes glow ominously in the light of the television screen. «Since when are you dating anyone?»
At that point, Damian turned around, an hand resting on the doorframe and an annoyed expression painted on his face. Even those dark lines on his eyelids seemed to be thinner. «The way you've picked it up, it almost sounds like I can't do it.»
«Indeed you can't.»
«You're a child.»
«Who is this guy?»
With hindsight, hearing them talk like that, Damian regretted coming out to them. He had thought a lot about whether he should talk to his family or not and, although he had struggled to come to terms with it, in the end he had requested a family meeting to speak clearly and concisely with all of them, looking his father straight in the eyes when he had said the fateful "I'm gay". At first, at his father's silence, he'd felt a weight into his stomach and he had thought he'd see him react badly; against all his expectations, however, his father had placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him, thanking him for trusting him enough to open up to him before being literally crushed by his brothers' hugs. Too bad they didn't seem as understanding now as they had been six months earlier.
Damian let out a long sigh to calm himself. They were his brothers. He couldn't think (again) to killing them. «You all are overreacting,» he said in the quietest voice he could did, but the looks that came his way didn't seem to bode well for him.
«Not at all,» was in fact the quick retort of the three, as if everything was absolutely normal. They were joking, right?
Resisting the urge to go back upstairs, take one of his katana to aimed it at their throats, Damian closed and reopened his eyes before staring at them again. «I don't seem I put my mouth on your little stories or telling you who to date and who not to.»
«We're adults.» Grayson's sentence made him turn his nose up more, as if it were the absolute truth; but before Damian could retort, he immediately continued. «Plus you're suddenly dating someone overnight, we don't even know who this guy is.»
«And especially if he's shady.»
«He could be, have you checked his record?»
«...Who do you think I'm messing with, Drake?» Damian asked at that point, even more indignant. «I don't know whether to appreciate this apprehension or to tell you all to fuck off for it, but I have no intention of-»
Damian might have continued, but as the bell rang, they all stopped. They looked at each other for moments that seemed literally endless, not even a fly was heard and only the pendulum was beating the rhythm of the passing seconds, at least until it was Jason himself who took charge and dodged Damian, passing him so quickly that Damian himself took a moment too long to realize what had happened.
«Todd, don't you dare!» Damian shouted as he chased after him, though he was also shooed away by the other two brothers who arrived at the entrance before him. Damn suit that kept him from moving with the agility he wished he had at that moment. He would have sliced them all to pieces if they had only tried to...
He didn't have time to finish that thought of his, that it was Dick who literally threw the door open without even asking who it was while Jason and Tim cringed behind him, all three of them remaining interdicted at the sight of the person on the porch.
With his hair slicked back and a big smile on his face, Jon watched them through the large glasses he wore that, just like his father, were supposed to keep his identity a secret. «Hey, guys,» he greeted them with that trademark sunny frown. «Is Damian ready? I'm here to pick him up.»
What? Dick, Jason, and Tim continued to stare at him wordlessly, gasping. Staring down at them from his six-foot-four frame, Jon appeared resplendent throughout. Over a pair of classically cut, stiff-leg pants, he wore a blue shirt that peeked out above his jacket and highlighted his eyes; as embarrassed as he looked, he seemed so happy that nothing in the world could dampen his enthusiasm, not even the stunned expressions of three older brothers. Was... was he Damian's date? Really? Jonathan Samuel "Little Sunspot" Kent?
«Have you come to do what?» Jason bounced with a stunned look, as if Jon's words hadn't quite gotten into his head. Oh, and yet he had heard it all right. He just refused to believe it.
Massaging the back of his head, Jon adjusted his glasses. «Pick Damian up,» he repeated, lifting a corner of his mouth more as he ran his gaze over all three of them. «We're... well... going on a date?»
«When was this going to happen?»
«Are you messing with us?»
«Why you?»
Jon looked at them strangely, sliding his gaze over all three of them as if he wasn't sure what they were saying or how they were behaving; he soon saw Damian took up room between Tim and Jason and shrug them off to the side with an expletive, casting a glance in his direction before assuming an annoyed frown that seemed to mean, "Forget them, they're idiots."
«Are you all satisfied?» Damian exclaimed as he approached Jon, taking him under his arm under the astonished gaze of his brothers while Jon, embarrassed, rubbed his neck a little without hiding his smile. «Now would you all shut your mouths and stop ruining our first date before it even begins?» he spat those words with as much of a knowing air as he could find, but none of his brothers missed the embarrassed note in his voice.
«We'll be back before midnight, I promise,» Jon told them as he brought a hand to his chest to make a cross over his heart, chuckling when Damian punched him in the arm and whispered words that only a Kryptonian could have heard, given the low tone in which he said them; he whispered back how good Damian looked dressed like that and how much he loved the outline of his eyes, being hit again in the arm by Damian who, muttering, looked away to hide his embarrassment. But Jon wasn't discouraged and he smiled to Damian's brothers, waving a hand and walking away together in the direction of the huge gate, while Jason, Dick and Tim watched them quietly soar into the sunset sky.
All three of them mouthed like fish out of water, motionless as if they couldn't believe what had just happened. Since when did Jon and Damian... were dating? Okay, they were longtime friends and Jon was practically a saint for putting up with him, but to even date as a couple? The world was falling apart.
«Shit, Conner didn't say anything to me.»
Tim was the first to break the silence, soon drawing the attention of the other two to himself.
«What makes you think he knew?»
«...He asked me to say hi to Damian for Jon last week and give him a letter.»
Dick and Jason looked at each other for a long moment as soon as they heard those words, lowering their gaze to their younger brother who, in a way, had found it rather interesting to look at the Robin symbol drawn on his slippers.
«Best second detective in the world. Eh, Timbo?» they replied in unison, and Tim, rolling his eyes, raised his middle finger in their direction as he turned his back on them and walked back into the house first.
«Bite me.»
Hours later, when Damian re-entered the house looking frazzled but with a smile painted on his face, he wasn't surprised to find his brothers waiting up to poke him and ask how it went his date.