Who: The Detective and Ra's al Ghul What: Bruce comes to collect Ra's Where: Ra's base on Bubiyan Island When: Now Warnings/Rating: Ra's making Bruce wait for it? A smidge of violence?
Bubiyan Island was a desolate place, accessible only by the girder bridge, or by sea. Always by sea. It was in the center of the island that Ra's had made his compound. White-washed walls were brilliant during the day, but before one got there, one had to cross the black chainlink fence that circled it. Sentries walked the sands between the fence and the compound, with several stations at various intervals, staffed permanently by his League.
During the day. Ra's would move lower into the compound, hidden by the sands to do his work and finds what was happening throughout the day around the world. It was only in the hour or two before the sunset that he came upstairs. The east facing wall was made entirely of windows, most of which were opened well into the evening so that he could enjoy the view, such was it was. Nothing but sand and the sparkle of water, no humans beyond those that he employed.
If he needed a daily reminder of what he worked for daily, it was here. One day he would even take down the girder bridge that connected the island to the mainland. It was an eyesore and a blemish in his environs. Later. It would be sooner, rather than later that the Detective showed up and then he could deal with the bridge. Moving up into his dining room, he ate a solitary dinner as he watched the sunset from the west windows. The sunlight caught on a city to the west, but at least it was not that glittering city that Dubai was. He speared a tomato from his salad and considered his next move. Gotham yet resisted destruction -- something more was needed.
Finding Ra’s had taken far longer than Bruce would have liked, but such were the sacrifices one made when sharing time with another. To give him his due, Luke had been as accommodating as he could be under the circumstances, but the truth was that he lost hours of valuable time, day after day, and thus pushed himself even harder when he was back through the door in order to make up for it. In the end, however, his efforts had paid off, and all that lost time was forgotten.
Finally, he’d managed to hone in on Ra’s exact location.
That he hadn’t strayed far from Basra, where Tim had originally tracked him to, wasn’t a surprise. Ra’s Al Ghul was not the sort of man to run, regardless of the circumstances. In a strange way, if he thought of the man he’d known before all of this, when he’d first found him in that filthy prison cell, it was a trait Bruce could admire. Now, it gave him an advantage. The vehicle Damian had dubbed the Batwing got him as far as the mainland, but it was far too large and conspicuous to land on the island itself. He had no intention of announcing his presence so blatantly and giving him time to prepare; what he hoped for was to catch Ra’s as off guard as possible. The bridge, too, was visible, but as it was either crossing that way or swimming, he chose the former. The trick was not to use the bridge as others normally would; he went under it, not over, using the beams and some handy equipment that made it possible for him to defy the laws of gravity and conquer the bridge upside-down. Hidden beneath concrete and steel, he could observe the compound, the fence, and the sentries. With no immediate sign of Ra’s, though he knew he was somewhere within the compound, Bruce waited. In truth, he was waiting for darkness to fall, watching as the sentries changed, but movement he caught on the upper floors spurred him into action early.
The men who patrolled the fence, League members, no doubt, were like those he’d trained alongside all those years ago. Far more skilled than the average Gotham criminal, but nothing Bruce thought himself incapable of handling. He wore a modified version of the Batsuit, similar to the one he’d donned while under the influence of Crane’s drug; no cape, lighter kevlar, allowing him to move faster, stealthier, though he sacrificed the added protection of weight in the process.The cowl remained, however, because when all was said and done it was the Bat coming for Ra’s, not Bruce Wayne. As the east wall was entirely windows, Bruce launched his one-man assault from the west, opting to scale the fence despite the fact that it made him visible. He drew attention as he reached the top, and the nearby sentries had just begun to move when he made contact with the sand. A fight would slow him down; these men weren’t his target. He could deal with them later. Thus, his tactics were defensive rather than offensive, waiting for them to come to him and parrying their attacks before responding, the roof of the compound his destination.
If the others had been notified, or even Ra’s himself, Bruce didn’t care. Skill was one thing, but he had determination, a drive (or need, one might say) to succeed, as well as a healthy dose of righteous anger. The open windows on the east side of the compound might as well have been an invitation; he treated them as one. Up the west side, over, and back around, through one of the windows, the hiss of his zip line akin to the wind, and Bruce hit the ground in a roll that ended with him in a crouch, tensed and prepared to leap to his feet.
As soon as the alarm had been raised -- an intruder in black -- Ra's had been notified. He remained sitting at his dining table, knowing that his men could deal with said intruder unless it happened to be the Detective. If it was, then it would be something he would care for on his own. Either way, he was the picture of relaxed indulgence as the Detective came in through one of his windows.
Picking up the small communicator that had alerted him to the Detective's presence, he called off his men in quick Arabic. If they were going to fight, it would not be Bruce against his men, but them. He would not be denied chance to beat the man in black. The comm was set back down on the table, not far from his knife and left there. He waited until Bruce moved from the crouch before gesturing to the seat to his right, offering a place to the other man at his table.
"If you had told me that you were coming for dinner, I would have made a place setting for you," he said calmly, as if he didn't know the exact reason that the Detective was here. Bruce wouldn't kill him, or threaten it, like Jason would. It was that misplaced ideal that had driven a wedge between them. The criminal did not care what you would not do, unless it meant that they could somehow evade persecution. If you were willing to do anything they were, then you were to be feared. That the Detective had been feared without doing that was both a source of pride and irritation for Ra's, as was the rest of the man.
To find Ra’s awaiting him so calmly, as though the presence of his foe was merely a minor interruption to his evening meal, came as no surprise. Bruce suspected word would have reached him as soon as he set foot on the island, and Ra’s was not the sort of man to panic, no more than he was the sort to attempt to avoid the inevitable. He eyed him warily all the same, aware that he couldn’t reach him in time in order to intercept the communicator, but while he left room for error, he had a strong feeling that he wouldn’t need to. As the seconds ticked by and the room wasn’t swarmed by League members, Bruce determined that he was right. Whatever was to happen here, it would be between the two of them, no one else.
He rose from his crouch in a single, fluid motion, but remained where he was. This was not a friendly visit, and he wasn’t going to join Ra’s at his table as though it was. “I didn’t come here to join you for dinner, Ra’s,” he said. Might as well get straight to the point. He moved forward a few steps, swift and silent, but he still refused to take a seat, and he still maintained some distance between them. “You know why I’ve come, and you know that this will end one of two ways.” Ra’s would come with him to answer for his crimes, willingly or not, or Bruce simply wasn’t leaving this island. He refused to slink away in defeat.
Truly, Ra's expected no less of the Detective than that refusal. Nor did he expect less than the two options that the Detective saw, but he knew Bruce didn't have all the answers. There were things outside his control, things he didn't know about, and those things were going to change how many options there were.
"I do know why," he said slowly and once more, gestured to the seat at his side. "Sit. Let my cook bring you something to eat. You must be tired after coming from the mainland --" The Detective was not wet, so that meant it had to be the bridge and if he had come across it, they would have seen it. "Under the bridge." He smiled. "And I would like one last meal before you take me off to --" he waved his fork in the air. "Arkham? Is that where you plan on taking me, Detective?"
The suit and cowl likely helped, but Bruce gave no sign of weariness. He knew better than to allow weakness and vulnerability in sight of Ra’s, much less show it. Once again, when the other man gestured to his side, Bruce shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m not hungry.” He made no comment as to whether or not he was tired. It came as no surprise, of course, that Ra’s had deduced how he’d managed to reach the mainland; there were limited options, after all, and he quite obviously hadn’t swam. When he moved again, stride steady and unfaltering, it was not straight ahead, but slightly angled. His own version of pacing, perhaps, as he was more than capable of remaining eerily still if he chose to do so. “Arkham is ill-equipped for the likes of you,” was his response. Put Ra’s Al Ghul in a cell alongside countless other criminals, when more than one said criminal had escaped before? No. He wasn’t an idiot. Ra’s might have been a madman, yes, but he was also a dangerous criminal, and Bruce had somewhere with far better security in mind; Arkham was still a work in progress. Blackgate, however, would do nicely-- at least temporarily, until a better option became available. Isolation was his main intention. Detailing his plans to Ra’s was not, so he didn’t elaborate further.
“One last meal,” he repeated, his jaw hardening into a frown. “Why should I comply with your last request, Ra’s? What have you done to deserve such consideration?”
Not Arkham then. There were rumors of Blackgate but would the Detective pick somewhere else, somewhere closer to home where he would be the one to keep an eye on him? That was the only way to really keep a man like Ra's from getting out, but even that was not foolproof. Neither was Blackgate and Arkham's ability to keep anyone in was laughable. "Because I doubt anywhere you are planning on taking me is going to have meals such as this. And if this is going to be my last, I want to enjoy it." Ra's glanced up, watching the Detective move around his home, watched the set of his jaw. His two children had the same set, but Ra's did not confide what he expected the Detective to already know.
"Do you have somewhere else to be? Am I interrupting a date?" A wry smile crossed his lips. "Because the flight back is very long and I doubt we will be stopping. You should eat as well."
“You’re right,” Bruce said, and while he had too much control to let the anger in his voice become audible, it was there if one knew how and where to look for it. “You’ll have no luxuries where you’re going, Ra’s. Only the bare necessities, and freedom is not one of them. Even that is more than you deserve.” In the days and weeks leading up to his departure from Gotham, Bruce had forced himself to read over the names of the dead, over and over, in order to sear them into his memory. Young and old, men and women, lives lost and lives irrevocably damaged by Ra’s virus; he knew them all. He needed to remind himself why he was leaving Gotham, and he needed to remember the damage one man had wrought-- the damage he’d allowed him to inflict upon his city. It was one of his greatest failures, and he owed it to Dick, to Tony Stark, and to countless millions of others to bring the one responsible to justice.
There was no real indication that something was amiss; Ra’s flippancy was to be expected. Yet he had a feeling, a prickle along his spine, that he couldn’t quite shake, and he didn’t like it. He gave him a look when he asked if he had somewhere else to be; of course he did. Gotham was currently in the hands of a lethal vigilante and a girl he knew absolutely nothing about. “No, we won’t be stopping. I think I’ll manage,” he said, and tipped his head to the side as he considered him. “You can’t expect me to believe you’ll come willingly, Ra’s.”
If he did come willingly -- which he had no intention of -- it would surely be a sign that something was amiss, far more than the slow prickle of awareness. "Who said I was going willingly? I merely want to finish my dinner before we have our inevitable fight. A conversation, if it's to be the last I'm going to have with someone that's not some petty criminal." For all that he had wrought upon the world, not just Gotham, Ra's still considered himself far above those petty criminals that though only of themselves and their own small minded ambitions. He had a larger calling, one that he would see carried out, even within the depths of Blackgate if need be.
"Do you really want to stand watch over me while I dine?" Dabbing his napkin at his mouth, he glanced up to regard the other man. Angry, stubborn, blinded only by his beliefs in justice. "Sit, Bruce. There is no reason to deny yourself. No one will die while you eat. The Earth will continue upon its axis long after you are done. You can tell me of your family as you did once. They weigh heavily on you."
Bruce regarded him for a long moment, still unable to rid himself of the sensation of being unsettled, but surely, Jason would have contacted him had things been amiss in Gotham. There were ways, in case of an emergency, to initiate contact; they all remained very much untouched. It made him wonder, really, whether Gotham actually needed him, or if he simply wanted it to. “They do make poor conversationalists,” he said, of petty criminals. Most criminals he’d encountered, in fact, were all so very much the same. Even those like Crane, like the Joker, were so repetitive, incapable of seeing beyond their own madness. While Ra’s himself was undoubtedly not fully sane, Bruce did have to admit that he possessed a level of intelligence he had yet to see in anyone else.
Their fight was inevitable, that much was true. Whether it happened now, or once Ra's had finished his meal, would change little. It occurred to him that Ra's might be stalling, but to what end? Even if there was, at this very moment, trouble in his city, a few minutes would not delay his return in any significant way. And so, very slowly, he approached the proffered seat he had denied only moments ago, and he sat, but it was clear that his change in position hadn't lowered his guard in the slightest. "This is your last proper meal, not mine," he said, not trusting the man seated beside him enough to eat his food. "My family... is broken." What did it matter now, if Ra's knew of his troubles? There was no one for him to tell, and he wouldn't have the opportunity to use it to his advantage.
Ra's didn't expect his guard to come down and would have been disappointed if Bruce had done so. It was an invitation to sit, to converse, but both of them knew better than to leave their guard down around the other one. It was part of what he enjoyed most about the Detective. He learned, he adapted, and he would have been a perfect protege if he had given up his mistaken belief about not killing criminals.
"Mmm, I have heard rumors that they have spread themselves out from Gotham." But that did not necessarily signify broken. Broken implied something deeper, something far more than the desire to spread their wings and find their own path. Children had a bad tendency to do that. Even his Talia had, but as long as she returned to him, as long as she never forgot what they were supposed to do, Ra's knew that he could allow her to follow her path. "But that is not what you are speaking of." He paused, considering the Detective for a moment. "Forgive me, would you like something to drink?"
Rumors. Of course. Bruce should have known better than to expect it to remain quiet, that the Bat's brood had all but gone their separate ways. He wondered who else knew, and that feeling returned again, the unease that came with leaving Gotham behind under questionable leadership. “They needed to find their own path. I couldn’t deny them that,” he said. “If it became necessary, they would return.” He wasn’t absolutely sure about that, yet without faith, he would have abandoned his task almost immediately in favor of staying. This was only temporary, his absence, and for a greater purpose. He knew he would return; he would never turn his back on his city. He had to believe at least some of them felt the same. But even if trouble did come, and they did return, it wouldn’t be for him. The cracks in his family would not magically be mended. He shook his head; no, this wasn’t simply a case of birds leaving the nest to stretch their wings. If only it were that simple.
“I’m not what they want, or what they need. They all remember a different man, and I can’t be someone else, never mind multiple someones at once. I’ve tried for almost a year, and nothing is enough,” he said, expression darkening. “It’s time to stop denying the truth. If they choose to return to my city, and to fight, then they are either with me or against me.” He looked up, a simple, wordless shake of his head refusing the offer of a drink. “I’m sure they doubt my return. They have no faith in me. I intend to prove them wrong.”
Could Ra's deny words that he'd spoken himself? When Nyssa had left him and found herself in the grasp of Hitler, in one of his camps and pled for him to come rescue her, he had told her no. She had turned her back on him and he had returned the favor, but his daughter saw it as a challenge and fought her way out, if for no other reason than to make him pay for leaving her there. It had done what it was supposed to do: she had survived and returned to him. However, Ra's always paid close attention to the Detective's children. "They've chosen to spread their wings as children are wont to do, Detective."
He went quiet in the moment when a steaming plate was brought out, but he held up a hand at having a place setting made for Bruce. The Detective had declined and Ra's would not force this upon him. "Do you truly think they are against you?" If they were, if the Detective believed that, then it came as no surprise that he had taken so long to come. It was a surprise that Bruce had chosen Jason and not tried to call Dick back or even left the city in the joined hands of his his supposed biological children. "Or is that old pain speaking for you?"
“They have,” Bruce agreed, without missing a beat. “And I’ve allowed them to do so.” He hadn’t held them back. He could have made it difficult, could have expressed his displeasure or forbidden Damian to leave and watched as their fragile relationship crumbled around him. But he simply hadn’t seen the sense in it. Why try to stop them, when they would leave regardless of what he said, or what he did? He wasn’t going to keep them in Gotham against their will; if they didn’t feel the same need he did to stay, to fight, then better for them to be where they wanted to be than where they did not.
Perhaps that had been harsh, but distance hardened him, and it was easier to revert to the way he had been before this Gotham, before his family, when he was solitary and single-mindedly driven to achieve his city’s salvation. “Are they against me? No.” Not yet. “But they knew what I had planned. They knew what I needed to do, and still they chose to leave. Jason was the only one who stayed.” Which was, in the end, why the city was in his hands now. And there he paused, the thought of chaos erupting while he was gone, and no one left behind he had unwavering, unfaltering faith in. “This has nothing to do with old pain,” he said, a sharp edge entering his tone. “Would I have preferred that they had remained in Gotham while I was gone? Yes. But it’s only temporary, and unlike them, I have every intention of returning.”
The sharp edge caught his attention, betraying the words that followed. It was an old pain. Ra's paused, knife hovering over his filet of fish, understanding like a flash of lightning on a pitch black night. "You want them with you. You may say it is for Gotham, but it is for you, Detective. They are your chance to have a family, a real family, the one thing denied to you since your parents died." That was why their leaving Gotham hit so deep, why their thoughts about him seemed to cut so far beneath the suit.
"You spread your wings as well. Do you remember where I found you?" That had been years ago, lifetimes, so many trips into one of his pits that the memories seemed well worn like a note frequently read. "You flew to the very ends of the earth to find yourself, Detective." That was where Ra's had found him, sitting in the cell of a prison, fighting out an anger that had no answer. He glanced away then and cut into the meat of his fish. "When Nyssa left, I wanted nothing more than to drag her back by her hair. Who was she to deny me? I am her father. I gave her life. She started a family and wouldn't let me see my grandchildren and when she turned to me to help her, I denied her." He didn't regret it. "My denial fueled her to survive and return to me." For nothing more than spite, but she had still returned. "I was never angrier with her than when she left and never more proud than when I saw her return unbowed and unbroken." He lifted his fork up and took a bite. "They will return." And if they did not, he was more than willing to do whatever it took to bring the family back together. Not out of love or kinship, but because they were only enjoyable to destroy when they were all together.
Denial was on the tip of his tongue, a refusal to acknowledge what Ra’s said as truth. Admitting that he wanted his family with him when they had made it abundantly clear that was the last place they wanted to be was vulnerability, weakness, neither of which he allowed himself to display openly with any willingness. If Bruce had been seated next to anyone but Ra’s, he would have feigned indifference, claiming that he was a solitary creature that had no desire or need for others. But the other man knew him too well; when his parents had died, his last hope for a real family had died with them. He’d never expected to have one child, much less the amount he had now. Losing them was one thing, but for them to intentionally leave, to reject him, was something else entirely. While no denial came, however, he didn’t agree with Ra’s either; silence was his response.
“I remember.” How could he forget, that dark faraway cell where Ra’s had found him and changed the course of his life drastically. He listened as the other man spoke of his daughter, interested despite himself, and that anger was something he understood; he’d been angry, though he had suppressed it, when Damian told him he was moving to Bludhaven with Dick. “I could drag them back,” he said afterward. “I could have refused to let them leave in the first place. But if they’re to return, I want them to return on their own. As your daughter did.” Ra’s might have provided the motivation, but Nyssa had still made that choice on her own, without being forced against her will. Yes, Bruce wanted them to return, but whether they would or not was something that remained to be seen.
He mulled over Ra’s certainty for a moment, and then, with an air of finality, stood. His family was so far away, scattered in different corners. What mattered now was returning to Gotham with the man he had come so far to find in tow. “But I didn’t come here to discuss my family, or anything else, with you,” he told him. “We’ve wasted enough time, Ra’s. No more.”
The silence wasn't unexpected, but Ra's knew that what he had said was true. He wiped at his mouth once more and sat back, silently regarding the man in front of him. He'd taken theatricality to new heights, but if Bruce were ever to come back of his own free will, Ra's would have accepted him as he had accepted Nyssa and Talia. A wry sort of smile crossed his lips before he pushed his chair back and stood.
"One thing before we begin, Detective." Expecting the other man to follow, he walked through the empty, wide hallways of his compound to a room sporting a giant TV. A single button brought up Gotham news and Bane was the talk of the town. Along with the new mayor, the toxin that was still affecting the populace. "All of your children returned to Gotham before it was released, Detective. You know of Bane." Even if this Detective was so much younger, Ra's expected that he knew of the man. Or so Ra's presumed. "It was not of my make." But, Ra's was enjoying the outcome regardless. "Do you want to know which of your little birds are currently missing? It would seem that both they and the city you insist upon defending have need of you. Or will you remain here in the hopes of bringing me to justice?"
After a moment’s hesitation, Bruce followed, part wariness and part exasperation at what he perceived to be yet another stalling technique. He frowned at the television, not understanding, but then it came to life and what he saw before him on the screen made everything else cease to matter entirely. Horror mingled with dismay and washed over him as he stared, unmoving, words and images blurring together; the toxin, Bane’s reign of terror, all occurring while he’d been so single-mindedly determined on doing this alone that he’d left his city vulnerable. His greatest fear had come true, and the spark of pride he felt when Ra’s informed him that his family had returned was barely enough to penetrate the surface. Did they think he had abandoned them? Or was there hope, still, somewhere beneath the chaos?
The prospect of his children being missing was enough to reach him, to pull him out of his daze and bring him back to reality. He rounded on Ra’s angrily, gloved hands curled into fists, and had he possessed less control he would have attacked then, impulsive and unthinking. But he knew better, and he held himself back. “You’re right,” he said. “They need me.” He didn’t particularly like ultimatums, not unless he was the one issuing them, and his eyes narrowed behind the cowl. “Which means I’ll have to make this fast.”
Even with his face half hidden behind the mask, the horror and dismay were easy to see. Dealing a blow to an enemy's morale was a tactic older than he was and though he appeared to take hope in the fact that his children needed him, Ra's suspected that it might end up being more of a distraction than a galvanizing force. He would press that particular advantage. "You would let your city remain in his grips for your chance at revenge?" He taunted, leaning away from his desk.
The nearest sword, his preferred weapon, was in this room. They need not go any further -- and even if he lost, the Detective would be ushering him back to Gotham, providing an easy return to the states and a birds eye view of what was happening to the city that Ra's wanted destroyed. Even if he lost, he won. "So be it." Across the bottom of the screen, the ticker tape noted that Damian Wayne and Jason Todd had just been arrested and were being escorted to Blackgate prison. If the Detective hadn't seen it yet -- Ra's called no attention to it as he rounded the corner of desk and reached for the same cane sword that he had so soundly beaten Damian with prior to the release of his virus.
“This is not revenge,” Bruce snarled, and whatever patience he’d had for Ra’s, perhaps motivated by echoes of the past, was rapidly disappearing. “You were responsible for the deaths of millions, Ra’s. This is justice.” He knew that Ra’s was skilled-- one of the few opponents whose abilities surpassed his own, in fact, and yet that knowledge was not enough to deter him. He hadn’t traveled halfway across the world and left his city vulnerable to be defeated at the hands of a madman, former mentor or no. From the corner of his eye, he took note of the screen, of the new information it boasted, but he gave no outward sign that he’d noticed. Once, his anger would have controlled him, but now, he controlled it. He could mold it into a weapon to be used to his advantage, rather than one to be used against him.
He watched as Ra’s rounded the desk, as he reached for the sword, and then, with very precise timing, Bruce summoned every bit of strength he had and lunged.