A/N: Promise I'll make this quick! It's been a very long time since I've ventured into the world of fanfiction, but I was attacked with one of those damnable plot bunnies. I simply couldn't resist writing this snippet up quickly! But I'll go ahead and set the record straight. This will be a Bane 'romance' fic of a sort, but Sandra Wu-San is not an OC. Rather, she is a take on another popular DC character inserted into the Nolan-verse, better known as Lady Shiva. I'll try my darnedest to keep her close to her comic-book self, but there will undoubtedly be deviations. That said, read on, and hopefully enjoy!
"Misunderstand each other, out of control we remain / There is a mystery, we're facing a sight to behold / This is what we make of the world, we throw everything away" - A Sight to Behold, Gojira
Brushing back a wisp of black hair trailing in the wind, she regarded the sight of the stop that the taxi had dumped her off on with a blank face. The Narrows were as haggard as one would expect from the low-income neighborhoods of any large city, but sagging beneath the immense weight of the doleful city, it was as if a veil permeated every corner, taking physical form and overbearing any inhabitant desperate enough to make their home here.
It was early in the morning, just before dawn, and no one would be on the darkened streets, save for the late-night goers straggling home and early risers just opening their eyes to begin mundane morning rituals. Fog covered the streets, and like the unseen weight spread through the city, made itself felt, obscuring her vision of the dwellings farther down the trodden road.
Some buildings still showed signs of abandonment, the glass of windows shattered and boarded up and ivies climbing up to reclaim the decaying brickwork. There were signs of recovery mixed throughout, half-completed roofing protected by tacked-on blue tarps and yellow tape running around areas of structural instability. And even amidst the deterioration and construction, some apartments remained practically untouched, though they shared the same general dour veneer. The Narrows were a mess, as downtrodden as they had been before the attack nearly a year ago, but it showed Sandra that Gotham was recovering far quicker than she had expected.
She began walking along the sidewalk, guided by the hazy, diffused light of the street lamps in the fog, and paused every so often as she passed, gazing up at the faded addresses posted on the street-facing doors. Finally she stopped at one, an especially stout and nondescript building. She pulled a slimly folded slip of paper from her coat pocket and neatly unfolded it, quickly affirming she had the right number. Placing it back, she entered and ascended the stairs which creaked even under her relatively light weight.
She stopped by another door, the stickers reading 927C distressed and peeling off of the door, and reached into her pockets again to jostle out a set of keys. The door unlocked with a gentle click, and she walked in, softly closing it behind her. The studio apartment certainly wasn't anything to write home about, the recently white-washed walls doing little to discourage the general unkempt feeling to the space from seeping in. She noted sparsely placed furniture, just the necessities, as she roughly dumped the duffel bag she had been carrying on the coffee table. The previous owner hadn't been much for decorating, but she mused in their current state, they wouldn't care much either way.
Sandra made her way into the kitchen and hummed with a note of approval as she noted that for the most part, it was fully stocked. Culling through the cabinets until she found what she desired, she went about the business of brewing a pot of tea before she shortly plopped herself at the small dinette table with a steaming mug.
Overall, the space was a far cry from her usual accommodations, and the tea she sipped on was cheap and bitter. But it was well out of the way and would serve her purposes adequately. Here, she could plan and wait, Sandra mused as she scanned absentmindedly over a two-day old copy of The Gotham Times.
She smirked darkly at one article, particularly at the grainy black-and-white photo depicting a man restrained and mostly hidden from view by his police escort, the accompanying caption reading "Previously thought dead terrorist Bane officially released from ICU and admitted to general care at Arkham Asylum."
Perhaps, the time for action was also sooner than she expected.