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Talia believed she was wrong. She hoped she was wrong. It had been a beautiful evening, where she had dinner with her son and Bruce.
She could almost believe that they were a normal family - maybe, in another world, Bruce might be less hurt and she a less devoted daughter - at least until Damian opened his mouth and called his father by name. She had frozen.
She must have heard wrong, didn't she? Certainly, she had not been such a mediocre mother that she did not remind her son of respect. Talia had not reacted. She wanted to scold her son. But all she had taken was one look at her beloved, the silent request not to intervene, and she understood.
Oh, her sweet, silly detective. Always so attentive to the feelings of others, ready to suffer for them, and rarely received as much love in return.
For him, she had agreed to remain silent for the moment.
But after they said goodbye, she sent her son a message. She had told him where they should meet, just the two of them. Certainly, Damian would have had no difficulty reaching her. The security of Wayne Manor was good; her dear detective was always attentive to who she loved, but she had taught Damian everything she knew, and he was good.
Too bad he didn't know how to recognise the immense luck he had, the dream he was living in Talia's place, and he spat on it. It was hard not to get angry. It was hard not to scream. But she didn't want to be like Ra's.
She wanted to be better. And to do so, she had to talk to her son.
“Mother, did you want to see me?" Damian asked, arriving on the roof she had pointed out to him. Oh, so he remembered how to show respect. It was with his father that he had the problem.
Talia couldn't help but feel angry. Bruce had always wanted a kid of his own. He had always wanted a family, because he had lost his family too soon. And dear God, she wanted to be part of it so bad.
But she had her duty, and she could only look from afar at something that could never be hers.
The Universe had had a sick sense of humour; it had given him what he wanted, but it hurt him for it every single day. Sometimes she wondered if some people were not born to suffer.
Then she dismissed the idea as if it were blasphemy. Bruce was a wonderful person.
To think that he was born out of misery was to absolve the people in his life of their sins.
First of all, that miserable butler.
"I'm so disappointed in you, Damian,” she said, going straight to the point. She didn't intend to waste time.
The boy stiffened, feeling as if a knife were held to his throat. But that wasn't the case; she'd never hurt him – not like she already did. Talia just wanted to make Damian understand.
"Mother, why…”
"I don't come to Gotham often," Talia didn't let him speak. "And I'm sorry, because I'd like to see you more and spend more time together. Now, imagine how I felt when you called me mother, and your father by his name when we were together earlier."
She saw him purse his lips in a thin line, "He's okay with that, mother, he never punished me for..."
A bitter laugh escaped her. Of course Bruce would never punish him. He was too soft. Ra's would probably be delighted to see that result, thinking that his heir was still within reach. Obviously, he was wrong. Talia knew where Damian's reality was, and it certainly wasn't with Ra's.
"Of course your father never punished you for the total disrespect!,” she said, altered,” He's too soft, and he doesn't want you to hate him!”
Damian blinked, as if the very concept of hating his father was something aberrant. Good, at least he wasn't like the other one who had stolen his birthright, and Damian had let him do it.
“I don’t hate him…”
“Too bad he believes it, Damian. He's sure you hate him because you don't even give him the minimum amount of respect he deserves!"
Damian stiffened his shoulders. "I respect him..."
"You respect his other charity cases more than him,” Talia replied, failing to keep her bitterness at bay. She could admit that Cassandra Cain and Timothy Drake were good members of the strange family that Bruce had welcomed around him.
She still had a soft spot for Jason Todd, despite his past, and the little girl in purple was stubborn and reckless, but she had been good to Damian. There was also the metahuman, but Talia didn’t think much about him.
But Richard Grayson, she couldn't appreciate him. He had stolen Damian's birthright; everyone considered him Bruce's true son, when he could not aspire in the slightest to the greatness of her beloved, and above all, he did not love Bruce.
Talia could have turned a blind eye to everything else, but she couldn't tolerate that: Grayson had a huge debt to Bruce. A debt that he could never have fully repaid.
And he dared to treat Bruce as if he had ruined his life!
How dared he?
"Those charity cases are his children, and none of them calls him father," Damian didn’t hesitate for a second to defend them, proving himself once again to be the son of his father. Ah, their strange love for strays. She could never understand it.
Talia sniffed, "So you want to be like them? Like Grayson?"
"They're family, and if family..."
"If family disrespects him, then you do too?"
Her gaze was sharper than a hundred knives. She had always told Bruce that one day he would pay for his indulgence, and she was right.
Here are the results of giving those children the space they needed. All of them took her beloved for granted. Or they resented it for the wrong reasons. What did a man have to do to be considered a parent, if not even blood was enough?
"I raised you better than that, Damian. Your father deserves better than to suffer from your lack of strength."
"He's not suffering..."
"Then you've also gone blind, Damian. Every time you try to be like the rest of the family, you stab him in the heart. But it's more important to you to be like everyone else, isn't it? You don't care that your legitimate father feels like he did everything wrong and that he's a terrible person! "
The boy swallowed and asked, in a voice so little, "How do you know? He…he didn’t say anything."
She gave a sad smile. "I know beloved like the back of my mind. His suffering is my suffering. His pain is my pain. We may no longer be married, and our paths may have taken us in different directions. But I know him. I know how much you're hurting him. And sadly, I know that it's a pain that isn't caused by you alone."
A long pause, to give herself a chance to calm down and Damian to think about what she had said to him, then, "I'll talk to him tomorrow. He must know that it's not his fault, but that the Universe has punished him with unworthy children."
"Bruce has no unworthy children! We…" Damian blurted out defensively, before being filled with the same horror Talia knew was on her face.
Bruce, not father. He can no longer call him father or baba or something similar. And this, this was worse than anything Ra's had ever done to her.
Talia felt like she was dying as she said, "You don't know how much it kills me, Damian, to have to consider you as unworthy as them."
"Mother..."
"No, if your father is Bruce, then call me Talia. It's just correct like that, don't you think? So you can be like everyone else, even you parentless and ..."
"Talia, stop."
Batman descended from the sky like a dark nightmare, landing in their midst. Talia didn't bat an eyelid. "You were quick."
"Did you think I wouldn't notice my son's absence?" he asked, and oh, all that love, the love that was once just for her. Bruce had too big a heart. It was obvious that he was in so much pain.
She looked at Damian. "He has no difficulty calling you son. He has no difficulties with anyone. And yet you..."
"Talia, stop."
"I know you don't want to be in the wrong, but beloved... Damian must know that he was wrong. And that there are consequences for his actions. He can't keep hurting you because of his ignorance."
Batman shook his head. "You can't force people to love you."
Damian jumped. Talia glanced at him, but was unable to feel vindicated by the proof that she was right. Bruce didn't deserve to feel this way.
"You're right. Too bad you don't want to listen to my advice and get rid of the hassle."
Batman clenched his jaw. "My children are not a nuisance. None of them."
She shrugged, "Don't tell me I didn't tell you. Damian... Remember what I told you. Continue to disrespect your father, and you will not even have a mother anymore."
"Talia..."
But she didn't wait to hear his reprimand, nor did she want to fight with him about people who weren't worth it - and yes, she loved Damian with all of herself, but if he insisted on acting so crude, he had to bear the consequences, even if it killed her. She jumped off the roof, hoping that Damian would listen to her for once. That he could understand how lucky he was to have a father who loved him, unlucky Talia.
And maybe it wasn't too late to visit Grayson and give him a piece of her mind...