I have finally finished this story, I will post the epilogue tonight. I hope you all have enjoyed it. I plan on writing up a prequel, I already have some ideas for what is going to take place in this so called 'prequel'.
Hopefully this chapter makes sense, I tried my best to capture what Ren was feeling.
Plus, the allusion in the last chapter was actually:
...that he hadn't turned back into a monster, or fly away like Cupid.
Cupid was Aphrodite's son, who fell in love with a human that his mother was very jealous of due to her beauty. He married her in the form of a monster to trick his mother into thinking that the young woman was being punished, she could never see her true husband. In an attempt to kill him while he is sleeping, she notices that Cupid is, in fact, not a monster and she falls in love with him too. Cupid wakes up and flies away in fear of what his mother might do to him if she were to find out.
Chapter 19: Lie
Ren detached herself from every soul that she met on her way up to the courthouse. Her blade wrung through body after body of mercenaries as she climbed to the top. She threw punches and kicks, anyone that stood in her path fell shortly after. She was ruthless. For a split second in her life she felt an uncontrollable rage, it was pouring out of her. She hadn't killed someone in months, she hadn't been subjected to blood and wrath in what felt like ages. In this moment she knew that she wasn't Ren, she was the monster her father hadn't wanted her to be.
Several steps further and she was at the top of the tall staircase, glaring into the glass that belonged to the swinging doors of the courthouse and capturing her reflection. She gripped the blades firmly in her grasp before stomping forward. Her breath ragged and her throat dry, the ruckus from the war that was going on became muffled behind the doors. The courthouse was vacant, the only two residing within it were Talia and Bane.
She could see them staring at her, a look on their faces that made her feel helpless. Ren stepped forward and Talia rose her left hand, within it she held the trigger that would decide the cities fate. Ren suddenly felt heartbroken; first she had lost her father, the day that they heard of his death Talia and Ren sat together sipping tea. It was silent the entire time. She had finally knew the emptiness of having nothing an no one. Both Bane and her sister, lost, thrown out of her life so quickly. She could see the criticism on Bane's face: the mask didn't do such a good job in hiding it. It was as if last night was a dream and seeing the look on Talia's face made her wish it was.
"Don't take another step forward." Talia warned, her voice was shaky. She was trying hard to hide the surprise, but Ren could see it. "You were supposed to be dead." Or at least Ren thought she could. It seemed as if Reality and Fiction had collided and she couldn't tell what was what.
"How do you know I am not a ghost?" Talia didn't answer, so Ren made the decision to place her blades gently down on the tiles beside her. Bane pulled his coat off and tossed it to the side, his eyes narrowing on the glass doors that entered the courthouse.
"Go ahead." Talia said. "Don't let him get in." Bane then stomped out of the courthouse, he didn't even look back. Talia revealed a knife from behind her back, her other hand holding it up to aim at Ren. Ren closed her eyes as calmly as she could, she took a deep breath.
"I have always known that you were my sister..." Talia began and this piece of information causing her ears to twitch and her eyes to shootout open. The scowl on Talia's face all that came into
view. "My father was talking about it with Bane a while back. He told Bane that you were to be his heir. It was late and they had thought I was asleep, I heard everything."
"Talia." Ren's voice was cold and monotone, she couldn't feel any emotion. It was as if she had grown prone to such feelings, she had lost the will to care. "We can stop this. You and I, we can travel back to where the temple once stood. Build a new one in honor of the great Ra's Al Ghul. Bane can come to, we can be happy tog-"
"Shut up!" Talia shouted, she shook her head. "How stupid do you think I am?!" Ren lowered her gaze. How could she? To her own sister? She had betrayed Talia and had stooped to Talia's level. Bane never loved her, he never cared about her. "All these years you thought you had your emotions under control, that no one knew what you were thinking..." Talia snorted, but she didn't smile. "Well it was far too obvious. Whenever you were near Bane you looked like an attention lacking whiny little bitch in heat." Ren was taken aback, she had never heard such foul language ever leave Talia's lips
before. "Bane confessed to me that you were alive and I didn't believe him at first, I was shocked when you walked through that door. So dedicated to a cause and suddenly so willing to go against it. Well now I know." She gestured to Ren with the knife. "You survived the pit and even better you got what you wanted. Right? Sadly, however, Bane had never meant it." Ren's eyes widened and her entire resolve crushed into pieces. "He never really meant last night. I wanted him to make you believe that he loved you, but he doesn't." She stumbled backwards, holding a hand over the mental pain that ripped through her heart. "Honestly, how could he? He is mine, remember?"
He had warned Ren.
"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."
It wasn't about killing her, it was about breaking her. He was hesitant.
"I know you won't say it back because you can't, but promise me that one day you will. That you do love me. It eases my mind, being with you helps me think clearly."
"You want me to promise something like that..." He took a deep breath. "When the very likely hood of us not blowing up tomorrow is so opaque."
He was trying to protect Ren. But why would he go on with it? Why would he break her heart to such an extent? He was so believable. And yet she still felt that hint of adoration and respect. She still loved Bane.
"No!" Ren yelled out, her face had gone red, tears running down her face. Her legs gave out on her and she fell to her knees. "You lie."
"He doesn't love you." Ren sink her fingers through her hair and ducked down to the ground. "I told him to make you happy because I wanted this. I wanted you to feel hopeless and lost, dead almost." Ren felt fingers grab at the strands attached the back of her head and pull her head up. "All these years you have been better than me..." She whispered, crouching down to Ren's level. "All these years father has favored you. He would be disappointed now. He would see how weak you have become and how strong I am compared to you." Talia put the blade to Ren's throat, Ren's eyes creased.
"Just do it." She whispered. "Take me out of my misery." The doors entering the courthouse were flung open, Bane being dragged in by the Batman himself.
"Where is the Trigger?!" Batman shouted, his growling voice flushing Talia's attention away from Ren. Ren's hair was released and she dropped forward onto the ground. She closed her eyes, hearing the deafening crunch of Bane's ventilation tubes being punched open. While lying on the floor, Ren looked up and her eyes met Bane's.
Air was sifting through the open tubes in his mask and Bane's attention turned back to Bruce.
"I broke you. How have you come back?" Bane asked in between heavy gasps of air.
"You thought you were the only one who could learn the strength to escape." Bane's eyes squinted in confusion and Batman threw another punch.
"I never escaped..." Bane heaves out, his body writhes upward and he groans in pain. "Ra's Al Ghul rescued me. That is why I must fulfill his plan. That is why I must avenge his murderer." Batman blinked in confusion, his grip on Bane's vest loosened.
"The child of Ra's Al Ghul made the climb-"
"But he is not the child of Ra's Al Ghul." Batman turned and Talia stabbed a knife up into his abdomen.
"No!" Ren screamed, holding a hand out to Batman as he fell to his knees. Gotham's only hope was bowing before Talia. Talia explained it to him, explained all of it and Ren saw the pain in his expression. He looked as heartbroken as Ren was, Ren turned onto her back and stared at the high ceilings of the building. Talia finished her speech, she pieced Bane's mask together before leaving the building.
"Now you know I have to kill you." Ren pushed herself up onto her feet. She watched as Bane grabbed Batman by the neck and lifted him up.
"Bane." She muttered, he paused and glanced over his shoulder at her.
"Don't do this." She was so tired. She was so tired of feeling. She was so tired of being in love. It was obvious, more obvious than how tired she had looked the day before.
"I have to do this." She looked down and just as Bane was about to kill the Batman. The savior of Gotham. The man who Ren had grown to respect. Bruce. A loud blast was heard and Bane was sent flying across the floor into the nearest wall, he slumped over. Ren looked over to see Selina Kyle on the Bat bike.
Everything was going in slow motion; Batman was gone, Selina with him, and Bane still sat motionless against the wall. She was breathing heavily, hyperventilating, the reality of the situation finally hitting her. She jumped in shock and went sprinting over to Bane. She fell onto the floor and went crawling over to him, she yanked him onto her lap.
"Bane..." She said softly, her hands caressed his bald head. He was so heavy and lifeless, but she didn't mind at this point. She couldn't care about such little things. She could only care about him. She looked down into his calm features and she froze in fear.
She could see a dark tunnel.
She could see a beaming light at the end and she wanted to run towards it.
She knew it would set her free and when she got to the end she could see Bane. He didn't have a mask and he would open his arms and she would run into them.
She would be pregnant and they would be in love.
He would be alive.
He would be okay.
She moved her fingers over the gaping hole that sat at Bane's abdomen, her fingers tentatively touched his blood and she cringed. A tear slide down her cheek as she looked at the liquid on her finger tip, it felt so warm.
His hand was on hers, bandaged and firm, but gentle and loving. She was so afraid. She glanced back into his eyes, the dark blotches that peaked through those slits. Bane was tired too. He was tired of everything.
"It was never meant to be like this." She spoke to him, he groaned as he reached his hand up to her cheek and caressed her cheek.
"If it has happened than it was always meant to be." She broke out into sobs, she was so scared. She had never been this afraid since her father had...
"Shhh..." He grunted out, shifting on her thighs to make himself more comfortable. "Don't cry Ren. You are strong."
"I am not strong, I never was. I am afraid, I have always been afraid. I'm so weak."
"Ren." He croaked out more strictly, his hand snatching hers again and his grip was threatening. "You're strength comes from your humanity, not your weakness. Your emotions are the things that both Talia and I had always lacked."
"You feel it too, you have to." It was silent. She wasn't pleading for him to confess to his emotions as a human, but as a lover. He had never known that this would be the day.
"Tell me your secrets, Ren. I want to hear your voice when I die, I want to hear your thoughts." She pulled his hand to her chest and held it there, sniffling. She didn't question him, she wanted to hear his secrets.
"When I was little..." Her voce cracked and her featured wrinkled into tears. "I use to go to this pond. I considered it my balancing point, but it was the never the pond it was always you." His eyes closed, but a shaky breath flew from the mask. It was raining inside the courthouse, drowning Ren to the brink of her death. "I envied Talia. I use to want to kiss your lips, see your face." She turned her head away, to ashamed to continue.
"Continue." He demanded tersely, his breath was coming out much less even now.
"The first man I killed, he had a family." She brought his knuckles up to her lips and kissed them. "It reminded me of my father. I wanted to kill myself for it." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her body rising and falling with the movement. "I got my name Shadow because I would kill in silence, undetected. But really I was hiding from my true self." She snorted as a thought came to her mind, how could she suddenly be so amused? "I would wait for you to exit the shower, so I could see you go from one side of the penthouse to the other."
"I know." He nodded his head, but it didn't look like this amused him. Her smile was brought down again and she tightened her grip on his hand, kissing a knuckle again. She bit her bottom lip and glared at him, but not out of rage, merely disbelief.
"Did you use me?" His eyes opened and his head tilted onto its side. His hand rose up to grab her chin and his thumb caressed the skin there.
"Ren, I lo..." His words were caught on his tongue for eternity and his hand drifted away. His eyes still staring at her, but the spirit within them was gone and dull. She continued to stare at those eyes, until her face became blank. Her hand reached up to cover his eyes and slid down his eyelids, he slumped over as she gently pushed him off his lap.
She leaned over his body and pressed a kiss to the valves of his mask, pressing her forehead against his for a split moment.
"I love you too." She stood up hesitantly and released a breath she didn't know she was holding. She turned and left the courthouse, she sat outside on the top steps and waited for the city to explode around her. Nothing happened and no more than an hour later was she met with the familiar face of John. He sat beside her, looking out at the wreckage, at the faces of dead mercenaries and police officers alike laying about the front of the courthouse. Those that survived had ran off to their families or their once stolen home or to their destiny.
"Ren." He called into the silence that had been built before his arrival. "The charges haven't been dropped yet. You might want to leave before-"
"My name isn't Ren." She interrupted, she looked up to the sky. "My real name is Alugana Al' Ghul." John didn't reply quite as suddenly as she had expected him to. Instead he held his hand out to her, a sign of trust and admiration.
"My real name isn't John..." He gulped. "It's Robin." She took his hand and shook it, he pulled his hand away and the corner of his lip quirked up.
"Do you maybe want to go out for a drink or something? At least until you find a way out or..." He trailed off when she stared off into the distance.
"I don't love you, Robin." She spoke truthfully and Robin's lips parted in surprise. "The man I loved is dead and now I have to suffer the consequences that are laid out before me."
"But they will put you to death. You have committed treason."
"This city was never mine to take and all of my colleagues are dead. I am the one who must accept the punishment, someone has to."
"Are you sure about this?" She nodded and her face appeared serene, calm, collected. She didn't forget to feel, she merely forgot to hide.
"I have never been more sure about something in my entire life." Robin was at a loss for words and she noticed, she scooted over, closer to him. She took his hand and made his palm face upwards, he turned his head in her direction. She caressed the patterns on her skin, the indent of the crest that resided that the center of his hand. "Thank you." He didn't know what she meant, what any of it meant. But she smiled, genuinely, and to his surprise he smiled back.