Work Text:
It's not that Gotham is gloomy at night when viewed from above, with the colorful dots and lights running through the streets, but its energy is naturally taciturn. It's different from Metropolis, which also has its dangers, its secrets, but the point is, Metropolis isn't intimidating.
Jon doesn't like Gotham.
He'd never say that out loud, however—would never risk causing Damian's indignation or drawing Batman's attention.
But sometimes, sometimes, there are nights when not even the calmness of his home can make Jon not pay attention to the incessant sound that resonates in his ears in an unforgettable pattern—and it's strong, it's deep, it's reflected in his heart like a drum, and he doesn't realize he's flying all the way to the dark city until he's already there.
Because tonight, Damian's heart is racing faster than usual.
It's a different pattern. Jon tried to explain it to his mom once, the difference between the rhythms, between the sounds, the striking fact that each heart has a different effect and impact, yet all have the same goal.
It's useless. He sometimes imagines how difficult it must be to live with him and his dad because of this—of not being able to whisper or be nervous or get anxious because everything you do can be heard.
Now, Jon's kind of grateful for that.
He flies carefully from rooftop to rooftop. Sometimes he goes down to the streets, his hood covering his face, but Gotham is dangerous. It doesn't matter if he's Jon Kent, it doesn't matter if he's Superman's son, Gotham is dangerous.
And even all the way, the echo of Damian's heart doesn't go away. Actually, it gets stronger and stronger, with a continuous rhythm without stopping or resting, fast enough that Jon doesn't know whether it's adrenaline or anxiety or the worst of his suspicions—something really dangerous, something deadly.
It goes through his mind like a snake, a serpent, circling his thoughts and making his hands sweat as he wanders around the city, wondering how is it possible that they haven't noticed his presence yet, how is it possible that Batman's genius radars have not yet worked and picked up the presence of someone like Jon in Gotham. But at the same time, Jon uses all that to try to get to Damian as fast as possible, and he knows that not even Batman can stop him. Not even the greatest of threats and the most dangerous of vigilantes.
He thinks of Damian, the last time they saw each other, almost a week ago, and deep green eyes, mesmerizing, and the way Damian is hanging exactly in the cracks between adolescence and adulthood. They are only sixteen. They are only sixteen, and Damian's gaze seems to carry much more than anything Jon has ever seen. But there's affection. There's affection, he's sure of it. He goes faster, Damian's heartbeats echoing in his ear as Jon tries to be as fast and subtle as possible, and I hope he's okay I hope he's okay.
Closer, closer, closer. Clark will be angry, but Jon will explain everything and he will understand, and then he will tell Bruce what happened. That's it, it's going to be okay, it really is.
Jon is going to protect him.
Damian is on an old building rooftop in the commercial area of Gotham, where the noise of the cars is so loud it's deafening. It's cold but that doesn't really bother Jon. And when Damian—Robin—turns around before Jon even steps onto the rooftop, he's alert, and he holds a stance of attack but his fists shake. There's dry blood on his fingers.
It's like a painting, almost, the whole image of him.
Jon's voice is hoarse when he speaks, "Robin?" Not Damian. Not in the uniform.
He doesn't quite know what he was expecting when Damian saw him, but it wasn't this. It wasn't fear, anger mixed with a vivid despair, a bad restlessness in Robin's eyes, like a bird trying to escape from its cage.
"What are you doing here?" Damian asks, and his tone is so heavy. It's not rude, not cruel, but harsh enough to make Jon hesitate—not go away, but just hesitate.
"Are you okay?"
"Did you come here alone?
He wonders, in case his parents realize Jon isn't in his bedroom, if they are going to remember that Damian is the only one that can make Jon run away in the middle of the night to a city like Gotham.
"Your heart is racing. I could hear it from home, I—" If he gets closer, will Damian back away? Will he hesitate before going to Jon and holding his hand, before looking into his eyes and explaining what is going on?
Of course he will, he always does.
"Are you alone?" Because it's obvious this is Damian's first worry. Because Batman doesn't want meta-humans or aliens in Gotham, even if it's his son's best friend. But Jon doesn't really care.
"Of course I'm alone. Is that blood yours?" It's not. He knows it's not.
Damian looks at the ground. "Don't be ridiculous." But he's panting, one short, difficult breath after another. Surrounded by the city lights, Jon can see sweat shining on his forehead, the way his green eyes are so utterly alert. "You need to go."
Jon can feel his heartbeat, loud like thunderstrucks, strong, unforgettable, in his own chest, and sometimes he wonders if Damian's heart is also his.
"Robin, where's Batman?"
"Gotham doesn't accept meta-humans, you know that."
"Why are you ignoring my questions?!"
"You shouldn't have come, Superboy." Superboy, as if they're still kids and Jon doesn't know what it is to be a hero. "How many times do I have to tell you y-you can't—"
"I was worried."
"You need to—"
"Robin!"
It startles him, in a way that makes Damian flinch and close his fists tightly, like everything he's holding inside of him is trying to explode. It reminds Jon of the past, when they used to fight over duties and the difference between a hero and a vigilante, and how Damian couldn't demonstrate anything and every single emotion in his heart was more like a blank canva—something that needs to be covered.
So he asks again, softer, because he doesn't want to be scared of his own voice, and lower, because maybe Damian will feel safer this way.
"Dami, what happened?"
They're so stupid. Jon is so stupid, saying his real name like it's nothing, like they've got nothing to lose, but then there it is—the cliché dun dun dun of a heartbeat, but with the craziness of a bat, of a robin.
Damian's mask is crumpled on his face, full of dust and sweat.
When they were kids, Jon used to feel his heartbeat against his hands when he carried Damian across the sky, and it's a feeling that he misses.
"Batman is talking to the cops. Something happened in Crime Alley." Their eyes don't meet while Damian says that.
"What?"
There's no answer. Damian looks to the ground, then to his own hands, but never to Jon.
"It doesn't matter."
"Your heart is beating really fast."
"Go away, Superboy."
"I thought you were hurt. Da—Robin. Robin." A step closer, but no raise of hands. There's a rule between them about space and patience and understanding. "I was sleeping, and then I woke up because I heard your heartbeat like it's mine and I came here because it's like all your bruises are also mine to hurt."
"Habibi—" Almost there, almost. My love, it's almost said, but there's pain in the way he stops himself, and Jon feels like someone slapped him on the face but his feet are glued to the ground because this is not about you you are here for him and he likes you you're sure of that whenever he smiles and holds your hand before every flight of yours.
In Damian's eyes there's a pain that was never there, and Damian breathes in and out and shakes his head and opens his mouth to say something more and nothing comes out and—
"Robin, breathe."
"They killed a man at Crime Alley." He blurts out. It's too cold. It's probably going to rain. "They beat him to death. Broke his ribs and his jaw and choked him until he couldn't breathe, and then I beat them until there was blood in their mouths, and—and Batman came after that and—a-and the blood isn't mine, I swear it isn't, I'm fine."
Oh.
Jon tastes bile in his mouth and if he concentrates enough, he can smell it—the copper, red and sweet and terrible and disgusting, sticky in Damian's hands. He tries to picture the image in his mind: Damian's knees on the floor and loud screams and groans and blood on a dark alley, full of crime and pain, and his face with the same expression as years before, when he was a kid full of anger and unfinished business with himself.
And Jon does his best to think about such a heavy and violent scene without feeling like crying, but he can't.
He gets closer. One step.
"I'm so sorry," He can hear sirens and noisy cars from far away. Damian looks so lost, standing there like a scary bird, like a kid, like a sixteen year old who decided too early he wants to be a hero. Jon touches his arm, only a brush of fingers. "Robin, I'm so sorry, you—"
"No, don't do that, don't—No. No, you don't understand, Jon, that's why—"
Jon. The real name.
"What? What I don't understand?"
"You need to leave."
His voice is urgent, terrified.
There's nothing great in being a hero besides helping people. And it should be enough, it should, but nothing can ever take away the blame they carry, the fear they feel, the weight on their shoulders when thinking about those they cannot save. But then Jon wonders about what it must be like being a vigilante, someone that only walks in the shadows, hidden and alone, surrounded by secrecy, while knowing that you grew up in a place that thrives death.
"Not until you talk to me."
"He wasn't alone, Jon," He whispers urgently, wide-eyed and horrified and he holds Jon's wrists with shaky hands. "He wasn't alone, he was—He was with another man. They were like us. Like you and I."
(Last year, in Jon's room—
"I don't think I have any kind of interest in girls, Jon. I just never—I don't want to be with them, not in the way we…"
"I know. I understand."
"Do you feel the same?"
Holding hands on the bed, eye to eye and face to face, old socks on their feet and some random music on Jon's phone.
"No, not like that. I like girls, I'm pretty sure of that, even though I've never actually kissed one. But I don't think that matters, right?"
"Right. So you like boys too?"
"I do. And I like you."
"Oh. Good, I-I like you too, habibi.")
There's no air in his lungs when Jon tries to breathe, so it comes out in a wheeze, as if he's trying to reach something that cannot be touched anymore, and Damian's fingers are white around his wrists but it's not like he feels any pain because of it. He thinks of blood, all red and red and red, the criminal's and the victim's and Damian's, and Batman's voice saying enough, Robin, but not actually understanding why.
He feels sick. He's going to throw up and he remembers walking down the street after school and listening to a bunch of old people in the park saying bad things about people like him, and he remembers Damian telling him that Tim Drake is also like that. You're both quite similar. I mean, Drake said he's bi. Bisexual. That's the name he used.
The world is scary, son in his dad's voice, and I hope you accept me for you I am in his own voce in front of his parents last summer, and I'm gay, habibi in Damian's, and sometimes you'll have to fight things worse than villains and aliens, sweetheart in his mom's.
The man died. He died he died he died and Jon imagines the crack of his skull against the concrete and the way his jaw must be destroyed, but with tears still fresh in his eyes.
"Is he dead too?" He asks. "His boyfriend."
Boyfriend.
"No. I got there before they could do the same to him."
They stand in silence, and slowly Damian lets go of his wrists, but stays there. So lost. So worried. The deep frown on his forehead that makes his skin have little wrinkles.
In this world, they're not supposed to be happy. Not even out of the uniform, with normal clothes and broad smiles.
There's nothing else to say. Nothing Jon tells him will make the situation any better. Heroes are meant to be unhappy, vigilantes are meant to be unseen, but when they're also like that—
He doesn't want to die. He's so scared, so scared.
Slowly, Jon hugs Damian, arms around his neck and shaky breaths and it's okay it's okay please breathe breathe breathe even though it's not it's not it's not. And he doesn't bother with the possibility of Batman showing up or of his parents getting angry.
Damian doesn't cry, because he never does, but he waits there, his face hidden in the curve of Jon's neck like that can make him disappear from this world.
It's horrible, his heart, the crazy dundundun. It's painful, and they try to face it together not because they want to, but because they have no other choice—and Jon tries not to remember that sometimes they cannot be together, sometimes they have to deal with all that alone because they're heroes and they need to protect and protect and protect, even if there's no one there to protect them too.
"It could be us. Jon, it could be us, it could, it could."
We wouldn't die, Jon thinks, and he feels like betraying himself because staying alive means having a privilege the ones who died didn't have, and at the same time his heart hurts and his eyes water because why would I be ashamed of that? Why would I feel guilty? He doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to suffer. He wants to protect and to fight and to help.
Jon shakes his head frantically, but Damian pulls him closer, closer, closer, and Jon doesn't say anything.
Damian, we wouldn't die.