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Vlad slammed the door to the hotel suite they were staying in behind him. And just stared at it for a moment trying to gain control of his anger. Flying off the handle could ruin everything he had been working toward. That they had been working toward with their feigned relationship.
After taking one more deep breath Vlad turned to face his “girlfriend” Talia.
“What were you thinking?” he asked as calmly as he could. Which was not very but he wasn’t yelling so he took it for the win it was. “Of all the near social disasters you could have made, why did you choose to do that?”
They had been at a gala in Gotham for some charity. Vlad hadn’t paid much attention to what it was for. Just that it was something that would be good for his image and allow the pair of them to make another public appearance together. It had been a while since they had attended an event together and it was starting to get suspicious.
It had been going well for the first part. But then Bruce Wayne and his entire gaggle had arrived at the party. Including his newly found soulmates and their two children. The first public appearance they had made since the family unit had become official upon their arrival in Gotham.
Vlad’s heart had been stomped upon once again seeing them all together but he just made it his mission to avoid them all as best he could. Seeing the two people that should have been his with someone else between them. Seeing the children that would have been his with a different third parent.
Talia on the other hand had managed to get in a conversation with the two youngest children.
“Damian is my son,” she bit out at him. “I have the right to speak to him at a public event. I’m not banned from speaking to him.”
Vlad sighed. She was being purposefully difficult. Which was nothing new. He knew that she hated this deal they had made. But it was what was best for both of them. She needed his support after the destruction of her league. (Which Vlad was sure had been at the hands of Danny and his friends but had no proof.)
“No, you are not. But what you didn’t need to do was somehow make Danny run out of the gala,” Vlad said. “It was the boy’s first time out with his new family.”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” Talia lied.
He always could tell when she tried to lie to him. Especially when she was staring directly into The contamination of her from the Lazarus gave him that power. And others. Not that he had told Talia about them. She would do everything to destroy him if she did and he liked living.
“I know you did it on purpose and there was no reason to,” he said. “Don’t try and say it wasn't. You can control your words as well as anyone.”
Talia finally broke eye contact and stormed into the bedroom of the suite. But he did not let her run from the conversation and followed. She was removing her jewels when he got into the room. And he could feel the anger rolling off of her in waves. It was powerful and under different circumstances he would have admired it. He had in the past but this was not the time for the feelings he was trying to ignore to rear their heads.
“Why did you do it? The boy means nothing to you.”
He pushed a little in his voice. Not enough to force her to do anything but enough that she might give him an answer.
“It’s complicated,” she said, slamming the top of the jewelry box closed.
“Then explain it to me,” he said. “I’ll understand.”
He had shifted into a cross armed posture and that was what Talia was met with when she whirled around again to glare at him.
"No, you won't understand, ever."
“You can’t possibly know that unless you try.”
They stood there for a long moment, neither of them speaking. But eventually Talia’s stance shifted just the smallest bit and Vlad knew he had won the stand-off with her. Now he just had to wait for her to give in and speak. He would wait. There was no reason to rush her. Not with something that seemed so deeply emotional to her.
“He’s my soulmate,” she said eventually, with as little emotion as he had ever heard in her voice and her eyes leaving his again.
Anger flooded Vlad’s veins at his first thought. That poor Danny had somehow gotten himself a horrible match. That Vlad would lose yet another person he cared about to a Fenton. But that would not explain all of Talia’s reactions that night.
“Who is?” he asked.
“Bruce, my beloved,” she said. “He’s my soulmate. But I am not his.”
He couldn’t place the emotion he heard. It was new to him. She had never used it with him before. Never trusted him enough to show it.
But he did know what she was feeling from his own end. The pain of an unrequited soulbond. The finality of seeing the people who were his loving someone else the way they would never love him.
“I do understand,” he said, all the anger that had been in his voice leaving it for the first time since they had entered the suite. “Jack and Maddie are mine and I am not theirs.”
Her gaze was back on him. She was scrutinizing him, trying to see if he was lying to her. Vlad wasn’t but he understood her shock. What were the odds that both of them would have unrequited soulbonds that were soulmates to each other? Not high, that was for sure.
“I lost them over twenty years ago,” he continued. “I failed to accept it properly for so long. Long enough I nearly lost everything I worked for.”
Talia still did not speak. She just looked at him, waiting. The strength of her gaze made his knees weak in the way it so often did. But he could not let them buckle. Not before he finished.
“But eventually I did and I was lost. It had been my obsession for so long I didn’t know what to do without it.”
He paused. He needed to decide if he was going to share the rest.
“And I took a lot of it out on Danny in the process,” he finished. “So you absolutely cannot.”
“Fine,” she said. “I believe you.”
It was clear that would be the end of the conversation for that night.
She went back to taking off the trappings of the night. He had long ago stopped hiding the fact that he watched when she changed. And he had caught her doing the same. They spent too much time in rooms like these together changing for various functions. And neither of them were very body shy. So he watched as she changed into her night clothes before disappearing into the bathroom to remove her makeup and anything else she needed to.
Once she was gone he changed into his own night clothes and waited. And did not think about the fact that he now knew Talia was not waiting for a soulmate. Hers was out of reach just as much as his own. He definitely did not think about the fact that maybe his feelings for her weren’t as hopeless as he thought.
And as he finished getting ready for bed and lay there attempting to sleep next to Talia he did not think about how nice it would be if it was real.
Months passed and Vlad felt the shift in their relationship as they moved about their lives in his house. He still wasn’t sure when Talia had fully moved in but she had except for when she traveled for whatever it was she called work since the downfall of her father’s empire. It was certainly due to what had happened at the gala the night they had both confessed to who their soulmates were.
Talia seemed to hate him less. Or at least she wasn’t as cold to him as before. The shared pain did something to break down a wall. And she actually asked for his opinion on something.
It almost felt like a real relationship in some moments. But those were few and far between. Vlad could still feel her anger and hatred toward him. Though some of it felt different. Possibly because he had managed to let go of his soulmates and she hadn’t let go of hers. But that was just his own speculation.
It wasn’t until another event in another city that they spoke of it again. That time it was in Metropolis. And of course the trio of their unrequited soulmates had been there. Wayne’s pet reporter Clark Kent was getting an award.
Talia had managed to avoid making a scene. But only with Vlad appearing before Maddie pulled the weapon she obviously had in her bag. No one needed those two starting a fight in the middle of an awards gala.
After that Talia had been thoughtful and not much happened. Vlad didn’t think anything of it until they had gotten back to their suite. And instead of ranting about something that had upset or scoffing at other guests she was quiet. It was mildly disturbing. He was almost afraid she was plotting a murder.
“A penny for your thoughts,” he said, sitting down at the small table with two cups of her favorite tea.
Talia looked at him from where she had been doing something on her phone. She sighed seeing the tea and joined him at the table.
“I am starting to understand what you meant about being lost,” she said.
“Oh?”
“I am not sure how to be myself without wanting my beloved,” she said, staring at her cup, not having drunk any of it. “Even if he hasn’t been my main goal for years I don’t know how to go forward after accepting we will never be a couple.”
“Ah, I see,” he said.
They sat in silence again for a while. Vlad wanted to comfort her but he wasn’t sure he could without his feelings making themselves known. Over the months since he had learned about her and Bruce his feelings had been harder to ignore. Knowing there was even the small chance they would one day be reciprocated made them grow and develop. And Vlad had come to accept that he was falling in love with her. He knew she did not feel the same. But it wasn’t like he didn’t have decades of practice with that.
“What did you do?” Talia asked, breaking the silence.
Vlad sighed.
“I just went one day at a time for a while. And the ache became easier to deal with,” he said. “I found other things to do with my time. There’s a lot one can do with the time not spent worrying about trying to capture a heart that won’t be yours.”
“I see,” she said.
He could tell she wanted to ask more. But was holding back. It was a game she played often. Too many questions and she began to shut down. It made her feel weak which he knew was her greatest fear. After everything she had gone through she used knowledge as power and the loss of it didn’t help anything.
“And what of companionship?” she eventually asked.
“Well I was alone for so long, the loneliness was already a constant companion of mine,” he said. “Though now less than before.”
Talia looked startled. Which to anyone else would look like contempt. But over the years they had been in their fake relationship he had learned to read her better than he had anyone before. Not even Jack and Maddie when they all lived in each others’ pockets in college. So the small difference meant the world to him.
“Why less now?”
This was what he was more used to. Questioning for her own purposes and to gather things she might find useful for later. He debated lying. But this moment was too fragile for that. It would come crashing down on him and he might lose whatever they had built.
“Well, now I have you,” he said, putting his hand on hers over where it still cradled her tea. “And that changed a lot.”
Confusion, again disguised as contempt, filled her face. Then the walls he hadn’t seen in a long time came crashing down. There was nothing on her face that he could read.
He pulled his hand away.
“What could you possibly mean by that?” she asked in the haughty tone that she used with almost everyone.
“Just that you have made me believe that soulmates aren’t everything,” he said. “The only person that made me believe that.”
“You are a fool then,” Talia said. “You know as well as I that none of this is real.”
“I know,” Vlad said sadly, not having enough left in him to be angry.
He stood and left the suite.
Vlad wandered the hotel for a while before ending up on the patio. Just sitting alone and staring out into the night sky. Somehow he didn’t remember rejection being as bad as it was. What he felt was worse than what had happened with his soulmates. Was that a sign that the feelings were real? He didn’t know but he also didn’t know how they would go forward again.
Then the unexpected happened.
Talia came and sat next to him.
“I need to apologize,” she said. “That was uncalled for.”
He turned his head slightly so he could see more of her face out of the corner of his eye. She was staring at the sky just as he was.
“I need to as well. I should not have said what I did tonight. You are just starting to move on from your soulmate.”
“Then can we agree to move on?”
“I can try but I don’t think things can go back to what they were.”
He heard a small sigh from Talia.
“No, they cannot,” she said. “The change is not all bad though. I am not ready now, but that does not mean I will not be later.”
She grabbed his hand. It was better than anytime before. Because this time it was real.
Vlad smiled. He could be patient. For Talia he could be anything.