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2018-08-02
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1/1
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Dance Along the Light of Day

Summary:

It's been a while since Damian's seen Jon. He's...unprepared for it.

Notes:

Written for puzzleboat for a RAICES fic fundraiser! Shameless fluff. Title is from "Drops of Jupiter."

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Dawn was coming. Damian slipped deeper into the narrowing shadow cast by the gargoyle above him and adjusted the frequency of his earpiece. It buzzed with static until he found the right channel and voices came through, tinny but clear and safely uploading to a remote server.

“...don’t want to talk about this here,” the mayor said.

“Well, I don’t think you want to invite me to the next shindig at your mansion, so we’ll talk about it here.” Bobby Falcone. The idiot of the Falcone family, but smart enough to get the mayor involved in his attempt to break out from under his uncle’s control with gun running.

Father had told Damian to stay away from the Falcones, that he would handle them, but in two days the streets of Gotham were going to be flooded with assault rifles souped up with Apokoliptian tech. Damian didn’t plan on waiting.

“Fine,” the mayor gritted out. “What do you want?”

“I want to make sure that you’ll do what I need, and keep the cops out of Crime Alley while my boys are working.”

“I already told you I would.”

“What about the commissioner?”

“Don’t worry about Gordon. I’ll keep her busy.” There was the scrape of a chair, the major standing up. “You’ll be able to sell all the guns you want, Falcone. Just don’t forget my cut.”

Damian smiled into the waning night. Gordon would have handled the Crime Alley drop either way, but this evidence would get the mayor out of office and Bobby Falcone behind bars within a week. “And that’s how it’s done, Father,” he muttered.

“...What was that?” the mayor said.

Damian froze. Had they heard him? They hadn’t heard him. They couldn’t have heard him.

Falcone’s face appeared in the window. “Shit, it’s one of the Bat-brats!”

Okay, Damian conceded mentally, reaching for his belt. They’d heard him.

“Which one?” the mayor demanded.

“I don’t know, he’s got like a hood and shit. It’s one of them all right, though.”

“Well, stop him!”

Damian ignored the urge to correct them with his name, since he didn’t have one at present. Twenty-three was just a little too old to still be Robin, and none of Father’s lesser assistants had felt like vacating their own titles - not that Damian would slum it by taking one of their names anyway.

Instead, he shot a grapple line to the gargoyle above him. He’d gotten his evidence; he could leave.

“SHOOT HIM!” Falcone screamed at his men, who leaned out the window, firing wildly at Damian’s swinging figure.

“No!” the mayor shouted. “Not here!”

Damian would have reassured him, if he were prone to reassuring anyone, let alone politicians too imbecilic to even be effectively corrupt. Falcone’s men were terrible shots, and besides, he was Damian Wayne. He wasn’t about to be taken out by a couple of goons with -

A bullet severed his grapple line.

Tchh.

Damian scrambled for his grapple gun, knowing even as he did that it was no good. He was eight stories up and out of range of any holds. He spared half an instant to be smug about the fact that his evidence was secure in the cave. He’d done well. Father would have to give his suit the most prominent memorial case, and Todd could choke on it.

“Whoop!”

Strong arms snagged him out of the air, and a familiar face beamed at him. “Hey, buddy. Thanks for dropping in.”

Damian blinked once, twice, his blood pounding in his ears. “Jon?”

Sure enough, it was Jon Kent’s brilliant smile above him, and the unmistakable feeling of steadiness in his hold. “Yep. Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

“You’ve got me?” Damian repeated, incredulous. “Who cares? Who’s got them?” He pointed to the mobsters gaping out of the window after them.

Jon sighed. “I haven’t seen you in two years and you’re still not thanking me for saving your life. Hang on.”

He zipped up and dropped Damian on the roof, then flew back down after the mobsters. Damian gaped, indignant. “Hey!”

“Hay is for horses!” Jon sang out after him.

“Don’t you quote your grandmother to me, you giant hayseed,” Damian muttered, knowing Jon could hear him. He secured another line and flung himself down off the roof and back in through the window.

Jon had already knocked out most of the mooks, and only Falcone and his glass jaw were left for Damian. Damian clocked him, then turned to Jon, who had that distant look that meant he was using his X-ray vision. “Mayor’s running for it a couple flights down.”

“Let him go,” Damian said. “I’ve got all the evidence I need.”

Jon nodded and jerked a thumb at the unconscious mobsters. “Want me to drop them off at the precinct?”

“No, I’ll let Gordon know to come pick them up.”

“Cool.”

Before Damian could protest, he found himself scooped up and flown back out the window, up towards the pinkening sky over Gotham. “Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded, uncomfortably aware that there was little he could do to stop it.

“Home,” Jon said. “It’s nearly morning. You need sleep.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes you do.”

Jon’s jaw had that stubborn set. Damian sighed and gave up. “Anyway I don’t live at the manor anymore. I’m an adult. I have my own apartment.”

Jon’s mouth twitched. “Paid for by…?”

“Put me down.”

“Never.”

Damian rolled his eyes and directed Jon to his apartment. “I thought you were in space.”

It was only partially true. Jon had done a gap year exploring Rann and Thanagar, helping out with relief work after the war, and then a year at Crucible Academy, earning credits that could hopefully be snuck onto an Earth-based transcript. But he’d always planned to come back today. That was, not that Damian had been keeping track, but he’d known the approximate day and of course Drake talked to the clone a lot. Not that Damian cared. But precision was important. As was taking into account any potential wildcards like a half-Kryptonian lummox swooping in out of nowhere. As events had proven. So Damian had been right to keep track of the date of Jon’s return, to the small degree that he had. Which was very small. Infinitesimal.

Anyway.

“I was. I got home a few hours ago,” Jon said.

“What are you doing in Gotham?”

For some reason, Jon laughed. “What do you think?”

He alighted on Damian’s balcony - terrible for Damian’s secret identity, but it was early enough that no one would be looking out their windows. Damian stepped back and thought.

“Father and I have most of the usual threats handled,” he said. “Is it one of yours? LexCorp did just expand their Gotham offices…”

“Damian.” Jon leaned against the railing. His voice was inexplicably soft. It annoyed Damian. “I came to see my best friend. I missed you.”

Damian huffed. Trust Jon to say something ludicrous and embarrassing like that out loud. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Yeah?” Jon asked. “My mom says I’m taller.”

Damian took off his mask and appraised Jon with a gimlet eye. Jon was taller by at least two inches, which was also annoying, considering he’d already been taller than Damian. He was broader, too - the Superboy shirt that had probably fit him loosely before he’d gone into space was tight across the shoulders and chest. His biceps bulged beneath the sleeves.

A breeze scudded the clouds away from the rising sun and tossed Jon’s always-messy hair into further disarray. In the pink light of dawn Damian could see the ghost of new dark stubble on Jon’s chin; the freckles he’d somehow managed to get in outer space scattered across his nose; the shine in his ridiculous violet eyes. The way he smiled at Damian, fond and knowing and strangely excited, made Damian feel simultaneously like he wanted to run away and like he wanted to stay right where he was forever.

Jon had left as a boy. He wasn’t a boy anymore.

“You’re taller,” Damian admitted, and then, without any permission whatsoever from his brain, “I missed you too.”

Jon’s smile went even wider, like Damian had just made coming home worthwhile. Damian’s heart gave a funny leap inside his chest.

Oh.

Oh, no.

This was going to be terrible.

Notes:

I couldn't resist the Lois/Clark hat tip. Also, Martha is alive in this universe AND MY HEART.

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