Archive of Our Own ^beta

Perhaps it was not wise to hold a kryptonite batarang to the face of Clark Kent as he entered his apartment, not when you lacked another form of cover. Damian didn’t care in that moment. Wisdom was not at the forefront of his mind, likely hadn’t been for weeks now, and the bubbling anger and confusion had finally robbed him of his self-preservation instinct. He barely kept his voice level as he spoke through gritted teeth.

“Where is he?”

The question hung in the air. It was a threat, an accusation, a weapon, all at the same time. But it was also something fearful and vulnerable that Damian could only hope was as well hidden as he was trying to keep it. Something that felt far too much like a plea.

Damian planted his feet in the floor and tightened his grip on the blade. Anything to hide his desperation from the man who could see through near everything.

Kent hardly moved. He didn’t seem offended or even merely perturbed. He simply sighed, set down his briefcase, and slowly pulled off his glasses to run his fingers over the bridge of his nose. His eyes glistened when they rose again. Dark bags hung under them, unlike anything Damian had ever seen on the most powerful man alive, and his shoulders slumped like weights had pulled on his arms.

“Son…” he said, in a sympathetic tone that just made Damian’s anger burn hotter.

“Tell me!” Damian shouted, pulling his arm back to aim the batarang right at his chest. “Do you think I’m as stupid as everyone else? Do you expect me to believe that he just disappeared, along with his mother? I’ve looked, and there are no signs of them on this entire planet. No sighting, no contact, no words. He didn’t say anything before he left, not to any of his friends at school.” Not to me. He didn’t say anything to me. “Only tabloid rags suggesting that  Lois Lane ran off with Superman and took the kid. And we both know that’s not true.” Damian stepped closer, snapping his words with all the venom he could muster, “So tell me, what did you do to him?”

Kent still didn’t have the decency to look even a little provoked. He just stood in exhausted silence, watching Damian slide closer and closer to unravelling. And Damian hated him all the more for it. Please, he thought, Please just get angry. I have one of your greatest weaknesses under your nose. Yell, curse, knock me down, or something.

Nothing. Just the sound of Damian’s heavy breathing and the ticking of the hallway clock. Not to mention rapid beat of Damian’s pulse, which he knew they both could hear. One second. Another. Another.

The dam finally broke.

“TELL ME!” Damian lunged into the air. He hurtled the batarang, aimed right at the spot where the S would be. The blade lodged itself into the opposite wall. A whoosh of air came behind him as two strong hands gripped his arms and pulled him back, kicking and punching ungracefully. “UNHAND ME! LET ME GO! DAMN BASTARD!”

“Damian…”

“WHERE IS JON!?” he screamed finally. His throat burned. His voice started to shake, its volume dropping.  “Where is Jon!? What happened to him!?” Kent lead him to the living room, still gripping his arms and holding him just off the ground. Damian sent strike after strike his way, mostly just hitting air but not slowing down.

That is, until he caught something in the corner of his eye.

Draped casually across the armchair was Jon’s school jacket, untouched as if he’d just lain it there. There was a little grass stain on the sleeve and a slight tear on the hem where he’d gotten caught on a screw on the bleachers, after dodging Damian’s hand while sneaking bits from his lunch. Just as Damian had last seen him in it.

It hit him like a punch to his stomach.

With every step Damian felt himself lose the will to fight. Kent sat him down on the couch, knowlingly or not with the jacket in plain view. Damian glared towards the floor, defiantly blinking back tears. He refused to acknowledge them. “…Where is my friend?”

Kent lay a broad hand on his back. “Damian…” he whispered, and he was crying now, not even trying to hide it. “I wish I knew.”

Damian shook his head. To what, he didn’t know. “You have to know. He’s your son.”

“…I…” If Superman could look weak and lost, he did in that moment. “I’m going to be totally honest with you, Damian. You deserve that much.” Damian gripped his fists on his thighs. Kent leaned back on the couch, running another hand over his face. “He left. W-with…my father. My Kryptonian father. To explore space with him, learn about our heritage. Lois went with him for safety.”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“It was a very last minute thing. He didn’t really have time to tell anyone. But the only way I had to contact them was destroyed, so I have no idea where they are nor how to find them.”

“So?” Damian bit icily, “Go look for him.” Kent didn’t say more. He didn’t need to. Space was much too big for it to be that simple. Damian’s brow furrowed harder and he breathed in sharply.

“Is he alive?”

The pregnant silence rose again. Damian’s chest clenched as tightly as his fists.

“I’m…I’m not sure,” Kent admitted. “I think so, but I’m not sure.”

Damian didn’t move a muscle. Emotions rushed through him in a curdling mess, but he didn’t betray a single one. He wouldn’t be compromised, not again.

“For the record,” Damian snapped, “You neglected to tell me that Jon was missing. Our school secretary called me to the office to ask me if he’d ever mentioned something being wrong at home or plans of running away. Because he hadn’t shown up for school in days, you see, and when they called his mother no one picked up. When they called his father, he stammered out some cryptic answer about being away with his mother. So that, incidentally, is how I found out why he wasn’t answering my messages.”

For a moment, Kent was dumbstruck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, just over a breath. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

Damian leaned over and buried his face in his hands.

He felt Kent rub gently at his shoulders, but there was no comfort in it. There couldn’t be.

He’d come to feel Jon’s absence like a wound in his side. It was there in the stream of unanswered calls and texts on his phone. In the mornings when his helicopter landed on an empty schoolyard, no waving hand nor smiling face to greet him. In the empty seat next to him during lunch. When Damian could hear the tapping on his keyboard echo in the ghostly silence of their headquarters. On a rooftop when Damian sat alone to overlook a city skyline.

It was there when he wanted to step away from the world of his new team, the teenaged realm of rage and conflict and stress and defiance, into something simpler. Something calmer and safer. A haven that he couldn’t find anymore no matter how desperately he looked.

And though he would never speak a word of this to anyone, least of all Kent, it was there in the pitch black chasm underneath his team’s new base, where his deepest secrets were chained up. He’d be lying it he said it wasn’t. Oh, he’d had the idea for this since before Jon disappeared, in his darker moments. But as every lead came to a dead end, every sighting proved faulty, and every clue ended up useless, they’d pushed him a little farther towards the edge. Jon didn’t deserve bad things to happen to him. Perhaps less than anyone Damian knew. And yet, he’d disappeared. His own father can’t help him. No one can. Least of all Damian, who’d thrown his keyboard at the wall when all of his resources ran out without finding a trace.

If all the high-and-mighty adults with their delicate rules of conduct can do is sigh and shrug their shoulders when someone like Jon is lost somewhere in the vaccum of space, no answers to give, then what good are they? Why should Damian listen to them at all?

So he fights harder. Dirtier. Anything to stave off that creeping feeling of powerlessness.

Mother would be so proud.

“I haven’t given up hope, Damian,” Kent said. “And neither should you.”

“Hope doesn’t produce results.”

“Sometimes hope is the only thing that can.”

That was one thing Damian never liked about Superman. He actually believed his platitudes. “I’ve hunted down every lead I could. But most were worthless,” Damian spat the last word like a curse, “and I have other responsibilities.” He sat straight up again, gripping his knees. He’d been up at nights searching for signs of Jon, anywhere in the world, more times than he’d like to discuss. He was tired.

“I understand the feeling exactly.” Kent scooted closer, just a bit. Still far enough that Damian didn’t feel defensive. “I wish I could make things better. For Lois and Jon, but also for you.”

“Tt.”

Kent stared him in the eye, even as Damian responded with a sharp glare. “I mean it. I’m so sorry you have to deal with all of this, especially at this time. And I am so, so sorry I didn’t keep you more in the loop. I have no excuses for that. But know that if things hadn’t been so crazy, Jon would have absolutely let you know what he was doing. Your friendship means so much to him.”

Damian turned his head stiffly back to the floor. “It better,” was all he could muster to say.

“But wherever Jon is, I’m sure he knows that both of us are working to track him down. And I’m sure he can’t wait to go adventuring with you again.”

Damian’s hands losened. He wasn’t even sure if he’d want to go adventuring when…if they found Jon. He might be content to just sit in their headquarters and laugh and play videogames and enjoy the quietus that he’d so craved.

That is…

“…Kent?”

“Yes?”

“What if I…do things that might not be right, in the time that he’s gone? And if you please, I’d much prefer you not mention this question to Father.”

Kent didn’t speak, a look of confliction crossing his face. He nodded and reached forward to pat Damian’s back again, “I know you’re angry. I know you feel tested lately. Not just about Jon’s disappearance. Hell, I know how hard it was for you to open up to Selina, only for…”

“I’d rather not discuss that right now.”

“Right. Sorry,” Kent bit his lip before speaking again, “I’m angry too, Damian. I try to hold it in, but sometimes it gets the better of me.” He looked off, and Damian realized that he looking in the direction of Jon’s jacket. Still in its spot, weeks later. “I miss my wife and son so much it hurts. I just want them back. I don’t get how I can have all of these abilities, but I can’t protect the people I love the most.”

Damian had to keep himself from nodding.

“But the important thing to remember is that even if they aren’t here, we need to live like they are. When I’m out in the field, there’s something I ask myself if I ever worry that I’m about to go too far. Would I do this if Jon were here watching me? And if not, it probably isn’t a good idea.”

This time Damian did nod. Because that thought had crossed his mind, once or twice, as he was lowering down into the lightless hole that is his prison. He’d always pushed it away. Nothing unnerved him like imagining Jon’s bright smile and infectious laughter when he was down there.

Kent leaned in a bit more, a pointed look in his eye. “But even if we fail, we can still be forgiven.”

Damian exhaled slowly.

“I may not know that Jon is alive, but I believe he is. And that’s important.” Kent smiled, genuinely, for the first time that evening, “And I believe that he won’t be gone for too much longer. After all, he has the greatest detective in the world looking for him.”

Damian shook his head. “Father is otherwise occupied.”

“I was talking about you.”

A beat. Damian rose his chin to look aloof, but he beamed a little bit too.

“Wait,” he said, popping up a little, “before I forget. I have most of Jon’s homework from the last several weeks.”

Kent whistled and actually gave a little chuckle. “He’s gonna have a lot to do when he gets back, I assume?”

“Well…no,” Damian said, “I’ve been doing most of it.”

“You’ve been doing Jon’s work since he’s been away?”

Not just since he’s been away. “Well,” Damian said with a defensive edge, “It would do me no good if he was holed up every night after he gets back. Then he couldn’t come out on patrol.”

A pause. “When I need him to train so he doesn’t fall behind and become a burden.”

Another pause. “He’s been off his schedule long enough.”

Clark didn’t say anything else. He just softly pulled Damian into a loose hug, his arms around his shoulders and Damian’s head pressed against the very chest at which he’d thrown the kryptonite. The boy didn’t stop him. He didn’t even resist. He just rested there, blank-faced except for tears that he no longer had the energy to prevent. With them flowed out some of those churning emotions that he could no longer pretend he didn’t feel. Just a little. Just enough.

“It’ll be okay,” Clark mumbled for the both of them, “it’ll all be okay.”