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Talia senses the presence in her room almost immediately. She’s the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, the Demon’s Head, Lord of the League of Shadows, and it is absolutely inconceivable that she’d miss something as elementary as an intruder. She draws her gun, holding it securely at waist level and moves silently towards the corner. A black-gloved hand tries to grab the gun from her and she reacts on instinct, twisting into a knee to the kidneys that’s stopped by all-too-familiar grey armor.
“You!” she says, immediately backing off.
Batman smiles. “Hello, Talia.”
She inwardly bristles, turning away. After the way he broke things off with her, he doesn’t get to be so familiar and play like nothing’s changed between them. Besides, she muses acidly, he was probably only here to find out information on whatever scheme her father and his odd allies were cooking up at the moment. “What do you want?”
“You,” he says and she stops in place, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end.
His voice is soft but the longing that colors it is maddeningly intense and sends her heart fluttering in recognition. It had not been so long ago that she’d forgotten what passion sounded like coming from his lips: just a year, little more. But she’s still got her pride as a woman and she’s got to be strong now, because she can’t let him break her heart again, not when she knows the game he plays so well.
“Well, you’re a little late,” Talia says stiffly and walks out of reach. “I’ve moved on.”
He follows closely, a little too close, and then she feels the subtle drag of his gloved knuckles tracing the curve of her spine and the press of his lips on the back of her neck.
Talia spins, lashing out at him with an elbow. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demands, cautiously stepping back.
Something about the way he ignores the elbow and turns to approach her again, face still stony, sends a chill straight down her spine. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asks. “Me?”
Talia narrows her eyes at him, as if truly seeing him for the first time, and clenches her hands into fists as she steps back, readying herself to spring into action. “You’re not Batman,” she says flatly.
There’s something wrong about him.
“Of course, I am, Talia,” he says, an eerily placid smile on his lips as he continues to move towards her. “Who else would I be?”
She frowns, pursing her lips a little as she moves towards the door. There are lots of possibilities that fit. God knows, it’s not the first time he’s been dosed with that Ivy woman’s lust dust. But to come here, to the woman he’d scorned, when there were others more readily available? No, Ivy couldn’t make pheromone powder that strong.
This is something else entirely.
…If it even is him.
Her back hits the wall and she realizes she’s run out of room.
“Talia, I just want to…” he says as he leans in, holding out his hands in what should have been a peaceful and placating gesture. Instead, it has the opposite effect.
“Are you deaf, Detective? I’m not interested!” Talia hisses, shoving his hands away and again making a beeline for the door.
He’s fast, though, and he’s pulling her back, swallowing her protest in a kiss that is entirely horrible and nothing like the lover she’s known him to be. It freezes her right down to the core and, for a moment, she’s utterly paralyzed because it’s Bruce and some part of her still loves him and she’d trusted him and why was he doing this to her?
She doesn’t even register the fact that she’s kneed him in the stomach until her elbow’s already colliding with his head and she’s winding up for the cross-punch that puts him on the floor. Her eyes are burning and she sniffles even as she drops into a crouch to check his cowl. The safety release mechanism hasn’t changed at all – it’s still in the place she remembers – and she disengages it, allowing her to yank the cowl off.
It’s him.
She sniffles again, rubbing her eyes with her arm, and carefully opens his eyelids. His eyes are glazed, unfocused, as if he’s somewhere else.
“Mind control,” she murmurs and feels her stomach lurch – with disgust or horror, she doesn’t even know. But why?
This is what you wanted, isn’t it?
She frowns, the truth dawning on her.
His arm suddenly shoots up, his hand gripping onto her arm like a vice as his eyes snap open, instantly alert.
She kicks him, sending herself tumbling out of the way, and scrambles out the door. Cursing, she rights herself and sprints headlong down the hall, ignoring Bruce’s heavy footfalls behind her. She stops only long enough to throw open the door to her father’s meeting room and storms in, head held high.
“Father,” she bites out. “What have you done?”
Her father merely steeples his hands, splaying the fingertips even as he presses them together, and waits until Bruce slips to his side, silent as a shadow, to speak: “Why, isn’t it obvious? I’ve given you what you wanted.”
Talia shakes her head. “Not like this, father. This is not what I wanted.”
“And yet, you have it all the same,” he states, standing slowly. “At least, for the moment. So, I’d suggest you make the most efficient use of your time with your gift and, in the end, we’ll both get what we want.”
“An heir,” she whispers. A male one, to be the heir she could not be, by virtue of her gender.
“Correct.”
She shakes her head. Yes, she is her father’s daughter and she is a Shadow, a loyal one, but what he is suggesting is something she cannot do to Bruce. It’d destroy him and she can’t. He trusted her, loved her – maybe was the only one who ever really did. Bravely and through a mouth that feels dry as sandpaper, she manages to hold her ground and say, “I won’t.”
Her father snaps his fingers and Bruce draws a knife, placing it against his own throat. All he must do is press hard enough and he will pierce the carotid artery.
“Though it galls me to resort to such base methods on my own flesh and blood, you will do it or I will kill him and start from scratch,” her father grounds out. "Your consent has never been required. It is only a courtesy I chose to extend you, ungrateful child."
She remembers the last time her father had to ‘start from scratch’ all too well and shudders. That poor…
“Now what will it be? The Lady or the Tiger?” Ra’s asks.
Her heart breaking, she decides.