7.
Professor Attwood didn't like to be rushed. Prue watched as he slowly turned another page of her dissertation plan, his pen poised to make some very elaborate notes, no doubt. He had been doing this in perfect silence for the past half hour while his student watched helplessly. Prue knew that it was some form of punishment for having postponed their earlier meetings, but could the man be more sadistic than the dangerous criminals she was involved with?
It appeared so.
All she could do was wring her fingers in her lap and study the model in the carpet.
"Ms. Neill, I must say, this is..." Attwood began, at length.
Prue's head snapped up immediately. "Yes, Sir?"
"It's not entirely -"
Her phone started ringing. Prue winced internally. Professor Attwood's eyes narrowed visibly.
"I'm sorry, it won't happen again," she mumbled, clicking her phone shut.
"I should hope so. As I was saying, what you've outlined in the first chapters is adequate, but..."
They both jumped in their seats when Mozart's Symphony 14 started playing in the background. Professor Attwood retrieved his own phone with a deeply confused frown.
"Hello? I'm not to be bothered during office hours -" His face grew taut with incomprehension. "What do you - oh, well, I..."
He handed over the phone to his student with a disgruntled mien. "It's for you, Ms. Neill."
Prue stuttered a helpless apology and raised the phone to her ear.
"Hallo, sweetheart," Barsad said cheerfully on the other line. "You weren't picking up my calls."
She wanted to kill him, painfully. She smiled nervously towards her professor.
"May I step out for a minute, Sir?"
Professor Attwood raised his hand contemptuously. "Please, take your time."
"What's got you so flustered?"
Prue paced up and down the hallway, running an angry hand through her hair.
"What's got me so flustered? You just called my professor's phone!"
"Yeah, well, what else was I supposed to do?"
"I can't believe you! I was in the middle of something! I don't care what super important task you have for me, this is my one day off! I have rescheduled this meeting a dozen times, I'm fed up with you and your -"
"Goodness, love, I was only calling to ask if you wanted me to get anything from the supermarket."
Prue's hard sense of righteousness deflated like a balloon. "W-What?"
"Yeah, the fridge looked sorta empty and since I'm at the grocer's..."
"Oh." Damn it. She hadn't banked on that, she had expected some outlandish request that she would feel very satisfied in turning down. Or at least pretend that she could turn down.
"Well?" he asked impatiently.
"Uh, I guess you could get a dozen eggs, a packet of butter and ...maybe some bananas? Oh and er, bacon would be nice -"
"You got it. I'm also doing a run at the pharmacy. Any lady products I need to purchase?"
Prue blushed profusely. She was running low on tampons, but she wasn't about to tell him that. "No, thanks, I'm covered."
"Are you sure? Cuz I don't mind. I mean I've seen my share of bloody bits -"
"Okay, okay, you can get me a box of tampons."
"Lovely. Are you a heavy flow kind of gal or -"
"Bye."
Prue clicked the phone shut with a heavy sigh. She was letting criminals pick up her lady products. There was some very dark irony in that.
Barsad didn't really understand why it had been very invasive to call her professor's number, but at least he had got good bacon. Prue was making herself a very late breakfast in the kitchen to comfort herself for the rather poor meeting she'd just had. Professor Attwood had told her in no uncertain terms that she had to deliver a chapter by the end of the month or else he would not advise her anymore.
"And it's all because of you," she muttered, flipping the omelet over in the pan.
The man in question popped his head in the kitchen. "I hope you're not talking about me, love, because your academic score was not much higher even before we arrived."
Prue wanted to throw the salt shaker at him. Him and his "boys" were currently lounging in the living room, working on their laptops.
"Screw you."
"Hah, boss would kill me if I did," he laughed.
Prue made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. Though, it was comforting to know Bane forbade fraternization of that kind.
"You'll be pleased to know you're gonna get some compensation for all your troubles," Barsad said, stealing a rasher of bacon.
"Does it come in the shape of you guys leaving me alone?"
"On the contrary, sweetheart. You might be let in on a few of our secrets."
She stared at him disapprovingly. "Sounds like an empty promise to me. You people have never told me anything, why start now?"
"Well, you did prove yourself at the charity ball."
"All I did was put a damn envelope up my pantyhose," she grumbled, not knowing exactly why she was upset. She did want to find out more about their operation, didn't she? But then again, whatever they were doing was illegal, so perhaps her curiosity would be self-destructive in the end.
"Fiiine, if you don't want to take any of the credit... Let's just say we've more or less confirmed you won't stand in the way of our progress."
"Such praise," she muttered.
"Well, we had to make sure. And I would say you've been a good help so far, except you'd probably find a way to turn that into an insult," Barsad said, rolling his eyes.
Prue placed her hands on her hips. "You mean how I've been your messenger girl without pay?"
"Hey, the groceries have always been free."
"Oh, okay, I guess that was a fringe benefit," she replied sourly. "That and threatening the life of the people I care about."
"Mild inconvenience, really, once you see the bigger picture," he said, waving his hand dismissively.
"The bigger picture? What is the bigger picture?"
But Barsad waved her off, just as she expected. "Patience, love. Patience."
Prue slammed down the frying pan and stormed out of the kitchen. She wasn't going to play his game today.
"Tomorrow night," he yelled after, "we're taking you down into the sewers."
Prue stopped dead in her tracks and turned around, looking far queasier than before. "Is that - is that a euphemism for something?"
Barsad laughed. "We're not killing you, silly. It's a surprise, you'll see."
.
When the next evening rolled around, however, her apartment was empty. Bane's men were currently out on private business and only a few of their possessions were scattered around her living room. No one had come to take her to the "sewers", as promised.
Prue felt both relieved and disappointed. A part of her had hoped to be confided with this secret location, but another wiser part was happy that Barsad had only been joking, after all.
She made herself some tea, had a small chat with her dad, in which she once again omitted telling him about her new "friends", and after saying good night to him, she got into bed with her book. For some reason, she was sleepier than usual. Her body felt heavy, like a sack of flour. She could barely keep her eyes open. Right before falling asleep, she thought she saw a figure enter her bedroom.
When she woke up, it felt like only minutes had passed. Prue reached out groggily for her phone which was usually perched on her nightstand. But there was nothing there except air.
When she finally opened her eyes, her bedroom had disappeared. Instead, it had been replaced with a dark tunnel.
Her blood froze in her veins. The tunnel was moving. Or rather, she was. Rusty metal rings sped before eyes as she traveled deeper into its mouth. She was lying down on a stretcher which was attached to a pair of wheels and someone was rolling her forward.
She tried to lift herself up only to discover that she was tied down around the waist with a buckle. She started to panic.
"Let me out, please, let me out -!"
"Oh, you're awake," Barsad piped above her. "Steady now, sweetheart, the belt is only there so you don't slide off."
"Why am I being hauled - what's happening - where -"
"Easy, easy, you're just confused. The drugs are wearing off."
"You drugged me?" she bellowed, scandalized.
"I told you we were taking you to the sewers. Not how we'd do it."
With the gradual awareness of her body and surroundings came the throb of a painful headache. She felt as if a stampede of wild horses had trampled over her brain. Her throat was parched and she had a sticky taste in her mouth. She really needed to get off this stretcher.
As if she had made the request out loud, the wheels stopped turning and she came to a sudden halt. Barsad unfastened the belt.
"You're good to walk the rest of the way. I was only waiting for you to wake up."
Prue sat up with some effort and held her head in her hands for a few moments. "Was it really necessary to kidnap and sedate me?"
Barsad scratched at his stubble. "We don't usually go about doing anything unnecessary."
Prue squinted at him. "Okay, Mr. Sophist, you're very clever. I guess this means you guys don't trust me with your...secret layer, or whatever."
"Who's Mr. Sophist?" he wondered absently.
"Never mind. Just...lead the way," she grumbled, jumping down from the stretcher. It was only then she noticed there were three more men behind him. She recognized them vaguely as having frequented her apartment before, but she couldn't be sure. They all possessed the talent of looking anonymous.
She too was probably indistinguishable from other women, and that must have been an asset to Bane and his cohort. She, like them, was negligible quantity.
"Right, this is only a temporary abode, mind you," Barsad drawled, pulling her out of her bleak thoughts. He pushed her gently forwards and they started walking deeper into the darkness.
Now that she was more or less awake, she could hear the constant trickling of water from above. Her feet trod on hard cement which was made slippery by muck and lime. She had to be careful. The smell was sulfuric, but also strangely sweet, like rotting fruit. There were openings in the walls, closed off with thick black bars. Beyond them, she could hear the rivers of water and waste. As they walked on, the darkness turned into a milky opal fog and she thought that there must be an opening above them, but when she looked up, she saw electric torches fixed into the eaves of the vaults. They stretched on towards the end of the corridor where she could see a metal ladder going down into another level. She had a bad feeling they were supposed to climb down there.
Prue wrapped her coat tight around her body. The cold was seeping into her bones. At least Barsad had thought to bring something warm. Underneath she was just wearing her pajamas. She wondered where her life had gone so wrong that she was now exploring a sewer.
"Right down that ladder, love," he announced, much to her dread.
"Terrific."
.
The noise was deafening. A great mass of water was falling in a straight curtain, blocking her view momentarily. The water streamed down into a foamy waste canal, but above it, there was a crisscross of grids and walkways that each connected to different levels of the sewer. There were men patrolling each of these walkways, but she was too far down to see their faces.
"How do we get up there?" she asked absently.
"We don't. We'll watch from here," Barsad told her, all of his infuriating mirth suddenly vanished.
"Watch what?"
She was about to get her answer. She heard heavy footsteps on the walkway above them.
Barsad and his three men assumed a rigid position almost instinctively.
Prue knew what this meant all too well. She perked her ears up for the sound of Bane's heavy breathing, but the water was too loud to make it out.
She walked to the edge of the walkway and clenched her hands around the railing. From that angle, she could see the lower half of his body, his thick boots and camouflage gear. What was he doing up there?
And then, she heard his deep, gravelly voice.
"Let's not stand on ceremony...Mr. Wayne."
Prue blinked. Mr. Wayne? The billionaire? He was down here?
She craned her neck to catch a better glimpse of the man in question, but all she could see was...a billowing cape, coming from the other end of the walkway above.
Oh my God.
"That's...it can't be," she mumbled, drawing back from the railing.
Barsad and his men stared forward like living statues, not showing any kind of emotion at the reveal. For them, this was old news, apparently.
But Prue couldn't believe it. She was staring at the Batman, who was actually...Bruce Wayne. She had never even considered the possibility, though it made a strange amount of sense.
Suddenly, the Wayne obsession of the past few weeks became much more sinister.
Bane started walking towards the Bat vigilante, and she could see both of them clearly now. Bane's torso was naked except for his military grade armored vest. His thick, bare arms looked both animal and machine, as if they were enforced with steel. The sinews were visibly taut, disclosing a violence that ached to be unleashed. He was stripped down for a fight. The Batman, on the other hand, was secured behind his dark armor. He struck an imposing figure against the dwindling light. The contrast between them was telling. One was seemingly exposed, the other contained.
But why were they facing off? What was going on?
Before she had time to think, she saw the Batman lunge forward to deliver the first strike and an involuntary sound was torn from her lips.
In that instant, Bane's head cocked to the side. He looked over the railing below and found her. His eyes met hers, just as Bruce Wayne's fist collided with his head.
Prue brought both hands to her mouth. The Batman landed another punch, taking advantage of his opponent's temporary distraction, but Bane's body was like granite. Despite his exposure, he was barely moved by the coming blows. He remained undisturbed.
After a few moments, he started hitting back. His fists crashed into the Batman's armor and the sound was like metal ringing against metal.
She wanted to look away, but she couldn't. Bane took charge of the fight. He shook off his rigidity and let his body unfold. His muscles extended, his back widened. He turned into a mountain. He blocked each futile attempt to attack him and delivered blow after merciless blow. His force was brutal, but also graceful. He wasn't expending a lot of effort, or at least he didn't show it. He was simply a vast instrument of violence, applying himself with precision.
The Batman found it hard to launch another assault; he was being pummeled by Bane. The more he tried to recover, the more ferocious his adversary became.
Prue could only muffle a scream as she saw Bruce Wayne being launched over the walkway into the water below.
Bane latched onto a metal chain hanging from the ceiling and went down after him. By now, the two were almost at her eye-level.
The Batman rose with difficulty, leaning against a steel shaft. He was trying to regain his strength, but Prue wanted to tell him to run.
As Bane grabbed him by the arms and wrestled him to the ground, she caught his eye again.
Bane stared at her for a few moments that seemed to stretch on for eternity. There was a strange calm in his eyes, a calm that contradicted his actions. Prue blinked, and then his monstrous hands wrapped around the Batman.
She screamed.
A/N: okay, leaving us off on a bit of a cliff-hanger, though the fight will continue in the next chapter and you'll have lots of Bane/Prue interaction to tide you over. Obviously, you all recognize the scene from canon where the Batman is effectively broken. "Mr. Sophist" is a reference to sophism, which is a way of arguing that is very much based on thin rhetoric rather than sound arguments. It derives from a popular practice of teaching in Ancient Greece (the teachers were called sophists) and Plato has a lot to say about it in his dialogues, where he condemns the sophists for their empty words. Anyway, thanks for bearing with me and thank you so much for your reviews! Your support is very much appreciated!