Chapter Text
The most painful part of dying, Damian had learned, was not the moment when death finally wrapped you in its embrace and cradled you in its arms, to your—supposed— final resting place. No, for him the most painful part was knowing he had not been good enough to best the monster that he could have been had mother loved him less. She played god with genetics, and while she took great pains to make Damian perfect, she had bastardized each of his clones, making them mangled broken boys in bodies of men to use as canon fodder as war against her beloved and her son.
Damian is mostly over dying. He has felt its pain and its relief, he has suffered his dues and he lives again thanks to his father and his siblings. On good days, he can say he is glad to be alive and grateful for the second chance, on bad days…it is not so simple, but with Richard, his pets, his family, his friends, Damian can pull himself back together—or at least fall apart knowing they’re at his side, and will be no matter what Damian’s mindset may be.
Dying is not the problem, though. Death is a certainty, in a way. Damian does not fear it, even if he does not await its arms eagerly. Rather, a strong dislike of clones has become the lasting problem. Trauma is what Timothy tells him when Damian’s exaggerated reactions to Conner Kent had first began to shine a light on the issue. A reaction similar to the one Damian has around Bizzaro and the Roy which CADMUS created.
With effort, Damian is able to reign in the mix of fear and disgust that causes him to lash out when he encounters a clone, but it has taken him a number of years, and a great deal of tolerance on the other’s behalves. He is grateful they too have given him time when it would have been easy to dismiss Damian as a problem child like much of the superhero community had when he first arrived on the scene, still more assassin prince then ten year old child or son of the Batman. He is lucky, he supposes, that their close proximity to his family. Jason and his budding relationship with the younger Roy connected him to Will—the clone—and their partnership of the Outlaws with Bizzaro, Timothy and his longstanding friendship with Conner, forced Damian to overcome the weakness that failure had seeded inside him.
It took time, but Damian is healing, he’s still healing, and he has tried so hard to heal.
He can see his progress, years worth of it, swirling down the drain before his eyes. He staggers a step back, the grated metal floor beneath his boots clanging in the darkness of the lab, illuminated only by the glow of the glass case he had just discovered, embedded into a wall of machinery that hummed loud enough to send a buzz through his bones.
A light frost covered the surface except where Damian had pressed his glove to the glass and wiped it away, taking all of Damian’s thoughts away with it, his mind emptying as his view cleared.
Jonathan.
Damian shakes his head, closes his eyes, forces himself to not rip his domino from his skin to check once more if what is in front of him is real. It can’t be real. It can’t. It can’t.
Damian opens his eyes and it’s still him. Still Jonathan. Except he is not the Jonathan Damian saw last, laughing in the sunlight at a tailgate party, his arm wrapped around his long term boyfriend Jay and holding a bottle of beer by the neck as their civilian friends from university milled about them. That Jonathan was four years older than Damian, on the cusp of graduating with a degree whereas Damian would only be starting his first—well, the first that any proper institution would recognize.
That Jonathan was in Metropolis, flying under the Superman mantle and fighting alongside Gossamer and Dreamer, the days of the Supersons more of a memory than Damian would like to admit. They may not be as close as they once were but Jonathan would always have a place in Damian’s heart, they would always be friends. Jonathan promised him, after all.
Except there is a Jonathan in the case in front of him, looking two years younger than Damian, his hair still as curly and unruly as Damian can remember it being when Jonathan was eleven and following Damian around making promises of forever.
Which of them promised him when there are two where there should be one?
Which of them promised him, the clone or the original?
Which of them is the clone, the boy in the case, or the man in the cape?
His stomach tightens and bile crawls up his throat, gorge rising in his stomach, but he scrunches it all up. The fear, the disgust, the panic, he doesn’t have time for it. Clone or not, he is still Jonathan. One of them or both of them or—Damian doesn’t know and he can’t think about it. He can only act, pulling free the metal staff that Timothy had equipped Damian’s suit with when he’d made the long needed change, and expanding it in his hand before gripping it with both and taking a swing with all the nasty emotions clouding his mind, using the ball of his turmoil to smash the case in front of him to bits. He can’t see any of the destruction as glass flies and water splashes and a chill fills the air, hissing as pressure escapes from the broken container.
It is just Jonathan, just Jonathan he has to reach, just Jonathan he has to save. The staff clatters to the floor when there is nothing left to smash, glass tinkling through the holes in the grate and falling even lower beneath his feet. Damian pays it no mind, reaching tentatively out to the unconscious figure of his friend—or a clone of him—who is to say. This could be a plot of some sort, a ploy or a trick the way Roy and Will had been, but it doesn’t matter.
Damian could be pierced through the heart again for his folly, but this is Jonathan, and he could care less about dying or clones when he is right here, in front of him. His hand makes contact and he exhales shakily, knowing for sure this is real, before he begins pulling off the wires and cables taped to Jonathan, the restraints holding him down. He removes one, singular needle, somehow pushed through a soft spot in Jonathan’s right eye socket. The only reason his hands do not tremble as he does so is because Damian has trained for the worse, and he cannot let anything more happen to the boy in front of him when it is clear so much has already.
It is done, quickly, and then it’s just Damian, the unconscious body of Jonathan, and a mission he hasn’t expected to go wrong quite so swiftly, but it has and for some reason, he is grateful. His world has been upended, his knees are locked to keep him from trembling, and the tang of salt on Damian tongue tells him enough water had loosened the glue of his mask for it to begin to seep through and then down his face to the point where Damian could taste it, and he is still grateful.
Slowly, Damian gathers him into his arms, one under his knees, the other holding up his broad shoulder, his hand pressed into the wet, spandex-like material of the white bodysuit he’s wearing, and it is only after Damian is truly carrying him that he realizes he should have sent out a distress call ages ago. The moment he wiped away the frost, certainly before he smashed the case, and definitely before he began freeing Jonathan of the invasions on his person, but it is too late for that.
Distress calls can come later, after Damian has gotten Jonathan to safety, and that’s what he focuses on. The grate becoming concrete as he leaves the lab, then earth as he’s free of the building altogether, escaping into the darkness where his plane is hidden in the cover of the foliage from the surrounding forest. He does not mask his trail, he does not plan on staying around long enough for it to matter.
Only the rise and fall of Jonathan’s chest keeps him together, the need to be on familiar territory as everything else spirals out of Damian’s control. The second he sends that distress beacon, this situation is not Damian’s to handle alone, but where that should comfort, that makes his arms tighten around Jonathan instead. He’s Damian’s to protect, he owes it to him for failing so badly the first time, and then apparently, for failing yet again.
Even worse this time if this is the Jonathan Damian last saw all those years ago, and the other is the clone.
And if that’s the case…then this Jonathan is not just Damian’s to protect. There is a mother with a child she still hasn’t gotten back, and a father who has lost his son in an entirely new way. A brother who doesn’t know the one he’s been teasing for years is a clone, and a clone who doesn’t know he’s a copy.
Damian reaches his plane and sets Jonathan on a cot, before setting autopilot to take control and bring them home from the computer in his gauntlet. Then…
He presses the distress signal.
And, clone or not, he doesn’t let go.
The glare of the screen has been slowly drying Tim’s eyes out for the last hundred and ninety or so minutes, even with the twenty-twenty-twenty rule. Sure, staring twenty feet out his window for twenty seconds every twenty minutes is in theory a great practice, but Tim’s tendency to ignore the alarm that tells him twenty minutes has passed after he gets really into what he’s working on makes it less than helpful. That, and the fact Tim is all around dehydrated, so his drying eyes are none too dissimilar from his parched throat and sand paper tongue.
All of it is generally uncomfortable, and even so, Tim is ready to ignore the twenty minute alarm when he hears it once again—right until he realizes it couldn’t possibly have been twenty minutes from the last time he swiped up in his alarm. The moment of confusion finally takes his attention from his work and he listens as the alarm beeps and beeps and beeps once again before it finally dawns on him.
That’s Damian’s alert signal—one he hears so very rarely as Damian so very rarely asks for help—it takes another moment longer for Tim to push himself out of shock and into action.
He checks for the location of the distress signal first, and finds the fast moving target of the plane Damian had taken for his mission making its return flight on autopilot. It’s concerning mostly because like driving, Damian absolutely adores flying and will absolutely still sit at the wheel even bleeding from an untreated open wound. Tim knows that for a fact, because it wouldn’t be the first time Damian was brilliant enough to attempt it. The fact that he isn’t flying but letting autopilot do the work? The alarm bells—figurative ones this time—begin to ring in his ears, and he picks up the pace another gear.
Tim’s fastest vehicle is undoubtedly Red Bird, the motorbike Tim lovingly named after his skateboard, but suiting up to drive Red Bird to the cave is absolutely a waste of time, and Tim makes the executive decision that it is ultimately unnecessary. His helmet will cover his face, and the underground exit a block away will be leagues of help, anyway. So, secret identities be damned, it’s a risk Tim is willing to take.
He hops on his bike and he’s off, his leg bouncing like Impulse on a sugar high. If his calculations are correct, he’ll narrowly be able to reach the Batcave before Damian’s plane does, and that at least will let him do some basic prep for the med bay, seeing as no one else is readily available to do it. Batman and Agent A are across the globe working on something time sensitive with Batgirl, Nightwing and Oracle are in ’Haven, Hood with the Outlaws god knows where, Spoiler away for university, Signal with the Outsiders.
That leaves Tim.
Just Tim, at least until any of the others are able to respond, but by then it could be too late. Tim is the closest, and that means right now, he’s the one responsible for the brat’s health and safety, and by god is he going to be healthy and safe by the time Tim is done with him.
Probably. It would help if Tim knew what he’d be walking into, but the distress signal was little more than that. Simply distress, and it’s safe to say that Tim is suitably distressed.
All his nerves are well on their way to the edge as he swerves dangerously through cars, driving at speeds that would have Jason whistling his approval as Bruce benched him for his recklessness. Too bad for him that Tim is an adult man with justifiable cause and Bruce isn’t here.
He focuses on that instead of the fear making his chest hurt, focuses on the wind over his bare forearms—fuck he didn’t even grab a jacket before he left, this is so unsafe—and the dryness of his eyes behind his visor. The mental list of things to prep for the med bay gets longer and shorter as scenarios run in the background of his thoughts anyway, the ground he has to cover being swallowed by his tires until finally one of Bruce’s many secret entrances comes into sight and relief makes his elbows weak.
He barely slows the bike enough to avoid decapitation by the rising gate of the tunnel, and then again barely manages to bring his bike to stop to avoid hurtling himself over a literal edge and down into the darkness of the untouched parts of the cave below.
Getting off Red Bird is always disorienting for a moment, he moves so much slower than his bike that it takes a moment for his brain to match the speed of his feet. The delay aggravates him, even if rationally Tim knows he’s no speedster, there are times he definitely curses his stupid lack of metabilities. Tim knows he’s smart enough to recreate the situation that gave Barry and Wally their abilities, and smart enough to know it would kill him without any metagenes.
Which just means he has to carry out all his mental prep at regular human speeds, and even when he’s finished faster than he thought he would, and Damian’s plane is still two minutes out, he still feels like he could do more—that he should do more—but there’s only so much he can prep for a situation he’s going into totally blind.
All he can do is wait, wait, and finally halt his pacing as the sound of the plane‘s jets in stealth mode make themselves known in the silence of the cave. Tim braces himself as it lands, ready to race forward the second it touches the ground to pry open the hatch with his bare hands if he has to, but it opens on its own and Damian’s typically quieter footsteps are a lot heavier as his uneven gait sounds out across the cave.
Walking but injured, Timothy determines, only to immediately be proven wrong when Damian comes into view. A boy cradled in his arms that Tim immediately clocks as Jonathan even if it cannot possibly be.
“Please,” the word slips out before he can stop it, and the rest of the sentence follows as such. “ Please , tell me you didn’t accomplish what I failed to do and please god, tell me you did not somehow successfully clone your best friend.” Tim begs.
The look Damian sends him is justifiably pure contempt. “No, Timothy.”
“Oh.” Tim says. Then, “Oh.” He pales. “That’s so much worse then. Is that—” His voice gets high and squeaky before he’s even partially done the sentence.
“Jonathan?” Damian finishes for him, bringing the unconscious boy in question to the bay Tim had prepared for Damian himself. His eyes are tired as he looks down at his best friend. God, that’s Damian’s best friend, correctly aged and hair the exact same as it’s always been, not the trendy style Jon—er, other Jon—wears, but a head full of messy curls that Tim remembers pulling twigs and small branches out of a number of times, before proceeding to do the same to his own little brother. “Perhaps.” Damian murmurs.
Tim wants to hug him, and now that his arms are free, Tim does. Damian sinks into it, his shoulders shaking and body shuddering even as no sound escapes him.
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay, we’re going to figure this out, I promise you.” Tim swears, and he means it. He has no idea how on earth he’s going to uphold his promise, but he truly does mean it.
Damian clicks his tongue but doesn’t shove him off despite the huffy tt sound, so Tim takes that as reluctant acceptance and just a bit of belief. “We will.” Tim says again. He tries to project confidence but Christ—looking at the kid on the bed, he’s in over his head. They both are.
“We need to call everyone in. All…” Tim trails off for a second, the weight of the situation setting in once more, more fully, and then tries again. “Everyone…all the Supers, and uh, Lois too. Maybe…maybe not Jon though?”
Damian pulls away from him and straightens up, regaining motion as he begins to move around Jon and finish preparing the rest of the machines for use. He dries him of the slippery, almost water like substance he’d been coated in, before attaching the heart beat monitor next. He refuses to say anything for the few long moments it takes him to do all of those before finally, his head shakes, ever so slightly.
“Everyone,” He corrects. “Means everyone. We cannot hide this from him. It would do him no favours.”
“But if he—”
“No.” Damian murmurs. “I will not lie to Jonathan.”
Tim wants to argue more, at least say that it isn’t up to them, really, that maybe Clark and Lois should decide because who are the two of them to Jon, really? Their voices would be meaningless in a medical situation and, this could sort of count as a medical situation (or really, maybe a missing persons which is debatably so much worse so he won’t think about that), but he’s beaten to it.
“I agree with Damian?” Comes a voice from the cot, younger and with cracks Tim can’t recall ever hearing from the other before. In sync, both of their heads whip around towards the sound, towards him as he continues. “I vote we don’t lie to Jonathan, cause, uhm, I don’t really want to be lied to, if that’s okay?” Jon asks.
It’s so young. He really does look fifteen.
Damian takes a slow step toward him, then blurs as he all but tackles Jon in a hug. “Jonathan.” Damian whispers, sounding oh, only absolutely shattered.
Jon returns it without hesitation, his arms wrapping around Damian and the heart monitor getting tangled and tugged off as easily as it had been put on, without either of them paying any mind to it.
“Hey D,” Jon replies, softly. “You’re hugging me pretty tight there. Did I…get injured?” He asks, plainly confused, and yet still sounding more concerned for Damian than he does for himself.
“I—” Damian tries and fails to say. He doesn’t have a satisfactory reply. “I don’t know.” He admits. Jon lets go of him slowly, and the both pull back to look at each other really, really look at each other, lost violet eyes to crestfallen green.
“You’re…you’re so much older, D.” He murmurs. “Why are you older?”
The better question, Tim thinks to himself even as his heart sinks, is how in the ever loving fuck are they going to tell everyone they found another Jon?