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 all my loyal readers! I wish I had a good excuse for not updating this in a timely manner, but I really don't. I have just been insanely busy and I have been going through a rough patch in general. I hope that I will be able to get on a more normal update schedule now. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you will leave me some reviews to get me motivated again. Thanks to all of you for your patience!
Chapter Seventeen - Seven Devils
Holy water cannot help you now, A thousand armies couldn't keep me out, I don't want your money I don't want your crown, See I've come to burn, Your kingdom down
Holy water cannot help you now, See I've come to burn your kingdom down, And no rivers and no lakes, can put the fire out, I'm gonna raise the stakes; I'm gonna smoke you out
Seven devils all around you, Seven devils in my house, See they were there when I woke up this morning, I'll be dead before the day is done
Seven devils all around you, Seven devils in your house, See I was dead when I woke up this morning, And I'll be dead before the day is done, Before the day is done - Florence and the Machine
Barsad silently watched his leader and friend as he crashed through the warehouse, showing his frustration, confusion and rage openly in his assumed privacy. Barsad felt only the greatest respect for the man before him, but he could not stop the feeling of concern that pervaded his body at the sight of the imposing man beneath him. He knew the woman that had left the prison with Bane was the cause of this emotional outburst. He had seen her enter the warehouse the night before, and had wanted nothing more than to confront her. To beg her to leave Bane alone, to tell her that she would be the death of them all if she went to him. But he didn't do that, instead he had watched her fling herself into his mentor's arms and then the door to his hopes had been slammed in his face.
He had been ready to die for the plan that Bane and Talia had set forth. Though suicide was not the way he would have chosen to die, he was willing to see that mission through because he believed in it. Gotham needed to be cleansed; there was no other way for balance to be restored in the world. He also believed in the plan that Bane had devised with the Clown, and was willing to die for that as well. He was not, on the other hand, willing to die for another woman. Regardless of who she was.
There were rumors floating around among the men that the woman was the second daughter of Ra's al Ghul, the true heir to the League of Shadows. He found it rather difficult to believe, mostly due to the fact that this girl looked nothing like Talia in his opinion. However, he could not fully dismiss the idea as fallacy. He blamed his inability to do so on Bane, and the fact that the large man had always shown a keen nose for important women. Though Barsad knew that Bane's heart had always belonged to Talia, he had witnessed his friend feel the pull of a more primal attraction in their years together, and that attraction had always been to beautiful, powerful women. Barsad could see the beauty in the small woman with copper hair, but he doubted she could wield much power if she had spent a decade in Arkham. That was unless she was the person the men claimed her to be.
He had only mentioned the woman to Bane on one occasion, and the conversation had ended before it ever started when Bane shot him a withering look and stalked away. Barsad had decided it would be in his best interest not to mention her again. Just as he had the sense not to mention the death of Talia al Ghul, he knew better than to bring up a subject that Bane so obviously didn't want to discuss.
Barsad had been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn't even noticed Bane make his way up the treacherous stairs and onto the catwalk where he was perched. "Brother, I know that you are troubled by the state of things at this moment, but I assure you that the woman will not hinder our plans in any way." Bane's voice was calm, and as close to kind as he had ever heard it, but Barsad could feel the unspoken emotion in the words and knew that the subject was closed. His mentor turned away from him and strolled down the narrow grating as if it were the most solid ground in the world. He was about ten feet away when he turned his head back to Barsad. "We will begin the final steps of the plan in 48 hours, Brother. It is yet again time to make your peace with any Gods you believe in, for you will be with them soon."
Barsad nodded his understanding and then turned back to gaze over the warehouse with a smirk on his lips. This time the fire would actually rise, of that he had no more doubts.
"I can't believe that I'm looking at you Tiana. I was sure that you had been killed in the blast." He paused and released a shaky breath before continuing. "I actually lost a lot of sleep due to that thought..." Bruce refused to look up as he spoke, focusing instead on the carpet at his feet. He looked good - perhaps a little bit shocked by the apparent resurrection of an old ghost - but his skin held a healthy glow and his eyes contained a sparkle that Tiana had never seen in them before. Guilt tugged at her conscience at the thought of what she planned to ask of him.
"Well, you're not too far off... I very nearly died, but somehow I wound up in your fair city instead, and... well, things developed in strange ways after that." She watched Bruce closely as she spoke, trying to gauge his mood and receptiveness. The three of them sat around a glass coffee table, iced tea sitting in front of them, untouched. Selina was playing the happy hostess and providing drinks as she felt she should, even if she couldn't stop glaring at Tiana. Though she could understand the older woman's feelings, and could even respect them to some extent, she found the fact that she couldn't hide those feelings in the slightest to be rather annoying. She needed Bruce to listen to her in an unbiased way, and knew that would be next to impossible with the Catwoman sitting around hissing in his ear.
As if on cue Selena rose to her feet with an angry growl. "I don't know who you are or what the hell you and Bruce are talking about, but I do know you didn't just show up in our home to take a stroll down memory lane. What do you want?!" She was standing less than three feet from Tiana, with her fingers curled like claws and her lips curled into an animalistic snarl. The outburst caused Bruce to jerk his head up with a look of mixed horror and admiration on his handsome face.
Tiana sized up the degree of danger she was in, and reclined on the couch, strategically uncrossing her legs so that she could still jump up in a hurry if it proved necessary. "Well, my dear you are quite right. I am here for reasons other than the polite company, which seems to be a lucky thing, since it is obviously so lacking." She gave the Cat a pointed look and continued. "I am here to report that Gotham is in great danger, and though you chose well with Blake, he is far from being ready to handle this situation." Her attention shifted from Selena and she focused on Bruce with her shining emerald eyes filled with a plea for him to do what needed to be done.
He reached out with unsteady hands and gently lifted one of the glasses to his lips, ice clinking merrily in the still room. "Selena, please sit down. Tiana is not here to hurt us; if she was we'd already be in pain." He set the glass down and lightly patted the arm on the overstuffed chair that he sat on, entreating Selena to come to him. After a brief hesitation she did he asked and some of the tension in the room dissipated, leaving enough to make them all feel on edge, but reducing it enough that it was tolerable at least. "Look Tiana... or is it Miss al Ghul now?" Bruce lifted his eyes to catch the look of disgust and brisk head shake that Tiana gave him, and then he continued. "Tiana then, you see I am well aware of the happenings in Gotham, but I am unwilling to immerse myself in that life again. I nearly gave everything for that city, and can not... no, will not give any more." He reached over and took the Cat's hand in his own and gave it a squeeze, before he spoke again. "We're happy here; I'm sure you can understand that."
Tiana nodded her head gently, silently chastising herself for not having known that Bruce would be well aware of all that was happening in his city. She should have known that Alfred would have never left a comfortable life in Paris to go back to that hellish city, just because Blake asked him to. Alfred was there to inform and protect his charge, his son, Bruce. She could have slapped herself for the obvious oversight, but instead she once more dove in headfirst.
"Of course I assumed that you were aware of the situation, but I felt that you may not be aware of the fact that your follower was not ready for the job. I also felt that it was rather unlikely that you were aware of my involvement with him." She paused and gauged his reaction, not failing to notice that he was in fact surprised by all of the news she had shared. "I have been trying to help Blake ready himself for what must be done, but he can not possibly be ready in time."
Bruce raised his hand to stop her and took a deep breath before he answered the unasked questions that hung in the air. "I am very sorry to hear that things are as bad as you say they are, but Gotham is no longer my home." He swung his arm around the room, indicating the posh apartment. "This is my home now. Selena and I want to have kids, we want to be normal. I can't have that if I run back to Gotham every time a couple of mad men try to blow the place up. I'm sorry." His eyes were truly filled with sorrow and a healthy dose of conflicted emotion, but Tiana could also tell that he had no intention of changing his mind.
She stood and brushed a few wrinkles from her knee length, white skirt before she looked Bruce in the eyes one last time. "Well, I can fully understand the hopes for a normal life; there was a time when I hoped for that. I dreamed of going to the mountains in Sweden - my mother's homeland - I wanted to live in a little cabin and look out on a river, watch my husband playing with my children. It was a beautiful dream; a dream that I often thought of during my ten years in Arkham." She briefly paused to see how the news that she had been in Arkham all those years would settle on Bruce's shoulders, and she wasn't disappointed by the look of horror that filled his features.
"However, I have realized that for me, that is not going to happen. The only people that have ever shown me true kindness and companionship are these mad men you speak of. I will stop them somehow, but I can't stop what they already have in place. I need you to do that." She took a ragged breath and briskly walked to the oversized door, turning back to the shocked figures that seemed to clutch each other with their need for one another. "I hope your dream is good enough for the both of us. One of us sure as hell deserves a happy ending."
And with that sentiment she stepped out the door and quietly closed it behind her, allowing only a single tear to fall over her cheek.
Bane sat in his room meditating as the moon shone in through the grimy window at his left. He was doing what he had told Barsad to do just 24 hours earlier; trying to make his peace with the Gods and the Spirits. He had never put much stock into religion - growing up in a place like the Pit made it hard to do so - but when faced with the fact that his soul would be departing the planet in just under 24 hours, it seemed prudent to spend some time on the passtime. Though he had always been able to concentrate when necessary and had spent many hours meditating while with the League and most days after his excommunication, he found that his mind didn't particularly want to do as it was told at that particular moment.
Every time that he felt like he was finally getting centered and finding peace within himself her face would float by. What was surprising to him was the fact that the her in question was not Talia, but instead it was Tiana. This was not something that pleased him, seeing as he had fully decided that she was in league with the Batman, and therefore he would most likely have to fight and kill her the very next day. And yet, she refused to leave him alone. Her face would smile down on him and words that she had spoken to him during their conversations in the prison filled his mind. And there were those three little words that she had spoken to him that seemed to fill his head like a poison gas, I love you. He could only think of two other people that had ever spoken those words to him, and they were both dead now. He tried to comfort himself with the knowledge that he would be with those two women soon, and that Tiana had spoken lies to cloud his mind, but for some reason those thoughts did nothing to cheer him.
Finally, after several hours of failed attempts he left his room to seek out Joker. He had been rather surprised to discover that the Clown had not been upset by his treachery against the Riddler, and had in fact seemed rather pleased by it. Of course, Joker was an agent of chaos and so perhaps things like that merely amused him. The thought was slightly disquieting to Bane, seeing as it only proved the fact that the Clown could most likely not be trusted in the long run, but after some thought he had decided that it didn't matter anyway, since there was no long run any more.
It only took him a few minutes to locate the man in his strange room. The Joker seemed to prefer to live without most comforts, and his room obviously showed that. There was no bed, instead the room was filled with multiple chemistry sets, tools, bomb making supplies, rolls and rolls of blueprints, and a single rickety table. Bane found him standing in front of his mirror, applying his paint with a rather odd look reflected back at him. Though his face was already fully covered in the thick greasepaint, Bane knew that if it hadn't been, he would have seen that it was pale. He also noticed that the Clown's hands shook slightly as he applied the last touches to the black around his eyes.
"What's going on Joker? You aren't rethinking your part in our plan, are you?" Bane had felt confident that the Clown was as set on revenge as he was, but by the looks of him that seemed to be untrue. Bane waited impatiently for a response, and when nearly a whole minute passed in silence he began to cross the room with murder in his eyes.
Just as he reached him, Joker spun around and held his hand up in a halt gesture. "Easy, Beast. There is no change to the plan, I am still with you. I just received a rather... disquieting phone call, and I feel it would be prudent to investigate it further." He brushed passed Bane and slipped into his overcoat, ignoring the look of annoyance that filled Bane's face at his use of the unwanted moniker he had bestowed on him. "In any case, my part of the plan is now fully automated. After I saw what you did to the Riddler I felt it wise to be sure that my, uh, masterpiece would go down in history. With or without me. All you must do is hit the button to light your charges, and mine will ignite with them. Your fire will rise this time. My presence is unnecessary to your plan, but I still intend to be here to witness the end with you."
Then, much to Bane's annoyance, he sauntered out of the room. Leaving Bane alone with his whirling mind.