2.
Her mother had given her the name Prudence, Prue for short.
She never introduced herself by her full name. It was a matter of dignity.
"I'm not a nun or a safe sex pamphlet," she would mutter to her dad when he insisted that she use Prudence.
The truth was, she didn't like the name's backstory.
When her mother was young, she got mixed up with a bad crowd. Darla fell in love with a musician who was heavily addicted to narcotics and habitually violent towards her and his band mates. She was his groupie-slash-fiancée for a while, until she realized her life was spiraling out of control, and if she didn't leave him soon, she'd probably end up in a ditch somewhere.
She didn't really break up with him, though; not until she met Prue's dad. Andrew was safe and responsible and loving, and if he hadn't fought for Darla's livelihood (he had got her clean and out of rehab), she wouldn't have turned her life around.
Prudence, their daughter, was supposed to be a daily reminder that she had given up a bad life for a good one.
But Prue would have preferred to be just a child, not a reminder. She resented her mother for a while. Well, up until her death. You can hardly hold a grudge against the dead.
It all started with a birthday wish. On her tenth celebration, Prue blew away the candles and whispered in her mother's ears, "I want a baby brother".
So, her parents started trying for a baby brother.
All through her mother's pregnancy, Prue dreamt of taking care of this anonymous baby (who forever remained nameless and faceless), feeding and clothing and playing with him. Like a larger-than-life toy. She was going to be a wonderful big sister, she just knew it.
When the doctors pulled the white sheet over her mother's forehead, Prue felt like a criminal.
A few months of school counseling and therapy convinced her, on the surface of things, that it hadn't been her fault. A child's innocent wish for a sibling does not equal murder.
But Prue knew the truth, deep down in the place where all things become clear. If she hadn't asked for a baby, her parents might have waited. Whatever words of comfort were given her, nothing could erase this bare fact. She had killed her mother and brother.
She carried this guilt with her wherever she went. It molded her, shaped her, made her into who she was today. She sometimes wondered who she might've been without it. She couldn't picture that person. They were too foreign.
Living with the ghost of her brother made her uncannily aware of other people's ghosts.
Prue was known as a "friend in need", someone you could count on to cover your shift or lend you money or let you crash on her couch. She was nice. But her niceness was not something bubbly and joyful. She didn't light up the room with her smile. She didn't liven up the workplace. No, her friends and colleagues simply knew she was susceptible to other people's pain. Like a moth to a flame. She wouldn't go out of her way to help you, but if she saw you hurting or crying, she'd fly towards you like a robin to her nest.
It was why she was currently letting Lisa drink all the milk from her fridge and sleep in her bed while she was in class. Lisa worked at Al Freco's with her, and she had recently been dumped by a terrible boyfriend. She had nowhere else to go. Prue couldn't let her sleep on the streets.
But it was becoming a bit of an inconvenience. Like today, for instance, when she returned from the most harrowing delivery of her life, to find Lisa still in her pajamas, crying about her ex-boyfriend, hugging an ice cream vat in front of the TV.
"Hey, we're out of milk, hope you don't mind," Lisa informed her as she walked through the door.
Prue heaved a sigh. "Great. I'll go buy some more."
That was the extent of the conversation about what had happened at the Gotham Stock Exchange.
In Lisa's defense, Prue didn't feel like talking about it anyway. She wasn't even sure she could. It had happened. She had survived. She was OK.
Was she?
She would be, in time.
She would have liked to be alone for a while, but she couldn't very well kick Lisa out.
She saw a few missed calls from her dad, and she thought about ringing him up and telling him all about it, but she would have worried him pointlessly, and given his heart condition, he was safer not knowing. He had had a minor heart attack a few months back, and ever since then, Prue was wary of springing up any kind of news on him.
She remembered now, as she walked down the street to the 7/11, that she'd promised herself that she would get on the first train home and never return to Gotham again. Prue watched as the night sky filled up with scant stars. Like most of her self-imposed ultimatums, this one wouldn't stick either.
One more week, and then I'm telling Lisa to move out.
One more month, and then I'm changing advisors.
One more year and then I'll be out of here.
The newsreel was playing on every TV inside the 7/11 and the footage was exclusively focused on the Gotham Stock Exchange, except now she could see the events in a chronological order; how Bane and his cohort had closed off the adjoining streets, how they had driven an army truck into the building with little to no compunction, how they had shot the first fires and disabled the working cameras inside. Morbidly, Prue watched for images she could recognize. But the moment she had been released from the building was not captured on camera, or at least, it did not make the final cut. The pregnant woman had taken up the spotlight. Prue wondered if she was all right. She supposed she could try to find her, but she wouldn't be able to visit her at the hospital.
"Cash or credit?" the cashier asked, disinterested.
She kept staring at the screen. They were rewinding the footage, showing Bane's entrance once again. The cameras reduced him and limited his powers, but he still sent a chill down her spine. His body seemed made for warfare, but it was not mechanical. Despite the horrific mask that caged his features, he was clearly flesh and blood, and the corporality of his being was not a weakness. It was an aggressive kind of strength. He meant to impress you with his sheer size. She could not remember much of him now, except this vastness of being.
None of his henchmen had been apprehended, and he'd managed to escape on a motorcycle. It was strange how the authorities could not trace him, could not catch him. He was like a ghost, like her dead brother and mother, living beyond the grasp of others.
In a few days' time, her meeting him would seem unreal. In fact, even now she couldn't believe she had spoken to him. The police had questioned her briefly about it, but they had judged her input to be pretty useless. She didn't blame them. And yet, she wondered, not for the first time, why Bane had listened to her, why he had let the pregnant woman go.
Suppose even he had standards. Even he felt pity. It was a comforting thought, though it also sent shivers down her spine.
The temptation to humanize the oppressor is great, the history books told her time and again. One must resist it.
The wind beat through the naked trees which dotted the sparse campus of Gotham University. Much like the rest of the city, the main building was both neoclassical and futuristic, a combination that frankly gave her a headache: wide spaces, arched columns, steel fixtures, dark granite. It was the picture of solemnity, but it also looked like it belonged in American Psycho. She was sitting in her reading nook in the library, pouring over her notes and cursing the professor who had assigned Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics - a title so digestible and wonderful that she had drawn little devils around it in red marker – when she heard her phone receive a text.
It was from the manager at Al Fresco's. She dreaded, at first, that it would be another one of his awkward "are you OK?" messages. He'd been acting overly concerned since the Stock Exchange, and while she appreciated the gesture, she had an inkling he was checking to see if she was still a viable employee. Capitalism was an unforgiving mistress, as she had read many a times in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.
Thankfully, he hadn't texted to voice his concern.
Can you come in earlier? There's a demand for you.
Prue rubbed at her eyes wearily. A demand for her? How odd.
The following text only marginally clarified the situation.
Customer willing to pay triple if you take the order. Says everyone else is sloppy.
Prue scoffed, digging her pencil into her chin. She had the sense that the customer in question was either very rich or very racist. She'd noticed some people preferred that she - a visibly white girl - deliver their food instead of some of her more "urban" colleagues.
It was a tough choice – spend one more hour hopelessly poring over dry political theory, or drive around the city and get paid for it.
She chose the latter.
Prue knew she'd get a good tip just by looking at the underground parking facility. It was spruced up and spotless, the expensive sports cars gleaming in the harsh neon light. She could catch her reflection in them much better than in a mirror. She stuck her tongue out at one of them.
She walked up to the private elevator and punched in the suit's number, balancing the delivery bags in her left hand.
A cool male voice spoke into the intercom. "Yes?"
"Mr. Daggett? I'm Prue from Al Fresco's. I got your order."
There was no answer, but the intercom buzzed loudly and the elevator opened its doors.
Prue thought about the big paper for her Late Byzantine Period class that she had to finish typing up, and other million chores she had to get done, not to mention helping Lisa find an apartment, and suddenly she never wanted this elevator ride to end.
But end it did. Time stopped for no one.
She made it to the double-panel door, which was already slightly ajar. Prue didn't want to peek, so she knocked politely.
"Mr. Daggett?"
A gloved hand pulled her inside before she had time to shriek.
The door was shut behind her.
Prue blinked.
She was staring up at an all-too familiar face. It was the bearded man, the henchman who had shoved her into the hostage group at the Stock Exchange. She would've recognized him anywhere.
"You…" she mumbled, almost dropping the food.
He was quick, placing a hand over the bags.
"You can put them there," he instructed, pointing at a table in the hallway.
Prue was much too shocked to protest. She walked on stilted feet, almost unaware of her surroundings.
She dumped the delivery bags on the gleaming mahogany surface and stood there like a frightened little kid. One shaking hand dived into her pocket to get her phone, but the henchman was watching her.
"Ah-ah, I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said, and she could see the gun peeking from his jacket.
Prue lowered her hand. She could also see other henchmen further down the corridor. They weren't watching her, but they didn't need to. They all had their hands on their weapons.
At the very end of the corridor there was a Japanese partition which was drawn half-open. Through it, she heard a man arguing vehemently with someone.
She couldn't understand what they were saying, but she heard the name "Wayne Enterprises" uttered again.
And then she heard another voice, garbled and mechanical and almost dissonant. Like it was being filtered through a voice-warping software.
Prue clenched her jaw. It was coming from the mask.
Bane.
"Please, can I go?" she pleaded, staring back at the bearded henchman.
"Not yet," he replied coolly. "You have to get paid first."
"That's okay, it's – it's on the house," she mumbled, trying to keep her wits about her. It had only been a week since the Stock Exchange. Oh, God, why was it happening again?
The man smiled a sinister smile. "Oh, no, he always pays his dues."
The argument had intensified in the other room. She could hear him now, could hear Bane pacing up and down, his weight shifting and sending vibrations through the floor.
The other man was shouting something obscene. She suspected that was Mr. Daggett.
"Please, I won't tell anyone –" she began again, but the bearded man simply placed a finger to his lips.
Prue clamped up.
The garbled voice spoke again. It sounded muddled but final. Like an intractable sentence. There was a sickening crunch and Prue heard the other man scream. Except it wasn't a normal scream, it was a kind of yelp, as if a dog or a small animal were being crushed to death.
Prue put a hand over her mouth. She didn't notice when her back hit the wall. She couldn't breathe.
What was happening? Why was it happening?
There was a thud, like a dead body dropping to the floor. Heavy boots kicked it aside. The beast had finished with its prey.
Prue tried not to look, she tried to avert her eyes, but it was hard not to stare at the giant man striding down the corridor towards her. He was like a living missile whose aim never failed. She wanted to disappear into the wall.
"Food's here, boss," the bearded man said, nudging his head at Prue, as if she were the meal.
"So it is," Bane replied, stopping a few feet short of her huddled position near the wall. She was trembling from head to toe, but at least she wasn't crying yet. No, that would happen when she saw the dead body. Corpses, especially fresh ones, always made her break.
Was this punishment, for talking back to him at the Stock Exchange?
Was he going to – to kill her too?
Prue ducked, preparing herself for something gruesome, but what he did next had nothing to do with violence.
Bane plunged a hand into his pocket and fished out a few bills. It was the most mundane of gestures she had ever seen.
His hands were gloveless, she noticed. He had killed with bare hands.
He held out the crumpled dollars to her, as if it was just another transaction.
"Take it," he beckoned in a calm voice.
Prue knew better than to defy him. She reached out, hand trembling, and took the money from his palm. Their fingers almost touched briefly, and she shrank back, alarmed by the contact, by its possibility.
Prue stared at the money stupidly. She'd forgotten what she was supposed to do with it.
"Now what do you say?" the beast asked, a challenge in his voice.
And Prue said for a second time to him,
"Thank you."
He appeared satisfied, although she could hardly tell what was underneath that mask. But he clearly enjoyed her discomfort. He enjoyed watching people at their worst.
She could have pocketed the money and left it at that, but the thought of a dead man at the end of that corridor propelled her to ask,
"Why did you - ?"
She couldn't finish her thought, because there were too many endings to her question. Why are you in Gotham? Why did you kill that man? Why are you doing this?
Bane's eyes were filled with a dark light that was eerily soothing, almost soporific. He was a cruel man, she could tell from the hardness of his body, but he was also oddly dignified.
"Until next time…Prudence."
She gave an involuntary gasp, the air rushing out of her mouth like an accusation.
"You have spoken my name. I have leave to say yours," he explained in the same dormant, almost lazy fashion. But she heard the cold threat lying underneath. If you call the beast, he will answer.
He signaled to his men.
The bearded henchman took hold of her shoulders and pulled her out of the suit almost gently.
The door was shut behind her.
Like before, Bane was letting her go.
She sat in her car for a long time. She'd parked it somewhere in a dank, remote alley not far from Daggett's building. She didn't trust herself to drive at the moment.
She fished in her pocket for her phone, only to discover that she'd either lost it, or the henchman had taken it from her when she wasn't paying attention.
She leaned her head against the wheel. Her blood was pounding in her ears.
Until next time… Prudence.
The funny thing was, he'd paused before saying her name. And the way he'd emphasized the words, it almost sounded like a fatherly warning, like telling a child, "until next time, vigilance".
She felt bile rise in her mouth. She had never hated her name more.
She had upset a murderous terrorist, and now he was going to haunt her. Just like her brother and mother.
She pulled out the bills he'd given her. She almost wanted to laugh.
He'd given her a tip.
A/N: thank you for your kind reviews, I hope you liked this installment!