XII.

Radiance in The Down

Bone on bone, it's magnetic. The bones of the strong crush the bones of the weak. While I dream, darkness's bones impound on my soft bones perverting the marrow and unhinging the joints. Knees slacken, elbows go limp. I'm lost in it, unable to move; for my bones are all powder, they're then cast to the winds. It is a waste. Darkness cannot be reined, saddled or bridled; for darkness is different, darkness is he; and nobody can control him. When he falls, his mass overpowers and shrouds all in his dusk.

He is unstoppable, and like metal that must be folded, I bend to the will of this Darkness, falling before him on my ruined knees. Here is now, I forego the light and turn my back on radiance. Retreat, I shall be safe in his shadow. The cavernous wraith protects me. I am untouchable; my bones have no need to be strong anymore. Reborn as I am in the heavy gloom.

Sometimes I think I am Persephone...

Lily's breath caught and she flinched when Bane plunged his fist into the Batman's cowl. The other man was thrown back with a cry. Lily was practically about to fall down into the complex she was leaning so far over the railing to get a look at the two strangest beings she had ever seen battle it out. She could feel Barsad's absent hand clutching her coat to keep her from tumbling over the side. Her eyes widened when she watched Bane grasp Batman by the throat and lift him effortlessly for a moment before flinging him down like he was an action figure which Bane had grown tired of and would now break.

It was savage. Casting her eyes around the huge room, Lily could see all the workers, vagrants and mercenaries watching the fight from the various levels. It felt like an arena. She frowned down on the gladiators and licked her lips; she couldn't hear what Bane was saying from up here, but she could tell he was enjoying toying with Batman. She shook her head and flung herself back, Barsad barely noticed, so enthralled was he to the clash down below. Lily managed to slip away, down the stairs which led down into the first level.

She gripped the slightly wet railing on this level and peered down; she couldn't see anything, the lights had gone down. Her chest tightened, the rushing water was blocking any sound from her ears and she clicked her tongue in acute annoyance and whipped round, turning away from the darkened coliseum and flew further down into the complex until she was on the ground floor.

"...You merely adopted the dark,"

She stopped dead. Her hand pressed to the cold wall, Lily closed her eyes, her ears pricked to his voice.

"I was born in it. Moulded by it." His mechanical rasp taunted as he stepped around languidly.

"I didn't see the light until I was already a man,"

She could only hear him barely because of her own breath ringing in her ears as she took a ginger step forward, through a gaping doorway; Lily was framed in the passage, tiny in comparison. She saw Bane standing, his head bowed as if he were listening intently. Lily was entranced by the scene; she heard him utter almost to himself;

"By then the light was nothing to me but BLINDING!"

Lily shrieked fearfully when he whipped round ferociously and clasped the Batman by the throat again and dragged him away from her. She swallowed. Her eyes jerking from side to side; the Batman had been close to her, so very close and she could see his face now; or, she could see his mask. His gloved hand was outstretched desperately, the other one ripping at Bane's wrist that was pulsating with the effort to hold him aloft.

"The shadows betray you because they belong to me." Bane pronounced viciously, squeezing his neck.

Her old and battered sneakers weren't water-tight enough to keep the damp from seeping through as she stepped into the abyss of their encounter. Lily could feel the eyes of the militia above her, taking her in; watching her as though she were a character in a play and Bane's brutality was her cue to enter the stage. She watched silently as Bane threw punches at the Bat and finally flung the caped man to his knees; his costume was drenched, inky and glistening like the body of a slug and writhing on the wet ground like a worm in contrast to Bane who stood tall and strong like an unrelenting tree. He stepped back, held out a hand; Lily gasped as Barsad shouldered past her very softly and handed Bane a switch.

"I will show you where I have been making my home while preparing to bring justice to your city,"

Bane said throwing a glance over to Lily who stood quietly and small over to his right, eyes huge; taking in this cruel scene, swaying in the wet, as cold an inflexible as a thin plank of wood. He blinked and turned back to Batman and said evenly,

"Then...I will break you."

With a small wave of his hand, Bane turned ever so slightly round to Lily and nodded. She blinked gaping at him and felt warm fingers wrap themselves around her own and pull her backwards. She didn't turn; she knew that it was Barsad, but she couldn't look away from Bane towering over Batman's panting black form. Suddenly the ground rocked beneath her feet, Lily gasped and gripped Barsad, throwing her eyes to the ceiling which she'd observed for so long now; her mouth hung open in wonderment as fire exploded and rubble imploded to reveal the white and brilliant light of up above. It busted through with a deafening bang, Lily and Barsad hit the floor.

She shrugged off his arms, his body which shielded her so that she could get another look at the black sky now ripped to reveal the white beneath; like the skin and flesh of a fish. That was freedom up there. That was her escape. Her throat contracted as she was dragged back to reality by Bane's voice,

"Your precious armoury." He said to the Batman.

"Gratefully accepted, we will need it." He added, with – if Lily could have seen his mouth – a smile.

Barsad's arm was still slung over her partially in a protective way; Lily shirked him off and stood up fully, she felt the mercenary rise too. Suddenly the Batman got to his feet and unleashed a painfully anguished battle cry, it sounded frantic, laced with sheer desperation and thronged through despair. Bane was unfazed and commented idly while shifting his colossal weight completely unabashed,

"Ah, I wondered what would break first," He remarked smoothly.

The Batman ignored him and flew for the massive man, holding nothing back. Lily watched Bane wrangle the other man effortlessly, a punch to the gut, a knee to the chest and then finally a heavy fist on the back of the Bat's neck to throw him down at Bane's feet and mercy.

"You're spirit?" Bane asked as he gripped the Bat's cape and scuff,

Lily gasped and covered her mouth with a hand as she watched horrified Bane hold the Batman up over his head, right up in the air and roar,

"Or you're BODY?!"

There was a crack. A sickening, rueful crack that resonated throughout the complex. Lily found herself backing into Barsad timidly, wilting beneath Bane's feral strength, his wild tenacity to destroy. The Batman lay broken, unmoving in the shower of cold water beneath Bane's shadow; just as Lily had done so herself on more than one occasion. She felt sick then; oddly, like a child who would see the legs pulled from a spider, the wings from a fly, she stepped forward and ignored Barsad's silent warning that she stay put when he gripped her arm tighter.

He let go as she minced forward and peered down at the Bat. His cowl had cracked; a rift that ran from one of the little pointy ears right down into the cowl's mouth piece. Lily could see the man beneath; he was spluttering, but she couldn't make out his features, or who he was. He was gazing up at her, his eyes foggy from the extreme pain that must have been battering his body. It was a moment of such intensity, Lily felt bathed in the light from above, silhouetting her face, she could see droplets of water glistening from her hair and plopping down on the Batman. Suddenly she felt very wrong, stepping back without realising she felt her heel connect with something and she started with a gasp and turned round to see Bane was behind her.

Bearing down on her, his arms were shaking, he was eyeing her as though he had only just realised that she was there and in his hand was the other half of the Batman's broken cowl. Lily glanced down at it as he held it out to her slowly and presented it like a gift. Like something an animal might do. She looked up; he was still looking at her, his dark eyes dull like the carcass of a black beetle, but his body seemed to glow with adrenaline. Water dripped from his own mask, glinting at her in the harsh light. Delicately, she plucked the cowl from his huge hand and stared at it, completely forgetting the watching masses; she stood before Bane and accepted the broken mask.

She flinched when he touched her face to get her attention; the falling water was drowning out any sound. Her eyes slid up and he looked up to the light, Lily blinked up too and beheld what Bane had promised he'd give her. She swallowed a lump and stared back at Bane and he to her, Lily's face was as white as marble.

"For you."

He said graciously and bowed his head. Lily's brow twitched, she was so confused; she had never felt more looked after in all her life, and yet all he had given her was the most minimal care, a broken mask and a hole in the sky. It was more than anybody else had ever given her in all honesty. Lily's dark eyes drank in the sight of the light above and then him as he towered above her, close enough so that she could actually hear him over the waters. Her forearms were pressed into his body warmer, as she clutched the mask.

"What-" She was cut off as he shook his head and pointed at the mask in her grasp,

"Soon you will be outside."

He promised her quietly and placed a hand on her shoulder almost affectionately except he roughly shoved her aside and out of the shower of freezing water and motioned to Barsad. The mercenary came up alongside Lily and eyed her suspiciously then looked to his General for orders,

"Take her," Bane commanded with an absent wave. "Keep her dry."

Lily was about to protest but she was swept away by Barsad. The last thing she saw before she was ushered downstairs was Bane standing, suffused in the white light of above, watching his men bustle around and drag the unconscious Batman off somewhere to await Bane's pleasure.

In that regard he was not unlike herself.