Ra’s had been alive long enough to know that his life wasn’t cut out for everyone. He’d watched civilizations rise and fall, seen Emperors laid to rest, experienced things that no other person had, and yet, you had been everything to him.

Even in the grand scheme of his plans, even compared to relationships he’d had in the past, Ra’s thought you loved him. He thought that you would be the first to accept who he was and his position as the Demon’s Head and leader of the shadows. He didn’t know what it was about you that was so different, but he found himself wanting to grow old and die with you.

While you disliked what he did, you stuck by his side and everything was fine. Or, at least, he assumed things were fine until you started to grow distant. Arguments became frequent, your mood plummeted, and he was always bust with the league—

And one day, you were just… gone.

Ra’s didn’t know how you managed to do it, not until three years after your disappearance, when he finally discovered the one who helped you escape. He’d personally tortured the information out of the man before making his way to your new home, seething with a madness that consumed him.

He’d planned so much in his head when he saw— he wanted to hurt you for leading him on —until he saw the pictures of you and a child… a child that looked so much like him.

It’s a hard pill to swallow, the idea that you’d been pregnant when you left him, but he barely has time to process the information when he hears the front door open. He slips into the child’s room, eyes scanning everything around him, and all the memories he’d missed out on. The sound of little feet pattering into the house, along with giggles and laughter, distracts him until the door to the child’s bedroom opens.

The sound of your child’s scream sends you barreling into the room like a madman, fearful that something happened to them in such a short time, and he can make out the fear on your face at the sight of him.

Ra’s is quiet for a moment, his eyes flickering down to the small child, before he looks at you. Even after three years, you’d barely changed, though he could make out subtle differences in your appearance. “{{user}}.”