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“I want Jon to be my brother,” Damian said, mouth set in a stubborn frown.
Tim raised an eyebrow over his coffee. A coaster sat on the mahogany dining table so he wouldn’t leave rings. Unfortunately, the caffeine had yet to enter his veins, and yet Damian had sought him out first thing this afternoon. Great. “Okay?”
Damian’s frown deepened. “Okay? So you’ll do it?”
“Do what?”
“Get married.”
Tim choked on his sip of coffee, and set it down at random, coaster be damned. His cheeks warmed. “Damian.”
“You have been dating Connor for over a year,” Damian said, exasperation in every breath. “I have tried to be patient, but you have frankly been dragging out the courtship process.”
“I’m nineteen,” Tim protested.
“Tt. The age of consent is eighteen in New Jersey.”
“I’m not getting married!”
His voice must’ve been louder than he thought, because the dining room door slid open and Bruce raised an eyebrow at Tim as he stepped in. “Was that in question?”
Tim groaned and covered his rapidly reddening face with his hands as Bruce took his seat and Alfred entered to fix up breakfast at the stove. His love life should never, ever be the topic of discussion at the dining table. Ever.
“Father, Tim has been dating Connor for over a year now, and has denied me the pleasure of being brothers with Jon.”
“You have enough brothers,” Bruce placated.
“I’m aiming for quality over quantity, Father.”
Alfred replaced Tim’s empty cup of coffee with a new one. Tim took his hands off his face, and took a sip. “Thanks, Alfred.”
“Don’t mention it, dear boy,” he replied.
“You can’t force anyone to get married, Damian,” Bruce said. “You can only control your own actions.”
Damian blanched. “I am not marrying the clone!”
Tim choked on his sip and fell into a coughing fit as Bruce chuckled. Tim shot a glare at Bruce, and the man cleared his throat and transitioned to a more serious face. “That’s not what I meant, Damian.”
“And stop talking about my boyfriend, brat,” Tim hissed.
“I was over at the farm last weekend,” Damian replied, “and he wouldn’t stop talking about you. I would’ve thought you would like to talk about him as well.”
“Talk about who?” Dick asked as he entered the room and picked a few pieces of bacon off the stovetop.
“Connor,” Damian answered.
Dick’s mouth quirked up at the edges. “Are we discussing Tim’s love life?”
“No!” Tim shot a look at Dick. “No, we are not.”
Dick slid into a chair at the dining table, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Well, now I’m interested.”
Tim wanted to die. “I’m leaving.”
“Now,” Bruce jumped in. Recently, he had read a parenting book on troubled teenage boys recommended by Clark, and seemed to be trying to follow it. Tim had seen it on his desk, bookmarked near the end with a note written by Clark on the first page. Tim did not enjoy the title’s descriptors. “We won’t talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“It makes me uncomfortable,” Tim deadpanned, immediately. “Obviously.”
“Fine,” Damian said. He took a sip of the milk Alfred insisted he drink as he was a young, growing boy. Tim secretly hoped he grew no taller. “I have a new topic that is not about Timothy and Connor and is instead abstract…after how many years of dating someone should you marry them?”
“Damian!”
That weekend, both Tim and Damian planned to go over to the Kent’s. Dick and Bruce both saw this as a serendipitous opportunity for brotherly bonding. Damian, who said he would rather be killed by a league assassin than third wheel horny teenagers who wouldn’t even deign to get married, and Tim, who wanted to be a horny teenager with his boyfriend in peace, did not see it the same way.
Bright Kansas sun highlighted the nails in the wooden picnic bench that the four sat at. Red checkered wrappers covered the mess each vigilante made with their respective sandwiches. Eating had offered a brief reprieve of silence. Brief.
“Connor,” Damian began and Tim shot him a look. He usually didn’t engage with Kon in conversation. If the brat brought up— “Why haven’t you proposed to Timothy yet?
Kon choked on his turkey sandwich and Tim reached over to hit him on the back and dislodge it. At the same time, like the multitasker he was, Tim sent Damian a withering glare. “Stop being annoying.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, we’re pretty young,” Kon said. He flushed bright red and with a look at Tim, Tim did too. God, he could feel his cheeks burn. He did not want to discuss this.
“Well, I want Jon to be my brother,” Damian said. “And I think that you both are ready to be married.”
Tim flicked a piece of lettuce his way. “You don’t decide that, brat.”
Damian glared.
“Aw, Dami, they don’t need to get married for us to be brothers,” Jon said. The sweet kid licked mayonnaise off his hand.
Kon nodded. “You guys are practically brothers right now.”
Jon smiled and nodded as he crumpled up his sandwich wrapper. “And all we need to do now is just a blood pact to solidify it.”
All agreement in Tim’s brain screeched to a halt. An alarm of danger went on in his head. He opened his mouth. “Wait, we’re not supposed to return to the manor with any new injuries.”
“No injuries, just a prick on your thumb and then we shake hands…or something.” Jon frowned and took out his phone. “I might have to look it up again. I saw it on TikTok.”
Damian nodded like this was a fine suggestion. Tim knew he didn’t go on social media, so he had no conception of how to judge the trustworthiness of the sites. “I have some kryptonite with me to prick you.”
Jon beamed. “Perfect!”
Great. Now they were going to banned from ever visiting the farm again because of Damian’s insane activities. Bonding time, Tim’s ass.
“Damian.” Tim glared. “You’re not supposed to bring kryptonite to the Kent’s farm.”
Kon frowned. “Yeah, this doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
Damian rolled his eyes. “If you promise not to tell Ma and Pa what we’re doing, you guys can go off and do whatever heathen activities you want. At dinner time, we’ll corroborate whatever story you tell of our wonderful day of bonding together.”
Tim and Kon shared a look. Shaking the middle schoolers and making out in the barn seemed like a pretty perfect day if Tim said so himself. Tim shrugged, and Kon nodded.
“Alright. Jon, yell if anything bad happens,” Kon said. He swung his legs over the picnic table bench to stand, and Tim followed suit.
They took three steps before Tim remembered something about his supposed responsibility as an older brother. He turned back and pointed at Damian. “And, Damian, don’t harm others or yourself. Please.”
Both middle schoolers nodded, but the conspiratorial grins on their faces made Tim’s pointer finger falter. Eh. Oh well. That was probably the best it was going to get.
And he had a clone boy to make out with.
After Kon and Tim left, Jon got to work on figuring out the blood pact to make them brothers. They found a Reddit post detailing each step and they had already collected the mud and salt needed. After it was mixed, they would just need to prick their fingers and squeeze some blood onto it. Then, they would mold the mixture into a ball and leave it to dry in the sun. Once hard, they would take it and throw it into a nearby river. Once completed, they would be true brothers.
“For what it’s worth,” Jon said as he mixed the mud and salt together in one of Ma’s nice mixing bowls. “I agree with you. They really need to get married already.”
Damian paused his sorting of his kryptonite shards and sighed in relief.
Finally, someone with some sense.