It wasn't a good idea. Paige knew it wasn't, even as she decided to do it, but the convenience of shaving ten minutes off her walk home won over good sense.
The alleyway was like most Gotham alleyways: narrow, dark, littered with refuse that could be carbon dated to the Stone Age, and full of smells better left unremarked upon. And, like most Gotham alleyways, it was a potential deathtrap that formed an almost perfect hypotenuse between her position and her destination. She pulled her coat tight around herself to keep it from brushing against anything, got a firm grip on her pepper spray, and plunged in.
It was amazing, really, how little light made its way into the crevices of Gotham, and even how little sound. The noise of traffic, present even at three in the morning, deadened almost to nothing as she made her way inside. She could have been in an underwater cave, the detritus around her could be waterweeds and sprays of coral. Sharks could be lurking in the dark shadows at both sides. She fought the urge to pull out her phone for light and instead moved as fast as she could while her eyes adjusted, stumbling once or twice but keeping her footing. Light, in such places, was a beacon—a reverse anglerfish's lure, drawing predators to unsuspecting prey instead of vice versa. She focused on being quick, being quiet, and, above all, going undetected. She couldn't keep her head on a swivel, but she strained for any whisper of noise, any echo of a footfall or a voice. Gotham's daughters learned very quickly that the alleys weren't for them. If they came anyway, they came at their own peril.
And that was how she heard the noise, so faint that, in daylight, she wouldn't have noticed it at all. A scrape, metal on concrete; a faint sound of effort; and then a groan, terrible in its near silence, full of more pain than she had ever thought could be expressed in such a small sound. She froze, her head turned towards the noise, her eyes wide and straining for a glimpse of whoever had made it.
He was lying not far away, perhaps twenty feet, in a scant patch of light that had worked its way down from a gap in the overhanging buildings. She couldn't see all of him, but what she could see was large, and dangerous-looking, and covered in something that glimmered darkly. Blood, she thought, the poor man is covered in blood. His legs were lost in the dark circular pit of a manhole, the cover heaved aside. He was clawing at his face, moving slowly and with difficulty, and she could hear the labored rasp of his breathing.
Almost unconsciously, she took a step towards him.
His head snapped up, a pair of bright eyes locking onto her with the intensity of a snarling Rottweiler. She froze at once, her hand extended uselessly towards him. For a moment they only stood there, two shadowed figures, and watched each other.
Then the man faltered. His chest spasmed, another groan drained out of him, and his head fell to one side. The spell was broken. She hurried forward, heedless now of the trash, and crouched beside him. She could make out little more up close than she could from farther away, but she could see blood covering most of his shirt with no discernible source, running down to streak his pants before they disappeared into the manhole. And she could see that he was wearing something over his face—some kind of mask. She knew that a mask in the back alleys of Gotham was never a good thing, that she should run while he was down and call an ambulance if she felt generous, but the memory of his groan stopped her. This was a man in deep, horrible pain; pain deep enough that he might not live much longer. She couldn't leave someone to face pain like that alone.
"Where are you hurt?" she asked, keeping her voice down. She fumbled in her pocket for her phone, praying the battery still had enough juice for a call. "I'm going to call an ambulance."
"No," the man said. His voice made her pause—it was an odd voice, with an unplaceable accent. The mask did not muffle so much as distort it, giving it a staticy edge. Perhaps it was some kind of gas mask? Maybe he had been doing some kind of maintenance in the sewers, and had been attacked. That made her feel a little better, so she decided to stick with that thought for now. "There is no… need of an ambulance. The—the mask—" he broke off, another spasm rocking his chest. She could hear, now that she was close enough, a kind of hissing. And there was a strange smell in the air, almost antiseptic, with an edge of something chemically floral. The spasm ended, and he gestured weakly at his face. "The valves," he croaked, "push them… in…" His eyes began to flutter shut.
She reached up to touch the mask, her fingers slipping on cold, damp metal. She could get no sense of valves, or of anything else out of place. There wasn't enough light for this. She fished out her phone and turned the screen towards the man's face, not daring to risk the full flashlight.
Again, she froze.
It wasn't like any kind of gas mask she had ever seen. Metal tubes ran vertically over where the man's mouth would be, shining faintly in the light of her screen with blood and condensation. They reminded her somehow of spider's legs, as if the man's whole head were being gripped by an enormous metal tarantula. She could see in the better light that three of the tubes were misaligned, a few slightly dented, as if he'd been hit in the face. Gritting her teeth, and trying to ignore the feeling of blood beneath her fingers, she reached up and began to prod the tubes back into place.
The effect was instantaneous. As soon as the first tube was tightened, the man's harsh breathing began to ease, the hissing sound fading a little. His eyelids fluttered, but remained closed. The second tube she tried for only a moment. It had been bent too badly to be re-aligned; she had to hope that two would be enough. Another moment of scrabbling in the blood, and the third valve was pressed into place. He heaved a deep, shuddering sigh, and his eyes began to open.
She wasn't sure, when she looked back, what had warned her in that half-second. She pushed herself backwards just as the man's hand shot out, brushing her coat but grabbing only empty air. She stumbled to her feet and backed away from him, down the way she had come. He watched her for a moment, his eyes calmer than they had been but no less intent, and then he began to climb laboriously—but seemingly painlessly—to his feet, blood dripping off of him to patter on the concrete.
She turned and ran. She did not look back.
Bane leaned against the damp concrete of the Gotham alleyway, watching the rapidly retreating back of his personal angel. How ironic, he thought—how ironic that one of Gotham's own would save him, so that he could complete her destruction. How unexpected.
He straightened, groaning, and began a slow walk towards another manhole cover that would bring him closer to their base. The benefits of working in the sewer tunnels beneath Gotham were manifold: easy access to all parts of the city, relative secrecy, and plenty of space for his men and their supplies. The downside, of course, was that criminal elements in Gotham had realized the same long ago: and if such elements could not be persuaded to join them, then they had to be eliminated. Entirely.
This most recent group had been nothing special, but their C4 packages tied to a dead man's switch had been something of a surprise. The tunnel had collapsed, separating Bane from his men, and a stray chunk of concrete had found his mask. And so, half-delirious with the pain, he had dragged himself up the first ladder he came across.
And found her. Or had been found, rather.
It was a shame, he thought, that he had not been able to get a good look at her face. He had seen the shine of glasses—round frames—dark and curly hair cut to the shoulder, the pale shine of a white dress shirt beneath the dark coat, and a glimmer of gold at her neck. A cross, he thought. Not enough to search for her, but enough to recognize her, if he ever saw her again.
He hoped he did. How such a poor, pitying heart had come to this city, he didn't know, but he would dearly like to see what such a heart would do in his new Gotham.
A few more minutes of walking brought him to the manhole he needed. Two souls saw him as he walked, and died for it, but their deaths were quick. They would not die a slow death with the rest of the city. Prying off the cover, he lowered himself into the darkness, and disappeared from sight.
The blood wouldn't come out from beneath her fingernails.
She scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed, until her hand felt raw and the skin was red as a cherry, but still the blood remained in the cuticles. She soaked her nails in acetone, in hydrogen peroxide, but still it remained, faint but unmistakable. At last she had to give it up. Stripping off her clothes and throwing them in the washer, she climbed into the shower and stood for a while under the spray as steam fogged the glass door.
I wonder what he would have done to me, she thought, if he had caught me.
She didn't know—and she was glad she hadn't found out.
Later, as she knelt by her bed in the darkness, she found her prayers circling the man in the mask. Lord, be with him, she thought, though she did not know why. Let your hand be upon him, and give him your peace.
She called the police the next morning, of course, but she doubted they believed her—a twenty-something coming home from a house party at three in the morning was not the most reliable of witnesses. Sometimes, if it weren't for the flecks of blood still in her cuticles, she wouldn't believe herself. Still, she didn't mention it to anyone else, and she was careful not to cut through any more alleyways.
The days afterwards felt almost startlingly mediocre. She went to work, to church, to the houses of friends. She laughed, she cooked, she sang, she lived. And all the while she carried inside herself the memory of the strange night, wrapped up tightly so that none of it poked through, and yet she could always feel it sitting in the back of her mind. She wondered if she had done the right thing in helping that man. She had known at first glance that he was dangerous—any Gotham woman knew how to tell danger in a man. But she had helped him anyway. Had she done the right thing?
Two weeks after her strange encounter, she had her answer.