Part 12: Darkness
Warning: This scene might be a little frightening for younger readers or those who don't like reading detailed violence. Here's a heads up!
There is darkness. Already, daylight has succumbed to the night. As it always must.
Bane strides at the front of the company of armed men and women, his white garb dyed red. He and the grinning escapees of Arkham march towards the attack helicopters that await them at the unlocked pitch-black gates. No one dares to walk before him—everyone has acknowledged that their leader, the man who came the closest to destroying Gotham completely, has at last returned to his rightful place. Behind them all, Arkham dies in flames. Smoke pours forth from the barred windows as those who remain in the building cry for mercy. Exuberant bursts of red and orange leap and try to kiss at the blackened sky, fixated on merging their fiery lips with the stars.
"We did it, we did it!" Dr. Quinzel sings from the back of the group. Her giddiness prompts the escaping patients to cheer along with her. Bane keeps silent. He wipes his blood-slicked hands on his pants in two sharp movements, but his hands still feel filthy. No one else but him notices how they're trembling.
Rose shook the container filled with liquified meatballs and spaghetti at Bane from the doorway of his designated room. She looked at the container in amazement and then held it up for Bane to see its contents. "I think I did it!" she cried. Her voice was full of joy. She was genuinely ecstatic; she was able to do something for him and that made her happy.
Why does she care?
A familiar face greets Bane as he approaches the helicopter. It is Hakim, one of his League of Shadows companions who fought valiantly with Bane during Gotham's takeover. He stands beside the helicopter, beaming proudly at his leader.
Hakim pushes his black hair away from his eyes and shifts his slim body into a proper salute as Bane comes to a halt in front of his comrade. "Greetings. It's been a while, sir."
Bane nods, still aware of his quivering hands. "That it has. Our meeting could not have come any sooner."
Hakim steps aside and Bane boards the helicopter, along with the unsavory man in the purple suit and the pretty woman in a white lab coat. The man, Bane recalls, was labeled as "The Joker" by Gotham's media outlets. He caused extreme chaos in Gotham a few years prior and almost succeeded in destroying the Batman. That is why he falls below Bane—Bane succeeded.
The woman is Dr. Harleen Quinzel. She is the one who orchestrated his release from Arkham, slipping directions to the patients there on when and how to act during the escape. All so she could venture away from her dreary life in Gotham and follow after this Joker. What a naïve woman. Although she wears a lab coat and claims the title of a doctor, there is little sanity left in the blue eyes that grin at him from behind her glasses.
Bane heaves his body onto one side of the helicopter's provided seating, while the clown and the doctor sit across from him. Bane leans forward and observes the strange pair. For a moment, they simply regard one another in silence. A peculiar and motley crew they are: a woman, a clown, and a mercenary, each with their intentions hidden from the other.
The Joker pats down his unwashed hair, straightens his oversized dress coat and grins at Bane. It's a horribly ugly smile that stretches the scars on his cheeks and reveals his yellow, decaying teeth. He waits for a moment, perhaps for Bane to speak. Bane doesn't say a word. He prefers to let these strangers introduce themselves. The Joker's smile falls a bit.
"Not one for talking much, are you?" he observes. "Is it because of the mask? I gotta say, it's not a very, um, pretty sight. Did you kiss your mother with that thing?"
The Joker bursts into small giggles while the woman next to him laughs as well. She quickly sobers up when she sees Bane's serious expression. She elbows the Joker in his side and gives Bane a pleasant smile.
"This must all be pretty weird for you, huh? Didn't expect to get out of that college girl's apartment this soon, didja?"
"I expected my remaining men to come for me, eventually."
Dr. Quinzel laughs. "Those 'League of Cowards' guys? They're not the brightest bunch, are they? Not without their … fearless leader." She licks her lips at Bane and lets the corner of her bow-tie lips quirk up a bit. "Just so we're on the same page here … We're all a team now, okay? One big, happy family against Gotham City. We're all going to need to work very … closely together, if we want to get the job done right this time."
Bane is not unaware of the deliberate ambiguity behind the forward woman's words. He tries to ignore her apparent flirting. "As long as you do not hinder my plans, I can agree to this."
The Joker hunches over and stares at Bane. "We're not the type to 'hinder' a fellow connoisseur of chaos, my large, masked colleague. We want to help you with your so-called 'plans'. Me and Harley, we're both fans of your work."
"Big fans!" Harley squeals.
"That's why we found your men, we found you, and we're pulling you out of the madhouse." The Joker looks at Harley and jabs his thumb towards his neck. Harley hops up from her seat and flitters over to Bane. She props herself on his lap without asking and smirks in his face. Bane stares down at the woman, ready to break her if necessary.
"This might hurt, just an eensy bit," she warns with a glimmer of playfulness in her voice. She digs into her pocket and retrieves a small key. She holds it up' between her and Bane, smiling at him as she twirls the small key in her hands. She abruptly pushes it into the collar that's weighed on Bane's neck for nearly four months now. After a quick twist, the collar clicks open. Bane reaches up and pulls the metal away from his neck. His large fingers rub the raw and tender skin that the demeaning collar kept hidden. Finally, he is free of the thing which stopped him from killing Rose and escaping the rehabilitation program at the very beginning of this ridiculous ordeal.
He looks at the wild-eyed doctor and quietly gives her his thanks.
She winks at him as she purposefully drags herself from his lap. "No problem. I was able to snag this off that big-headed detective before I tied him up and left him in the asylum. You told me in the courthouse that this needed to be taken off before we escaped Gotham, so I made it a point to find it. Just what was that collar, anyway?"
He studies the stained metal collar that now rests in his hands.
"I don't want to use this, Bane! Please, stop!"
She was begging. He knew she was a weak girl when he first stepped foot into her apartment. He's backing her towards the railing. She has no hope to escape. He has reached his limit. He's had enough. He is tired of being kept locked away by the GCPD while his mission lies incomplete. He's had no word from the League; he's beginning to think they've forgotten him. Was his dedication and sacrifice revered so little by those he thought of as family?
The humiliation ended now, one way or another. He advanced towards her, awaiting the moment where her eyes would widen as she took a final step, went plummeting over the edge of the building she sought refuge at and fell to her death, or the moment when she pressed the button on the shocking device. He expected to experience the excruciating pain before she fell, but he felt nothing. He saw her body flip over the railing, heard her shrill scream, and knew that she decided not to press the button.
Without thinking, he reached forward and grabbed her. He saved her and she was less surprised by the action than he was. He told himself he saved her because he would have had to face his own death if he caused hers, therefore never completing Talia's mission. But later, he allowed himself to admit that there was more to his decision.
He wanted the little lonely girl who believed in him to live.
Bane flings the device out of the door, where he hears it smack satisfyingly against the pavement. "Either the girl I was staying with could use a small remote to shock me with it, or the detective could, with his own device."
"Ah, so that's what this thing is," Harley murmurs as she takes out a small device similar to the one that Bane noticed in Rose's pockets during their first few months of living together. He'd known exactly what it was and how it could even kill him if it was used enough times.
"At least they're both burning now!" Harley quips as she tosses her legs onto the Joker's lap and grins at Bane.
The helicopter rocks a bit as it begins to lift off. Bane looks down at the burning asylum and the police cars racing towards it from the distance. Flames and smoke: a fitting beginning to Gotham's end. For Ras Al Ghul, for his dearest Talia, for the League of Shadows … Gotham will become a burnt sacrifice. Nothing must be spared.
The whites of her eyes were beginning to turn the color of rubies. Bane's trembling hand held fast to her tense neck. His grip tightened as she began to wheeze. She pounded on the top of his arm with her small fist and it felt like a mosquito tapping against his skin. Then, she was too weak to even do that. He watched in soundless acceptance when the life faded from her eyes. Blood parted her pinkish lips, bubbled there, then leaked down the corners of her mouth. He felt it wash over his hand but he couldn't pull his focus away from her dying face. Disappointment engraved itself onto her fading umber expression. She struggled against it but her eyelids fell closed over the brown eyes he'd grown warily accustomed to seeing glow. Then, slowly, unwillingly, Rose stopped breathing and accepted eternal darkness.
Bane carefully lowered his lifeless "caretaker" to the ground and tried to smooth the remaining blood away from her round chin. When he saw that the red only smeared, he pulled away, taking her blood with him. That is when he discovered his hands would not cease in their shaking.
Bane's hollow gaze concentrates on the only police vehicle that doesn't have its sirens blaring and lights on. It's the one car that's parked in the visitors' area of the asylum.
"Before we head to the base, fly us to the police station in the downtown area. We need to leave Gotham with one more reminder that it belongs to us now," Bane orders.
The helicopter veers and begins its horizontal path to the station.
Thanks for reading! And thank you for your reviews, Squeegee and Harley! :) *^*^* We've passed 100,000 posted words!