Sorry, life is kicking my ass. Promise to get it together with longer chapters soon. But until then, he's some sweetness.

Bane woke up more slowly than usual. He usually snapped from blackness to awareness with the shock of pain. In this instance he crept to consciousness, becoming aware of things in order of their oddity. The soft fabric he lay on was alien. The warmth of a body beside him was not. He opened his eyes. John Blake's face was close. His long dark lashes were painted across his hollow cheeks.

And his lips were blue. Bane felt adrenaline kick up its familiar bite under his ribs. This is what had woken him. Blake had spent most of the night snoring on his back, mouth gaping like a child's, unaware and unashamed. Now he was quiet and the breaths he did draw were rasping and dry. Bane couldn't smell the young man. All he smelt was medicine, vapors, sickness. He had rolled too close in the night ( Bane knew that he must have also gathered him close…the boy would never have gotten so close on his own stealth. It hurt to think about.)

He must have been breathing the fumes of Bane's vapors for hours. Some of his men came away from his rooms with numb lips and stinging eyes. The dosage was high for Bane with his tolerance; it was nearly lethal to someone clean. He turned the boy on his back and straddled him.

The boy lolled helplessly, pauses between inhales getting more pronounced. For obvious reasons, he couldn't resuscitate him. He instead put his hands behind John's ribs and lifted him, gently pushing his diaphragm to contract and expand. Hopefully this would force enough air into the young man's lungs. He had seen it done once in the pit.

Granted it had been to continue torture and it hadn't worked but here at least there was a telephone, with emergency crews if the action failed. After the third lift, John dragged in a loud gasp and started to move woozily. He opened his clouded brown eyes. Shock lanced through them and Bane became aware of his position.

" Don't." whispered John, starting to shake. He tried to lift his hands. Bane didn't deign to respond. Instead he pulled the boy up into a sitting position against the wall and pulled away.

"Can you breathe now?"

John looked confused, understandably.

" What happened?"

" You inhaled from my mask through the night. It should have killed you."

He wanted to remark on the reserves of strength in this boy, but he still didn't know why he was here. Tracking this youth had no end game. No plan. And for Bane, this was a rare thing. He preferred to understand every hill and valley of his path.

John's purpling eyelids were fluttering against a hypoxic headache. Bane had endured many.

"How can you have that strapped to your face?"

" I must." Bane said simply. He didn't understand himself. Yes, this was his savior. Yes, he was a beautiful anomaly in a world that felt as jarring and sharp as the pit. But why give up these weaknesses, this candidness was new. It felt like he was peeling off husks of burnt skin. John finally managed to open his eyes fully.

" Oh yeah. You were hurt. You were bandaged."

" I was mauled." Bane said simply and rose off the bed. It tipped nervously with his weight and John jumped reflexively.

" Where are you going?" he asked. Bane needed to leave, regroup. He had work to do, lives to take, plans to undermine. This was not the time to be thinking of tenderness, of the way the boy's ribs had felt in his hands, smooth and small, like a sparrow's.

A robin's.

" Rest. I will return tomorrow. I will have answers for you then."

John was trying to sit up. Bane pushed him back. John glared grudgingly. Bane wanted to touch their eyebrows together, rub the smooth flesh of their foreheads. He knew the softness of that hair in his hands. He left. John was shouting after him.

Bane was out the door and running. He never ran much anymore. There was usually no need. The water in the gutters above sounded like the rain on the pit walls, slicking down into the rock. He had forgotten his coat. He didn't turn back.