Chapter Text
Talia al Ghul has never seen her soul mate’s name on her flesh. Ra’s had it burned off of her at a very young age. The only wound not allowed to heal via Lazarus Pit; the only scar on her body.
But she is certain she knows the name.
Ra’s al Ghul, the Demon’s Head, has no tolerance for weakness. The very thought of chaining yourself to a stranger, to willingly giving up your freedom for another, to give yourself such a handicap.. Unacceptable.
There is no room for love, for a “soul mate”, within the League.
Talia knows this, as it has been drilled into her mind her entire life. Yet she also knows it’s contradiction. Is she not chained regardless? If not to a “stranger” whose name once kissed her flesh, then to her father who has never allowed her a moment of true freedom?
She knows this, just as she knows the name she never read. It must be the name of the only man outside the League to earn her father’s respect. The only man with the cunning and know-how to sneak in and out without being caught. The only man able to foil her father’s plans more often than not. The only man who has a chance of freeing her from her father’s grip. The man whose fake smile could light up the darkest city, Gotham City of which he lived.
Bruce Wayne was that man.
And though she has seen him in the arms of many, many women; she knows they mean nothing to him. She knows it is a part of a charade, the mask he wears to keep up his billionaire playboy philanthropist image to protect his true identity, his true self: The Bat.
No other woman, including that cat burglar, could possibly mean more to him. Especially now. Now that she was carrying his child.
His only child.
True, he had taken in a ward from a tragic circus some years ago. And recently, he had adopted a child right off the streets of his gloomy city. (Her beloved’s heart was simply too big for his own good..) But this, this life inside of her….his own flesh and blood. No other woman has provided for him.
She does not need to see his name to confirm her heart is his.