A/N: Thank you murtagh799, Fragile Dream, batmanbane, Oh Eurydice, Anna10473, MyNamesIreneToo, Guest, BrynnTurpin, Annie Ryder, and Guest for your reviews. :D Enjoy the update!
Soldier
Chapter Ten
/
Eventually that night I was able to drift off to sleep, but it was fitful of tossing and turning and waking up and watching the clock while my mind screamed at me in so many voices asking so many questions. When I woke up to find the sun in the room, I could smell coffee brewing and knew there was no way I'd be able to get back to sleep, so I begrudgingly pulled myself out of bed, threw on some clothes, and made my very reluctant way into the kitchen, one dragged footstep at a time.
Behn was working away at the stove with the TV going in the background, as per usual. As much as I was dreading the coming conversation, I didn't pick up on any resentment or anger from him. In fact, the air between us was quite still and calm, happily filled by the sound of food crackling in the pan on the stove and the TV blathering away int he corner. I stopped in the doorway to watch him, my mind suddenly shifting to concern when I realized I was still in my bare feet walking on a floor that had been covered with broken porcelain the night before, but as far as I could see every single piece had been swept up and disposed of.
I was still surveying the floor curiously when Behn peered at me over his shoulder, and when I met his eye, a tiny little smile graced his face. "Morning," he said, and moved the pan he was working on to a cool burner. Even from the distance I was at, I could see he was scrambling the last of the eggs we had in the fridge. It made me feel worse, as scrambled eggs were my favourite thing to have in the morning.
"I made breakfast," he said, wiping his hands off on his jeans, and then he went towards the coffee pot. "Coffee?"
I went to the stool at the island and sat down. "Please."
He took out two mugs and set them down in front of me, and then he took the coffee pot and poured coffee into them slowly. I watched his face the entire time, and I could tell by the way he was so careful not to look at me that he was mortified about what had happened, probably to the point where he would have preferred if we forgot all about it and never spoke of it again. Part of me was happy that he had at least emerged to talk about it, rather than just hole up in his room the entire day, like I had half-expected him to do. Either way, it certainly didn't seem to make it any easier.
"Behn," I said, very careful to keep my voice calm and low. "About last night-"
"Wait, Irene," he said, putting down the coffee pot but still not able to look me in the eye. "Before you say anything, I just wanted to let you know...I'm really embarrassed," and then he did look at me, with his big brown eyes full of sadness, and he shook his head a little. "Last night I...I think I just lost my head a little. I'm really sorry."
I would have loved nothing more than to let out a giant sigh of relief, but I swallowed it down instead. I wanted to jump off the stool, race around the island, and hug him as tightly as I could before he shoved me away.
"We're partners," he said, pointedly. "That's all. I'm sorry I put you in that position last night, it wasn't fair."
As relieved as I was, I also felt a twinge of sadness right then. I wanted to tell him that I had been tempted, oh hell yes, I had been tempted by the idea, lord knows we both could have done with a little bit of physicality...but I knew it would ruin everything, and I knew he knew that.
"I'm sorry too," I said, though it was difficult to know what exactly I was saying sorry for. Sorry that I couldn't give him the distraction that he wanted, the chance to take his mind off of everything, a few hours to immerse himself in something other than missing his daughter with every fibre of his being, or resenting the fact that our livelihoods made us prisoners in our own home. Perhaps if we had been different people in slightly different circumstances...but it didn't do to dwell on it. "It's been tough."
He nodded wordlessly, and then he spotted the coffee mugs as if he had forgotten all about them and handed one to me. I offered him a smile and took it between my hands, sipping it earnestly to ward off the sleep deprivation from the night before.
"Can we forget it ever happened?" Behn asked.
The tone in his voice suggested that he not only wanted to forget about it because it caused him great embarrassment and shame, but he also said it almost in the form of a question: could we forget that all we had was each other, and we'd refused to put it in jeopardy?
I didn't know what to say. Part of me wanted to talk about it, explore a little further to see if there was another solution we could come up with together, but the other part of me was happy never to speak of it again. There was too much else going on.
"Yeah," I said.
He nodded very purposefully, as though we'd signed a contract, and then he took a sip of his coffee and looked towards the frying pan on the stove. I could see by the light in his eyes that even though it would probably always be on his mind, like it would be on mine, we would never speak of it again. "You hungry?"
/
It was a long, cold walk to the library that day; I pulled together the folds of my coat and held my bag close to my side as I ventured through the deserted streets of Gotham, with its empty skyscrapers reaching to the grey sky like colossi, all staring down at me. A strange feeling bubbled up in my stomach, not unlike queasiness, despite the fact that the relief that had come from the discussion before breakfast was almost crippling. But I supposed there was a part of me that felt guilty, a part of me that wanted what Behn wanted but couldn't do it for any number of reasons. He must have known it too, realized it only too soon after he had stormed out of the apartment the night before.
I shook it out of my head and concentrated at the matter at hand as I climbed the stone steps to the library. I thought about the conversation I'd had with Blake and Commissioner Gordon the day before, thinking about the layout of the library and considering where Bane and his men were stationed. Perhaps there was somewhere I could set up in order to infiltrate their plans a little more inconspicuously.
As I stepped through the rotating doors, I let out a sigh of relief at the warmth that met my cold cheeks. Several of the men stationed at the front desk turned to look at me, though as per usual, they paid me little mind once they saw it was just me. Bane was not among them, but I didn't stick around to look confused any longer than need be, and instead went to the grand staircase, just like any other day, and climbed it all the way to the top. Once I set my bag and coat down in my usual spot, I began to scour the walls for a map of the library, though I only needed to check the fire exits before I found one that I removed from the walls and took back to my seat.
The library's appearance was deceitful; on the outside, it looked like a large, grand building made of pristine stone aged gracefully with the rest of Gotham. But inside it was far more intricate and spacious than I ever would have imagined. It made me feel strange having lived in Gotham all my life and worked as a public servant and didn't have an inkling about such a historic building. There were several large reading rooms, though the Morganbilt was by far the largest; it made sense as to why Bane had claimed the room as his own. Further down the hall from the Morganbilt was the Cobblepot Wing, which by the looks of the map pended itself to a myriad of little hallways going into this room and that on the ground floor. The basement was mostly archives, custodial, and resources for employees, like a locker room. It didn't seem very helpful.
I left my things and the map where they were and returned to the foyer, slowly going down the staircase. If the Cobblepot Wing could help me keep an eye on things in the Morganbilt Reading Room, then surely I'd become privy to at least some of Bane's plans. Any intell I could hear or procure at all would be a help to Commissioner Gordon.
Bane's men watched me for moments as I crossed the floor; I made eye contact with a few of them but did nothing more. I was prepared to tell them that I was just going to the ladies room, but none of them asked and none of them stopped me, so I continued on, feeling less at home than I would have liked, but at least not as spied on as usual.
I passed the restrooms and walked towards the Morganbilt Reading Room. The door was open by just a crack, and I could see the light coming into the hallway, but as I listened, I couldn't hear anything except the distant cracks and snaps of the fire in the fireplace. My heart pounded for a moment as I toyed with the idea of sticking my head in to see what was going on inside, but I swallowed down the temptation as I hurried past the doors and continued down the hall, following the signs directing me to the Cobblepot Wing.
My footsteps were sharp on the marble as I walked along, peering at the massive window at the end of the hallway, reaching up to the ceiling, letting in the day's cool light. The double doors to the Cobblepot Wing emerged like doors to a cathedral, and although it occurred to me for a moment that they might be locked and that this wing of the library was perhaps closed off by Bane's men to civilians, it was gone from my mind as I pressed my hand against the door and found that it opened freely and swung forward to allow me inside.
But as I came into the great room, I paused abruptly as I found the room to be already occupied.
At the far end, close to the looming, diamond-paned windows, two of Bane's men stood there darkly and awkwardly, unarmed, with a look about them of great nervousness, though it wasn't difficult to see why. Interrogating them was the man I'd come to know as Barsad, Bane's right-hand man, and at his side stood the titan himself.
Upon my intrusion, whatever confrontation at hand between the men was halted, and all eyes turned to look at me. Bane, who initially had his back to me, casually turned to face me, the metallic of the mask catching brightly in the gloomy light, his eyes fixing on me intently and instantly.
Goddamn it! I spat inside my head. Of all places to be caught snooping around.
They all stared at me collectively, and I stood there, stupidly stammering to give some sort of explanation, or at least mutter some kind of apology for interrupting what was obviously a terse conversation.
"I'm sorry," I muttered, my eyes pulling over to Bane, almost uncontrollably drawn by his colossal form that dwarfed the other men and stole the light from the room. "I didn't think anyone was in here."
But before I could excuse myself and hurry away to safety, the room was filled with Bane's sudden booming voice. "No, Miss. Vale, come in please," he dipped his chin to me, in all cordial invitation. "Your timing is impeccable."
I stood there, shocked, unable to move, even as Bane beckoned me inside. I looked frantically to the other men, who all beheld me with a quiet, held-back terror, and I could feel it so easily that I should not have been there, and I was going to regret having interrupted, one way or another.
Bane held out one hand towards me with his palm up, and his eyes considered me expectantly but also softly. "Please."
I sucked in an apprehensive breath and stepped forward, allowing the door to gently close behind me. I walked forward, and they all watched me, and I kept my head up, focusing on the lot of them while my reluctant footsteps echoed in the hall and my breath sat inside my chest like stone. Bane lowered his hand and held it out, almost as though he presumed to take mine hand in his, but I could see that he meant it as a sign to join him at his side, so I did. Barsad's eyes were hard on me but he was careful not to let his expression betray his thoughts in front of Bane.
I was at Bane's side and engulfed by his stature; I'd never been so close to him, save for the brief time I passed him on the staircase. I felt the strength in his form like standing next to a carved marble statue of a god, and felt the slightest ghosting of his fingertips of my elbow, as though to pull me closer to his side. When I stood at his side, barely tall enough to reach his shoulder, he motioned to the men who'd been the subject of the interrogation. They both beheld me with wide, scared eyes, but there was no hiding the sneer that threatened their expressions as they looked at me.
"These men were scouting the west end when they witnessed a man marking the walls," Bane began, the boom of his voice thunderous over top of me, though I knew he was speaking in a calmer tone. "I would like to think my own men would know to pursue such an instigator, but as such they allowed him to go free."
One of the men, obviously fumbling to gather his courage, used it foolishly to interrupt. "Boss-"
"Quiet!" Bane snapped, bringing silence into the room, and it might have made me jump if I hadn't been expecting it. After the man was appropriately cowed by Bane's correction, the titan returned to me. "Street art might not concern me, if not for the particularity of the symbol."
He then produced a little black book out of nowhere, like the kind I had during my routine police work. He held it out for me to see, and on the page was a crudely drawn symbol, though it was only too easy to see that it was a bat.
I swallowed down my reaction because I knew they were all watching me intently; the sign of the bat made me think of Blake and Commissioner Gordon. If they were looking to communicate somehow, or come up with some kind of mapping system, I hoped they would have chosen a symbol that was a little less obvious.
"Boss," came the suddenly shaky voice of the man who'd spoken earlier, and all eyes turned to him in anguish. "You can't count on the word of someone who-"
Bane reached over, as casually as if he were reaching out to answer a ringing telephone, and took the man's throat in his hand. I watched, horrified, as Bane clenched the chords of the man's neck in his thick fingers, and at such close proximity I could not only hear them crack, but I could see the near bursting of the man's eyeballs in their sockets. Bane was unmoving, unwavering, unbothered, as he crushed the man's throat in one fist and allowed him to go tumbling unceremoniously to the floor when he released him, only a moment later. My heart jumped into my throat and choked me, but I willed myself not to react, even as every bone in my body, on instinct, wanted to drop down and ensure the man was all right, even as I could hear the blood bubbling in his throat as he struggled for a last breath.
I listened to Bane pull in a breath through the mask and it made the hairs go up on the back of my neck. I waited, almost anticipating the hotness of his breath to come tumbling down over my skin.
"Miss. Vale," he said, though still in an undeniably polite tone.
I looked back down at the paper in his hand and I nodded; even if I tried to hide it, he'd be able to tell, and he'd have no qualms in punishing my deception. "It looks like a mode of communication."
The surviving man squeezed his eyes closed, as though his fate had just been sealed. Over top of me, a pleased sound reverberated through the mask, as he took away the little black book from view.
"My thoughts precisely," Bane said in a satisfied tone.
The man, seemingly unable to wait, began to anxiously blather. "Boss, we weren't sure, we didn't know!"
On Bane's other side, Barsad raised a handgun he produced from out of nowhere, and shot the man point blank in the head. I looked away, not even phased by the sharpness of the gunshot, but I couldn't watch the man fall, and I didn't.
An unpleasant, dead silence settled in the room, as cold as the light from the wintry day outside the windows. I crossed my arms over my chest, staring down at the floor, trying not to throw up my breakfast onto my shoes.
"Thank you, Miss. Vale," Bane said, the boom of the mask emphasizing the satisfaction in his voice. "You prove more sensible than my own men."
I didn't know what to say; I didn't even think he was expecting a response, but I didn't dare move. The fear didn't leave me even as Bane stepped away from me, out of my bubble, and meandered slowly to step over his fallen men.
"You did not even flinch, Miss. Vale," Barsad said, and when I looked over at him, he was surveying me grimly with his arms at his sides, the gun still in his hand. Upon meeting my eye, he raised an eyebrow at me. "Death does not alarm you?"
The challenge came with an answer I had prepped in my head: I was a Gotham City police detective, I'd seen the most horrendous of crime scenes, felt the realest of terror during the time of the Joker, I held my own fiancee's severed head in my hands while his blood spilled onto my fingers. Death did not alarm me because it could do no more to me.
I wasn't at all unhappy that Bane chose to answer the question for me. "Miss. Vale has seen her fair share of evil," he said, his voice light and inquisitive, and he turned to look towards the two of us, having now stepped over his men and gone towards the windows. He grasped the hem of his shirt with both hands, and when I looked over at him, just out of curiosity, he tilted his head a little as though he had let loose a secret. "So she informs me."
I could practically feel Barsad's scowl on the back of my head; he must have wondered when Bane and I had had a chance to speak so candidly about such a thing. But I knew he already suspected me of many things.
"Perhaps you should join our cause," Barsad countered, not missing a beat, and when I looked at him once more, his remark came with a challenge I could see so clearly in his dark eyes, as though he would like nothing more than a Gotham City police detective working on the side of Bane, that he would find the irony particularly delicious. I was careful not to react, not to frown or sneer or scowl, not to give him any further ammunition that might fuel his distaste for me. I simply stared back at him.
"Barsad," Bane said, coming towards us once more, and when I looked at him, the titan's attention was turned to his right-hand man, though he held his hand out to me. "It does not do well to ambush a lady."
Bane continued towards us, stepping over the dead bodies of his men as though they were nothing, and he turned his eyes down to me, chilling the blood in my veins, tipping his chin politely. "If you would leave us please, Miss. Vale."
I swallowed tensely and looked between them, nodding but not saying another word. I turned on my heel and left the room as quickly as I could without breaking out into a full run, putting myself through the doors and out of the space of death.
Stopping, I sucked in a deep, calming breath, trying not to hear the gurgling blood in my memory, or the shot of Barsad's gun echoing through the room. Sure they were Bane's men, they were mercenaries, they were criminals, they were terrorists, but it didn't make their deaths any easier to witness. And the way Bane disregarded them as though they were nothing, as though they were street filth beneath his shoe, it made my breakfast dance uncomfortably in my stomach all over again.
"There, you see?" Came a voice from beyond the doors, and I turned to listen. It was obvious, having thought I had hurried away down the hall, perhaps to the restroom to vomit, Barsad had found his voice and his determination to speak more freely. "She cannot be who she says she is."
With my heart palpitating, I listened intently, not moving and not breathing, waiting for Bane's response.
"You have my opinion on the matter, Barsad," Said the titan, as flippant as ever.
But Barsad was not convinced in the least. His voice became desperate, louder and demanding. "She cannot stay so close to our operation if we are unsure of her background-"
"Even if she meant to interfere," Bane interrupted, his voice touching on dangerous from within the mask. "Which I very much doubt, there is nothing she could do. Or perhaps you have forgotten then integral part of our plan?"
A wave of disappointment crashed over me then, and I leaned up against the wall next to the doors, rubbing my face with one hand. Once again it didn't seem to matter who was still alive and who was still wandering the streets marking the corners with a ridiculously obvious symbol for god knows what reason. The truth of the matter was that the city was doomed; any day now would be our last. The bomb would blow putting Gotham City and everyone in it into the freezing ocean, and there was nothing we could do. Like Bane said, there was nothing I could do.
"I just think it's a mistake," Barsad said, after quieting for a moment to reflect on these things, just as I had done.
I could hear Bane inhale and exhale through the mask, the sounds deep from behind the doors. "And had I failed you in the past, Barsad, you reasoning might be valid. Since they are not, I expect not to hear on the matter again, have I made myself clear?"
There was a warning to the tone, one that almost made me feel confidant that Barsad would never give me another scowl for the rest of the time we spent together under the library's roof. But it was dangerous too, a reminder that he was dealing with a very dangerous man, that I was dealing with a very dangerous man, and at this point I didn't even know what good it was.
I continued down the hall away from the doors to the Cobblepot Wing, barely hearing Barsad's agreement, but the words from the mask followed me down the hallway like the voice of a ghost inside my head.
"Good."
/