A/N: So... Yes. This is set before the film, just before and just after Bane got his mask. I find their back story - or rather what could be their back story - fascinating and I'm so pleased I'm not the only one that thinks so ^_^.

Fear.

It was her motivator as Talia climbed the wall and looked back down at him, her saviour. She had to go, she knew this; it was what he wanted and yet she lingered a moment more to watch as the man fell, consumed by the hands of the people trying to thwart her escape to the outside world. His eyes held nothing but promise. Not for his return, but for her freedom. She would return for him, she needed to.

Over time the pain became more bearable. The days no longer lingered on or blurred into one. Yesterday came and went, there was today and there will be tomorrow. Bane sat with his head wrapped in blood stained cloth with his eyes closed. He was thinking clearer, the pain subsiding into a dull ache constantly offering him a reminder of his victory, and of his failure.

There was nothing behind his eyes but black. A void of nothing somehow suited for him. He kept them closed regardless of being able to open them once more. In his dark realm he was safe from judgement of the world beyond his closed eyes. In here, in his head, there was only him.

His thoughts having no outlet, only continuously cycling back to him, back to make his sound mind less sane day by day.

And then there was her, Talia. She had come back for him with her father and it was everything he needed to remember the determination he once had. No longer was he just breathing, no longer was he an empty shell of a man without any purpose other than to just sit there and exist.

Their eyes locked and although years passed and their appearances were quite different, recognition set in their gazes. Once a mess of a child, Talia was now blossoming into something Bane knew to be wonderful and dangerous, lovely yet poisonous all at once.

And he, her knight once beautiful, remained her knight only on the inside. His face was torn, beyond saving even through artificial skin surgical means. Her father offered him a different sort of repair to his face. One she didn't fully understand, but it was one Bane was content with.

The mask was horrid, elaborate and oddly suiting for the man standing in front of her once more. She should be frightened of his appearance. She should resent it and find it disgusting. But his eyes were full of an emotion she wasn't quite certain she could pin point. Without thinking, she reached up and touched his face. He cringed back only slightly before relaxing completely against her touch.

"Does it hurt?" She asked and gently traced her fingers over the groves and edges of the mask.

"Not really. Not anymore," He replied, and his eyes closed as her fingers traced up to reach his skin. Lightly, she caressed his face. A soothing touch for a torn man. It was something he revelled in for all of a moment.

She took her touch away from his face, fascinated that a beast - this beast - could be gentle. Stunned that one such as he could be more human than any other person she knew. If his only moments of tenderness were with her, far and few in between as she knew they would be, then so be it. She would be the one to offer him solace he would receive from no other.

He opened his eyes and the emotion swimming behind his depths was finally pinpointed. She offered him a smile, one he couldn't return and probably wouldn't given the chance. This moment between them would be one of many, their last would be similar and they regretted nothing. Not the way her palm flattened against the side of his face or the way he dipped his head and rested his forehead against hers.

It was tender and it was for them.