Chapter Text
So when your tears roll down your pillow like a river
I’ll be there for you
I’ll be there for you
When you’re screaming, but they only hear your whisper
I’ll be loud for you
I’ll be loud for you
Jon sighed. He had been doing a lot of that in the past three hours.
“Feeling out of place” wasn’t a sentence that used to make a lot of sense to him before, but then again, when you are a super-powered ten years old whose father comes from another planet, you learn to fit in any kind of weird situation.
Now that he was a super-powered seventeen years old…not so much.
Everything felt…off. Wrong. His home and his life didn’t feel like they belonged to him anymore.
I guess I had it coming he thought. Coming back to your ten years old life as a seventeen years old and hoping to fit right back in it was just wishful thinking. He didn’t even fit in his bed anymore, or his clothes. He had gone for a bit of a shopping spree with his mom the day before. That had been a weird experience in itself. His mum kept picking stuff that was either too small or too childish only to then realize her mistake and laughing it off, all the while acting like her heart wasn’t breaking a bit more at every discarded shirt she put back on the shelves. It almost drove Jon mad with guilt. It made him want to rip the damn shop apart.
That was another thing that made this whole mess even harder to bear. He was angry. His family used to know him as this happy-go-lucky child with an endless positive outlook on life, … and…he wasn’t anymore.
Sure, his sense of morality hadn’t changed, he was still proud of being his father’s son, and he was so proud of how he had managed to survive all on his own and come back. He was. He really was…but… at the same time…
During all those years fighting for his life, all those interminable and painful days imprisoned in the volcano… this anger had festered inside of him. He had been alone, loosing precious moments with his family, his adventures with his father, the quiet, sweet afternoons in the company of his mother typing away in the back ground while he did some homework, their fun weekends in Hamilton, his high school years, growing up with his friends, seeing his parents get older.
He lost all of that, six years of his life gone…only to realize that no, he hadn’t. And yet he had. He didn’t know if it was better or worse, but he had moved on, he had grown up, while the rest of his life hadn’t followed him.
Three weeks. That’s how much time had passed.
Three fucking weeks.
And there he was now, a seventeen years old brooding in the room of a kid.
He flopped back on the bed, with his legs sticking out of the end. He listened to the steady patter of rain on the glass of his window. It had been raining since morning, and it did nothing to lift his sullen mood. Flying under the rain wasn’t fun, no matter how invulnerable you are.
Sure, the future wasn’t at all looking as bleak as his past. He had a path open for him. It was looking more and more appealing by the day. The legion of super heroes wanted him. He had a place there. A new shining life full of glory and adventures and way too many new friends.
And yet.
He might not fit into his old life anymore but leaving so soon after coming back didn’t feel right. When Saturn girl had come to pick him up at the fortress of solitude he had been this close to say yes. But he hadn’t. He had too many loose ends, too many things he had missed to leave so soon.
He wanted to know who seventeen years old Jonathan Samuel lane Kent could be, before definitely leaving it all behind to become superboy permanently.
He stopped himself from sighing again. He decided it was time to get out of his funk and do something productive, or at least start to figure out how to make his life a few size larger than it was at the moment, so that the walls of his own room would stop feeling like they were trying to close in on him.
He went to the empty living room and opened up his old laptop to pull up Ikea’s website. He would start by getting a new bed. It sounded like a really good start. A queen sized one, one his feet wouldn’t stuck out of. Yes. That sounded like a perfect first step.
Once he had a cart full of a comfy big bed, bed sheets, a nice-and grown up- looking comforter and more than a few throw pillows for good measure (when you spend years sleeping at the bottom of a volcano prison you learn to appreciate comfort) he felt a lot better about himself and decided to pull up a few news websites, to get up to speed with what was going on in the world. Or well… remember what was going on at this point in time.
More than a few headlines were about his father’s decision to come out in the open.
“Superman revealed to be Daily planet reporter Clark Kent”
Yeah, he would worry about that at a later date.
Thanks a lot about that by the way, dad. It’s not like my life wasn’t complicated enough as it is
He respected his father decision, he really did. But he kind of took the decision to come out in the open out of his hands. Or maybe he didn’t. The people of metropolis still expected him to be a kid. That could play in his favor. But then again, he really didn’t want to think about that yet. It was a whole other headache he didn’t want to think about.
A few more headlines where about the mess that was Gotham at that moment. That was something else he really didn’t understand. Damian hadn’t really told him anything when he went to look for him for the big reveal. He had seemed normal, his usual self-assured, careless self.
Really, though, if there was one thing he remembered well about Damian Wayne is that he was a really good lair. He would also never really speak of his problems, as apparently was common among the bats “family matters stay in the family” and as Gotham was their city, that meant that any problem in Gotham stayed in Gotham. Once his father had told him with a frustrated expression that he wished Batman would confide more in him. Ask for help. But the bat never did. Not even when it was a matter of life and death. His father begrudgingly respected that, but the more Jon read, the less attuned to his father laissez-faire attitude he felt.
Two batmen? A Gotham free of crime under dictatorship? Bane?
Was Damian ok? Sure he could take care of himself and the batman probably dealt with this kind of crap on the daily but then again…
When he had met Damian a week before he had felt…off. Jon had just written it off as it being because he was meeting his friend after years apart and the whole I-grew-up-while-he-didn’t shtick but…
The Damian he knew wouldn’t have just told him to leave everything behind to go join a mysterious league of superheroes in the future, even less asked him to save him a spot. He had hugged him for crying out loud!
Not that he had minded it, he had been the one to do the hugging first.
He had wanted to do that for years. How many time he had bitterly smiled thinking back at their childish behavior when they had first met. The fights, the pranks, their making fun of each other. Their constant battle to best each-other up. Rao, he had missed all that. At first, before his adventures from deep space had taken a turn for the worst, he had been constantly thinking “I wish D was here” or “Dami would probably do this, or say that” the Robin a constant fixture in his mind, as his ten years old life had pretty much revolved around the older boy at that point. As things had turned darker and he had found himself alone with his deranged and distant grandfather Damian had still been front and center in his thoughts, he had missed him more and more, he had even tried to send him some messages, playing off his growing worrying about how he was going to escape behind some stupid remark about his card collection. Damian had made him feel safe. He had been older, more knowledgeable, always ready with a brilliant back up plan.
Damian hadn’t been there though.
Even when they had been trapped in the stupid cube, with no way to go back home in sight, Damian had been there with him. It had all been a fun summer adventure, never once had it crossed his mind that something irreparable could have happened to them. They were the supersons and life was great.
But Damian hadn’t been there. And as the years had gone on he had tried to force himself to think about him less and less. It hurt too much, he missed him too much, and back when he had believed that time was going forward on earth it had hurt to think that D was growing up with the Teen titans instead of him.
In the long lonely days in the volcano, when he had been about to give up, he would sometimes open again that drawer in his mind labeled “Damian Wayne-best friend” and daydream about how his friend would look grown up. Would he had finally have gotten his wish to be taller? Taller than him? Was his hair longer? -He’d probably look nice with long hair-Was he still wearing the same Robin uniform? Or had he changed it? Maybe he had grown out of that alias and become another hero, like most of his brothers did…
Where his eyes behind the domino mask really as green as he remembered them to be…?
Yet all of that had been a moot point. Cause his Robin hadn’t grown up. He was still the same thirteen - fourteen? Another September had come and gone so he guessed fourteen now- years old kid of his memory.
His grandfather had taken that from him as well.
He was older than Damian now.
He had always been taller, sure, but now Damian looked…small. He had looked so small. So vulnerable. He didn’t feel safe with him anymore. He knew that wasn’t fair, his friend was still pretty capable of kicking ass, but now, thinking about him out there fighting the kind of monsters he had read about in the news made him angry. Not angry at Robin, but at the rest of the world. He was a kid. Damian was still a kid. Just like he had been a kid. Alone. Without protection. A kid. Fighting monsters.
It made him feel protective of him.
Which was completely absurd and would probably get him a green combat boot straight to the face were him to ever voice his concerned in the vicinity of said Robin.
Damian could take care of himself all right.
He closed the laptop and stretched. Time to get some fresh air and clear his head. He would call Damian later. He would probably click his tongue and berate him for even having asked him and tell him that that Bane guy was already behind bars and “what do you take me for, Kent?”
He picked up his phone, keys and wallet and the shiny new leather jacket with superman-crest on the back (how cool was that? That was one thing both he and his mother had immediately agreed on) and headed out. He was going to get himself and his parents some Chinese food. He was a grown up. He could do that now. (How cool was that?)
It was still raining like crazy, but it wasn’t like he could get a cold. He still got an umbrella, however, cause he really didn’t want to ruin his new jacket.
After the nice stroll and the even nicer dumplings he had gotten and had already eaten, he was heading back home with his mood much lighter and a big warm bag or heavenly smelling food in one arm and the umbrella in the other.
He was almost at his doorstep when he saw him.
A small dark lump huddled at the bottom step to the entrance of his complex.
He had no umbrella, and he was completely soaked trough, lightly shivering, his arms closely hugging his knees.
The few people walking by were barely throwing him a glance, turning up their noses. He even heard someone muttering curses at homeless boys that shouldn’t be in such a nice part of town.
He didn’t even had the time to get angry. He knew better.
That wasn’t a homeless boy. That was Damian Wayne, and something was very, very wrong.
He let go of the umbrella and the food and he run to few steps separating them, probably a bit too fast to look human but at that moment he didn’t care.
He looked so small, his shoulder hunched, his face covered by the wet black hair falling in his face.
His bigger than life Robin should never look so small. That protective instinct that he had previously tried to squash down flared back to life with viciousness.
“Damian!"