So... I've been to see DKR three times at the cinema so far. I'm totally obsessed with it. And the whole Bane/Talia thing has given me SUCH FEELS. Ugh. I just can't get the pair of them out of my head, so I've started trying to get some unseen stuff out into words. I really hope fellow Bane and/or Talia nuts enjoy this as much as I do. They're just SO LOVELY. Lots of angst/comfort/friendship/baby Talia & teenage Bane/smutty stuff to come.

The Pit.

She scuffs the toes of her soft leather boots against the red dust beneath her soles. A few loose pebbles scatter, tumbling over the edge. She leans over a little and hears them clatter into the darkness below. Talia straightens again, the blazing sun beating against the back of her neck.

She dare not go back down there, not yet, not until she knows he's waiting for her. The pit has already supplied her with ample horrors to last a lifetime; should she descend again - even with her father's men at her back for protection - and have to return to the sun without him by her side… Again… She wonders whether she would make it back into the light at all.

A commander of the Shadows suddenly ascends before her, gracefully landing by her side. She inclines her head slightly. Already her heart is quickening.

"Mistress Al Ghul. Your father believes he may have found the one you were looking for."

Talia turns to the man fully then, her jaw set with something between terror and determination. It takes her a few moments before she can collect herself to respond.

"I will find him. Wait for us here."

The commander bows his head to her and steps to one side, so that she may lower herself using the rope he climbed. Gingerly, she takes the coil in her gloved hands and starts to descend down the steep rock. The blazing ball of sunlight above falls behind the looming shadow of the pit entrance as she goes further and Talia has to swallow her panic as a million broken images of reaching hands and guttural cries and snarling faces threaten to engulf her. She pauses for a moment, takes a steadying breath, then continues down into the abyss.

Besides the soldiers dressed in kureokukogi that belong to her father keeping control of the prisoners, nothing has changed. The walls are the same burnt orange colour. The hot air is still thick with dust and smoke. Though many of the poor excuses for men that call this hellhole home are different to the ones she can remember, they are somehow still the same; slick with sweat, tarnished with dirt and blood, eyes watching her with a vacant stare.

Before long she finds herself at the row of cells that was once her childhood home. The involuntary flashbacks force themselves onto her mind's eye before she can think and, completely unbidden, Talia feels as if the very memory of this place is choking her. She stops for a moment and closes her eyes; pressing two fingers to her mouth, swallowing down the bile. The daughter of Ra's Al Ghul refuses to let this pit get the better of her.

Talia sees her Ra's ahead - in what used to be her mother's cell. Of course. Her father has his back to her, knelt before another, his gloved hand on the stranger's shoulder.

Can it be him? Her father is not often wrong.

So often Talia moves with the softness and silence that comes from years training under the League of Shadows, but right now, she finds herself running, and Ra's turns his head to see her approach.

He stands when she hesitates a few feet away, her blue eyes fixed on the slumping figure against the wall.

"Talia," Ra's murmurs, standing between them, "You need to understand-"

She cuts him off with a look. What she needs right now has very little to do with understanding. If this is him, if this is all that's left of her mighty Protector… Oh, gods help them. The anger, the hate; it's already beginning to bubble to the surface. She doubts there are many more sixteen year old girls who know pure abhorrence like she does. And what she will need is revenge - pure & simple.

If there's anything Ra's understands, it's the need for revenge.

Talia gracefully sidesteps her father and goes down onto one knee. The figure beneath the dirty blankets barely stirs. Talia's breath catches in her throat at the sight of his face - a crude metal muzzle, orange with rust, is strapped around his cheeks, covering most of his mouth & nose. Now that she's close, she can hear his laboured breathing rattle through the grate. Each breath sounds like a desperate struggle. Her eyebrows furrow in confusion at the sight of the contraption before she takes in the rest of his face. Or what's left of it. It's so different to how she remembers, she wonders how this could even be the right man. Where are his high, proud cheekbones? The full, gentle mouth? The well carved jawline?

Instead; bloody bandages - black with rot and infection - are wrapped around his head, centred on his left ear. There are thick pink scars peeking through the grating on his mask, seemingly unchecked and uncared for, weeping pus. The cheekbones are now not so much prominent as hollowed. A filthy sling holds one arm to his chest. He sits with his shoulders hunched, his head down, his great mass covered with dirty rags. Broken. Defeated. This can't be him.

Talia sighs lightly and the smell of decay is suddenly putrid and obvious, though she doesn't allow herself to react. This is a broken creature; someone who has dealt with years of torment and agony. Not a mighty warrior, fearless and brave, proud protector of the innocent. She feels the hot sting of tears threatening to betray her already depleting strength but she blinks them back. The daughter of Ra's Al Ghul does not cry. She has gotten this far without her friend; she can try to carry on without him.

She shakes her head as she turns to look at her father over one shoulder and whispers quietly, "No."

At the sound of her voice, the stranger stirs beneath his rags. Talia turns back to him at he lifts his huge head. Suddenly the pit walls, the crumbling stone, the burning sunlight, the iron bars… They fade to nothing. All she can see are those eyes. Those eyes. The eyes that had watched her grow for eleven years. Eyes that had sought out those who would try to harm her -they would not try again. Eyes that had carefully measured her progress with every step, every word, every lesson. Eyes that had creased at the corners when she'd made him laugh with a naive comment, a childish joke. Eyes that had wept hot tears for her when her mother was brutally taken. Eyes that closed every night with fatigue, softly fluttering, and just once she had once leant over & kissed them as a ten year old girl.

It takes less than a moment, but the dawning of realisation on his face is beautiful to behold. His stare widens in disbelief, and slowly a giant paw of a hand reaches out from beneath the blankets; stretching toward her face.

She leans into it without hesitation and feels the dry, calloused skin softly stroke her cheek.

"Little one…?" He whispers hoarsely through the grated metal.

The tears are falling now. She can't stop them. She is not ashamed. Talia clutches at his hand with both of hers and a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh escapes her,

"I returned, my friend." She sniffs, hardly daring to blink though her vision is blurring. She wants to drink in the sight of him. After all this time, just the simple relief of finding him alive, of being able to fulfil her promise to him… She laughs again through her tears,

"I am here to save you."