Disclaimer: I don't own Batman.
Summary: How she can simultaneously look so sinister and yet so caring is something Bruce Wayne doesn't even want to contemplate. BaneTalia, Bruce, set during TDKR, oneshot
I got a brand spanking new laptop yesterday, sooo here's a new fic! So excited that I just wrote this. Haha. This is just a short little fic. I adore the pairing and I loved this scene in the movie and I just wanted to write a bit about it. I hope that y'all enjoy this! I'm pretty nervous about it, but I really hope that it's alright!
Twist of the Knife
The knife curls in his side, steel and sharpness, bringing more pain than he thought was possible.
But it isn't the pain that cripples him - pain is easy to overlook, easy to deal with - but the shock.
Apparently Miranda Tate isn't Miranda Tate at all.
Talia. Talia al Ghul. The surname feels bitter in his mind. He remembers the League of Shadows and fire and escaping, saving a man who shouldn't have been saved.
Bruce doesn't know what to do, so paralyzed by his own shock. He stares at her, unable to contemplate anything else other than the information that spills from her lips, a revelation from an unknown risen phoenix. She tells her tale with her words flowing and cutting, like arctic water slicing through melting ice in preparation for spring.
Though he should not notice anything else, otherwise, he sees something that baffles him.
When she stares at him, it is all revenge and hatred, pressing the knife in his side as if it were the most natural of occurrences. A cold, clinical look in her eyes and an uncaring set of her mouth. She cares not for him. No. This is not like the moments they shared in his mansion. There is nothing left of that girl. He figures that she never existed anyway. Just a mask. A front. Her words prove this in spades.
When she stares at him, there is nothing but cruelty in her eyes.
And yet...
Bruce knows he could possibly be hallucinating due to the pain he is under, but he highly doubts that. A part of him wishes he was just seeing things, but he could only be so lucky.
The sight is a curious one, one that he had never expected in a million lifetimes. But there it is, so blatant and jarring it is akin to something slapping him in the face, as cliched and silly as that sounds.
When she looks at Bane - the supposed mastermind behind all of this, the man who had killed so many people without remorse, without looking back - she softens.
Sure, she still has her cold edge, but something about her countenance smooths over, sand becoming glass. She presses her fingers to his mask, fixing the damage he had done in their brawl, and the touch is as soft as if she were carressing bare skin.
And Bruce stares, enraptured.
Something he had never expected. Something he had never thought to expect. Something so completely and utterly paralyzing that he cannot bring himself to look her in the eyes again, not even when she jams the knife even further, severing muscle, dangerously close to his innards.
She finishes detailing her plan - a must for any true villain, he guesses - and rises. Gives one last look to the man who was her protector in the pit. The man that was a sworn guardian. He can see it now, he realizes. Bane's hard exterior falters for just one instant when he looks at her, and then he is back to business as the sound of Talia's footsteps leave them.
And that very sight makes Bruce question whether if he could really, truly ever know a person.
End.