Work Text:
“Um… Doctor Wayne?”
Damian closed his eyes against the flash of irritation at yet another interruption, setting his paperwork down and turning to face the skittish intern with a glare cold enough to make her wither where she stood.
“What?” he growled, and she swallowed nervously, hunching in on herself like a prey animal.
“I-It’s 154-65.” she said quickly, eager to be finished with the conversation, “He’s throwing a fit, he refuses to calm down, keeps demanding your presence. We need you down in Containment, quickly.” Damian sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose with a sharp exhale. One day, he just wanted one day to get some work done without interruptions from the maddening little anomaly that called itself ‘Jon’.
“I’ll take care of it.” he grumbled, and the intern nodded before scurrying away as fast as she could. Damian reluctantly put his work away and set off for Containment, ignoring the amused looks of his coworkers and crafting a scathing lecture in his mind as he made his way to the room containing Jon’s cell, an obvious commotion growing louder the closer he got
He swiped his key card and opened the door, just in time to dodge as a fellow researcher was flung through the doorway, sailing past him with a yelp as a burst of red light lit up the room, and Damian stepped inside to examine the scene before him. The frazzled researchers were trying to get at the control panel, hoping to flip the switch to flood the cell with red sunlight, but they were prevented by the maelstrom of power tearing the room apart, the telekinetic waves and the bursts of heat vision, all centered around an anomaly clearly in the throes of rage.
“Why are you all so annoying!?” he demanded, pouting childishly as if he were a toddler throwing a tantrum and not a veritable god in human form who only stayed contained because Damian wished it, “I just want to see Doctor Wayne, is that so much to ask? I don’t want another doctor, I don’t want him to be reassigned, I want him! I won’t have anyone else, I just want him, and if you don’t get him down here right now-“
“154-65.” Damian said flatly, and the entire storm of chaos stopped as if time itself had frozen, Jon’s head whipping around fast enough that a human’s neck would have snapped, a big bright smile breaking across his face the moment he laid eyes on Damian.
“Dami!” he beamed brighter than the sunlight that sustained him, as if everything was alright now that Damian was here. He darted eagerly through the shattered walls of his containment cell, flitting over to Damian and picking him up like he weighed nothing, hugging him tight and spinning them around and around in the air like a goddamn skydancer toy.
“Release me.” Damian said as calmly as he could while being spun like clothes in a washing machine, but Jon made no move to put him down, kindly stopping his twirling but continuing to keep Damian prisoner in his embrace, sighing happily as he nuzzled his face. The other researchers took their opportunity to flee through the door, and Damian’s temple throbbed at the thought of the incident report he was going to have to add to the ever-growing list of tasks to complete.
“Dami, they were saying the most monstrous things.” Jon whined, rubbing his face against him like a needy puppy, “They were talking about reassigning you! They said we were too close and that I keep you from getting work done-“
“Which you do.” Damian pointed out.
“-and that they needed to break my ’dependence’ on you, which is so stupid.” Jon continued, burying his nose in Damian’s hair and taking shameless lungfuls of his scent, “I tried to tell them that I only stay here for you, but they didn’t like that and they got mad and tried to turn my powers off so I had to defend myself. You’re not mad at me, are you? You’re not gonna let them tear us apart, right? If you get assigned to another anomaly, I’ll have to kill them, and then everyone will be even madder at me, but you’re mine and no one else gets to have you! Oh, say you’re not mad?” He pulled back just enough to give Damian a pleading look, blinking those big baby blues at him, and the lecture Damian had cooked up died with a whimper as he let out a weary sigh.
“I’m not mad at you.” he said, his traitorous heart fluttering a little at the smile it earned him, “But you cannot throw a tantrum every time you get upset. It’s unbecoming.”
“But when I throw tantrums, they send you.” Jon smiled, planting a big kiss on Damian’s cheek with an exaggerated ‘mwah’, giggling at the wrinkle of Damian’s nose.
“154-“
“Jon.” the anomaly huffed, “Call me Jon.”
“…Jon.” he sighed, “It seems that every time I make progress with your behavioral issues, you regress the moment you don’t get your way. What’s going to happen if I have to go away, or if I get killed by one of the many horrific things in this place?”
“That’s not going to happen.” Jon said confidently, unblinking as he hugged Damian a touch tighter, “If you leave, I’ll just follow you. If anything tries to hurt you, I’ll destroy it, protect you. If you die, I’ll just turn back time and save you.”
“You- Hang on, you can do that?”
“That’s not important, what is important is that you’re stuck with me forever.” Jon grinned, and Damian chose to examine the whole ‘time travel’ thing at a later date.
“You’re impossible.” he said with a disapproving click of his tongue, “You’re an impossible idiot.”
“But I’m your idiot.” he crooked a finger and a crumpled sheet of paper flew up to hover beside his grinning face, the consent form declaring Damian as the researcher in charge of Jon, “Foreverrrrrrr.” he sang.
“I can still transfer you to Captain Todd’s custody.” he threatened lightly, and Jon’s grin shifted into a smirk.
“Captain Todd, head of the ‘Outlaws’ MTF? He got kidnapped by my brother weeks ago, Dami.“ he informed him smugly, “You really don’t keep up with your coworkers, do you? I don’t mind, I like being your priority.”
“Kidnapped?” Damian blinked, “Wait, you have a brother?”
“Yeah, you guys call him 068-58 but his name is Bizarro.”
“068…. The fucking weird zombie guy? Who only speaks in opposites? He kidnapped Todd?”
“Yeah.” Jon giggled, seeming entirely unconcerned with Todd’s fate, “He likes him, so he kidnapped him. See, I’m being really good! I could have kidnapped you ages ago but I restrained myself just for you.”
“How magnanimous.” Damian drawled, making a mental note to follow up on the Todd situation later, “In any case, you can put me down now.”
“No.” Jon hummed, “No, I don’t think I will.”
“154-“
“Jon.”
“Jon.” Damian corrected, “I have work to do.”
“I take priority.” Jon pouted, “I need my daily Dami Time. Work can wait, I need attention or I’ll freak out again, I’m like an anxious cheetah and you’re my rabid therapy dog. Can we snuggle?”
“S-Snuggle-“
“I promise I’ll be good if you do.” Jon hurriedly added, batting those big blue eyes at him, and Damian weighed the pros and cons before deciding to take the path of least resistance.
“…Very well.” he sighed, “You may hold me, if you let me get some work done while you do it.” Jon vibrated like a cell phone, which Damian took to mean he was excited.
“Okay.” he promised, but didn’t try to argue further. Damian raised an eyebrow at that.
“You’re going to do everything in your power to distract me, aren’t you?” he guessed, and Jon didn’t even have the decency to look guilty.
“Oh, that goes without saying.” he chirped, “The moment you tune me out, that paper is going up in flames. Anything that takes your attention away from me needs to die.”
“…I hate you.”
“I love you too.” Jon sang, and Damian ruthlessly refused to allow his lips to twitch.
“Let me go, and stay here.” he said, and Jon reluctantly lowered them back to the ground, “I will retrieve my papers and fend off my coworkers, and return within minutes.” Jon surprised him then by taking one of Damian’s hands in his, lifting it to his lips and pressing a soft kiss to it, a gesture likely learned from those classical romance movies he liked.
“I’ll be counting the seconds.” he murmured against his knuckles, and it was only years of repressing himself that kept Damian from blushing, “Watching the door, yearning for you, aching for the moment where you’re in arm’s reach again.”
“How… cheesy.” Damian managed an eye roll, heart pounding, “What movie did you steal that line from?”
“I forget the title, but it’s from the 1930s!” he beamed, “Can we watch it together? Pretty please?”
“-tt-. Very well.” he allowed, and the answering squeal of excitement was almost enough to make all the annoyance and inconvenience worth it.
Almost.
He was going to have so much paperwork to catch up on.