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“You have your money and your looks,” Jon smiled. “I just have to get by on my looks.”
Damian Wayne had long grasped the ability to suppress his baser emotions. It was an effort that had taken years, and it was still something that lagged slightly behind those who had the great fortune of naturally learning the colors and flows of regular, day-to-day, human interaction. His emotions, however, still had the ability to flare up on him – sometimes it was unfortunate, sometimes it was embarrassing, sometimes it was something that struck him as utterly torturous.
Deliciously torturous, in the case of Jon Kent.
“And your strength,” Damian added.
Jon flashed him a toothy grin, “So you have noticed?”
Lately, that was often the case, and as a matter of fact it was coming to a head.
Instead of choosing to respond to the bait, and perhaps preserve some smidgen of his dignity – Damian ignored his retort.
“Are you implying that I have it easy, Jonathan?” Damian raised a brow.
There was a time when he might’ve been loathed to admit it, but he was more than comfortable with the inevitable truth now: Kent made him feel mushy inside. It was a clawingly delicious feeling that was one part confusing and one part exciting. Deep blue eyes, a boyish smile, long hair that was worn up in a simple top knot, it all combined to make something twist in Damian’s gut whenever he set his eyes upon it. What managed to tie everything up in a neat bow was the fact that Jon seemed to know exactly the effect he had on him.
Before he even understood what was happening to him, Damian found himself back up against the polished wall of the cave.
In the next few moments, Damian’s heartbeat spiked as things proceeded to go farther than they had in the days and weeks since this… tension had settled between the two of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t determine exactly when it started – all he knew was that it was growing closer to something, to some kind of end. It had taken on the characteristic of a balloon being filled with so much air that it eventually popped.
He just didn’t know which one of them would pop it, him, or Jon.
Damian found an answer materializing in his mind when the said annoyance cornered him against the wall, slapped one hand on the space above his shoulder, and cupped his chin with the other. He would be lying if he didn’t admit that his heart skipped a beat when Jon’s thumb stroked almost tenderly across his skin.
“You make everything look easy, sugar,” Jon flashed another one of his grins.
Damian wished he could call that the last straw – but the sound of that slight twang made his stomach flutter.
Disgusting.
He could feel the tension starting to unravel between them, quickly.
Damian couldn’t shake the feeling that Jon was daring him to do something, to say something, to pull out a snarky gem to get himself out of the corner that he was quite literally in. As far as Damian could see, he had two options – he could cop out, he could admit defeat, do exactly what Jon seemed to be daring him to do and slip out of his predicament.
Or, and it took no small amount of courage to admit, he could go the other route.
Option two had more of an appealing taste to it, at least if he let himself admit it. It came with the benefit of one-upping his smug friend and relieving this damnable tension that had settled between the two of them.
He summoned up his courage, and his willpower, and decided that it would be in both of their interests if he finally put an end to this back and forth. Tactician that he was, he knew that the list of maneuvers to get himself out of the fix he was in, with a victory at least, was short. He knew that nothing short of a desperate tactic would be able to get him his desired result.
Pinned under the weight of Jon’s stare and his ever-widening grin, Damian felt it come to him.
It struck him like a bolt of lightning.
Feeling Jon’s thumb stray closer to his lower lip, Damian steeled his resolve and turned his head to wrap his lips slowly around the tip of the finger. Keeping his eyes locked with Jon, the thrill of satisfaction rushed through him as the older boy’s thumb slipped out of his lips with a small pop, and a deep blush stained his cheeks.
Jon freed him and jumped back, as if burnt.
Damian suppressed the urge to smirk.
Desperate times did call for desperate measures.
And Damian was never above throwing everything at an issue if the situation called for it.
Now, this was the proper way of things, Jon had enjoyed the upper hand far too long, and it felt right for the order of things to be reversed, if only for a moment.
Because somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew perfectly well that Jon was going to render him speechless again – if matters were headed in the direction that they quite clearly headed.
That thought might have been enough to rob him of his courage if he pondered it for too long.
They’d cross that bridge when they came to it.
As with so many things that had happened since this had started, Damian covered a shaky exhale of relief behind another burst of sheer force of will – and smoothed down the front of his hoodie.
“Since you so rudely pushed me against the wall, my back is a little sore,” Damian adopted a hooded expression as he pushed himself off the wall. “Will you help me get into my suit?”
He was only making sure that the message had hit home.
It would be a mistake to not do that with an opponent like Jon Kent.