Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-06-03 15:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, door: dc comics |
Who: Batman, Deadshot, & Bane
What: Boss battle.
Where: Gotham's sewers.
When: Let's say nooooooow.
Warnings/Rating: Violence.
There was no use in delaying the inevitable. Regardless of his actions, or the actions of others, Bruce knew where and how this had to end. Gotham would never be as it was before while the men who’d seized control which was never theirs still lurked underground, in the sewers, waiting for the city’s saviour to venture below. He couldn’t send someone else, nor could he allow anyone else to accompany him. Part of it stemmed from a desire to protect, yes, but it was also grounded in logic; he needed them elsewhere. Even with the Batfamily together in Gotham, their numbers were limited, and should he fail, they would have to lead the last line of defense. He didn’t intend to fail, of course, but he was the sort of man who had to consider every option and needed a contingency plan regardless of the circumstances. Worst case scenario, his precautions only slowed Bane down. Best case, they stopped him from getting aboveground entirely.
But, he had no intentions of failing.
Nigma had told him this wasn’t his Bane, which was both a blessing and a curse. He knew what the Bane from his world had done to the man he would have become, and he knew what the Bane from Eddie’s world had done to that Bat; that wasn’t going to happen to him. Not here, not now. This Bruce wasn’t weak, wasn’t rusty, and he wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating his adversary. He knew, too, of Bane’s accomplice, the one with deadly aim, but it certainly wasn’t going to be a bullet that ended his life. No, he wasn’t going to die down there, and he wasn’t going to be rendered a cripple either.
So, once he was satisfied with the state of things on the streets, the Bat went down, having studied the schematics of the various tunnels and sewage systems that ran beneath the city for days prior. Heat signals from Oracle’s computers ensured he wasn’t going in blind, but the men patrolling the tunnels weren’t his concern. They weren’t the ones who brought the bitter taste of fear on his tongue, though whether it was his or Luke’s, he couldn’t be sure. Either way, he wouldn’t let fear rule him. As he ventured further, it faded, and upon crossing paths with Bane’s men he was swift and silent, not wanting to give them the opportunity to shoot. Not that he was afraid of their bullets; he simply didn’t want the sound to resonate.
Bane and Deadshot likely knew he was coming, but there was no need to announce his presence in a hail of gunfire.
Deadshot had been content with taking all of his targets down from a distance. It wasn’t just effective, but the lack of struggle and simplicity of it made the payday even grander. Batman was a special case, though. He had gone head to head with him before and while this Batman seemed different as Gotham and Bane did, the things Deadshot learnt from failures would still be applied to tactically taking the man down. A sniper rifle in a sewer wasn’t going to cut it. Instead he waited for the Bat to fight through a long line of guards before dropping down a sewer pipe a couple yards behind, next to two splayed out unconscious men laying in a foot of trickling stormwater. Over his face was a metal, armored mask that covered all of his features and a single, red eye apparatus that clicked and rotated as he watched the Bat. He wore a bulletproof vest under a red outfit and around his wrists were metallic, mounted guns.
“Ever heard the expression, shooting fish in a barrel?” He asked, cocky city accent fused with the echo of wearing full body armor. “I’ve been looking forward to bagging you, Bat. Once I turn you in, I think I’ll buy an island to hunt people on.” Before the bat could respond, his wrist mounted guns suddenly popped open and filled the sewer tunnel with an all-out assault of bullets.
As the last of a long line of guards fell, the Bat heard new movement at his back. He suspected, though he hadn’t been certain, that he would find Deadshot first; Bane seemed the type to send his ally after him in attempt to either kill him or, at the least, wear him out before the two came face-to-face. As today was not his day to die, the latter seemed more likely. He turned to face his adversary, who was only familiar in a vague, secondhand sort of way that came from research about someone he had never personally met. Deadshot’s very nature, however, and his preference for firearms had the Bat very, very certain that, even if he did have prior experience with this man, he wouldn’t have liked him.
Engaging in pointless banter wasn’t part of his plan, and so he’d never intended to imply to Deadshot’s taunts. The enclosed space worked against him, he knew, but the Bat wore pound after pound of kevlar for a reason, and he’d sacrificed speed in favor of donning his heaviest, and most well-protected, suit. He had a second to react, maybe less, once the guns opened fire, and there was no time for thought. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t slow down. If any of the bullets met their mark, if the kevlar didn’t stop them from piercing skin, it was a concern for later. Now now. Now was a tiny, round ball in his palm, a miniature smoke bomb that spewed thick grey fumes the moment it made contact with the ground. Now was staying low and moving carefully, keeping his head covered, along the concrete walls to avoid the worst of the gunfire. With his vision compromised, the price to keep himself temporarily covered, the Bat had to make a guess as to Deadshot’s location. He tried to recall his position, angles, how far right or left; his target was the mounted guns, even that eyescope, but he’d take what he could get; even distracting him long enough to get close enough to strike was better than a hail of bullets.
Just as the smoke began to thin, the Bat threw a series of batarangs; one, two, three, and four, small and silver, yes, but quick, and effective.
Deadshot ducked into the smoke, moving back and circling as his eyepiece searched for the Bat’s heat signatures. He lifted both arms and fired another round as the smoke cleared that was cut short by a batarang straight to his wrist. He made an almost robotic noise that sounded like a distorted grunt and then laughed. “Toys aren’t going to work on me, Batman.” The chambers around his wrists clicked metallically and three lasers shone through the dark and smokey tunnel, swiftly lining up on that bat signal on the Batman’s chest.
No witty quip this time, just a loud bang that echoed deafeningly through the tunnel as he fired a large, armoring piercing round. Deadshot could do stealth, any professional hit man had to, but he liked flashy as much as any person who had guns mounted to his arms. And, against Batman it was better to play up contrast than try to have a competition of who could be more shadowy than the other. Especially when this particular superhero had a history of hating the very weapons Deadshot lived and killed by.
The Bat certainly wasn’t going to stand still and wait for whatever followed those lasers to meet their mark. A bullet to any non-fatal area he could take; there would be hell to pay later, when the armor was removed, but it wouldn’t render him incapacitated. Fighting through pain was one of the first lessons he’d learned. A bullet to the chest, on the other hand, was a different matter entirely, especially a direct hit. He immediately went low, into a roll, and he didn’t focus on the bang, on how it echoed, or how close the bullet came, or how he swore he could feel the way it sliced through the air where he would have been seconds earlier. Instead, he focused on the next step, and the one after that. He couldn’t afford to falter.
He didn't speak. Words would merely be wasted energy, a distraction. Take away his guns and Deadshot was just another criminal, and guns were man-made, tangible things that could be destroyed. Perhaps his batarangs hadn’t worked as he’d hoped, but he was hardly naive enough to rely entirely on such basic tactics. The Bat wanted this over quickly; no use in dragging it out. Instead of pacing his retaliation, as soon as he unfurled from his crouch, he struck, rapidly and consecutively. His gauntlets weren’t just for show; more smoke first to shroud him from sight as he moved, a distraction, and then he utilized a device that looked similar to something that might detonate a bomb.
When he pushed the trigger, however, nothing exploded. It was a disruptor, once which had initially interfered with primarily electrical equipment before he’d upgraded it to work on firearms as well, locking up the firing mechanism with the gunman being none the wiser until he attempted to shoot.
Deadshot intended on wearing Batman down, willing to fire round after round until something hit and cracked the vigilante’s foundation. He took a couple steps back, lifting his arms again as if he expected them to fire and then faltered when they froze up. “No.” Deadshot muttered mechanically, suddenly stopping his trek backwards as he tried to figure out what was wrong with his weaponry. Deadshot could fight without his guns, but they were such an extension of himself that a malfunction he couldn’t fix right away shook him. Pulling out pistol after pistol and finding that they weren’t firing either, Deadshot gave a frustrated, metallic scream and charged Batman with a bow knife.
“Did you do this?” He shouted, swiping the knife at Batman, furious and much more sloppy than the world’s greatest assassin should be. “Just like you be a coward!” Deadshot swiped again, throwing a kick aimed at Batman’s stomach. Each move deadly as the last, but to someone trained like Batman, someone who never stopped fighting, it was predictable and careless.
The disruptor was his ace in the hole, and this time the Bat made no attempt to move when Deadshot raised his guns again. He stood, and he stared, his expression remaining impassive as his foe realized he’d just been stripped of the one thing that made him a threat. Perhaps he was still capable without his guns, but they defined him. The very name he’d taken on for himself was an extension of his deadly aim. And now, weapon after weapon failed to fire. Had he been a different sort of man, he might have smiled or given some other indication of the surge of triumph he felt at what was certain victory. Instead, he reacted to Deadshot’s erratic anger with a cool, flat sort of calm that was likely infuriating in comparison. Of course he was sloppy; he let his anger and his frustration rule him.
Evading the knife’s blade was easy. “A coward?” With that single word, the Bat broke his silence, and his eyes narrowed behind the cowl. He caught the other man’s boot-clad foot before his kick could land, and one brutal twist of flesh and bone was all it took to get him on his knees. “You hide behind your guns,” he said, giving Deadshot no time to nurse his wounds or attempt to retaliate before he struck again. He brought a knee up, just below his ribs, and a fist connected solidly with the side of his head as he doubled over. “When your victims fall, you’re nowhere in sight. You can’t even fight me without your weapons. You, Deadshot, are the coward here.” With that, the Bat knelt on his chest, ignoring his pitiful last attempts at resistance, and delivered the final blow. He would be out for a while, but just to be sure, he secured his arms and legs with restraints before leaving the assassin and continuing onward, dropping down another, shorter sewer pipe a few feet ahead.
Bane had been watching, and he was very disappointed. So much work, and men with little vision and less skill ruined what he was trying so very hard to achieve. Gotham must fall; that was the only thing that mattered, and the only goal to strive for. Death, death was better than failure. He would not fail. His comrade had proven weak and unequal to the task; Bane would not.
The path was set, and Bane knew Batman would travel along it. It had all led to this. Aboveground, Blackgate was crumbling, the remaining prisoners emptied onto the streets. All of Gotham's filth, all the damage unleashed by Batman, walking free. Ah, yes, because who was Bruce Wayne to believe he could bend a city to his will? A city that had long since passed the need to be cleansed. This was no labor of love for Bane. This was no allegiance to the man who had sent him here. This was something else, and yet it was all the same. Gotham would be ashed, and like the phoenix it would re-imagine itself, free and clean. But even that was not his motivation. His motivation was a stronger loyalty than words could express. And had Batman's children proved equal to the task, this would not be happening. They had not, and so the final scene.
Bane had always suspected his comrade might fail. He had little faith in others who did not bow to him, give themselves fully to the League. Other arrangements had been made.
The explosion above rocked the sewers, and rocks blocked Batman's exit. There was only one path; in.
The room was large, circular. There was no gate, and there was no bridge. There was only smooth stone, and the sound of water from all sides as the sewers emptied inward, in from all sides. Bane stood in the center, arms outspread. "Come to me!" he called out in the darkness, his mask-altered voice echoing and carrying along the sewer walls. "Come, and complete your failure!"
The explosion didn’t send the Bat into a panic, nor did he attempt to escape before his exit was blocked. He moved back, away from the debris, and he stared for a long, long moment, gaze blank and unreadable behind the cowl. If he emerged victorious, he could find another way out; retreat had never been an option. He’d known coming down here meant. To say he was not afraid would have been untrue. He did fear death; he feared leaving Gotham to burn. He feared leaving his loved ones to die. But the one thing he did not fear was Bane himself, and while he knew that a future version of himself had faced the masked man and lost, he was not that Bat. He hadn’t been drowning in sorrow and despair for seven years, hadn’t lost the will to live and all but isolated himself in the process. Unlike that man, he had family. He had people to fight for, people who were his in a way the citizens of Gotham never could be, and that gave him a sort of strength he’d lacked back home, before all this.
As the dust settled, he turned away from the block exit and moved forward. Step by step, slow and calm, brought him into the circular room, and he tipped his head back to regard his surroundings before his gaze settled on Bane. Despite having done his research, he still took a few seconds to size up his opponent, to consider how he could get close enough to compromise his mask without giving him the upper hand. None of this was visible on the surface, and when Bane spoke, he took another step forward, and another, approaching the center without closing the entire distance himself.
“No,” he said. The Bat’s voice carried without added effort on his part. “I have no failure to complete, Bane. I defeated Ra’s. I defeated the assassin. And I will defeat you.”
Bane laughed. It was an entitled laugh, old and born of darkness. It spoke of fearlessness, and it spoke of loyalty. When there was only goal and no fear, that goal was easily achieved. "You have forgotten your teachings," he said, even as a circle of explosions just above them sealed off the sewer outpourings into the room. The ceiling shook, debris splashed into the murk, and there was nothing but blackness, water to the shins and quickly diminishing fresh air.
"You defeated no one. You captured a man, but yet he lives, and he set in motion the destruction of your city, while he led you on his chase," Bane taunted. "For weeks, your city has destroyed itself. Whatever happens here, that remains. The goal is accomplished. Your criminals are loose upon the city. You have nowhere to house them. Your decent citizens have become as feral as the rest. There is nothing here worth saving, my friend."
Movement came with sloshing feet, intentional, misdirection from in front of where Batman stood. Bane, born of darkness, had no trouble here; he had better senses than his vision. "This city will fall, as will you, my friend. This city has fallen."
In silence, from behind the Bat, a hard fist to the lumbar, and a grab and twist of a shoulder in the darkness, an attempt to throw the man in the cowl and cape across the watery space. He needed no weapons or tricks, no games played in a cowl. He required none of these things. Crushing the Batman upon the rocks would be a fitting end, and he could carry the broken corpse of Gotham's oppressor from the sewers and into the light.
The Bat looked up as the explosions began, a quick, sharp glance, and then he moved. Swift yet cautious steps were lost in the darkness, and he listened to Bane’s voice, opting to remain silent as he reoriented himself to the loss of light. Of course Ra’s was behind this; he’d known that too late, but he had known all the same. But he was captured, and once this was done, he would be dealt with. Not Arkham, not Blackgate, but somewhere high security and isolated. Ra’s Al Ghul was the most wanted man in the country. He would never see the light of day again. As for Gotham, he felt its suffering as though it was his own, but it would rise again. The plague had been worse, and the city recovered. And, now, citizens were fighting back. Above them, his family was leading the charge. It was them he thought of now, surrounded by black, the threat of death and broken bodies so very close. He thought of his children, of his allies, of the people he still saw good in, enough so to risk his life to preserve it. They needed him to survive. They needed him to triumph.
He had turned against Ra’s and the League, against what they stood for, but he had never forgotten his training. Trying to see Bane in the darkness, with eyes alone, would have been a foolish mistake, just as focusing on the too-deliberate sound of movement and water would have been as well. The Bat knew better. Before, in the tunnels, his sight had been enough, but here he reached for his cowl, to activate thermal imaging, and while it came too late for him avoid the blow entirely, he did manage to turn his body just enough to avoid a direct hit. Even so, he nearly lost his footing in the water, but he remembered to breathe, remembered to fight through the pain, even as it shot down his arm and made his shoulder scream in protest. He made no sound himself, however; there would be no cries or shouts from him.
Bane wanted to throw him forward, and so the Bat found his center in the solid ground under his feet, ignoring the water, and went in the opposite direction. Pain flared, but he brought an elbow back, sharp and aimed for his throat. “Gotham won’t fall,” he growled, “and neither will I.”
"Truly?" Bane asked, silken sneer and mocking, moving just quickly enough to catch that elbow on collarbone, instead of at the throat. "You cannot reverse a fall. Gotham fell months ago. Thousands died. Now thousands more. This city does not trust you. The trust has been broken," he said, and there was triumph in that claim alone. "Your city does not want you. Your government has offered no aid. There is no way to house your criminals. You have failed, Dark Knight. You have already failed, my friend," he said, as if he was imparting great wisdom through the mask that muffled his words in the darkness.
Bane's voice came from everywhere. It did not remain consistent with the sloshing, and there was no pinpointing it against the sewer walls. He knew that the man he fought was using technology, because the ache in his collarbone said as much, and he spread his arms wide in the darkness. He was a few feet away, and he was fearless. "You must use tricks to win now. You have forgotten your training. If you were a true man, you would fight me on equal footing, but you need to cheat to ensure victory. A victory earned in that way, is no victory at all," he decreed, loud and the words ricocheting from the walls. "You are like my fallen companion. Too dependant on things out of your control."
Bane's voice was a roar across the chamber, and he kept his arms open in invitation, ready to grab Batman when he came near. He would grab for the cowl, divest the other man of his technology, and this time he would break him against the walls.
The very second the Bat felt his blow make contact, despite being off course, he moved, wrenching his shoulder free and putting more than a few steps between himself and Bane. Whatever fear might have initially existed was rapidly becoming replaced by anger, but he refused to let it rule him and render him careless as it had with Deadshot; the moment he let his emotions take control, he was doomed. “You seek to discourage me,” he snarled, voice harsh and cold, “but this tactic will fail, Bane. Gotham is still standing. It endures. One day, the city may no longer need me, but today is not that day.” As for the government, his opinion of the people in power was very, very low. He would not forget the way the world had turned their backs on his city, the one thing he would never do. “No,” he said. “I haven’t failed.” He had not. He would not. He would take control back, and return the city to its people.
Attempting to pinpoint his voice was a waste of energy, so he didn’t bother trying. Unlike Bane, however, he didn’t view his technology as cheating. He had adapted, and he would continue to adapt, something Ra’s had never understood; he chose instead to remain the same for centuries. “I haven’t forgotten my training. I’ve improved upon it. I’ve become better,” he said, and it might have been intentional, goading him, or it might have been nothing of the sort. Regardless, he wasn’t going to be drawn into a playground battle of who the ‘real’ man was, not with lives at stake. When he stopped moving, the water around him stilled, went quiet, and he knew a head-on attack was exactly what Bane wanted. Using the technology his opponent so despised, he set off a series of small explosions that were less about damage and more about sound; noise echoed in the sewers, and the sloshing water covered his own movement as he charged.
He came from the side, on an angle, slamming his weight into Bane’s side as he caught hold of his outstretched arm, keeping it straight as he pulled back, and used his free hand to deliver a solid blow just past his elbow. The amount of force, and the opposition, was intended to break bone, but the Bat would take anything that got him closer to the other man’s mask.
"You have become dependent!" Bane countered of Batman's use of technology. "You have become weak, depending on something beyond yourself for victory!" He believed the words, just as he believed the city was doomed. "You do not understand, but you will, if you live to see the morning. You will understand what we have set into motion. We have changed things that cannot be unchanged. We have set things into motion, and motion cannot be reversed."
It was propaganda, yes, but Bane knew it to be true. The destruction of the prisons and the abandonment of the government. Even if Gotham lived through the chaos in its streets, it would be forever changed.
The explosions made Bane laugh, a sound that the mask distorted before allowing it to ricochet off the walls. He did not move in the water, letting the spark and splashes come as close as they liked to his feet. "You are not one of us," he finally said, as he waited for the approach that he knew was coming. "I do not know why he ever believed you were. She said your vision was small. She was right, my friend."
Bane was waiting for the impact, and he held his footing in the murky water. The opponent would always come, if one just waited. He grabbed for the black cape Batman wore, and he used it as a leash, fisting in it and keeping the man close, not trying to shove him off at all. The solid blow to the elbow was met with a grunt and something reminiscent of a crunch, and then with a solid slam of fist to Batman's collarbone, all solid weight and follow through. The impact would have been enough to fell a man that wasn't wearing kevlar, but Bane knew the weak spot where suit became cowl, and he exploited it with a solid elbow to the space, crushing, in rapid succession, attempting to bring Batman to his knees in this black, murky grave. "Give in, friend," he insisted, mask-muffled and close. "You have no one. There is no reason to fight." Another elbow, along with the honeyed promise.
As strongly as Bane believed his words were true, the Bat believed with equal conviction that they were not. When he won, and he dragged the masked man and his partner in crime aboveground, to answer for their crimes, he would prove Bane wrong. He was not weak, and Gotham would rebuild, as it always did. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Bane,” he countered. “You don’t understand the tenacity of people. You don’t understand hope. You don’t understand this city, and that’s why your plans will fail. Gotham will rise, and it will recover. It will rebuild its prisons. Motion can be stopped, and that which has been changed can be fixed. You’re making the same mistake Ra’s Al Ghul did.”
Perhaps it was impossible to fully catch the other man off guard, but he couldn’t waste time circling and keeping his distance and playing games. Bane was patient; he would wait as long as it took. He had to act. The crunch of bone was not victory, he knew, and he didn’t bother trying to wrench free of Bane’s hold. “You’re right,” he hissed. “I’m not one of you.” The blow to his collarbone was largely absorbed by the kevlar, and he could have fought through the impact without much trouble had it not been followed up by the hit to the spot between kevlar and cowl. Pain exploded upward and out along his shoulders, and he heard a sickening sort of crunch he didn’t want to dwell on. A quiet sort of wheeze escaped his lips, and it suddenly became very, very difficult to breathe, which in turn made it very, very difficult not to panic. The Bat staggered, unsteady, water sloshing, and he knew if he went down, it was over. Once Bane had him on his knees, he wouldn’t let him get back up again. His vision became colors and blur, and he stumbled again, closer still to giving in and letting Bane’s vicious attacks bring him down. It would be easy, really. Fighting was always so much harder.
But no, he couldn’t give in. No. Bane was wrong. The Bat had millions of reasons to fight, and they were all above. He had his family, his children, and he had Selina, and Luke had his wife and child waiting for him through the door. “No,” he gasped, a pained sound, and he gathered every last bit of strength he had to keep himself upright. He turned, using the hold Bane had on his cape to keep proximity, and he lashed out with everything he had. First, he brought a knee up, high, hard kevlar aimed at his solar plexus, and then came the fists; blow after blow, unrelenting and without pause, meant to break and shatter the mask that covered his adversary’s mouth.
Victory coursed through Bane at the telling sound of pain, the telling crunch of a well aimed hit between mask and kevlar. Deadshot had failed, but he had weakened Batman, and that made his loss more easily pardonable. "You are wrong, my friend," he said, sure and certain, pausing a moment before proceeding, confident in his ability to use the cape to bring Bruce to his knees now that his head was reeling. But he wanted Bruce to know. He wanted Bruce to understand. Perhaps that was his weakness. "The government has turned against you," he said, a muffled whisper that almost sounded like kindness through the mask. "You are alone, my friend. Whether you fall or not, it is done. It is over. You cannot go back." He knew that himself. He had learned it himself. Certain things there was no returning from.
"Better to die here, than carry your shame above the sewers with you. Your failure. Listen to your city. Listen to what your family has allowed it to become. Listen to your promises, all lies." He motioned up, to the ricocheting explosions above the sewers. "Think of how many of your children and loved one lie dead above ground. Where would they have guarded? City Hall? Blackgate? Hospitals? All gone, Dark Knight. Ashes," he assured Bruce, because that had been the order given when the man in kevlar entered the sewers.
And when the anger came, Bane laughed. Victory. The city had broken. He would break the man before this ended, and breaking a man did not only mean breaking his body. Oh, yes, that would come, but the mind, the mind was a much more vulnerable thing to destroy, and it would never be entirely whole again.
Bane fought back as the punches fell. Hard hits against the areas the cowl didn't cover, merciless power in his arms and a crowding strength that even the kevlar couldn't compete with. "We are done now, Bruce Wayne," he said, doing him the honor of using his name before he broke him. He crouched, went to lift the other man high above his head with his superior strength. He was not guarding his face as he crouched, needing use of both of his arms, secure in his eventual victory. One, solid punch landed just so against the mask. The hiss of pain medication hitting the sewer air seemed deafening, and the subsequent hits made the sound ring louder. Bane's legs buckled, but he still tried for his goal, still reached for kevlar covered legs. He would go down trying. He must win. For her, he must win.
It was all too easy for the Bat to imagine his family broken and battered, his city reduced to ashes, but allowing despair to overwhelm him would be admitting defeat. He couldn’t do that, couldn’t let Bane win. All he could do now was have faith and ensure that in this, in what he’d ventured into the sewers to accomplish, he did not fail. No. That single word, repeated denial, kept him strong. No, they weren’t dead. No, he wasn’t alone. No, he hadn’t won, and he wouldn’t. Not this time. The Bruce Wayne that had fallen and broken was no longer who he would become; he’d split from that path somewhere along the line. “I’m not alone,” he managed, conviction giving his voice strength. “And as long as it has me, neither is this city.” Bane was physically stronger, yes, but the Bat was stubborn, and he was determined. He fought through the pain and matched each blow delivered with one of his own, and the hissing that suddenly filled the air after he met his mark gave him a surge of newfound energy, as though he hadn’t been worn down to near exhaustion just moments ago.
As the other man reached for his legs, he lashed out with a vicious kick to his temple. Then, without pause, the Bat slammed into him with enough force to knock him off-balance and onto his back. “Yes, Bane,” he snarled, and his weight pressed down, unrelenting, as he knelt on his chest to keep him from rising. “We are done.” Any attempts to push him off were countered, and his blows became heavier, more deliberate, the only small mercy being that none would prove fatal.
Just as Batman had known that falling would be his undoing, Bane knew that truth as well. The vicious kick to the temple jarred enough connections in the mask that the pain flooding him was intolerable, paralyzing. He knew he would not win, as surely as he had known that victory would have been his only moments earlier. It was the fresh edge of a knife, and it brought as much disappointment as it did agony. His breathing as he fell to his knees was hard and quickly growing erratic. Without the pain relief the mask provided, he was vulnerable. His heavy weight made the water displace as he landed on his back, and he was fighting to keep his face from being submerged when the knee weighted down his chest.
"You are wrong, my friend," Bane managed, even as the blows landed. He didn't bother trying to strike back. It would be futile, and he had never been a man built for futility. The only weapon that remained to him was speech. Speech, words, before the blows took the pain away in a permanent manner. "You are not what you believe yourself to be. You are ruined, just like your city is ruined. You have been broken upon its stones. You cannot love. You cannot kill. You cannot do the things that must be done. You are merely a blank, a nothing. Do your children love you? Does your city love you? Fear is not love." Taunt after taunt, blow after blow, and the answer to all of it was a hissed no. He didn't want mercy. He didn't ask for mercy. "You are but half a man. You have none of a true man's passions," he bit out, as the word became the stink of sewer water through his nostrils and blackness at the edges of his vision. "You will not even kill me. I have destroyed thousands of your people, yet you will let me live to free myself and do it again. You are weak."
Bane grinned, the final mask connections severing. The pain would become overwhelming now. It would end. Behind the black, he grinned, dazed and maniacal. "You will never understand what it is to love someone so fully that you will burn the world to ashes for them." He almost sounded sorry, his consciousness ebbing into the sewer water.
On some level, the Bat was aware that every word Bane spoke was intended to cause him doubt, to burrow under his skin and take root. He knew he should have ignored all of it, but that would have been easier had he not feared that some of what he said was true. He’d let Crane live, after all, and countless lives had been lost because of his anti-fear toxin. Ra’s had murdered thousands with his virus, and he’d sent a maniac to terrorize Gotham while he led him on a chase halfway across the world. And Gotham, Gotham had never loved him. He knew it never would, not even if he did, one day, give up his life to ensure the city endured. His family was a raw subject, still, and all those doubts and perceived failures built and built, made stronger by Bane’s words. “That’s not love,” he snarled, in between blows. “And if it is, I would gladly spend the rest of my life never feeling it. You and Ra’s and Talia, you’re all the same. The League is nothing more than a group of murdering psychopaths.”
He considered, briefly, crossing the line and killing Bane, just this once. No one would know, and even if they suspected, they would hardly fault him for it. But he would know, and what he’d done under the influence of Crane’s toxin still haunted him after all this time. The Bat’s inability to end this permanently caused that growing pressure to snap, and a wordless roar of anger and frustration echoed within the sewers. “You will never free yourself,” he vowed, and that was a promise. He’d had enough of listening to him by then, and he took hold, lifting his upper body out of the water a few inches before slamming his head down against the concrete below with considerably more force than was necessary.
For a few seconds he was still, breaths coming in short, heavy gasps, staring down at his now-unconscious foe. Pain flared when he moved, and each rise and fall of his chest felt like knives piercing his skin, but there was time for that later. Now, the Bat staggered to his feet and rose, using the same restraints he’d utilized on Deadshot to immobilize Bane, not that he would be regaining consciousness anytime soon. The explosions had blocked off the most obvious exit, but the Bat still had schematics and he had the means to create an exit for himself if need be. Bane’s dead weight was too heavy for him to carry in his current state, so he opted to tether a line to his belt and drag the man along behind him as he moved.
First, he needed to retrieve Deadshot. When the Bat emerged onto the streets above, he would do it with his defeated enemies in tow, to show Gotham and the world he had not failed.