Marinette shrugged her shoulders twice. Damian’s arm was slung casually over her shoulders, and the weight was oddly comforting, as unfamiliar as it was.
The pair sat on the steps in front of the school, Marinette cuddled into his chest against the winter breeze. She was doing her best not to blush, and doing a damn good job of it, too.
The reason Marinette Dupain-Cheng was cuddling her month-long crush, Damian Wayne? Simple. He had decided that Lila wouldn’t dare flirt with him if he was taken, so he had asked Marinette, as his only friend in France, to pose as his girlfriend to get Lila to lay off.
Marinette, a damn fool at heart, had agreed.
And now she was bundled up in Damian’s coat, his arm slung over her shoulders. A blush fought its way onto her cheeks, and she shivered to pass it off as a symptom of the cold. Damian hugged her tighter in response.
“Are you cold? Do you want to go inside?” he asked, looking at her with concern in his eyes. Marinette flushed further at the closeness of his face.
“I- um- Yeah, I, yeah. Sorry,” she responded, actually shivering. It was truly cold out. As their classmates started showing up in higher numbers, Damian nodded and stood, pulling her up with him. He kissed her cheek for good measure. Marinette felt like her head was about to explode.
Walking into the building, Marinette leaned closer to Damian. She passed it off as simply her being cold, but she was so busy hiding her own blush that she missed the dusting of pink painting its way across Damian’s face.
In class, the two kept whispering to each other, though that was nothing new. Damian found little ways to have physical contact with Marinette: holding her hand on top of the table, sitting closer than ususal as if he was looking at something between them, and, his apparent favorite, draping his arm across her shoulders. When the bell rang for lunch, he picked up her bag for her.
“Oh, my savior!” Marinette giggled. “Chivalry isn’t dead after all,” she continued, moving onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, hon,” she said, taking his hand and walking out. Once they were out of earshot of anyone, she asked him: “Was that too much? If I went too far, let me know,” she worried.
Damian took her other hand, clasping both between his gently. “It was fine. The only thing...,” he trailed off, not sure on how to bring it up.
“The pet name? Got it, no nicknames,” she responded, nodding.
“No, I mean, pet names are fine, it just seemed kind of generic. You’re Marinette, I bet when you find the perfect someone you’ll have a plethora of personal monikers,” he responded, smiling at her. She smiled back on instinct.
“What should I call you, then? Dames? Dami?” she asked, grinning teasingly at him. This time, she caught his blush, which stopped her dead in her tracks. “Dami?” she tried again. He avoided meeting her eyes.
“That... should be sufficient,” he answered tersely. Marinette giggled at how incredibly tense he was. As they moved back towards populous areas, she took his arm gently in hers and leaned up to kiss his cheek.
Jon can feel roots spreading and the way the flowers are blooming, and he can’t-
He can’t help but look at the ceiling and think, looks like Damian will kill me after all.
//
Beautiful and wonderful and full of that sweet, sweet angst, plus all the hurt/comfort. It’s literally everything you could ask for in a Hanahaki fic.
Clark chuckled, leaned back on his elbows and he tilted his head up both to soak up the sunshine and to keep an eye on Jon and Damian, suspended in the air and looking wary and happy at the same time as they tried to find a good position to fly together and avoid disastrously hurtling down to the ground “Do you think they’ll work it out?”
Bruce slit one eye open, briefly glancing at their sons before he closed it again: with Clark there, he didn’t need to worry about Damian’s safety because his lover would be able to reach him before he hit the ground, in case Jon dropped him or his son somehow managed to fall out of the other’s grasp “Eventually” he hummed, everything from the tone of his voice to his relaxed stance exuding confidence in their boys “They’re smart kids”
“They tend to forget that, especially when they’re busy sniping at one another” Clark said as he brought his gaze back to their sons, briefly tensing when Jon had to haul Damian up back in his arms “It’s beyond me how they haven’t at least tried a princess carry: that’s the easiest and most intuitive position to fly together”
“Over Damian’s dead body, maybe” Bruce pointed out “He agreed to let Jon carry him only if it can be beneficial in battle and a princess carry certainly isn’t what they’re looking for”
“He really is his father’s son, isn’t he?”
Bruce opened his eye again “You know, everyone says that and I’m starting to fear that you don’t mean it as a compliment at all”
“It’s mostly fond teasing” Clark bent down over the other man, superhearing focused on their boys to avoid missing anything, and smiled down at his lover “But I mean it as a compliment: you’re the best man I know afterall” he murmured and pecked him on his lips, quick and chaste but still tender and loving.
Bruce leaned up, snatching another kiss before Clark straightened out of his reach “Shall we help them?” He sighed, wincing a little as he heard a particularly nasty threat come out of Damian’s mouth in Arabic; he really hoped that Jon never got a taste for the language and decided to learn it because ninety percent of the times, Damian used it to insult someone or describe their slow and painful death - the ten percent left seemed to be dedicated to telling Dick that he loved him without his big brother knowing that.
It was endearing but it also made his heart ache at the thought of how hard Thalia had been on their son, how soon his childhood had been taken away from him - but Damian was getting better, he was healing and learning that his family loved him and that there was nothing wrong with trusting that affection; his issues and his wariness would never completely go away but Bruce knew that Damian would be feel freer one day.
Happier.
“That depends on whether you want to teach them a lesson about cooperation today or you prefer having them training sooner rather than later” Clark answered as his fingers drifted to Bruce’s temple to caress the silvery strands threaded through the black, fascinated by the random pattern with which his lover’s hair was greying.
“Don’t lean your weight all on one side!!!”
“How am I supposed to cover your ass if I can’t lean over your back?!”
“I think the lesson about cooperation can wait for today” Bruce sighed heavily.
“I think you’re right”
“I’m always right”
“You really are not” Clark retorted with a bright grin.
Bruce rolled his eyes and sat up, tugging his cowl over his head to cover his face: it wouldn’t do if someone walked by the supposedly abandoned field and saw Bruce Wayne hanging out with Superman, Superboy and Robin while wearing the Batsuit - yes, that definitely wouldn’t be good. Bruce accepted Clark’s hand and let the other man help him up from the grass, grunting when his back popped rather unpleasantly “Just fly us up there and we can show them how it’s done”
“Yessir” Clark answered and before Bruce could climb on his back, he picked him up in a princess carry and shot up in the air, laughing at his lover’s long-suffering sigh as he sped up to their boys, still grappling in the air and clearly unable to find a balance “We’re here to help”
“Father, that’s undignified”
“We’re of the same mind, don’t worry”
Clark snorted “Sometimes, the fastest and safest way you can pluck a teammate out of the battle is this” he pointed out, stiffening his muscles when he felt Bruce starting to move in his arms in order to give him a firm surface to lean on as he deftly climbed on his back “And as Batman just showed you, it’s easy to get in a fighting stance once you’re up in the air” he added, grinning as Bruce wrapped his arms around his upper waist and leaned over to watch Damian as the boy imitated him - not as quickly and easily as his father but Robin had an excellent balance and once Jon figured out that he just had to stay still, it didn’t take Damian long to mirror his father.
“Now?” Jon inquired, hands drifting to Damian’s knees to make sure that the other’s grip was steady.
“You need to split up your areas of focus” Bruce straightened up and tightened his knees around Clark’s waist in a grip that would have broken anyone else’s ribs “Superboy, you are limited to taking care of the front and the sides - Robin will tell you if something threatening your back needs your intervention”
“Why can’t I fully take care of the back?”
“You technically could” Clark answered for Bruce “But you don’t have enough practice, yet”
Bruce seamlessly picked up his partner’s lesson, used to teach young heroes how to fight and imitate his techniques “Superboy isn’t used to having to balance the both of you so, for now, you can’t lean your weight too far away from his body: you need to learn to work within limits for now”
“Slowly” Clark added “You can’t risk falling during a fight, alright?”
“-tt- who do you take us for?” Damian waved his hand in a shooing motion “Leave us to train: you can go back to being disgusting”
“I think it’s cute”
“And that’s why I’m the brains of this duo, Superboy”
Bruce shook his head at their constant sniping and relaxed again against Clark’s back, embracing him “Mock fight in an hour to check your progress” he warned them before Clark started his descent; he closed his eyes and breathed in the other’s scent, enjoying the warmth of his lover’s body and the breeze that made his cape flutter in the sun.
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sunaddicted