I put a shield upon you, I didn't mean to hurt you--

[dragonvariation]

Who: Ra's al Ghul and you~
When: Mostly after sirens on Sunday night - but also one Saturday thread, and open for threads for the rest of the week.
Where: In the Darkness across the city
Summary: Ra's goes out to investigate the Darkness for himself--with a special interest in the people who go out to fight it.
Warnings: Violence and monster guts

Comments

[kingofrooks]

It had taken time for Bruce to be used to the smell of the Darkness; to have the smell be delegated to the back of his head and not noticed - the second night, perhaps. He had rarely let these things affect him, not when there were people who still needed his help. Not necessary people who wanted it, but if Bruce only went to places where he was wanted he would have never gotten anything at all done. He worked base on necessity; it was Clark who chased the public's approval, for Bruce had made sure that they were often wrong-footed about his very existence.

Though, that was difficult here, on such a small island on such a smaller population. With the Joker and Black Mask. They knew he existed- and as a result he used to be a wanted man. Used to be only on the virtue that he was reported dead at one point. There was more than enough proof of Batman's existence- yet his methods and intentions were still a mystery.

Which was simply what Bruce was used to. If they knew him too well, he would be predictable- and he wasn't foolish enough to be drawn into such an obvious threat.

But he kept habits, nonetheless. Regular patrols, swinging across the rooftops of streets in the Darkness, doggedly chased by the monsters he had killed and killing more to save those who would otherwise have been victimized. Something greater than this should be done in order to make sure that the Darkness-proofing didn't continue to fail, that there was enough for all families, but that was a job for Bruce Wayne and not Batman. Bruce Wayne existed only in daylight, so he shelved the thought- especially when he saw that man standing on one of the other rooftops.

He changed directions slightly, taking care to not use the shadows - that was a crutch if he used it too much - and instead used his grapple line. From here, he could see the suede of his gauntlets. Light zinc. A balaclava and a black suit. Bruce's lips twisted, and he landed- entirely silent, the air around himself barely moving with the landing.

"You're a fool."

[dragonvariation]

Waiting always rewarded in the end. Tonight, it rewarded early, for his 'wildlife' watching was already beginning to pay off. The Gotham Greater-Eared Bat; larger than any other variety across North America, and twice as dangerous, though nobody had ever been killed by one--so to speak.

Batman's landing was utterly silent. It had taken Henri time to teach him that, because rich people were often clumsy, and their large houses had no ears to care that someone was making too much noise. Fighting in silence was an art, but he had taught him how to catch his weight from considerable heights, to take the shock and sound of landing through his legs and back.

But he hadn't taught him to wear a cape.

"And you make too much noise," he answered. "For a creature of shadow and darkness."

He turned, his pale, sharp eyes finding the white lenses of the cowl, the familiar jaw. To this man he was just another fool, someone playing vigilante in the Darkness, someone who had no business out here. Let him believe it--the trappings of masquerade went a long way toward concealing his identity, after all, the first layers that he would need to survive here.

[kingofrooks]

The calm was something unexpected for a supposedly new vigilante haunting the night- but the voice was something even more difficult to swallow. That was Aslan's voice. Much sharper, much more human without the steady calm and godly wisdom threaded in every word- but that was still undeniably Aslan's voice. His voice in a body that looked nothing like a lion- and, more important, in a body that not once had held itself like a God. There was something in his body language that spoke of arrogance; a look in his eyes that spoke of judgment. Nothing that he could have ever found when it came to Aslan. No, this man was-

Entirely human, but with a god's voice. Bruce's eyes narrowed slightly, watching him. Taking note of how he stood, how he looked at Bruce. It was a warrior's stance that this man was holding, with his feet apart and shoulders loose but ready to spring. A stance of a trained warrior so used to his own strength that he had stopped noticing it.

Black. Black with gloves, able to turn and anticipate Batman's presence even before he announced himself. He most likely heard the soft snap of the cape- sharper hearing than most, or perhaps trained to be able to pick out important sounds from the general noise of the island. A trained warrior dressed in black. This was almost entirely too cliche.

The fact that he recognized Batman said nothing - a native who have long known about the rumours of his existence; a clever enough Newcomer with access to an NV would realize he existed in two minutes. He had to be clever enough, to have that light in his eyes.

Bruce had been silent for precisely twenty-seven seconds. He stood up, and played within the boundaries of this man's expectations. His first words had set the parameters, and though the parry had redefined it- Bruce wasn't going to let him the new limits so easily.

"How arrogant, for a rookie with no business being here to try to lecture me." He let his lips curl even as he rocked back on his heels and stood in one fluid moment. Then, he took a step forward, then another- circling around him slightly. "What do you think you're doing?"

[dragonvariation]

Twenty-seven seconds. It was a magnificent pause for thought, and he wondered for a moment whether his once student considered lunging forward to pull the balaclava from his face, whether what he learnt from what he saw before him was sufficient enough to satisfy his curiosity; his overbearing need to understand. He wondered whether he would consider it hypocritical to pull away another man's mask while still hiding behind his own, or if so doing would be a justifiable hypocrisy.

It was twenty-seven seconds in which Ra's stood with an easy confidence despite his shoddy apparel. He did not wear the winged gauntlets of his uniform; gauntlets that Bruce himself had invoked in his own costume. In fact, there was nothing even remotely recognisable about him, and that was precisely the point.

Today was not a day for identities. It was not a day to address him as Bruce, as he wished to. Or perhaps not the moment for it--there was always opportunity to change his mind.

"If you would make accusations of ineptitude, Batman, then you should be able to support those words with actions."

He moved into an open fighting stance, and kept his shoulders turned in as Bruce circled him, internally judging him in just the same way as he had been judged. This man was broader than the vigilante he was familiar with. In places the definition of his muscles - almost impossible to see in the dark, was defined oddly. He was pockmarked with ancient war wounds, then, and older if the lines around his mouth meant anything. The costume was different, too.

Ra's had watched his posts, listened to his voice, studied Bruce Wayne too--the differences were dramatic. But the similarities were substantial.

"Lay a hit on me, and I will tell you why I'm here, as you so dearly wish to know."

[kingofrooks]

It was a fighting stance that he recognized. A reminder of Tibet, of old masters sliding their arms around him, adjusting the way he stood and punched and kicked and spun. For a moment, Bruce paused, looking at this man wearing a balaclava on his head, and wondered if he could take up the challenge and use it as a chance to flip the mask off this man's face. To look at what was underneath; to know exactly who carried a god's voice and yet acted so much like a man. But then again- would it be worth it? Would seeing a face tell him anything?

There was no hypocrisy here; his job was to know and not to be known. The notion of fair play was even more worthless, simply because Bruce was used to fighting monsters without honour. No, those parts of himself were sealed within in the night, hidden from the eyes of men such as these, and only pulled out of himself when there was a time and place for it- or, increasingly, none at all, simply because there was little room for such in his world. Honour was what he used against others, and he knew the pitfalls of keeping to such code; of keeping it obvious.

(Detective. The voice, however, was different.

He had only one code. The rest, he cared nothing about, as long as he could win. Ra's al Ghul knew that perfectly well.)

Bruce continued his steps until he was behind the masked man, looked at him for a long moment with his lips turned upwards and his teeth glinting in the light.

"I don't need to waste my time to know," his voice was a murmur, far to close against the man's skin before he darted backwards and away, taking another step forward. "Are you here to prove yourself, to be able to brag that you have fought a vigilante and won? Or are you pretending to be a hunter?"

His tone was almost conversational. Certainly mocking. He had no intention of giving this man the fight he wanted- not right now. "Given your dress, I guess the former."

Then he stepped back. With enough space to let himself be lunged at- if that was the move that this man chose to take.

[dragonvariation]

Ra's did not move, did not flinch or waver, and as Bruce made clear he intended to move behind him he straightened like a rod, closed his eyes, and listened. He felt Bruce's breath on his ear, more confident, more mired in mystery and masquerade than the Bruce that he knew. Older, he reminded himself.

And now he was actually trying to bait him into an answer? Into perhaps attacking him like some teenager? Maybe that had worked with Bruce back in his Ivy League college - 'I heard your mommy was a real MILF, maybe I'll go dig her up' - but to reflect it on an unknown ninja was just as childish--and a truly magnificent way of learning more about him.

Answer with rage and ineptitude and he showed that he was only here for a fight, that he was emotional, and probably young. By not, he was a greater threat, colder and sharper. Neither of the definitions that Bruce had given were accurate. He could beg to disagree, and belay an intense, immodest pride that Bruce would pick up on instantly, but by neither attacking nor disagreeing, he did so much more than that.

He implied a pride that bordered on equality.

"Why engage your opponent when you can learn so much about them without risk? A man who wishes to become a shadow must learn patience; he must learn to become a part of his surroundings. No shadow stands still in a strong wind."

Ra's opened his eyes, and looked over his shoulder.

"You duck and feint at me like a puppy biting at a coiled snake, but I am already well acquainted with your fangs."

[kingofrooks]

Another move on the board. Bruce knew instantly that he was dealing with someone who was far more dangerous than those suede gloves with those zince trimmings had first suggested. Those were mostly likely picked up in a hurry, then. Possibly at one of the budget costume shops selling the last of its stocks for Halloween- or the expensive ones, because this man didn't seem the type to walk into a shop and pay for his clothes when he could simply steal in and out. The operative word being, of course, steal.

The analysis only ran at the back of his mind. He was most occupied by the fact that this man knew him. That he understood how he worked, and saw himself as equal. A man whom he didn't recognise at all and who knew him. Bruce's eyes narrowed, imperceptible beneath the white lenses of his cowl, and watched him even more carefully.

There was something familiar about him, something that he couldn't put a finger on exactly. It was in his fluid grace that belied the tension wrought in his shoulders; in the casual arrogance of his words, as if he completely believed in his own superiority. There was an age in his movements, a certain twist of his shoulders- Bruce knew that he was at the edge of recognition, but he couldn't reach it. This was not a man he knew, no, but he reminded him incredibly much of someone else. Someone whose daughter had been here and left; whose grandson was Bruce's son.

Yet it couldn't be. Ra's al Ghul had never been this tall, imposing enough to tower over Bruce even with only two inches or so on him.

He tipped his head back until he could look down on him- then tilted his head to the side. A sort of casual disdain, and easy dismissal- everything calculated to hide the calculation and analysis in his eyes.

"Are you, really?" he murmured, and walked another half a circle around him, watching still, taking note of every movement, every breath. Like a predator circling the prey he had captured and chained.

"After all, the shadows I know will never move." A twist of the lips. "Not for gods, nor for monsters."

[dragonvariation]

"Then the shadows you know are obstinate. A staff buried in the ground and overcome by greater forces will eventually snap, but a tree bends with them, and outlasts them all."

Imagery, crisp and precise. The hint of shadows should have been enough, were this his Bruce, but something was wrong. By now he should have recognised him, found a name for him, but he was uncertain. The soft murmur said nothing specific, only hinted and questioned in an effort to make him reveal himself more boldly. There was some reason in particular why he was holding back, something specific about either his countenance, his voice or the first impression that was decidedly wrong; wrong enough to make Bruce hesitate.

It put him in a position of power, albeit a curious one. He knew who this man was, beneath the mask and in his heart, but he himself remained a mystery. He intended that it remain so, and so he stepped back, stepped onto the ledge behind him and once more took a defensive position--this one entirely different to the first, he was a master of them all.

Ra's raised his eyes in challenge.

"A shadow cannot be held in a man's hands. It is at once there and never was. It cannot slip through your fingers if you have yet to grasp it."

He sprang from the edge of the roof, back to being the slick alleycat, caught one hand on the bare, overhanging flagpole, and twisted his body around it until his weight instead carried him down into the alleyway below. When his legs found the ground the pain of the crash made a brief revisit upon him, but it was forgotten completely in the shrouded darkness of the alleyway. He waited--the game was not over yet.

[kingofrooks]

A man who spoke of shadows; a man who was bold enough to leap off the roof of a building knowing that he would land on his feet, like a cat. A man with great strength and ability, who could fight- who had the confidence and arrogance of a person who knew he was in the right and would always remain in the right. Authority conferred upon him not by himself, not by something as nebulous as god, but with the power that he had won for himself, step by step, sinking his fingers into each step of the ladder until he could push himself there.

Odd. There wee jigsaw pieces that didn't fit, sprawled into a mess at the side; pieces that fit together perfectly; pieces that blatantly contradict what he knew of Ra's al Ghul. An alternate universe version, then? Or someone else, an enemy he didn't have in his world, but who existed in another? Someone who obviously knew him - or a version of him, in another case.

Bruce was standing at the edge of the roof at this moment, watching the black figure. He reached up and switched on the night vision lenses of his cowl, then curled his lips out. Whoever this man was, he had decided on the exact wrong metaphor to use on Batman.

He stepped backwards, into the shadows- and stepped out at the same time he could hear the man's feet hitting the ground. It resounded, for he landed on shadows, on darkness, and Bruce's arm pushed past the shadows, out of the, and grabbed the man by his arm. He pulled him in, and at the same time grabbing him by his neck, tipping his head upwards. Then he pushed him a little bit more forward, taking a single step out of the shadows, such as the nose of his cowl and the white of his lenses shone in the meager streetlights.

"Wrong," he whispered, his mouth close enough to the other man's ear, his hand loose on his throat. "You might not be able to even grasp the shadows you see, perhaps, but I can master them. They serve me."

Then he let him go abruptly, stepping back into the shadows and turning within them. Walking out on the opposite side, facing this man whose mask he didn't even bother to take off, simply because he knew perfectly well that the face he saw beneath would tell him nothing.

"There is no greater force that will snap the staff, for it strong." He tested the waters. "Strong enough to hold up the castle beneath the sea." If this was truly Ra's al Ghul- in any world, he would understand the reference. He would know the loophole that Bruce left behind.

[dragonvariation]

This was not what Ra's had expected when he had moved to their new arena. Bruce did not come down after him, but stepped out from behind him as though he had been there all along, his hand around his throat, his grip on his arm a gentle test of strength. He allowed himself to be moved back out of the light and into black, enshrouding darkness, closer to the shadows than he had ever been in his life.

"You've learnt to adapt, to use new tools at your disposal despite your pride," he said, speaking to the black shadows before Bruce once more appeared ahead of him. The white lenses of the cowl were bright and menacing in the dark, but they scared him not.

Quietly, Ra's tilted his head. This was still the Bruce he knew intellectually, but if anything he'd grown yet more. All that mind that had been so diverted as a child was now acute and brilliant. His own lips twisted beneath the balaclava.

"But is the weight you bear truly worth it?" he asked. "A man who carries such weight must also have the strength to bear it. He must be able to fashion it into a weapon, or it is simply an iron weight to drag him to his death. You bear the weight of your parents' deaths," he said, sharply. "And it is your weapon. But how many other deaths burden your shoulders now, Bruce? How many have you failed to save?"

With a single name, he announced a new game between them.

Henri Ducard--it was Henri Ducard that he would keep secret, keep for the bright coloured children of the night.

[kingofrooks]

Bruce.

The name sent a jolt through him, straightening his back and causing his hands to curl into an almost-fist by his side. He had been expecting it, after all - this man hadn't exactly been subtle with showing exactly how well he knew Batman, so much so that for him to be exposed was definitely a possibility. Yet at the same time, he knew Batman's identity (he wouldn't say 'real' identity) and at the same time, Bruce only suspected his. His lips pressed into a line.

It was a double-edged clue. Bruce was armed only with suspicions - solid enough suspicions, but suspicions nonetheless - to face off against this man's knowledge. But at the same time, the clue cut against this man too, because now Bruce had a strong idea of exactly who he was. What he was, and what he thought Bruce was.

He didn't call him 'Detective'. Not 'Wayne', either. No, he had called him Bruce- and yet within that carriage and the tip of the head, he was unmistakeable as Ra's al Ghul. As the leader of a League, with hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands falling over their feet in order to serve him, scraping and bowing. A man who knew exactly what he could do, and that it was limitless.

Yet different, as well. This wasn't the Ra's that Bruce knew from home, in a different body. No, it was not just the timbre of his voice that had changed, but the entire tone, the entire shape of the words. Bruce's lips curled upwards, and the jab against his parents slid off him like water off a duck's back.

But he could not show that. Not yet. He could not show the full extend of his differences from the man this Ra's al Ghul knew, until he could trap him with them. Until he knew for sure. Ra's might have checked him with one sudden move despite Bruce's winning formation, but Bruce would watch his play and his words until he could come back. In the mean time, he would pretend.

"You have no business speaking of the deaths I carry," low, angry, with his lips drawn back to reveal sharp, white teeth that gleamed beneath the black cowl. "Ra's al Ghul is a mass murderer, only better than a serial killer in the grandiosity of his mutterings."

And he waited.

[dragonvariation]

It was interesting. Bruce took it with his back solid, not with a jab at his jaw. He'd grown out of his childish impulsiveness too, the hard, cruel side to him that Ra's had known, the darkness inside of him, too. This man was unmistakeably dark, yes, but he was not the kind of man who would refuse to save his enemy simply because he was an enemy. This was not the Bruce that had sent him to his death, and perhaps never would.

It was a subtle thing to learn by actions, because even the words spoke to contradict them, but Ra's had read enough during his day in the apartments to learn things.

He'd seen the Joker's post, for example. A man that was Batman's enemy, reborn with him. Free, not because he was good at staying free, but because he couldn't stay caught. The kind of man that the League of Shadows would put down without hesitation (such unpredictability couldn't be dependable), and yet Bruce had not. No, this was a different man.

"Is that really any way to speak of an old friend?"

Now Ra's met the flat whiteness of his eyes with challenge.

"And I believe the word you're looking for is 'genocidal.' As I recall you never disagreed with my conclusions, only my prescription. Tell me, Bruce, what do you prescribe for this city?"

[kingofrooks]

'An old friend'. An odd way to try to qualify their relationship; an odd wish to try to describe it at all. The Ra's al Ghul he knew had always been nebulous, both an enemy and the father of the woman he (had once) loved; both the man who had done the most harm in to the world and the grandfather of Bruce son. The man who would respect his nemesis, giving him the name of 'Detective' and proposing that he became his heir- and the despicable creature who would use his own grandson, stolen and made with that nemesis's flesh, as his new body. Who would dug out his brain and soul and replace them with his own. To live in his own grandson's corpse just to save his own life.

And most importantly, he was a man who was unmistakeably an immortal. His arrogance was one whose mortality had been ripped from him; who knew that he might grow old but he would never die. Death stopped meaning anything for him anymore, for if he died all he would need to do was to take a bath and he would rise from the water revived. Resurrections were plentiful and easy. An immortal who thought himself a god because he had access to the Lazarus Pits; because he had lived more than five hundred years.

This man was different. His arrogance burned hot, not cold, and there was a light in his eyes that no immortal would ever have. The challenge Bruce saw in them right now was one that he would've never seen in the eyes of the Ra's al Ghul he knew, simply because Batman might be his nemesis, but he was mortal- and hence never truly equal to him. No, this man- this man could die. This man had never known immortality; had never tasted the bitterness of the Pits.

He was a thousand times more dangerous.

"You might recall that, but I recall nothing," his lips quirked, and he confirmed it, laid it out in the open. I am not the man that you know. And, underneath, You are not the one I know either, unspoken beneath the silenced.

"But I doubt our opinions differ. The city isn't beyond saving." There was a soft murmur of approval from the city herself, but Bruce didn't listen too closely.

"Not a single person here is."

[dragonvariation]

"Saving. Look around you, Bruce. The people here live in fear of every night, and their lives are owned by the corporations by day. There is no benign company seeking to solve their problems for them, and no rumbling of revolution, only contempt for the few people who do try to exact change.

"And you are out each night and every night, fighting monsters who only multiply with every visit. An endless cycle, because the people you help never do learn to stay inside."

There were monsters here now, but Ra's was deeply involved in this conversation, and not in the mood to stop, even for a moment. His hand slipped into his inside breast pocket, and with a flick of his wrist he loosed two throwing stars into the night. They struck both creatures - low, cat like monsters - in the very centre of their foreheads, and they collapsed to the ground.

Ra's sighed, his attention returned to the bat.

"Even you must realise that your solution is an ineffective one. Eventually the man who fights to keep his head above water will drown. You must instead swim down and drain the sea."

Though he trusted Bruce to have sense in many things, this ridiculous belief that he could somehow overcome all of the world's problems by attacking them one at a time was the least sensible of all. He would have been able to turn that intelligence to something useful at the head of his men, commanding the League of Shadows. Instead he simply beat at them in the darkness like bothersome flies. Prioritising one person over the good of many.

[kingofrooks]

The sleight of hand caught his attentions just a little bit more than the the words. Words were common, a weapon that Bruce was used to seeing from this man. But the throwing stars... Ra's al Ghul commanded a league of assassins; he rarely dirtied his own hands, and when he did, he used a sword. Bruce had defeated him enough to know exactly how he moved, how he fought, and the weapons he preferred- and throwing stars were low on the list.

Another difference, then. There was something incredibly dangerous here. He was in danger of committing the same mistake with Ra's as he had with Clark, but there was nothing as easy with this man. If Bruce miscalculated, if he misstepped, if he misjudged this Ra's al Ghul's actions... it would be the city as whole in danger, not just himself.

He couldn't forget. If he had never became Batman, if his parents had never died, then Gotham would have a statue of Ra's standing on its grand, reaching up tall to the skies. He would be happy yet worthless, with rows and rows of graves for the other heroes, until Superman was the only one left.

It had never been just his own life at stake. Simply because of men like these- those who spoke of cleansing. Cleansing for the sake of the people themselves, committing genocide like cutting out an infected wound. Getting rid of people who was better off dead. Bruce's lips quirked, and he was amused, simply because-

"You sit up in your mountain, surrounded by shadows and assassins, and you know nothing." Softly, he spoke, without mockery, without harshness. Only pity- and in that pity, it was sharper than any anger could have been. "I might drown, but it is better than to have never swam at all. The monsters here have lived better than you have; the poorest resident have more courage - simply because they have lived, while you haven't."

He turned his back, took a step.

"Until you learn what it is like to be a man who spent his life's savings on improving the Darkness-proofing at his home, only to risk it all to open his doors to two children who had nowhere to go before their roof had fallen in and their mother was dead- then you can talk to me about any city or life not being worth saving." His head tipped back, and the white lenses gleamed in the Darkness.

"I don't think you ever will."

[dragonvariation]

Preferring weapons was all well and good, but Ra's had discovered after his first night here that he would rather fish the stars out of the brains of monsters killed from a distance than allow them near him 'alive.' There was an acid burn on his hand that attested to that. Necessity outdid preference, and he was on his own; the choice was not his to make.

He knew, though, that he had Bruce's full attention now, and even if he had contempt for his own Ra's al Ghul - as seemed likely by his sharp-toothed smiles, Bruce was treating him like a new enemy, an unknown quantity. Good. He would add to that unsurity.

"As we both know, you know nothing of my life. And you are wrong. I have lived. Lived, and loved, and lost. I have felt hope, and pain, and anger, for I was not always the Head of the Demon. I embraced the needy, and I even welcomed you into my home when you were lost. I helped you to help yourself bear the weight of your parents' deaths, and craft for yourself a mask galvanised by your own fear."

His expression was no less soft than it had been at the very beginning. Only his lips were hard; a thin, straight, unmoving line.

"A man who fights for hollow ideals is easy to defeat--a maniac, whose mind is only on results and cares not for the process. You know, don't you? I am purposeful, not insane. I have plans, and reasons for my actions; determination and resourcefulness that borders on your own. Tell me, Bruce, just how do you expect to stop me when you do not even understand who and what I am? What I stand for?"