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I: Lois Lane
Damian was over for a sleepover with Jon, and while he deeply enjoyed these events, there was one problem. Damian simply wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight. It wasn’t anyone's fault in particular, just the asinine “no weapons in the house Damian” rule the kents had established a few months earlier after Mrs. Lane had been a bit too eager to wake the boys up in the morning, thus startling Damian so bad he embedded a knife mere inches from her face several inches into the wall of the Kent homestead.
Now, normally, this wasn’t a problem; the boys usually just stayed up through the night anyway. But on this particular date, Damian had spent the last several days with barely any sleep due to a mission run long and an assassination attempt by his mother, leaving the older robin very tired and very paranoid. Once again, these things weren’t normally a problem. 17 years of sleep deprivation training, and the general constant state of paranoia caused by being a bat, meant that these were not uncommon phenomena for Damian. But usually, he could just go to sleep in these cases, but Damian couldn’t because Damian can’t fall asleep without a weapon, especially when he’s paranoid.
So, Damian did the only thing he could do in these situations: he called over his boyfriend from the homework he was doing, got him to lie on the couch, curled up like a cat, and went to sleep. Now, this arrangement had been happening for several years at this point long before they started dating and both were very comfortable and happy with this (Jon especially, he loved to cuddle and touch his boyfriend, but damian was always sort of cagey about physical affection in the same way a stray cat would be). Except, this sort of thing always happened in private, whether it be in one of their bedrooms, or on a mission alone, or in their quarters at Titans Tower. Never in public, and even more never where one of their families could find them
But Damian needed this nap right now, and who was Jon to stop his adorable boyfriend from finally getting some sleep?
…..
Several hours later, Lois was returning from the office after a very long day on the planet, and she was kind of dreading going home. Now, Lois had no problem with Damian being over; in fact, she kind of loved the kid. Over the years, Damian had proven to be a kind, respectful, and considerate young man in her presence, despite the mask he wore for others. And over that same time, Lois had developed a real soft spot for the kid whom Jon adored so much. But honestly, Lois was tired and she didn’t want to listen to two loud teenagers all night, or entertain a guest with as many quirks as the boy did.
So imagine her surprise when she came home to a quiet house, save for the quiet noise of the
TV, and two boys cuddled up on a couch, with one of them sleeping very soundly in a manner that deeply resembled her childhood pet whiskers. “Uhhh Jonno? Care to explain this one?”
It was at that point that Jon had realized that their plan had worked a little too well for his liking. One, because what was supposed to be a 1-2 hour micro-sleep had turned into a 4+ hour nap time, and his whole body really was starting to go numb. Two, because Damian was out, like no lights at home, no matter how hard he tried to wake him up, asleep, which was not normal but very flattering because of how much trust it showed for the half-Kryptonian. Three, his mother had just walked in on him cuddling and possibly affectionately petting said boyfriend on their living room couch. Honestly, though, Jon didn’t care much, so he simply responded, “he’s napping.”
“Yeah, I gathered that. Care to elaborate further?”
“Well, Damian can’t sleep without a weapon in case of an attack, and since you banned weapons in the house, I'm really his only option.”
“Huh, makes sense, in a sort of very Damian way”
“Yeah, normally we just stay up through the night, but he was at the end of his rope before he got here, so he didn’t even make it through homework before giving up.”
“Well then, carry on, I guess,” and that was the end of that. While Lois didn’t love the idea of her underage son cuddling his boyfriend on the couch, this was the preferable option to a loud all-nighter from the boys, so she just let it slide and went about her dinner and nightly routine.
II: the Waynes
The last forty eight hours had sucked for the youngest Wayne. An Arkham breakout had meant no sleep until all escapees were safely back in prison, which culminated in Damian having an 8-hour trip on the world's worst combination of fear gas and Joker toxin, which made everything simultaneously horrifying and hilarious. Suffice to say that Damian had not been having a good time, and despite being bone tired, he knew he wasn’t gonna get anywhere productive with sleeping. So, Damian did what he always did in this situation: he called his boyfriend, dragged him to the closest comfortable surface (in this case, the couch in the manor’s sitting room), and went to sleep.
Jon was confused at first when Damian called for him, but after seeing the bruised and visibly shaking Robin in front of him, he figured out the situation fairly quickly and decided to follow along with his bird's plans. After all, Jon loved cuddle time and would honestly take it whenever he could get it. He was a little worried at first being in a communal space, but realized that it wouldn’t be a problem as all the other vigilantes of the house were just as, if not more, dead on their feet as his Dami.
A problem did arise later, when Damian still had not stirred, and his brothers decided that the sitting room would be their post-nap hangout spot. At first, there was no real problem; the three were engrossed in some frankly asinine argument, and Jon’s presence was completely ignored. That is until they tried to sit down and found a 6’2’ alien lying on the couch, with their prickly little brother lying on top of him. After the initial shock Dick was the first to speak. “Uh, hey Jon, didn’t know you were here. Is uh, Damian sleeping on you right now?”
“Oh yeah, he does that sometimes.”
“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him asleep before,” Tim said
“Huh, now that you mention it i don’t think i have either” dick affirmed
“I have,” Jason said
“Jason, putting him down for a nap when he was six does not count” dick said
“Sure as shit have gotten closer than either of you have Dickie” Jason taunted.
“Anyway,” Tim interjected before this conversation got more off the rails than it was, “care to explain how this,” he gestured vaguely, “started happening?”
“Well, Damian can’t sleep in a room with other people in it or without a weapon by virtue of his upbringing. So one time when he was desperate for sleep and had no weapons, I just convinced him that I’m quite frankly stronger than any weapon he could quickly wield, and fully capable of dispatching threats from a lying down position, heat vision and all. So, now wherever he is without weapons, or knows he’ll have nightmares, he calls me and I let him sleep on me.”
“Well, that makes sense i suppose” dick affirmed
The other two boys just shrugged in agreement before all three individually took pictures of the event and left the room.
III: the titans
Damian was on hour 36 of a digital manhunt for the titan’s current mission and had not slept in that time. Normally, he would have had a break in the case by now, or consulted the oracle about it, but no such luck had occurred for the former, and the oracle was on a 96-hour minimum sabbatical, so Robin was alone, tired, and frustrated.
This situation was not helped by Best Boy, who had come to “check up on progress” (read annoy the shit out of Damian for 5 minutes) 4 times in as many hours. On the fifth one of these check-ins, our hero got up from his chair, grabbed a knife out of his drawer, and started the chase……
Jon had just entered Titans Tower when he first heard the screams. As he got out of the elevator and into the common room, he saw what could only be described as a persistence hunt between his teammate, who was constantly switching animal forms to keep away, and his boyfriend. To the side, the rest of the team was making quiet bets on who would win (all money was on the robin, they assumed that the 17 years of experience hunting people would probably transfer, and they were probably right), so Jon plucked up his courage and asked the question he so dreaded the answer to “so, are any of you gonna try to stop this?”
“Nah, it’s entertaining, and we were all really bored waiting for Damian to find our guy” replied Lian “besides, Gar really deserves this, he’s bothered Damian 5 times in the last four hours, also when we tried to talk Damian down he growled at us like a wolf and then stalked away”
“Oof, yeah, that doesn’t sound great. I think our bird might need some rest.”
“Rest? He seems fine. I mean, at least going by his hunting skills, this whole thing has been going on for like 20 minutes now.”
“Damian was trained to push past physical limits by shutting down mental processes, conservation of energy, and all that. That's why he growled at you when you tried to stop him. He literally couldn’t respond coherently, which is also why, if I don’t stop him, he’ll try to kill and eat BB.
“Welp,” Lian replied, “seems like you should get on that,” and she walked out of the room along with the rest of the team to stay far away from what they assumed to be a train wreck unfolding.
But there really wasn’t much to stop Jon here. Damian was in civies, so no kryptonite, and he already had an effective strategy to get his boyfriend to sleep. So he flew Garfield into his room, grabbed the beast formerly known as Damian, brought him to the nearest couch, and got him to sleep.
Lian came back out half an hour later, when the lack of noise made her hero instincts too strong to ignore, even in the face of a semi-feral world-class fighter. What she did not expect was to see said creature perched atop his boyfriend, sleeping like a kitten, while said boyfriend scrolled his phone. “Holy shit! How did you get him to sleep?!”
“It’s a long story, but basically, Damian recognizes that on top of me is one of, if not the safest, places to sleep on earth, and so he’s fully able to let his guard down and sleep on me. I’m also constantly absorbing solar radiation, so I run much hotter than most people, which means that I'm pretty much a heated blanket as well, which I've been told is very comfortable.”
“Oh yeah, I think my dad told me Kori used to do something similar with Nightwing, back when they were around.”
“That makes sense, I learned it from my older brother, who uses the tactic on Red, wouldn’t be surprised if he learned it from her.”
“Jesus, do all robins need an alien bed?”
“I'm not sure about hood or spoiler, but I wouldn’t be surprised in all honesty.”
“Well, I'll tell the gang that Robin is out of commission for a few hours and make sure they steer clear, enjoy whatever this is,” and the archer promptly left Jon and his Robin to their nap time.
IV: the league
The league and its many allies had just gotten done pushing the newest alien invaders from Earth when they returned to the watch tower. This time had been especially draining due to the hive mind that controlled all of the drones, causing perfect synchrony from the many invaders. Because of this, the entire league was required to be on damage control, while they sent Superboy and Robin (two of the heaviest hitters they had outside the expanded league) to infiltrate the mothership and disable the control center.
What was supposed to be a stealth mission, had, just like any other stealth mission these two had ever attempted, gone tits up in a matter of minutes. Necessitating the two to use what Jon had jokingly dubbed “loud stealth” because no one can report on your activities if they’re all knocked out. Except that these enemies were, I remind you, a hive mind. So all their loud stealth amounted to was a several-hour-long constant fight through an entire ship's worth of drones before eventually finding, and blowing up, the hive mind control center.
Superboy had remained generally unscathed, though very tired, from this endeavor. His partner had been less than lucky. On top of being exhausted from the continuous combat, somewhere in the explosion, Robin had shattered his collarbone, effectively benching him for the foreseeable future, and making him even more paranoid about sleeping than he already is. But the boys had a system for this, so they just found the closest couch, got Damian as comfortable as one could be hopped up on pain meds with a broken bone, and both fell dead asleep.
This was the scene that the core league walked into, while most just cooed at the admittedly very adorable scene in front of them, two leaguers, namely Superman and Batman, looked on in what could be described as a state of shock and mild horror. “Did you know!?” they asked simultaneously
“No!” they both responded.
At this point, the yelling had awoken Jon, but not Damian, and he was as confused as the two men in front of him. “Hey guys, would you mind quieting down? We’re trying to sleep here.”
“Jon, why are you cuddling Damian?” his father worked up the courage to ask.
“Because we're dating? Damian can’t sleep without a weapon on him, and with the broken collarbone, I am his best weapon.”
“Did you two really not know they were dating?” Diana asked with an amused but concerned look on her face, “Even I knew, it's been going on for like a year at this point, guys.” She had come back out to see what the yelling was about and stayed for the car crash this conversation looked to be
“Obviously not,” Bruce responded, “all Damian told me was he and Jon were 'partners now,' which in this business usually just means a patrolling buddy.”
“And Jon didn’t tell me anything,” Clark mused.
“Yes, I did, I told you and mom I had a boyfriend now, while showing a picture of me and Damian on a date.”
“Oh, I assumed those events were unrelated, you know how fast we talk sometimes.”
“Well, now you do.”
“Wait,” Bruce interjected. “Are we the last to know?”
“Yeah, we came out almost immediately, everyone has been supportive, even D’s mom, only gave me a shovel talk.”
“World’s greatest detective my ass” Diana muttered while walking away.
Bruce, ignoring that frankly very hurtful comment, decided to just say “well, so long as you two are safe about it,” and walked away from the conversation
Meanwhile, Clark was noting the technique used to subdue an overtired bat, just in case.
+the first time it happened
Damian wayne was fucked. And not the good kind of fucked, he was hosed. He and Jon had been on a mission for the past 48 hours (of which Damian had slept none, constantly keeping watch over his best friend), and they had just gotten captured thanks to Jon’s penchant for loud stealth. Now stuck in an impenetrable cell, even to Kryptonians with all his weapons taken, Damian and Jon had to sit tight for at least the next 10 hours while they waited for extraction. But Damian wasn’t gonna last that long without cracking, he simply did not have the energy reserves to stay both awake and lucid, and sleeping wasn’t an option.
Since he was sleeping alone in a room, Damian had slept with a weapon, at first out of necessity. When you're the prince of the Al Ghuls and the future of the League of Assassins, most think of you as a prime target for assassination. No shortage of fools had tried this approach, and while very few had succeeded, it had instilled in Damian that no room was truly safe to sleep in, and thus, one must always be prepared to defend oneself, especially with a weapon. But Damian had no weapons, so Damian panicked. he curled up in the far corner of the room and tried to shut down all unnecessary mental processes, effectively going to screen saver mode. This was working fine until Jon just had to ruin it. “D, you doing okay?”
“Fine”
“It’s just that you're shaking in the corner, and I haven’t seen you sleep since we left the cave.”
“I’m fine.”
“Bud, we have almost half a day before extraction, you can sleep for a while, best to regain energy while you can.”
“Can’t”
“What?”
“Can’t sleep, no weapons”
“But I'm right here.”
“Huh”
“I mean, think about it, it’s not like I'm de-powered, and I'm still fresh cause I've been sleeping. I'm also stronger than any weapon you have and fully capable of beating any human while lying down.”
“Hrnnn”
“So why don’t you come sleep on me, bud? I'll keep you safe while you rest. I need you working if we’re gonna get out of here.” 13-year-old Jon would like to establish that this has nothing to do with the fact that he really wants to cuddle his really hot best friend. Nothing. No need to read into it
In Damian’s addled mind, this made sense. Jon was stronger than anything Damian could muster, and Jon was always so warm, so he really might be able to sleep. Worth a shot if anything. “K” And so, Damian slowly crawled out of his corner, lay down on his crush, and went to sleep.
…..
Several hours later, the rescue team of black bat arrived, busting into the room to find a groggy little brother lying down on his supposed best friend, not commenting on this, Cassandra merely said “go” before beginning to retrace her steps to where their ride was waiting. As they approached, they heard Stephanie scream from the cockpit, “GET IN LOSERS, WE’RE GOING SHOPPING”
Once inside, Cassie pulled Damian aside and asked the obvious question, “You two?”
“Not yet, but I'd like to”
“Go for it.”
“Maybe one day, but I’d appreciate you keeping quiet until then.”
“Can do, baby brother,” and for once, Damian didn’t buck at being called a baby, only thanked his sister and went to sit down and rest some more.