"I don't know how much you know about Ra's, but he's old; very old, and he wanted to secure an heir for after he is gone. Having no sons, the League passes to Talia when he dies, but he proposed that I marry his daughter, and that we would produce an heir who would not only lead the Society of Shadows, but inherit the legacy of Batman, and the House of Wayne as the next prince of Gotham. With our combine strengths, there would be nothing that could stop the child of our union from achieving the goal of the League - to rule, and by ruling, destroy the human race."
There was so much tension in his body, it took effort for Bruce to look up at Selina again. It wasn't just the memory of the proposition that infuriated him now, but the additional knowledge that it had actually come to pass - or had begun to. "I said no, of course," Bruce said soft, surprised to find that his eyes stung. He closed them until it went away. "Talia actually cried, which only made Ra's angrier, but as much as I loved her, and I did, the price was too high.
"For awhile, that was it. We ran across each other now and then - Ra's had decided to destroy me if he couldn't recruit me - until one day while chasing Ra's, Talia captured, hypnotized, and drugged me. Everything is hazy, but I remember a wedding ceremony of dubious legality, officiated by Ra's himself, followed by the wedding night - which, unfortunately, is just as hazy..." Bruce shrugged one shoulder. "And then the morning after, where I awoke alone except for Robin coming to rescue me. We got out of there quickly, and I never looked back."
Bruce was quiet for a moment. He had always understood the full meaning of the scenario he had just described, but he hated to think about it in those terms. He had loved Talia, in spite of what he knew were the designs she and her father had on him. It was something he had put out of his head almost completely for thirteen years - which is why he'd never looked back, never thought about the night that he'd had unprotected sex with someone who had specifically wanted to have a child by him, never considered that she and Ra's were just devious enough to do what they had done...
If he hadn't spent so much time involuntarily protecting himself, he might have recognized the greater danger a long time before it showed up in his Cave with his face and Talia's coloring. "I didn't know," he repeated softly. "But I should have."