horrendousness

[onapalehorse]

From this.

"You will find strength, and peace."

He promises, with belief.

Comments

[lasiurus]

Bruce watches him warily, but it's the caution that the League of Shadows trained into him. He's not planning how to overpower Bane, merely watching for an attack.

And then he kneels. Why he does it is a fuzzy thing even in his mind.

"It feels like a training exercise. It would have bothered me yesterday."

[onapalehorse]

"Do you think you might have been fighting him, the weaselly little rag, as well as me?"

He means his previous master. Standing behind him, Bane reaches down and rests his hand on Bruce's shoulders.

"Perhaps I'll destroy him for you."

[lasiurus]

"You were sent by him. And he is just like all the others."

So yes, because Bruce sees them all as one entity. Although perhaps not all of them; he relaxes marginally when Bane touches him.

[onapalehorse]

"He never sent me anywhere."

He corrects, dropping down onto one knee behind him, massive, immovable presence at his back.

"He opened the door a crack, and I broke it down and lifted you free of his idiotic stylings. He thinks you're dead and need never know different."

[lasiurus]

He turns his head to see him, but with his chin tucked out of habit to protect his throat.

"How did you hear about me, then?"

[onapalehorse]

"One of his guests."

He admits, reaching out the other hand, dragging a thumb along the unprotected side of his throat.

"It had me watching. I offered my services when he was hospitalized."

[lasiurus]

He flinches at the first contact, but doesn't seem to mind otherwise. He sits back a little further.

"And that whip you used?"

Bruce knows full well he would never have agreed to come if Bane hadn't followed that all the way through. He would never have believed it wasn't a trick without that moment of aftercare. But he wants to hear it from Bane's perspective.

[onapalehorse]

"I'll use it again, I'm sure. You're doing remarkably well today, but too much, too quickly, for it to be permanent."

Stroking that finger down his throat, slowly.

"My wishes truly are to guide you."

[lasiurus]

That much is certainly true. Bruce is feeling optimistic, and alive. It will fade, and he knows it will.

But in the meantime he just tips his chin up, stubbornly rebelling against his training.

"Guide me to what?" And then, because he wants to see what Bane does with open communication, "Having my throat touched usually sets me off."

[onapalehorse]

"What happens when you are set off?"

Hand freezing, for the moment, letting him explain.

He shifts, so his legs pin Bruce's shins against the floor, and then pulls him subtly back against his body.

[lasiurus]

"Fight or flight. With you, it'd be flight."

He's tense again, but in this case it's because of the fact his singletail marks are pressed against Bane. He doesn't fidget or complain; it's just pain. He can handle it.

[onapalehorse]

"You've fought me before."

He reminds him.

"Very effectively."

But his hands drop down to rest instead on Bruce's hips.

[lasiurus]

"It wasn't effective. If it had been, we wouldn't have got to the whip."

He keeps his own hands resting on his knees, just as if he was meditating. It keeps them out of Bane's way.

[onapalehorse]

"I mean, you are a very effective fighter."

He clarifies, hands slipping in to find his buttons.

"Is it easier to be undressed, or to undress yourself?"

[lasiurus]

"It's about the same. I haven't had anyone try to undress me in... a while."

But he does finally grab Bane's wrist.

"Just- tell me if this is going to pain or not."

[onapalehorse]

"That was the anxiety of anticipation. Not knowing built the tension up in you until it burst into something you knew was ill-advised. Softened, thoughtfully, with very reasonable request, but still a tiny bit outside of your control."

Nuzzling at the outside of his shoulder, the unwelted portion.

[lasiurus]

The metal of the mask isn't cold, like Bruce would have thought. And he can feel the wires humming very faintly, because he's listening for them.

He leans back a tiny bit against Bane, welts be damned.

"Your advice is to live with the anxiety?"

[onapalehorse]

"Stop feeling it."

He says, instead.

"What is it you fear, then pain? I will be fair, you will know that if it is coming, it is necessary. You know also that you can withstand it. The fear does not make sense, it only coils you uselessly tighter, and eggs you into decisions that are wrong."

Captured wrist rotating lightly in Bruce's hand.

"This will not be easy to understand, until the first few times I have bandaged your hurts and put you into a soft bed afterwards."

[lasiurus]

He understands it from a psychological point of view. He's aware of his own damage, and how it drives him. But the idea of it in practice runs right against everything he's taught himself to be.

But he remembers a time before, in the mountains, when he had learned to submit to life-threatening tests just to master his fear. There had been a certain peace in it.

"I don't fear pain. I fear dying before I can save the people I care about."

And Bane is more than capable of killing Bruce if he feels like it.

[onapalehorse]

"Love."

Sorrowful.

"That, I cannot cure. I can, however, swear that it is not my intent to kill you."

[lasiurus]

Bruce considers, and nods at last.

"I can deal with that."

For now.

[onapalehorse]

"Good."

He announces, nodding in pleasure.

"Very good. Your safety is my undertaking, I know that trust is earned, not owed. Obedience, however, is your duty. Do you see the difference?"

[lasiurus]

"No. I've spent too many years obeying men I shouldn't have trusted."

He doubts that's news to Bane.

"I'll do what you say, but only to a point."

[onapalehorse]

"Then that, right there, is a neat summation of the problem we face. Your trust, and how it scares you into defiance."

Sounding quietly pleased.

"I will not win your trust by coddling you. But I think I can- prove to you your new consistency, while you try to save them from within the social structures you now forcibly inhabit."

[lasiurus]

The worst part is that when Bruce examines his actions from that perspective, Bane is right. He would have fought anyone yesterday, it's true. But it had turned into a fight against Bane himself and not against his captivity.

He looks over his shoulder at him.

"You'll help me save them?"