Round Two Prompt Post

[tdkr_anon]

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.

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No Holds Barred: 3b/?

[anonymous]

***
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.