The shadows belong to Bane. They are his mistress, his mother, his cloak, his armour. He hears every ghostly breath and each whisper of cloth. The shadows part for him, lead him to his prey. There's no escaping in the darkness. No one can hide from him, not in the shadows. No one except Talia.
He has lost the memory of the first time he saw her, a child born in the Pit. He remembers his thoughts though, his anger at whomever would dare condemn a child to such a fate. Eventually he finds out. Ra's Al Ghul, Henri Ducard; a man with two names and a vision of destruction and rebirth.
The first time he meets this man, this father who forgot his family, Bane wants to hurt him. The anger surges in him, the rage that has been with him so long that it feels like his body's built on it. The whirlwind fury that has made a home in the bones holding him against gravity. Bane wants to hurt this man, but he won't.
Ra's Al Ghul listens to his daughter's pleas and makes a mask to fix what the Pit has done. At first Bane hates it, feels like an animal neutered and muzzled. The rage pulses like a heartbeat and he thinks he could bear the pain without this metal gag. Then Talia runs her fingers over the plastic tubes and along the fabric straps. She traces the mask that keeps his sanity and Bane forgets to care.
She's still a little one when they make their home in the League of Shadows. Bane doesn't see the logic in Ra's Al Ghul's words but Talia follows her father and Bane follows Talia. They make their home in the League of Shadows with sharp glances and sharper words. They're the odd ones out, a child and a man without a face. Talia may be His daughter but she's still just a female, still just a youth.
It's not long before their thoughts change. Talia is beautiful. He's always known this, but it's strange to see a child of the Pit become something more than a broken body. Talia is beautiful and they can all see it. Only Bane sees the ripple of her muscles and the swiftness stored in her lithe limbs. Only Bane sees the danger in her smallest of movements.
People see the monster in him. They see the demons in his eyes and the nightmares in his mask. All these people he meets, they think that he's the worst thing in the world, the devil incarnate. There are few things he loves more than the look of horror when they realise Satan was never as strong as Lilith.
In time he sees the truth in Ra's Al Ghul's words. Talia explains them with dark whispers and sharp eyes. She shows him the tar clogging Gotham's veins. She shows him the sloth, greed, gluttony; the toxic sludge of crime that no one can scrub away. To save a city, you must first destroy it. You have to die to be reborn.
He understands more than they think. There's still a memory in his mind of a time before Talia. It's over-exposed and black and white, but it's his. A life before the Pit caved in his face; a time when he smiled; a time when he could smile. There's nothing more to the memory, no recollection of his crimes, just the knowledge of a 'before'. Even his name has been lost now.
Then he remembers falling into the Pit, remembers the first time he flinched from the shadows. He remembers counting days in darkness, sick with the hope of escape and he tries, of course he tries. The noose's tight around his waist, a safety harness to save his life. Rock slips out from beneath his fingers and he falls. The rope snaps taut and hope breaks his spine.
Bane's lucky. He heals and loses his faith. Every week someone tries to rise, pretends to themselves that they can make it this time. For them there's still hope, but he's lucky. His hope's gone, lost in broken bones, and soon he feels nothing at all. He becomes just another shadow in the Pit, meaningless, mindless. He becomes part of the darkness and those with eyes turned to the sky eventually forget he's there.
Everything he is melts away until a child's born in the Pit and he's taught how to feel again.
If there's one thing he knows, it's the minds of men. They said she was a princess and maybe she was, but in the Pit you lose your life. Heavy with child, the princess was lowered into her new Hell and there was no one to save her, no one to take her place. A child was born in the Pit, and Bane knows the minds of men. They didn't see a mother and her daughter, didn't see two humans. They only saw bodies, both female, both fuck-able.
The Princess dies with a knife in her throat. Bane wasn't quick enough to save her and there's no one else to pity her cries. Talia's alive, knees in the dirt as the knife cuts into her back. Fury floods from his bones and Bane lifts the murderer from the ground, hands around his throat. The man's eyes die before Bane can crush his windpipe.
He drops the murderer on the dirt floor and there's a knife in his chest. Talia steps forward and pulls the weapon out, movements tight and controlled. There are no tears when she looks up at Bane, eyes as cold and dead as her mother's. Instinctively he reaches for her, lifts her from the puddle of blood spreading across the cell floor.
They are waiting outside, the ones with sore necks and hope-starred eyes. Silently he dares them to try and take her. He wants one of them to, wants to make an example so they will understand. They don't get to touch the tiny body in his arms, don't get to burn this child of the Pit. No one tries. Perhaps they've not forgotten him and his shadows. Perhaps they've always been watching him.
No one tries to touch her, not for a long time. They understand that she's protected now, that there's a guardian angel of flesh and bone watching over her. He teaches them the beauty of innocence, shows them the intricate perfection of a child. He tries so hard to make them see that she's their redemption.
All the while he teaches her, shows her all he knows to ensure survival. He tells her how to befriend the shadows, how to make the darkness theirs until night and day hold no difference. He teaches her where to hit a man to make her softer punches count and how to use speed and size to her advantage. He shows her the way to wield her knife; the way to make sure an opponent won't get back up. Together they become shadows and around them the whispers build, the whispers of the children of the Pit.
Then one day, with locusts crouching on starved skin and festering wounds, everything changes. The Pit can hold a hundred at a time and often more. Their howls fill the air until Bane feels like he can't breathe. They're waiting for their pound of flesh and Talia clings to him as he holds her close. Her eyes catch his and all he can see is trust.
They almost don't make it. The ground seems to move beneath Bane's feet as the stairs take him closer and closer. Up and down in patterns that seem impossible, patterns that make it seem as though someone built this place laughing. He barely has a chance to lift the little body to the first ledge. A hand grabs him and suddenly he's fighting for his life; fighting for their lives. She's still there when he looks up, a statue against blue sky and not a little bird falling with broken wings. He feels it again: Hope. He feels it burning in his bones, a fire rising to replace the anger that was all he knew.
"Goodbye."
It's the only thing he says to her. Then he's drowning in his own blood and the hope's gone. The hope's gone but for one word, and she remembers. One word and she returns for him. The hands drag him down, throw him to the ground and he thinks that this is his end. The fists of the Pit snap his bones and cave in his face.
They come for him when bandages stiff with dried blood hold his face together. They fix him as best they can and she lets her fingers run over his new mouth. So yes, he understands. Phoenix from the ashes. You have to die to be reborn.
Fighting against crime, you make enemies. Not all of Rha's Al Ghul's students have his daughter to show them the truth in his words. Many leave with hissed threats and return with destruction in their hearts. Hundreds try to stop the League and hundreds die. If someone stands in the way of true justice, you simply walk up behind them and stab them in the heart.
These ones, they come at night and Bane wants to laugh. Stupid creatures, the shadows don't belong to them. He wakes before Talia, the sound of dying pulling him from the thickness of sleep. With a hand across her mouth, he rouses her. Instinctively she fights back until her hands feel his mask. Silent silent, she slips out from under him and turns cold eyes to the door.
Beyond their room the night overflows with writhing bodies, killing, dying, dead. Someone Bane doesn't recognise lurches into him, eyes growing fearsome wide. He doesn't wait for a command, just breaks the man's neck and reaches for another. Most days he might follow Talia's word but not here, not in this madness of battle and little else. There's no time for words.
It's all but impossible to tell who's who. Tumultuous seas, death laps against the walls like water against the beach. They're all students of Rha's Al Ghul, all wielding swords. No one has brought a gun. There is no plastic or metal save for Bane's face. Perhaps he's the odd one out. He fights with his hands.
Bone breaks under his fingers. Bodies twist and snap. A blade bites into his arm but the pain isn't really there, buried beneath chemicals that stop the human from feeling human. He lashes out and over everything runs that river of anger that has replaced his marrow.
He turns and Talia isn't behind him. All around him are bodies but none are Talia. The mix of snarling creatures have dragged her down and Bane can't protect her when he can't see her. Without thinking he starts running. It's hard, like wading through a swamp. He's not built to run, not with a mechanical mask like a fictional metaphor. Breath comes harsh and stale and the machine that covers his face splutters. People stumble into his path and they die. This mouth feels like it'll break soon but that doesn't matter. Bane knows she'll fix him.
And there she is. Ra's Al Ghul and his daughter are caught in a corner, backed in and surrounded. He charges towards them, breaks through the circle of enemies. A body smashes into the wall and doesn't get back up. Talia's in front of him then with sharp eyes and the knife from the Pit's in her hand. It already has blood dripping from the blade.
She smiles at him then and between them the calm falls, waiting for the lightning and thunder. Beyond them the fight's staggering, more dead than alive, more fleeing than stupid. Talia whispers to him then, barely words among the screams. She says to kill them all and Bane always does as she wishes.
The storm breaks and the semi-circle moves in on the protector in their way. He smashes the heads of the first two together, feeling the impact jar his skeleton. The sternum of the next snaps under his fist, breath whistling from the fool's mouth. The smell of blood splatters in the air as nose bone crunches against his palm and liquid flows warm into the grooves of his skin.
A blade bites into his side and he lashes out blindly, gifted with a scream. Another blade cuts through the air. He dodges back but it's not quick enough. A shallow cut along his stomach. There are fingers scrabbling at his face, dragging as his hands close around a throat. Then a dark hiss, a snap, and pain.
It isn't like the pain of an injury, isn't like the pain of a flesh wound. It's something else, so deep and so piercing it has its own colour. White, a blizzard across his vision. The world becomes nothing more than figures, shapes in a snowstorm. There's a ringing in his ears, so loud it feels as though the sound's an arrow shot through his head.
He thinks he will black out soon but he hasn't let go, won't let go. There's still a throat between his hands, still people to kill so that Talia's safe. The windpipe beneath his fingers gives way and the man's breath stops. He leaves red handprints on the man's neck. Desperate, Bane turns to kill the next. The last men are already dead. Talia glides towards him with the knife of the Pit in one hand.
Knees give way and Bane thinks they must be his because the ground's closer now. The blizzard blows snow in his eyes and he can barely see, can barely think anything but pain. Talia crouches in front of him and he recognises her silhouette, recognises her against the snow. Hands brush against his face and her fingers find the tubing of his metal mouth. Carefully she fixes him, small hands deft and caring.
In a hiss and burst of fresh chemical air, the pain goes. The snow's swept away and night returns with all the shadows that he understands. Talia's hands rest against his mouth and she smiles. Suddenly he wishes he could smile back.
If there's anything he knows, it's the minds of men. He knows the thoughts of those in the League like his knows those of the Pit. He can see it in their eyes: beauty and the beast, pity and the monster. They don't see the truth, only what their eyes trick them, only what their conventions force upon them. Talia tells him that human eyes see the world up-side-down but their brains know to flip the image. Bane nods solemnly as she reads whatever books she can find. He supposes that makes sense.
Ra's Al Ghul doesn't like him, that much is never hidden. Henry Ducard, Ra's Al Ghul. The man with two faces hates the beast with none. Bane understands, knows the minds of men. The princess didn't make it out of the Pit. She was lowered in and no one was there to take her place. She drowned in the darkness. The princess died but Bane didn't and his mask, his scars, show the world what the Pit does to a human protecting a child.
One day he's searching for Talia and finds her father instead. The man's lip curls and Bane's about to leave when His voice stops him. They're alone in the empty heart of the League of Shadows when Ra's Al Ghul tells the monster from the Pit to leave and never come back. There's no more hope for Bane, no more redemption, no home. Talia needs to grow up, live her own life, love someone without a past to give her nightmares; that's what he says.
Bane doesn't argue. He can understand those words from a father, a husband, a man who lost everything. He packs what little he owns and leaves the League for a world that he has yet to see. It's strange to be alone, the absence of her so poignant in a mountain landscape of snow and rock. He wants to turn to her, wants to ask her where next and what now. In a handful of minutes, with the hulking structure of the League's fortress still looming behind him, Bane begins to long for her.
It takes two hours for her to catch up to him. Neither of them say a word but the understanding's there, the importance of a bond forged in Hell. There's nothing that will come between them. A father who forgot the pain of his family is no longer a father. She reaches out with thin fingers and brushes against the mask on his face, the reason for his exile, and he wishes he could smile. Instead he asks her 'where next?' and 'what now?'. She turns towards the horizon with footsteps certain of the world and Bane follows.
At night he curls around her, shields her from the world. He doesn't need to – nightmares are the only demons she can't fight and he's no dream-catcher – but Talia doesn't complain. By night, everything draws closer together. They're the children of the Pit, the ones the world forgot. The shadows belong to them; martyr, monster, guide and guard.
They build a life, build a reputation, and for the first time he's thankful for the mask. No one would care if he didn't come with a mystery. Bane: the masked man, they make his name known. Meanwhile Talia's a ghost, blending into the world and becoming nothing more than one of the shadows he takes with him. She's his secret weapon, the knife that cuts deepest. Hidden from sight, she gives him a new face, gives him her story; the child who climbed from the Pit.
Jobs come from all over for them, word of mouth traversing continents to speak of the mercenary. Together they save few and kill hundreds, bring down governments and set up new ones. They use every weapon already made and see many that are yet to be. He learns the easiest method of stopping a human from escaping and she learns the many ways to make explosives. They build a home in the world, mobile and nomadic,. They move where the work is, where the war is.
One day Talia finds him hidden from the harsh sun in a local's house and tells him she has a gift for him. With an easily practiced gesture, she summons three of the men currently working for them and turns to the north. He doesn't bother to question her, just follows and tries to ignore the heat of the sun, tries to ignore how bright the world is above the Pit.
It takes them hours but eventually Talia begins to slow and Bane knows, is so sure he's been here before. Deserted, arid, the rocky ground's the colour of tanned skin. Dust and sand swirls around their bodies, Bane protected by his mask, Talia by dark green cloth wrapped about her face. The wind catches on the long fabric of her clothes and pulls them into the air so that Bane thinks it looks as though she has wings.
They stop a few metres from a hole in the ground, wide and deep so all Bane can see is darkness from where they stand. Talia turns to him and although he can't see her mouth, he knows she's grinning with sharp eyes and white teeth. Her hand slips up to toy with the knife in her belt and Bane knows then, remembers where they are. Feet almost hesitant, he slips over to the hole and looks in. The Pit greets him with mouth open wide, insides full of jutting rock and shimmering particles of dust and sand hanging in the air. He can't see the bottom but he knows it's there.
Talia slips past him to a rope curled up on the ground. Carefully she checks it, pulls tight on its anchorage until she's assured it won't break. The three men each take it up, wrapping the rope tightly about their waists before taking it in their arms. They're strong, Bane knows, easily able to hold them up or drop them down. He takes the end of the rope, wraps it securely about his own waist before gesturing to Talia. He lifts her easily now, as effortless as when she was a little one in age. With a nod to the men he leans back over the lip of the Pit, feeling the rope tighten and slacken as they descend.
Dark wraps around them instantly, the sun already beginning to fall out of the sky and casting heavy shadows across the Pit. The noise of the above world dies, all the rustling and hissing wind. In its place comes the anxious clamour, the whispers and shouts of the prisoners of the Pit. The slap of feet on the rock and creaking of metal sound like old friends and Bane would smile if anyone could see it. It's not that he's pleased to be back, never pleased to be back in the Pit. It's just that he knows this place so much better than those landscapes above. Here he knows everything.
When they are almost at the ground, a hundred faces turning to watch them with fearsome eyes used to staring at the sky, Talia leans closer to Bane, presses her face against the straps of his mask. She whispers in his ear, tells him that this is her present to him, the Pit, his own Hell to rule. He grips her tight with his free arm, digs his fingers into her hip ever so slightly just to see her smile.
Once on the ground he drops the rope, tells the few prisoners daring enough to linger close to them that there's no point in climbing, they will die if they reach the top. Necks crane and high above Bane's men stare back, black figures against the blue sky. One still reaches for the rope, too stupid to believe the masked man or perhaps driven crazy by the darkness. Talia slits his throat and lets his blood baptise a Hell under new management.
The prisoners shrink back, a few fleeing to their cells eager to lock themselves in, but most simply fading back from the child of the Pit and her protector. Talia's hand rests momentarily on Bane's, small and slight but commanding. She slinks off into the shadows, blending in as Bane taught her from so many years ago. She leads him to a cell and inside bodies huddle, flinching away from the silhouettes approaching. Bane knows their faces, recognises them instantly. It must've taken her weeks to weed them out, to find the one's with his blood on their hands. These pathetic creatures, cowering against the rock, they're the ones who caved in his face, who beat him until he breathed blood instead of air.
Then the Doctor appears, slipping between the cowards to grip the bars of the cell door, staring out at the pair. His eyes jump over them, frantic, wild, knowing who they were and who they are. Bane's name drops from his lips and the dam breaks with pleas and bargains and reminders of all that good he did. Metal presses into his hand, a knife warmed from her body heat, a knife that has returned to the Pit. She slips a key into the cell door and stands back to let him pass by her. Pausing, he turns to her, rests a hand against her cheek. His voice thanks her, twisted from behind a metal mask but she smiles all the same, lets her hand cover his. Then she closes the cell door.
The screams last for as long as he lets them, until his ears go bored and the knife slices through throats and digs into flesh. They die, all of them, cowering, screaming, shouting, pleading. Their blood fills the cell floor and runs warm on his hands. They all die but the doctor. Bane turns to him, all but blind from the anger in his bones. He wants to kill this man, this idiotic fool who did more damage than the ones driven mad by plague.
But he doesn't kill him. That would be too easy. Instead he slips his blade into the man's eyes and steals his sight. There's no use for a Doctor without eyes. Then he leaves the man in the blood and entrails, lying among the corpses. Bane locks him in the cell so he might feel the sun on his cheek for days to come and know that he will die in the Pit, in Bane's Pit.
When word of mouth catches up to them, the masked man has become loud enough to turn the attention of agencies and organisations of countries with electric-light cities. Word of mouth tells them that Gotham's time has come, that the League of Shadows will wait no longer. Ra's Al Ghul has a plan and the great city will fall before him.
Bane and Talia are in a country with more desert than water. There a boy thinks himself a king but people with money want him gone and people with this much money only ask for the best. Bane and Talia leave the country and the boy king still rules. The money doesn't leave with them. If Gotham's really going to fall, they won't need any more paper validation.
They arrive in time to hear the screams. Arkham's worst runs through the streets and the ones who put them there cower in their homes, seeing beasts that don't exist. They arrive and blunder in, Talia too desperate to find Ra's Al Ghul and Bane too busy following her. Caught in the winding maze of a city they don't know, poison air finds them. Bane isn't affected, and he has another reason to thank his metal mouth, but Talia can't escape the fear. She hunches against him, draws her knife and attacks phantoms.
Memories of the past filtering through, he lifts her carefully, avoiding her wild slashes. A black shadow flies above the city and, remembering the stories of a bat man, he follows. If there's a saviour of Gotham, he will know where Ra's Al Ghul is. In the steam-filled streets, people with blood-shot eyes flinch away from the man without a face. They won't remember him the next day, lost in chemical hallucinations. No one will remember a mercenary and the girl he carried. Talia buries her face into the thick fur of his jacket, breath hot against his neck.
He finds Ra's Al Ghul, Henry Ducard, the man with two faces. From a rooftop he sees the train and it's too far away, moving too fast. The impact kills him instantly, metal, glass, concrete and in the middle soft human tissue. Bane and Talia can only watch him fall. The impact kills him and the explosion incinerates him. Talia screams at the last second, screams and screams and beats at her protector until there's no strength left in her arms. A father, even one who forgot his family, is still a father.
Bane carries her away from the scene of her father's demise, cradles her in his arms and takes her to safety. The sewers provide sanctuary, not pleasant but bearable. Talia's eyes cloud over and she sees demons until she falls asleep and then she fights them in her dreams. Bane doesn't speak, doesn't try to comfort her. Instead he curls around her and pretends that he's a dream-catcher, just for a night.
The next day he hears whispers of a cure, medicine to stop the fear. He breaks bones until someone gives it to him then returns to the sewers. In a few hours Talia's eyes clear and their cold, sharp gaze returns. She lets go of the knife from the Pit and slips it back into her belt. Words printed in black and white wash down the pipes to them and speak of Gotham's hero, Gotham's dark knight. Talia's lips fold back and her teeth gleam white in the shadows.
That night she lies next to Bane and whispers in the darkness. She tells him a plan, a scheme, full of tactics and tricks. She laughs and tells him how they will burn Gotham. Talia presses a hand against his mask and tells him how they will complete the work of Rha's Al Ghul and destroy the city. She leans close until her breath's hot on his skin and he can see her eyes, so beautiful and alive, through the shadows. In the sewers of Gotham city, Talia tells him how they will kill the Batman and Bane wishes he could smile.