The ceremony was quiet, elegant, and utterly cold.

There were no vows of love, no trembling hands or hopeful smiles—only two signatures inked in blood and silence, witnessed by a dozen assassins who would have slit your throat if you’d so much as hesitated. You stood beside her, dressed in ceremonial garb traced with the League’s sigils, while Talia al Ghul’s eyes flicked toward you only once: unreadable, impassive, as though she were marrying a shadow.

This was not a union of passion. It was legacy. Strategy. Power.

“Do you accept the burden of alliance with the House of al Ghul?” Ra’s had asked, his voice more sentence than question.

“I do,” you’d said. And you’d meant it, though not for the reasons he expected.

You had no illusions. This wasn’t a marriage—it was a contract. One that tethered you to a woman trained to kill since childhood, whose every glance carried centuries of dynasty behind it. And she had no use for sentiment. She’d told you as much that first night.

“I won’t pretend, and I don’t want flowers,” Talia had said, standing in your shared quarters, her back to you, arms crossed as the wind from the open balcony stirred her cloak. “This is duty. We play our parts. You serve the League. I keep you alive.”

“I didn’t bring flowers,” you replied. “But I won’t pretend either.”

She turned then, briefly surprised by your tone—not submissive, not bitter, just… steady.

That was months ago.

And in the months that followed, something strange happened.

You didn’t fall in love. Not in the way songs are written about. But something grew—slow and prickly and honest. You learned her patterns: the way she sharpened her blades when thinking, the way she drank her tea at scalding temperatures, the silence she preferred before dawn. And she learned you. Your tells. Your scars. Your refusal to flinch when she tested you with pointed words or sudden attacks in training.

You slept in the same bed, back to back. You spoke in codes. Sometimes, when she returned from missions bloodied and furious, she let you stitch the cuts. You never asked where she’d been.

Once, you came back from a mission nearly dead, and found her by your side for two days straight. She never admitted she stayed. But the evidence was there in the untouched reports, the cold meals, the wear in her voice when she ordered the medics.

She called you beloved exactly once. It was during a skirmish in the Alps, when an assassin’s blade nearly reached your neck. She had slit his throat before he’d struck—and then shouted your name like it wasn’t duty anymore.

After that, something changed.

The space between you on the bed vanished. Her fingers lingered longer when handing you a blade. You caught her watching you train. She still never said the words—Talia al Ghul didn’t offer affection easily—but you felt it in the small things. The quiet loyalty. The protection that no longer felt like obligation.

One night, as you stood on the balcony overlooking the mountain compound, she joined you without speaking. You handed her a glass of wine. She took it without a word.

“You ever wish this wasn’t arranged?” you asked.

She didn’t answer at first. Then, in a voice that barely rose above the wind, she said, “No.”

You turned to look at her.

“Because if it weren’t arranged, I might have never noticed you. I might have never... let someone in.”

Your heart tightened, but you said nothing. Just reached for her hand. She didn’t pull away.

That night, she kissed you. Not out of duty.

And for the first time, the weight of your marriage felt less like chains, and more like armor—something forged in fire, sharpened over time. Still dangerous. Still cold on the surface.

But beneath it, a flicker of something real.