Round Two Prompt Post
Round Two Is Currently Closed To New Prompts
Welcome to 'Round Two' of The Dark Knight Rises Kink Meme.
This round will close when it reaches four thousand comments and after two weeks, another prompt post will open.
( General Policies )
Welcome to 'Round Two' of The Dark Knight Rises Kink Meme.
This round will close when it reaches four thousand comments and after two weeks, another prompt post will open.
( General Policies )
Take your comfort from him, Miranda had said, and John's not a fool. Every time Bane nears him, to hand him food or to uncuff him, John's heart lurches with a brief spike of panic.
He sees his chance one day. He's been watching the door, whenever it opens. He catches glimpses of the staircase outside. It goes up six steps, then turns right; another six steps, and he'll be in the room where he first woke up. There's one other door at the far end of that room, and he'll have to take his chances there. He's willing to fight anyone who gets in his way, even if he's not at full strength.
Bane leaves the door open one day when he comes in, that assured of his power over John. John waits, waits until Bane is crouching in front of him, unclasping the handcuffs. The second the cuffs fall away, John bunches his body up like a coiled spring and kicks at Bane's face as hard as he can.
He knows the heel of his shoe has connected with Bane's mask by the metal clunk and the muffled roar. He's already turned over, scrambling up, launching himself toward the door.
Bane moves like lightning. His hand is around John's ankle almost right away, sending him crashing to the floor. He drags John back toward him and flips him onto his back like he's no more substantial than a ragdoll. The fury blazing in his eyes is the scariest thing John has ever seen.
Bane keeps him flat to the ground with a palm to his chest while he uses his other hand to adjust the mask. John can hear him breathing: ragged, rasping inhale, hissing exhale. His huge fingers flicker deftly over the tubes attached to the grille of the mask, checking that everything is in working order. Then he stands.
He drags John with him. John's instinct is to curl up, become dead weight, but he forces himself to stay upright. He can't quite meet Bane's eyes, though.
“You wish to leave?” Bane asks at last, breathing less laboriously. He shoves John around, pushes him toward the door. “Leave.”
John walks falteringly to the doorway and looks. Standing there on the near landing is Barsad, rifle in hands, features impassive. His finger rests on the trigger.
Bane's fingers curl over John's shoulders, tightening gradually until he winces. He turns John to face him again.
“That was unwise,” Bane says. This close to his face, John can faintly detect a chemical smell. He hasn't even dented the mask. “I hope for your sake that you do not waste your next opportunity so spectacularly.”
His fist lands in John's gut, then, and John's whole body folds up around it. It's like a wrecking ball to the solar plexus. He hits the floor and heaves soundlessly for air, writhing. At last, in one painful rush, the ability to breathe is restored to him and he gulps in great sobbing breaths.
“For that, no water or exercise tonight,” Bane says. He's already cuffing John's hands again, then standing up and moving away. John is learning that punishment from Bane is swift and immediate, and no more is said or done about it.
Before he leaves the room, Bane says, lightly, “If you are restless, Blake, you have only to say so.”
John thinks this means something, that maybe they'll let him out for awhile the next day, but it doesn't happen. When Bane at last returns, making no mention of it, John thinks he's going to go out of his mind.
Then he thinks about what Bane said.
“I'm sick of this room,” he says. His voice is hoarse and cracking. “I want to get out sometimes.”
Bane reclines on his bed with both arms folded behind his head, making the mattress squeak.
“Very well,” he says.
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A long time ago, in the pit, Bane had come across a fledgling bird dragging its broken wing along the ground. He'd picked it up, felt its heart flutter against his fingertips. Once, he had been able to touch such things without breaking them.
He meant to crush it, to snuff its little life out and cease its suffering. There was no reason for it to be down there with them. Beautiful things had no place in the pit. But then Talia was there, prying at his thumb, wanting to see the fragile creature he held in his palm.
It won't heal, he told her. Killing it would be a mercy.
One day she would have a very good understanding of this, that there are few worse things than to be alive and suffering. But then, she was only a child; and he her helpless thrall. She begged him. They found a cloth and squeezed drops of precious water down the bird's throat. She thrilled when it accepted softened bread crumbs from her hand. He knew she believed the bird would get better, would someday fly out of that place, and she would send her spirit soaring with it. He wanted that, too. He wanted her to fly.
The bird died in the night while Talia slept, Bane trying to force water down its gullet, furiously willing it to swallow. He felt its heart stop fluttering, and he hated this creature who would die to spite a child, who wouldn't drink to save its own miserable life. He should have killed it. He buried it, and in the morning told Talia some of the other inmates had seen it and wanted to destroy it. She merely let a soundless tear or two escape, and these he wiped away with his thumb, dirt from the grave still embedded under his nails.
He dreams about that bird, that night.
Hope is such a dangerous weapon.
What, he wonders, does John Blake hope for?
*
When Talia visits, she takes one look at him and orders him to take his shirt off. Bane peels off his layers bit by bit, sighing when the waist-belt and the braces come off, his body that much less strapped together. He lies face-down on the bed that used to be John Daggett's and lets Talia's clever fingers find all his sore spots. She is the only one allowed to touch him like this.
“How are you enjoying your gift?” she asks him. Her fingers dance delicately over the scar that runs down his spine. She knows how painful that one is, and kneads the pitted tissue expertly.
“I have no use for him,” Bane tells her again. “Barsad is baby-sitting him now.”
“I am sure Barsad loves that.” He can hear her smile. “You're wrong, though. You can use Blake. Can't you see the anger that burns in him?”
“He has spirit.”
“And innocence,” she says. “Such a rare find in this city. Blake is an idealist and a sentimentalist. The king of the orphaned boys.”
“An orphan?” That does get Bane's attention.
“Like Bruce Wayne,” Talia finishes his thought for him. “Did you really think I had no reason to bring him to you? Blake is like a young Bruce Wayne. Show him his broken white knight and Wayne's suffering will be even sweeter.”
“I'm satisfied with the torment I have exacted on Bruce Wayne,” Bane says, but he is intrigued.
“Besides,” Talia says, like he hasn't spoken, and she leans down and presses a light kiss to his bare shoulder. “You need somebody to take care of when I cannot be with you ... and somebody to care for you, too. He would warm your bed nicely.”
“My bed is warm enough,” Bane says, making her laugh fondly.
“Stubborn as always, my Bane.”
He looks at Blake in a new light after that. He can see what Talia means. Blake is young, proud, and angry. He is begging to have his spirit broken. There's a simmering fire in him not unlike Wayne's. Bane wonders what it would take to quench it.
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Bane's men, the mercenaries who have been with him since the beginning, peer at John askance and mutter under their breaths in a language he doesn't understand. It drives him mad.
He asks Barsad what they're saying.
“They're calling you a whore,” Barsad says. He sees how John colours angrily, and adds, “Be glad they don't know you're a police officer.”
John is getting the lay of the land, slowly, piecing together a picture based on what Barsad allows him to see. Bane's headquarters are a high-rise building, the top floor converted into a luxurious penthouse. The men have made a living space out of the other floors, having chased away all the affluent former residents. Occasionally, Barsad takes John onto the roof, for fresh air. This is the extent of John's freedom: run of the bedroom, visits to the roof or the rest of the penthouse with Barsad's supervision, and occasional glimpses of the rest of the building, if Barsad permits him to come along during some errand.
Barsad treats him mainly with indifference. He finds tasks for John to do that don't require the handcuffs to leave his wrists; or else simply orders him to stay put in a corner. Barsad is slight, almost of a height with John, and he always looks at ease, but John is careful not to underestimate him. He has shrewd eyes, seeing everything, missing nothing; and he has a fanatic's devotion to Bane and his madness. Barsad is no fool: he is a zealot, and an intelligent one. That makes him doubly dangerous.
(Barsad's accent is impossible to place-some mongrel mutation of Russian-English-German-French, seemingly shifting all the time, and when John asks where he's from, he answers bluntly, “Africa,” which tells John nothing-he wishes he'd paid attention in middle school geography instead of staring at the teacher's chest all day. So he's surprised to hear a similar accent from a number of the other men.)
The conscripts from Blackgate, who are sometimes present on the roof, smoking, are less subtle than Bane's men. They eye John openly, leering. “Wish we'd had you around when I was in the joint,” one tells him in passing, licking his teeth. Barsad hears this and says nothing. John decides to ignore it, too; but it's hard. The men from Blackgate are lewd, starved of touch. They reach for him frequently, just to relish his cringing away.
He's angry with himself when that happens. He's a fucking cop. He shouldn't be letting this scum unnerve him so easily. That his nerves have been on edge for days is no excuse.
It's difficult to learn much about what they're planning. Bane meets with his intimates in another room of the penthouse, and even if John could hear more than the faintest murmur through the walls, he's pretty sure they're speaking in another language. He meets these intimates one day when Barsad takes lunch with them and allows him to join. These men have a different air about them than the lesser mercenaries; they don't look at Bane with quite the same fanatical hunger, and they are more jocular, relaxed. Two out of the five that John meets refuse to speak English, or can't, in his presence, and they eye him coldly, but two are like Barsad: indifferent to his plight, but willing to acknowledge him. The last is a man much younger than the others, whom Bane doesn't pay any heed to, but the four and Barsad seem to tolerate his company the way they would a kid brother (and actually, that's exactly what these men remind John of-the boys at Saint Swithin's, familial and comfortable with each other, not real brothers but close enough).
The young one, Ekene, seems to amuse and annoy them in equal parts, and he takes much more interest in John than the rest. It's he who tosses John an apple, which he scrambles after gratefully.
“You run away from this guy,” Ekene says, jerking a thumb at Barsad. John isn't sure if that's a request or not, so he says nothing, which he knows is correct when the young man continues with satisfaction, “He rip your liver out through your mouth.”
John glances at Barsad, who goes on peeling his own apple with a knife and doesn't say anything.
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This causes uproarious laughter among the other three men, and even the two who won't speak English start smiling.
“Rip you in half,” Ekene affirms. He makes a violent gesture to demonstrate. “Like a weed. Like a little twig.”
“I can take 'im,” a scarred man puts in. He's bigger and heavier than Barsad, who so far has taken no part in this conversation.
“He about broke your arm last time,” Ekene scoffs. The other shrugs.
“Shoulder was stiff. It was rainy.”
“It's always stiff. Maybe you ask him nice enough, Bane will rip it off for you. Like he almost did Talia's gift, eh?”
“Talia?” John asks.
The man flutters his eyelashes. “Bane's beloved.”
The third man cuts in. “He doesn't need Talia now. He's got this one.” He indicates John, and they start laughing again. John has eaten his apple by now; Ekene neatly bisects a pear and throws half to him.
“Keep up your strength, he'll be back soon and lonely!” he says. They roar with laughter, and John tries not to squirm queasily. Bane hasn't touched him yet-why are these men so convinced that he will?
“Enough,” Barsad finally speaks, silencing them at once. He's looking at the younger man. “Don't speak of things you know nothing about.”
“Hah.” Ekene waves a hand. “You gonna fight Basir, or what?”
Barsad pauses, knifetip hovering over his apple. “After eating,” he says at last. The others cheer, Basir cracking his knuckles pointedly.
John is surprised when he gets to go with them to the roof to watch the fight. There's a few other soldiers hanging around who wander over, interested, when they see Barsad and Basir facing off. Barsad stands there, loose-limbed and languid, while Basir gears himself up with a little shadow-boxing.
John's actually looking forward to this, but the ending is so fast as to be almost anticlimactic. Basir gives a yell and rushes at Barsad, fists flying. In a blur, Barsad slips out of the way, hits in him the stomach, then the jaw when he starts to double over, and then sweeps his footing out from under him. The surrounding men all cheer while Barsad graciously helps the other man to his feet.
“Where'd he learn to fight?” John asks Ekene, the one most likely to reply. He's right: the younger mercenary is eager to boast on Barsad's behalf.
“Militia. Then the League of Shadows. Good, eh? You think twice about running away from this bastard now, huh?”
“League of Shadows?” John asks.
“Ninjas, from the mountains.”
“He's a ninja?”
A hush falls over all of them suddenly, and John turns. Bane is there, standing by the doorway to the roof with his hands at his vest, surveying them all coolly.
“Having fun?” he asks dryly, raising an eyebrow.
Ekene breaks the silence, nudging Barsad. “You wanna take 'im, too?”
Bane walks closer. Everyone moves back except for Barsad, who straightens his spine, expression unchanging. For a second, John thinks they actually are going to fight. Then Bane raises a hand, arm bent at the elbow. Barsad smiles and clasps it.
It's a brief, surprisingly brotherly gesture.
That's when John first has a thought: Barsad could be the triggerman.
Bane draws back after a second, gestures loosely to John and says, “Take him to my bedroom.”
“Hah.” Ekene punches John lightly in the ribs, smiling wryly, before Barsad takes him away. “Like I said. Keep up your strength, friend. You gonna need it.”
---
That's all for tonight. Thanks for the comments! And haha, seriously, what the heck was up with Barsad's accent? xD
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On a side note, if the prompt that inspired this was this one , then that's mine, which would make me the pseudo-OP, and pseudo-OP is very, very happy!
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tysm anon, this is glorious so far! I love your Barsad.
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I was already deeply in love with this fill, but you took it to a different level. I adore you and your fill. Bane's POV blew me away.
Usually I don't read WIPs because 8 times out of 10 they get abandoned, but I'm so glad I decided to read yours.
It's hard to say a minor character like Barsad seems canon when we saw so little of him on screen, but you managed to read between the lines and created an incredibly well written character.
Pretty pretty ~please~ keep on writing.
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