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Jason grunted as he was thrown to the mat below his feet. He could have redirected, stopped, and gotten the upper hand, but there was a very good chance that these women would not be defending themselves against a man trained by both Batman and the League of Assassins in hand-to-hand combat.
So, he had to let them win, that was the whole point of the class. He had to just be an average, physically fit guy, pretending to be a mugger or something.
“Good,” He groaned, getting to his feet with the help of Yolanda, who had thrown him to the floor in the first place. “Good balance and force, just remember to be careful using your elbow.”
He gestured for her to take her stance again, and he paused for an approving nod before putting a hand on her arm.
“Joints are more fragile, so you risk hurting yourself,” He explained, tucking her shoulder a little bit down and elbow in toward her torso. “Use your shoulder, it’s a stronger joint than your elbow, or even better try your upper arm. It’ll allow you more control. Plus, the more contact area you have, the easier it’ll be to get your attacker to fumble. Use the elbow in softer areas, like the stomach, not on the ribs.”
Yolanda nodded, adjusting her stance so she could use her shoulder to get up under his rib cage exactly how he taught her, sending him back onto the mat again and feeling out of breath and bruised.
Teaching self-defense was a good thing, but it had downsides. Namely, getting beat up for a living. When the girls sparred with each other, they didn’t hurt each other, but he didn’t want them to hold back with him. In a fight, they couldn’t pull punches. He wanted to make sure they were able to defend themselves, especially his advanced class.
“Yeah, that’s better,” he grit out, waiting for his breath to come back. He heard the door to the room open, and he tipped his head back so he could see, albeit upside down.
Damian walked in, backpack slung over his shoulder as he gently shut the door behind him. He looked down at Jason and scowled.
Some of the women greeted him, and Damian politely waved as he made his way over to the corner he had taken over to do homework after school. He tossed down his backpack as Jason slowly got to his feet.
“Hi baby,” he said. “Alright, let’s have you all pair up and practice, I’ll be around to check all of your forms in a minute.”
He went over to Damian, smiling at him. He loved that Damian’s school was close enough to the gym that he could walk over after school and sit in for Jason’s afternoon classes. It gave him time to work on homework, time to socialize, and it gave Jason a welcome excuse after classes when the single women tried to hit on him.
Can’t get drinks, gotta take the kid home for dinner. It had become a useful line, and Damian even played into it, snuggling into Jason’s side as he waited to leave.
“How was school?” Jason asked, brushing back some of Damian’s damp hair from his forehead. It was the first hot day of spring, plus the sky was clear and the sun was beating down.
“It was hot,” Damian complained. “The teacher would not open a window and there is no air conditioning.”
“Well, at least you can cool down in here,” Jason shrugged, leaning in to give Damian’s forehead a kiss. But he paused when he smelled something truly foul, like onions and garbage. “Dames, you reek. Did you shower last night?”
“Yes, I am not an infant,” Damian argued with a glare. “I can shower without you reminding me.”
Jason scowled, flicking Damian in the forehead instead.
“Go get some water, smart mouth,” he said, and Damian waved him off as he left the room to go to the water cooler. A few of the women by the door scrunched up their noses as he passed them, obviously smelling him too as he walked by.
“Maybe he got some sour cream and onion chips from another kid,” Jason said as he approached the pair closest to the door. “I sent him to school with a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich, I don’t think that’d make his breath smell like that.”
“How old is he?” Blair asked, raising a brow at the door.
“Nine.”
“Maybe he needs to start wearing deodorant,” Blair suggested, and Jacinda nodded beside her.
“Yeah, both my boys started to stink around nine or ten,” she said. “Rami smelled like rotting sweat socks. It’s almost worse now that he wrestles.”
“That early?” Jason asked, furrowing his brows. He tried to remember being nine, if he had started getting body odor that early, but his memories of that time weren’t about himself. If he smelled bad, it wasn’t that odd because their water would get shut off, he’d be using watered down dish soap as shampoo, or his mom was too high to know the time of day, let alone if he had BO.
“It’s even earlier for girls,” Blair said. “My oldest came home one day crying because one of the boys on the bus told her she stunk, she was in second grade. I had to pack up the kids and take her to the corner store to get her to stop crying.”
“Puberty starts earlier than you’d think,” Jacinda added.
“I guess I’m still kind of new to this whole raising a kid thing,” Jason mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, I feel like just yesterday he was a baby.”
He didn’t actually take care of Damian as a baby, but the point still stood. He wasn’t ready for Damian to get bigger and older.
“Hey, you’re as new to raising him at this age as he is at being this age,” Blair said with a soft smile. “It’s new territory for both of you.”
“Well, I guess if he smells like a locker room there are worse places he could be than a gym,” Jason sighed. “Thanks, girls.”
“Being a single parent would be impossible without help every once in a while,” Jacinda shrugged, and Jason smiled at them as he instructed them back into sparring position to evaluate their stances.
“How does summer rain differ from rain in other seasons?” Damian asked as he stared at the plastic container in his hand.
“It smells like dead worms.”
“Why would a person want to smell like dead worms?” Damian furrowed his brows as he set the container back on the shelf.
Jason never realized how overwhelming the deodorant aisle could be. He used the same deodorant Alfred first bought him when he moved into the manor, he’d never thought to change it. As a kid, he was just grateful to have it, since he’d never had it when he lived with his mom. And as an adult, he had a myriad of other things more important to worry about than if he smelled kind of like a British butler.
But this was Damian. He had to weigh every single option available to him, ask all of his clarifying questions, ponder the difference in women’s and men’s deodorant because it made no sense to him that there needed to be different products.
“What about this one?” Jason asked, reaching out for a red piece of plastic that he remembered Dick had when he was a teenager, showing it to Damian. The boy pursed his lips as he read it.
“What does Tiger Claw smell like?” Damian asked, and Jason tried to recall.
“I don’t really know,” he scowled, flipping it over to try and read the scent notes. It said blood orange and musk, but all he remembered was something that smelled like deodorant. He never thought about the specific smells.
But after talking to some of the women in his class, they all listed scents like rose and vanilla or clean laundry. Those were all identifiable scents, but Tiger Claw was vague.
“What do you use?” Damian asked, looking left and right before seeing the Speed Stick in green that Jason always used. “I like this one.”
“We can try something different, you don’t have to use the same one I do,” Jason shook his head. “I just get this one because I always have.”
“But it smells like you,” Damian said, casual, like that sentence didn’t make Jason want to melt into a puddle of lovey-dovey mush. “This one is good.”
“Okay, let’s get that one,” Jason nodded, taking it from Damian’s hand and leading him away from the aisle, blaming the burning in his eyes on the strong scents wafting from the products.
Jason was lounging on the couch, reading through his worn-out copy of Wuthering Heights, when Damian came trudging out of the hallway in his pajamas, fresh out of the shower. He crawled onto the couch, slithering himself under Jason’s free arm and leaning against his side. Jason hugged him close, placing a kiss on top of his clean, damp hair.
“You smell better after that shower,” Jason said, nosing at Damian’s hair like a dog until Damian grunted and reached up to shove his face away while Jason laughed.
“Ahki, you are insufferable,” Damian complained, but he still burrowed into his t-shirt in his attempt to hide. “What are you reading?”
“Wuthering Heights,” Jason said, showing him the cover. “You want me to read to you?”
Damian shrugged, and Jason gave him another few moments of silence. He was like a cornered animal, you had to wait for him to come to you. That was something they had in common.
“Ahki?” Damian asked after Jason finished a page silently.
“Yeah, Dames?”
“Does this mean I’m going through puberty?”
Jason paused. Then he dog-eared the corner of his page and set his book down. This seemed like it was going to be a long talk that needed his attention.
“At least the start of it,” Jason nodded, watching Damian’s precious scowl turn into a pathetic little pout. “Do you have questions?”
He remembered Damian learning at least some things about biology in the league, but the teaching was very different. It wasn’t about changes to the body because you were growing up, it was about changes to the body and how they affected you as a formidable opponent. Sure, he learned the physical aspects, but not about all the emotional ones.
“Does that mean I’m not a child anymore?”
“Well, no,” Jason shook his head. “You’re still a child. Soon, you’ll be a pre-teen, then a teenager, but you’re still a child right now. Puberty takes years, just because your sweat smells different doesn’t mean you sprout up overnight.”
“So I am not too big for this?” Damian asked, and Jason furrowed his brows.
“Too big for what?”
Damian didn’t answer, just burrowed his face further into Jason’s t-shirt and squeezed his bruised and battered torso tighter.
“You’ve gotta use your words, Kiddo.”
“Too big for a hug?” Damian finally asked, his voice muffled by Jason’s side. “To seek comfort from you? Like you are with father?”
“Oh, Honey,” Jason cooed, tightening his arms around Damian, ignoring the aches in his body from that day’s class. “Not at all. Damian, baby, you are never too old to ask me for a hug or to come to me for comfort. I’m the adult, that’s my job.”
“But one day I will be an adult,” Damian pointed out, and Jason pretended that thought didn’t break his heart.
“Even when you’re an adult, I’ll still be a bigger adult,” Jason explained. “You can always, always come to me, okay? That’s what I’m here for.”
“Then why don’t you go to Father for comfort?” Damian asked, tilting his head like a curious kitten.
“It’s complicated,” Jason sighed. “Bruce and I, we have a complicated relationship. I haven’t gone to him for comfort in a long time. It has nothing to do with how old I am.”
Damian nodded, dropping the topic. Jason knew that Damian wanted he and Bruce to be closer, he still held his father on a pedestal. He was still young enough that he held no ill will toward his parents, despite the fact that they weren’t the best parents.
Jason was old enough to know better.
“Listen, Dames,” Jason sighed. “No matter how old you get, I will always love you, and I will always be here for you. Alright? You don’t have to worry about being too old for that.”
Damian nodded again, and Jason kissed the top of his head, breathing in the smell of his shampoo. His kid was growing up, and as much as that pained Jason, he was glad he could be the parent Damian needed. The one he himself had needed and never got.
“Could I get a dog?”
“What?” Jason asked, shaken out of his trance and furrowing his brows at the kid. “No. Babe we live in an apartment. You’d have to take a dog out like eight times a day.”
“I could do it.”
“Same way you take care of your damn cat?” Jason raised a brow, and Damian’s eyes flicked to the chair full of cat scratches where Alfred had decided he was bored and took it out on the furniture. “Ask me when you’re older. You’re still too young.”
“You just said I am growing up!”
“Not that much.” Jason rolled his eyes, and Damian grumbled as he settled. Jason smiled at winning that argument and picked up his book again, starting to read aloud to the kid until he fell asleep curled into Jason’s side, at which point Jason scooped him up and carried him to bed.