Bane stared down at Sofia's extended hand, her nails short, blunt, and neatly filed but devoid of any polish.
In the blink of an eye, Bane recalled the last time he'd watched Talia reach for a ringing phone, her nails painted a deep crimson that left them looking wet, long, and shapely.
"Bane," he stated as he gripped her hand within his own.
She returned his handshake as he nodded towards the brightly painted rooster on the front of the C130.
The rooster was as strong as the plane's Herculean namesake.
"That's your plane?"
Sofia smiled broadly, nodding before she spoke, "yes, as soon as I saw her, I knew I wanted her."
Bane wanted to ask her to elaborate, but kept the question to himself, mildly disappointed when Sofia didn't offer anything further on how she'd acquired the formidable plane.
The wind changed directions and swept the faint scent of juniper berries towards him, he caught the kiss of the pungent air over the taste of his aerosolized analgesic.
Sofia's eyes dropped to his side when his jacket pocket began to ring.
Bane released her hand and fished his phone free of its woolen pocket, Talia's digital number looked up at him from the encrypted satellite phone's screen.
Sofia looked back towards her plane as Bane answered Talia's call, filling her in on how every part of her vengeful crusade had so far gone exactly as planned. Bane watched Sofia walk around the plane, evaluating the broad body, thick tires, and proud wingspan.
Bane nodded as Talia continued with her next directives.
Talia gave Bane and Sofia a different set of orders to carry out.
Before Bane and Sofia shook hands and the time after, Miranda Tate hosted her gala and emasculated Daggett.
Selina Kyle played the role of a demure server, pimping shrimp balls before knocking down the billionaire batboy, batting her lashes at Wayne, smiling, her teeth, straight and even within her horse's mandible set before vaulting out an open window with Bruce's mother's pearls around her slim, swan neck with his fingerprints and the very valuable thumbprint.
Selina flirted her way into Congressman Gilly's limo.
Gilly's wife reported him missing.
Blake found a drowned, dead kid, grew solemn.
Bruce did an abundance of research and argued with Alfred about his yearly trip to Florence and slow drinking Fernet Branca.
For the most part, Talia allowed Sofia to do what she wanted. It wasn't easy to come by an accomplished pilot with a C130, a thirty-million-dollar piece of aircraft.
Not that Sofia had paid sticker price for it, except in physical service to a country and government in which she became disillusioned, participating in a failed coup. She left the country with four crew members and the plane.
She landed in a country in which she'd negotiated safe harbor with just the plane, a lot of empty cargo space and a sucking, gaping chest wound.
Sofia had made herself spacious living quarters within the plane, with the vast payload capacity, she could afford to carve out a modicum of comfortable living.
She spent much of her time working on her plane's engine, constantly adjusting, and tweaking it.
In service to Talia, she flew at her requests that were heavily enriched in cash as well as worked on the variety of engines within Talia's arsenal.
Bane's directive was to set up shop in the sewers, an underground control center in which he oversaw Talia's plan unfold, scrutinizing documents, blueprints, papers.
He stayed up all night, running his fingertips over pages, the rough pads becoming smudged with blue, black, and red ink.
Bane became the conductor of Talia's orchestra of madness.
Bane's living area was dramatically different than Sofia's.
His underground lair was damp, the walls perpetually moist with condensation, the forever nocturnal atmosphere was a safe haven for legions of insects, arachnids.
Bane had caught several glimpses of an albino toad that would land wetly in puddles as it hopped throughout the tunnel system.
Bane's living space was spartan, simple.
A muddy green cot was flanked by a squat mini refrigerator that housed his Venom; the newest version of the chemical component needed to be kept cold.
Since being freed from The Pit, Bane had sought out the knowledge of chemists and molecular biologists in an effort to find a more effective serum, less side effects and pharmaceutical brutality to his pulmonary system.
The latest version of his analgesic inhalant was less aggressive to the lining of his lungs and decreased mucus to collect in his mask's reservoir.
The four members of Sofia's flight crew had all carved out places for themselves amongst Talia's army in various roles. Much of their involvement with Talia when their feet were on the ground, were mechanical in nature.
Before Bane saw Sofia again in the sewers, he was squatting in front of his mini refrigerator, preparing to change out one of his analgesic cartridges. He grunted, the nerve damage in his spine produced flashes of breakthrough pain that no serum had ever touched. He groaned as he rose to his full height and switched out his cartridge with practiced movements, seamless, before he settled on the cot, the coils squeaking as he reached for a delicate cup of tea.
The delicate ceramic mug looked like a doll's toy within his large hand. He brought the mug close to his face, not to drink, but to inhale the steam through his damaged nasal passages. He inhaled deeply, the hot steam working through the front of his mask, pulling in the healing scent of marigold and slippery elm.
He closed his eyes has he took measured breath after measured breath of the sweetly scented steam, pulling it deep into his lungs. Bane continued the close to meditative process of inhaling the hot steam, while on the other side of the sewers, Sofia was leaning over into the engine compartment of a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda.
She was comfortable and felt the most at home around engines and the nuances of fuel-combustion and aeronautical innovations.
She spent the bulk of her time inside the engine compartment of the mechanical beast that was her C130, whether it was stationary or standing proudly on the earth when she could.
Sofia squinted down at the state of the Plymouth's engine's serpentine belt which had gotten damaged when she'd stolen the muscle car off Gotham City's streets in the cloak of night, hot wiring the Triton V10 engine in just under forty-five seconds.
She traced her fingers along the generator and auxiliary pump. She narrowed her eyes as she smeared her fingertips together, assessing the engine's discharge that filled up the space under her short fingernails.
Sofia blew out of sharp breath as she left the heavy hood up, stepping away, plucking her thermos from a metal rack as she walked towards a room that had been designated for storage of miscellaneous engine and ammunition parts.
As Sofia rooted through the storage room, across the sewers, the steam on Bane's tea ebbed to aromatic wisps before fading to nothing. He whipped his head to the right when he heard the noisy backfire from the Triton V10 engine that Sofia was working on.
Bane stomped across the sewers, his heavy foot falls splashing the brackish water, finding her in the room full of smoke as she was pressing the accelerator up-and-down as though she was performing resuscitations on a dying heart within a still chest.
The room was full of noxious fumes.
Sofia stopped pressing the accelerator to the floor when she saw Bane standing amidst the exhaust fumes.
"You surely require oxygen Miss Bishop," Bane called when she emerged from the car.
Sofia shook her head, "I'm sure that carbon monoxide is part of my genetic sequencing at this point."
She ran her hand along the smooth body of the Barracuda as she continued. "It's too bad the Batman has been dormant, this would make a great vehicle to tool around the city, fighting crime," she added with a chuckle before all humor leeched from her tone and her expression grew neutral before she continued. "What do you think of all this stuff that Talia has planned for the city and this alleged liberation."
Sofia picked up her thermos, waiting for him to answer as she unscrewed the plastic lid and took a deep sip of the aromatic, tepid brew.
"Talia will impose the penalty owed for her father's assassination," Bane started, his rhetoric well-practiced as he continued.
"Talia will bring the city to its knees, lead them to their end willingly with promises of debauchery. She will make them fear the light and cry themselves to sleep in the darkness before she ends their pitiful lives."
As Sofia listened, she drank deeply from the thermos. The marigold blossoms in her tea had been plucked at the peak of their life, dehydrated, and bagged in burlap before being rehydrated with the boiling water, offering a soothing balm to her chronic pain.
She dragged the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a line of grease, matching the smudges under her dark eyes, reminiscent of an NFL wide receiver, fighting the glare of the sun as they waited for the flying pigskin.
Bane perceived cynicism in Sofia's unspoken thoughts, sharpening his words, "if you doubt Talia, why are you here?"
Sofia licked her lips before speaking, her tea was heavily sweetened with honey, made the bitter herbs go down easily.
"I'm not here because I follow her without question, she pays well."
Bane frowned, closing the distance between himself and Sofia, circling the majestic Barracuda, admiring the smooth lines of the body, changing his line of questioning. "This engine and all others must be subpar outside of your plane," he remarked.
His respirator hissed as Sofia nodded, "it's hard to compare much to the proven combat weaponry system alone," she agreed as she thought fondly of her C130 housed in a private hangar that Talia staffed with round-the-clock armed security.
Bane watched the muscles move and contract in Sofia's neck as she took a long drink from her homeopathic tea.
The silence was shattered by her navigator Mosquito and loadmaster Buddha clopping into the area, on the way to the storage room for carbon fiber cables.
"Everything okay Rooster?" Mosquito called, his port wine stain was jarring across his face, bisecting his features into one of almost two faces.
Sofia nodded as she set her thermos down.
"Hand to heart?" he called.
Sofia smiled as she turned towards Mosquito, settling her right hand over her heart, tapping the matte black coveralls she was wearing.
Bane narrowed her eyes at the top of her right hand, the circle of thick scar tissue that dominated the top of her hand.
The scar tissue formed a circular ridge over a depressed crater of damaged skin.
Sofia followed Bane's gaze after Buddha and Mosquito disappeared into the storage room.
"Love hurts," she said with a wink before turning her attention back to the powerful engine, running a bright red rag over the cylinder heads.
Bane watched Sofia work in silence.
He moved his eyes over her body that was hidden under the oversized coveralls, he couldn't discern her shape or form.
"How did you cross paths with Talia?" Bane asked as Sofia began inspecting each spark plug.
Bane moved closer as Sofia began to speak without looking up at him.
The sharp odor of juniper berries grew as he closed the space between them.
He recognized the pungent aroma from a liniment he rubbed into his thick lines and smattering of scars on his broad body.
Sofia named a country that had few allies, how she'd become disillusioned by the ruling government.
She told him of participating in the failed coup.
"After everything went south, I had to get out the country immediately," Sofia said as she paused her engine inspection to look up at Bane as he leaned against a metal worktable with a corrugated stainless-steel top.
"I filled out the rest of my flight crew too hastily," Sofia admitted as her eyes dropped to the top of her scarred hand.
The mangled flesh and damaged nerve bed gave an involuntary spasm, making the sister scar on her chest flinch with sympathetic pain.
That scar was kept well hidden under the bulk of her wardrobe which mostly consisted of mechanic coveralls or flight suits.
"And this crew?" Bane asked as the buzzing of Buddha's and Mosquito's conversation receded as the two men returned to a different part of the intricate tunnel system of the Gotham City Sewer.
Sofia looked over her shoulder to where the man once stood. "They're a good crew, loyal," she answered after a long pause as she frowned down at a spark plug before tossing it aside, keeping note of how many more she needed to replace.
"And you?" Bane asked, pausing to speak until Sofia looked up and met his eyes. "Are you loyal?"
She pressed her lips together before she spoke, momentarily lost in the memory of being lost in another's cause.
"For as long as it's warranted or until the money runs out," Sofia added before she dropped her eyes back to the ferociously high-powered engine.