Author's Note:
This chapter has been updated in my attempts to correct errors and make the story more cohesive. The rest of this author's note is the original text. Thanks to all of you for reading!
Hello to my wonderful readers! Here is the chapter that I promised to some of you. I hope you all enjoy it, and that you all like seeing a slightly less warm and fuzzy Bane. I apologize for any typos that might be in this chapter (or any chapter), I am super tired, and I know that I'm not firing on all cylinders. I just had to get this out to all of you! I hope to get another chapter out to you tomorrow, but I can't promise that it will happen. By Monday for sure though! If you send me lots of reviews it might happen faster though… I live for reviews! Thanks! Enjoy!
- I do not own any of the Nolan characters used in this story; I only own my original characters and ideas. I am not making any money from this story.
Chapter Five – Gonna Be a Darkness
Well you think there's a place, Wide open and white, Where you think you'll be safe, Where you think there's a light
There's gonna be a darkness, Maybe colder than you guess, There may not be music, there may not be stairs, There may not be angels filling the air
- Jakob Dylan and Gary Louris
After years of incredible pain, and three weeks of an even more unbearable pain – the pain of knowing that Talia was near, but only spending moments together each day – the League doctors had finally devised a method to control his pain. Though he could still feel the pain that coursed through his body, it was … tolerable. His new means of pain management was a large and rather awkward mask. It fit over his face, covering his mouth and nose in a network of metal tubes. Those same tubes pumped a unique mixture of drugs into his mouth in a gaseous form. Though he knew that his face was horribly disfigured from the attack in the pit, he couldn't help but feel like the mask was even worse than his face. The mask was heavy and uncomfortable and it distorted his voice into something menacing and mechanical. He was grateful that he no longer felt as if the pain was killing him, but he had to wonder if it was worth the price he had to pay.
Talia had come to him only moments after his mask was on and his pain had receded. He had remained silent for several minutes. Just looking at Talia, she had told him that she was sorry that it had taken her so long to get back to him, but he was still surprised that she had grown so much. She was no longer a child of 12, now he could see a beautiful young woman instead. When he had been forced to speak to her he had been revolted by his own voice, afraid that he would see that same disgust in her eyes, but instead he only saw her love for him, and her joy that his pain had been relieved. It had made him feel slightly better about his condition to know that his Talia didn't mind.
After they had spoken for a little while, Talia had insisted that they go and speak with her father. He had only met with him briefly, but Bane could sense that her father, Ra's, didn't care for him. Bane could only assume that it was due to his weakness and disfigurement. But in spite of this valid reason for disliking him, Bane had felt that his stare was too full of loathing for his taste. Talia, however, seemed to idolize her father, and Bane knew that he needed to give the man respect. Ra's had saved his life and provided him with the relief that he was now enjoying, after all.
Now he was beginning his training with the League, something he didn't particularly care about, but Talia had insisted upon. And so he was standing in the middle of a large room and fighting off the attacks of several other men. He had been doing this for the last hour while Talia watched him and gave him encouragement. The only reason that he continued with the ridiculous exercise was because it allowed him to be near Talia and to hear her sweet voice when she would call out to him.
Yet another group of men was moving in to attack him and he was preparing his defense when he became certain that he could feel eyes on him. At first he assumed that those eyes belonged to Talia, but deep down he knew that wasn't true. As he engaged in quick combat with the first two men to reach him, he tried to scan the edges of the room in order to spot the person that was watching him. He couldn't find anything at first, and had to focus fully on the fight when the other four men reached him simultaneously. When the last of those men lay gasping on the floor beneath him he searched the corners again. For the briefest second he saw a pair of fiery emerald orbs looking out at him from the darkest corner in the room; and then Talia launched into his arms. When he looked back into the shadows the bright orbs were gone, and he shook his head to dismiss the feeling of disorientation that threatened to overwhelm him.
Bane's eyes snapped open and he looked at the ugly grey ceiling above him, thinking about the hours that had been recounted in his dream. Those first few hours after he had been truly reunited with Talia were some of the happiest in his life, and some of the saddest. At that time he had detested his mask, but now he knew that it made him who he was. He missed it terribly, not just the reprieve it gave him, but because it had become part of him over the years. He felt like he had lost an arm or a leg, and he knew that he would not be whole again until he was reunited with his missing appendage.
He slowly rose to a sitting position, his body screaming in protest. The morphine had helped, but nowhere near as much as he needed it to. He needed his mask, and he needed it soon. He glanced down at the woman that slept beside him and was suddenly aware that it was much later than when she normally woke. In the two days they had been together he had noticed that she seemed to rise with the first light of dawn, but he could tell that the sun was much higher in the sky than that.
He had already deduced that the torture she had been put through the last two days had been hard on her, and he knew that she had suffered in her sleep, but somehow her late sleeping bothered him. He reached down to shake her awake, not sure why he felt the need to wake her up, but as his hand reached her shoulder he heard the familiar sound of the deadbolts in the door and rose to his feet instead, pulling his hand back to his side, now in a fist.
A guard entered the cell and Bane recognized him as the one that always placed the cuffs on Tiana and he took a step forward, stepping between the sleeping form and the guard. The guard looked up at him with alarm and indicated at the girl with his large gun. His voice was only slightly shaky when he spoke, but Bane knew that he was afraid, "The doctors want her. Wake her up and send her over."
Bane glanced back over his shoulder at the pretty and broken young woman behind him, and took another menacing step toward the guard. "No." The guard's eyes widened at the sound of Bane's voice and he suddenly felt a little better about his weak voice; apparently it could still cause fear. He took another slow step toward the now fearful guard.
The man shifted his gun from the girl on the bed to Bane and watched as the large man continued his menacing approach. "Now, you just stay there Bane! The doctors want the girl, not you! Back away!" Bane could hardly repress the laugh that threatened to boil out of him at the sound of the man's voice. Bane felt certain that if he continued on his path the weak insect before him would wet his pants. He also knew that if he was to cause that he would be quickly taken down, and that the girl behind him would be punished for his transgressions.
So, instead of intimidating the man any further he raised his hands in surrender. "She… is taking the day off… I will go instead." The guard looked over his shoulder and out the door, looking for conformation, and seemed to receive it when three other men entered the cell as apparent back up.
"OK then, take it nice and easy. The doctor agrees that your treatment should start today." The sinister smile that graced the terrified man's face didn't escape Bane's eyes, and he briefly debated the intelligence behind his idea. He told himself that he had volunteered because the only way to plan a method of escape was to know the building, but he couldn't fight the sneaking suspicion that there was more to it than that. His thoughts were quick to disappear when the ugly little guard shot him with a Taser, the electricity bringing him to his knees. "That's right, Bane. We run this place, not you! I doubt you'll forget that fact once the doctors are through with you today… They have a special treatment in mind."
Bane could not deny that the smile that filled the man's face was… disconcerting…
Tiana had been gliding across the cell for at least three hours. She had awakened to the sound of the door locks sliding shut, and she hadn't stopped moving since that moment. She knew that they had taken Bane, and she was sure that it was because she had somehow remained asleep far past her normal waking time. She was aware of the nightmare that had plagued her through the night, but she felt that it was a lousy excuse for allowing Bane to be taken by the sadistic employees of this purgatory.
She heard footsteps coming down the hall outside and froze midstride, waiting for her door to open. But the echoing footsteps moved beyond her cell, and she continued her frenzied pacing with renewed vigor. She was well aware of the fact that they would go after him with the big guns immediately. She doubted they would do much physical "therapy" today; they would strike him where it would hurt the deepest. They would tell him the truth… and she didn't think she would be able to repair that damage. Not yet.
She paused as she heard another bunch of footsteps approaching, and she held her breath when she heard them stop in front of her cell. Though she couldn't differentiate the sound of all the different footsteps through the cell door, she knew that Bane was out there. She felt a tickle of fear run down her spine, not fear for herself, but fear for him. She was well aware that he had been extremely dedicated to Talia, and she could only imagine the damage that the knowledge of her death could have caused.
When the door opened three guards walked in first, one of them had a nasty black eye, and she knew that Bane had caused it. When he walked through the door and into her line of sight, she couldn't help but sharply take in a breath. It was the only sign that she had even noticed his arrival, but she knew that he had heard it. His eyes flicked to hers in recognition, and she could see that the dark flame that seemed to always burn there, had diminished, but was not completely gone. She also noticed that he had blood on his grey shirt and assumed that they had picked at his freshest wounds. She could tell that he was hurt, but not broken… it gave her hope that they had not yet told him the truth.
She continued her pacing and discreetly watched as they removed his cuffs and closed the door, securely locking the two of them alone. She instantly halted her pacing and approached the large man, realizing too late that she should have been more cautious in her approach. She had barely gotten into range of his strong arms and hands, when she found herself two feet above ground with his giant hand tightly circling her throat. His voice rumbled throughout his body and she could feel the reverberations in his fingers when he spoke to her, "They lied to me today… now you will tell me the truth." She simply nodded her head slightly in his palm, closing her eyes to push back the tears that threatened to fall.
She expected him to lower her to the ground so that they could talk, but was sorely mistaken, as she remained dangling in the air. She looked into his eyes and knew that he already understood that Talia was gone; he just refused to believe it. She stared into those deep, blue eyes feeling all his sorrow, all his defeat. When she looked into those sad, angry eyes she almost couldn't force the words past her lips, but she knew she had to. She simply couldn't lie to him; it wasn't in her to give him false hope. Her voice was only a hoarse whisper against his palm, "I'm so sorry Brother, Talia is gone…"
She briefly considered fighting him when his strong hand began to tighten around her neck. She even had to fight her own body from reacting when she stopped being able to get oxygen, but she held still. She watched his eyes as the darkness began to engulf her. She saw the tears as they fell from his suddenly black eyes, and then she swallowed by the shadows.
Bane had endured their onslaught on his body without trouble. He had refused to answer their questions in spite of the pain they were causing him. He had lived through worse torture. But when they had told him that they knew Miranda Tate was actually Talia al Ghul, and that she had died, he had started to see red. He had smashed his cuffed fists into the face of one of the guards and they had swiftly returned him to his cell. He could smell their fear, and it only made him angrier.
When he had entered the cell and saw that blasted girl pacing about, he was positive that she knew the truth and he grabbed her when she approached him. He knew that she had only come to him so that she could help him, but that only sparked his rage further. He had made her tell him the what she knew and he was confident that she had been honest, and now he was shattered. His life no longer held any meaning. He had failed his Talia, he had let this disgusting city take her from him. The only part of him that remained was his rage, and he had allowed it to come out in full force.
He had begun to tighten his grip on the urchin in his hand. He had expected her to fight him as he cut off her air supply. He had even hoped for it, prayed that she would just kill him and remove him from the pain that he was feeling. But she had held completely still, her eyes searching his, not even blinking until they had finally closed in unconsciousness. Though he had intended to squeeze that little neck until the girl died, something had stopped him and he had dropped her to the ground. He had heard an odd noise when she hit the ground and looked down, to spot a syringe peeking out of her pocket.
He had bent down and grabbed it out, finding six more in the same pocket. He pulled them all out and slowly walked to the bed and sat down. He methodically pulled the caps from the syringes and plunged the needles into his left arm, pushing the glorious medicine into his pain ravaged system. By the time the drugs from the last syringe had entered his system he was feeling the warmth from the first flooding him. It was numbing both his physical and mental anguish. A few minutes later he welcomed the darkness and the relief that it offered him, already dreading the moment he would wake. The moment that he would be forced to accept life without Talia.
Bane had seen her, he had seen his Talia. It had been years, and she had grown into a young woman. She had talked to him briefly when her father and his men had carried his broken body into the mountaintop complex. She had spoken to him with pain and sorrow filling her voice, and had only been able to tell him that she was sorry it had taken so long for her to get him out of the pit, out of hell. With tears in her eyes she had thanked him for his sacrifice, and then she had told him that she was unable to stand his pain. That she could not bear witness to it, and she had left him. Left him to his pain.
But now she was back. He had been housed in the complex on the top of the snow covered mountain for two days. Two days where he could feel her close to him, but he never saw her or heard her clear and beautiful voice. The pain of her absence could almost overshadow the pain in his body, but now she was with him. Her hand rested lightly in his and he could hear her quietly humming tunelessly. Her presence was calming to him, and the new drugs the doctors had given him were making him sleepy. He felt himself drifting away, but he forced his eyes to look at Talia at least once. His vision was horribly blurred from the drugs in his system - drugs that did little to relieve his pain - and he couldn't really focus on her.
Something was different about Talia; she looked younger than she had two days before. She looked more like he remembered her from that fateful day in the pit. The day that he had sacrificed everything for her: the day that she had escaped. But there was something more that seemed wrong, his eyes couldn't focus on her features at all, but he was nearly certain that the hair spilling from beneath her scarf was red, not dark brown. He closed his eyes, knowing that no matter what his eyes told him, that his Talia beside him. She was the only one that could love the monster he was, the disfigured beast that he had become… for her. He finally let her soft humming lull him gently to sleep.
Bane kept his eyes closed, knowing that he was still sleeping when he continued to hear the soft, sweet humming, feeling the small hand gripping his. Slowly realization came to him, and tears fell down his face when he remembered that Talia was lost. And yet the humming continued, it was a slightly deeper voice than he remembered, and it had a slight hoarseness that hadn't been there in his dream, but it was still somehow the same.
His eyes opened and the first thing he saw was a petite neck with a slightly gaping cut, framed by a purple representation of his hand, Tiana's neck. As his eyes traveled up they met emerald orbs that blazed with a beautiful inner fire, Tiana's eyes. His eyes finally stopped when he saw bright red hair, Tiana's hair.
Suddenly it all became clear to him. He understood the dreams that had been coming to him, knowing something that he never had before. His voice cracked as tears choked his throat, "It was you… you were there from the beginning…"