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Jon never really thought something was up with Damian until he heard his heart skip a beat.
Before he knew it, he had super speeded his way between the bookshelves, and skidded to a halt beside his best friend.
The guy Damian had been talking to looked surprised at his sudden appearance. Jon didn't blame him; using his super speed did tend to have that reaction on people.
"Guess that's my cue to leave. If you ever change your mind, just give me a call, Robin." The corners of the guy's mouth lifted into a smile. With a nod, he turned on his heel, and walked out of the shop.
He didn't seem to be much older than me, Jon realized as he stared at the back of the guy's head, frowning. Maybe around Damian's age?
But the smile hadn't looked like the smile guys usually give when Superboy and Robin rescued them. It looked more like the 'thank you for saving us' looks girls would send Kon where they batted their eyelashes and twirled their hair around their fingers—
Oh.
Oh.
"Holy Batman, D, did he give you his num—" Jon bit back the rest of the question when he caught sight of his best friend's clenched jaw. He gulped, suddenly aware of the tension in Damian's shoulders. Something was very, very wrong here, so he lowered his voice, even as he was pretty sure the lady at the counter was busy with her phone, and whispered, "Fortress?"
Damian shook his head. "Manor. Father's in Brazil."
"Gotcha." Not that Jon was scared of Batman, exactly. He just... okay, Batman scared him sometimes. A bit. He pushed the thought of his mind to follow Damian outside.
The flight to Gotham was quick. Pretty soon, Damian was leading him down the familiar hallway to his bedroom, and Jon was zipping towards Damian's bed. He sighed as he grabbed one of the super soft pillows to hug closer to himself. Had he mentioned that he loved being best friends with Damian Wayne?
The problem, J, a voice which sounded like Kon reminded him.
Right, the problem. Because he was sure Damian had a problem. Like, ninety-three percent sure. He sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. Damian was sitting at his desk, pencil in hand. Doing some sketching, probably. Jon bit his lip, hesitant to interrupt him. Should he...? Yeah, he should. "Hey, D? Do you want to talk about it?"
Damian's hand froze. "I—I changed my mind. Just forget it"
Jon couldn't keep his jaw from dropping. "Are you serious?!"
"I said forget it!"
Jon swallowed his retort of, I'll forget it if you tell me why the h were you freaking out earlier, on the tip of his tongue. It never did him any good if he started screaming back.
Sometimes, he really, really, really didn't get Damian. Sure, they've been friends for like two years now, but he still had a hard time reading his moods. Tim said he shouldn't let it bother him because Damian had always been like that, but Jon secretly disagreed. Damian was his best friend. Best friends should always try to understand each other, shouldn't they? Even when Damian was being a jerk-ass rude, Jon should be the bigger person and do his best to understand why Damian was being his usual 'I'll ignore my problems and hope they go away' self. That's what Dad would do.
"C'mon, Dames, tell me. Maybe I can help."
Damian's grip tightened around the pencil. A beat passed. Two. Jon gulped. The silence stretched. Damian wasn't looking like he was going to answer him anytime soon, but on the bright side, he'd turned to look at him—
"How would you know if you truly like guys?"
"How would I—what?" Was his superhearing not working, or did Damian ask...? Okay, Damian had his 'I'm serious' look on, so his superhearing worked perfectly fine. Jon just had no freaking clue how to answer his question. "I... think you just do? But I don't really know. Because I don't like guys...?"
Damian's face darkened.
Oh, geez, this was bad. This was really, really bad. Jon thought fast. What should he do, what should he do? He should, uh. Be supportive. Obviously. Because Damian was his best friend. That was like the number one rule of friendships.
"I guess you could take one of those 'Am I Gay?' quizzes?" he suggested. He'd heard about those. According to Kon, they weren't accurate, but it was better than nothing. "You could maybe ask Tim, too? If you want to talk to him about it?"
Silence again. Damian's knuckles were white against the pencil. Jon had to bat away the urge to use his x-ray vision to see if the pencil was still alright. "...Fine."
He mustered an encouraging smile as Damian took out his phone. The next seconds were spent in silence, with his best friend presumedly looking up for a quiz to take.
Jon took out his own phone to scroll through Instaslam. Oooh, Georgia was in Portugal. Kathy was still in Smallville, and was that Grandma's chicken casserole in the background—
"I'm bi."
He blinked. Tore his attention away from his phone to grin at Damian.
"Uh, yay?" It was the right thing to say, wasn't it? Apparently not. At the look on his best friend's face, Jon hastily added, "I mean, you could always take the quiz again? But like, a different one. Just to be sure."
Jon squinted at the screen. He didn't pay a lot of attention to the more grown-up questions, but this one (eighth question out of ten) seemed to be safe to read out loud.
"Your friends have asked you to go to the new gay bar in town with them. Do you: a) Go, because why not? There's a first time for everything, b) Go! That's one other hotspot to keep an eye on, or c) Decline, you're not a fan of gay bars anyway." He looked over at Damian, who was sprawled on the couch now, manga in hand. "Do you wanna to go to a gay bar?"
"I'd rather go on patrol."
He went with the letter C. The next question was something about ice cream? He wasn't sure how it helped in knowing if someone was gay or bi, but it was probably a part of the quiz for a reason. "Do you like vanilla, cookies and cream, chocolate, or Neopolitan?"
"Vanilla."
Jon chose vanilla. "Last question. Could you see yourself marrying, and spending the rest of your life with someone of the same sex? a) Yes—"
"Kent, we already answered that four quizzes ago."
Rolling his eyes, he entered the first option, and impatiently waited for the results to load in three... two... one...
The result stared back at him. "It says here you're bisexual. Again." Damian's frustrated sigh made him wince. "So, do you still want to ask Tim—"
"I do."
Tim didn't scream when the door to his room suddenly banged open, but it was a damn near thing.
"Cover yourself up, Drake. Aren't you ashamed?"
Christ, it was way too early for this. Grumbling under his breath, he reached over his desk for a spare shirt, threw it on, and glared at the demon spawn, who had perched himself on his bed. "What do you want?"
His mind quickly began to jot down some theories about the demon spawn's sudden need to barge in on his room like some demented cowboy. Did he get a girlfriend? Killed someone and wanted Tim's help to hide the body? Maybe Bruce was being his usual overbearing, overprotective, and way too paranoid for his own good self again—
"How did you know you were bisexual?"
—or not.
Tim fought to keep the surprise from his face, but judging by his brother's scowl, he hadn't been entirely successful. "Uh, it wasn't exactly like a huge realization."
Damian narrowed his eyes. "Explain."
Trust the demon brat to sound like a—well, like a demon brat. But like, a spoiled demon brat. Nothing new there.
"It was a few months after my latest break-up with Steph. The four of us at the Tower—me, Kon, Cassie, and Bart, and we got to talking about where we'd want to live if we got out of the cape business." He could still remember it, if he thought hard enough. Cassie on the couch, Bart on the floor, Kon and him on the other couch. "Kon was saying something about the island life, and I thought, I wouldn't mind living in Hawaii him forever, and the rest was history. The end." He chuckled at the sheer look of disbelief on Damian's face. "I told you it wasn't some huge realization."
"Tt." Damian crossed his arms over his chest, the very poster boy of, 'that's it?'
"I warned you, didn't I?" The gremlin's response was another click of the tongue. A thought suddenly occured to Tim, and he was careful to keep his tone neutral when he asked, "If you don't mind me asking, who else... knows?"
"Jon." The gremlin lifted his shoulders into a half-shrug. "You."
"And?" He mentally ran through a list of the other people who might know. Dick was a safe bet, Damian had always been close to him. Alfred? Maybe. Jason? Not sure. Bruce? Forty-sixty, with sixty percent on the 'doesn't know' scale.
Damian ducked his head. Tim had to strain his ears to catch his murmured, "I haven't told anyone else yet."
"...Huh." It wasn't the answer he had expected, but it still seriously made him feel all warm inside; the thought that his younger brother trusted him enough to tell him. "Thanks, brat. I appreciate it."
"Appreciate what?" Damian arched a brow, looking a lot like Bruce when he did that.
"You telling me," Tim explained, and he couldn't help but grin at the dark flush that started to spread across the demon brat's cheeks. "Really, I'm proud of you."
Jon cleared his throat as Damian shut the door behind him. "Dames, hey. I kinda forgot to tell you earlier, but I'm happy for you."
It wasn't like the speech Dad said when Kon came out to them, but in his defense, Kon didn't tell them he was bi through an 'Am I Gay, Straight or Bisexual?' quiz. What did Mom and Dad say to Kon again? Something about how they were proud of him? Because Jon could do that, too.
"It doesn't bother you?" Damian cut in, interrupting his train of thought. "That I'm... bi?"
Jon frowned at the slight hitch in his best friend's voice. "Why should it? Okay, you're bi. So what?" Damian's mouth twisted, like he wanted to say something, so he hurriedly continued, "I mean, Tim's bi, and he's still your brother. Kon's also bi, and he's still my brother. They're still the coolest guys I know after Dad. And Batman. And you."
That got him a snort. It wasn't a smile like he'd been aiming for, but at least Damian didn't look mad now. It was a win, right?
Jon let his smile widen, and hoped it looked supportive enough as he added, "Look, D, what I'm tryin' to say is, I don't care who you want to date, I'm still gonna kick your ass at Monk-E Monsters."
That got him a loud scoff, but he could tell Damian didn't mean anything by it. "In your dreams, hayseed."
Yeah, Damian was obviously still Damian. Still Jon's stubborn-as-heck best friend who would drag him to Rao-knows-where for a midnight adventure, and get both of their butts grounded the next day. Him liking guys or whatever doesn't change things. Jon was a hundred percent sure of that.