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Close your eyes for a second.
Imagine you finally get the chance to hang out with your best friend after months of boring days spent mostly with your dad trying to teach you how to properly lobotomize people. For this to work, you also have to imagine that for some weird reason, lobotomizing people with your heat-vision is much more difficult for you than it is for your dad. The reasoning behind this difficulty doesn’t make sense to you or your dad yet, but that’s not the point—you’ll get around to finding a solution for that later. The point is, hanging out with your best friend is a beautiful breath of fresh air, and it’s paired with the excitement of finally being granted the opportunity to use abilities other than heat-vision—like super strength for flinging criminals into walls or freeze-breath so your aforementioned friend can crack bad guys open like piñatas with his favorite katana.
Great, right?
Now imagine that during said-hangout session your best friend gets practically eviscerated by a really ugly looking guy who’s pretty good with his blades.
Not so great.
Actually, it sucks.
Okay, now you can open your eyes. The scene’s pretty bad.
Blood is saturating the white fabric of Damian’s uniform, turning the weave muddy and dark. Jon’s got one of his hands cradling the back of Damian’s head, and the other overlaying where Damian’s own is holding pressure on his wound.
Bodies scatter the ground around them, curled in weird and grotesque positions, bones cracked and spines all bent. The only criminal left is the leader, who Dad’s cuffed securely and left kneeling on the ground. That guy’s around Damian’s caliber of dangerous. He slashed Damian’s torso after a successful feint—and Damian almost never falls for feints, so this guy knows his stuff.
Dad crouches down beside Jon. He’s fiddling with his communicator.
“The League of Assassins has a team on their way. They’re not too far out.” Dad says, but his expression isn’t all too hopeful.
Damian’s chest is shuddering. He’s blinking rapidly, eyes flitting over the night sky. It’s the only view he has unless he tries turning his head. Jon’s not sure if he has the strength to.
“And my father?” Damian wheezes out. His breaths come shallow and quick.
“I’ve notified the Lords,” Dad confirms. “Batman will meet us as soon as he’s available.”
Damian’s body seizes with coughs a few times, and Jon’s chest goes tight.
Gently, Jon adjusts his grip on his friend, pulling Damian’s prone form toward himself, and angles Damian’s head to look at him. He catches Jon’s eyes, but then his gaze falls to rest over Jon’s shoulder. He’s not studying any particular building behind them, simply using it as a place to let his eyes unfocus and blur the cityscape into watercolor splotches.
“His heart’s going really fast,” Jon says, and knows, embarrassingly, that his voice is an octave higher with worry.
“Yeah, I’m losing blood,” Damian responds flatly.
“Hold pressure on the wound,” Dad orders.
“I am!” Jon exclaims, but presses down harder for extra measure.
Damian groans, and Jon hears the grind of his back molars gnashing together.
“Sorry,” he whispers.
“Whatever,” Damian grumbles.
Jon can still hear Damian’s heartrate climbing, desperately trying to circulate enough blood through his body as more and more redness seeps through Jon and Damian’s fingers, blooming further across the white of Damian’s uniform, venturing to conquer him like a state on the map.
Damian’s eyes go heavy-lidded, and he has to work harder to keep them open.
“This is pathetic,” he mumbles. “I should not have fallen for that feint.”
“Mistakes happen,” Jon points out, “They help you learn. You’ll figure out what you did wrong, and do better next time.”
“There will not be a next time if the League doesn’t learn the meaning of urgency,” Damian hisses out, followed by another sputtering cough that makes his lungs seize.
Even Dad’s face is pulled into a grimace as Damian’s rich tan skin quickly gains a bloodless pallor.
“This was fun,” Jon says, a little frantic. “We should totally hang out more often. It’s cool watching you break people open. Seeing all their organs and stuff is really cool. It’s like science class.”
“Hn,” Damian replies. His brow furrows and unfurrows, and he’s trying to keep his eyes from rolling back.
“How about we hang out again next week? Or maybe two weeks, if you need a little longer to heal. There’s always more bad guys to beat up, and I wanna see how all of your dad’s new gadgets work, y’know? Except the kryptonite ones—don’t bring those, please.”
“You know…that I always…bring…kryptonite ones…with me,” Damian slurs, quick breaths sharply dropping off into slow, weak shudders.
Damian’s eyes roll back, but hopefully he hears Jon before he passes out. “Goodnight, Dami!” Jon rushes out, smile plastered over his panic, “I’ll see you when you wake up, okay? Then we can ask your dad about our next hangout!”
Jon listens to the best of his ability, but his best friend’s heartbeat is almost impossible to hear over the roaring of blood in Jon’s ears. With deep breaths, he focuses harder, honing in on Damian. His heart rate has slowed dramatically, like a little animal going into hibernation.
Damian is not allowed to go into hibernation. Or die. Jon still has things to catch him up on since their last hang-out.
He whips his head over to his dad, who’s watching the blinking dot of the League’s forces inch closer on his minimap.
“They’re not gonna get here in time!” Jon hisses. “Do something, Dad! Help him!”
“Humans are feeble, son,” Dad says, a tinge of regret in his voice. “They just don’t last as long as we do. You know that.”
Jon bats his friend’s now limp hand away from the gash, and presses his own down harder. Damian’s bones groan under the threat of Jon’s kryptonian strength. Jon winces, easing up a little, and cradles Damian’s head and neck on his lap. “Save him,” he orders.
“There’s no way I can fly Damian safely anywhere in his state.” Dad’s still watching that little blinking dot. “The best thing we can do is wait for the League.”
Jon huffs. The bleeding is slowing, somewhat. He wonders if that’s because Damian’s body doesn’t have much blood left to give. Damian is never supposed to look this way. The color of his own life-force coating his skin doesn’t suit him the way others’ does. He looks far too mortal.
Jon turns to the criminal still cuffed and beaten bloody, rattling breaths wheezing pathetically from his lungs as he struggles to hold himself upright.
That man has drawn Damian’s blood, taken what was not his to take. “Then lobotomize that guy.”
“Son, he has information we need—”
“He stabbed Dami! I wanna watch him be all mindless and drooling for that, Dad!” Jon protests.
“Jon,” Dad chides, “it would be unstrategic to tamper with his mind right now. We need his intel. Our work comes first, even when our friends get hurt.”
Jon doesn’t agree with that. Maybe it hurts a little that he knows Damian would, but Jon knows that he’s loyal to a fault. It doesn’t matter.
The blood splattered on Jon’s black and white uniform has spread far enough that some blends into the red of the “S” on his chest. His best friend’s life force is drenching him, coating his hands. It’s sticky and warm. Damian’s eyes are still closed, and there’s a trail of crimson running from his nose down the side of his face.
“If he dies,” Jon says levelly, locking eyes with his dad, “I’m gonna kill myself.”
Dad sighs, long and deep.
“You think I’m joking, but I’m not.” Jon turns back to Damian, leaning in close. “You hear that Dami? If you die, I’ll still see you, ‘cause we’re best friends. I’ll kill myself and we can hang out together in heaven or whatever.”
“Jon, he’s just a human,” Dad says with another long exhale.
“He’s my best friend!”
“You need to remember where your priorities should lie.”
Setting his jaw, Jon slides his hand out from under Damian’s neck. His friend’s head lolls down onto his thigh as Jon reaches around Damian’s belt awkwardly, fishing for one of his weapons. His fingers meet cold lead, and he unlatches the entire sheath from Damian’s utility belt, and holds up the covered blade to his dad.
“He is my priority,” Jon hisses. “And if he doesn’t wake up, I’ll die.”
Just as Dad is about to say something, a gleaming black helicopter pulls in overhead, and League ninjas stream down from the sky on cables. They pull Damian from Jon’s arms, load him onto a cot and into the helicopter with a shocking level of efficiency, barking orders to one another in Arabic. A few moments of systematic work later, Damian’s securely in the League's hands and they’re careening back the way they came from.
The hum of the helicopter’s propellers cutting through the air fade as the vehicle becomes little more than a dot on the skyline.
The city square is silent, suddenly, and there is only one human heartbeat thrumming in Jon’s ears. The heartbeat is not Damian’s. With a growl, Jon pushes himself to his feet, wipes a tacky hand down the front of his uniform, and stomps toward the bound criminal.
There’s the rustle of a cape behind him, meaning Dad’s stood up.
“Jon, what are you doing?” he asks, warning in his voice.
The lead sheath digs into his fingers and palm as Jon tightens his grip on Damian’s weapon. “Teaching this guy a lesson.”
The man, to his credit, only shows his fear through the rapid pounding of his heart. Jon stands tall, looking down at the pathetic bruised man who hurt Damian. His lips curl into a snarl as he snaps out an arm and curls his fingers into the man’s greasy, blood-matted hair.
“Listen,” Jon starts, yanking his head back with a little too much vigor. His kryptonian strength coils into his muscles, and the man’s neck breaks with a loud and obvious crack.
Jon yanks his hand back. “Oh, crap.”
The criminal’s head lolls, awkward and boneless, before he crumples completely to the ground.
There’s no super-hearing necessary to pick up what just happened.
“Jonathan Kent!” Dad’s voice booms behind him.
Jon twirls around on his heels, shoulders bunched to his ears and palms up. “I didn’t mean to! I swear I wasn’t gonna kill him! I was just gonna chew him out a little, but I was mad, so I guess…You know, accidents happen, sometimes…” he trails off sheepishly.
Dad’s expression is stony. “You’re grounded. One month.”
Jon gapes. “A month!? That’s so—”
Jon’s protests are halted by a withering glare from his dad. He hunches his shoulders, and kicks at a bad guy’s corpse with the toe of his boot.
“I’m disappointed in you, son,” Dad says sternly. “You know better.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles half-heartedly.
Jon probably doesn’t have to describe how silent the trip home is.
It’s four days later when Dad’s finally gonna be away long enough for Jon to sneak into the infirmary where Damian’s making his recovery.
And by that time, the Fortress of Solitude is Bor-ing. With a capital B. Capital everything, actually.
So as soon as Dad makes it clear he’s gonna be away for more than a couple hours, Jon is so out of there. With the zeta in the fortress locked down for obvious reasons, Jon takes the long route. He zooms through the arctic and across cities, takes the next-nearest zeta tube, and is in the Watchtower’s recovery center in what Jon bets is record time.
The infirmary smells like slightly sweet disinfectants and cotton balls or something. Damian’s curled slightly on his side in his medical bed, chest rising and falling in even breaths.
He looks surprisingly healthy for someone who was bleeding out a few days prior. He’s got color back in his face, the blanket draped over him hides the bandages wrapping his mid-section, and the only crazy medical thing attached to him is an IV.
Now, Jon wouldn’t really know, but all of these clues added together seem to equal Damian making a quick recovery. This is good news.
Damian, however, is asleep.
This is bad news.
Jon strides across the room and pushes himself up to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Dami,” he whispers, swinging his legs back and forth, toes barely shy of scuffing the ground, “you better not be in a coma.”
Damian lets out a quiet groan, and rolls onto his back. “I am not so weak that I fall comatose that easily,” he says groggily.
Relief washes over Jon, and something in his chest goes tickly and feather-light as he twists further toward his friend. He leans over, knocking their foreheads together so their noses bump and Damian’s jade green eyes are large and buglike in his vision. “That’s good,” he replies, “I don’t know how I’d reach you there. Maybe in my dreams or something, like that one horror movie.”
“I don’t know of it,” Damian mumbles, blinking a few times.
“The movie? It’s Nightmare on…something. I don’t remember. It was a while ago. I wasn’t even supposed to be watching it, but I was curious.”
Damian hums. His irises flick back and forth between Jon’s, like he can’t figure out which one he’s supposed to concentrate on.
Jon can help but let out a giggle. Damian looks so nonthreatening like this, eyes all big and glassy and the rest of him out of focus.
But then Jon spots the pajama-like patient robes Damian’s clad in and he snaps back to attention, sitting upright and checking Damian over. “Are you okay by the way? Are you comfortable? Are you hurting anywhere?” he asks rapid-fire.
Damian lets out an amused huff, and a smile just barely tugs at the corners of his lips. “I’m perfectly fine. I am not fragile.” Then he braces himself on his elbows, and moves to sit up, but as his muscles flex, he hisses through his teeth.
Immediately Jon guides Damian to lay his head back on the pillow. “You gotta rest, okay? You’re not fragile, but you were pretty close to being gutted, you know.”
Damian lets out a low rumble of annoyance, staring at the ceiling like he’s glaring down the man who sliced him open. “Did the Lords at least get the necessary intel from him?”
Jon worries his lip between his teeth. His eyes fall to his shoes.
“Jon,” Damian says flatly. Jon can feel his gaze boring into the side of his head. Something close to embarrassment heats up his face.
“It was an accident,” Jon mumbles sheepishly, “I didn’t mean to kill him. But he hurt you, and, well, y’know…”
“Damn you and your short fuse.”
“I told my dad I was sorry, like, a million times. And I’m grounded for a month. I’m not even supposed to be here right now, but I had to make sure you were okay.”
Damian is silent. His steady heart gives nothing away about his current mood.
“I’m sorry, Dami,” Jon says quietly, forcing himself to meet Damian’s sharp eyes as he clasps a hand over his friend’s. “I really am, okay?”
Damian hesitates for a moment before asking, “How did you kill him?”
“Snapped his neck.”
“Was it clean?”
“Yeah, I mean, it seemed like it.”
Damian lets out a short hum.
Another moment of silence passes before Jon dares to ask, “Can we still hang out next week? Or the week after, if your injury needs more time.”
“You just said you were grounded for a month.” Damian replies stiffly.
“Yeah, but I still have things to catch you up on! And there are bigger obstacles in the world than being grounded, and we’ve beaten those.”
“Like surviving a sword to the gut?”
Jon gives his friend an awkward grin. “I guess that might fit into the category. So we’ll do something low-energy. Sit in the manor and play video games or something.”
Damian sighs, and Jon sees some of the tension in Damian’s body loosen. “Next week. If you can manage to sneak around your father again.”
A full-on smile breaks across Jon’s face, and he nods vigorously. “Next week, then, okay! I’ll see you then!”
“Yes,” Damian says simply, rolling back over onto his side. “Now I’m going back to sleep.”
With a fond chuckle, Jon tucks a blanket around Damian and leaves him to rest.
And gloriously, he makes it back to the Fortress of Solitude before his dad even notices he’s missing.