The Bane of Our Existence [The Dark Knight Rises]

32: I Choose My Destiny

Their time was almost up; months together, months of being side by side, and it wasn't until that day that they embraced it. Now their time was ticking, for there was a mere week before the bomb had run its course, no longer stabilized it would indeed blow, taking Gotham, taking everyone in Gotham, taking Bane, taking Bría.

She remained on the bed, a white sheet draped over her loosely, sheer enough that he could see her outline. Bane was dressed quickly; he was a busy man with lots to do. That, and he knew the longer he stayed the more he would want to forget the world around them existed. Never before had he craved ignorance, and it was eating away at him. Stepping into his large boots, Bane turned to look at Bría. Her tousled hair hung over her shoulder, her eyes were dark with lust, the way she glistened with sweat was an invitation.

He needed to let her go.

"Why did you come to me, all those months ago?" Bane asked her. In solitude, he always found it safe to speak honestly, he found he could be a different person with her. A long time ago, he had been this way with Talia, but things had changed. Yes, he still loved Talia, but she did not love him. She had never loved him the way he once loved her, for he was a means to an end for her.

"Something was missing from my life, something always has been," she admitted. "At first it was a necessary chance, finding work, getting out of my housing situation. It later became something else, it became more about the discovery of who I am, there was some part of me that had long since been locked away. You helped open it back up, revealing to myself who I was meant to be."

"Bría Cain."

She looked up at him, eyes piercing through him. "How do you know that name?"

"You're the daughter of David Cain."

"You knew my father?"

He nodded, "Briefly. He spoke of a child he lost, it was not difficult to discover your origins when you arrived."

She felt surprisingly at ease with the fact Bane knew more about her than she did. Sliding out from under the sheet, she fished out some warm jeans and a sweater to cover herself in. Pulling her hair out from the neck of the sweater, she tamed it by running her fingers through the mess. As she strode up to Bane, she crossed her arms over her chest and studied him.

"So you have known for months who I am?" she asked.

"Yes," he admitted.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You needed to find that place on your own, for if you could not, then it was never in you to begin with."

Nodding in understanding, Bría placed her hand on his forearm. When she glanced up at him, she made sure to look deep into his eyes, to pry out the truth when she said, "You're holding something back."

"I want you to leave," he told her. "To leave Gotham."

She smiled, but it was forced. "I understand what you are doing, but there is no point."

"You could do so much more," he said as he raised his hand to her cheek, which still had a red tint to it.

"Who would have thought," Bría began, "That the first time I ever had anything good in my life, it was someone who was so cruel. The cruelest thing you could do is send me away, out into a world where I will not fit in, and never have. I once euthanized a man to prevent the pain from destroying him. I choose my destiny not for you, Bane, but for me. The world out there will always try to snuff out my flame."

"Very well," he replied, but his eyes looked away from hers. 

Do you think she will change her mind and get out while she still can?