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Talia al-Ghul stands at the center of her walk-in closet in a Gotham penthouse, which is overall a boring beige-y disappointment of a space, despite being decorated by the supposed best interior designer new money can buy.
Three pieces of formalwear hang in unzipped garment bags before her. A black Naeem Khan slip gown, a burgundy velvet one-shoulder dress with a narrow skirt, and, her personal favorite, a custom backless evening dress made entirely from emerald silk, with knotted straps, intricate floral detailing, and a deliciously high thigh slit.
It’s for that reason that she probably can’t wear it to the Holy Names Preparatory Academy annual charity auction. Despite the fact that the school has allegedly gone non-denominational in the past fifty years, the dress would likely inflame the Anglo-Saxon sensibilities of the wealthy Gothamites who can afford the tuition.
She has considered pulling Damian out several times over the past couple of months, but, he seems to have friends there, and to enjoy being educated in Gotham for reasons she’ll probably never understand.
With a resigned sigh, she frees the red piece from the garment bag, thumbs running along the stitching as she walks toward the full-length, tri-fold mirror, spread across the back of the room.
“You’ve gotten old. And slow.” Talia holds the dress up to her figure, considering the way it would fall against her hips. “I heard you come in.”
“Maybe I wanted you to,” he growls, in that ridiculous voice of his.
“Most people send a note.” With a sharp flick of her wrist, the batarang up her sleeve cuts through the air. He’d left it on the passenger seat of her Mercedes that morning, an indication she should expect him that night.
Bruce’s hand shoots out to catch the batarang, the sharp edge of it glancing harmlessly off the suit’s gauntlet.
He emerges from the shadowy corner of her closet, batarang clinking softly as it's tucked into his utility belt. “I’m not here to fight you.”
Talia snorts, turning back to the mirror. “Then why did you come in your little outfit?”
“Patrol,” he offers simply. Talia supposes she was a pit stop and it would’ve been inefficient to take time to change. That, or he thought there was some remote possibility she might draw her sword against him, in which case it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.
He couldn’t beat her one to one, not without the added advantage of his technology. He knew that.
“I heard there was an argument,” Bruce says.
Talia pauses, something dangerous in the sudden stillness of her hands. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”
“He told me about it.”
"Great. I'm so glad you broke into my penthouse to tell me that."
She’s too aware of the sound of her voice, the clipped syllables that plainly unmask her frustration. She hears some mocking echo in the back of her head. It sounds like Ra’s.
Bruce is staring at her. Or, she thinks he is. It’s hard to make out the slant of his eyes through the cowl, but she can feel the weight of it on her.
“What?” she asks, impatient, eager for him to go far, far away again, so she can make him very small and insignificant in her head, something impossible to do, when confronted with the imposing reality of him.
Because he has a compulsive need to control the pace of every conversation, he leaves her waiting a moment or so longer.
“You sounded so much like Jason, just then,” he says, finally. “Or, he sounds like you.”
They've known each other for too long. She won’t bare an inch of her neck without seeing all of his first. She hates him in a way she thought she’d outgrown. If it was twenty something years ago, she would leave, upset that he cut the game short, upset that she could do everything right and still lose to him, because it turned out he wasn’t keeping score.
“Take that stupid helmet off,” she says, tired, and sinks onto the Fendi chaise lounge in the center of her closet. Bruce’s costume squeaks a little when he sits down next to her, and it looks — he looks — absurd, in a fully-lit backdrop. It’s embarrassing enough to slightly offset her own nerves.
She takes a long breath. “I stopped by the tower. I wanted to see him. It was unannounced.”
“Mm.”
“You’ve taught him poorly, by the way.” She frowns at him. “It shouldn’t have been unannounced, but every attempt he’s made at surveilling me since I’ve arrived has been abysmal.”
There’s some weary amusement in his eyes. “Maybe he trusts you.”
Talia laughs, too sharp. “He doesn’t even like me.”
“Talia,” Bruce sighs, but the sudden understanding in his voice is unbearable.
“He was rude, dismissive. I brought him lunch,” Talia murmurs, exasperated. For a sliver of a moment, she allows that emotion to get the better of her, pooling at her temples, twisting up her tongue. “I was trying — I wanted to be —“
A mother.
She’s too humiliated to even say it, to admit that she’s acutely aware of the ways she’s failed to live up to that title over the years. She is Damian’s mother. She has taken care of him better than anyone could, Bruce included. She protected him from Ra’s. She sent him away from the League of Assassins, from her, so he could have a better life. She made a sacrifice that most people couldn’t even begin to imagine making, wouldn’t have the strength to make, living a life as barren of love and warmth as hers.
“Talia,” Bruce’s voice slips into some unreadable register. “You are.”
“What?”
“You are his mother. That’s what teenagers do to their mothers. Roll their eyes, act ungrateful.”
Talia blinks. She tries to imagine that for a moment; rolling her eyes at her father, or raising her voice the way Damian had. She would’ve been punished for her impudence, made to feel young, and stupid, and maybe a bit delusional, until the weight of her mistake had fully impressed itself upon her.
She didn’t ever want to make Damian feel that way. Even before Bruce put the conduct in a new perspective.
“He rolls his eyes at you?”
“Yes.”
“At Pennyworth?”
“Yes.”
“At Grayson?”
“Every second of the day,” Bruce’s lips tilt into a smile. It looks almost menacing with the kohl around his eyes, but Talia likes that. “It’s not a sign of disrespect.”
“Then.” Talia takes a beat to steady herself. She detests being in this position, of having no one but Bruce to turn to when navigating the minutiae of parenting teenagers. She swallows her substantial pride, the way she’s been made to do a hundred something times since coming to Gotham. She lifts her head to look at Bruce, mouth twisted in a glare. “What do I do?”
“Let him come to you.”
She hates that suggestion. Feeling any emotion intensely burns down the wick on her already limited patience. She lifts a weary hand to rub her temple, wondering idly where the Tiger Balm is — she has the good kind, from Singapore, that's 25% Camphor. Bruce isn’t looking at her, but somehow, she can tell the avoidance is taking effort to maintain.
“Okay,” she says, mostly out of a need to end this conversation. “I’ll try.”
Talia has to believe he knows better than to expect a thank you, even if his advice works. He owes her this. Or, the world does, and he is the only one willing to pay up. She stands slowly, moving to return the red dress to her long row of evening gowns.
“You need better locks on the windows.”
She rolls her eyes. “Sounds unnecessary when no one in your rogue gallery is a match for me.”
“The rogues are the least of your worries. I could recommend someone, for security.”
That makes her laugh — a full throated, genuine laugh, as she she straightens the skirts of an ornate lehenga. “So you can make a bypass key for yourself? No thank you.”
“I don’t need a key.”
“No,” she muses, turning to look at him. “You never do.”
If they meet eyes for too long, the years seem to fall away. Memory is strange when the pit stalls your aging, preserving your body and poisoning your mind. Even then, she knows he had been hers from the first day she held a blade beneath his chin, the pressure just a hair’s breadth from drawing blood. There had been silent admiration in his eyes, and a little obvious lingering on her mouth and the smooth shift of hair over her shoulder. Before she could decide whether or not to use it against him, he was stomping off to train by himself, embarrassed at having been caught.
“I have to go,” he says, and she’s relieved to find that there’s something stilted and inelegant about it, that he’s still not as good at walking away from her as he should be.
“Mm.” She turns around again. “Stay away from my windows.”
“No promises.” He pauses. “I like the green dress.”
“You would.” Unfortunately, he must hear the smile in her voice. “Good night.”
She almost says it, my beloved. The phrase withers at the back of her throat, and she can’t quite pinpoint why. Thankfully, she doesn’t have to look to know he has already made a soundless exit, leaving no trace of his presence behind, except, maybe, for the lingering upturn at the corners of her mouth.