It's five weeks before Damian Al Ghul's seventh birthday, and he hasn't seen his mother in two months. He's been out – training, being escorted around the world by Grandfather's assassins and his sniping instructor, since it was time to test his skills in a real world situation – after all, merely sitting at the range in one of Grandfather's headquarters can't possibly mimic the sneakery you'll have to do to get to your perch, the importance of your camouflage, or the patience required as you waited hours for your target. No, that required an active, non-training combat situation, so that is what Damian was given, once he had mastered the basics.
When they finally get back to Al Ghul Island, Damian's sniping instructor debriefs his mother on his progress – and she dismisses him to go back to his previous duties, since the instructor was a former soldier employed by the League of Shadows, rather than a kidnapped expert. It wasn't necessary to dispose of him now that Damian's done with him.
Only after Mother dismisses the instructor does she come and see Damian. Damian stands up a bit straighter and balances his rifle bag right next to him, as if the thing weren't taller than him by 10 centimeters.
"Damian," she says, smiling warmly. "I hear you've done well."
"Thank you, Mother."
"Don't thank me. This is your victory. You fought for it. You earned it."
Damian suppresses a smile and merely follows his mother as she turns and walks back into the palace. Like everything his grandfather owns, the living area is elegant, decorated in one of the many styles that had come and gone in Grandfather's lifetimes. The door frames are rounded arches and curtains let in the ocean breeze. Damian breathes in the smell deeply and pans his vision, taking in everything in the palace, as if he can carve it into his memory so he'll never miss it again. Two months was too long to be gone, though he would never admit that out loud.
Mother escorts him to the dining area and sits him down, before disappearing to the kitchen for an instant and returning with a large bowl of soup in her hands. The smell immediately wakes up Damian's stomach and it starts to growl, much to his embarrassment.
Mother sets the soup in front of him and then watches, waiting for him to dig in, which Damian does. After two months of whatever the he or the League hunted and killed or disgusting dried rations, Mother's ox-blood soup is a balm. He eats it slowly, savoring every bite, and tries to listen as Mother tells him what's been transpiring in his absence, and Damian does the same. He tells her of the rogue agents he and his instructor went after, his success in hiding his tracks from them or killing them, including a particularly successful shot he made when the cross winds at 30 kilometers per hour. Ideally, Damian would have waited for a break in the wind, but he'd had no clue if one would ever come while his target was in view, and he needed to practice adjusting his aim in the field some time. When he tells her so, Mother agrees and starts to bring out some tea to finish off the meal...
.
.
.
Waking to the smell of tea almost makes Damian feel as if he's back home – though there's none of the tell-tale herbs Mother would usually put in, no cardamom or anise, or anything interesting. Just plain, black, Earl Grey tea, the way Pennyworth brews it. Damian supposes he could give Pennyworth instructions to brew it the other way, but he's yet to ask for any of the comforts of home here.
By time Damian finishes getting dressed and coming out to the kitchen islet, Grayson is already up and reading the paper. Damian pours himself some tea the way he's usually been drinking it here, before frowning and tossing it down the sink. He looks briefly around the kitchen before realizing he has no clue where Pennyworth keeps any of the essentials. "Pennyworth, where do you keep the condensed milk!" Damian asks.
"... Are you doing some cooking?" Pennyworth asks, slightly incredulous.
Damian presses his lips in a thin line, trying to figure out whatever Pennyworth is implying. "I'm fixing your tea," he says.
Pennyworth slowly walks over to the cabinet to remove a can of condensed milk.
"I don't suppose you have cardamom?" Damian asks.
"Some what?"
Great, this is going to taste weird no matter what he does. In fact, Damian's not even sure what other ingredients go in the tea – he's only seen Mother make it a couple times on slow days. Normally, the servants handled the cooking.
"What are you trying to do?" Grayson asks.
"Make tea," Damian says.
"Want any help?"
Damian narrows his eyes. He has no idea what game Grayson is playing. "Do you know how?"
Grayson looks between Damian and Pennyworth, like this is a test and one of them has the answer. "Um, boil water…?"
Damian clicks his tongue against his teeth. He could have said that, and he's never cooked anything in his life, save for the odd hunted animal in survival exercises.
"Is there a certain recipe you'd like me to use that I'm not?" Pennyworth asks.
"Karak tea," Damian says.
Pennyworth retrieves his smartphone from his pocket and starts typing on it. Damian peaks around his arm to see what it says, but he's just searching for a recipe.
Damian resists the temptation to ask him why, when Father's people express nothing but disapproval for any other vestige of his childhood, but he's not about to pretend that their opinion on anything bothered him.
As Pennyworth starts to make the tea, Grayson starts an interrogation. He says, "How are you doing, kiddo?"
Damian scowls at the overly familiar, condescending form of address. "Fine," he says. "I'm always fine."
"We made a plan," Grayson says, "So you can practice disarming foes at a distance instead of… you know… killing them."
Damian narrows his eyes. He doesn't bother pointing out that killing a person is the most sure way of disarming them, he already knows what Father's people think of that rhetoric.
"Pennyworth already informed me that more training was in order," Damian says. "Even though I'm unenthused by it – I've been training since the day I was born, with experts in every field. I passed all my tests in the League. Do you know how many people – or even nations – would pay a fortune to have an Al Ghul working with them?"
"And yet you're nobly working with us for free," Pennyworth says.
"Tt. That's right." Though money was never framed as a huge factor his grandfather's motivations. Any paid assassinations were merely means to an end, providing Grandfather with the necessary resources to carry out his vision. Then, Damian adds, "And speaking of working – "
"When can you get back in the field?" Grayson interrupts him.
Damian dislikes how predictable he's being.
"Soon," Pennyworth says, "But first, I insist on some tests, to make sure you're actually improving. We can do them after breakfast."
"And you have to finish training," Grayson says, "So don't even bother with the 'I heal fast' stuff. There's already a reason you can't go yet."
Damian sighs.
"How is school going so far?" Grayson asks. "You learn anything exciting?"
There's something off about this interaction that Damian can't quite place, he doesn't trust Grayson's motives for it. He's probably trying to distract him. Still, he answers, if only to get Grayson to shut up: "I've learned about the difference between heterotrophs and autotrophs, and as a heterotroph, I'd like breakfast."
"I'll prepare some while the tea's boiling," Pennyworth says, and smiles for a reason Damian can't possibly comprehend. Then, to Grayson, Pennyworth says, "Heterotrophs are organisms that can't produce their own food and rely on other sources of organic carbon for their nutrition."
"Tt, I knew that," Damian says. "And I choose to consume my organic carbon in the form of cereal."
"Me too," says Grayson, as he immediately stands up and grabs a box off the top of the fridge. He shows it to Damian and asks, "Coco puffs?"
Damian resists the urge to stick his tongue out in disgust. "Normal cereal."
Grayson grabs a box of bran cereal, which Damian supposes will do. He has no clue what they would call the cereal he at at home here, because it never came in boxes – at least none that he saw.
After a couple minutes, Pennyworth pours the tea in a cup in front of Damian, and says, "I found a recipe that didn't use cardamom, Master Damian. I hope it's sufficient."
Damian sniffs it skeptically, then takes a sip. It doesn't really taste like it did back home, but it's a start.
Damian pours himself a bowl of cereal, and then pours the milk-tea over it. Grayson watches him, curious, and Damian glowers at him, daring him to ask questions.
"Can I try a bite like that?" Grayson asks.
Damian hesitantly offers it to him (with a different spoon, of course, he's not about to let Grayson use his). After sampling it, Grayson nods with approval and pours himself a bowl of the cereal Damian had and some tea.
"Is this how you ate breakfast back with the League?" Grayson asks.
Damian tilts his head up a little. "Sometimes," he says.
"You know, if you want some influence on the menu, all you had to do was ask," Grayson says. He looks up at Pennyworth and says, "Right?"
"Of course," Pennyworth says, straightening up his posture a moment.
Damian doesn't reply. He's still waiting for the inevitable disapproval.
After a couple minutes of silence, Grayson says, "So, I've been planning with Babs."
"The woman in the wheelchair?"
"Yeah, well, she prefers to be called Babs. Or Barbara. She'd probably be weirded out if you called her Babs."
"Just get to the point, Grayson."
"We figure we can get her holo-room out of storage. It had an AI system that copied different combatant's fighting styles. So we could just amp up the difficulty until you'd normally use lethal force, and then get you some different, um, problem solving strategies."
The way Grayson hesitates makes Damian sure that something's going on, sure that Grayson must believe he resorted to lethal force for a reason other than the fact that it was the only option he saw. Damian doesn't say so, though – he can't articulate exactly what set him off. Instead, he says, "I'll never feel as if I'm in real danger if I'm only fighting holograms, Grayson."
"I know," Dicks says, "We'll bring in some actual dummies for you to hit and some of the fake guns or projectile launchers from Bruce's previous training rooms for you to get hit by."
Damian sniffs. That's satisfactory, he supposes. Obviously, the real best way to practice this would be against live human opponents, like he did as a child, but he knows that Grayson and Pennyworth would consider the risk of delivering a lethal blow to those live human opponents too high – and either way, Damian's not sure that he'd feel the need to resort to lethal force against someone he knows won't harm him, at least not now, while he's genuinely trying to abide Father's rules. He knows he's killed people in training before – he'd never held back against the assassins he'd sparred, because he was never supposed to. Mother and Grandfather wouldn't want him to accustom himself to stopping before dealing the killing blow – after all, they'd said that hesitation, weakness, and mercy would never lead to victory. The battle is won only when the killing stroke is dealt. Now everyone wants Damian to soften himself, to un-temper the instincts honed on ten years of training. Damian can do it – he's never encountered anything he couldn't do, eventually – though that doesn't mean he'll like it.