Chapter Text
1.
It’s Tuesday, at four-thirty. Jonathan Kent and Damian Wayne, respectively Superboy and Robin, The Boy Wonder, head home with their tails between their legs. Just minutes earlier Superman had ordered them, brushed them off quite rudely, to return to the batcave and wait.
Wait for Damian’s father to be found; sit idly by while his father is still lost. Yeah right…
Reluctantly, Damian had agreed after Jon whined and sulked about ‘not wanting to get into more trouble’ he’d grumbled. Damian had wanted to get right back to the Batmobile and find Batman themselves, but he also knew without Jon it… he didn’t want to do it without Jon.
“This is stupid.” Slips out as they walk. Damian’s arms are crossed under his cape, connecting in the front, making him look quite like his father does sometimes. They’re walking that slow. Jon doesn’t respond, no huff, no groan, no eye roll.
Damian’s heart sinks at first, then his anger spikes. He just wants to find his dad—and Jon had agreed to help him! If it was Superman missing Damian would have helped and if Jon asked, even called in all the reinforcements he knew.
If Jon had only asked, Damian would have. So why is Jon acting like this scolding is the end of the world? He’d been like this ever since the ink situation, ever since Superman laid that hand on his shoulder and said “Sometimes we have to make hard decisions.”
Ah. Maybe-
“Just shut up, Damian, drop it for once.”
He recoils. “What? Are you so butt hurt that your dad told you off! Welcome to the club, Kent, you’re not a child.”
Damian ducks just in time to miss the line of laser beams. They hit an open field and thankfully it’s a bean field and not highly flammable wheat.
“I am a child, Damian!! And so are you so can you just- I-I’m not butt-hurt!” Jon’s clenching his fists so tight and looking like he’s about to actually blow up. Damian knows he won’t try to kill him, he won’t punish him or anything. But he also knows Jon’s powers are… not the most certain things.
So he stays in his crouched position and glares at Jon who only glares harder right back. His chest is rising quickly with rage and frustration, Damian gets it.
“You are weak, and you cannot handle the truth, sometimes. Kent.”
“Yeah, because I’m the one who can’t handle the truth. You’ve been on this wild—we’ve—been on this wild goose chase for days!” Jon’s throwing his hands around like there’s no tomorrow, a quirk Damian has noticed he does in the last few days… he also can’t keep his eyes on one thing, and also he stomps his foot like an impatient child.
“When will you understand that sometimes you can’t do everything! It’s annoying and it gets me in trouble!”
Damian’s eyes narrow, standing from his crouch and scoffing at Jon. The wind blows around them and distantly Damian wishes they were near a wheat field; so he could hear the shuffle of it swaying.
“Yes, of course that’s what this is about—I-”
Jon snapped, stomping his foot and growling in frustration. “No! See?! You always make it about you! Just stop for once! Be a kid, Damian, because that’s what we are. I can’t help you find Batman! Just leave it up to my dad… like he said.” All Damian can do is stare, like they’re platonically breaking up, like everything they went through in the last few days and even days before then were for nothing.
“I’m going home. You should too. I’m done.”
Damian watched as Jon turns and starts to stomp off. And maybe it’s the insecure part of Damian that reaches out, maybe it’s the child in him that calls, or just him who reaches out and grabs Jon’s wrist.
In another universe this petty squabble ends better, without blood. But here Jon spins around with super speed and pushes Damian hard in the chest. Hitting Damian’s collarbone and just barely not breaking it.
Realization doesn’t dawn immediately. Maybe it was because he’d been not super powered for his entire life up until recently, or how well Damian takes the hit. But Jon didn’t realize he’s hurt his friend until his super hearing picks up on the quiet sniff.
Damians turned away, back facing Jon and right hand up to his face.
It's quiet. Then Jon gasps.
“Damian!” He’s lurching forward but not touching, hovering around his friend that he hurt like his magic hands could help instead of hurt. Damian won’t show his face, hiding it with the said right hand, but Jon’s heart twists as he sees blood spilling over his hand.
“Damian oh my Rao, oh my Rao!” Then, stupidly, Jon’s next bright idea is to attempt to pick him up and fly him over to the house. First aid kit! His mind screams. But the second he tries Damian lashes out, flashing a bright green knife and nonverbally warning Jon.
It’s like day one all over again and… and Jon has no one but himself to blame for the piercing green eyes glaring at him, worst of all, warily, through his domino mask. It hurts but not in a painful kind of way, it hurts in a… in a guilty way, in a he lost something way; because he’s lost progress, their progress.
And Jon hurt his friend.
For a quick second, Jon stares down at his hands, still outstretched, and is disgusted, angry, and sad.
“Damian I… I’m sorry.” His friend doesn’t reply, and Jon can’t bring himself to look up at his face, his bloody face. And he can hear Damian’s labored breath, it hits his ears like punches, makes him feel like a useless waste of space who can only hurt and fail.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”
“I’m sorry.”
2.
Saturday night, twelve AM. Damian crosses his arms over his chest and tries not to tense as his friends arms are around him. Jon is flying over Metropolis’ sky, headed towards the farm he calls home, where his mom and dad wait. And since Damian can’t fly, and doesn’t conveniently carry a batplane on him then they patrol, Jon has to take the risk of flying him back.
It’s been a long night, mostly petty crimes and trying to do their best, even if Damian won’t ever admit it. Since Superman told them he’d be overseeing their patrol. Kind of like a surprise manager popping into work to check and see if you’re doing what you’re supposed to. Jon would ask him how he knows managers do that, and then ask what a manager was, while Damian would scoff and say it was what happened when Jon’s principal randomly came to ‘have class with them.’
Jon had understood then, Damian physically watched as the lightbulb flickered on in Jon’s head.
That was early into their patrol though; now it was late, a few hours out here stopping mostly petty crime and occasionally sending a question out to Superman on if they could take on this specific slightly more than petty crime case. Jon always asks so bashedly like he was asking to go out with a girl.
Damian only tried to make his eye-roll quiet and shook his head. Superboy wasn’t the most useless partner, but he definitely wasn’t the best. Though that may be unfair to Jonathan since he was not raised by an elite group of assassins, and instead beside cows.
“Good night tonight.” He muttered, watching the dark starry sky as it slowly became more visible. Jon hummed, keeping his eyes forward as he flew. He could tell Damian was growing tired. He’d kinda done most of the work, Jon had of course done the heavy lifting, literally, but Damian’s body got more tired quicker.
Jon did not. He may only be thirteen, still growing, but Damian was a few months younger than him and human. He grew weary after way less work than Jon could, and he needed sleep. The cool thing about Kryptonians though, his dad had told him, was that they store yellow sun energy in their bodies so they can pull all-nighters easier than humans.
Especially if Jon flew to the other side of the world while it was nighttime, he could go days without sleeping. Damian hadn’t been impressed by this, instead saying that if he didn’t get a, quote break from Jon at least at night that he might go rabid.
Pfft… Damian loves Jon; they’re best friends.
Jon has saved him more times than he could count in the last year! Damian did his fair share too… definitely… a.. lot, actually… In fact, for a human Jon was not prepared for how much Damian actually saves him and not the other way around.
Stil! Damian pretends like he’s insufferable but Jon really knows it’s endearing!
He knows even a year in that Damian trusts him. Trust him enough to know his story. At first it was slow, but they’ve gotten so close it’s hard for Jon to imagine his life without Robin. Trust him enough to allow himself to be carried, and fall asleep in his arms, yet not enough to not tense, and not fall asleep ridged.
When the house comes into veiw Jon sighs in relief, a small smile overtaking his face. The porch light is on, and on it his dad sits in the rocking chair with a newspaper on his knee. A pile of them laid on the railing beside him with a cup of steaming hot chocolate.
“Hey, son.” He calls. Low enough that it won’t rouse Damian, and if he says it at all, Jon would hear it. Superboy returns the greetings with an even quieter whisper as he touches down on the wooden platform.
“You both did good tonight, I’m proud of you for taking care of your friend.” Clark nods at Damian and smiles down at his son. Whose face is turning red in embarrassment.
“Now come on, your mother is probably still up, she insisted on waiting for you,” Jon nods, following his dad into the house, the comforting smell of cocoa sifting through the house like it’d been dumped in every cranny made Jon smile. And apparently made Damian tense considerably.
Inside the kitchen, which you have to walk through to get to the stairs, Lois Lane stood making another pot of the hot drink. She danced around the kitchen with all the grace of a mom at twelve a.m. Dark circles under her eyes and hair thrown up in a messy bun, she only does when she’s stressed. Jon can tell it’s not because of their patrol, though.
Her eyes catch his when he walks in, and then they drop down to Robin, and she coos. Slipping her phone out of her back pocket and clicking five photos, Jon hears her thumb tap the screen each time.
“Hi, baby. You okay? No injuries?” She, too, whispers, coming over to gently place a kiss on his forehead and wipe the stray hair strands from his face.
He nods and smiles up at her, basking in the attention.
“Good, now it’s definitely time for bed for you.” Jon can see she wants to put a hand on his shoulder, but the whole person in his arms kinda makes that difficult, so instead she ruffles his hair again sweetly. “Wake him up so he can get changed before you two go to bed.” Jon nods, saying his respective goodbyes before jogging up the stairs, less careful to jostle his friend since he realized that he would actually have to wake him up.
Thank God for super strength, because if he were normally strengthened like he was a few years ago, then his arms would be killing him! But they’re not, they’re not sore after he lays Damian down on his bed, and his eyes don’t sting as he washes his face and gets some soap in them.
Jon is barely even tired after it takes him fifteen minutes to get ready for bed.
“Dami,” the boy doesn’t stir. “Dami,” he nudges the boy again, calling his name slightly louder and smiling when Damian’s eyes shoot open. He shoots up and scrambles back before realizing it’s Jon and stops himself narrowly from falling right off the bed.
“Hey, you need to get changed before we go to bed. My clothes are in the closet, pick whatever you want.” Jon doesn’t notice Damian’s slightly panicked look, and before he gets a chance, it's already gone and being replaced with nonchalance.
“Thank you.” He nods, hopping off the bed and grabbing his phone from the nightstand. Damian heads for the closet and picks something. Only a second later, the next thing Jon knows, he’s climbing into bed too. Taking one of Jon's softest blankets and tucking himself up only to his waist.
A weird knack Jon’s noticed Damian does.
“Goodnight, Jon.” Damian grumbles, his back turned to him. The other hums, still looking at his phone with the ghost of a smile on his face.
“Goodnight, Dami.”
.
.
.
Concrete crunches under his fingers. Red spills out from his eyes. The shrill sound of screams all around him, fires, blood, death; he can smell it. See the destruction, but he can’t stop himself.
Jon stalks forward.
“Superboy!!! Super-” Beast boys' annoying voice cuts to a scream as lasers sever his head from his body. Jon lets the beam take out a few buildings behind the green hero.
“Gar! Oh my God!-” Rose is next. The worst part is, she doesn’t rush up to him and attack, doesn’t throw knives, or send a perfectly placed kick like Damian would. She cowers and begins to run, but Jon’s faster… he’s faster than them all. He bends down and lifts a pipe, ruthlessly shooting it straight through her heart.
“Son,” Jon whips around and sees his father, holding his mom in his lap, limp and breathless. “…you’ve killed your mother…” he whispers, distraught. Jon watches as his dad brings her closer to himself, then starts crying.
“N-no…” the world grows smaller, his breathing faster, spinning in all directions, he sees the bodies of his friends and family, of Ma and Pa, of Raven and Wonder Girl, even Batman is bleeding out, squashed under a giant piece of rubble.
Jon can’t breathe.
“Superhero Superboy goes on a rampage and kills everyone he loves, the government is sending out troops at the moment to dispose of th-”
All screens blast full volume the horrifying truth that Jon is a monster, that the military is being called in because he’s killed people, because he can’t control it, because Jon should die.
“Hayseed.” His heart drops.
“No… no… nonononononono!” The sound of a collarbone cracking, the sharp spike of a heartbeat right in his ear. Jon can hear Damian fall to his knees, practically feel him shake and cry.
“You hurt me! Jon, why would you hurt me?!” A storm picks up around him, rustling his red cape, the blanket he’d found in his father's spaceship… it rips off his suit and flies away in the wind, like a sign that he wasn’t who he thought he was.
Jon watches it go, reaches out with his hand… debates flying for it, but for some reason, he doesn’t feel strong enough to.
“I thought I could trust you.” His eyes snap back to Damian, flinching when he sees him clutching his chest and kneeling in a pile of all his friends’ blood. It soaks Damian’s knees, crawls up his suit to his hands, and spills out of his mouth.
“No!” Jon can’t move, he can’t think he can’t scream, he can only watch.
As Robin's suit soaks with all the blood. As Superman, his dad keels over, toppling over his dead mom's body—his dead mom! Who he killed!
“I knew I couldn’t trust anybody… I knew I couldn’t trust you. You're a bad friend. Leave me alone - I’m safer without you near me!”
“No no no nonononono—no, IM SORRY!” Jon grips his hair, pulling at it, twisting and shaking his head. He can’t look at Damian, can’t open his eyes because if he does, he’ll see someone he killed! Someone he hurt!
So he starts to run, blindly, stumbling over—God knows what! Jon’s legs are shaky, his head is fuzzy and loud, and he only registers he’s fallen when the ringing stops.
He’s on his back. Staring up at the dark sky.
Then Damian’s blood-caked face pops into his vision, and Jon punches-
“Agh!-” Jon gasps, flying—literally—out of bed and hitting the wall with a loud Bang!
“Damn it, Kent, what the hell!” Jon looks around, frazzled, spotting Damian sitting on the bed, still in Jon’s just one size too big shorts and a few sizes too big T-shirt, he’s nursing his face. …or more specifically, his nose.
And immediately Jon knows what happened. Another gasp is manually torn from his throat, and the scream comes right along, too. Damian’s eyes widen, and he scrambles off the bed, not running towards Jon or towards the door. But distancing himself from Jon because he’s a monster. Because Jon could just—him- hurt him again!
“Nonononono…nonono! No, I didn’t mean to- I didn’t! I promise I’m sorry! Please! I don't want to!”
The door bursts open, slamming back to hit Jon’s foot and whacking Clark in the face. He gasps and turns to look around the door, noting his son's fragile position immediately. Lois is slowly approaching Damian before Superman can get anything out.
“Hey, it’s alright, Damian, let’s let Clark calm him down and get you fixed up, okay?” Damian’s hesitant, still clutching his nose desperately and cowering near the closet, but… he doesn’t really think Jon wants to hurt him: he’s not scared, just…
“Yes.” Lois nods, agreeing, gently leading them out the door. Damian’s blood dripped all the way down; for some reason, his hands were shaking and failing to catch some of the blood.
“Hey… buddy, it’s okay.” Clark kneels in front of the boy, using ultra super speed to turn the lamp on. Jon doesn’t scene realize he’s done it, so he doesn’t flinch.
“No! Nononono- I didn’t mean to—please, Dad, it’s too much!! I didn’t mean to kill Mom! I-I, I didn’t mean to kill mama!” Jon's eyes are glowing slightly red, but Clark can tell it’s not a danger for heat vision; it’s just something Kryptonians' eyes do when they’re under extreme stress.
“Bud, it’s alright, I’m alive, I’m okay. There’s no laser through my heart, no kryptonite near me… you’re mom's safe, you didn’t do any of that.”
Jon’s wailing pauses, the hiccuping and snot dribbling down his nose don’t, but he actually sees his dad for real.
“H-huh?” Clark smiles, reaching forward to lay a feather-light hand on his son's knee. “H-how d-did you k-know?” Jon asks, whipping his eyes and keeping his face buried in his forearm. The boy's shoulders are still shaking, he’s still scared, still coming down from that… that nightmare, but how did his dad know? Logically… which wasn’t Jon’s forte, Jon knew it was just a nightmare, but he also knew that wasn’t the issue.
The issue is that that could be a reality. It could be the reality.
“I’ve had them- have them too, Jon.” His dad, dressed in casual sleepwear, plops slowly onto the ground in front of Jon, keeping his hand on his knee and the smile gracing his face.
“I have nightmares where your mind shows you what… what you fear most, what…” he looks torn up, Jon notes. It hurts for him to say it out loud.
“What I work every day to avoid.” Jon’s throat clenches, his breath hitches.
No, no, no, no…
“But you’re not like that, I know it… your mind makes you believe that these fears have come true, that you didn’t have the strength to hold back but… but you are good.”
And while it satiates half of Jon, the issue isn't that he thinks he’s going to turn evil… (Not yet) The issue is that…
“I hurt Dami…” Clark is silent for a moment before he exhales slightly, distraught. “Oh.” He breathes.
Jon just begins to wail again louder, quickly, Clark listens in on the two downstairs, making sure that 1) both hearts are beating, and 2) that Damian is okay.
“-ormal… as of recently.” Lois sighs.
“It’s just a broken nose. When Clark gets back, he can set it, and it will be just fine.” Clark stops listening after Damian’s huff.
“Jon; buddy, Jonno,” but Superboy doesn’t want to listen; he wants to curl further in on himself and cry until it stops hurting. Until he didn’t hurt all his friends, until his powers go away.
“I hurt him…” Clark’s heart breaks at the broken crack in Jon’s voice. His fingers were turning white from gripping his own skin tighter and tighter.
“Jon.” Clark deepens his voice, making it serious so that his son would give him his attention.
“Everyone makes mistakes- and I know!” Clark quickly says when Jon opens his mouth and tears well up in his eyes. “Yes, son, me of all people would know that it is different for us, it’s difficult, and you and I and Kon-El are going to spend our entire lives trying not to hurt the people we love.
Because we have this immense strength, because we are different, because we are invulnerable, that’s why we try.” Jon sniffles. Not meeting his dad's eyes. He can hear Damian’s calm heartbeat from below, and he can tell Damian’s keeping it slow on purpose.
“I have to keep myself, my body in check every time I hold your mother's hand, every time I open the front door, and every single second I touch your mother, it’s so gentle.” Jon gets that, ever since… ever since getting these powers, since awakening, then it’s been like he was walking on a tightrope - and it’s been three years!
“I get that… and I’m scared, Dad.” Jon lurches forward, bypassing the hand on his knee and wrapping his arms around his dad's large build.
Clark held back immediately, holding tight to his son like it would keep him from breaking down, and help him from crumbling. Maybe it will.
“I know, son, and it’s going to happen again, but we have to work our butts off trying to stay in control no matter how small the action is…”
Jon sniffs, but nods in his dad's hold.
“…Does it ever get easier?”
And Clark is happy to be able to confidently say: “Yes, it does, you and your muscles grow used to being ‘gentle’ with everything. Kind of like how your body just naturally softens when you pet a cat… or when you hold a baby. It gets a lot easier, but we still have to be careful.” Jon nods, clinging one last time onto his dad before pulling away and wiping his tears and snot away as best he can.
“It was horrible, Dad… I killed them all.” The weird lighting in the room casts a shadow over Jon’s face, illuminating it just enough to wrench his expression into a horrified look.
“I know, bud, and I…” Jon expects him to say something like ‘I’m sorry it had to be this way’ or ‘I’m sorry I cursed you with these genes’. Jon was ready to tell him, though with tears, that it’s not his dad's fault, but instead… instead, Clark smiles down at him, gently and genuinely.
“I know it’s hard, but these powers allow us to protect the people we love. They allow us to take bullets for them, and… as much as I hate the idea of you taking a bullet or throwing yourself face-first into danger for someone else… I’d be a hypocrite to tell you not to, since we’re the only ones who can.”
Jon stared up at Clark with slowly widening eyes. How had he..?
“But it… I—we can hurt so easily!”
“Yes,” he nodded, holding firm only Jon’s biceps. “But Super strength allows us to lift buildings from civilians, it allows us to take down bad guys that our friends can’t handle. Super speed allows us to make it in time. It allows us to be able to help everywhere.”
Slowly, Jon’s eyes begin to open in a way they hadn’t before. It’s not that… that Jon didn’t know he could help so many people being half alien, but it was always more of thinking he could help people because he was like his dad. And not specifically because he had each of these powers. Jon has always thought of himself as ‘like his dad', and never once had he individually selected the… oddities and given them purpose.
“Freeze breath, one I used to struggle with, gives us a life-saving tool, it helps us keep humans from overheating, it helps us put out fires, it…” Jon’s reads started to fall, staring up at his dad with wide, hopeful eyes as his dad explained how and why they can be so good.
“…you understand, son? We’re not monsters, you’re not a monster. We have this power that can help or it can hurt, and while you’re learning, just like everyone, it can hurt, but it can also help.”
He understands. And quite frankly, Jon’s mad he himself didn’t put that together. He never in three years had thought about the fact that yes, he is dangerously strong to his allies, friends, and family, but also dangerously strong to his enemies. And to the enemies of his friends. Jon can be more of a help than a hurt.
“Can I… do you think Dami wants to see me?” Jon asks meekly. Clark smiles, down at him, giving him a reassuring pat on the back. “Of course, son. In fact, I… should help out. Be sure to apologize, and I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Jon nods, still not fully convinced, and nervous, but he wants to make sure his friend is okay. He’d only send him covering his bleeding nose. Only… only got his fist connected with Dami’s face…
Clark hurried down and made it to the kitchen first, while Jon slowly followed, wringing his hands together in front of him, and keeping his eyes trained to the ground. Inside, he was absolutely screaming to hurry to Damian’s side, to hold his hand and make him feel better. But he knew the boy wouldn’t want or appreciate that at all. So he didn’t, and instead brings his purple eyes up to Damian’s green and flinches hard when he looks in time to see Clark snap his nose back into place.
“Oh my God.” Jon passes out.