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]

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?"

[kingofrooks]

There it was: confirmation. It was certain then that he was dealing with a completely different creature than what he was used to before, and any expectations, any lingering impressions of the Ra's al Ghul he had known before would only make him stumble and falter. It would make him underestimate this man, who was more dangerous in his mortality, in his living, than the immortal Ra's al Ghul could ever be.

But then again, Ra's al Ghul himself had lived, before. Bruce knew his story; knew he started off as a poor doctor amongst the Arabic sands, compassionate and reaching his hand out to everyone who ever needed help, healing them with all of his might. But he had fallen in the end, his wife murdered, and he had found the Lazarus Pits later on and became immortal. He had lived- and Bruce was falling into the trap of looking for similarities. For the same weaknesses and thought processes that he could use, because he was perfectly aware by now that this man would be his enemy.

He turned around fully, showing the full attention that he was giving Ra's. There was nothing Arabic about his features, despite the name. He was without a doubt Caucasian, with bright blue-green eyes- Bruce darted forward, faster than a shadow's fall, and he reached out and pulled down the mask from Ra's face, hard.

"You assume that I don't," he was close to him, close enough to breath against his skin. Close enough to notice each aspect of his features. The man was certainly Caucasian- British, most likely. Perhaps even Irish. "For a man berating me about making assumptions, you seem prone to make the same yourself."

Then he was starting back, keeping an arm's length between the two of them.

"Pride goesth before the fall, Ra's al Ghul."

[dragonvariation]

Ra's could have prevented it; should have, in fact, to keep to his plan, but when Bruce lunged for him he did not move. His eagle eyes were sharp, fierce, and he regarded Bruce with something akin to - though suitably distant from - love. This was his student, after all. Different, no longer his student, but the lines that he had been able to draw told a clear story. It told him how close to success he had been. How powerful his influence over the Bruce of his world had been.

"I know the difference between my own Bruce and you. It is as clear as night and day, and he is the night. The darkest, blackest knight."

Ra's was moving forward, testing the limit of arms length that Bruce had put between them. One arm's length--that was all!? It was almost insulting, as though this other Ra's was tamer, or weaker, as though Bruce had not fully understood just what the differences meant. The boundaries he pushed, the line he drew at the distance of the dog's chain, was far too close. He was too bold.

"He had a choice; to save me or let me die. You would never make that choice, and that makes you weak. It means that - in what you think is a strength all your own - you lack the pitiless determination that he had; that I gave him. The pitiless determination of the Demon."

Pride goes before the fall.

Ra's raised his jaw, and all at once he snapped to the end of his chain, like a dog loosed from its master's hand, he closed the distance, caught Bruce's wrist and his ankle and swung his weight around, pushing him into the wall that he had been incrementally backing him toward, swinging him until his face was pressed to it, with Ra's face against his shoulder, his voice near his ear. Bruce's arm was twisted against his back, held fast, and Ra's was careful not to bring his head into range of Bruce's own, but still he hissed against his ear, let his breath taste the other man's skin.

"You tell me that I do not know you, but you're wrong. You are not half the man that he is, and that is why you will fail."

[kingofrooks]

Bruce hit the wall with a quiet hiss, barely feeling the pain as his head smacked against the wall. The cowl was able to absorb most of the impact, but more importantly, Bruce was more preoccupied with the fact that this Ra's was careful enough to make sure that he couldn't be headbutted. A trained warrior; one with much experience in the field. Not like a man who was a doctor in his life time and used others as his weapons- no, this man was his own weapon, and a deadly enough one at that.

But he had underestimated Bruce once more, and it was entirely careless too. Bruce had already showed him what he could do, and yet Ra's was pressing him against a wall as if the wall itself was an obstacle; as if it wasn't covered with shadows. Bruce's teeth glinted in the Darkness again, and he listened- listened that what Ra's said about his other self. He listened beyond the words and heard the pride there. A pride that was entirely different from the kind of pride one would have for an enemy.

No, this man- my own Bruce, that was what he said. Bruce hissed out a breath and he could almost laugh at the irony. He didn't know if they were from the same alternate world - there were so many - but the man he knew to be his best friend knew nothing of him, and the man he knew to be his enemy knew him far too help. That was the pride of a teacher in Ra's voice; the pride of having made Bruce Wayne to be what he was.

To be darkness himself. To be the Dark Knight. To be someone who would allow Ra's al Ghul to die, instead of saving him. Bruce breathed in, and he smiled, ever so slightly. Then-

He slipped into the shadows of the wall, melding within it. Immediately, he rose from the ground, his hands clenching onto Ra's shoulders. He spun him around, hard, and slammed him instead against the wall. At the same time, his forearm came up, pressed against his vulnerable windpipe through the black clothes he wore. His knee stopped between Ra's legs, their hips almost touching- stopping him from making a single move with his entire body.

This man was tall. Taller than he was. That, at least, remained the same. Bruce smiled, exhaling a breath through his teeth- hot against his skin. A complete reversal.

"Only fools think that I have anything to do with daylight," he said, almost conversationally, his arm still against Ra's throat. "The pitiless determination of the Demon," he mocked the words, "will never win against my resolve."

He didn't pull away, but his voice dipped further, darker. "That's what you share with him. The folly of never understanding that."

[dragonvariation]

Ra's had known the power, had seen it coming and allowed it. Sometimes winning was about giving up the ground, and in this case it was physical as well as mental submission. When Bruce fell through the shadow, Ra's let the next move come, found himself pressed against hard wall with the weight of Bruce pressed against his throat, his dark voice hissed against him in darkest sepulchre.

He said nothing. His eyes were bright in the dark shadows of the alleyway, and his hands were more or less free. Quietly he placed one at the very base of Bruce's abdomen, letting his fingertips run up over hard muscle, kevlar, expensive armour. The tricks had not changed. He found the target at the center of his chest, where criminals would aim and the armour was at its thickest, and he exhaled, calm, leant back against the wall and pinned ruthlessly into position, like an exhasperated lover.

He had said enough to make that same illusion questionable, and while he had no doubt about Bruce's determination to see his threat through, it was still only a masquerade. A distraction.

Now his scratchy voice, whispered with what air he could take and what words he could vibrate.

"You claim mortality, then. Immortals cannot have an iron resolve. It shatters eventually like old paper in the wind."

The hand rose higher, brushed Bruce's jaw, and he smiled darkly--and slashed violently at his chest with the waved blade that he had left concealed within his jacket.

"Unless something else cuts it first."

[kingofrooks]

Bruce's instincts were already screaming from the touch, and the moment he saw the blade glint in the light, he was already throwing himself backwards, so much that the tip of the blade only touched against his armour. Barely enough to split the top layer- so much that he didn't even need to sew it up later, simply because it would be hidden enough in the Darkness on most nights.

But that wasn't the important part right now. Bruce stepped forward again, immediately grabbing onto that arm and slamming the wrist on one side, pulling the wrist to the front even as he pressed the hand down. At the same time, he fought to find the other hand, pinning it on the other side of Ra's head the same way he had the first.

That was... unexpected. For him to carry a weapon, to wait until Bruce was caught offguard due to speaking and answering him to strike. But the edge of theatricality was still there, and Bruce could almost smirk even as he tipped his head up, looking at Ra's. The other man might be taller, but Bruce could loom over him, nonetheless.

"If you want to kill me, you have to try harder than that."

But he knew that Ra's wasn't. If he was, he wouldn't have bothered talking to him. He lead a League of Assassins - he would know the ways to try to kill a man while he was distracted, while his back was turned. Yet he only swiped at him with a knife while Bruce was facing him. It was a warning, a show, another step to the dance that they were doing.

He suddenly let go, moving back until he hit the other wall, keeping his eyes close on Ra's before he spoke again.

"I'm claiming the right to be unhappy," his voice was a low murmur, his words murmured. "I claim it all."

[dragonvariation]

The jolt of his pinned wrists against the wall was wonderful. Simple skill in the movements, speed and practice that Ra's knew almost as well as he knew the back of his hand. The methodology hadn't much changed, even if he perceived that Bruce had had a different instructor. Even so, there was an element of surrender there; of letting Bruce pin him without fighting - as he could have. An elbow to Bruce's windpipe, an ankle twisted around the back of his own, and he could be free in two single movements, and pinning the other man to the ground in only one more.

He didn't move. Instead he looked back into the other man's eyes, kept his gaze quietly and calmly, his own an ocean of tranquility.

The knife was a waved blade; middle eastern, and diamond edged. It was sharp enough to shave with--not that you'd want to. Sharp enough to cut through kevlar, or even the strong mono-filament of Bruce's cables. The single layer cut on Bruce's armour would serve as a reminder that this was no illusion, no dream. And that he could be touched. In fact it was a clear indication that the demon had reach, even now. He could have killed him with a single flick of his wrist, after all.

It was an understanding he knew they shared, despite Bruce's words.

"Bruce," he whispered, soft affection in the note of his voice. He did not move from the wall for a moment after he stepped back, the words of Aldous Huxley on his lips like a prayer. Silly, foolish man. "The decision to choose unhappiness for all is not yours to make."

Quietly he lowers his hands, tucked the blade back into his jacket pocket, and stepped forward, raising his hands out in front of him, open palmed and turned upright.

"We don't need to be on opposite sides. The Core, the Darkness, the corruption--I know you want it to end as much as I."