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"OO Hotel, Room 2108."
Jon stared down at the text on his screen, a familiar ache tightening in his chest. How many years had they been stuck in this bizarre limbo?
It all started when they were fifteen, under the heavy scent of Poison Ivy’s pollen.
They had been scouting for information together back then. Driven by pure curiosity, Jon had messed with a potted plant sitting by the bed. Before Damian could stop him, they were showered in pollen. A furious Damian dragged him out immediately.
Once they reached safety, Damian was fully prepared to deliver a ten-thousand-word lecture filled with his signature sarcasm. But halfway through the rant, he suddenly went quiet, his head dropping as his body temperature began to skyrocket.
Utterly confused and worried, Jon leaned in. Since he couldn't see Damian’s face, he crouched down to look up at him.
Just as Jon began to panic, wondering if that flushed face meant a fever, Damian let out a sharp “Tt”. In the next second, Jon was dragged into the car and pinned down against the seat.
Damian kissed the stunned Boy of Steel, his hands already fumbling, trying to strip Jon out of his clothes. When Damian's fingers slid toward a more private, hidden place, Jon—whether by pure instinct or sudden realization—flipped them over, pinning Damian beneath him.
He had meant to stop Damian, to snap him out of it. But when Damian wrapped his legs around Jon's waist, clinging to him tightly while panting and whispering in his ear... Jon’s rationality completely launched past the stratosphere.
Afterward, Damian hadn't said much, aside from a sharp warning: "Stay away from any unidentified flora in Gotham."
Jon knew Damian assumed the pollen had gotten to him, too.
But deep down, Jon kept the secret to himself—that kind of pollen didn't stand a chance against a Kryptonian.
Just when Jon thought the whole thing would slowly fade with time—to the point where he wouldn't even be able to tell if it really happened or if it was all just a dream—Damian changed the game.
Already bogged down by the mind-numbing chores of taking over Wayne Enterprises, a failed mission finally pushed Damian's agitation and fury to the absolute breaking point.
God only knows what short-circuited in Damian's brain.
Right in the middle of driving, while half-heartedly throwing his usual insults at Jon, he suddenly unbuckled his seatbelt, turned around, and climbed straight into Jon’s lap...
And yeah. They did it again.
Jon honestly had no idea how he was supposed to look at this car ever again.
Fortunately, Damian barely drove it after that.
Thank god the Batmobile doesn't just come in one model.
Thank god for the filthy rich Wayne Enterprises.
Eventually, it turned into a routine.
Whenever Damian felt wound up, he would summon Jon out of the blue. The location was always the same: some upscale hotel or one of Damian’s personal safe houses.
Damian called it an excellent coping mechanism. He’d scoff and argue that Jon wasn't losing anything anyway, smoothly talking Jon into accepting this arrangement as their new normal.
But Jon was growing increasingly tired of it.
Once, Jon complained about it to a friend. He mentioned that he was two years older, but the friend, thoroughly distracted by his own relationship baggage, only caught the juicy parts.
"Wait, so is this person hot? Is their body good?" the friend interrupted, his mind instantly racing to the dirtiest thoughts.
Dumbfounded, Jon honestly admitted that, yeah, he was incredibly good-looking, and his body was amazing.
The friend’s jaw dropped. In his head, he had already auto-corrected everything Jon said into a smoke-show of an older girl.
"Dude, a hot, gorgeous, older girl wants to sleep with you, and you don’t even have to deal with the typical girlfriend drama? What the hell are you complaining about?! Stop taking your blessings for granted!"
Then, the friend started ranting about the endless, suffocating list of anniversaries his own girlfriend set up. Out of 365 days a year, at least two hundred of them were some kind of anniversary, and she’d throw a massive tantrum if he so much as accidentally forgot one.
The friend went on and on, to the point where Jon honestly started worrying they might break up soon. And so, fully absorbed in listening to his friend’s relationship woes, Jon completely forgot to correct him—the older friend he was talking about was a guy, not a girl.
In less than a month, the entire campus caught wind of the rumor that Jon had been "snared by a gorgeous older woman." A flood of female classmates suddenly started crowding around him to offer their pity and concern, leaving a deeply bewildered Jon completely defenseless and utterly unable to clear his name.
One day, after Jon finished ranting yet again about how Damian always summoned him and dismissed him at his beck and call, his friend finally lost his patience.
"Look, Jon," the friend snapped, rolling his eyes. "You’re just pissed off because you want more than a physical relationship. If that’s the case, just go tell her you want to make it official and date for real. Problem solved! Why the hell are you agonizing over this for so long?"
A cold wave of realization washed over Jon.
He was in love with Damian. And he wanted Damian to love him back.
Like boyfriend-and-boyfriend kind of dating! Not... whatever the hell this was.Staring at the message glowing on his screen, Jon made up his mind.
Tonight, he was going to lay all his cards on the table. He was done with this arrangement.
After sending the text, Damian stood by the window, gazing down at the intricate, chaotic swirl of the city lights below.
He honestly had no idea how that pack of morons managed to be so utterly brainless. A matter so painfully simple, yet they couldn't even handle it without him stepping in to clean up their mess. There were times Damian genuinely tempted to bring back the League of Assassins' way of doing things, though he knew his father would never allow it.
Stress, however, had a way of building up. Damian was just glad he had found a safe, effective coping mechanism.
Their very first time had been entirely caused by Jon-baby acting a fool once again. God only knew why he randomly decided to mess with that potted plant.
Just as Damian was beginning to wonder if that plant—clearly one of Poison Ivy's twisted creations—was nothing but a smoke bomb, the damn pollen's actual effects kicked in.
Normally, for someone who had survived the grueling, borderline-torturous training of both the League of Assassins and Batman, pushing through a toxin like this should have been a walk in the park.
But that idiot Jon-baby, with god-knows-what filling that head of his, just had to lean in and whisper right in his ear, even crouching down to look up at him with those eyes!
Did the boy have absolutely no sense of danger?!
Looking into Jon’s eyes, Damian simply lost his grip on his restraint. And so, he dragged him into the car.
Although the subsequent chain of events hadn't unfolded quite the way Damian had anticipated, he found himself not minding it one bit. True, he had lost consciousness mid-way through, but waking up afterward felt remarkably pleasant.
Even the persistent irritability that constantly plagued his mind had been instantly wiped clean. To put it frankly, Damian was thoroughly satisfied.
Not long after, when Damian felt his stress levels spiking toward the absolute breaking point once again, Jon—who happened to be sitting in the passenger seat—turned his head and fixed him with those exact same eyes. Stealing his resolve, Damian decided to give it another go.
Sure enough, the results were excellent.
The only casualty was the car responsible for both incidents, which Damian ruthlessly banished to the back of the garage, never to see the light of day again.
Having finally stumbled upon such a highly efficient coping mechanism, Damian was naturally going to make full use of it.
It wasn't as if Jon hadn't derived enjoyment from it either.
As a manager, Damian prided himself on being highly attentive to the balance of supply and demand.
Spotting Jon’s silhouette in the night sky, Damian walked over and slid open the balcony's glass door.
To Damian’s utter bewilderment, the moment this idiot stepped inside, he suddenly blurted out some nonsense about dating and making things official!
Uncharacteristically patient, Damian tried to reason with him and analyze the pros and cons. But the more Jon listened, the angrier he got, until he finally grabbed a cushion from the sofa and hurled it right at Damian.
Damian was never one to be mistaken for a patient saint. When Jon threw a pillow, Damian threw back whatever was in his line of sight.
Once the room was completely picked clean of projectiles, Damian, shaking with fury, roared at Jon, "I just want someone to sleep with! Jonathan, what the hell is wrong with you?! I have a mountain of shit to deal with, and I don't have the time or the damn patience to play house with anyone!"
Once his temper cooled slightly, Damian noticed a shadow downstairs that looked suspiciously like a paparazzi drone. Taking a deep breath to steady his racing thoughts, he coldly told Jon to leave first, and they would talk about this later.
But god only knew what was short-circuiting inside that curly-haired head of his.
Upon hearing those words, tears suddenly began to spill from Jon's eyes, one by one.
Choking out a final, "Don't contact me ever again," he abruptly turned and threw himself out of the twenty-first-floor window.
If Damian hadn't known for a absolute fact that the idiot could fly, he honestly would have thought Jon was trying to commit suicide.
Snapping out of his brief daze, Damian calmly dialed the front desk. He instructed them to bill all the property damage directly to his secretary, hung up, and then left the premises with a face as cold as stone.
The next day, Jon nursed a thoroughly aggrieved expression as he cried to his friend about just how awful Damian had been.
"And then... I completely ruined it," Jon sniffled, his voice thick. "Damian is never going to talk to me again."
His friend rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a bit helpless, and tried to cheer him up. "Look, just put it behind you. Prom is just around the corner anyway. Go out, have a blast, and change your mindset!"
Although Jon seriously doubted it would help much, it was his friend's good intentions after all, so he nodded and agreed.
A few days after their explosive fight, Damian turned on the wiretap he had planted at Jon’s school. Listening to Jon and his friend discuss potential dates for Prom, Damian came dangerously close to crushing the earpiece into dust right in his hand.
Though he had firmly resolved to ignore Jon from then on, Damian’s irritability only mounted as the day of Jon’s Prom drew closer.
Finally, on the day of the dance a few weeks later, an impulse drove him to get behind the wheel and speed straight toward Jon’s school.
Having cooled down a bit upon his arrival, Damian decided he would merely take a look at what kind of person Jon had picked as a date, and then leave immediately.
Yet, the moment he stepped into the venue and saw Jon dancing happily with someone else—and later being egged on by the crowd to head up to the stage—Damian completely lost his restraint.
Right before Jon could step onto the stage, Damian reached out and firmly caught his hand.
Jon looked at Damian in utter shock, his mind still racing to figure out how he could possibly be here, when he heard Damian command him to follow.
Spurning the order, Jon fiercely wrenched his hand out of Damian's grip, snapping angrily, "I am not listening to you anymore! It’s just going to be exactly the same as before!"
Staring at the boy before him whose eyes were brimmed with tears, Damian roared back, with a fury that completely eclipsed Jon's, "You want to goddamn date, don't you?! Fine, I agree! Now come with me!"
And just like that, under the shell-shocked stares of the entire school, Jon was dragged away by Damian in a complete daze.
Years later, at a school reunion, Jon learned that this "prominent heartthrob publicly coming out at Prom" incident had become the ultimate campus legend, officially etched into the school's history by the journalism club."
Wait, since when was I a heartthrob? Why didn't anyone tell me?" The classmate beside him laughed, explaining that his heartbroken, brooding persona back then had captured the hearts of countless girls—even the teachers had secretly cast their votes for him.
"Wait, Damian, where are we even going? And when you said you'd date me... did you actually mean it, or are you joking?" Jon asked frantically, trying to keep up as he was dragged along.
Once Damian had pulled Jon into a completely deserted spot, he finally whirled around and barked at him, "Of course I goddamn meant it! Has your brain rotted away?! Do you honestly think I would make a complete laughingstock of myself just to pull a prank on you? What kind of fool do you take me for?!"
Jon stared at him, his face filled with utter disbelief. "But... why so suddenly? And it’s not like you even like me. Why would you want to date me?"
Damian genuinely wanted to dissect Jon's brain to see how his neural pathways were wired. Why on earth was the boy so painfully dense? Then again, he also really wanted to know what was wrong with his own brain. Why, out of all people, had he gone and fallen for this oblivious idiot?
A mixture of fury and utter helplessness washing over him, Damian looked at Jon, who was still visibly spacing out.
Accepting his fate, Damian stepped closer, leaned in, and whispered right against Jon’s ear, "I like you. Let's date."
Finally snapping to reality, a joyous Jon wrapped his arms tightly around Damian.
They shared a long, breathless kiss.
When they finally broke apart, Jon leaned down toward a slightly breathless Damian, a wicked smirk playing on his lips as he whispered, "I like you too! ...By the way, Damian, did you drive here today?"
Damian whipped around to glare at him savagely. "Shut up, Kent!"
A few days later, Gotham City, the subterranean Batcave.
Bruce Wayne sat before the monolithic Batcomputer, reviewing the daily logistical maintenance and family asset logs.
The Dark Knight, a man famously known for remaining unflinching even if the heavens were to collapse, stared at a glaring line of red data on the screen, lapsing into a rare, prolonged silence.
According to the system logs, a Batmobile—one in pristine condition with absolutely zero signs of impact—had been groundlessly filed for complete destruction by Damian.
Perplexed, Bruce pulled up the vehicle's internal logs, only to find the reason Damian submitted was lazy and half-hearted at best: "Severely damaged. Beyond repair."
Expressionless, Batman clicked 'Approve' on the computer, silently rubbing his aching temples.
Whatever. Young love came with a hefty price tag, but at least Metropolis’s Little Superman could handle his short-tempered son.
— END —