He asks, softly, looking him in the eye, holding him like that. He doesn't let him speak yet, knows the denial will be instantaneous, but rather wants him to think about it.
He lies still in Bane's arms, absorbing pain and something stable.
"Bats."
It comes in a rasp, with a smile. And it's true, but there's also the fear of failure, which he developed after Rachel died. So Ra's never touched either phobia.
"What she does not see cannot hurt her. The dead, in my mind, do not watch."
He murmurs.
"They simply are not. Snuffed, from the world, without consequence or meaning. There is no justice, no harmony, but no injustice or dischord either. We are simply a sum of cells. Shed the intolerable cruelty and injustic of her death and focus on the air that moves in and out of your lungs."
Bruce's philosophy of the afterlife is much the same: there isn't one. But he's clung to Rachel's ideals, and the crushing guilt over her death has kept it all very much alive in his mind. He's heard virtually every suggestion there is on how to deal with it, and on the surface Bane's advice isn't any different.
But the wording is; it acknowledges the injustice without throwing it in Bruce's face, and it's specific. 'The air that moves in and out of your lungs'. It's oddly hypnotic, and Bruce closes his eyes, and breathes.
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He pushes Bruce's hair back, and then presses a fingernail against the thin skin of his ear where it stretches taught over skull.
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"Keep talking."
A soft request.
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Hand over his face now. He does love that jaw joint.
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Really afraid of. But that joint makes Bruce cry out so there's no time to finish the sentence.
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He asks, softly, looking him in the eye, holding him like that. He doesn't let him speak yet, knows the denial will be instantaneous, but rather wants him to think about it.
"I'll teach you to face it."
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"Bats."
It comes in a rasp, with a smile. And it's true, but there's also the fear of failure, which he developed after Rachel died. So Ra's never touched either phobia.
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He murmurs, forehead creasing down at him.
"Fearsome in flight, I suppose."
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He's well aware that it's ridiculous. It was absurd even when he was a child.
"So I became Batman."
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He decides, shifting them, sitting back, dragging Bruce up.
"You'll like them once they're in your lap."
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"And what's your fear?"
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Which he survived.
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He taps his nose.
"The rest is just finding rhythm once more."
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He's resisted it for so long...but the world is falling apart and he can't help if he can't pull himself out of his own wreckage.
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He orders him, arms around him.
"The past is past."
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"Is that how you're all right with having me around, even with how she felt about me?"
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He murmurs.
"They simply are not. Snuffed, from the world, without consequence or meaning. There is no justice, no harmony, but no injustice or dischord either. We are simply a sum of cells. Shed the intolerable cruelty and injustic of her death and focus on the air that moves in and out of your lungs."
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But the wording is; it acknowledges the injustice without throwing it in Bruce's face, and it's specific. 'The air that moves in and out of your lungs'. It's oddly hypnotic, and Bruce closes his eyes, and breathes.
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Said, as though that is that.
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