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"Keep your guard up and don't get distracted, boy."
As stern as Damian's voice was, there was also a hint of gentleness in it as Thomas tried to stop his attacks, his forehead sweating and his face once again tightening in concentration.
Ever since the county fair incident, Damian had been brooding for over a year about how even in a place like the Hamilton countryside, you couldn't be safe, no matter how hard you tried to stay out of trouble. So, after much discussion with Jon, Damian had decided to teach Thomas at least the basics of self-defense, and since he'd always favored taekwondo as a martial art, he'd decided to focus on that. However, he had wanted to talk to Thomas face to face first.
Having been trained since childhood, this part of his life had always seemed normal to Damian. He had never questioned the fact that he would one day become the heir to the League of Assassins, and his own mother had always told him that there was only one way to rule the world: to understand every facet of every tiny art present in ordinary life. He had immersed himself in them and captured their essence, never questioning that his mother was right and that he was born to tame the populace of all mankind, just as his name predicted. It was only when he grew up that he realized he never really had a choice, even in learning to be humble despite his psychophysical superiority over those around him, and he did not want his son to learn under duress.
So the day after Tommy's ninth birthday, the three of them had sat down in the kitchen and talked about it. Damian had told him that knowing how to defend himself was an important skill, and Jon had replied that it would make it easier to deal with life's obstacles and to control emotions. So Tommy, after frowning a bit and biting his lower lip thoughtfully, had looked at his parents and nodded with a smile that gradually spread across his face, causing both men to breathe a sigh of relief.
Damian had then set to work the following week, beginning to explain to Thomas the basics and how he could use this martial art for his own self-defense, teaching him mostly moves like the leverage or the sweep. They had mostly focused on dodging so that they were less risky techniques for him to start with, but first Damian had tried to teach him to have quick reactions to everything, sometimes throwing an apple at him to catch on the fly, or making him understand the sense of distance by hitting some bottles he had placed on the fence with baseball bats, and as much as Thomas didn't understand why he was doing these extra lessons at first, he finally understood his Baba's intentions when they had started the actual training.
It had been exactly three months since then, and Thomas had made such progress that Damian's heart was bursting with pride. But he still got distracted from time to time, as he was doing right now, and Damian had to bring him back to reality, lest he hurt himself needlessly while they fought.
"That's enough for today," Damian shouted, ignoring the tone of discontent in which Tommy had begun to mutter something; he saw him rub his neck out of the corner of his eye, then his eyes turned to him curiously, squinting at him thoughtfully.
"Baba... was it Grandpa who taught you these things?"
The question, coming so directly from his lips, stunned Damian for a moment. He looked at his son and blinked, thinking hard about what to say before deciding to remain vague.
"Why the question?" he finally asked, and Tommy struggled to contain the excitement in his voice.
"Remember at the fair? You and Dad stood up to those men like real heroes!" he exclaimed, ignoring his father's shudder. "So... well... I was curious if it was Grandpa who taught you the things you're teaching me."
Damian looked at him for a long moment, then sighed. What a fool to hope that such a curious little boy wouldn't ask questions sooner or later. "Come on, let's go inside," he nudged him, motioning for him to follow him into the house, and Tommy knew full well by now that this only meant that his father would tell him all about it once they were inside; so he didn't hesitate to follow, taking off his shoes to toss them in the corner of the entryway before following him into the kitchen.
As patiently as a nine-year-old could be, Thomas sat down on the stool and began drumming his fingers on the shelf in front of him, rhythmically tapping his toe on the floor; he had begun to watch his father as he reached for the kettle and tea filters, a routine Tommy had memorized after every training session. This time, however, the silence seemed strangely oppressive.
"Baba?" he called back, but Damian raised his right hand to silence him without even turning to face him as he brought the water to a boil.
"Learn patience, son," Damian said, remembering the words his father had always repeated to him. He could feel Tommy's eyes on his back and could see him puffing up his cheeks comically - when he acted like that, it reminded him of the old days when Jon, as a boy, used to make that expression to let him know that he didn't agree with him - but his son didn't answer, as if to let him know that he really could be patient.
It had been really hard, but in the end Damian had sat by his side with his tea and even made him a marmalade sandwich, which he had eaten voraciously.
"The first person to teach me anything was your grandmother," Damian finally said, blowing nonchalantly on his own cup.
Tommy turned to him, his eyes wide with confusion, one corner of his mouth stained with Ma' Kent's raspberry jam. "Maw Maw?" he repeated incredulously. As much as he'd had little interaction with his grandmother Talia due to distance - she lived in Bialya, which was notoriously harder to leave than Metropolis - and he'd seen for himself that she was a bit of an outlier, he found it rather difficult to imagine her doing something like that to his father.
"Your grandmother was always a strange woman, Thomas," he said.
"But she's a queen, why would she know how to fight?"
The question almost made Damian laugh, but he held himself back. If his mother had heard those words, she would probably have launched into a series of explanations that would have put her grandson to sleep. "Remember what your father and I told you?"
"It's important to know how to defend yourself."
"And that's why your grandmother knows how to do it," he cut her off, not feeling it appropriate to tell his son the truth. Not yet. He was only nine years old and he wanted to keep him as far away as possible from all the shit that had been his past, Thomas didn't deserve it. So, after sipping his tea for a while, he began to tell him, in a romantic way, about his training sessions with his mother - obviously avoiding all the bad things he had been forced to do while living in the League of Assassins - then about the time he had started living with his father; Even then, he had avoided most of the things his son did not need to hear, limiting himself to saying that a rich man like Bruce Wayne had learned to defend himself because of his social position, and that he had taught his children to do so in the absence of possible bodyguards.
Tommy had listened intently and asked many curious questions, sometimes even with a puzzled frown, but he had taken the explanation at face value, no matter how much he continued to ask during dinner.
"It's getting late," Damian finally confirmed, grabbing the dishes to take them to the sink, rinse them, and load the dishwasher. "Time for bed, kiddo."
"Aw, come on. Can't I wait for Dad?" he tried, but his father's eloquent look made him roll his eyes and huff, muttering to himself as he helped him clear the table.
In a way, Damian was glad he hadn't protested any more like he had on other days, but when he was washed and put to bed, he gave Thomas a look as he tucked him in. "Don't you think you're too old for a bedtime story?" he asked with a hint of amusement, and when he saw Tommy shake his head vigorously with a smile, he let out an amused snort. "It's not really a story, but... your grandmother used to tell me a lot about Alexander the Great."
"Grandma told you stories like that to put you to sleep?"
"Not really. I used to ask her to do it when we were training."
Thomas's expression became curious, and he wasted no time in urging him to tell something, snuggling up better under the blankets with his trusty Zitka under his arm. Damian smiled a little at the sight, but said nothing, instead thinking back to one of the many times Talia had told him about when they had fought during training. It was one of the few pleasant things he remembered doing with his mother at an early age, before his life ended in juggling the myriad forms of combat and strategies that had made him a young assassin. He cherished that memory and wanted to share it with his son, so much so that he didn't even realize he had begun to tell the myth of the quest for the entrance to Paradise.
The words piled on top of each other, and Thomas seemed truly absorbed as Damian told him of Alexander's expeditions, how he had conquered everything, and how he and his troops had arrived at the entrance to Paradise, near the Ganges River; raising his voice to try to give more emphasis to the story, he also told him how the king had been denied entry by an old man who stood guard there, but how the latter, seeing the disappointment on Alexander's face, had given him a golden ring imbued with magic.
"If it had been put on a scale, it would have been heavier than many pounds of gold, but if it had been covered with dust, even a leaf would have surpassed it. The ring did indeed represent Alexander's ambition, so the young Macedonian, frightened..."
Damian interrupted the story to see that Tommy had fallen asleep, his lips slightly parted as he held the little elephant as he had when he was a baby. It was a cute scene to see, and he was sure Grayson would take a picture, so he shook his head to banish that thought from his own mind as well, ready to quietly get up from the mattress so he could leave the room.
"Isn't this a strange bedtime story?"
Jon's whisper found its way into the darkness of Thomas' room and Damian lifted his head to meet his gaze. Leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, Jon had an amused smile on his lips and was struggling to hide the giggle that had risen from the back of his throat. Damian didn't know how long he'd been there, but he let out a vaguely funny snort before rolling his eyes.
"Don't criticize me," he whispered back so as not to wake Tommy, rising silently to join his husband; he was drawn in with an arm around his hips and greeted with a kiss, and Damian muttered something against his lips, groping for the doorknob so he could open the door before pushing Jon away from it. "What, did you miss me, Kent?" he asked in an amused murmur as they nearly parted.
"Always." Jon lingered a little longer, nibbling at his husband's lower lip, causing it to turn red and swollen. "Now why don't you come and say good night to me?"
Damian held back a laugh and slid his right hand down Jon's back, grabbing a buttock to squeeze it, enjoying the moan Jon let out. "Let's see what we can do," he commanded, resting a hand on Jon's chest as he pushed him over the door to their room before closing it behind him and stifling Jon's laughter himself.
Two good-night hugs wouldn't have hurt.