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Damian Wayne had fought death itself.
He had outsmarted Ra’s al Ghul, survived the Lazarus Pit and wrestled a genetically modified tiger with his bare hands before his voice dropped.
He could endure pain, betrayal, and loneliness. But what he couldn’t survive was living with Jonathan Kent.
Nothing had prepared him for the nightmare of domestic life with Jon. Not emotionally. Not physically. And certainly not financially.
It was, hands down, the most difficult thing he had ever undertaken.
Not because of the chores. Not because of the arguments (there were few, and mostly over whose turn it was to buy groceries). Not even because Jon sometimes left his socks under the couch like some kind of sock-shedding cryptid.
No. The true horror was that Jonathan Kent kept accidentally destroying all of Damian’s favorite things.
They’d moved in together at twenty. Jon had floated the idea on a rooftop in Metropolis, grinning, hopeful, legs swinging over the edge like he didn’t have enough power in his pinky finger to crack the Earth’s crust.
Damian, ever the realist, had sighed and said, “Fine.”
He meant: Yes. Absolutely. Please.
But love made you stupid. Soft. Unstrategic. So he played it cool while Jon beamed like the sun personified and immediately started texting his mom about “the cutest little place near the river."
In his defence, it started out well enough. The apartment—their apartment—was sleek and clean.
They’d picked the place together, a cozy loft nestled between Metropolis and Gotham, neutral ground. Jon called it the “halfway home.” Damian pretended he hated the name, but secretly, it made his chest warm.
They had rules. Chores split evenly. No flying indoors. No swords in the kitchen. Compromises were made—Damian allowed a ridiculous amount of houseplants; Jon agreed to Damian’s “no shoes inside” rule without complaint. They were neat. Organized. Adults.
It should’ve worked.
Except Jon was Kryptonian.
And Damian had taste.
The first casualty was a lamp. A nice one, too—mid-century modern, handblown glass shade, imported from Italy.
Jon sat down too fast and sent the side table (and the lamp atop it) careening across the room with the kind of casual violence only a Kryptonian could manage while trying to be gentle.
“Oh my God, I didn’t mean to—Dami, I swear—!”
“It’s fine,” Damian had said through gritted teeth, brushing ceramic shards into a dustpan. “It’s not your fault your ass is a weapon of mass destruction.”
Jon looked horrified. Damian regretted the wording immediately, but the damage—much like the lamp—was done.
From there, things escalated. The bookshelf next. Then the antique coffee table.
But the true heartbreak came one quiet movie night. The air smelled like buttery popcorn and lavender laundry detergent. Jon had leaned back to laugh at something dumb on screen—some animated dog surfing—and the pillow beneath him had burst with a delicate pop.
Feathers everywhere.
Damian had sat still, eerily still, like a jungle cat watching its prey. Jon’s face crumpled. “Dami—I didn’t—oh my God, I didn’t know it was that delicate—”
“It was hand-stitched in Paris,” Damian said, voice low and dangerous.
Damian quietly stood and walked out of the room. Jon found him twenty minutes later angrily wiping a kitchen counter that was already spotless.
“I’ll fix it,” Jon promised.
Damian didn’t look up. “You can’t sew silk with heat vision.”
Jon frowned. “But I can learn.” And just like that, Damian’s cold, brooding heart broke a little more—because how was he supposed to stay mad at that?
After that, Jon tried to be careful. He floated instead of walking. He sat like he was afraid the furniture would yell at him. He even wrapped his fingers in dishtowels when helping Damian cook.
It was ridiculous.
It was endearing.
It was slowly killing Damian.
Because every day, Jon looked at him with guilt and warmth and the kind of blind adoration that made Damian want to punch a wall and kiss him senseless in the same breath.
So naturally, Damian did the most emotionally responsible thing: he complained to his mother.
“He broke your pillow?” Talia asked, her voice sharp. “The phoenix-embroidered one?”
“Yes.”
“Unacceptable. Although,” she added, tone cool and knowing, “you did fill your home with delicate comforts… and then invited a Kryptonian to live in it.”
“He didn’t mean to,” Damian muttered. “I told him not to feel bad.”
“But he did destroy your property.”
“I know. But it’s—he’s—” Damian exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. “He’s trying. And I just... I want this place to feel like home for him, too.”
There was a beat of silence on the line.
“You’re in love with him,” Talia said finally.
“I’m tolerating his presence with minimal irritation—”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“I—”
The line went dead.
Three weeks later, a crate arrived at the apartment. Massive. Stark white. Labeled only with a scrawled W and a note in Talia’s neat, dangerous handwriting:
“For the Kryptonian. And the fool who loves him.”
Jon opened it with the care of someone defusing a bomb.
Inside the crate was a full home suite made of supermetal alloys and rare, alien materials—gorgeous, flawless, and completely Kryptonian-proof.
Inside was enough furniture to furnish a royal penthouse—and everything gleamed. The bed frame was sleek, made of alien alloy etched with traditional Arabic patterns. The couch looked like it had been pulled from a billionaire’s showroom. The sheets shimmered with faint green threading—Kryptonite-infused, safe but strong enough to survive a heat-vision sneeze.
There were matching pillows. Carbon-fiber silk. Damian’s name stitched in subtle black thread on the inside corner.
Jon touched one with reverence. “Dami… this is insane. This stuff looks like it costs more than the Watchtower.”
“It does,” Damian said, smoothing a wrinkle from a gold-trimmed duvet. “But it’s functional. Practical.”
Jon blinked. “You think silk with Kryptonian reinforcement is practical?”
Damian sniffed. “It won’t explode when you sneeze. That’s progress.”
Jon chuckled, still holding a pillow like a sacred object. “I don’t want to break this stuff…”
“You won’t. That’s the point. You can sit. You can breathe. You can cuddle, apparently.”
Jon flushed. “You like cuddling.”
“I endure it.”
“Liar.”
For the first few days, Jon was awkward around the new decor.
He hovered instead of sitting, refused to eat near the new dining table, and once tried to wrap himself in a towel to avoid contaminating the Kryptonian-resistant couch.
Damian couldn’t take it. He said nothing, but he did everything in his power to make Jon feel relaxed amid the intimidating new décor.
He nudged the thermostat up to Jon’s favorite warmth, brewed his preferred tea without comment, and—hoping to soften the room’s museum‑quality aura—quietly replaced one of the opulent throw pillows with the plush, ridiculous frog‑shaped one Jon had won at a carnival when they were sixteen.
(He would never admit he slept with that frog when Jon was away on patrol.)
Still Jon exhibited no change.
A couple days later, Jon found Damian in the kitchen, standing in the middle of the room like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. The drawers were already perfectly organized. The counter gleamed.
Still, Damian was fussing with the cutlery tray, adjusting knives that had already been aligned to millimeter precision.
“Okay,” Jon said, gently. “What did the silverware do to you?”
Damian didn’t glance up. “The balance was off.”
“Pretty sure they’re not training weapons.”
“They could be.”
Jon raised an eyebrow and crossed the room, stopping a few feet away. He didn’t touch Damian—knew better than to crowd him when he was in this mood—but he let his voice soften.
“You’ve been on edge since the furniture came.”
Damian went still, hand resting on the edge of the drawer. “It’s not that.”
Jon waited.
“…It’s you,” Damian finally admitted, voice tight. “You’ve been walking on eggshells around everything. You won’t sit on the couch unless I do first. You float instead of standing. You haven’t leaned on anything in a week.”
Jon shrugged, sheepish. “I didn’t want to break anything.”
“It’s Kryptonian-proof,” Damian snapped—but only because his throat felt tight. “The entire point was for you to stop worrying about that. You live here, Jon.”
“I know, I just—” Jon looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s all so… fancy. Feels like if I touch anything the wrong way, I’ll ruin it. And I know it’s not actually fragile, but…”
“But you still feel like you don’t belong in it,” Damian finished for him.
Jon’s silence was answer enough.
Damian exhaled slowly. “You belong here more than any of it.”
Jon looked up. “Yeah?”
Damian gave a small, tired nod. “I didn’t agree to move in so I could watch you hover nervously around furniture. I agreed because… no place was a home without you in it.”
After that, slowly but surely, Jon started relaxing again.
He grew confident. He sprawled across the couch. He tackled Damian into bed without shattering the frame. He flopped onto the bed like a starfish. He napped on the couch mid-conversation.
He was happy.
Damian noticed.
And when Jon curled around him at night, whispering jokes into his hair, Damian didn’t flinch. He let himself breathe. Let himself be.
He still pretended to grumble. Still called Jon a “walking catastrophe.” Still corrected his posture and insulted his sweaters.
So when Jon leaned in one evening, brow raised and smile warm, the moment didn’t feel out of place. Just inevitable.
Jon leaned closer. “You spent two weeks sulking over a silk pillow because it was your favorite. And instead of blaming me, you found a way to make it so I could be myself—without ruining the things you love.”
“I hated that you felt bad about it.”
Jon looked at him then, eyes soft. “You didn’t have to change everything for me.”
“I didn’t,” Damian said, closing the book. “I changed it for us.”
Jon blinked, a little startled.
“Hey, Dami?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
Damian’s pulse jumped.
He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at Jon — really looked at him — like maybe if he memorized every inch of his face, he wouldn’t need to say it out loud.
Jon smiled. “You don’t have to say it back.”
“I know,” Damian said softly.
Then, after a long pause:
“But I will. Eventually.”
Jon grinned, then leaned in and kissed him, slow and warm, with one hand braced against the unbreakable counter.
When they pulled apart, Damian muttered, “You’re lucky I love you enough to commission anti-Kryptonian furniture.”
Jon smirked. “So you do love me.”
“I plead the fifth.”
“You definitely love me.”
“I have excellent taste.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You’re invincible.”
“I’m yours.”
Damian, eyes soft, finally let the smirk fade into something real.
He reached up, touched Jon’s cheek, and said—quietly, sincerely—“Good.”
That night, he lay his head on one of those carbon-fiber pillows, glance over at Jon sleeping peacefully beside him, and feel something terrible and beautiful uncoil in his chest.
Because he was in love.
Deeply.
Disastrously.
And even if he never said it out loud, the reinforced furniture knew the truth.