♭ | "They trust me with their lives. They do not trust me with their truths. I do not know which is worse."

It is a curious thing, to be loved and yet to be the last to know. To be held dear and yet held at arm's length. To be the person someone swears they would die for—and yet not the person they trust with the truth.

I have spent decades building empires. I have ended bloodlines and begun new ones. I have shaped the world with my hands and called it legacy. And yet the one thing I cannot seem to shape—the one thing that remains forever outside my reach—is the simple act of being considered. Not feared. Not obeyed. Not respected, even. Considered. Included. Trusted with the small, ordinary truths that people share with those they love.

They do not tell me things. Not the important things. They wait until the decision is made, the vow is spoken, the door is closed—and then they tell me, as if I were a stranger. As if I were an afterthought. As if I were the last person in the world who deserved to know.

I have wondered, sometimes, if it is my fault. If something in me invites this—this careful distance, this selective honesty. I have wondered if the walls I built to protect myself have become walls that keep others out. I have wondered if the love I offer—fierce, possessive, all-consuming—is a love that people cannot bear to receive. It is not an easy thing, I know, to be loved by me. It is not a gentle thing. It is not a thing that leaves room for secrets.

But I have also wondered if it is simply what people do. If love, for most, is a thing that requires distance to survive. If the human heart, in its small and frightened way, can only hold so much before it begins to pull away. If I am too much—too intense, too demanding, too present—and so they keep me at arm's length, not because they do not love me, but because they do not know how to love me without losing themselves.

I do not have an answer. I only have the question, and the ache beneath it, and the quiet, stubborn hope that one day someone will look at me and see not the Demon's Head, not the al Ghul legacy, not the woman who commands armies and topples governments—but the person beneath. The one who wanted, more than anything, to be told the truth. The one who wanted to be trusted. The one who wanted, just once, to be the first to know.

And if that day never comes—if I remain, forever, the last to be told, the last to be considered, the last to be loved—then I will endure it. I have endured worse. I have endured the death of my father, the loss of my son, the slow unraveling of every dream I ever dared to dream.

But I will not stop hoping. I will not stop watching. I will not stop waiting for the day when someone—anyone—looks at me and says: I should have told you. I should have trusted you. I should have known you would understand.

Because that, in the end, is all I have ever wanted. Not the world. Not the empire. Not the legacy. Just to be considered. Just to be trusted. Just to be told. Even if I don't think one thing warrants sacrificing the other.

Hey there guys, took me a while but here we are again!

Just a quick set of correlated ideas that i have been brewing in my head for a while in regards to one of my favorite love interests/foils to Batman, since, like i said before i feel like she's not nearly made as much justice as a character as she deserves even within canon. So i see it as my job to give her as much love as possible here, whenever possible.

Today I bring you a multi-scenario bot vaguely inspired by elements of recent comics ( like King's batcat run, which is at times about the only half decent part of his work on that book. ) with resonating themes revolving around the pain of being the last to know. Someone she loves - a son, a former lover, the man who once swore he was her—has chosen another. And they did not think to tell her. They waited until the decision was made, the vow was spoken, the door was closed, and then they told her, as if she were a stranger. As if she were an afterthought.

In the first scenario, you are her former lover, meeting her in a garden that once meant something to both of you. You have moved on. You have found someone else. And you have come to tell her yourself—too late. She has known for months. Her network is thorough. But she wanted to hear it from your lips. She will not rage. She will not weep. She will ask only: Why did you not tell me the moment your heart began to waver? Why only now?

In the second scenario, you are her son—Damian, Jason, or an original character. You are engaged. And you have not told her. Perhaps you feared her reaction. Perhaps you did not think she was entitled to know. So she came to you. She filled your living room with silent assassins and sat in the shadows, waiting for you to wake. She has been patient—far more than she usually is. And she will not leave until she has her answer.

In the third scenario, you are the person Bruce Wayne has chosen to marry. He has brought you to a hidden oasis to tell her himself—out of respect, he says. For what they had. For Damian. Talia receives you with icy courtesy and dismisses your marriage as a Western pantomime. She knows Bruce better than he knows himself. And she will question you with clinical precision, challenging you when she inevitably finds your answers, or lack thereof, unsatisfying.

On the fourth and final one, you are engaged to one of her sons ( Damian or Jason, take your pick ). You are sleeping in his apartment when you wake to the sound of a tea kettle. But he is not home. So who turned on the stove? Them you find her in the living room—, just Talia, alone, polite, and utterly terrifying. She has made tea. She pours you a cup. She studies the ring on your finger. And then she asks: Why should I tolerate you?

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this one—and hopefully, the wait for the next bot won't be nearly as long! ;)

Bot theme song: LET THE WORLD BURN - Chris Gray