aviary | open | prompt six

[ She is fast -- it reads clearly in how she holds herself, how she carries herself, her certainty that that distance between them is enough. But he is fast as well, and his judgement says he could reach her before she got far enough away to be safe. There is nothing to be gained from it, though, and Bane does not believe in violence without reason.

He turns his head towards her now, however. And he thinks of Talia, as he cannot help but do. It shows only in the slight flutter of his eyes, as if they try to close but are stopped at the last moment. ]

I am who I am. There is no sin in working to be more than one is. But denying oneself is blindness, delusion, and weakness.

[ Figures.

But Bane has the power and strength to be that unapologetic about it. What about the rest of them? They've had to fight for just as many scraps with far less brute muscle tone and the brains to go behind it. She's not going as far as to say he's privileged - but his experiences have made him a certain brand of something suited not for this world. He doesn't adapt, he's changing the world around him.

A storm's coming.

And at the dead eye of it is the man in front of her. ]

You're always on, big boy.

[ It suits him.

But not her. ]

[ Bane doesn't laugh. There was never any such thing as laughter in the Pit; it bred and beat and bled it out of you. But he understands what it means to be amused by something. (He is not Talia; he had a life before the Pit, though it is a dim memory and seems more like someone else's life than his own.)

When he speaks again, there is a hint of that in his voice. But there is also the recognition that Selina Kyle uses these words -- little jabs and wry, rheotrical questions -- as another part of her arsenal, one more means to distract and evade. ]

I find the alternative to be a waste of time. Don't you?

Edited 2012-07-25 04:36 (UTC)

[ Selina has to wonder why Bane thinks she does these things at all - the stealing, working for a sleaze like Daggett. Her lifestyle's been plenty of good fun and plenty of close calls, but it's been fueled by a necessity driven down in the rattling of her bones. It's the sort of life that's become single minded and focused, and while it's still her life, she can do so much better than the trap she's been cornered into in Gotham. But her and Bane? Different concepts of what constitutes their freedom, she thinks, doesn't have to really know him to make a good guess out of it.

She's survived jail - by breaking out of it. She doesn't want to go back to it for the slightest slip, and if being free means working any sort of system just to get her a clean slate?

It doesn't matter who she really is, in those moments. She'll be anyone if she has to; Selina Kyle comes later.

She straightens, legs crossing at the ankles. ]

Hey, if you're calling the shots, how can it be a waste?

Edited 2012-07-25 04:51 (UTC)

[ "If you're calling the shots." It's a curious phrase. The sort that people use when they're unwilling to admit who is in control but which, at the same time, implicitly acknowledges it. Bane has heard a thousand different variations on it since he came out of the Pit.

Even if his mouth weren't hidden behind the mask, he wouldn't smile but once again, but the rest of his face once again ripples with mild, suppressed amusement. More at Selina this time than with her. He lifts his hands, tucks his fingers under the edge of his vest. ]

I am not any more infalliable by nature than you. But since I am calling the shots, we will strive to avoid the behaviours that lead to waste. The rich of Gotham believed they had so much of everything that it was their right to waste, and look where it has brought them.

[ Fresh bananas dumped in the garbage for mild splotches of brown, so much money spent on idle luxuries no one really needs but continue to fuel the economy of wanting above all else, no matter who they hurt to get it. Blood diamonds, children losing fingers in factories - more importantly, taking so much that the rules in place prevents even the scraps from working their way down to the rest of them. To people who deserve it just as much but are unable to access any of it simply because they don't have enough slips of paper to be deemed worthy. People like herself.

People like Holly.

When girl's get desperate, they do what they can - but somehow it's so much more disgusting to everyone else just because they have to work for certain privileges rather than having it passed down for sake of existing. She has earned everything she has obtained, and it's her life more than it is the life of anyone else, something way more satisfactory for it.

Selina doesn't care what anyone thinks of her, but knows how to use it to her advantage. But the elite of Gotham? They have another thing coming.

When women in fur coats have to use them as beds on the cold, hard ground, maybe she'll be a little satisfied for it. And then she'll leave it behind her.

Her lips thin when she smiles, hiding her white teeth behind the cherry red of her mouth. ]

I'm guessing the Pit isn't large enough to throw all of Gotham's elite into it.

[ It's, maybe, a side-lined way to try and maneuver and twist more information about both the Pit and potentially Bane in turn. But at the same time Selina knows her efforts on Bane aren't going to play out the same way it would on drunk congressmen or other men blinded by the sheer unhappiness of their decadence. She knows to tread far, far more lightly. ]

[ There is little mystery to Bane, except for that which is necessary to protect Talia and her plans. Bane came out of the Pit and left the man that he was once behind to waste away and be forgotten. Bane is a mercenary, a man of war, who will destroy what he is told to destroy for the appropriate price. All this information is available to those who know how to go looking, a population which must include Selina Kyle, if she is asking about the Pit.

But people convince themselves there is mystery because they fail to believe that a man, sometimes, is exactly what he seems. And because he wears the mask. People want to know who the man behind it is, and never come to understand that Bane is the mask. There is no man behind it anymore. ]

The Pit is a place for breaking men. It is not necessary for those who will already be easily broken.

[ It doesn't tell her much, but it also doesn't tell her nothing. Selina Kyle's anger at the elite of Gotham seems genuine, and that may be too useful a tool to waste rashly. ]

Edited 2012-07-26 21:48 (UTC)

[ Selina is far too used to people with so many facets to them that Bane, with all of his history only being told to a certain point, is someone she is uncertain how to go about handling at all. He's something new and, like a kitten to a string, she finds herself with the sort of fascination aligning itself with a trepidation of knowing where to keep away. It should be that a man so in control of his shadows ought to be part of a grand mystery and regardless of what is told and recorded, there is a difference for her to hear of something and to know it, though nothing of Bane is quantified and collected. One can't put him in a search engine and get everything she's curious of, even if she doesn't need the answers to know that her desires seem to (she's been convinced of) align well with his own.

Maybe the pit does break every man and women inside of it. But then, does it remold them all the same? Maybe in the shape of monsters, twisted by that overwhelming sun. She doesn't know. There's a flippant idle disinterest in the background where she doesn't much care what the man's past is as only what is current stands to benefit her, but it's not enough to completely deter her every now and again when she has the opportunity. ]

So.

[ Unable to keep still - a stark contrast against Bane - she moves away from the desk, brushing along his back a few inches too close on her way past him, like an impatient cat ready for her next meal. ]

What's our next step?

[ His eyes shift, and the set of his weight changes slightly but otherwise, Bane still does not move.

He keeps a long map of steps laid out in his mind. They have had years to plot and consider, to arrange for all possibilities, to predict each move Gotham and its allies will make. There is nothing that has not been thought of now. What Selina Kyle does not yet know -- what Gotham doesn't even suspect -- is that it's destruction is already secured. It's only a matter of advancing down the path they have devised, one step at a time. ]

Your job is to bring us the fingerprints of Bruce Wayne. For now, that is the only step that you should concern yourself with.

[ Control of Wayne Enterprises is a necessary part of the plan, but breaking the Bat is even moreso. Gotham's defender may be missing, but he is not forgotten, and that alone would require his removal as a factor. But Talia's revenge will also remain incomplete until her father's murderer is brought low. Bruce Wayne's fingerprints. This is the first step. ]

I don't work for free.

[ But Daggett is the accounting man, not Bane. It's an easy enough job with the sort of payout that keeps her interested - the Clean Slate program. Let Gotham writhe with what Bane has planned for it; Selina has no intention to stick around for long if she can help it. But she doesn't trust men like him - so-called businessmen of the nth degree that would sooner settle their own debts than carry out on any word or contract. It just happens to be that Daggett was the one to buy out the very company that took the program to prototype stage - she doesn't exactly have the option to shop around for it.

Wayne would be an easy enough target for her efforts, though. He doesn't have to be around for Selina to be able to lift prints. ]

Is Daggett gonna carry out his part of the deal?

[ In all honesty, Bane cares little for whether Selina Kyle receives her pay or not. Most of the men who serve their cause are not here for money -- and, as such, cannot be lured away from it with promises of richer rewards. It's how he prefers to work when he has the choice.

There's something inherently untrustworthy about a person whose highest loyalty is only to themselves, he thinks. And between the two of them, it's Selina Kyle who is the true mercenary. (Bane only acts the part when it suits him.) As long as she remains useful, he has reason to keep her happy. Once her usefulness has passed, however...

He uncrosses his arms. The shift of the muscles in his arms and across his back are both noticeable and intentional. ]

If he does not, Daggett will come to understand that there are consequences for deception.

Then I've got a little party to catch.

[ It's been the talk of town that Harvey Dent's post-ceremony memorial service speech from Gotham's finest will be at the Wayne Manor. She'd considered it alone for easy pickings, the invited guests being rather limited based on their previous donations to the department and other noted persons; getting Wayne's prints will be relatively easy, regardless of whether or not he's actually been seen in quite some time. Everything else comes as a freebie side project, as far as she's concerned - a little extra income never hurts. ]

Tell Daggett I'll get him his prints, [ she continues over her shoulder, eying the agreeable (and intimidating, but one is shown over the other) strength in Bane's stature. She begins lazily making her way away from the corner of his underground den, toward one of the exit corridors. ] I'll tell him where to meet me later.

[ Bane will not be passing that message on to Daggett, though he'll make sure that someone arranges a meeting for later. But Daggett is proud, overconfident. He does not trust Selina Kyle anymore than he trusts Bane, but he will also never consider the possibility that either will fail to do as they are told. It makes him a fool, and it makes him useful.

Bane turns to face her now. The exit will take her out to the sewer and from there to the subway tunnels and then the surface. Bane's men are stationed throughout, less necessary defense and more early warning system. As he turns, Bane catches the eye of one of his men stationed on the catwalks above. He doesn't nod; if he had, she wouldn't be leaving here alive. ]

Good hunting, [ he says to her back. They're allies for the moment. He can spare some good will. It will not harm him or the plan if -- when, he thinks -- things change. ]

open | prompt six | DEMONS

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