@bloodrobin
He remembered the way down, even after all this time. Halfway across the bay, halfway to Gotham, take the sub deep down and down and down, through an airlock, and there it was, resplendent in its teenage superhero headquarters glory. A couple of gaming consoles, a mini fridge he’d kept stocked with pizza rolls, a couple of fighting dummies, some assorted tech he’d never understood. All the essentials.
He expected the Fortress to reject him. He expected it to look all old and abandoned and lonely. He expected it to feel weird and foreign, like watching the old home movies his mom loved to play when she was feeling sentimental. Instead, it looked... fine. There was still a half-empty box of pizza rolls in the fridge, nowhere near its sell-by date. The Mountain Dew he’d left on the couch had barely gone flat. He had an old pair of socks strewn on the floor, and a hoodie draped on the back of his favorite gaming chair.
It was exactly the same, as if he’d never left.
Experimentally, Jon picked up the hoodie, and slid it on. As he’d thought, it was too small, stretching tight on his arms, straining against his shoulders. It was still studded with Krypto’s fur, still smelled like gym class and his parents’ detergent, just a little. He needed to get new clothes--almost everything in his closet was about five years too small, so he’d liberated a few things from his dad’s closet, but Clark was built, like, well, Superman.
He was sure he looked funny then, a gangling scarecrow in a too-small hoodie and a too-big tee shirt. Out of place, out of time. Out of his mind, too, probably. This whole thing was a weird nostalgia head trip. If he blinked, he was ten years old again, excitedly tripping over the corrugated metal flooring, proudly declaring it the FORTRESS OF ATTITUDE!, dreaming up a whole team, a future, in this magic clubhouse he shared with his best friend, who was older and scarier but also half his height, so. They were just about even.
Where was Damian?
Jon didn’t know if he wanted to see him. He didn’t know why he was here, really. Maybe he was looking for him? Maybe he was avoiding him? He didn’t know how to tell him. How did you tell him? Maybe his dad had told Damian’s dad, who’d passed it on in turn, in that weird growly I am the night voice that Damian swore up and down he’d inherited (he hadn’t). This place was so strange and empty without Damian’s vitriol to fill it, but Jon wondered if it wouldn’t be worse with it. Maybe that would be one step too many, one move too quick.
And then something moved, and Jon turned, and he didn’t have time to anxiety spiral any longer. It didn’t matter what he wanted now--Damian was here. He looked exactly the same, and Jon didn’t. Not even a little bit.
He gulped.
“Sup, nerd.”
