Chapter Text
Jason shivered. This was not his kitchen. This was, in fact, nobody's kitchen. He had his holdout weapons (three knives and a nine millimeter) and a wooden spoon. No helmet, boots or jacket. Not even any compression clothes or thermals. This was... less than ideal.
The room he was in was dark, but not because it wasn't lit up. There were alien or magical lights, and nearly everything had a faint glow. Except the human looking guy pacing and muttering and looking like he was three seconds away from a nuclear meltdown. The guy looked familiar despite Jason being unable to immediately place him. His hair was mostly black, with a white stripe in the middle. it was disconcertingly similar to Jason's, though the white was more than just a forelock on them. it went all the way to the crown of their head.
The room was large, ceilings high. There were no rafters but it still looked like a good ceiling to skulk around on and observe from up high. The furniture was solid, and looked like it could be used to effectively bar the door. The black stone floor had vibrant plush rugs in the sitting area and along walkways. There were partially hidden servant's access doors but no visible servants.
"Holy heck! Where the frick did you come from?! You're alive! And human? You're human. How'd you get in here without me even noticing? Are you some kind of, like, spy dude? You don't look like a spy dude. No fancy suit. Actually, what even are you wearing?"
Jason, waking up for his day at three in the afternoon and taken from fixing himself breakfast, was wearing boxers, very well worn sweatpants that barely held themselves up, (Wonder Woman, obviously) a ratty red tank top and socks. Warm socks. They were also red. Great. At least his toes weren't poking out of his socks. And his apron wasn't the absolute worst apron to be caught in. Probably.
The asshole had the balls to laugh about it.
Stupid fucking apron.
"Laugh it up, chuckles. Uno reverse, where am I, who are you and why am I here?"
"Uno reverse," the guy stopped laughing and grinned. they recognized it, so wherever Jason was had Uno. He'd never be bored again. Joy. But the guy's grin slowly fell as he looked Jason over. Jason refused to let it bother him. He was a disappointing guy. Good on them for recognizing it immediately. Save them both the time and hassle.
"I... Uh. I don't know any of that. I mean, you're in the infinite realms but I d k how helpful that is since, y'know, infinite. And I'm Danny, he/him! I know that!" the finally named Danny said. He went on, "But I've got no idea why you're in the realms, much less here in my den."
Danny flustered, seemingly from what he'd just said. Was a den more than a room to sit around and talk in here? Or was it only for the closest of acquaintances? That could explain it.
Jason studied Danny. He looked to be about five ten standing when not slouched over. His eyes were blue but Jason thought they should be green. He frowned at nothing and Danny shifted back and forth on his feet.
Now that Jason had assessed Danny for threats he turned more attention to the room. It was a big room for normal person standards. For rich asshole standards it was a pretty typical 'family room'.
The art (paintings and tapestries and sculptures) depicted space and everything related to it. From mythology to advanced tech.
"I swear I didn't summon you here! I'm so sorry! I don't even know why you're here!" Well, this guy was embarrassingly easy to interrogate. Jason hadn't even begun trying yet. Jason again turned his attention back to Danny. He looked different, but Jason was confident this was somehow the same being as the god king that Klarion had dragged into everything. That didn't mean Jason would give away what he knew. Something had happened between them and them only when the king broke the sealing spells that day.
From the shadows of the doorway a suit of armor condensed. Black with lime green and fiery purple accents. The helmet held only eyes and shadows. It was pretty metal. Jason wanted that helmet. The guard, or possibly retainer or squire or something, spoke in a loud, booming voice. Everything he said was an exclamation.
"You have found a fine mate, my King! He is strong in body and in heart! And he must be a formidable opponent indeed if he has as many enemies wishing to slay him and yet still live as we have found!"
"What?! No, no, no! No hot mystery sexy mate boys! People cannot just give mates! To anyone, but also me!"
A mate. Fuck. How important was Jason to this king? Would he fucked and tossed out like a whore? Or was he a concubine, or, much less likely but ideal, a spouse? Jason should agree and break this off as quickly as possible. That was the sensible thing to do. But this guy was so far a genuinely harmless idiot, and easy on the eyes. Jason absolutely could use the perks of being pampered by a god-king to further his mission. And too, being a concubine could give him advantages none of his enemies or family could plan for. For one thing, it sounded like Danny was notified in some way when someone had homicidal urges against Jason and then either dealt with them personally or sent some guards to handle it. Jason had absolutely noticed that his life had been easy breezy since that bonkers insane ritual bullshit with the outlaws three weeks ago. He'd known the other shoe was coming, the universe was never in his favor. Anything that looked like a good time for Jason was just the calm before the shit storm. And everything had been coming up Red Hood. The usual suspects never showed themselves for Jason to beat the shit out of and educate.
Arte and Bizz had been experiencing no such ease with their machinations and enemies. Jason had set them on the futures where only Jason was enslaved. There had been one that all three of them were left free, it was the one Jason had been going for, but Jason had to make do. Jason would keep this asshole satisfied and hopefully he wouldn't decide an alien clone and amazon warrior made better concubines than the very human Jason.
Jason smiled winsomely, pretended he'd forgotten he was holding a wooden spoon, acted embarrassed and put it in an apron pocket. He then raised his hands to his chest, palms out, showing he was unarmed. (Never unarmed, but he wasn't holding anything in his hands so close enough for C4) Danny's eyes tracked the movement then stayed firmly on Jason's chest. That was definitely interest, hopefully desire too. The god-king found him interesting. This was going to be easy. Jason showed none of his lazy confidence and excited anticipation of pulling one over on something, someone, so damned powerful. He schooled his body language and expression into interest. Jason was very good at acting. And Danny seemed very, very dumb. Or at least stupid with lust for the moment, which was almost the same thing and honestly even better for Jason trying to get his way.
"Woah there, Turbo, let's not get too hasty with those assumptions. Why do you assume that I don't want this?" Jason said quickly. Trying to make a bid for Danny's interest he gestured in-front of his chest. Danny tracked Jason's hands as they gestured. Danny followed his subtle hidden direction beautifully. Jason smelled an opportunity even better than he'd first thought he'd landed in.
The guard had implied Danny had no other concubines or even spouses. Jason gestured between them both. "There are two people in this relationship so far." —Danny mouthed 'so far' and looked confused, concerned— "I want to be your primary partner. I'm your most favored concubine. And I will be for as long as I'm alive."
Danny squeaked and sputtered, still hung up over multiple partners even being an option. God, this was almost the perfect scenario to become someone's concubine. Jason was almost looking forward to it. Especially if this doofus was as easy to control as he seemed. His general, or personal guard maybe, seemed delighted at Jason's response. Even better. Having the guards happy with him was good.
Danny continued to fail to get any actual sentence out of his mouth but at the first thing that could be interpreted as agreement Jason struck. With words. Because he was awesome like that.
"I'm so glad you agree My King." Jason said, acting like Danny had agreed wholeheartedly and smiling in an especially rakish way. It felt a bit more threatening than he'd meant but the plate armored guy did nothing about it. Emboldened, Jason went on. "For as long as I live I will be given enough time in my home realm to see to my affairs."
"Your duty is to our king, honored concubine!" the knight said, louder than anything else yet. Expected and a relatively mild response. No violence or threats, just a fact. That was nice, Jason didn't particularly like getting hit for discipline.
Jason acquiesced as contritely as he could manage. "Of course, of course. Yet I am an honorable man and cannot in good conscience break my word. Being our King's most favored concubine is an honor and duty I will take seriously. Yet I fear being known as a liar by the living."
Jason feared no such thing. But he did fear his bastard of a dad discovering Jason's very careful planning and deciding he was killing someone. Even though he hadn't killed since the bastard asked him to stop. Bruce loved accusing Jason of lying, of being his biggest failure, of being just an all around untrustworthy asshole that existed at Batman's convenience and generosity. The fear was close enough to his words that he knew it would pass the lasso of truth.
Danny continued to be completely useless. Gaping at Jason and thinking (hopefully) lusty thoughts. Danny being able to drool so obviously over him and still have brain cells left over for plotting didn't seem very likely. Jason did consider it though. Always good to figure out your options.
"Honor is a glorious and noble cause for action! You may be allowed to honor your debts and bonds that do not interfere with the safety or will of our king until you join his grace in the realms in full!"
That was a better deal than Jason had expected. It wasn't great. But he didn't want to risk losing it by being greedy. If it was just this dork of s king then Jason would push. His guard was unknown and clearly much more aware of politicking. This was not the time to push for a bargain. Jason bowed lowly and solemnly said. "Truly our King is generous. I accept those terms for my living debts."
"What?" Danny finally said, sounding halfway strangled. He was completely wrong footed. Jason glanced up from his bow, Danny looked dazed. Jason held the advantage still. Good. Time to bring it home.
"Please, sir, explain to me my duties as first concubine." Jason said sweetly, looking up at Danny. Danny made a high pitched sound much like a stove top tea kettle boiling. His eyes were wide and panicked. Jason expected the rush of satisfaction; people fearing him felt shamefully good. He was well aware of how fucked up he was. Both in general and in specific. Having a king fear him? Heat curled low in his gut. How far could he push Danny before there were consequences? What would those consequences be? If it was entirely up to Danny it'd probably be a slap on the wrist, maybe a week of imprisonment. Danny definitely did not give off disgusting sadist vibes like many assholes in power had. But this guard was pretty traditional. If it was up to this knight-wannabe then it'd be a much more serious punishment. Lashes for sure. Hard enough to bleed. Jason made a mental note to worm in a clause about his punishment, no matter how serious, being unable to cause his death or loss of life or permanent injury or... Oh fuck, Danny was kind of precious. His guard had taken over the explanation since Danny seemed to be totally blue screened.
"Your duties, loyal concubine, are to bring our king satisfaction and to ensure his relaxation. Through whatever means our king desires."
Standard sex work. He'd get some tips from his girls (still mostly girls, it was a demand driven industry and most johns demanded girls) they'd know the kind of tricks that'd have this god-king eating out the palm of Jason's hand. Probably even thanking him for the honor. Especially since this was the most basic and vanilla sex work possibly ever expected. Especially for an asshole with as much power as this king.
"These duties are much less onerous than I had feared." Jason said with only a little bit of genuine relief. His duties were easy. He could get pedantic and avoid sex altogether with these rules. Jason only had to give Danny 'relief from tension' and ensure Danny was satisfied. If Jason wanted, he could stall and distract. Nothing in that verbal explanation said outright that sex was how he had to relax Danny.
"I'm not forcing anyone into anything!" Danny shouted. He looked adorably relieved and a bit proud. Proud he'd managed to finally say something, Jason guessed.
"My King! This is his duty!" the knight sounded appalled. If it wasn't over Jason's situation it'd be pretty funny.
But that also wasn't going to work. Not with how mortified Danny had been throughout this conversation. Jason did not need to lose his privileges because this King was an idiot.
"I am choosing this for myself, my King." Jason said with as much earnestness as he could project. Danny looked at him like he was trying to disbelieve Jason but didn't particularly want to. Jason considered and discarded various ploys and went with something modern. This King said 'yeet' and knew what uno was. Kneeling at his feet would probably be weird to him.
Jason reached tentatively for Danny. Once Danny recognized Jason's intentions he gave him his hand. Jason *wanted* to bend over and kiss the back of Danny's hand and look coyly up at his King. But again that would likely make Danny uncomfortable in a bad way. What he did was pull himself up to standing and fit Danny's hand between his own and bring their hands to Jason's chest, over his heart.
Danny was extremely flustered and most importantly looked like he both wanted to and would believe Jason wanting to stay now. Jason was taller than Danny. He considered moving one hand to Danny's face to cup his cheek but decided it was so cheesy it might make Danny suspicious.
"My King, can I call you Danny in private?" Jason asked, gazing at Danny. He waited for Danny's answer, projecting anticipated excitement.
"I- Um, yeah. Yes! Yes, call me Danny." Danny said with a rapid nod of agreement.
Jason smiled, he didn't try for shy. He'd been bold and downright disrespectful in their interactions up to now. He kept the smile small and tried to show his delight with his eyes and body language.
"Danny," Jason said slowly, like the name was something to be savored.
"Guh." Danny answered. God Jason was going to have this idiot wrapped around his fingers before the day was over at this rate.
"My... Danny," Jason said, this time acting like he'd been about to say 'my king' then using his name with a quieter, intimate voice. Danny looked faint. Jason kept his Cheshire grin internal. Externally he looked earnest and eager. He said, "Don't you think I would have tried to break this off if I didn't want it? It's..." Jason feigned embarrassment, "it's exciting. You're royalty. There's no royalty in America. I could never be anything to a king there."
"You're..." Danny said weakly. Then with a bit more effort, "You're mine." Oh? Was he actually possessive if he let himself be? That was almost definitely going to make future Jason's life miserable but current Jason could use this to get his way.
Jason made what he knew was a very effective disarming little laugh that definitely wasn't a giggle dammit and acted giddy when he said, "Yours, my king."
From there Jason distracted Danny from whatever the fuck had gotten him so worked up it had quick travelled Jason directly to him. Danny was skittish and shy, so Jason kept things tame. He sat down with Danny on a kissing couch (an actual kissing couch! had that been there before? Jason hadn't thought anything red was in the room. whatever. problem for later) Jason got Danny talking, embarrassingly easily. This guy had zero concept of state secrets or who to share them with. But Jason teased him with his breath against Danny's ear and neck, the occasional stolen kiss, as if they were actually being chaperoned. Danny followed Jason's mouth but never initiated his own kisses.
By the time Danny was called away for more kingly duties Jason was wishing rather fervently Danny was a smidge less shy. Just, y'know, maybe bold enough for a handjob. Nothing serious. Jason watched Danny leave with much more genuine desire than he'd intended.
The fuck off massive guard did not leave. He stood over Jason. There was no one else there. Jason swallowed and composed himself.