Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and all the situations said characters find themselves in. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy.

Have Someone Understand

It took some doing for Blake to find his way to one of the safe houses, and even then it took a lot of convincing on his part to make the cops he found there even consider the possibility that he hadn't secured his release by promising to act as a spy or assassin for Bane. That it was physical obvious he hadn't been starved or beaten was naturally suspicious, and Blake tried not to take offense when they insisted on thoroughly searching his body and possessions for listening devices. The food he'd been given obviously rubbing them the wrong way even after he'd invited them all to have some, and they refused on the grounds that it could be poisoned and instead took their hunger pains out on him by taking turns trying to interrogate him for information before they'd even consider alerting Commissioner Gordon to his return. And yes he probably wasn't endearing himself by refusing to give them any real details, but he only wanted to cover certain things once and with Gordon.

Thankfully one of the guards had worked out of his cop house and was willing to give Blake just enough credit to see to it that news of his arrival would reach Gordon's ears, though the former sergeant made it clear that any suspicious movements from him and he'd put a bullet in his head.

Forced to lean up against the wall since he wasn't allowed one of the chairs, Blake had to wait for nearly three hours before Gordon came striding through the door, the look of relief and jubilation on his commanding officer's face a welcome change from the reactions of his fellow cops thus far.

"Blake." Striding over Gordon ignored the protests of his other men and drew Blake in for a manly sort of hug. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"Yeah, I didn't figure I'd be see you again either, Sir. It's damn good to see you though."

"Well I wouldn't be alive to see you again if you hadn't saved my ass before. Which is something the other people in this room would be wise to remember." Giving the officers in question stern looks Gordon ushered Blake over to a table with chairs, motioning for him to take the other.

As soon as he was sitting Gordon started with the most obvious question. "Did you…how did you escape?"

He'd thought about how to answer that since he'd found out he was getting out, but telling Gordon that Bane had changed and wasn't the beast they'd all believed him to be wouldn't go over well, especially since he was trying to convince them all that he was neither crazy nor Bane's brainwashed minion. The truth that he thought Bane had set him free to protect him from the real mastermind behind the attack on Gotham…that was even worse than the other way of explaining things. But he was also dealing with a cop who would know if he was bullshitting him, which meant he needed to tread very carefully here or risk being thrown out into the cold so to speak.

"I didn't escape, Sir. He let me go."

"He let you…why?"

"Bane refused to explain his decision. He dropped me off on the edge of the city and that was that." Blake deliberately held Gordon's gaze. "I'm not compromised, Commissioner. I haven't been brainwashed and while I understand why you and my fellow officers would find that hard to believe…things have to have only gotten worse since I was taken. You must need me and there's nothing I'd like more than to make Bane regret that he let me go."

Numerous voices rising around them in protest, Gordon gave them a moment and then told them to be quiet. Blake would be given a chance to prove himself and that was that.

Thankful for the vote of confidence, but well aware that things were far from settled, Blake assured Gordon that he wouldn't regret giving him this chance.

And damn but he hoped that was true for both their sakes.

)

The new League headquarters in Gotham were a great deal smaller and less fancy than the mansion they'd been staying in previously, and Bane knew rationally that he should have felt more comfortable in these surroundings than he had in the tacky monstrosity they'd left behind. Of course if he were being honest with himself Bane knew what it was that this place lacked that made it so repellent to him. And even if he were to return to the mansion that lack would still be there so there was no point in going back or trying to go somewhere else in a vain attempt to find what he was missing. He knew what he was missing.

When he'd informed Barsad of his decision to let his bird go the other man had stated that they'd have to find a new place to live since Blake would undoubtedly tell them where they'd been staying, Bane's first instinct was to say 'Let them come'. He hadn't, but that was how he'd felt then, the idea of being separated from the place he'd shared with Robin utterly abhorrent on top of everything else. Now he knew Barsad had been right, but that was little comfort to him.

Glancing over to the bed that was one of the few pieces in his room, Bane's eyes lingered and then stayed of the sheets laid over the bed, ones that he'd taken from Robin's room before he left. Those he would keep until the scent of his lover left them.

When the door opened, though it did so soundlessly, Bane's eyes immediately switched over in that direction to watch as Talia came into the room, not making a sound as she walked over to stand in front of him.

"You set your pet free yesterday."

"As you ordered."

"I would imagine many of your men are confused, wondering why you would add to your enemies." The sidelong look Talia gave him as she pretended to glance out the window to her right was telling for all that she likely thought she concealed from him.

"My men do not question me if they wished to live." And though he knew he shouldn't say more than that, Bane was not in the mood to censor his words for her benefit at the moment. He'd given up his bird and his fleeting chance at happiness for her. He had given her more than enough. "Detective Blake deserved the right to die with his men rather than shot while forced into a position of supplication. The end is almost upon us, my decision to let him live will stand until then."

Talia raised a knowing eyebrow as she asked what he would do if the detective got dragged before Crane's court.

"I have given no order for him to be spared in that situation." He didn't doubt that if she'd been the acknowledged leader of this siege she'd have given the orders herself that Robin was to be shot on sight or immediately put on the ice to insure there would be no hope that he could save him.

That thought had Bane remembering the time he'd thought Blake had chosen to drown himself in the bathtub, only to find that his stubborn cop had been training himself for the possibility that me might one day be sent across the ice. The sweet pain of the memory had Bane looking away from her, refusing to let Talia see what he was feeling in his eyes.

But when she took his hand Bane glanced down at their linked fingers, his own having moved out of habit as opposed to a desire on his part to align with her.

"So sad without your pet, My Friend." Talia murmured the words, giving his fingers a squeeze that Bane knew wasn't real sympathy. "I wish I had better news for you about him, but…"

Immediately Bane gave her his full attention, his tone rough and growly as he demanded to know what she meant by that.

"His comrades don't understand why you set him free any more than our men do. They think you have brainwashed or broken him, and that he is another bomb you have placed among their midst. Naturally I wasn't there for his interrogations, but I understand that they were quite harsh with him. It would be very ironic, wouldn't it, if they ended him for us in the end?"

White hot fury washed over Bane at the thought of anyone, least of all his bird's own comrades, causing Blake harm. That he could do nothing to protect his lover, was in fact the reason that these unknown men and women might harm or even kill Robin…how could they not see, not know that Detective Robin John Blake was more devoted to Gotham than anyone else in the city? They were the ones who were crazy if they couldn't see that, not Robin. As far as he was concerned anyone who caused harm to his Robin deserved to be thrown into Arkham-no, into The Pit to rot there for that crime alone.

Talia would have killed his Robin if he hadn't set the man free first.

Sickened by that thought and the ones that had proceeded it, Bane had to look away from her again, especially since he knew in his bones that she'd come to him for the sole purpose of telling him this. To hurt him with the news as well as confirm that he was still hers. That she was the one he'd chosen.

"Just for you I will do what I can to convince them they should trust him. I have much influence over some of them, stupid men that they are. All they see is a pretty face, not looking beneath to the warrior you and father made me."

Talia moving in despite the fact that Bane knew his body language should have warned her not to, Bane tolerated the arms she wrapped around his neck, her body pressed up against his in a way that left him that much colder despite the warmth and comfort such an action would have once brought him. But what he felt for her seemed to be withering and dying inside his heart, the protective case he'd put it in long ago having been shattered like it had been fragile glass by his fierce, determined little bird. And once said heart had been exposed…Robin had taken possession of so much of it, Talia's portion seeming to erode and get smaller in comparison.

And yet he couldn't turn away from her. Couldn't try and cut the ropes that bounded their fates together, and had done so since she was only a baby, surrounded by monsters and expecting him to protect her from them. However withered and dying her hold on his heart might be, it still belonged to her.

As he did until death took him or them both.

)

A week after Bane had set him free Blake was still trying to prove that Gordon's faith wasn't misplaced, spending his days doing mostly menial tasks that wouldn't compromise the men and women he was working with if he wasn't trustworthy. The fact that he might be dead before he could prove to the others that he was on their side was a bitter pill Blake forced himself to swallow, especially since lashing out hadn't ended so well for him the few times actual fighting had been necessary to defend himself. The fact that he was better fed, rested, and had been trained by Bane against his will had meant he'd won those fights pretty easily, which had only pissed everyone off at him even more. That he also missed Bane like a missing limb just made every hour he spent patrolling or playing errand boy that much worse, especially since he couldn't talk to anyone about it without his sanity being called into question.

Not that the now raggedy and mentally exhausted cops he was working with didn't already question his state of mind, Blake thought with a dark humored smirk before he went back to scanning the street around him. He needed to keep his head in the game after all, especially since his quarry wasn't someone who could be caught easily. That he'd done it once before was pretty much a miracle if her record was anything to go by, but Selina Kyle was pretty much the only somewhat neutral person he knew in Gotham who might know something about the bitch running the show around here. She'd been screwed over by Bane's side and had seemed to feel guilty about what had happened to Wayne because of her when they'd last spoken to each other. So maybe, just maybe, she might be willing to at least give him a hint or two if he was very, very lucky.

If nothing else he had a chocolate bar with him that he could try and bribe her with.

Thus far he hadn't had any luck finding her, but word on the street was that this was her territory and trespassers better be very careful what they did while walking her streets. That the odds weren't in his favor hung over him like dark clouds, but Blake was nothing if not determined to be as mule headed as possible when it came to believing that things could get better. Until the city blew up with him in it, or he saw Wayne dead with his own eyes, the survivor in him refused to give up and give in to despair the way so many others had.

He'd told Gordon that Bane had told him that The Batman was on his way back to Gotham and that had seemed to fan the flame of his boss's hope, thank God. Things always got worse when your leader was holding on by a shoestring and it showed. He hadn't told Gordon who Batman was though, that wasn't his place, so Gordon was still a little skeptical that Gotham's former protector would be able to get to the city given how well it was guarded and blocked off. Of course even if he had told the commissioner that probably wouldn't have made things any better since strictly speaking the idea that Wayne could pull it off was pretty ridiculous until you factored in a few things.

The biggest thing to Blake's way of thinking was that Wayne was a former billionaire who had to have money stashed away that he'd be able to access. Yes the man had let his personal finances and such go to hell, and Bane's people had fucked that over even more, but there was no way that the people Wayne would have put in charge of his money hadn't slipped some chunks of it into accounts for tax purposes or just in case scenarios. Plus Wayne had proven that he was willing to die, be branded a criminal, and pretty much hated and vilified for this city, and he had to believe that hadn't changed.

A man who would do that…was not someone you wanted to underestimate.

Smiling at the idea, Blake kept that smile in place for another block until movement from above caught his eyes, drawing his attention so that he had just enough time to see two men being taken down with some serious moves that said to him that the lone female they'd been up against had some serious training of her own. The two males had gone down so quickly and neatly she must have aimed for specific parts of the body that had incapacitated her prey just that fast.

It was as he studied her that Blake realized that she wasn't alone, someone much smaller was with her, and the fact that he was fairly sure that he was looking at his quarry as it occurred to him that badass women of that caliber didn't exactly grow on trees and this was her territory.

Not about to risk losing Kyle now that he might have found her, Blake frantically looked around for the quickest route to where she was, mentally praying in his head that he would reach her before she noticed him and took off before he could get close enough to even confirm it was Kyle. Plus there was the kid to worry about, though there was nothing in her file to suggest the master thief had ever caused harm to a minor.

Unfortunately, as he knew all too well, there was a first time for everything too.

Running up the pavement steps and doing some jumping thanks to the damage that had been done to the road he ended up on, Blake put everything he had into getting to her, his feet coming to a quick, cautious halt when he saw that either his eye sight really needed to be checked and the kid was actually a fully grown male or…or…

"Son of a fucking bitch."

Breaking into a hard run again, not giving a damn that both individuals were staring at him with a mixture of confusion and bemusement, Blake didn't stop until he all but careened into Wayne, throwing his arms around the very startled older man and holding onto him for all he was worth.

"Huh. Suddenly it makes a lot more sense that he was so concerned about you even though everyone was supposed to think you killed Dent. Pretty impressive, Wayne, that you kept the fact that you swing both ways out of the newspapers back in your young and wild days."

"Selina…"

Common sense kicking in enough that he turned his captor loose, Blake took a step back, his ears blushing bright red even as he grinned like a crazy thing. "You made it out. You made it out of The Pit. Bane said you did but…Damn, you made it out!"

Taking the punch to his shoulder with an amused look that shifted into fierce concentration when Kyle asked what 'The Pit' was, Wayne studied her for a moment and then turned his full attention on Blake, who came to full attention in response to the look in his hero's eyes.

"What do you know about Bane?"

"Oh he knows Bane VERY well according to the word on the grapevine." Selina informed Wayne with a knowing little smirk on her face.

"Given that he fucked you over by playing you for a fool and using you, I don't really think you've got any room to throw stones around, Miss. Kyle." And ignoring the slightly stunned and pissed off look she was aiming at him, the truth hurt, Blake focused all his attention on Wayne.

"I need to talk to you in private about what I've learned. You need to listen to me, and more importantly, you need to let people help you this time."