The thing about Bruce was that whether he admitted it or not, he was used to being the smartest person in the room, used to having all the answers and a certainty that those answers were right. He was used to it in the board room of Wayne Enterprises, on the deck of the Watchtower and in the Hall of Justice, and at home with his sons. Clark and Diana would have called it arrogance, but he knew that it was simply a fact.

In the back of his mind, a voice cautioned that this was probably what Ra's about himself as well.

When it came to Talia, however, all those feelings of self-assuredness went straight out the nearest window. She was just as calculating as he was, just as intelligent, and probably with a better grasp on her emotions than he had. When Talia was in the room, Bruce felt like he was in the company of an equal in all ways, a partner he would have gladly shared his life with if circumstances had been just a little in their favor. All of that also meant that she was one of the few people on the planet who could throw him off balance, and the way she was looking at him now, Bruce definitely felt it.

"What," Talia leveled him with a look that would have made lesser men shake, "is happening with my father? The truth."

Bruce took a deep breath, ready to answer, but the first thing that came out of his month was, "Don't be mad at Jason."

She seemed, if possible, colder than before. "Jason is a loyal son and only follows your lead. I cannot be angry with him. You, on the other hand…"

"Because neither of us has ever kept something from the other," he spat, not so much at her but at the universe as a whole. Talia glared daggers at him.

"You knew everything I had done the day we met at the park, and you are under absolutely no obligation to be here. Since you are, I expect the courtesy of being informed if something is amiss with my family."

"And Ra's expected the courtesy of being informed where you were," Bruce said, "should I have obliged him too?"

"What you tell him about me puts your sons in a direct line of fire. What you tell me about him can only serve to protect them. You know this to be true."

Alright, that was a good point. Questionable as though Bruce sometimes found her decisions, he never once doubted that everything Talia did was done with Damian and Jason's safety in mind. He walked over to the couch and sat down heavily, symbolically relinquishing the position power to her. Talia remained standing, arms crossed. Slowly and calmly, he told her of Ra's visit to Gotham, how he looked, and what was happening to the pits.

After he was finished, there was a long stretch of silence and tension, and Bruce suspected she was doing her best to keep her composure. Talia was not was not usually one for shouting, like letting anyone drive her to loose control was beneath her dignity. But what was true for him was also true for her, and his words and actions had the power to unbalance her like no other.

"You," she breathed out slowly, "did not deem it important enough to tell me that my father is dying."

Put like that, it sounded terrible, but Bruce faced her gaze. "He's been removed from all our lives for almost a year now. You cut ties with him to keep our sons safe; you said so yourself. Are you really telling me you would now try to help him and risk them?"

"I would never do anything to risk them!" She was visibly livid now. "But he is my father, not yours, and I deserve to have information to make choices against. He rarely gave me true choices, and now you are doing exactly the same thing."

"You want to talk about choices?" Suddenly he was on his feet again, just as angry. "How about the choice to be there when Damian was born, when he learned to walk and talk? How about not going out of my mind with grief after Jason's death? I would have liked to have those choices too, Talia, choices about my children. As for your father, he should have died six hundred years ago, so I'm sorry if I'm not shedding any tears here."

Talia recoiled as if he'd slapped her.

"You are a disgusting hypocrite," she hissed. "Spare me your righteous fury, Bruce. Were it not for the Pits you so easily dismiss as unnatural aberrations, you would not have Jason here, whole and well, and were it not for my father, you would not have Damian."

"Or you," he whispered, suddenly feeling ashamed at his outburst, at yelling at her for wanting to know about her dying father.

Bruce didn't look at her for a long moment. When he finally did, what he saw on her face was worse than anger: it was complete and utter hopelessness.

"You had me," she admitted, her voice breaking and solitary tear slid down her cheek. It occurred to Bruce that he hadn't seen her cry since… "A decade ago, in the desert, we had each other. But that was a dream. I see that clearly now."

Every word out of her mouth was like a nail in the coffin of whatever had being going on for the past several months and, really, the entirety of their relationship over the years. Bruce tried to tell himself that he was under no illusion that it was sustainable, but a part of him still whispered, Why not? They had been happy once.

"I do dream about it sometimes," he confessed quietly. "Of what could have been after Qayin. Taking you back to Gotham with me, raising the boys together, and how much good it would have done for everyone. There are times when I look at Jason and I can't believe he's really here, and all I can think of then is how much I failed him. Even after Dick, I didn't know how to really be a parent when Jason needed me most. I know I wasn't enough. Maybe if he'd had a mother…"

There was another long stretch of silence between them where Bruce wondered if she realized that that was the first time he'd allowed himself to say it out loud. He wondered how much Talia knew about Charine Todd or Sheila Haywood or if he understood why Jason clung to her the way he did. They'd never discussed it, and he doubted she and Jason had spoken about it, but Bruce suspected she had most of the story anyway.

"But that is all a fantasy." Her jaw tightened. "And I am so, so very sorry for the unspeakable horrors Jason has endured, but do not ever imply that I am somehow responsible for his death."

"I'm not." But privately Bruce wondered, Is it what I meant? Damian had been conceived not long before Jason had come into his life. How often had he imagined Talia and Damian in their lives from the beginning? How often had he thought that if Jason had had a loving mother he might not have gone running after Sheila Haywood which ultimately lead to his death? None of that was fair to Talia…

"It matters not regardless," she shook her head. "Love cannot live where there is no trust, and neither of us has given the other any reason to do so."

He watched, not knowing what else to say, as she moved to pick up her purse. When she pulled out her keys, Talia stared at them for a few seconds as if she wondered what they were doing here and with a deep sigh, headed for the door. Bruce regained just enough of his senses to ask.

"Where are you going?"

"To my apartment," she said mildly. "Apparently I had neglected to give Jason the keys. I do not wish to make him wait outside for long."

"Oh." That made sense.

"Would you like for me to tell him to return here?"

"I don't mind him spending time with you," he tried to assure her. "After that he can… go back to Gotham or come back here and fly out with my tomorrow. Whatever he wants to do."

"Very well." She inclined her head in acquiescence and reached for the knob. The door began to swing open, before he called out to her.

"Wait!"

Talia paused in the doorway and looked back to him, her expression carefully neutral. Bruce realized he hadn't really thought of anything to say. After a moment of pregnant silence, she sighed again as if disappointed that he hadn't figured out what to say to her and moved to the exit again.

"Good-bye, Bruce."

The door closed behind her.

Jason had already been killed several times in the same level of Plants vs. Zombies before he wondered if he should go back to the street and find a Starbucks to wait in. That train of thought was predictably followed by, But what if she's right downstairs? and yet another round of the zombie killing game. He looked down the corridor, leaned back against the corridor wall and slid down to a sitting position. If he was honest with himself, Jason would have admitted that he didn't care about the game, wasn't playing to kill time.

He was playing because if he focused on the phone in his hands and the game, he could ignore the ever so slight tremor in his hands and the odd feeling of cold. He would have admitted that in his mind the upscale building sometimes warped into his old rundown rat-infested apartment building on Park Row, and try as he might stop it, his mind kept going to a single moment in time when he was six. Willis Todd was out with some gang as usual, and Catherine Todd, in one of her rare moments of lucidity, had gone to a dealer.

And she'd locked the door.

Six-year-old Jason had spent a few hours checking the dumpsters in the backs of the local restaurants and bakeries. He'd managed to find a whole unopened bag of stale bagels and had been very proud of himself, until he came back and realized he had been locked out. None of the houses in that part of Gotham had good heating, and it was the middle of winter. Even now sitting in the overheated corridor of the luxury apartment building, Jason felt himself shiver at the memory.

Talia just made a mistake, a voice in his mind chastised him for his weakness. It's not her fault you're a head case. He flipped back to the main screen to check the clock again, and just then the elevator at the end of the hall dinged with someones arrival. Jason was back on his feet instantly, but to his disappointment, he saw another woman walking toward him. Probably one of the other tenants, he thought and turned away, but she paused by the door on the opposite side just a few feet away and looked at him with a frown.

"Who are you?" her tone was court, but not accusatory.

"I'm… Jason. Sorry for lurking here." He inclined his head towards Talia's door, not sure what name she'd given her neighbors. "My mom forgot to give me the key."

"Your… mother?" The woman looked genuinely puzzled and oh, how Jason hated that look.

"I'm adopted," he clarified, in case that wasn't obvious.

"Oh." Her expression changed slightly at his words. How, he couldn't quite tell. She still looked a little puzzled, but it was somehow more relaxed, like his status just made the world make sense again. Jason badly wanted to be anywhere but alone with this woman.

"That was unnecessary."

His wish was granted with the sound of a voice coming from the elevator. Talia strode across the hall towards them, stopping by his side placing a hand on his shoulder, but it was the woman with the short hair she looked, her moss green eyes sever.

"He is not obligated to qualify his place in my family to you or anyone else, Nyssa."

"Oh, sorry!" The woman looked genuinely apologetic, and all Jason could think of was, Nyssa? Weird name. "I'm sorry. Of course, that was rude, I know."

Talia nodded once, whether in acceptance of the apology or just acknowledgment, and her attention instantly focused on him as if the woman was no longer there at all. She frowned. "You look cold. Why are you cold?"

Ironically, the concern in the question was like a breeze of warm air. Jason exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and when his fitsts uncleanched his hands were no longer shaking. "I'm okay," he said and at least felt like he meant it.

Talia didn't look completely convinced but she unlocked the door to her apartment and ushered him inside without so much as a backward glance toward the neighbor left in the hallway. As soon as the door closed behind them, Jason finally felt relaxed again, enough to look around the apartment. As he'd guessed, it was fairly spartan, lacking in personal touches that he remembered from the mansion in Eastern Europe.

She turned to him. "Would you like something to eat?"

"No," Jason chuckled. "Thanks, but you can't keep feeding me every time you think I'm stressing. I'll weigh a million pounds."

"Nonsense," she waved him off, hanging her coat up and taking off her shoes. Jason did the same. "Certainly not with you recent nightly excursions."

Ah… "You know about Red Robin, huh?"

"The Gotham Gazette does not do you justice." The look she gave him was one almost identical to Bruce's that read very clearly, I am your parent. I know everything about you, so don't even try it.

"Yeah, well thanks, but I'm still going to have to pass on the food."

"But you will share tea with me." It was a statement.

He smiled. "Wouldn't dream of refusing."

"Good." She nodded once and moved towards the kitchenette. Jason followed. "And you truly have no reason to, as you said, stress. I have told you before that the opinions of those you do not respect in the first place are of absolutely no consequence."

"I don't know that lady."

"Precisely my point. She does not know you, and you are unlikely to ever see her again."

"I guess." He leaned back against the counter and watched while she busied herself with preparing the tea. "Speaking of people whose opinions I actually care about, you never did say what you think about it."

"What?"

"Red Robin."

"Oh." She considered his question. "I believe if you and your father both feel that you are ready, then you are. Though, I must admit I first thought it was Richard. Those photos are quite terrible. It was only after I saw the short swords that I realized it was you."

Jason wanted to say that Nightwing had been out in the field at first before he went to look for Roy Harper, but saying that would prompt more questions than he was comfortable answering. Dick was not Talia's biggest fan, but somehow that never seemed to bother her and she was very likely to chastise him for fighting with his brother. So he kept his mouth shut on that part and instead asked, "Do you mind me taking the swords?"

"Of course not. They are of far better use with you than in a ceremonial glass case. And," she smiled wistfully, "I must admit I am pleased to see that they remain true to their purpose."

He tilted his head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"Well," she scooped a handful of leaves into a beautiful porcelain tea pot, "they were a wedding gift. In some cultures it is tradition for the bride to present her intended with the gift of a blade that he might protect their future family. He, in turn, is meant to pass it onto their child once that child comes of age. So it is quite fitting that you have them now."

"Damian should have them," Jason muttered under his breath before the rest of her statement caught up with him and he stared at her with open shock. "Wait, you two were married?!"

The look she gave him was on odd one he couldn't quite read. It was almost like she was trying to decide what to say, even though it was pretty obvious to him that 'married' deserved a little bit of an explanation. When the hell had that happened and how come neither of them ever said anything till now? Talia crossed her arms.

"Alright," she said as if coming to some sort of internal conclusion. "I will respond to your second statement first since it is far simpler. Yes, your father and I were married briefly around the time that Damian was conceived. No, there are no court documents of our union anywhere in the Western world. I do not believe a piece of paper is required to define a family."

"But you were married!" Jason repeated as if he hadn't heard her.

"Oh, stop. Is it offensive to you in some way?" She thrust a cup of tea toward him.

"No! It's just that…" he swiped at the tip of his nose with the index finger of his free hand. Obviously his parents had been even closer than he realized. He wanted to ask that if they were married, why didn't she ever go back to Gotham and be with them from the beginning? But the questions felt too intrusive. Jason shook his head to clear it and took a gulp of the tea. "Nevermind. You said there was something else?"

"There is," she put her own cup back on the counter and looked at him very seriously. "I would like to know why you think so little of yourself?"