So this is what we all have been waiting for! I had started typing this chapter right after I had finished the last (the fresh fish of writing) and I am so happy how it turned out. I really hope you guys like it. I have been saving it as yet another surprise, or maybe just a shocker. I am also glad that the twist in the last chapter was a good one, but this is still a Bane/OC fiction. I have a note at the end, once you are done reading the chapter.
Enjoy this long chapter! :)
Chapter 16: Seek
Ren had succumbed to the idea that there were three stages of life, three stages that she would never know; the stage of happiness, the stage of love, the stage of 'saying goodbye'. In that exact order she would wonder what life would be like if she experienced at least one of these stages. The stage of happiness; her mother actually caring about her, her real father kissing her on the cheek, her faulty siblings playing hide and seek with her. The stage of love; finding a man that loves her, cares for her, mates with her, bonds with her, finding Bane. The stage of 'saying goodbye'; holding them all tight, all the happy memories she would leave behind, all of her children who would mourn her upon her death bed. She would never know these stages, even if she wished she could experience one. No one can experience happiness without love and no one can 'say goodbye' without happiness and love to say goodbye to.
She knew she would never die saying goodbye, she would die lonely and young. If not young, then lonely and old. But she felt day by day that it would be in youth, her death would come terrible and slow. She knew it. She felt it as she peered over the edge of the building at the terrace that connected to Wayne Industries. She knew it when the crisp wind of Gotham's skyline had gone cold, it had gone right through her. She knew.
The one thing about knowing was that it was dangerous. She pulled the scarf around her neck up over her head as a hood and then her nose to shield it from the chills of frost. She hung skillfully over the edge of the building she had found herself upon and swung down the side of Wayne Industries across the metal poles that surrounded the edge of the building. The wind hit her in heavy wisps, nearly parting her from the pole and sending her hundreds and hundreds of feet to her death. Her legs limply moved back and forth as she used her upper body strength to bring her from pole to pole. When the pole ran out she was a few feet above the terrace, the light had one out and the penthouse seemed vacant, but she wouldn't allow her assumptions to cloud her decisions. She figured for a moment of tonight was the night she would die. So be it.
She dropped from the last pole and came free falling down towards the concrete ground of the balcony. She hit the ground with a light thud; her head held up tightly, chin to chest, to avoid a head injury as her back took the overall grunt of the fall. She took a deep breath and groaned as her aching limbs cracked in various places upon her rising from the concrete ground.
She stood up completely and managed a slow step to the guard rails of the out look. She paused for a moment to embrace the heart of Gotham: not yet a fallen city, but soon to be one. She rose a hand up to gently tug at the scarf and it slipped down from around her nose, bundling at her neck again. The half portion of the scarf still serving her head as a hood. The cold air pressed against her narrow lips and her bright eyes sparkled in the moonlight. The lights of the city were gone, no more electricity, but it's beauty still remained. How something so broken could be so beautiful, Ren would never know. Moments like these proved to her that life was so much more, but she had other things to worry about.
She took a deep breath and then looked over her shoulder at the sliding glass doors of the penthouse. No lights were on and it wouldn't be a surprise if the entire floor was vacant, mostly because Bane didn't sleep that much and bomb time was closing in. Things needed to be done. Her boots patterned against the hard surface of the terrace as she came closer to the door. She wouldn't expect Bane to keep it open, but it wouldn't hurt to try. However, when Ren was here not once did they take a chance to look out on the terrace Bane had his own view in the office. Her hands flattened against the window of the door and she pushed, her eyes widened for a split second as the door made a sifting noise, cracking open with a pop. She silently pushed it to her right, opening the door just enough to maneuver her thin body between the frame and the glass itself.
The entire penthouse was filled with shadows and darkness; the living room was vacant and across from it sat the frozen elevator. Nothing had changed within the month and a half of her absence. Everything was clean as if it did not need her to clean it, everything was still and silent. She felt an urge to mediate in this room, considering it had always been her favorite place do so, but she had an objective. She knew that those blades would surely be around here somewhere, not in her room, but just maybe they could be in Bane's. She had heard from an inside source that the blades would be found in this penthouse, who was she to trust anyone other than Barsad to give her the facts. He respected her.
She stepped forward and flinched when the floorboards creaked beneath her boots. She looked around for any signs of danger before venturing forward towards Bane's room. If he was here he would have known that someone was invading the penthouse and the result would be anything but pretty. Her breath hitched as the walls of the hall closed in on her, she closed her eyes and attempted to gather herself. Her feet had a mind of their own, dragging her down further and further to the door at the end of the hallway. The master bedroom, the bedroom that belonged to Bane.
If the blades weren't in there, she would know. Bane hardly kept anything in his room, but a bed and a duffle bag of clothing. The penthouse had been swept out after Wayne had decided to take refuge in his manor. This place was chosen specifically as a base since it was the not only the property of Bruce Wayne, their enemy, but it wasn't far at all from the courthouse. It was also a direct source from which they retrieved Wayne's technology, the perfect place to reside while conquering a city.
She shakily reached a hand out and turned the metal knob of the door, from then on it was as if nothing seemed to be tangible around her. Her entire mind was much more subject to the location of the blades and she had found them. Everything was a blur up until she had herself sitting directly in front of the case that held those prized weapons. She was kneeling before their blade encasement, cherishing their fine design and strong steel.
She lifted them both up in their sheath and pulled them onto her torso, hanging from her back. She stood and paused as she was about to turn around.
"Does it satisfy you that you have gotten what you wanted?" Ren gulped, the metallic voice emanating from the body behind her sent shivers down her spine. "I don't respect thieves, but that doesn't mean I cannot be impressed. I salute you for your valiant effort in stealing what takes refuge in my residence." She felt his large hand engulfed her left shoulder and her body reacted immediately to the warmth that it projected. "Now it is time to put it back..." His mask released his voice with a scratchy vibe. "Then I will kill you." She said nothing, her voice still stuck between the thumping of her heart and the burning in her lunges. She pulled the leather strap of the sheath over her head and away from her torso, allowing it to drop into the case of its previous place. "Face me. I want to see your face when I kill you." Bane demanded in a shallow voice, Ren turned her head to barely made out his form over her shoulder, then she turned her entire body, refusing to meet his gaze.
He was shirtless, muscles covered in faded cuts and newly acquired bruises that with short periods of time she had been given, she remembered. Perhaps he had been sleeping and Ren was too caught up in her success to notice he was in the room. As said before Bane was a very light sleeper. Maybe he wasn't sleeping, maybe he was pondering. He was adorning a thicker pair of cargo pants, knee pads attached to the midsection of the pant legs. They tucked into his signature black boots that shone so clearly one could see their own reflection. Ren could see her reflection, she could see her fear. She didn't know what she was afraid of. He wouldn't kill her, if he had wanted her dead he would have done it before when he had the chance. His other hand was lifted to gently collect her chin and he tiled her head up to get a better look at the intruder. He had known before the it was a woman, the posture and stature was utterly feminine, but her features he was not expecting.
His eyes widened, but only slightly; the first time she would ever see a look of consternation shadowing Bane's eyebrows and dusting his lashes. It wasn't the type of expression that signaled he was angry, his eyebrows would furrow if he was angry and the muscles in his neck would tighten. He was confused, not angry, that was the expression she witnessed.
His hands were clad with fabric that wrapped his knuckles, she immediately recognized them. He must had gotten into a fight recently, or he must have interrogated someone in a blind rage. He hit so hard that sometimes his knuckles would bleed, there couldn't be any other reasons for him to wrap his knuckles in black cloth that Ren could think of. She didn't care who he had fought against, or who he had tortured to such an extent that his knuckles would drip Crimson. All she cared about at the moment was the feel of his fingers as they drifted up from her chin and over her cheek, the skin leaving hot invisible markings in their wake. She wished he could paint her entire body in that invisible ink. If only. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, one hand reaching up to cup his own as his palm pressed against her frigid cheek.
"Stupid girl." He muttered, but the mask made it nearly inaudible and difficult to uncover the very words. Ren understood well enough her eyes flashed open, daggers shooting from the crystal orbs.
"I am a woman, not a girl..." She replied in a whisper, her voice was soft and angelic, almost as calmly as her voice had been when she was with him before all of this. She missed that, she missed the time before Talia had turned him against her. Oh how she would crave to see his water dropped skin as he walked about the penthouse in a mere towel. She missed being able to relax with him and sometimes she missed just standing beside him, there was enough pride given alone when standing respectfully at the side of the city's most dangerous enemy. "I have always been a woman."
"I know." His thumb caressed gently against her lips, his hand so large it could have covered her entire face, but he opted for just her cheek. "Just as you are a dream." A single tear drifted down from his left eye, but his eyes hardened at the realization that his emotions had gotten the best of him. He was obviously better trained then Ren in the matters of the heart. He tore his hand away and turned his back to her, more scars from his past visible for her to see. His boots pounding against the wood as he exited the room and down the hall, leaving her to her thoughts.
She wondered why he hadn't apprehended her, why after his statement he appeared to care less that she was standing directly at the edge of his room. She was alive, she had escaped the Pit and he seemed to not bat an eye. She told herself she would get the blades later, on her way out. The idea of leaving now and so suddenly after what had just occurred, did not come easy to her mind. She couldn't leave after that, she had so many questions that needed answers. The sound of her heated footsteps as she followed after him did not go amiss. She entered the kitchen area beside the living room, where he was leaning against the counter and staring blankly into the open space of furniture across the penthouse.
"Bane..." She breathed out, using what strength she could find within herself to get what he really needed. Not the blades, but him. "I can't take this anymore..." She stepped up to stand beside him, placing a hand flat against the marble countertop, the other hand on his bare back. "I love you more than I should and I knew the consequences years ago just as I know them now." He doesn't move, the muscles beneath her hand clenching and unclenching in quick recession. She pulled her hand away, bringing the other up from the counter top and she looked down at them. "I hate myself for wanting to be with you, for being willing enough to die for you when I know you wouldn't do the same for me." Her hands clenched into fists and her face contorted, tears spilling over her cheeks. "I use to never be jealous of Talia..." At the name, Bane lifted his head up and tilted his head for his ear to face in Ren's direction. "I use to have all that I needed..." The darkness causing a tear to look bloody as it slipped from her right eye and traveled down the hill of her cheek. "But then I realized there was so much more. One thing that I was missing that she had and I could never know, but now that I know it. I don't want it anymore." She looks up at him and nibbles on her bottom lip. "You will never love me back, it was always Talia." She wanted-no needed to get that off her chest.
"Get out of my head." He replied not so calmly, his fists clenching on top of the label surface and his back straightening as he stood to his full height.
"I am no dream, or nightmare, I am here Bane. I am not a burden to you."
"Yes, you are." He turned around to face her. "A burden, a dream, not a nightmare, but a regret that I will always carry. You will be safe there and I have done what I can to keep you alive. Get out of my head." He turned his back to her again. He truly thought she was a figment of his imagination, Bane believed that she was part of his brain, a distant memory. She would not prove to him otherwise because perhaps she was nothing more than a burden and a dream to him. She stepped closer with trembling hands and grabbed his hand up from the counter, his head turned to watch as she brought his hand up to her lips.
"Then I will go and you won't ever see me again." She said against his skin, her eyes fluttering shut in her first real experience of bliss. Her lips pressed against his skin so softly and so gentle. Her eyes opened and she was met with the sight of an enraged Bane, his hand unmoving.
"You really are a stupid woman..." His voice increased in volume. "You. Are. Here." Each word Bane stepped forward, Ren stepped back. The hand she held flipping around to grab her wrist and pull her roughly to him. "What do you think you are doing here?!" His voice escalated in a matter of seconds Ren was not afraid, but startled.
"I came to get back what is rightfully mine." Her voice wavered slightly, almost in a trembling fashion.
"They belong to Talia." He hissed, his grip intensifying. She mirrored the furrow of his eyebrows and fiercely bit into her bottom lip, nearly drawing blood.
"They belong to me and you know it!" She yelled back, Bane's breathing was heavier the mask amplifying its frequency throughout the silent penthouse. "Talia has poisoned you Bane, she has turned you against me and all of your fellow members. I would never have done a thing to betray you before this. I came back to save the League of Shadows, Talia is destroying it and I can't let that happen." Bane released her hand. "Whether he is my father or my master, his memory will not die like this." She ripped herself from him, taking a steady step away from him. Looking him up and down, she both mentally and physically prepared herself for a fight with Bane.
"You are just as insolent and naive as your father said you were. I put you in the pit to save-"
"If by saving me you mean putting me through hell, then you did a wonderful job, Bane." She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him, Bane did not break the contact.
"You should have stayed in the Pit, even after escaping I would have expected you of all to be smarted than this." His voice filled with apprehension, Ren felt shame bubble in her inners, he was talking to her as an adult would when admonishing a child.
"I..." She looked down and collected herself, before meeting his gaze yet again. "You left me with too many things unanswered." He stood up taller, his hands straight at his sides in fists.
"You might not like the words you find, Ren. I know the great Ra's Al Ghul had taught you better than to go searching for things that don't meddle with your business." Bane leaned back slightly and shook his head. "He would be ashamed." If it wasn't the answers she'd be getting those words alone hit her in the heart like a knife, she would never know Bane as a lover, she would never be loved by him as Talia was. But what surprised her was how the words had emanated from his darker mask, they were hardly believable. Bane had never said a word that he didn't trust himself.
"You know that is not true. Ra's would rather be here and risk my life, then have me sit in a dark and dingy cell watching it all go to waste."
"Do you not understand that I had saved you?" He stepped closer and she was about to step back, but his hands roughly grabbed her shoulders and held her place. "This city will explode and everything in it will die, including you. You don't deserve to die Ren, you were never like Talia and me." His eyes are sympathetic, compassionate, things she use to never see in those eyes.
"Bane..." His hands moved up to cup both sides of her head, he nodded for her to continue. "Have you ever wondered if maybe we are on the wrong side? If we were always on the wrong side?" He closed his eyes with a sigh and turned his head away, thumbs caressing the edges of her cheek bones.
"I am on the wrong side, but you can be on the other. You can live, Ren and have everything that Talia and I won't." Ren shook her head in his hands and rose her own hand up to cup under his chin. He moved his head to open his eyes and look at her again.
"We both knew that as soon as we became Shadows our lives would never carry such happiness. Talia has gone too far this time, but there is still good in her. I can save us, we can stop this." Bane pulled his hands away, they glided from her head. She felt like falling into his arms as soon as the heat of his palms was gone. She felt like dying when the Bane she had just met, blurred away into the harsh man she had always known.
"Go.." He gestured towards the sliding glass door and cocked his head. "Before I am forced to do what I have tried not to do in the past."
"You won't kill me." She spat. "If you had wanted me dead, you would have done it already." It was irreversible, Talia had taken him from her too soon and Ren was too late. She didn't need her answers, they didn't matter. What mattered was her plan, she wouldn't let Talia take over her life. The League of Shadows would not fall like this.
"Thank you." She said randomly, Bane's eyebrows furrowed. It was silent for a short moment as they stared at one another, until Bane broke the silence.
"For what?"
"The Pit has taught me many things, it has made me stronger, it has showed me who I was then and who I am now." She stepped closer to Bane a bit more hesitant to do so, she wasn't sure what she was going to do, but she needed to do something. "But the thing I needed the most was for you to stay by my side. The man that I trusted and loved, the man that I still love and still trust with my life." She shakily rose her hands up to press her palms against his pectorals, he froze, but made no move to stop her. "You went with Talia and I have somehow found the strength to forgive you for that." She leaned up on the toes of her boots towards him, pressing her lips against the metal mask for a split second. She dropped away, the cold of his mask still residing over the plush skin. "But I can't do this anymore, I can't keep hiding for you, for myself and I can't keep running from what I don't understand, or know." She traced her hands down his strong biceps, over the ridges of scars and the bumps of bulging veins. She sighed, she would like to kiss them all and this moment would have been the perfect time to do it, but she wasn't brave enough. He had let her do so much, that would be something she believed he wouldn't allow. "I love you, but you don't love me." She leaned forward and pressed one last kiss to his chest bone. "So this is goodbye." The only stage of 'saying goodbye', without the happiness and with all the love.
"Is that all. I would have expected you to force the answers to your questions from my mind before you said such a thing." He heaved out, his voice was light and the anger had suddenly vanished, his breath having gone faster when her flesh touched his. She looked up into his eyes and shook her head.
"I don't need your answers if you don't think I deserve them. They didn't matter to me as much as I thought they did. You have done enough to me... And for me." She pulled away and made her way back into Bane's room. Bane stood there and did not move, his eyes squinted in deep thought. A minute later she came back, the leather strap of the sheath to the blades hung over her shoulder. Batman was supposed to fly his Batwing under the terrace, but he was yet to arrive, so she went for the elevator.
"It was an honor being at your side." She managed to say as she met the floorboards in front of Bane. His arm came out and wrapped around her waist, clashing her yet again into his chest.
The other hand that wasn't holding her mid back down against his body rose up and sifted the hood from her head, revealing beautiful locks of brown hair. He pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and did the same. She could live with this... For just a moment.
Okay so... yeah. A lot has happened here I am not sure if it really fits, but that is why I am going to ask you guys how you feel. Obviously the Next chapter was supposed to be some super detailed smut time and I was kind of excited, but then I started typing and realized that it didn't seem right. I want Bane and Ren to be together, but I felt like it would be so out of Bane's character to have sex with anyone else except for Talia. Just because Bane has been with her for so long and all. Even if he has known that Ren loves him, that doesn't really mean much (And I know how I want Bane to feel at this point in the story, but I don't know how he would really feel). And Ren has never had sex before so I was skeptical as to how she would react if Bane tried to initiate something (which I don't know if he would or not), because she definitely wants it (as earlier chapters had proven), who wouldn't with Bane?
So here is the question (I am probably really annoying), should Ren and Bane have sex? At all? Like this is the only chance they will have guys, should they do it? Should they?
Sorry... I need to get a life. lol. Anyways, tell me what you think.
P.S. My boyfriend says they should, but he doesn't know what he is even talking about so I won't count his opinion... Should they?