Ra's al Ghul had favorites and Bane hated it.
Little did anyone know how much Ra's helped him after his breakout from Peña Dura. He wouldn't call himself an official member for several reasons but he had his sources in the League of Shadows despite his leave. One thing was clear: he wasn't looked up at as one of them. Ra's knew as well as him that he wasn't welcome in the eyes of most. The Demon's Head trusted him enough. But between him and Shiva, there was no competition.
Shiva was the best. Young Talia even aspired to be like her. Bane had a sense of jealousy because of her. The fact that she was sent to test the Batman, taking the bounty as only an extra bonus, was unbelievable. He knew her gimmick, what she was going to do. He had his methods and she had hers. If she stole this victory from him which he yearned to do for years even before they met, it would be the worst insult imaginable. He would quit crime and leave, never to be seen again.
Ra's al Ghul favored her above everyone. Bane had to fight for even the slightest look his way as a worthy threat, not a drug addicted brute or prison escapee. Shiva was practically given her shot in the League and trained by Ra's personally because he chose to do so. True, she became the best, but she was given the means to achieve being the best that he had to fight for.
Even now as Bane saw her in the Royal Hotel, he loathed her. Whether she felt the same he didn't care, but she was not going to take out the Batman before him.
"If it isn't Bane, Ra's al Ghul's failed student," Shiva smirked.
Oh, he had plans to punch that smile off her face really quick. He merely replied in a deadpan, "Shiva."
His own men could tell the tension between them and stayed off to the side. They knew their boss well enough to know when he was peeved and right now, he was pissed off completely. Shiva's assassins that trailed her did not dare to step forward either, more so out of restraint since Shiva never ordered them to engage.
"Small world," she mused. "I was hoping that encounter in Brazil would be the last time I saw you. Never took you for finding comfort in the North."
Bane gritted his teeth in a subtle manner but kept at ease. "Shouldn't you be with your master?"
"Shouldn't you be killing drug dealers and corrupt officials?"
She was playing with him. She always was a smartass, answering a question with another question or comeback. There were moments he wished he did kill her when he had the chance but that would have resulted in the wrath of the Demon's Head. Out of all the enemies he could make, everyone in the League of Shadows would be an immediate regret if he did.
"Why are you here, Shiva? The Batman is not of interest to you and Ra's will not win him over. Your mission will be a failure and you know it."
She put her hands on her hips. "You try telling a six-hundred-year-old man he has the wrong heir in mind. It's not as easy as it looks. If Batman can pass the tests, I will be impressed but I agree with you that I think it's a waste of time. He doesn't seem found of killing, a useless trait in the League of Shadows."
Bane scowled, "You have your test, I have his life at stake and the citizens of Gotham. Who do you think he will prioritize? He won't live to even see your tests."
"Careful, Bane, your opponent has many tricks up his sleeves and if I have confirmed hostages, he will come to me first. Two can play at that game but once Christmas Eve comes, we'll see who he chooses to die by. Don't be a sore loser when he doesn't follow your breadcrumb trail."
Shiva walked off with her escort unfazed but Bane was glaring as she left. Oh, how he wanted to bash her skull in so bad.
"Are you alright, Bane?"
He turned to his second-in-command, Bird, with an apologetic tone, "Ah, yes. Shiva is one of the few assassins I was hoping would not come to claim this bounty."
"Quite a history, shame I was out training our mercenaries and didn't get to see you tangle in Ra's al Ghul's web."
It sounded grand when Bird said it but to Bane, it was anything but. Shiva humiliated him in the League. All his hard work bent in half like a piece of driftwood over his knee. He remembered watching Ra's stare down at him as if he was in the wrong for being challenged by Shiva. She was the only one he couldn't beat, and no one let him live it down.
"You didn't miss much. And I will make sure she doesn't win this time."
That's what he kept reminding himself. Bane loathed Shiva's presence in Gotham for two days like an unwanted ghost in his mind until he finally saw her again. The urge to kill her still didn't go away. What he expected when he found her was more sass and bouts of critiques like before. Instead, he found himself surprised.
On a rooftop in Amusement Mile, Shiva stared down at the streets blankly, hardly fazed by the cold or the snow covering her slowly. Bane approached with caution but knew she probably was already aware of his presence. Nothing ever got past her.
"Look at them, Bane. Every poor soul in Gotham is tainted, disturbed. One would think this place could use an asylum."
Bane found the statement odd but peered down to see two men harassing a feebler homeless man and two cops in their car hardly did anything but watch and laugh. Cruelty, no different from the monsters that called themselves the government that ruled Santa Prisca.
"I know what Ra's is really planning. It's not about the Batman; he's only a pawn," He said, still looking at the scene below.
Shiva raised a brow and turned to look at him, "Why do you care? You left the League..."
"You left me no choice!" Bane growled, towering over her.
The head assassin glared but then grew a Cheshire smile, "You're still mad about that? Do you really think I would let you beat me, even if we were a couple? Ra's doesn't need distractions among his elites, you know that's why he pitted you against me. Do you think I wanted to do it? But I swore an obligation to the League of Shadows and when the choices were laid bare in front of us: stay together and be banished or fight one another to be his second-in-command, I chose the rarest opportunity to get where I needed to go. It's not my fault we couldn't rise together but some sacrifices needed to be made. And don't you dare lie that you didn't try to do the same."
Bane didn't speak, nor did he want to. He had shame deep down of that moment, fighting her for power and losing because he was so ambitious to be better that he let his guard down for what Shiva had over him: control. He let his emotions overtake his strategy and Shiva beat him down because of it. He left the League after losing because he couldn't take the loss, hypocritical considering his many claims of superiority and cowardice of his enemies.
"Bane, deep down, I still love you. But you've become someone else, just as lost and demented as the people of Gotham. You may not see it, but everyone else does. This city has corrupted you...or was it long before that? You just found a home here among the disturbed."
"And who do you think helped me come here? If you had stood by me, I wouldn't have left. If you had helped me in Brazil, I wouldn't have accelerated my plans and come across this bounty. If I'm insane, you made me this way," he sneered.
Shiva shook her head, "No, Bane, you did this to yourself. I only hope you don't fall any further. The TN-1 strain you've picked up...if you take it, you will be no better than a monster."
"Then so be it," he harshly said, turning his back on her.
He couldn't see her face but felt that he had just disappointed her greatly. He barely heard the snow rustle when she leapt out of sight. As he turned back and found her obviously gone, Bane thought upon her words again. There was, in some small manner, a sense of disappointment in himself.
She was right, he hated admitting. What was he becoming? He looked down at the crime below to see now the homeless man lying in a pool of his own blood, not once did he think about helping that man against his attackers, the same people like the ones that occupied his country currently, when he should have done something. That wasn't like him at all.
No, it is. Since when did he care? Since when did he CARE? Since when-?
Bane clutched his head abruptly. That was...unexpected.
Shaking off whatever thoughts he had, his unusual mantra, Bane then spied the same two oppressors of the victim wandering down the street like nothing had happened. Where was the Batman after all this if he was supposedly the guardian of this hell of a city? No matter, maybe it was time to take matters into his own hands.
Bane climbed down the building and followed until they reached a dimly lit street and as he drew closer, his mind split to Shiva. The woman he once loved, the traitor, the assassin. Monster. At least, that's what he heard echoing in his head when he snapped those men's necks effortlessly, imagining he held both the Bat and Shiva in their place.
AN: If everyone can be shipped with the Bat, did you really think I would ship everyone with Bane? I kind of borrowed some of The Dark Knight Rises vibes to Bane's backstory because it makes sense he would at least know Ra's al Ghul.