Archive of Our Own

The world changes, in a quiet, resolute way, when Damian is ten. His mother stretches out across a divan, book lazily in hand, and Damian perches in front of an easel, painting what he observes past the limestone detailing of the windows. It is all mountains and lush greenery; birds glide through the sun’s rays and leaves rasp against each other like cricket wings, a language Damian will never understand.

He blots yellows and greens over the rocks and moss of the ground, imitating the dappled lighting that peeks through the trees.

“That is very good, my heart, but where are the birds?” Mother asks in League dialect.

Damian frowns, swivelling in his chair to look at his mother. “I’m not done,” he replies, “I must paint the sky first.”

Mother chuckles. “I was only teasing you, my son.”

Damian’s face pulls into a pout, and he returns to his painting. Behind him, he hears Mother adjust herself on the divan, the drapery of her robes rustling as it slides against itself.

“Your father has a fondness for little birds,” she says. It sounds nonsensical to Damian now, but in a few years, the words will carry weight; for the blurry face of his father will solidify with a name, and he will learn that the unassuming passerines called robins are Father’s anchor and his wings.

Damian has just begun painting the curve of the first bird’s keelbone when there is a crisp knock on his mother’s door. Mother permits the visitor to enter, and a green and black clad Shadow hurries to Mother’s side, and whispers something in her ear.

Damian scrunches his nose. He is old enough to be involved in the dealings of the League.

Mother waves the Shadow away a moment later, and stands.

“The man they call The Flash is dead,” she tells him. “Things are going to change. The ones who call themselves the Justice League have taken on a new name, and they plan to tighten their grip over the world. Over us.”

The delicate windchimes on the balcony bat against each other with the rhythm of the wind. It is a light sound, gentle and melodic.

Damian sets down his paintbrush, and stands at attention. “What must we do, Mother?”

She smiles, settling a hand in his hair. “You, my little prince, are going to continue your studies. The time will come for you to be a warrior, but today is not that day.”

Nine days later, all the way across the globe, the world changes in a jarring, irreparable way when Jonathan is eight. Jon plasters himself into the furthest corner of the living room, lower lip trembling as he watches his dad, in a fear-toxin-and-kryptonite-induced rampage, bash his fists into his mom’s feeble human body until she is nothing but a bloodied, unrecognizable heap on the carpet.

The crunch of her bones sticks in his ears. Her blood stains the wallpaper in large blots. Jon claps his hands over his ears, and squeezes his eyes shut.

He wants to call out to his dad for help. But his dad is the danger.

When Dad wakes from his stupor, he’s not the same. There is grief and rage in his eyes.

He cradles Jon in his arms, angling him away from the corpse of his mom. His blood-coated hands thread through Jon’s hair and leave red smears tracking across his face.

“Don’t look, pal,” Dad says, voice quivering in a way Jon hasn’t heard before, and won’t hear again after. “Oh god, just don’t look. It’ll be okay. Don’t look.”

And Jon doesn’t. His eyes stay tightly shut. But the image has already been seared into his memory.

He knows Dad didn’t mean to. He wasn’t himself.

Mom’s gone anyway. Accidents are still permanent. Mistakes like this don’t get a redo. Dad’s guilt and apologies to the blank space where Mom should be standing won’t change that.

But Dad is a good man. A hero. He wants to save the world and stop crime.

They leave Kansas not long after that, and settle in the giant cluster of crystals jutting up from the cold earth that Dad calls the Fortress of Solitude. It is, as stated in the name, lonely.

Over the next few years, Jon attempts to scrub that day from his mind. If he tries hard enough, he can pretend Mom never existed, and that he has always lived in the arctic among the frozen-cold things. Even if it is a lonesome existence.

Damian meets his father when he is twelve years old, but they do not snap together like two pieces of a puzzle. They are closer to opposite poles of a magnet: strong willed and insistent on their own paths.

There is a room waiting for him at Wayne Manor, he is told on multiple occasions, but it remains stagnant and cold in favor of Mother’s palace on Infinity Island. The clear night sky glittering with uninhibited starlight agrees with Damian much more than Gotham’s blanket of pollution.

Even still, he visits his father often, and grows to tolerate his siblings. They are robins and other such birds.

Damian is his father’s bird, too, but he is his mother’s demon prince first.

Jon meets Damian when he is eleven, and Damian is thirteen. 

Jon stands, awkwardly stiff, at his dad’s side, and tugs at the black material of his cape, willing for it to drape correctly. He’s only been Superboy for a few months. He and Dad stand waiting in front of the zeta-tube systems of the Watchtower, though Jon cannot help the way his vision keeps drifting aside, catching on the endless sea of black flecked with stars, and the blue and green planet far, far below that the yellow sun cradles. 

Somewhere down there is home.

Jon is not sure if home is Smallville, Kansas, or the Fortress that stands solemnly on the North Pole. Maybe it is somewhere else entirely, in a place he has not discovered yet.

With a blinding light, the Watchtower’s AI announces the arrival of Batman, and then, an unfamiliar name: Damian Al Ghul.

Jon whips his head back toward the tubes.

Out of the zeta steps the familiar sharp outline of Gotham's Bat, and then the smaller shape of a teenage boy wearing the black and white uniform indicative of the League of Assassins. 

The Lords greet each other with a firm handshake, and then Batman gestures to the rigid boy next to him.

Jon learns that this boy is Batman’s son, and he and Jon are close in age. Hope patters hard at Jon’s chest, and his shoulders feel weightless, like he could take off and fly without any of the usual effort. His years of loneliness have been gnawing a hole in him, leaving a negative space buzzing to be filled. And finally, here is his chance.

He can’t help the grin that creeps onto his lips. His face burns hot with excitement.

Smoothing his hands down the front of his uniform to ensure the red and white “S” on his chest is crisp and visible, he straightens himself and says, “Hi! I’m Jonathan Kent! Or Superboy now, I guess—Superman’s son, y’know?” he gestures down briefly to the symbol on his uniform, then waves to Damian, and immediately feels embarrassed. He should’ve waved before his introduction, not in the middle. He soldiers on anyway. “Nice to meet you! Are you Batman’s new sidekick?”

Damian bows his head in greeting. His hand rests heavy over the hilt of the katana at his side. “I am Batman’s associate,” he says. “I am with the League of Assassins, but work with Batman when needed. He is teaching me new techniques to improve my skills on the field.” He has an accent of some sort—Jon’s not sure what kind, he’s never been good with languages—but Damian fights against it to make sure the sound of each letter is noticeable in his speech in a way native speakers often don’t. They often slur over ending letters like d’s and t’s in a rush to move onto the next word.

Jon blinks. “Huh. Cool! So you’re like, a ninja, right?”

“If you would like to make that comparison, I suppose.”

Jon’s ready to ask another question when Dad breaks in.

“We’re gonna head to the meeting hall,” he says, gesturing to himself and Batman. “If you’d like, you two can watch the monitors for anything interesting while you wait?”

Jon nods enthusiastically, throwing an arm over Damian’s shoulders. “C’mon! I’ll show you where the monitor room is, since you haven’t been here before. I’ve been here only a couple times, but I still know where most of the stuff is—I could even give you a full tour, if you want.”

Damian makes a quiet clicking noise with his tongue, but follows Jon’s lead without struggle.

As they begin to walk, Damian quickly makes it known that a tour is “not necessary,” so while Dad and Batman meet with the rest of the Justice Lords, Jon and Damian plant themselves down in front of the monitors.

Unlike Jon, who spins around on his chair at what is probably a record-breaking velocity, Damian sits perfectly still, back straight and shoulders level, as he watches the various screens for activity.

After what feels like a couple hours of silent, responsible monitoring duty that Jon knows logistically is probably closer to a couple minutes, he trades spinning in circles for swivelling back and forth, keeping his eyes firmly on his new partner in crime. 

Jon is determined that they will be friends.

So he begins asking questions.

Where is he from?

Infinity Island.

Where is that?

The Arabian Sea.

What does he do for fun?

Train with new weapons.

Is he really a prince?

In nearly every sense of the word.

How long has he been his Dad’s associate?

On and off since he was eleven—but he spends most of his time with his mother in the League. He’s only in America for a few months out of every year.

Why?

Damian needs more context to the question.

Why did he decide to split time between his mom and his dad, and why does he choose to spend most of his time with his mom?

Infinity Island and the League makes more sense to him. Batman operates differently, and he’s still learning how to perform adequately under his father’s command.

Interesting. Now, Jon knows that Batman has had other sidekicks—or, associates—before, and they all take on codenames. They all start as robins at first, if he recalls correctly, but then move on and grow into their own, like Nightwing. Dad respects Nightwing a lot, even if he thinks he’s a bit too gentle with his methods. 

But Jon’s pretty sure there’s still a current Robin, the third one, so…

“What type of bird are you?” Jon asks him.

Damian looks up from the monitor for the first time since their conversation began. His eyes meet Jon’s, then trail off to the dark void of space outside the wall-length windows. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I am the silhouette of the winged thing high in the sky, backlit by the Arabian sun. It cannot be identified from the ground.”

Huh. This guy’s poetic for a thirteen-year-old.

“Well, good thing I can fly then, huh?” Jon says with a grin. “But seriously—in what, two whole years—your dad never gave you a name?”

Damian’s gaze falls to his lap, an idle finger tracing over the intricate hilt of his blade. “He did not. I am his bird, but I do not know what kind. My brothers are robins. Perhaps I will be like them, and take that name one day.”

Jon abruptly halts his swiveling. He leans closer and narrows his eyes, studying Damian’s face; the piercing jade-green sea in his eyes, the rich tan of his skin, the ebony-black of his hair, the sharpness of his nosebridge and the strong cut of his jawline. “I’m not sure if ‘Robin’ quite fits you,” he deduces. “You seem more like a bird of prey to me.”

Damian’s expression shifts, and Jon can swear he sees the corners of his lips twitch up. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. Some raptor, like a falcon or something.”

Damian leans back in his seat, and despite his less formal posture, Jon thinks he still looks like a prince. It’s the easy, calm confidence of his posture. “Perhaps I will be. Only time will tell.” He seems to mull on the thought for a moment before continuing with, “What about you, Superboy? Where are you from?”

“You can just call me Jonathan—or Jon,” Jon replies quickly. Hearing the title from Damian's mouth makes him feel awkward. “I was born in Kansas—Smallville, if you know where that is. But Dad and I moved when I was a bit younger. When stuff changed.”

Damian nods softly. “When the League became the Lords.”

Jon shrugs. “Something like that. Now we live in the North Pole, in the Fortress of Solitude. It’s this castle-thing made of sunstone crystals and stuff. ‘S kinda cool there, I guess.”

Damian sits up straight in his seat again, eyes brightening. “Have you ever seen the…” His eyes flit around as he wracks his brain, then makes a face like a grimace, and settles for gesturing with his hand to make waves above him. “I do not know the name in English. But the lights, the glowing green lights that dance in the sky?—”

“Aurora Borealis!” Jon exclaims, then immediately feels his face go red. He cringes. “Sorry, that was loud.” He scrubs a hand through his curls sheepishly. “But yeah, I have. They’re super cool. Really pretty.”

“I think that I would like to see them sometime,” Damian says.

“Maybe Dad’ll let me take you to the Fortress sometime, and I can show you them!”

Damian turns back to the monitors, the slightest smile visible on his face. “I would like that…Jon.”

Jon and Damian become fast friends, nearly inseparable. 

In his eagerness to be at Jon’s side as often as possible, Damian takes up residence in the bedroom that has been empty and cold since he was eleven. He remains in Gotham, despite the smog and the invisible stars. He searches the night sky for something else these days: a Kryptonian—more thrilling to find than any constellation.

There are months where Damian spends more time with Jon than he does with his own father and mother, and the prospect of returning to Infinity Island does not carry the same feeling of relief as it once did. Damian knows that despite the warmth of his room, of the familiar architecture, of the open-air of the balconies and passageways, and of his mother’s arms, there will be something missing.

Damian has never had a friend before. Now that he does, he finds himself reluctant to part from him.

The two of them work together as a unit in a way Damian had never quite achieved with his father, fluid like the koi that circle each other in a pond. They learn the language of each other’s movements, the twitch of a finger or the tic of the jaw. The silent telegraphed swipe of a blade or swing of a fist.

It is a dialect that Damian will never tire of studying.

During his days at Wayne Manor, Damian comes to understand that his father is a good man. Honorable. Much better than him. As are his brothers.

He understands why his own name is not Robin.

He wants to prove to his father he can be.

Over time, he understands the Lords are cruel. Their totalitarian grip on the world is suffocating. Most of the so-called foes Damian has been cutting down ever since he first met the Lords shouldn’t have even been on the playing board. They were people who deserved a chance to change, to make different choices. He and Jon have been playing into the Lords’ hands, malleable as pawns, ever the fools. Damian’s family, however, has not.

The beacon that glows like fireflies among the gray Gotham clouds means something.

Damian has the chance to make a different choice now.

The day Damian thunders into the cave and demands to know what he can do to aid the people the Lords are hurting, Father places a warm hand on his shoulder and says, “I’m proud of you, son.”

Then he is given an assignment. A risky one.

About a month later, Superman and Batman gift the two of them an underwater base of operations. It’s nothing special, just a cluster of old train cars and shipping containers welded together. They don’t even have their own zeta. They have to jettison themselves through tubes like they’re scraps of food in the sink plumbing.

Damian is unimpressed.

Jon is ecstatic.

“We’re gonna call this The Fortress of Attitude!” Jon declares.

“No, we are most certainly not.” Damian says sharply.

Jon shoots Damian a pouting look, then turns to his father. “Do we have wifi down here?”

“You’re connected to the Lords’ databases, and we’ll automatically send lower class threat alerts down to you,” his father replies with a smile.

Jon’s eyes are wide. “That’s awesome.”

Damian scowls, and slumps into one of the chairs at their monitoring station. “Low class threats? I have been trained by the League of Assassins since I could walk. I am capable of more than this.”

“And you will have the chance to prove it,” Father assures him, “When you are under the proper supervision.”

“How joyous,” Damian says dryly. “Fourteen years old and my father still believes I need a babysitter.”

“It’s not so bad!” Jon says, skipping up behind Damian’s chair and throwing his arms over Damian’s shoulders. “At least we get to hang out, like, all the time now. It’s like we have a secret treehouse—but like, so much cooler!”

Damian hums. “You have always been the most optimistic of the two of us.”

Their fathers finish setting up the collective database, check once more that the oxygen levels are stable, and then leave Damian and Jon to their new headquarters.

The two of them hardly get any time to settle. Their newly set-up computer gets an alert less than thirty minutes later, pinpointed to Gotham’s Tricorner: an electric meta robbing ATMs.

He and Jon are on the case immediately.

When they get there, the sun is almost completely hidden below Gotham’s skyline, granting the rogue meta the advantage of the shadows. But Damian is a creature of the night, too.

He and Jon trace the meta as he weaves between buildings, and Damian leaps down to the mouth of an alleyway, cutting the man off. Jon hovers in the sky, awaiting orders.

The meta sparks a web of electricity between his hands, and the bright light of it makes Damian’s eyes burn. He blinks rapidly, attempting to regain composure. When he looks up again, he spots a teenage girl behind the meta, illuminated by the glow of the crackling electricity.

The man shoves against the girl’s shoulder, pushing her back the way they came, and once they reach a fork in the alley, the two of them split, taking off in opposite directions.

“Go after him,” Damian calls to Jon. “I’ll get the girl.”

Jon nods, and rockets off after the man. Damian takes chase after the girl.

It’s not a long pursuit by any means. As she weaves between buildings, stumbling over her own feet, Damian leaps across rooftops, pulls a gainer off the edge of an old dentist’s office, and lands on the concrete right in the girl’s path.

She skids to a stop, shaky breaths rattling out between her lips.

Damian catches the girl around her bicep, and she shrieks, free arm batting at Damian in an attempt to break loose.

“Quiet,” he hisses, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She whimpers, biting down on her lip, and continues feebly attempting to jerk free. “Please don't,” she rushes out in a whisper, “Please don’t kill me, I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to do this, I swear—”

“There is a free clinic not far from here.” He points to the main street. “It’s a few blocks down and to the right. They’ll hide you, keep you safe until the incident is forgotten.”

She stops struggling, and looks at Damian, eyes wide.

“The Lords are not merciful,” Damian warns her. “You cannot afford to be caught again. Had you been caught by anyone else, you would be dead, do you understand?”

She nods fearfully, tears in her eyes.

“Now run,” he says, releasing her arm, “and don’t look back.”

And the girl does. She races away down an alley parallel to the main road, and Damian watches until she is no longer visible, obscured by the darkness.

Jon settles down next to him a few minutes later, carrying the unconscious body of the meta by the collar of his shirt. “Where’s the girl?” he asks.

Damian keeps his eyes trained on the shadowed alley. “She proved more cunning than I originally believed. I underestimated her. She escaped.”

“Oh.” There’s a frown in Jon’s voice. “That’s okay, we’ll get ‘em next time. For now, Dad probably wants a lobotomy for this guy, so we should deliver him before he wakes up.”

“Yes,” Damian says robotically, “the meta should be the priority.”

Damian kills with less zeal now. Not all the time, but it’s noticeable. Jon’s not quite sure what changed. It feels like one day, Damian was gutting criminals like bags of rice, naming all the organs and explaining their purposes as they spilled onto the ground, and the next, the deaths were all simple, clean slices to the neck.

It’s…Concerning.

Jon doesn’t call Damian out on it. He’s never really been into super extravagant killings, anyway. Sometimes they remind him of his mom’s corpse on the carpet. 

It’s fine. Better, actually. Damian doesn’t need to show off the hundreds of methods of killing in order for him and Jon to have a good time hanging out.

This more reserved method of killing becomes the new status-quo.

Jon quickly forgets he was concerned in the first place. Less time taken to make criminals suffer before their deaths means more time for Damian and Jon to chat and play games after.

When Damian remotely detonates the Fortress of Attitude, they’ve only had it for a little over a month.

Neither of them are present for it. Jon is spending the weekend with his dad in their Fortress, and Damian is in the Batcave, finger hovering over the trigger, one of his brothers’ hands on his shoulder.

Jon finds out about the untimely demise of their headquarters on Monday. He’s heartbroken.

Damian sits in the heavily-armored helicopter, arms folded across his chest, eyes downcast on his boots. Jon leans precariously out of the doors, peering down into the murky water where their base used to be. Beams of blue light periodically flash up against the surface as Superman and Batman’s men both run scans below.

They won’t find much. Damian made sure of it, and Father double-checked his process. The residue that remains will lead to dead ends, old organizations that no longer exist.

Damian’s family has gotten good at playing the part of following leads they themselves placed the night before.

“Who would do this? And how?” Jon asks. “It was a secret! It was hidden so well—and it was so cool.”

“It is possible members of one of the underground resistance groups traced us here when we returned from a mission,” Damian tells him. “Perhaps they did this to send a message. Or discourage us from being like our parents: crimefighters.”

“Well I’m not backing down.” Jon pulls himself back inside, and sits down next to Damian. He bumps their shoulders together. “But how are we supposed to hang out and solve missions together now?”

“It’s simple,” Damian says, “We take turns using our fathers’ bases. One day, we go to the Batcave, the next, we go to the Fortress. We use their data systems for our missions.” Then he leans in close, lips nearly brushing Jon’s ear, whispering, “And their files are complete. We won’t get stuck with filtered, low class cases. We can take on the big guys—the ones actually worth our time. We just have to be secretive about it. Smart.”

Jon turns to Damian and grins. He claps a hand on his back. “I like your thinking, D. I do think it’s about time we got promoted.”

In ancient times, most places didn’t know where cinnamon truly came from. Arabia was the only country known to produce it at the time. Arab traders wove a tale of its origin, which was written by scholars such as Aristotle, recounting that the traders told outsiders of giant Cinnamon Birds.

When Damian tells Jon this, he scoffs, raising a brow. “Giant Cinnamon Birds?” He tosses a poorly-aimed pillow at Damian’s head.

Damian just readjusts the furs on Jon’s bed, launches the pillow back at Jon, and continues the story, telling Jon how the traders would say the birds collected the cinnamon sticks from a far-off land where cinnamon trees grew, and then would use them to build their nests, which rested along steep cliffs. The Arabians told those they met that they took large chunks of meat and left them out for the large birds, and when they took the meat up to the cliffs, the weight of the thick slabs would break their nests, and cause them to fall from the edge, where the traders would collect the sticks.

“The Arabians kept the secret of cinnamon’s origin for as long as they could, telling this story to the other countries of the world for years.”

“And the people believed it?”

“They did not know any better,” Damian answers simply. “They did not believe the Arabians had any reason to lie.”

(Jon has a nagging feeling there’s a lesson here, though he’s not quite sure what it is.)

One night, when Damian is preparing for bed, he hears a sharp rap against the glass of his window. The childish excitement is foolish, but Damian nearly trips on his own toes as he scrambles to the window. 

The red of the insignia of House El does not reflect against the panes as it usually would. There is no dark void of a cape streaming over Jon’s shoulders. He’s in civilian attire: loose, worn-out jeans, an old t-shirt with a faded band logo, and a plaid flannel with the sleeves rolled clumsily up to his elbows.

Damian deactivates the security alarm, twists the latch, and throws the window open.

Jon glides inside with so little finesse it almost looks like falling, and nearly tips Damian off balance when he throws his arms around Damian’s neck and presses himself close. One of his hands plants itself in Damian’s short hair in a way that makes Damian shiver.

Damian knows that Jon will end up being taller than him in the long run, but for now their heights are close enough that their cheeks are mashed together.

Jon is uncharacteristically silent. Damian listens to the whistling sound of their mingling breaths.

“What’s wrong, Jon?” he asks. He moves to break their embrace.

Jon tightens his grip, keeping them locked together. “Dad and I fought,” he whispers.

“Did he hurt you?”

Damian feels Jon shake his head. “Just yelled.”

He combs his fingers through Jon’s loose curls in his best attempt at comfort, then pulls away. He studies the tear tracks tracing down Jon’s cheeks, and sweeps them away with a thumb. “Do not let him see you cry. Do not give him the satisfaction. You are strong.”

Something in Jon’s posture loosens, and he wanders further into the room, flopping onto Damian’s bed. “It’s his fault my mom is dead, you know.”

Damian nods stiffly. “I’ve read the file. I’m sorry.”

“He crushed every bone in her body.” Jon stares up at the chandelier. “But it wasn’t actually him. It was the toxin. He would’ve never hurt her in his right mind.” He chews his lip. “Part of me still hates him for it, though.”

“Your mother was a good woman. Kind.” Damian strides over, and settles on the edge of his bed. “I have read many of her articles. She was…Intense, not unlike your father. Strong-willed. But the things she pressed for—she wanted good for everyone. Freedom, safety, peace. They were respectable goals.”

Jon remains quiet. His eyes flit over the ceiling like he’s counting the chandelier’s crystals.

Damian pulls his legs up onto the bed, and crosses them underneath himself. He fidgets with the hem of his cotton pants. “Do you ever…Wonder if your father’s grip is too tight? If his will is too absolute?”

“Sometimes my dad can seem cruel,” Jon murmurs.

Hope builds in Damian’s chest, rising to a crescendo.

“But what he does is for the good of our world. He’s trying to stop more good people from dying.”

The bubble of hope in Damian’s chest fizzles into nothing. “Yes,” Damian replies, swallowing down his disappointment, “you’re right.”

Neither of them talk for a moment. The manor is almost eerily silent. Damian listens to the muted sound of an owl outside the window.

“I don’t wanna see him tonight,” Jon says finally. “Can I stay with you?”

Damian shrugs. “Sure. But I get the bed.”

Jon raises a brow as he sits up and kicks his shoes off, flinging them to the opposite side of the room. They hit one of Damian’s desk drawers with a dull thud. “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Jon announces, leaping up and tackling Damian down onto the bed.

The thrill of a fight races through Damian’s nerves like the zing of electricity, and he twists, throwing Jon down onto the bed beside him, and rolls atop him, pinning Jon down by his shoulders. “I’m older. I make the rules.”

Jon’s tongue sits between his teeth as he grins mischievously, and winds his fingers around the thin straps of Damian’s undershirt. “Yeah, but I’m taller. And stronger.” Tangling his legs through Damian’s, he uses his own weight to flip them again. Jon’s fingers are brushing over his collarbones, and as Damian lays below him, he feels like he’s been laid bare. Oddly, he’s relatively okay with this.

Jon’s curls frame his face perfectly, and any signs that he’d been crying before have faded away. His eyes are bright once more, glinting with playfulness.

“Hn,” Damian says, then jabs two fingers lightly into Jon’s side.

Jon squeals, instinctively curling in to protect himself, and in the moment of weakness Damian forces him back down onto the bed, sitting on Jon’s hips to keep him there. 

It’s not long before Jon gets the upper hand once more, and the process starts over again.

The two of them roll around on Damian’s bed and pin each other like puppies, wrinkling the covers and scattering the pillow arrangement. Eventually, after finally growing tired, they’re both laying sideways on the bed in a tangle of limbs, nose-to-nose, breathing heavy.

“I suppose it is a tie,” Damian decides.

“We share the bed?” Jon suggests.

“An acceptable solution.”

Jon unwinds himself, shrugs off his flannel, and picks his side of the bed.

As Damian settles himself under the covers, he looks at Jon’s head of curls and feels…Something. It is close to elation, but not quite. It sings a different tune. It’s nice. It makes him want to touch Jon, brush his fingertips over his skin, somewhere, anywhere—just some form of contact, something to feel their body warmth mingle.

Damian knows he can fly on his own. He is his father’s bird. But having Jon by his side feels like an extra set of wings, inviting him to fly higher, to breathe less heavy.

The Anqa al-Mughrib, the wise bird that resides in the place of the setting sun, has four wings. It flies far away, and only appears rarely throughout the ages.

Damian would like to be that free.

But Damian is not an Anqa.

He is his father’s bird, and he has a directive.

Guilt swirls through his stomach, merging with that feeling like elation, and like a chemical reaction, quickly sours the feeling.

And Damian falls asleep with this new feeling like a weight on his chest.

The Fortress of Solitude has become more of a palace over the years; a Modern Wonder of the World. Balconies and tall cathedral-esque halls protrude from the main body of crystal, and stalagmites of ice and sunstone jut from the powdery snow of the arctic like spires. They refract the light of the stars and moon, making the fortress look luminescent among the darkness.

“Your father has made many adjustments since its original creation.” Damian has been to the Fortress many times over the years, and he swears it grows more grand each time.

Jon shrugs as he guides them through the stories-tall front doors. “There are more people here now—we need all the space we can get. And upgrades are always cool.”

The main hall is grand; the long span of the floor has been carved with Kryptonian scriptures and iconography of the pantheon, slats have been chiseled through the crystal and ice of the walls to invite in the light of the sun—or, for now, during the polar winter, the light of the moon—and jagged planes of sunstone grow from the ceiling like glittering stones of a chandelier, casting radiant patterns over the hall.

The house of a tyrant, Damian narrates to himself. The seat of an overzealous dictator.

He turns to Jon. “Shall we go write our mission report first?”

Jon’s face pulls with disgust. “We’re supposed to just be here to hang out today! It’s been so long since we’ve been able to not think about super-stuff!”

Damian tilts his head. “Yes, but reports are crucial to write while the events are fresh in our minds. It shouldn’t take long. Afterwards, we don’t have to think about ‘super-stuff’ at all.”

Jon huffs, shouldering past him and heading for the computer room. “Fine. But you’re writing mine for me.”

Damian trails behind him. “Fine by me,” he replies. “Mine are always more accurate.”

They plop down in front of the various monitors, and Damian begins his report in the form of an audio file. Jon switches between spinning and swivelling in his chair as Damian works.

Damian smiles softly. It does not feel all so different from the day they first met.

When he is just about finished labelling the completed file and storing it away properly, Jon groans, and throws his head back. He lolls it to the side, catching Damian’s eyes. He points to one ear. “My dad’s calling for me. Says we need to talk.”

Damian nods, and keeps his heartrate steady. “I can wait here.”

Pulling himself up from the chair, Jon tells him, “I might take a while. My dad sounds kinda serious.”

“It’s alright. I have no further engagements today.”

“Except hanging out with me!” Jon points out.

Damian doesn’t fight against the small smile that grips at his face. “Yes, besides hanging out with you.”

“‘Kay. Good. I’ll be back.” Jon says, and heads for the hall.

When Jon disappears around the bend, Damian lets out a long breath through his nose. He slips a drive free from its slot on his belt, and begins his work.

When Jon scurries down the hall ducks into the side room, Dad is already waiting for him, arms crossed solemnly.

“What, Dad?” Jon whines. “I’m trying to hang out with Damian! It’s been forever since we had time to sit around and do nothing together, can’t we talk later?”

“I've been investigating the possibility of a mole within the Lords and the Regime forces.”

“Why?”

Dad rubs a hand over his brow. “There has been a suspicious amount of successful interference in our moves to enforce Regime law.”

“I dunno, Dad. Sometimes people just beat us,” Jon points out. “I mean, we can’t win all the time, right?”

Dad shakes his head. “This is different, Jon. These aren’t simple attacks. It’s all incredibly tactical. They’ve accounted for every slant of the job. It’s like they’ve read the mission files, and figured out exactly how to counter them.”

“Okay, so why are you telling me this?” Jon asks.

Dad sighs, and his brows furrow. He looks troubled in a way Jon doesn’t often see. “Many of these jobs that have been countered are ones that aren’t in the Justice Lords’ system files. They’re only kept here, in the Fortress.”

Jon’s eyes widen. “So there’s a spy here?”

Dad gives a serious nod. “That’s my suspicion. That, or somehow, there’s a way to remotely access our databases, though it seems unlikely.” he steps closer, and rests a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “I need you to keep an eye out when you’re here, okay? With our forces growing, it leaves opportunities for enemies to slip through the cracks.”

Jon shifts his weight, and swallows down his nerves. “Does Kon know?”

“I already warned him. He’ll be on the lookout, too. As will I. We’re gonna work as a team—as a family—to set this right. So if you see anything out of the ordinary, anything a little weird at all, you tell me. Alright, pal?”

Jon’s arm snaps up into a mock-salute. “Alright Dad. I’m on duty. Now can I please hang out with Damian?”

Dad chuckles, and pats him on the back. “Go on. You two have fun.”

“Yes,” Jon hisses, and bolts for the door.

He slips back down the hall, turns the corner, and spots Damian right where he left him. Or, just about.

Damian’s standing up straight, tension evident in his shoulders. His eyes are lasered in on his wrist-comp, tracking the progress of something.

“What’re you checking?” Jon asks.

Damian flinches, and whips to face him, closing out the hologram over his wrist with a few strokes. “Jon,” he says flatly.

Now, Jon doesn’t usually go out of his way to invade Damian’s privacy in any sort of Kryptonian-related way, but his best friend’s heartbeat feels like it's jumping out at him. It’s thump, thump, thumping like a rabbit on the run.

Jon takes a few steps forward, cautious. “What’s…” he trails off as his eyes find their way to the computer nearby.

There’s a drive jacked into the system of Dad’s Kryptonian data banks.

Jon’s blood runs cold.

“They’re only kept here, in the Fortress.”

Something inside Jon does flips. Puzzle pieces connect.

Damian’s expression shifts. He makes a move toward his utility belt.

In a blink, Jon’s directly in front of him, batting the hand away, and lands a solid punch to Damian’s cheekbone, sending him off-kilter.

“You’re the spy!” Jon screeches, winding a fist tight in Damian’s hair and tugging, forcing their eyes to lock. “You’ve been using me to spy!”

Damian’s face pulls with an unfamiliar emotion—regret?—and then he knees Jon in the stomach. Surprised by the move, Jon isn’t quick enough to stop Damian when he seizes a kryptonite knife from its lead sheath. 

Jon pitches to the side, limbs shaky from exposure, and releases his grip. “You’re a traitor,” he forces between his teeth, voice wavering, as he backs away. “We were supposed to be friends.”

“Grow up,” Damian says, swiping at Jon with the kryptonite weapon. Something in his voice sounds wrong, shaky. Jon ducks and weaves, fatigued. “People are hardly ever who they seem. And innocents are dying. People who deserved a second chance. Lives are more important than our friendship. It’s an acceptable tradeoff.”

Damian pulls a sickly green batarang from a sealed compartment on his belt, and hurls it at Jon.

A sharp edge of the batarang clips his arm, and it hurts. Jon’s not used to pain. He can count on his fingers the number of times he’s actually bled.

And now, here with crimson dribbling down his skin, everything is so wrong. The world’s shifted. Something’s changed, tilted, twisted, and Jon wants a redo—of what, he’s not sure. But everything is so wrong, and he feels sick—

His fist crunches against Damian’s nose. Blood pours down his face in thick streams.

Damian makes a noise that’s nearly animalistic, kicks off the wall behind him, and digs his boots into the bend of Jon’s hips, sending him flying across the room in a crumple of limbs.

“You can look the other way, Jon.” Damian calls. “And we can keep pretending, if you prefer.”

“Keep pretending what?” Jon pulls himself off the floor, and forces himself to stand tall. His bones feel like they’re creaking, like they might just crumble into powder and leave him nothing but a heap on the ground. “That you actually thought of me as a friend? That you actually care?”

Damian doesn’t grace him with a response. That just makes Jon angrier.

“You were using me!” Jon yells, and his chest is heavy and tight. “I can’t believe I let you use me!”

“You did not know any better,” Damian replies, curving under one of Jon’s strikes. “You had no reason to believe I would lie to you.”

“We’re supposed to be on the same team! We’re both Justice Lords!”

“Your father is a tyrant,” Damian spits. His jaw is wound tight. “But you take more after your mother. She was a good woman. You can be good, too.”

“If my dad is a tyrant, yours is too!” Jon yells, landing a firm kick to Damian’s chest.

Damian coughs, winded, and stumbles away. But ever the assassin, he swiftly rights himself, springs back onto one hand, granting himself a short runway before he bolts back toward Jon.

As he crosses the gap, Damian drops to his knees, slides along the floor under Jon’s next swing and tears his knife through the meat of Jon’s thigh. Jon whimpers, clutching at his wound as Damian jumps back up, light on his feet.

“Our fathers have never been the same. Mine is not so cruel.”

Jon gnashes his teeth. His body burns with the pain of the kryptonite wounds. He feels hot tears racing down his face.

“Don’t cry,” Damian says between pants for breath. “Don’t give your enemy the satisfaction.”

With all the air left in his lungs, Jon screams out for his dad.

The volume of his voice is definitely super-human, ricocheting across the sunstone surfaces at ear-piercing decibels. Damian crumples to the ground, hands clapped tightly over his ears, face scrunched with pain.

Dad is in the room less than a second later, the booming clap of the sound barrier acting as his herald. His black cape curls behind him like the void.

Tears gathering in his eyes, blood seeping through the hand applying pressure to the gash on his thigh, Jon croaks out, “It’s him, Dad. It’s him.”

Dad’s expression is near murderous. “Then we deal with it,” he declares. “As a family.”

Damian has yet to completely recover from the ear-shattering outburst, and can only struggle weakly as Dad grabs him by the hair, and drags him mercilessly to the main hall. Jon follows his dad, limping.

Dad summons over two of the Regime soldiers that line the hall as he hurls Damian to the ground. Raising himself shakily onto his arms, Damian coughs, and spits out the saliva-blood mixture that’s been gathering in his mouth.

Jon stands to the side, praying he sinks into the wall.

Dad’s men hook their arms under Damian’s shoulders, heaving him up. Blood dribbles from his nose, flooding over his lips and down his chin, hitting the ground in fat drops.

Dad stands behind him, brows furrowed ever so slightly, thinking. “You’ve been my son’s friend for a long time,” he says.

Jon waits for him to say yes, or some other similar confirmation that will help Jon prove to himself he wasn’t just a means to an end.

Damian says nothing. He’s far too much of a soldier for sentimentality. Jon half knew it already, but it still stings.

“What was the Bat hoping for? You to bring this place apart from the inside, undermine me, give himself a leg up in the Regime?” Dad paces, circling in front of him, studying Damian’s expression.

Damian licks blood from his upper lip. “As an associate of the Bat and my father’s own right hand of retribution, I give you his message: you’ve gone too far, Kal-El.”

Dad takes a step back, surprised. “Is this his formal resignation from the Lords?”

“It is more than a resignation,” says Damian. “It is an act of resistance. The first of many more to come.”

“Your father plans on starting a rebellion?”

Damian flashes his blood coated teeth, a wolfish snarl. “The rebellion’s already begun.”

Dad’s eyes flash to Jon. He suppresses a flinch as his dad hisses, “Jon.”

He knows what his dad is asking. “I didn’t know, Dad, I swear. I only caught him today.”

“I invite you into my home,” Dad says coldly, circling Damian once more, “and you use your friendship with my son as a means to spy on me?”

“You made it all too easy,” Damian spits back.

“Then amendments have to be made,” Dad decides. “Clearly my hand has not been firm enough.”

Damian just glares. Jon watches his dad carefully. He’s mad, Jon can tell. His eyes have the heat of red in them.

“You sent me a message from your father, the Bat,” Dad says, flexing his fingers as he stands at Damian’s back. “Allow me to send a message back with you.”

Damian’s eyes find Jon’s. 

Jon feels sick. 

He hears Damian’s heartrate pick up uncharacteristically.

Dad takes two fingers and lines them up against Damian’s spine.

Damian does not beg. He has never begged before, and Jon knows he will not start today. His jaw is wound tightly shut as he bares his teeth.

His heart cries out to Jon, though. It’s the most horrific sound Jon has ever heard.

Please don’t, Damian’s heartbeat thrums out. Please don’t let him do this. Please don’t let him.

Jon locks his knees, and forces himself to remain in place. He purses his lips tightly shut.

When it’s clear Jon will make no move to help him, Damian’s eyes flick up, focusing on the crystals jutting down from the ceiling. He keeps his head held high, despite his predicament.

Jon doesn’t know it yet, but that will have been the last time Damian looked at him for the next few years to follow.

“I want you to show your father what his ‘act of resistance’ has wrought,” Dad says levelly. “Those who speak against me will have their tongues cut out. Those who raise a hand to me will have them severed from their wrists. For birds who use their abilities to betray me, to undermine me, I will take their ability to fly at all.”

Damian’s eyes go wide. So do Jon’s.

“Dad..?” he starts.

With no ounce of hesitation, Dad pierces two fingers into Damian’s vertebrae, and Jon hears his spine shatter.

Damian screams. And no, Jon amends his earlier statement. This is the most horrific sound he’s ever heard.

Somehow, Damian manages to wrench free from the grip of the men holding him up, and he crumples gracelessly to the floor.

It is in this moment that Jon witnesses what his mom’s old articles used to refer to as the Indomitable Human Spirit—because Damian, with his spine shattered and legs paralyzed, claws himself across the icy floor, leaving behind a drag path of smeared blood, creating as much distance as he can manage before he reaches to his belt for one of his hidden kryptonite daggers.

Dad’s men stop him just before he unsheaths it from its lead casing, heave him back up, and restrain him once more as Damian glares up at Dad, seething and spitting blood. “I’ll kill you!” he screams. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

Jon can’t look anymore. He blinks away the water gathering at the corners of his eyes, and looks up to the ceiling. His hands tighten into fists. His nails dig into his palms.

He hears Dad’s echoing voice order the soldiers to return Damian to Batman.

Damian hasn’t stopped shrieking.

Jon wants to throw up.

When the sound of Damian kicking and screaming—only metaphorically, Jon has to remind himself, since Damian can no longer use half of his body—fades into quiet as the soldiers drag him away, Jon deigns to ask, eyes still locked onto the ceiling, “What’s going to—” his voice breaks, “What’s going to happen now?”

Dad lets out a sharp breath. “What happens now is the Bats either back down, or I wipe them out.”

Jon opens his mouth to reply, but he chokes on the words, and a whimper comes out instead. Water films over his vision, and tears begin their free-fall down his face. He collapses to the ground, and doesn’t even try to stifle the sobs wracking his chest.

Jonathan Kent is thirteen years old, and as he sits curled on the crystalline floor, he knows the world has changed irrevocably once more.