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Damian is going to kill whoever convinced Jon to shorten his uniform sleeve for summer vibes.
“C’mon, Dami,” Jon starts, and Damian doesn’t need to see Jon’s reflection in the mirror to know he’s smiling. “It’s fun!”
“It’s idiotic.” Damian pinches the bridge of his nose. “We travel beyond the range of seasonal boundaries with consistency.”
“Not that often,” Jon insists, still smiling. “Also, I don’t know if you’ve heard but–” he travels to Damian’s side with a burst of speed, leaning in close like he’s sharing a particularly interesting secret and not just being annoyingly obstinate, “I’ve got a little thing called invulnerability.”
Damian narrows his eyes. “I’ll remember that the next time kryptonite is mixed with a cloudy day.”
Jon throws an arm around Damian’s shoulders, squeezing gently. “That’s what I have you for, isn’t it?”
Damian huffs, looking away, ignoring the brand of warmth Jon’s touch leaves. “People will copy your mark,” he says, and his voice doesn’t fucking break when he says it, but it’s a pitifully close thing. Any copy would be poor, but Superboy is popular and all it would take is one well-shot photo. That’s all it would take for everyone to see the nightscape currently decorating Jon’s arm; constellations swirling across his skin and guarding his heart. Damian knows because had spent two days sketching out the pattern before he picked up his paints, before he took the brush to his skin because—
Because.
“--would that be so bad?” Jon is saying, running a hand over the art in a way Damian could almost label as reverent. Jon's smile curves, and he’s looking at Damian for some reason, gaze as warm as his touch. “Everyone should get stars of their own.”
Damian breaks the eye contact with a scoff, shoulders curling inward. They are not for everyone, they are for you, sits in his throat. And there he keeps it, swallowing the sharp, honesty down before he vomits it.
Then, releasing a small, surprised oh , Jon straightens and scrambles for the bag at Damian’s feet.
“Hey,” Damian snaps, because if Jon gets a hold of his sketchbook–but he cuts himself off when Jon withdraws his hands and wiggles a pen triumphantly in the air. Damian scowls. “You could have just asked, Hayseed.”
“Oh? You want to talk about manners, Damian?” Jon throws a look his way, eyebrow arched in the exact same way Superman’s does whenever he finds something Damian’s father says amusing.
Damian tuts, clasping his hands in his lap as he watches Jon scrawl a message across his palm. Jon recaps the pen and returns it to Damian with an exaggerated flourish and a wink.
“Butter wouldn’t melt in your fucking mouth,” Damian tells him primly, pocketing the pen.
Jon’s surprised laughter feels like a victory, and Damian enjoys the way it sings through the room. “One day someone will believe me when I tell them I’m slowly infecting you with the midwest.”
“You’re imagining things,” Damian says, and he doesn’t flee, but he does loop his bag over his shoulder and leave with a parting nod.
— — —
Back in the relative sanctuary of his room (no such thing as surety amongst a household of detectives), Damian finally pulls off his uniform glove.
Jon’s loopy journalism-scrawl greets him in a mess of cheerful curlicues.
I love this. Thank you! And a small smattering of hearts at the base of his thumb.
There is no one to witness the way Damian smiles, and he thinks that’s for the best.
No one would believe it, anyway.