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Talia stood at a harbor, with Damian, she never thought that she would do anything like this. This was all she had ever known apart from the brief moments of happiness she got to experience when she got to be with Bruce or when her heart would fill from a new accomplishment that Damian made.
She was so proud of her little prince, she never wanted him to experience the pain she had felt as Ra’s favorite.
They had to escape, she saw no other way to keep Damian safe, she thought she did, with training him and teaching him all she knew in order for him to survive in the League. But that was not enough she realized that now, she had failed him once when she had Ra’s find him but she will not make the same mistake again.
Her beloved was going to help even if he would never forgive her, she would be fine, Bruce would take Damian she knew this. Damian clung to her in a way he had not done in a long time.
Talia would never regret helping Jason Todd, he was her beloved's child and she grew to view him as her own too. But it came with the cost of leaving Damian to train with others, others she not exactly trusted but the closest thing to that in the League.
They trained him well as she was busy helping Jason, who was hellbend on being avengened, who she had tried to help by sending him to the greatest healers and fighters she knew, but he was so lost in his time with her. He did not want to be healed or helped, all he would focus on was fighting and learning now to fight. It broke her heart when she realized that she could not rehabilitate him on her own and had to let him go and make mistakes.
Now Talia looked down at her beautiful boy, as they waited for the waves to go from deadly to heavily ill advised.
—
Damian was tired, Talia knew that, could see it in his slouched posture, in his eyes that he refused to close, having learned this thankfully never through pain. She would never allow anyone to hurt intentionally. They both had been on the ship for hours, but not long enough. The way before them was long and so she laid Damian to sleep as this was neither a nice nor a big ship she put his head on her lap and carded her fingers through his hair, telling him stories of beautiful orchards for him to find easier sleep on this rocking vehicle.
As she did so, she looked down at his hands, they were full of calluses. His little hands that could defend him from opponents much larger than him, that painted pictures as beautiful as her beloved did, that knew how to wield a sword and mix poisons, that would pet every stray cat he would come across on missions.
Her little prince that she never wanted all of this to happen to, who she lied to her beloved and her father for, who she left to protect him, only for him to land in Ra’s hands when he was two. Talia missed many of his fist, but experienced many more, and soon Bruce could as well.