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After they started dating, Jon became more and more concerned about secret identities.
It was so much more complicated than he was expecting!
He couldn’t go by and kiss Damian while he was at college. He couldn’t announce to everyone that he was dating Damian Wayne. He told his family, but they already knew who Robin was anyway. Dad just kinda frowned, but Kon and Kara and the rest were very supportive.
He could kiss Robin basically all he wanted, though!
“I’m a little busy, Jon.”
“And you’re being tailed by a cape-chasing reporter at the moment, I want more people to know we’re dating. Besides, it’s not like Lynns is currently flying away. I’ll let you know if he takes off.” Jon kissed his cheek.
“You’re just going to let them take photos of us?”
“Why not?” Jon stopped, backing off slightly, to make sure Damian was ok. It wasn’t like him to be uncomfortable with PDA in front of non-capes.
“Many reasons, chief among them public backlash.”
“I’m sure people won’t be that upset that a hero and a villain are dating, especially since I haven’t done anything mean for a while! Kon has, but I’ve been keeping my nose pretty clean.”
Damian didn’t argue that point, but also didn’t concede. Jon took this to mean it was ok to kiss him again, and hug him close around his waist. Like he said, Firefly wasn’t doing anything right now. Weirdly enough, Lynns was shopping for groceries. This wouldn’t be that weird, actually, but he was in full Firefly getup.
The camera flashed, and the journalist called up from where he’d been ducked in the alleyway to call out: “Can you give a statement?”
“May I?” Jon grinned.
“If you distract him long enough I can escape his tail.”
“Whaddya wanna know?” Jon mimicked the Gotham accent on this guy, leaning over the edge of the building and grinning wickedly. This might be fun, too. Not threaten him, but make it clear what was going on.
“Uhm.” The journalist glanced at his escape route, clearly wishing Robin had been the one to stay, “Can you clarify the nature of your relationship to Robin?”
“He’s my boyfriend.”
“And can you tell me about how he feels about dating a criminal?”
“Same as any one of you humans might feel about it, ‘cept he’s, you know, a vigilante. That’s not technically legal, you know.”
“What about a murderer then?” The journalist was a sweaty guy.
“He doesn’t think I’m confined to my past. Neither does he think anyone else is, either.”
Yeah this was boring. Jon flopped onto the roof, listening to Robin flip away.
“How long has Robin known he was gay?”
“I dunno. Don’t you have anything more interesting to ask?”
“Does Batman know about you?”
Jon tilted his head. He… didn’t know the answer to that one, actually.
“Probably. It’s Batman.”
“Are you worried this will turn public opinion against your boyfriend?”
“If you puny little creatures decide that the one of you who stopped me from tormenting you further is lesser for it I will be very disappointed.” Jon flicked a pebble into orbit.
“Does Superman know about you?”
“Yeah, Dad’s not against it. I’m done answering questions. If you need to pry into Robin’s business to get a story, it doesn’t bother me, but if you bother him with it I will have to take action. Just because he’s asked me not to kill doesn’t mean I can’t injure, and I know where all the trauma specialists are in the city.” Jon threatened him casually, dropping onto the ground beside him, “And I know where you sleep.”
The reporter ran like a frightened boar, sweating all the while, and Jon laughed after him. The city was alive with people partying- friday night and payday for most industry jobs. Maybe Jon would join them.
Damian was fine, tailing Firefly as the poor guy tried to stock his safehouse and get some rest. Other bats were out, on patrol or investigating their own threads. Jon expanded his awareness further. Father was fighting Lex in Metropolis. Kara was in Central City today, antagonizing the speedster. Kon was asleep on the Eiffel tower, with Krypto guarding him. Mom was at home, writing up about Lex’s recent human rights violations- Jon knew that one because she’d texted her plans for the night.
Jon visited Mom’s house, and without looking up from her laptop, Mom knew he was there.
“How’s Damian?”
“He’s a big grump, but he’s fine. He’s tailing Firefly. Some journalist guy was tailing us in Gotham, so I told him off when I got tired of his questions.”
“Don’t tail people when they’re tailing others- or, do, actually, because that makes their movements a lot more predictable.” She took a sip of her coffee, which had cooled, and stuck her tongue out. “Bleh. Do you mind starting the coffee machine?”
“Nope!” Jon started it, and then heated her coffee with his heat vision, “Damian was worried people will be mad if a news story comes out confirming we’re dating.”
Lois sighed and took her reheated coffee, recognizing the question hiding in her son’s tone, “Well… not everyone is going to accept their hero dating a villain who’s terrorized them for years. That’s one reason Martha and I worry about how much you take after your dad. Not everyone’s ready to accept that Robin is gay, either, though, so there’d be outrage if you were a perfect angel too.”
“I’m not sure what orientation has to do with it, I’m not even human. Does it count as gay if I’m not human?”
“You look human enough that people don’t consider that.” She sipped her coffee, leaning away from her computer.
“What does gay or not even matter?”
“It doesn’t honey, but not all humans believe that. I’m not sure why.”
Jon huffed as he made himself some tea. That sounded stupid and like something the minority of humans would care about, but if it concerned Robin, it concerned him. Maybe someone would bother Robin on his patrol? Or worse, when Robin was trying to talk publicly in his role as a JLA representative.
Several days later, Jon was following Robin around his patrol route, when the thing itself happened. Someone heckled Robin.
Now, Jon didn’t really understand most of the words used, or what they were referencing, but calling Robin the “alien’s bitch” was enough to sentence this man to death by heat vision in his book.
But he’d promised Robin he wouldn’t kill anyone.
And his intervention here wouldn’t exactly help matters.
Robin was ignoring the man, though, and Jon couldn’t handle leaving it alone like that.
“Wanna know the funny part?” He sat on the dumpster near the man, who it seemed was packing a baseball bat.
The man startled, almost dropping his bat, but frowned at Jon, “And you too! You can’t even come to our planet and try to be normal, you’ve gotta fuck our protectors!”
“Yeah.” Jon kept his voice even, leaning in slightly, with his eyes red, “He’s the only thing keeping me from burning your head off. Or tearing. Honestly, you’re so fragile, I could shake your hand and rip your arm off. But I finally-” He wrinkled the metal of the dumpster in his hands, “-get him to notice me, and assholes think he’s easy prey.”
“Look, man-”
“No, no, tell me how you thought it was a good idea to come at a man you’ve heard stories about taking out dozens of criminals without breaking a sweat while you’re wielding a baseball bat, pick a better weapon, for one thing, and for another-”
“Jon.” Damian called softly from the roof.
“-you knew he was dating someone who has no qualms with crushing your skull like styrofoam!” Jon finished his thought, nearly growling, before darting up to the roof, “Yes?”
“Don’t give him the time of it. It’s better he focuses on me than harassing the people at the bar up the road.”
Jon confirmed the bar, first by hearing and then by smell.
“What about that bar? Why would he harass anyone at any specific drink hole?”
Damian sighed and shook his head.
“Jon I love you but you have lived on this planet so long and not learned about the LGBTQ community at all? For a gay alien, you’re behind on everything. It’s a gay bar.”
“So?”
“So if he’s looking for someone gay to harass he’s found two targets it can’t actually affect, rather than a civilian who he might actually hurt or seriously terrify. He isn’t scaring people for fun like you used to, he’s acting as a political and cultural agent against allowing gay people to exist publicly.”
“So…”
“So, let him harass me rather than anyone else.” Damian shook his head.
“How about I melt his metal bat so he never harassess anyone else ever?”
“I thought about roughing him up a little, but that might be going a little far, since he’s just harassing me and not someone else.”
“He’s not harassing me!” Jon said brightly before hopping over the edge of the roof and landing in front of the guy, who was clearly beginning to think of leaving until Jon appeared.
Scaring. Not killing. Scaring.
Jon repeated the mantra in his head as he yanked the bat out of this guy’s hand and found the weak spot quickly, tapping the aluminum against the concrete with just the right force and just the right angle to snap it in half.
“You know, I’m new to this whole being-gay thing, but if I have to deal with more people like you, I might just go back to killing whoever I want.” He lit his eyes and growled, hunching forward dramatically.
“But-”
“You think I can’t kill you without Robin knowing?” He was practically whispering now, leaning into this man’s personal space, “You prey on the weak and yell at the strong like a gull at the beach, unaware that your position of scavenger is balanced on the edge of a knife, and that there are sharks in the water.”
The man, weaponless and powerless, ran as soon as Jon let him off of the wall.
“Do you think that was scary enough?” Jon called up to Damian.
“He didn’t look like he was coming back.” He shrugged, “I can only hope it sticks with him.”
“It will.” Jon smiled, pulling himself up to the top of the building, “You gonna let me scare the fuck out of anyone who heckles you with the… what is it, hatred of gay people?”
“It’s called homophobia, Jon, you were born on earth, english is your first language, you’re almost twenty, how do you not know what homophobia is?”
“Never bothered to learn about ways humans hate each other. Not my problem.” He drifted over and wrapped his arms around Damian’s neck.
“It is mine, so it’s yours now too.”
“Yes sir!”