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Bane works alone.
Most hunters do. They aren’t the jolly type that kills bad things then trades stories over a drink. You gotta be a bit warped in the head to do what they do on a regular basis.
He works alone, until he wretches the door open on his Mustang and finds the passenger seat occupied.
The gun levelled at the intruder’s head doesn’t waver as he takes in the dirt streaked cheeks---soft roundedness of a child---can’t be too careful in his field of work.
‘Bane?’
The kid’s mouth moves just as Bane cocks his head and asks, ‘How did you get in?’
Christ, thirteen at most, this one. Still squeaks like a girl.
‘Ra’s al Ghul sent me.’ Which isn’t a goddamn answer at all.
Bane grunts. Kids these days, too much bravado, too little sense, meddling in waters they shouldn’t.
‘He did, did he?’ The safety comes off with a snick. ‘Now try again, with less bullshit this time.’
‘I’m not lying.’
‘He’d be dead before he wants anything to do with--‘
The kid drops his gaze and gnaws the chapped corner of his mouth.
He doesn’t ask when, or how. It’s a thing they all orbit around; the end, when it comes, will be bloody, and inevitably too soon.
He pours the kid a drink laced with holy water. He might be going soft, but he ain’t stupid. Watches him gulp it down, spilling half of it down that ratty t-shirt.
‘Fine, I’ll drop you off, wherever it is you’re heading to. The old man did save my ass once.’
‘I don’t need a ride.’ Kid meets his gaze, unblinking. ‘I need a partner.’
That startles a laugh out of Bane, who just about swallows the comment about still suckling at mummy’s tits. Everyone knows what happened to Ras’ woman. Words have it that Ras raised his only child on the road after the wife died; the baby wedged between the shotgun and the rock salt like an extra duffle.
‘I know Latin, I know runes, I can help.’
‘Yeah? I don’t need your help.’
‘I can cook.’ Now there is a hint of smile.
‘Like hot pockets just fine.’ Bane rubs a hand over his face. ‘Look, get out while you can, kid. This isn’t a life, not for someone so young.’
‘My father didn’t die in a hunt.’ little brat stares straight ahead, the expression eerily familiar; he’s an Al Ghul, alright.
‘He died with a name on his lips. Shot.’
What is it with this family and vengeance? Can smell the bloody-mindedness on this one already.
‘Don’t lecture me about forgive and forget. My father raised me better than that.’
‘Kid---‘
‘It’s Talia.’
Bane frowns. ‘That’s a girl’s name.’
The look he gets in return is half defiance half exasperation, with just a hint of embarrassment.
It will be years before Talia finally grows her hair out, and even longer before Bane has to glare at anyone who looks at her funny in a bar. She loves that part; puts on a costume and a different name (‘Miranda, call me Miranda’), pretending to be an ordinary girl just passing through.
Not many people know she’s just as deadly with a silver stake as when she’s sprawled out like a cat. The slope of her naked back fits perfectly into a lover’s palm.
Bane does.
And perhaps, so does Bruce Wayne.
♠♣♠
She guards her corner like a rabid dog.
Like a wolf.
Bane’s seen her at it, fighting off boys much larger than her with teeth and elbows and knees, and once, impressively, a rusty nail.
Her hair is shorn haphazardly to the scalp. The soft, lilting accent that bleeds through the ‘spare change, sir?’ phony as hell, so is her trembling lower lip.
There isn’t a helpless bone in her body.
Bane always makes sure to have a few coins on him when he passes this way. She doesn’t say thank you, just watches him with wide doe eyes.
Some days her gaze lingers on his scraped knuckles, the fresh spots of red on his shirt sleeves.
She never looks away. That’s what Bane likes about this one.
Daggett, the paranoid fool, wants to meet at somewhere public. Has his men scattered around the square, inconspicuously sipping cold coffee.
Barsad doesn’t like letting Bane go alone. Never did.
‘There is a 50/50 chance you are walking into an ambush.’
‘Daggett is too much of a businessman to risk a blood bath in the middle of Gotham city.’
‘A desperate man is a dangerous man.’
‘And that’s why I need him calm.’ Bane claps Barsad on the shoulder. ‘Get the boys off the streets. Lay low for a while.’
Barsad gives a full body twitch. ‘What, may I ask, are you planning to do?’
‘I have a wild card.’
Barsad, predictably, likes the sound of that even less.
The talk goes as well as can be expected, given that Daggett is Daggett, which means always wanting more than his share.
Bane stands and shakes his hand. ‘Well, care to give me a lift?’
Daggett smiles amicably. ‘Certainly. I’m surprised you didn’t bring someone along.’
‘Didn’t want your minions to get twitchy.’
The smile turns paper-thin.
They stroll past the row of shops. A shrill voice calls out from the pavement, ‘Got any change, sir?’
Daggett doesn’t spare her a glance. The streets are littered with her kind, starving and limping. Bane bends down with a grunt, and tips a handful of coins into her paper cup.
The smile she flashes him gleams like the blade she slips into his palm.
By the time he climbs out of Daggett’s Rolls, the windscreen is misted with arterial spray.
He wipes the makeshift knife on the upholstery. It’s a fine piece of weapon---thin, slips through the gap between ribs like a dream.
Definitely a keeper.
Barsad picks her up. But it’s Bane who shows her the trade, moulding her bony fingers around the butt of a gun. Cradled in his arms, her head barely reaches his chest.
On her sixteen’s birthday, she puts the sharp end of a broken bottle into some guy’s shoulder, and twists, before announcing to a roomful of guests that her name is Talia, not, as this fucker here suggests, Daddy’s pet.
The same night, she tells him she wants in, and don’t you put me off any longer.
He tries to keep her away from the main action at first. Safe and hidden at the base, in the back of the car. Then it’s crouching by the window three stories above street level, eyes on any movements. If someone comes out of a meet and tries to get my driver inside? Shoot them and run because I’ll already be dead.
You won’t. She sways forward, tiptoeing, presses her lips to his temple. She’s tall enough now Bane doesn’t need to bend down anymore.
You won’t. We’re indestructible.
♠♣♠
What they don’t tell you in the sales pitch is how much time you spend bored out of your mind as a vampire.
Especially when the world has gone to hell.
He’s been tracking the particular scent for a couple of days now, ever since he set foot in this husk of a town. It’s new: rotten apple sweetness, wrapped around something colder, wilder. He’d say it almost smells like what humans used to, before the pollution fucked everything up. Now they mostly die before the age of forty. Whenever he gets to sink his teeth into one, their blood tastes thin. An artificial smokiness clings to every mouthful, nothing like the mellowness of a well-aged specimen.
The year 3023 sucks balls.
One moment Bane is picking his way through the rubbles, the next, his skin prickles with the sensation of being watched.
The figure hovering at the mouth of the alley tilts its head to the side.
Bane spreads his arms, palms out, in what he hopes to be a universal gesture of peace.
The newcomer takes a hesitate step to the right, then another, until its face pulls free from the shadows. One pigtail so matted with dirt it’s impossible to tell the colour of the ribbon.
Children don’t last long these days. Bane sighs, shame, he’s been looking forward to a real meal.
She’s gracious enough to offer him the fattest, liveliest rat out of the lot. Dangles the wriggling body off two fingertips.
They sip from their respective supper in silence. Bane grimaces at the gamey flavour. His host vigorously shakes hers upside down to get the last drop out.
Bane holds his tongue for as long as he can bear.
‘Don’t.’
Too-wide eyes flicker up questioningly. Bane lays a hand on her arm. ‘Makes you ill. If you drink all of it.’
She drops the rat obligingly, picks up another and tears into its throat messily. Bane looks away; it’s making his gum itch.
A baby, and an ill-trained one at that.
‘So what’s it like, outside?’
Bane thinks about it; used to be fun, passing through time and continents. Now the sky looks the same everywhere.
Then the question sinks in. Jesus, as if this isn’t messed up enough already. ‘Who made you?’ Bane frowns.
‘Don’t know.’ She hugs both knees to her chest. On anybody else it will be a vulnerable gesture. She looks like a cobra curling tighter on itself. ‘Woke up like this one day.’
It’s a miracle that she hasn’t managed to accidently dust herself.
The post-apocalypse landscape gets old pretty fast. Unlike most of his kind, Bane isn’t prone to nostalgia. Give him a city frantically re-inventing itself any day.
One thing his Maker never bothered to teach him was how to say goodbye. He had to learn that all by himself.
Maybe tomorrow, Bane thinks, and adds another stroke to his lopsided hang-a-man, much to Talia’s delight.
He doesn’t remember when she’s become Talia.
She purses her lips and lets out a noisy exhale.
‘Used to do it all the time.’ Seeing Bane’s puzzled expression, Talia explains. ‘When it gets so cold you can see your breaths. We used to pretend we’re smoking, all terribly grown up.’ She does it again, nothing happens. ‘Do you miss anything? From before?’
I miss the dark, he thinks. The kind that comes after a long hot day, filled with the sound of crickets. Red, powdery earth that rises under the baking sun now settles into every crook of your body. Sleep becomes impossible until you can stumble into the nearest cool stream.
Night and day is arbitrary these days. The sky is a vast grey stretch of nothing.
Bane wishes he could shape all these into words. You can’t explain any of that if you haven’t lived it.
‘Are you leaving?’
A small dot of darkness sits like a punctuation mark in her eyes, melancholy eyes that she’ll never grow into.
‘I can feel it, in my toes.’ Talia lays her head over his knees. ‘It’s okay, by the way.’
He makes it all the way out of town before he turns back. He’s old enough to know what a mistake looks like, and definitely too old to make another one.
Talia is still standing at the same spot. Dips of shadows and wisps of tangled hair hide her face from him.
At last, it’s her who moves first. She pinches her tattered dress like some fairy tale princess, floating down the stairs to greet her gallant knight.
Her cool fingers fit perfectly into Bane’s palm.
♠♣♠
The Roadhouse stands astride a couple county lines. It’s a simple square where travellers can come in and get a refill, or a decent breakfast of ranch eggs and bacon.
Some of the regulars come here for an entirely different reason –Princess, the woman who cooks and cleans and pours coffee strong enough to strip paint. She’ll flash you a smile as long as you don’t make any trouble, but that’s all you gonna get. People whisper that she lost her voice the night her husband was snatched away. Tangled up in shady business they say, as rumours tend to dog those who don’t, or can’t defend themselves.
There isn’t anything like her for miles around. Instead of cotton dresses the local women wear, it’s always drapes of blues and yellows and ruby reds against her olive skin, electric colours that linger even after you close your eyes. The fabric ripples like water with her every move.
Bane is one of the few who’s never laid a grabby hand on her. Granted, most people give Bane a wide berth. Hard-worn men in flannel find reasons to get up and move away from the tables immediately around him.
Except the munchkin.
‘Bane!’ She crushes into his shin with a delighted squeal. Arms open wide to hug one of Bane’s knees.
He frowns down on the mop of curly hair, which only makes her grin wider, gap toothed and squinty eyed. Those sticky fingers catch on his pants.
If he happens to bring her some trinkets when he comes by; a wooden figurine, a story book from the city, well, it’s nobody’s business but his own.
‘Wanna play hopscotch?’
Bane blinks.
‘Come on, I’ll teach you. It’s quite easy.’ She holds out a hand, impatient.
Barsad’s shoulders shake as if he’s having a seizure. The fedora perched low enough to hide his eyes, but not quite the twitch of his mouth. Princess turns away from the stove to peer at the mismatched trio, beaming.
He comes back one November day and the place is deserted, red-taped around the edges. Bane’s gaze zeros in on a dark stain on the porch. Pieces of shattered glass lie winking in the thin light.
Bane drives into town at 70. He doesn’t need to ask around for long, even though people are less than enthusiastic about being grabbed by the nape.
He gets the gist after the second narration.
The woman was found by the petrol pump, throat slit from ear to ear, not a thread on her battered body.
‘What about…’ he stops and draws a breath. ‘..the daughter?’
Nobody has seen hide or tail of her. It’s been three days. The cops’ got nothing.
He gets back to the Roadhouse after sundown. Circles around it, first one way, then another. The doors and windows gape like hungry mouths.
Like wounds bled dry.
Bits of plastic flap when the wind picks up. Somewhere behind him, a can rolls.
He opens his mouth, coughs out a lump of a name. His shadow crawls away from him, chased by the headlights on his van.
Nothing, not even the scuttle of rats.
That’s when he hears it, a muffled knock. It seems to rise up from the belly of the ground. Bane stills.
The knock comes again, bolder this time. He drops to a crouch, brushing away crumbly earth until he bumps into something cold and solid.
A latch.
He pulls the heavy trap door up and out. A dog whines in the distance.
The first thing he spots is a shape, curled up on the stairs leading down into the cellar.
Bane swallows, his throat clicking. There surges up in him a lone note that has nothing to do with hope. The shape twitches, agonizingly slow, shoulders creeping up to drag the body the rest of the way.
Her eyes are almost colorless in a face gone gaunt with hunger, and a thousand other things that don’t bear imagining.
He holds out a hand, palm hovering an inch above her bony back.
She crawls over the few feet between them. Clutching at his coat tighter and tighter until her whole frame shakes with the force of her grip. Damp warmth seeps through Bane’s shirt as she breathes.
♠♣♠
The whole thing sounds like a nightmare on paper: the only daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, arguably the best director of his generation. A mum nicknamed ‘Princess’ by the industry when she was alive, whose death is still a subject of immense speculation. One failed kidnap attempt and the whole security team gets the boot. That’s when Bane and his crew are summoned.
Dealing with high-profile clients is one thing, dealing with their spawn is a different matter. Bane trusts the gang with his life, but even he has to admit their baby-sitting skills are rusty.
On the other hand, the figure on the cheque does have an impressive trail of zeros. A man’s gotta eat (and have the latest collapsible rifle, the new tracking device they saw on exhibition in Tokyo), so really, the decision is a non-issue.
Barsad talks surveillance and background checks with the butler while Bane wanders off in search of the master of the mansion.
He finds her crouched by the swimming pool, her honey-hued shoulders peeping out from beneath auburn locks. The surroundings are so absurdly perfect, for a moment, Bane imagines her to be part of the scenery.
She turns, fixes Bane with a cool stare. Bane clears his throat. ‘Miss Al Ghul?’
There is hardly any renewed interest in her gaze. ‘Talia. Miss Al Ghul makes me sound ancient.’ She stands. The white sundress clings to the meagre curves of her adolescent body.
At dinner she flicks lobster soup at the servants, giggling uncontrollably over their nonchalance.
It takes Bane a full week to crack.
‘What’s that on your face?’ he says in his blandest voice.
‘Tom Ford.’ Talia blows him a kiss from the top of the staircase. Her lipstick-slicked pout will be breaking hearts all over the world in ten years’ time.
‘If you’re trying to rile me up, you can put that idea out of your head.’
Her expression doesn’t waver, the little starlet that she is. The flutter of her lashes turns petulant.
Bane waits until she reaches his eye level. His tone is mild, almost gentle. ‘Letting them see your disappointment is just as much a tell, remember that.’
Talia is stretched out like a cat in the sun, wriggling those neon yellow toes.
‘Oi, are you deaf as well as mute?’
Bruce Wayne glances up with those watery, solemn eyes before returning to his book. Besides her, Selina breathes out. ‘For Christ’s sake, Talia.’
‘What? It’s just a question.’ She shrugs. Selina flicks those oversized shades back down with a huff. Kyle has inherited her ballerina mother’s coltish limbs, and a noiseless way of moving. The next Audrey Hepburn, they say, except a penchant for petty theft. She and Talia have known each other for years, with a fair amount of falling in and out.
‘Look, why don’t you come with me to the audition?’
‘How many times do I have to tell you I loathe Disney?’ Talia drags out the oh sound.
‘Well, excuse the hell out of me.’ Selina stands and lets the magazine flop to the floor. ‘Some of us have to work to get to places.’
‘I love you Cee, I really do.’ Talia yawns. ‘But look into the mirror. You think Disney are falling over themselves to get you because they like your acting?’
Kyle lunges at her. Bane tenses just as Bruce puts a gentle hand around Selina’s wrist. Talia doesn’t bat an eye. ‘What are you going to do, skip my birthday party?’
Kyle shakes Bruce off. ‘At least I’m making something for myself.’
Talia laughs after a beat. The sharp ring of it chases Selina’s retreating back all the way out.
Kyle doesn’t show up for her birthday (‘You can tell she’s an actress, can’t you?’ Talia sneers. ‘So much drama in that girl.’). Bruce appears halfway through Gangham Style, dishevelled and stormy eyed. Talia takes one look at him and walks him out to the gardens, away from curious glances.
From the shadows Bane watches them hug--clinging to each other clumsily like the children that they are. It’s all over the news: the Waynes’ murder has been reopened. New evidence emerge after almost a decade. Pap shots of Bruce are splashed across every paper and website.
With one last tug at her hand, Bruce stumbles away. His hunched shoulders melt into the darkness.
‘Got a light?’ Talia calls out, not turning around.
‘You’re too young to smoke.’ Bane stays where he is. ‘And no.’
‘Fuck you.’ She spits out the k, her voice quivering.
‘Might want to come inside before it starts to rain.’
Talia crouches down. Her Givenchy dress trails behind her, rumpled and stained by grass.
‘I hardly know any of those people.’ She gestures in the direction of the hall. ‘I didn’t even organize the damn party. Yet here they are.’
Her father is away, has been for a while. Rome, or Barcelona, the European press tour for his latest film. Flanked on both sides by his stars, an united front against the onslaught of flashbulbs.
When she finally looks up, her smile is a mirror image of what her mother wore on magazine covers and film stills: beautiful and cruel and so fucking vulnerable it twists your guts.
♠♣♠
He offers to put her in the grandest hotel, with an unobstructed view of the city down below, restless in its last shuddering breath. Silk and velvet and ivory, fit for a new queen.
She’ll have none of it. It took me years to unlearn that safety is a wall behind my back and a dagger under a pillow, and it still feels unnatural.
So they sleep in Bane’s underground fortress. A dripping arch for duvet and mildew for bed.
Like they’re still in the Pit.
Like they’re already dead.
At night Talia curls into him like she used to, silent and serene.
She never slept for long in the Pit, twitchy with troubled dreams (faceless shadows closing in. Wretched, grinning mouths that should have never, ever known such beauty as her face).
The days tick into single digit. His own dreams are filled with fire, endless, flames licking at a red sky.
You should leave, he asks, he pleas. Gotham will burn, no one can stop me now.
I’ve done it once before. Talia whispers back. I’m not doing it again.
He remembers when she first unwrapped the sodden bandages around his head. Bane tried to turn away to spare her the horror, but not before a gentle touch stopped him. Then, to his astonishment, she leaned in and kissed the edges of his ruined mouth. A hard, unrelenting pressure like a claim.
He tries again. I’ll meet you in the capital when it’s over.
Her smile softens.
You’ve always been a terrible liar, my friend. I’m glad my father hasn’t trained that out of you.
---Is it worth it? Dying for someone else’s vision.
---You’ll have to ask yourself that.
So they talk about other things, tales from their separate adventures: the plane crush, recruitment of the Cat. Talia laughs and whoops, ever an attentive listener. She tells him about Miranda: her walk, her talk, her smiling eyes and big heart; her first encounter with Bruce Wayne, and the times after.
He’s gentler than I thought. All that rage and he still kisses like he means it. I can see what father saw in him.
What did you see?
In another life you’d like him, she says, seemingly ignoring the question. You’d be the closest of brothers.
How so?
You both love more fiercely than you should. Talia rests a thumb against his mask, stroking back and forth.
You both throw yourselves into it like a punch.
One night Bane wakes, stirred by something. A faint, watery light bleeds through his eyelids. The smell of charred wood follows.
He blinks, disorientated. A blurred shape moves into view, pale skin haloed by the orange glow.
Talia straightens up, making no attempt to shield her nakedness.
Waves of soft blue-green rise over his head. A roar in his heart and the shore is lost forever.
She approaches on soundless footsteps, cat like, until she’s standing next to the narrow cot. Close enough that the warmth of her skin buzzes against Bane’s forearm. They say nothing to each other, no apocalyptic declarations. He cups her face with both hands and wishes, not for the first time, that he could brush his lips across her eyelids, the dip between her brows. It’s a struggle to be conscious of his strength, to hold her like you might hold water in your palms. On his chest he could feel the thrilling beat of her heart, warm and frantic.
Talia guides his hands over the dips and curves of her body, secret places that make her tremble and sigh. Curving over Bane like she’s falling headlong and he’s the earth.
Inside she’s soft and yielding, but the grip she has on him leaves pinpoints of bruises all over. Marks that won’t have time to fade.
It’s just like her, to grasp and wound what is hers already.
It is Friday and they’re exhausted from waiting. She lifts his thoughtless head to her chest, and rocks them both to an old lullaby her mama used to sing. Soft nonsense syllables meant to sooth.
Have you thought about it, what comes after?
Nothing, oblivion.
No, no I don’t think so. She runs a hand over the curve of his skull. We go up in flames and we’re made anew, to cross paths again.
He glances up, picking out the white line of her neck, a piece of her cheek, soft and unmarred.
That doesn’t sound too bad.
Laughter falls against his temple, raindrop-soft.
I’ll be your partner in crime again, the next time. Your perfect little darling, your trouble maker. Who knows, there might even be spaceships, or dragons.
Bane closes his eyes, lulled by the rhythm of her caresses.
Sleep, tomorrow we will be reborn.