On the ride over, Batman briefs Damian on what will be happening. They dive at 25,000 feet up and their chutes will open at 1,000. He's going to have Damian dive with him, in a tandem dive - he's not letting the kid do a solo HALO jump. Damian protests weakly - insisting he's already done it - but not a whole ton. Ever since Batman scolded him for trying to kill Tim, the kid hasn't been that argumentative.
As they approach the base near Gibraltar, Batman ejects them from the rocket. For his part, the kid gets in proper position immediately - arms and legs out with his knees bent. Batman can't give any orders as they're falling, because of the wind whipping by them deafeningly. Batman is thankful for it. Not being able to talk gives him time to think. Think of what he's going to say to Talia. Ask her what happened - not why she lied to him about losing the baby, he's gotten over that, or at the very least, it seems so incredibly inconsequential compared to everything else going on. But why she raised their son as an assassin. He thought she hated assassin's work. Thought she'd - thought she'd want to be a better mother to her child than Ra's Al Ghul was to her.
And, way too late, as they're diving down, he realizes he didn't come here for Damian. If he really wanted to do what was best for Damian, he would've kept him at the mansion and stayed home and never, ever sent the kid who'd already killed too many people to remember into battle again.
No, he tracked down Talia and the League of Shadows are for him. He wants answers. He wants to find out how this could have happened and if there's still anything left of the woman he once loved.
The realization doesn't do him any good, though. It's too late to go back now - way too late. Another decision that is only a mistake.
Batman opens the chute as they get closer, and now the real hard part begins.
Earlier, they were falling too fast for anyone to shoot them down. Now, if there are assassins on the ground, watching them, they could shoot them the instant they decel enough. Or just cut the cords to the chute. Either way would leave them just as dead.
Batman is regretting the fact that tandem diving means Damian is in front of him. The prototype Robin gear is bullet resistant, but not bullet-proof.
The platform grows larger, and Batman sees Shadows the size of ants scattered across the platform - about five of them, growing quickly in size. Some of them turn up and start to take aim at them. Batman risks pulling the cords in on the chute to make them fall faster, and figures he can just finish the deceleration with a batline -
Shit.
He didn't even notice a cord got cut by a bullet until they were already spiraling out of control. He wraps one arm around Damian, even though the harness already had him, and yanks the reserve chute's cord.
It slows them down some, but not enough. He gets out a batarang that should shoot out some of Green Arrow's patented red foam and throws it to the ground right before they hit. He bends his knees and keeps his muscles loose to protect against injury, but most importantly, angles himself back a little, so if he falls over, it's not on Damian. As he's doing this, he notices the kid starting to reach for the harness, as if to unbuckle it -
In less than an instant, they're on the ground. As they hit hard, Damian is thrown from the impact. Batman can't see if he landed in any controlled manner or not - but certainly his son's doing better than he is, since he finds himself about a foot deep in the goo around his legs and six inches at his back, where he'd finished falling. He's stuck. Helpless. Even his arms are trapped in it.
Four of the assassins start to make a semi circle around him, approaching him slowly - two with guns and two with swords. The fifth assassin - Batman doesn't see where he is, his vantage point is all wrong, but he assumes he's going after Damian.
There's a thunk thunk of two knives hitting flesh, and Batman can see the final assassin as they stumble forwards into his field of view. He has one knife in his forearm and the other in his stomach - nothing immediately lethal, Batman thinks with a small sigh of relief. Then, a small ball of red rushes up at the assassin and kicks him in the back. The assassin makes a hurk noise as one of the knives is driven even deeper into his stomach when he hits the ground.
The other assassins all turn on Damian. Damian doesn't bother staying still long enough for them to see his face - he throws a knife at the hands of one of the gun-wielders, and a bullet goes off.
Batman starts trying to struggle free.
There's a harsh swish of a sword through air, blood splatters, and an assassin's head falls on the ground and rolls straight up to Batman.
No.
Batman works his arms back and forth, trying to get the spikes on his forearm guards to cut through the goo, but it'd been too much of a last-ditch measure. It wasn't actually designed for cushioning falls, it was designed for restraining enemies. And he is restrained.
There's yet another sound of knives rending through flesh, and Batman just thinks that it's gotten all out of control so fast. How?
Damian's yelling, and Batman cranes his neck up, but it doesn't look like the boy's been injured. Instead, he seems to be the only victor of the melee and is sitting on an assassin's chest and brutally punching his face over and over again with a sick thwuck sound.
The assassin begs something, and Batman finally finishes wriggling his hand free. He gets a batarang out and starts chopping at the foam around his other hand.
Damian finally stops beating on the assassin.
"Damian," Batman says, hoping to snap some sense back to him.
Damian looks at him. There's a note of panic or something in his eyes - Batman can't tell. But he's very afraid of whatever Damian will do next. He's not worried about himself, but he is about everyone else in the place.
"Damian, I gave you an order!" Batman snaps. Damian had promised he wouldn't kill anyone. "Why did you do it?"
Damian doesn't answer. He just yanks his sword out of the gut of one of his victims and runs inside a door leading to the lower levels.
Damn it!
Batman finishes freeing his other hand and gets to work on his foot. As he tries to struggle away, sharp pain goes through his leg. Something's broken, that's for sure.
It takes him two minutes to finish freeing himself. Two minutes in which Damian could've gotten himself in all kind of trouble.
Batman stands up, haltingly, and tries putting weight on his right leg. Pain jolts up from his heel to his knee, concentrated around his ankle. He's hoping it's only a sprain, and he can just ignore it and keep going, but his experience is telling him it hurts too much for that.
Then, there's a whirl of helicopter blades - coming from the far side of the platform, away from where Damian disappeared to.
Batman turns around. Disembarking from a helicopter are four League of Shadows assassins and Talia Al Ghul. Talia's in her usual black suit, gun in a holster and sword in her hand. Her head held slightly aloft, confidently, and her long brown hair blows in the breeze.
Batman is half convinced she's going to try to talk, like she usually does when she sees him, but she charges him with a sword.
What the hell?
The charge is way too telegraphed for Talia - there's no way she could think he'd just stand there and let her run him through, and if she misses it will leave her entire back exposed. He steps to the side and backhands her across the head. She rolls forward with the momentum of the punch, but doesn't stand up again, as if it knocked her out. Did it?
The other assassins start surrounding him, carefully. He doesn't let them. He busts out the smoke bombs early on. He needs concealment to his advantage, because with his leg like this, mobility sure isn't.
He keeps his breathing calm as he fights, to deal with the pain and avoid choking on the smoke. He moves around the outside as the assassins look for him in the smoke. He punches one in the back of the head and they wheel on him, sword rushing through the air to his face, but he's too close for them to swing it properly. It thunks harmlessly into his chestplate, since they didn't get enough strength in the blow. He punches them twice - once in each side of the head - and they fall unconscious.
That was the easy part.
The hard part comes now, when the other three assassins have heard the fighting and know where he is. All of them start towards him, two on each side and one in the front.
Batman throws three batarangs, trying to hit each of their hands with the swords. One of them drops theirs, the other two keep hold of them and rush him.
They come at him in tandem, one slashing their sword high and the other low. Batman has no choice but to back up, continuing to put them at the advantage - they're outside his guard, but he's not outside theirs.
He catches a sword with his gauntlet and yells as it bites through his arm. It was the one that was already damaged from his fight with Damian.
The other assassin takes advantage of this, rushing him. Batman shifts his weight, trying to force the first one to the ground, and takes out a batarang -
He slips.
His injured ankle gives up and he winds up on the ground on one knee. Before he can figure out how he's going to defend himself, a knife flies through the air and slices the wrist of the assassin whose rushing him. They drop their sword and grab their wrist.
Batman takes advantage of the momentary distraction to punch the other one in the face, but it's too straight on to knock them out - he just breaks their nose. He rotates his torso towards them and stands up while headbutting them under the chin. Now, they fall to blissful unconsciousness.
The two disarmed assassins - one harmlessly, the other with a bloody wrist - come towards him, each holding newly acquired daggers and murder in their eyes. They saw that with the leg, Batman thinks. They know he's injured and they know how to exploit it.
Batman waits for them to come to him again. If they're going to underestimate him, he's going to make them regret it.
Surely enough, each of them come running at him. Batman decides to take a page from Dick's playbook - he bends down slightly, preparing to jump, knowing it's going to hurt like hell when he does.
As they reach him, he jumps, grabs both their heads, and knocks them together. If he were Dick, he'd land gracefully on the ground after this. Being injured and unable to do full splits mid-air, he can't keep his balance properly and tumbles forward. He turns the tumble into a roll so he can put distance between himself and the assassins, in case any of them maintained consciousness. When he turns and checks, though, he can see they didn't.
The smokes clearing, and now he can see Talia, still laying on the ground from where she fell, one hand on a knife, in case she needs to throw another one. "Beloved," she says, with a slight smile. "Aren't you going to offer me a hand up?"
Batman frowns. Something's wrong here. Talia hasn't normally felt the need to take a dive in front of the Shadows - if she didn't want to fight him for real, normally she'd just say so. He offers her a hand up.
Talia brushes her legs off and straightens herself out. "It's good to see you, but we have to be quick. I'm only slightly ahead of the military, and they're going to blow this place out of the water to assure it doesn't fall into the hands of the enemy - and I need something we have here." And then, "How's Damian? Has he gotten into trouble yet?" she asks with a smile.
How can she act like this is normal? Like they're just a regular divorced couple sharing custody and she didn't turn their ten-year-old son into a killer.
Batman jerks his head towards the scene Damian left behind.
It's nothing he hasn't seen before, but the fact that he knows a ten-year-old did it makes it feel more gruesome. He's not just looking at dead and injured assassins - he's looking at ten years of indoctrination and child abuse.
Talia looks between the scene and Batman a couple times. "You took our son here? What's wrong with you?"
What's wrong with him?!
"What's wrong with you?" Batman hisses, stepping forwards and grabbing her upper-arm. "Have you even seen the kid you raised? What did you do to him?"
Talia's eyes narrow. She grabs Batman's hand by the ring and pinky fingers and removes it. Not quite a joint-lock, but she's prepared to use one if she needs to, if he resisted her.
"I left him with you," she says, and brusquely starts towards the door.
"I didn't mean in the last couple days - "
She whirls. "No, you don't understand, Bruce! I left him with you. I thought he'd be safe!"
"Don't you dare act like you care about his safety! You don't get to do that!"
Talia's lip raises and she gets up on the balls of her feet and for a moment, Batman thinks she's going to attack him - for real this time. But she just tries to yank the door Damian disappeared down open. "It's blocked," she says.
Batman procures some bombs from his utility belt and they both stand back.
As they're waiting for the explosion, Talia says, "Please use that renowned brain of yours for once. My father is dead. I've taught Damian almost as much as I can. And I've assured no one will come looking for him for at least a couple weeks."
The bombs go off and the door falls down, and Batman grunts. It's starting to come together now - he doesn't think making sense because nothing about this incredibly fucked up situation makes sense. But her dropping Damian off, chasing after the White Ghost, even taking a dive in front of assassins she should have been commanding - something's going on in the League. Something dangerous.
"Were you ever coming back for Damian?" Batman asks.
She avoids answering. "Would you have let me?"
They turn the corner, and there are two assassins on security detail. "You're holding me hostage," Talia whispers to Batman as they approach.
Batman is sick of this game. But he's not about to refute Talia's story, in case this winds up coming back to hurt her or Damian later.
"I already have your master's daughter as my prisoner, do you really think you can stop me?" he asks the two assassins.
They both charge him anyway. Talia jumps out of the way, and Batman throws a batarang with an explosion-timer to a pipe above their heads and engages in the brawl. The batarang goes of, momentarily confusing the assassins and covering the area with steam. In the limited visibility, Talia joins the melee and helps Batman finish dispatching them.
"Ra's' assassins aren't stupid," Batman says. "I couldn't have even hit them from that angle."
Talia smirks a little and raises an eyebrow. "There are two things you should know about men, Beloved. One, that you have enough of a reputation most of them believe you could do anything. And two - that they are always willing to underestimate a woman."
Batman narrows his eyes. He doesn't like her casual banter, acting as if they're both ten years younger and stupider and as if he hadn't seen everything that happened with Damian.
"I won't let you take Damian back," Batman says, answering her question from earlier. "When we find him, he's coming home with me."
"And what will happen to me?"
"You belong in jail."
He thinks it's the first time he's said that to Talia. He doesn't normally try to arrest her when he has a confrontation with her and Ra's Al Ghul. She's saved his life enough times, and her conflict with her father was clear enough, that he could never really bring himself to do it. Now, he wishes he had.
Talia sighs sadly.
"Don't bother trying to appeal to our past, it's what got us into this mess in the first place," Batman says.
"I'm not your enemy, Bruce," Talia says a little sharply. "I never was."
Batman scowls.
There's a loud roar and the platform rocks. Everything falls about five feet as the platform starts sinking.
Talia looks at Batman with wide eyes.
"And that'd be the miliary," she says. "We really have to find Damian."