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Cat Grant was smiling so much that it seemed more like she wanted to rub it in that the viewers had fillings and teeth stained by coffee—and she didn’t.
She hadn’t smiled that much since she broke the news of Lex Luthor’s impeachment—and that, well, that was quite a while ago. But let’s face it, celebrity gossip was her thing, and it’s not every day you get to announce the return of the Wildcards. Actually, she hadn’t announced this one yet, but she knew she’d soon be passing along what she was hearing on the news—some rumors might be false, but never if they were persistent, and fortunately, the weeks-long persistence of the members’ names being mentioned everywhere could mean nothing else.
First, there was Talia walking down the street with her son, Damian, like a true doting mom—the title the news reports had given her; he hadn’t been in the media much since he was seven and his parents were at the height of their fame, preferring to live a life of anonymity after a childhood during which people speculated whether he would follow in his parents’ artistic footsteps. The photos from his early high school graduation had been a fiasco for the paparazzi, with him seeking out the best angles to avoid having his face exposed, capturing only the proud gazes of Bruce and Talia. Now almost an adult, the long-awaited reveal of his face showed that, while he lacked his parents’ talent for the musical arts, his DNA certainly didn’t fail him when it came to beauty—a perfect blend of Talia’s eyes and Bruce’s chiseled jawline, as tall as his parents and just as serious.
There was also the first appearance of his father, Bruce, following the formal divorce from a long-standing marriage that had come to a premature end. That sparked even more buzz from adoring fans who thought they might have a chance with the handsome Wildcards bassist—because, yes, Bruce was still a heartthrob even after all these years.
Those recent appearances couldn’t help but make the band’s fans wonder if a reunion was in the works, especially after more sightings of band members together—because, seriously? Anton and Jean weren’t even that close to show up together on just any Wednesday at the same café. And luckily, Cat was alive to witness it and announce the good news.
Images of younger versions of Talia, Silver, Bruce, Jean, and Anton lit up the TV screen, singing the band’s most famous songs or simply answering old interview questions.
The woman took control of Damian’s hand, and Cat Grant and the memories of the past vanished with the click of a button. Watching fawning news reports is a test of self-control when one’s ego is being flattered. And Damian Wayne had definitely been tested every day since birth; a more foolish boy would have let his ego get the better of him, but their heir was not known for a lack of emotional control. On the contrary, life in the spotlight since infancy had given him a thick skin.
“So, a comeback on the horizon, right?” he said, resting his elbows on his knees.
Talia was still wondering why she’d had the brilliant idea to accept. She certainly didn’t need the money, and the feeling of being young, wild, and letting herself get carried away by the music had faded long ago. She had already come to terms with the idea of simply being the daughter of an ecologist with a name that was a mystery to everyone outside the family, known by a silly nickname that, in her view, smacked of Orientalism—what did the younger generation call it these days? Nepo baby.
“You know what I kind of regret?” She stared at the blank TV screen. “Putting up with your father at anything other than a school event loud enough that you can’t hear his voice is already a challenge—add to that having to put up with him and the flattery of people who don’t even know me.”
She stood up and walked over to the kitchen island, picking up a pitcher full of rosemary tea and pouring the liquid into porcelain cups from the Chinese collection she’d received from her father some time ago.
“Oh, but they know you and adore you,” Damian scoffed, drawing on his distaste for the media and their habit of sticking their noses where they don’t belong—such as in Talia and Bruce’s relationship.
Damian had spent his entire childhood wishing his parents would get back together as a couple, but at some point he simply accepted that it wasn’t meant to be. Ah, but the Wildcards fans knew it all—they were parasocial fans; they know his family better than anyone and know that Talia was meant for Bruce, or that Selina was meant for Bruce and much better than Talia—good enough to spark a rivalry that only existed in the minds of magazine editors trying to sell something.
“Soon enough, John F. Kennedy will get engaged to someone and the media will leave us alone,” Bruce once said to comfort Damian. “Or a new money-laundering scandal involving Lex will distract them.”
Talia raised an eyebrow.
“You know what, it’s actually kind of funny to picture you guys together—I mean, the band.” Damian picked up a cup and sipped gently so as not to burn his lips, hearing Talia call his name in that reproachful tone. “What? That idiot Valley is stuck in the ’70s with that stupid style he totally copied from John Lennon. Silver, poor thing, is a total snob. I don’t even need to mention Minhkhoa, or Dad being such a stickler for the rules. And then there’s you, the only normal one.”
Talia hid a smile behind the delicate porcelain and the sweet taste of rosemary on her tongue; they were all different from how they used to be—that much was certain. But they wouldn’t need to be any more or less than that, they just needed to release unreleased tracks discarded from old albums that had been kept under lock and key all these years, play one or two shows, and then they’d be free to do whatever they wanted. It wouldn’t be that hard, right?
Bruce yawned for what seemed like the thousandth time that night. But they were in a cramped booth giving a radio interview to promote the release of their new song; no one could see him, so it would be fine as long as he avoided making too much noise. The five of them were seated at a table next to the radio host, with Minhkhoa (because yes, he now used his real name as his stage name instead of Anton) between him and Talia. A single man separated them, but it felt as if a whole world stood between them—which was interesting for two people who shared not only a past but also a small world: Damian.
The most interesting part of the band, they said. The songs were cool and all, but it was the romantic saga of Bruce Wayne and the mysterious Talia Al Ghul that entertained the audience. The main reason they continued to follow the band so fervently, aside from their habit of exchanging messages between songs as if they were letters that fans wanted to decode like a puzzle.
He remembered hearing Talia say that this was the reason they were so anti-social—they gave people the impression that they were friends with the audience when the truth was quite different. But Bruce couldn’t help himself; he sang what he felt. It wasn’t his fault that Talia seemed to do the same and they noticed.
“Tell us about the creative process behind your song ‘Beloved,’ Bruce,” the radio host said, and Bruce finally realized that Silver was no longer speaking enthusiastically about the feeling of having the group back together—as if they were all friends—and that Jean-Paul wasn’t recounting any funny stories from the past either.
He felt Talia’s gaze fall upon him as she heard the song’s title, her eyes intense enough to pierce his skin if Minhkhoa weren’t standing as a barrier between them.
“You say you wrote this a few years ago—about six—so I imagine it was at a time when you were in love with your girlfriend at the time. The song seems to convey the warmth of those first months of dating and that brief honeymoon phase without ever having gone through a wedding.”
“No,” Wayne said almost instantly to deny that it had been written about Selina. Not that it would have been offensive in any way if it were about her—it just wasn’t.
The warmth the radio host thought he knew about was that of a mature love that transcended any differences and spoke far more to intimacy than to being “on a hot streak.” And there wasn’t a single person in the world to whom he could have dedicated a song called “Beloved” other than Talia—the one with whom they secretly shared that nickname behind closed doors, so no one else could hear it and ruin it.
She leaned back in her chair, understanding exactly what his denial meant, and let out a long sigh. Bruce shouldn’t have said that out loud, but speaking live on the radio, there was no way around it.
They had already divorced by the time Bruce was running his hands through his hair, staring at the notepad on the coffee table. Selina’s scent was ingrained in his sheets, and she had already found her way into his heart; when they touched, he felt as if he were on fire, so why couldn’t he fill that emptiness in his heart?
He had to write. About her. His Talia.
Loving Talia was sensual and a novelty when the other guys in the band had groupies, and Bruce didn’t care about any of that. Then it became something truly intense—to the point of thinking they’d start a family someday. It was peaceful and a safe haven he’d always return to whenever the spotlights went out, and then it ended. She became the photo of a young woman holding baby Damian that he never took from inside his wallet. But not in Bruce’s song; in that one, that love would always live on.
“To say it’s about a romantic relationship is a misinterpretation. You could say that, yes, from your point of view, the song might lead us to create a meaning that fits our situation into the lyrics, but that wasn’t what I wanted to convey when I wrote it.”
“So would you say it’s about your family?”
Bruce nodded. Some of the Wildcards members were frowning, unaware of the song’s content; the very fact that it existed was already big news.
“I was home alone; my youngest son had gone back to his mother’s house that night, and the older ones were all out and about doing young people’s things, and I had a lot on my mind. I wrote it all in just over an hour and then came up with a melody. I produced it the following week and recorded it by myself; I wanted it to be something just mine—no one else heard it besides me and maybe my oldest son, Dick. I don’t want it to be anymore. So it's ours now.”
“That’s typical of a leader who doesn’t think about the group,” Minhkhoa made the sharp comment—more about Bruce not sharing his plans for the new album with the rest of the band than about making music alone.
The radio host took the cue to play the new song and cut to commercials. The rest of the band took off their headphones when the broadcast was interrupted and stood up, striking up conversations with one another. Talia kept her headphones on, listening.
The chair Minhkhoa had been sitting in was the only barrier between Bruce and Talia, but even so, Bruce stood up and turned his back, leaving Talia alone with her thoughts as she tried to make sense of the whole situation and the song talking about star-crossed lovers and fate and domestic lifes. She stared at his back until he disappeared.
How can I ever change things that I feel?
Talia’s breath caught as she listened to the lyrics; it faltered, and she almost felt suffocated and choked, even though she maintained a calm demeanor on the outside. Bruce’s deep voice was so gentle in that song, and the words were so candid—imbued with a lyricism as they recounted things that only Bruce and Talia knew—that the rest of the world could believe the song’s nonsense about family.
She fought back the tears welling up in her eyes as she took off her headphones and walked away from the radio console to follow the same path the bandmates and Bruce had taken.
She spotted the figure in the suit walking with his hands in his pockets and quickened her pace toward him. She thought about saying something like “Hey, idiot” or something terribly rude as she would have in the past, but stopped when Bruce turned to her and stared at her with those electric-blue, watercolor-like irises.
“What kind of idea is this?” Her voice sounded hoarse. Bruce just shrugged and acted as if he didn’t understand why he was being called out, which only made her even more irritated. “What kind of idea is this—using the band to release a solo song that wasn’t produced with the help of any of the members?”
“It’s a song. Our song.” He continued to act sly.
Talia pulled her coat tighter around herself and took a deep breath, seeking the self-control that Ra’s, through his meditations, had so often encouraged her to pursue.
“Not ours, no one in the band has heard this song before, no one helped record it, and it’s definitely not the single we were going to release today.”
“Well, it is now. Lucius helped me keep it under wraps,” his voice dropped an octave, and he flashed his trademark cynical smile with a tilt of his head. It was all orchestrated to annoy her. “Come on, Talia, don’t feel so pressured—you’re going to have to memorize the lyrics for this one for our show. I want you on backup vocals.”
The look on her face was anything but friendly. She was thoroughly annoyed that they’d recorded songs like “May Day” and “Dog with a Bone”—which were ready to be released to radio stations—and yet he’d come up with something they hadn’t even known about, treating it as a higher priority than their collective work, and now he was being sarcastic just to score points.
“Are you listening? Isn’t it amazing?” He gave a silly smile and stared at the speaker in the hallway, which was playing their song at a low volume. Talia followed his gaze involuntarily, like a wild animal about to pounce on his neck but struggling to maintain self-control.
She’d been anxious for a long time about how to proceed with the performances, and this only made everything worse—his damn arrogant attitude. That’s how it was when they got divorced; the band’s activities continued, and they had to carry on professionally. They sang while glaring at each other defiantly, resentment shining in their eyes like a flame meeting gasoline seconds before an explosion.
She didn’t know how much resentment she still felt—whether, during the five minutes and twenty-four seconds of the romantic “May Day,” she would forget that they were singing for at least twenty thousand people and it would be just the two of them in their own little world up on stage. But he was irritating her so much at that moment that she thought the band’s comeback would end before it even began.
And that’s because they were functional adults who had just raised a young boy together—a boy who had become a formidable man—and had always maintained a cordial relationship during the years Damian needed them.
Breathe, Talia.
“Silver was sick when we recorded the album, and I don’t think Minhkhoa and Valley deserve this, Bruce Wayne,” she said harshly, crossing her arms as if to create a barrier between them. She wouldn’t make a scene in public, and she was thinking of all the times Damian had complained that they fought too much when he was young enough not to break his promise to leave Bruce.
“Are you afraid to hear me on the radio, Talia? I hear your and your love song every day on the radio, and it bugs me every time I hear it and it’s fucking hurting my brain—it doesn’t seem fair”
So that’s what this was all about? Bruce was bothered by “Honeycomb,” a silly song she’d written and he’d approved for them to record just before they went on a hiatus they’d thought, until then, would be permanent. Back when Khoa didn’t have debts to pay off, Jean Paul hadn’t yet suffered from religious hysteria, and Silver was happier. Or when Bruce and Talia thought they had some hope of salvation.
“You’re changing the subject, we’re talking about how you played with the band’s work to promote your little song,” she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “But if you want to know, I regret writing it, and it’s not my fault if they still like listening to me today. Yeah, kt’s not my fault they like listening to me. I’m not even the same person who used to sing those songs anymore.”
He smiled with that cynical, roguish way that always made her let out a long sigh.
“Always straight to the point. I like that,” he took a step forward; if she were truly bothered, she wouldn’t have taken a few steps back to create some distance, but she just stood there with a defiant expression. “When I said ‘our song,’ I meant you and me, not the rest of the band.”
Before she could respond to anything he said, he leaned his face closer; if she’d had more willpower, she would have pushed him away, but she admitted that perhaps she was still too weak when it came to Bruce and couldn’t resist him completely. He also gave her room to resist or consent to what was about to happen, and with her silent she consented.
In a fraction of second, Bruce Wayne was kissing his ex-wife from nearly twenty years ago in front of all the radio station employees, as if it were just any ordinary Saturday.