Joni sweated like an animal, trapped with the awful knowledge of what was going to happen to her, what Bane- whose merciless brutality was visceral and terrifying, even as his solid bulk straddled her un-moving- was going to do. When she was seven years old and she and her parents had been living in a high rise apartment block, her mother had been cornered in a stairwell and raped at knife-point. Joni, being so young, could not fully comprehend the situation- her mother arriving home in tears, the raised voices, the sudden flow of police of officers and concerned family members coming in and out of the flat- but what she had understood was the twitching, haunted manner her mother had suddenly adopted; a feature of post-trauma, the ghost of inconceivable horror left behind.
This residue remained and tainted Joni, turning to disgust when she saw the pitiful, skinny wretch in the newspapers. He could only have intimidated and overpowered a vulnerable woman alone and so inspired revulsion, not fear, in her. But Bane... Joni was dizzied by her terror. She loathed herself for lowering herself to beg, but she could not submit to her own torture even if fighting it was futile.
"I don't know what you did to Elle," said Joni. "And I don't... want to know. But I don't want you..."
"You had the opportunity to run when I took Miss du Maurier," said Bane. "And declined to take it. Unfortunately for you, in doing so you revealed your sympathies for the outrageous subjugation of the capitalist regime so dominant in your city. After being freed from it I assumed you would be grateful for the gesture. "
There was a lilt of sarcasm to this that caused Joni to blink. All of a sudden she realized that Bane's act of the revolutionary was exactly that; an elaborate show of impressive theatrics intended both to camouflage some unnamed motive and to utilize it to his own ends, purely for the sake of cruelty. The epiphany must have showed in her expression, for Bane slid a hand under her jaw and began to press, with the ball of his thumb, down on her windpipe.
"You hate us all, don'tcha?" gasped Joni. She felt like she was going to be sick but knew she couldn't in case she choked on her own vomit. "Don't matter who we are. We're all the same to you, we're all the same."
"Oh no, not the same," Bane corrected her, jovially. "After all, some scream louder than others."
He pulled back a fist and slammed it into her gut. The blow was so hard that she felt something rupture within, and the little air she had left was driven from her lungs in a papery whoop. Winded, Joni tilted her head to the side to allow bile to trickle from her nose and mouth.
"Whereas some," Bane continued. "Feel it is more heroic to hold their tongue. Little do they know how many martyrs have wept like children during persecution."
Another blow, this time to the breast. But the hand did not pull away after it struck its target; Bane's thick fingers closed around the soft bulge of tissue beneath Joni's shirt. The touch was almost gentle and, therefore, menacing in its intentions. Crippled as she was, Joni tried to squirm away. Bane paid no attention to this; he tore the blouse open with an almost meaty ripping sound. Joni, who having a flat chest saw elaborate underwear a waste of time, wasn't wearing a bra, but if Bane was aroused by the fact he did not show it. He studied the dark planes of exposed skin as if she were a hind of poor game, his gaze travelling from one breast to the other. Then, very deliberately, he took one nipple between his fingers.
"No," said Joni- or rather hissed, for she had no voice left. Dread ran like a cold needle through the lining of her stomach. "Don't."
Bane ignored her.
"The belief that cowardice holds any significance when one is at the point of breaking is... irrational," he said to her. He stretched her nipple taught so that the areola puckered around it, but as yet there was no pain, merely discomfort. "When alone with one's torturer, the fact of whether or not one screams remains their secret. A bond, if you will."
He clenched his fist. Joni wanted to shriek but her lungs would not, at first, allow it, emitting only a tinny wheeze instead. But as Bane began to slowly twist the screech came through and, hearing it, Joni hated herself.
"How beautiful," said Bane. The horrible thing was that he seemed to mean it. His eyes were shining, and had creased up at the corners. "A shame you do not agree. If you were only to conquer the pain, as I do..."
He upturned his face, drawing attention to the mask clamped to its lower half. Joni could make out a number of glass vials whose contents, she guessed, were some kind of drug.
"But you will not. You only endure it."
He let go of her breast, casually, allowing Joni to relax somewhat. She could feel herself sweating; she had been certain he would jerk his wrist and pull it off. It would have been so easy for him to do that his not doing so was a kind of mercy. But, of course, Bane was not finished. He tugged at the front of her jeans, bursting the button, and ripped them down the seams. Joni closed her legs to slow the process, causing them to bunch around her lower calves. At this Bane apparently lost patience. He caught her by the ankle and wrenched it round in a full circle, dislocating it from the socket. The crunch of cartilage, muscle and sinews was, by a fraction, more distressing that the pain.
Still, Joni passed out as a result, and when she came around Bane was no longer hanging over her. She raised her head gingerly to see him crouching way across the room in a patch of shadow like some monstrous gargoyle. There was a grotesquely knotted scar running from the base of his skull and down the length of his spine, although most of it was covered by his shirt. Joni wondered what could have caused such an injury. She couldn't imagine any human being daring or even wanting to get close enough to inflict it, but they must have done for it was too deliberate to have been the result of an accident. Joni supposed that, whoever they were, they had not lived long enough to boast about the deed. But she had no sympathy for them. They should have killed him when they had the chance.
As if sensing her attention, Bane rose and advanced on her again. Joni made no attempt to evade him; rather, she kept as still as possible to avoid triggering the nerves of her broken ankle. With hooded eyes she tracked his movements, which were slow and languid.
"You have a fighting spirit," said Bane. "It is common amongst those of your class. You grow accustomed to holding your own against a world that is set against you from birth until the grave."
"Are you gon' kill me?" asked Joni, tiredly. "Once you're done with me?"
The reply came in a tone that suggested this was a question he had heard many, many times before.
"No! I will put you on a pedestal for anyone with a serious consideration of rebellion to admire. You will be an example of what they can achieve if they seek to challenge me. My intentions for Gotham extend beyond what you perceive. Look to the common thug for a meaningless ending; I present to you an alternative that is ultimately much more satisfying."
Bane seized her by the hips and hauled her towards him so that they were face to face and, as he bore, crushingly, down on her, chest to chest. She heard the clink of a belt being unbuckled and moaned with revulsion and dismay.
"I will hear you beg again as you break," said Bane. "And I will hear you scream."
Only then did Joni truly panic, and like a bird who has heard its cage rattled she began to claw and squall without hope of escape yet still trying, desperation overcoming fear. But she was like a doll to Bane. He pinned her down, fully mounting her so that his full weight was upon her, and then, with one arm wrapped in a constricting grip around her waist, thrust deep inside her.
Dutifully, she screamed.
