Sometimes, when it is late at night and she cannot sleep, Talia lets her mind consider the 'what ifs'. What if she didn't find her father. What if Rha's hadn't died. What if Batman had been killed on the train.
What if she hadn't Risen.
What if she had stayed and made a life with Bane in the Pit-sometimes she thinks she might have been happier that way, before remembering what the Pit was really like. It was easy to romanticize something after it languished away in memory. But it was not a bad thought to have, though, truly.
She would have blossomed under Bane's constant tutelage and supervision, she was sure. While it might not have been the same training she received at the League, it would have been enough to survive. Bane's knowledge of the outside world used to astound her as a young child, with his stories of open land and endless lakes of water. Everything he knew, he would have taught her, she was certain. As she got older, he would have taught her more than just self-defense; he would teach her how to best kill a man, in order to survive longer in the Pit. He would eventually let her go and fight for her own food, a task she had never been allowed to do before. And perhaps it would not have been so bad in the cool nights when the heat of the summer tempered, once she was older and no longer in need of protection, to lay by Bane's side and to feel more than the warmth of his skin and hard lines of muscles.
To feel heat.
It would...it would be different in the Pit, Talia surmised. There was no room for long pondering thoughts, or staring wistfully at him while she thought him distracted. In a way, her absence from the Pit had worked to her advantage. It had been so long since she had seen him, that once they freed him from the Pit, that she was a completely different person. No more was the timid child with gangly limbs and ribs that showed under sallow skin; no, she had transformed and was almost a woman, curves where there once were bones jutting from skin, her hair now tumbling in dark curls past her shoulder. She had changed, and with such a drastic evolution it was easier for Bane to see her as more than just a girl.
It would not be so in the Pit.
The changes would be much more gradual, and her hair would likely stay shorn until she was strong enough to defend against all who would hurt a woman in the Pit. It would be so much more difficult to make Bane see that she was no longer a child.
But the wait would be worth it.
Perhaps he'd notice the way her changing anatomy pressed against him as they slept curled against each other; maybe he'd see her exposed flesh when she washed the grime from her body with the rainwater they had collected. But Talia doubted that. Her stalwart protector-he would forever harden himself against lustful thoughts, for her sake. She would have to be the one to make the move.
The thought brought a smile to her face.
How fun it would have been, to tease him there in the Pit with something he was likely deprived of for most (if not all) of his life. While Bane was a force to be reckoned with among the other inmates, she knew how much self control he practiced, even when others would label him a monster.
It would be a hard task, to break through his hard-won reserve and emotional barriers.
But oh, so worth it, as she knew only too well now.
And maybe, once he learned to look past the child he helped raise and onto the young woman who thrived in the deepest of hells; maybe then they could build a makeshift life together, there in the Pit. They would always know hunger, but they would survive; she would learn the names of the constellations that she could see from the mouth of the Pit as her head rested against Bane's shoulder; she would learn the story and path of each of his scars and trace them slowly in the dark, their affection hidden by the shadows from the other prisoners. And she would kiss him, god, would she kiss him; his face not marred because she would not have escaped. He would not bear the daily torment, and she would not feel this all-consuming guilt, day in and day out. It was a heady thought; his lips tracing quivering flesh, his tongue darting into her mouth, and it created a rush of longing that Talia was not expecting.
Distractedly, Talia notes that her hand has slipped beneath her silken garments to try and ease the ache that has grown steadily within her ever since the thought of enticing Bane presented itself.
Talia would bite into the muscles of his shoulder to stifle a moan as he slipped into her, his body arching over hers as they twisted and writhed with unadulterated pleasure; the satisfaction so much more potent in a place so filled with pain. And she would come undone for him in the shadows, muffling the scream that threatened to echo through the Pit as she rode the waves of pleasure, moving silently on their cot as the meager light of the moon filtered through the bars of their cell. She wanted to hear the way his gasps sounded with no mask there to muffle their sound, his warm breath against her neck sending shivers down her spine as her name hovered on the tip of his tongue-a benediction, a prayer. If he was to be her Bane, then she would be his blessing, a spot of happiness born in the darkest of places.
And while they would be deprived of modern comforts, Talia knew she would trade in her penthouse apartment and all of her expensive clothes for a fire and a blanket with Bane at her side.
Talia comes gasping apart, her mind imagining phantom touches and caresses from calloused hands, Bane's name on her lips, threatening to rip her apart with the heat of her need, the rush of empty elation that came at her own hands; hands that were not strong or thick or rough enough.
It was never enough, without him there to do what he had come to desire as well.
It is a while before Talia feels her body relax again, her pulse slowly descending as her breath comes to her in more even draws, her hands still trembling slightly from the satisfaction.
But it is not enough to ease the ache that settles in the pit of her, a glowing ember against bare flesh.
And she knows sleep will escape her again this night.