Mercenary
Chapter 7
Narcissistic Cannibal
"I just want to break this crown, but it's hard when I'm so rundown." – Korn
It was the returning constant ache that woke him, the pain creeping back up that he still wasn't used to. For one horrible moment, Bane forgot where he was, and sat up as quickly as his body would allow before he was fully coherent.
He discovered that he was still in his cell at the asylum. He was still in his ugly gray scrubs, and was still in horrible pain. But, oddly enough, not as bad as before.
Sleep had evaded him for days. That, added with his chronic pain, had made things a lot worse on his body than what was becoming terribly normal. And when everything slowly started coming back to him, Bane was grateful to have had some forced, and what felt like pain-free sleep. The pain was still there, and would stay there until he was given back his medicine or until he succumbed to it completely, but the sleep had done him good.
Bane looked around and saw that the IV stand had been wheeled out. He could remember now, looking up into Camille's face as she stuck him with the needle that would give him rest, wondering what was going through her mind to have made that type of decision. She'd broken the rules for him, had given him very temporary relief, knowing all he'd done. The rest of the city would have condemned her for such an act, would have asked her harshly why she was working with him to begin with. Bane thought the whole thing interesting. Either she took her vow as a doctor to help everyone very seriously, or there was much more to Dr. Camille Lane than he could expect. Looking down at his arm where she'd punctured him, Bane decided that he would find out which one it was exactly.
Bane rubbed the back of his neck. God, he hated this place. It was almost as gloomy as the sewers he'd resided in while preparing for the revolution. But only in here, he was a prisoner, set on a schedule other than his own, and his body being taken care of by decisions made by officials.
He was not the type of man to simply be content by those facts. Things would change, he mused as he swung his legs to the side of the bed with a soft grunt. They had to, or the pain would definitely win. All he needed was his opportune moment.
Bane looked up as he heard an angry and desperate voice. He saw that it was once again Ronnie Pierce on his cell phone, speaking to whoever was on the other line sternly, but also on the side of defeated. Bane stayed silent when he realized Ronnie had not noticed he was awake.
"Sarah, I am up to just over sixty hours a week now, what more do you want me to do? You know I would live here if I could, but they only let me work for so long." Ronnie was pacing now, one hand on top of his head as he listened to his distressed wife. "You want me to what? Sarah… I know he's getting sicker… Of course I don't… Will you just listen-" Bane watched as the guard clenched his fist until his knuckles were white, and watched his body slightly begin to shake. "Don't say that… The chemo is working, I saw… Just shut up!"
Bane continued to stay quiet as Ronnie punched the wall in front of him in fury.
"Just shut up, Sarah!" he hissed violently, trying to stay quiet so he wouldn't upset the other patients and bring attention on himself from the other staff. But here with them, he could have his humiliating conversation. "Shut the fuck up for a second! I'm trying! He's going to live, do you hear me? My son will live…" Trying to find some composure as he shook, Ronnie took a few breaths before speaking again to his now weeping wife. "I'll talk to Arkham again. Maybe I can get a raise or something. I'll get the money somehow. But don't you dare call me up anymore and tell me I'm not doing anything. Don't say that to me again, Sarah."
As his wife continued to sob, Ronnie disconnected.
He turned around only to make direct eye contact with Bane. Too exhausted to wonder if he should feel angry at the intrusion or embarrassed, Ronnie could only stare right back. He would never have come this way to talk on the phone if he'd known Bane had woken. He was supposed to still be asleep.
Bane cleared his throat before he spoke.
"Troubles at home, Officer?" he questioned gently.
Camille sat in her office alone. The medication she'd given Bane would give him about four hours of sleep. She'd told him that they would continue with therapy once he'd rested, and now she waited for the guards to bring him here instead of their usual session room.
She didn't know what to think. Ronnie's words kept playing over in her mind. She'd told the officer that it was their job to help the patients at Arkham Asylum, and Ronnie had simply reminded her that Bane had almost destroyed everyone in Gotham City without breaking a sweat. Bane himself had told her that had been his intention all along. They could all be dead right now if not for Bane having been defeated and the Batman's sacrifice.
And after all that, after practically almost tasting death, why was she disobeying orders to help a murderer feel the slightest relief? Shouldn't she not care if he was in pain, and just casually say something like, "Well, sorry about your bad luck, big guy, but you kinda deserve this"?
Of course she shouldn't say that, and of course she shouldn't let her patient suffer when it was her job to take care of him. Murderer or not, she couldn't do the things the city wanted her to do concerning Bane. She would never had taken a job here, an asylum full of the criminally insane, if she didn't know what kind of people her patients would be. She'd taken an oath, she would help him.
She would forget Ronnie's words and Dr. Arkham's beliefs.
Camille jumped when her fax phone rang, then pick up the transmission with its high-pitched squeal. After wheeling her chair closer to her fax machine, she picked up the paper as it slid into the tray.
We're all waiting on you, Dr. Lane. We're waiting to see the monster's dead body, so we can burn it. Kill him for us. We want to see his blood on your hands. Don't let us become his victims again. Kill the monster Bane!
Glaring, Camille crunched the paper in her hands. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the red haze that was fury and a little fear to fade. When it did, she calmly set the message in one of her desk drawers.
Two notes in one day? And on her birthday. Camille wished she knew who this person was so she could admit him or her here. They were crazy to think that she'd do what they asked of her. How could anyone even know this? she asked herself again. The names of her patients were supposed to be confidential to the public, especially when it came to Bane. Most of the city was in an uproar that he was even still alive.
That really narrowed her little messenger down, she thought with a sigh.
She needed to relax some before Bane arrived. He should be waking up soon, or even on his way here. Reaching for her purse, Camille pulled out her prescription pill bottle, her keys, and a pair of big sunglasses, placing them on her desk before she found her lipstick in the depths of her bag. Taking out a mirror, she uncapped her lipstick and began reapplying, began relaxing.
That's how she was when the guards brought Bane into her office.
She blinked once as she locked eyes with Bane as the nude lipstick bullet was held against her lips, then hurriedly put it away into her purse as the guards wheeled him in. She'd asked them after she'd put Bane to sleep to bring him in a wheelchair once he woke and it was time for their session to begin. She thought the idea best since he'd not been able to sleep for so long, and might feel a little weak. Ronnie pushed the wheelchair up to her desk, made sure Bane was shackled properly - you never knew - then turned to leave her office.
"Thank you, Ronnie," she chirped, trying to sound happy and to make the sudden friction between them disappear. If there was one thing Camille hated, it was awkwardness, especially between fellow employees.
He looked at her, and it was then that she realized just how sad and tired he was. She knew that his son was having health problems, although she didn't know the hard details. And because she felt like she didn't know how to comfort him, she'd left it alone. Ronnie gave her a slight nod before leaving and slowly closing her office door.
Camille turned attention back to Bane, who'd been staring at her the whole time with his intense green eyes. She made a mental note of his complexion. His body didn't look as hot as it did earlier in the morning before she'd helped him sleep. She could tell just by looking at him that his temperature was still up, and that he was still in chronic pain, pain that she didn't think anything she could give him could make it go away completely. But his eyes looked different. They were still hollow and still able to tell her of his suffering. But they looked much more rested than when she'd seen to him earlier.
His body was still crying out for his usual analgesics, and she was starting to believe that nothing she ever did could change that.
After taking out her tape recorder and babbling the same introduction that took place before all of their sessions together, she asked, "How are you feeling?"
He jiggled his shackles a little before answering her. "Rested. I suppose I should thank you, dear Doctor Lane."
She looked at his weathered face, and the scars around his full mouth. "You still look…"
"I understand that you want to try and soothe my pain. But let me tell you once again that nothing can help me, expect for the medicine that was taken from me." He took a big breath through his mouth before slowly leaning forward slightly. "Tell me, whatever happened to my mask?"
Camille drew her dark brows together and wondered why he'd ask such a thing when he knew he'd never get it back. And then thought of the mask he'd asked of sitting on her table at home surrounded by dozens of notes, and the medicine sitting in her fridge waiting to be dissected. "That information isn't available to you, Bane. I've just given you four hours of uninterrupted sleep. What's put you in such a bad mood?"
"Am I in a bad mood, Doctor Lane? I'm not, I can assure you."
She eyed him some, then smacked her lips together – Why did she do that? – and wrote a few things down onto her pad.
He stared at her lips as she wrote, and remembered her painting them when he'd arrived. Women could be so cute, at times. An image of him smearing shiny pink gloss from Talia's lips came to mind. He closed his eyes for a second, and told himself it was not the time to think of Talia and her lips.
"What does he do?" he asked her, and settled back into the wheelchair, his lower back starting to scream again.
"Who?"
"Your ex-husband."
Camille lifted a brow at him, and wondered if he thought the one exception she'd made for him earlier when concerning her life was still valid. He'd said that he was tired of discussing himself all the time. Maybe if she gave a little, then so would he. "He's an artist."
"Really?" Bane said, sounding chipper and interested. She wrote the reaction down. "How lovely. How is his work? And I'm sure you can answer me honestly on that one, no longer being married to him and all."
She smiled a little. "He's actually very good. His namesake helped some, but he would have made it without it."
"He paints?"
Camille nodded, and thought of one painting she still kept in her home. Jackson had painted a landscape of Gotham for her one Christmas. She'd hated it, hated the city because of her childhood but somehow never leaving it, but kept the painting all the same. How could she throw away Jackson's hard work? Especially since he still believed she loved it?
Bane kept his eyes on her. "Is he the reason for these?" he asked softly, and reached over to pluck the forgotten pill bottle from her desk.
A slight jolt shook her body as she watched him hold her Lexapro. She leaned forward and snatched the pills from his large and calloused hand. He let her, and watched her stuff all the forgotten items back into her purse.
"I thought the divorce was a mutual decision, Dr. Camille."
"It was. And I'll ask you once to call me Dr. Lane."
His brows lifted some as he sensed her anger, and felt a slight heat from her. "Now I have upset you."
She looked back at him, sitting in a wheelchair with a useless back brace around his waist and oxygen being pumped into him through nose tubes now, and sighed. She couldn't help him if she got messed up now. She had a job to do.
Camille wished to could take one of the Lexapro right now.
"I'm not upset. But I'd like to go back to you now. Tell me about the special agents during the revolution."
Oh, she was upset, Bane thought. Pills were never good for emotional pain. And, when concerning her ex-husband, his doctor seemed to have plenty of that. "Special agents?"
"Yes. The ones who maneuvered their way into Gotham without you knowing. The agents who were killed by your men. The people you hung on the bridge for the world to see."
Bane remembered crushing one of those agents neck, and wished he could do the same to his captors here. "Ah, yes. What do you wish to know about them?"
She eyed him, and wrote down how casual he seemed about the topic. "Why did you hang them?"
"Simple, Dr. Lane. To teach a lesson."
She thought she should feel chilled by that answer. Instead, she tried understanding it. "You seem to enjoy teaching."
"What is life without lessons? The military thought they could thwart me and sneak in their little spies. I killed their men, one slowly, and shoved their plan back into their faces. I had the bodies hung so they could watch them sway in the wind, and smell the stench of their failure. The military learned on that day that their actions were futile. After that, they did nothing else to get inside the city."
"Is that why you chose Gotham? To teach a corrupt city a lesson?"
He thought of Talia, and of what she referred to as her slow knife. "Gotham was chosen to restore balance to the world," he answered, echoing Talia's own words she'd said to him long ago.
Camille nodded slowly. Balance in Gotham? It was almost unimaginable. "Your revolution seemed to consist of a bunch of lessons. Lessons you apparently believe in, and taught well. I've been your doctor for some time now, Bane. Considering that time, what lesson would you teach me?"
The question surprised him. Bane rubbed his lips together as he looked her over, trying to see through the barrier. He didn't know much about his doctor. But he was a great judge of character, and could see the cracks that people tried so hard to fill.
"I don't know you very well, Dr. Lane," he replied quietly, and looked into her eyes the color of the night. "But by looking at you, I can see that you are not living. You are… tolerating. You tolerate your depression by taking those pills. And you tolerated the revolution by cowering at home, I'd imagine. I would teach you what it is to live. Without life, there is simply death. And I fear, Dr. Lane, that you might be dying on the inside."
Her heart was suddenly stampeding inside her chest. Maybe this had been a bad idea. She should have kept herself out of it. Isn't that how Harleen got caught up in the Joker's web? But Bane was immensely different from the Joker. Camille didn't want to be told her was dying inside. But, she thought, remembering her pills and Jackson. She didn't think she could deny to herself that it might be a possibility.
"The day you choose to live, my dear," Bane continued, his voice low and searching. "Is the day you will be free from those pills. You shouldn't let them hold you down."
They stared at each other for a while. His words only made her understand him a little bit more. He was an idealist, someone who stood by his principles. He'd become Gotham's liberator when it refused to stand on its own.
He was a very smart man.
"Thank you," he croaked out, his voice usually an indicator of his pain. "For letting me sleep, Dr. Lane."
"Oh," she said softly, and nodded at him. "You're welcome."
He watched her hand as she tapped her long red fingernails on her desk. Where had she gone to? he questioned himself. What did she think about so often? "Do you forgive easily?" he asked her.
Her eyes returned to his. "I'm sorry?"
He tapped the hollow at his throat. "The cross at your neck. A big symbol of forgiveness. Do you forgive those who hurt you easily?"
Her hand went up to touch the small gold charm at her neck. "In some cases, it can be easy. But... I'm only human. And to not be forgiving is unfortunately part of the human condition at times. "
He watched her hand as it rested on the cross on her chest. "And do you forgive me for what I've done?"
She looked into his eyes, then her gaze slowly drifted down to his mouth, and she imagined him wearing the mask she knew all too well now. She squeezed the cross between her fingers, and reminded herself why she wore it in the first place.
"It's easy to forgive when the actions aren't surprising at all. It's the unexpected circumstances that cause us not to forgive. So… I guess I do."
Bane grinned at her.
A couple hours later, after Bane had been taken back to his cell with his usual after-session oxycodone, Camille stood in Jeremiah Arkham's large and fabulously furnished office with her hands held behind her back as she watched him pace back and forth.
She was in trouble.
"You're lucky I don't drop you from his case, Dr. Lane. I gave you specific instructions when handling Bane, and you threw them out of the window. I told you that all inquiries about him were to come through me first. And what did you do? You completely ignored me."
"He was suffering, Dr. Arkham. This was his worst day yet. He needed immediate relief. How can I do my job when my patient looks as if he'll pass out from affliction at any moment?"
Jeremiah's hands thudded firmly onto his desk as he looked at her in the eye, his face slightly red. "Medication for Bane must be approved by me first. That's the bottom line, Dr. Lane."
"But you aren't his doctor. I am."
She regretted the words when he simply stared at her. She wasn't afraid of this man. In fact, she wished she could pop him one right between the eyes for making her feel like a fool when concerning decisions about her own patient. He didn't know how to take care of Bane, nor did he even want to, if it weren't for the media. She regretted the words because she didn't want to be moved to another case after she'd invested so much time and research into this one. This very big one.
"Do you want to be kicked off this case, Doctor?"
"No, sir. I don't."
"Then I suggest you start putting your listening ears on. I cleared the oxycodone, and that is all he's allowed to have. Do I make myself clear?"
It took everything in her not to roll her eyes. "Yes, Dr. Arkham."
"And what's this I hear about you going to his cell this morning and having a nice, friendly chat? You're supposed to be rehabilitating Bane, Camille. Not discussing your non-existent birthday plans."
"I thought it would help-"
"I don't care about any of that. Your job is to get inside his head. And it's about time you told him the truth."
Camille blinked at him before answering. "I don't think that's a good idea, Dr. Arkham. Not just yet. He needs to recover a little more before I throw something like that at him. He needs to trust me."
He waved her off impatiently. "I've listened to the tapes, Camille. I've read the notes. You aren't getting anywhere fast. He needs to know we have a file on him so thick he couldn't lie to us even if he tried to. Bane needs to know that we have the upper hand. I'm not going to let another patient here pull the strings." He rubbed his hair back in exasperation as he thought of the Joker, and the bumps that had put in the road for him and his asylum.
"Dr. Arkham, please. Not yet."
"Enough." He silenced her with a hand. "During your next session with him, you tell that bastard we know everything about him." Jeremiah took out a small key from his pocket of his designer suit and opened one of his locked drawers. Pulling out a heavy black folder, he tossed it on the desk for her to retrieve with a loud thunk. It had Bane's name on it.
"You tell Bane we know about Talia al Ghul."
TBC
A/N: One of my reviewers told me that, in the comics, Jeremiah Arkham is a nice guy and cares about his patients. I've never read any of the comics, unfortunately. And I'm working with the Nolanverse, giving my story the same dark undertones as he did with these characters. So, to make things darker, Jeremiah is a jerk here. Review for me, my darlings!
