She Rises by Paradisical815


Featured Song: "O Sister" by City and Color

Chapter Seven: Potions and Poisons

It was sickeningly easy to take what she needed the next day. Dr. Langer trusted her well enough to leave her to her own devices, gave her a pager so that he could call her if he needed her, and let her go from ward to ward and room to room like an honorary nurse, taking temperatures and changing bandages and administering medicine.

She snuck off, down to the basement, where the hospital kept its lab and supply of medicine. She pulled out Bane's list and started going through the shelves, her heart pounding, checking over her shoulder every few minutes. She was revolted with herself; she knew just how much this medicine was needed by the people she was supposed to be helping and she was choosing to take it anyway because she was scared of a mercenary.

You're disgusting.

Tramadol, general anesthetic, oxycodone, hydromorphone, lidocaine, halothane- there were names she recognized and names she didn't. There were pills and liquids and syringes and she put it all in a bag, arranging it carefully, not wanting anything to spill or break. She took some other things, too, that she'd learned could be useful- mainly chemicals that stimulated the release of dopamine, endorphins and adrenaline. She wasn't sure if she'd need them, but she figured she'd rather only have to do this once.

When she thought she'd gotten it all, she leaned on a table and read over the list again, double-checking it with the medicine in her bag. When she was sure she had everything, she drew in a deep breath and looked around the room.

She flicked the lights off and left.

Dev had told her that morning that Bane wanted her to come back as soon as she had the drugs, so she wound her way through the hospital, taking the path that normally had the least amount of people. Bane's mercenaries gave her a nod when she left the hospital. Barsad was waiting for her at the corner of the street with his distant smile and vacant eyes.

She did not look back.

000

Bane was not at the apartment when she got there and she set the bag of drugs gently on the counter before grabbing her sketchbook, the iPad Bane had gotten her, and a pair of headphones. She sat down at the counter, started pulling out the drugs and then she put the headphones in her ears and started up some music and pulled up the website called ' '.

Music helped her focus. Not just the music itself, but music and ear buds took her concentration and narrowed it like a beam of focused energy. Whatever she was working on became the only thing in the world, and she could focus for hours on the smallest of tasks with an eerie intensity.

She went to Google and typed in the name of the first drug on the counter.

She went steadily through the medicine, listing their side effects, the symptoms they were best at relieving, and recommended doses. She organized them by similarities and searched for what would happen when certain ones were combined. She read labs and academic reports; studies and experiments. She arranged the drugs in level of danger and rated them by their addictiveness and grouped them by the ones that seemed compatible.

A hand grasped her shoulder and she gave an involuntary and embarrassing shriek, pitching backwards off her chair as utter panic spread through her body. Her stomach flipped as she flew backwards and then, very suddenly, someone had grabbed her waist with big hands and was straightening her out, pulling her gently to her feet.

Her back was pressed against something solid and breathing and there were large, very warm hands on her waist. Her heart was pounding; the ear buds had fallen out and she heard Bane's mechanical rasp that served as breath. Her stomach was still flipping. His hands were much too warm.

"Careful," he said, his mechanical voice amiable in her ear.

"Thanks," she said, and stepped away from him. His hands fell away from her waist as she turned to face him. His grey eyes seemed very dark.

Not for the first time, she remembered that, for all of the other things he was, he was also a man.

She took another step back, wanting some distance between them, and his eyes did not change. The warmth in her belly was entirely unwelcome.

"I got your medicine," she said, forcing her voice to remain steady. "I started doing some research, about the different side effects and possible combinations and all that."

"Good." His mechanical voice was pleased but his eyes were still so dark, with something behind them that she hadn't seen before. "When will you be ready to test the medication on a live subject?"

For a few seconds she stared at him, uncomprehending. Then her jaw dropped.

"You want me to make it?"

"You will have assistance, of course."

"But I don't know anything about this kind of stuff, I'm not even that good at chemistry or anything like that-"

His eyes were amused. "You underestimate your own intelligence, my dear."

"No, I really don't. I know exactly how smart I am, and I don't think I can do this."

"I have faith in you."

"What makes you think I won't make it to kill you? Or even if I don't do it on purpose, how do you know I won't mess up or something, and hurt you-"

"Because," he said, his mechanical voice light, "I know where your friends are. And your family. The Richards, aren't they? A good idea, to change their names, but not good enough to hide from me and mine. And, if anything happens to me, mine are under orders to bring you yours."

He turned from her and walked down the hallway, turning back to look at her when he reached his room.

"In pieces."

000

The man who Bane had helping her came into the apartment early the next morning, and Katty started and stared from her spot at the counter when he stepped out of the elevator. He was black, very handsome, and probably somewhere in his forties. The look her gave her was measured and calculating but not unkind.

"Hello," she said, slowly. He gave her a nod.

"You are the girl?"

"Call me Katty. What's your name?"

"Ezra." His voice was very deep and had a melodic accent that she found comforting and curious. He moved over to her and looked over her shoulder at her notes and at all the bottles of medicine in front of her. His eyes were the color of honey and he was wearing the same sort of clothes that most of Bane's people had; they were militaristic, practical, and dull, all olive greens and grays and browns and they did not suit this man. She felt his eyes move from her make-shift set up to her face.

"You have done this before?"

"Made drugs?" She gave a short, humorless laugh. "No."

"Why is he having you do this, then? It is not a simple or safe process, for the maker or the taker."

She shrugged. "I don't know. Some sort of test, I think. If I screw up, he's going to kill everyone I love, so no pressure, right?"

His eyes searched hers.

"Let us go to work, then."

And they did work. They worked for the rest of the day, falling into an easy pattern and a startling intensity. They talked occasionally and Katty, knowing her own limitations, deferred to him in any occasion that there was a difference of opinion.

They worked well together and soon enough had several prototypes of drugs to be tested. Ezra told Katty that he could only help her for today; that was all Bane would allow him. Katty had to stifle anger and panic at that; did the masked psychopath want her to fail?

But Ezra knew what he was doing. He knew about drugs and mixing and side-effects and which chemicals would cancel each other out; he knew what to mix with oxycodone to give a longer high; he knew how to convert halothane into a liquid form and he knew how to administer their Frankenstein's monster of a creation to a subject so that it would last as long as possible.

"Have you done this before?" Katty asked, handing him a syringe with hands in gloves that were far to big for her.

"Yes," said Ezra in his slow, calming voice.

"For Bane?"

"No. But, in another life, I was a mixer of potions for a variety of needs."

"By- by potions, you mean-"

Those amber colored eyes met hers and his lips twitched. It was nice to see a smile, she realized, grinning back at him. "I mean drugs."

"Ah."

There were a few minutes of silence.

"Do you mind if I ask how you got tied up with Bane?"

Something in Ezra's eyes became very sad and he poured a fine powder of crushed tablets into a beaker over the stove.

"I lived in Ethiopia, ten years ago. My wife- Nirhya- and I had five children. We never had much money and I did not have the luxury of being careful with my choice of employment. The potions I made kept my wife and my two daughters from the horror of the sex trade. I refuse to apologize for that."

Katty listened, very still, and watched him. His dark brows furrowed together.

"But it made some people in that business angry, to have two young girls of such incredible beauty kept from them. They came to my home and took my girls. My wife was killed. My boys and I went to the League for help; they were, uh… more well known in that part of the world. In exchange for the lives of my daughters, I had to pledge myself to the League."

"Do you regret it?" Katty asked quietly.

"No," said Ezra, a little forcefully, his eyes flashing to hers. "I did not think I would be capturing a city, but no. I do not regret it."

Katty nodded slowly, and turned back to the boiling liquid on the stove.

"What about you?" She glanced back up at him. He was smiling. "How does a pretty girl like you find yourself captive to a madman?"

Her smile was biting and proud and bitter. "I tried to fight back."

Ezra raised an eyebrow and Katty drew in a breath; he moved the clear liquid in its beaker off the stove, swirling it around and examining it before looking back at her.

"The night after, that first night, someone broke into my house. Me and my family lived out west, out past the suburbs, near the docks. We got about two acres of land a few years back for a really, really great discount, we'd never have been able to afford it otherwise. So it looks like we have money, and we really don't. That night, our house got broken into. It was just one guy and he came upstairs and I woke up at three thirty-seven in the morning to my sister's screams."

Jolting out of sleep, realizing it wasn't a nightmare-

-red numbers on the alarm clock, burned into her mind-

-the knife, get the knife-

"I've always been sort of paranoid, especially after the Joker attacks eight years ago, so I sleep with a knife by my bed. I grabbed it and ran to my sister's room and there was this- this man, trying to get on top of her, and she was fighting, and I just grabbed him and stuck the knife in at the base of his head before I could even think about it. And then I tried to call the police, before I remembered that there was no one to answer. And then I knew that something had to done and I- well, I didn't know if anyone else would do it, so I did.

"The next day I started going around to houses, taking clothes and food and stuff so it'd look like I had a reason. I told them I was fighting back and to meet in one of the parking garages that night. Word spreads fast. Within a couple of days, there were three, four hundred people. And the crowd grew every night. I didn't mean for to be the leader of it, it just happened. People asked me what to do, where to strike, and someone had to be in charge. I knew what it meant. I told my family I had to leave and I started sleeping in abandoned apartments. My three best friends stayed with me; we were the leaders and we took care of our people. And one day we were out, the four of us, trying to find some food and medicine for a guy with a bad leg, and the next thing I knew I was being dragged off by some guy and I shouted at my friends to run right before they put a bag over my head. Then Bane took me." She shrugged.

"How old are you?" Ezra asked quietly.

"I'm twenty."

"So young," he said softly, "to be the revolutionary."

She felt awkward and proud at the same time. "Someone had to."

His smile was tight as he looked away from her, back to the clear liquid.

"And that is what makes you a hero."

000

Hero.

The word echoed in her head and it rested uncomfortably on her tongue and it sounded stale when she spoke it to the empty apartment.

There were vials and syringes on the counter and she played with one of them, twisting it over and over in her short fingers, watching the liquid inside of it shift and slide.

Hero.

She'd always wanted to be a hero. Not for fame or money or glory, but for something else, something much older, something without a name. She wanted to save people, just for the sake of saving them. She didn't know why, but she thought, sometimes, that it had something to do with the black hole inside of her; maybe if she filled that hole with enough lives, enough good deeds, maybe it would go away. She knew, of course, that this was not the case; this was not how life worked. There were no cosmic deals. But she still wanted to be a hero, and now she was.

She didn't think it with any sort of arrogance. It was, simply:

"I'm blonde."

"I have blue eyes."

"I miss London."

"I'm a hero."

It was just another thing, now, another part of what she was. She accepted it easily but she did not feel changed. Not like she'd hoped she would.

She glanced over the drugs; there was quite a lot. There were a few different combinations, each attached to a different sheet of paper with very specific instructions so that she could recreate it without Ezra's help.

She did not expect to see the older man again.

Then there were the methods of distribution. There was a pump, similar to the insulin pumps that some diabetics wore, but Katty couldn't see Bane going for that. It would be too easy to disable, and she didn't know if he was planning on going maskless all the time, if he was going to fight without it.

No, she thought he'd go with the injection. It was more his style; efficient and simple. She didn't know how quickly he'd burn through the medicine, though. She realized she'd have to do tests on him and felt a sudden surge of almost sadistic glee.

I'll need to know his weight, she thought, the wheels in her mind spinning, and how much pain he can tolerate-

She realized that this went far beyond just making the medicine and suddenly felt very tired.

000

She was sitting on the couch when Bane came back to the apartment, Oxycodone buzzing through her bloodstream and leaving her feeling warm and content. She had the iPad on her lap and was watching movies that the previous owner had uploaded onto it; even living in a city under siege, it was difficult to not crack up at the antics of Abbott and Costello.

When Bane stepped off of the elevator and into the apartment, his big boots thudding quietly, Katty had her head thrown back, her neck arched and her mouth in an open grin, shaking in loud, genuine laughter; it was the first time she'd really laughed since she'd been taken. She noticed Bane but ignored him, wanting this one moment of normality to last for as long as it could. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed him shrug out of that massive brown jacket and throw it over one of the chairs, and knew he was watching her.

Eventually her laughs subsided, leaving her belly and back sore, and she wiped tears from the corner of her eyes.

"Wow," she said, her voice shaking a little, still grinning. "That was funny."

"Did you finish your work with the good doctor?"

"Yeah. I've got a couple of new medicines to test out, so I need to know your pain threshold, like, how much pain can you handle before you need the mask, and your weight, so I can do some tests to see which medicine is the most effective and how much you'll need to take."

She met his gaze. His gray eyes above the black mask were quiet and measuring and she was reminded suddenly of the sky just before a storm broke.

"I don't know how much I weigh."

She laced her fingers behind her head. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me. I need you to find out, though, so I don't overdose you. Don't want you dying on me."

Those grey eyes crinkled up in what she knew was his smile. "Have I inspired some affection in you, girl?"

"No," said Katty, flatly. "I'm keeping my family alive."

"Not your friends?"

"They are family."

His invisible smile widened. "Shame. I had hoped you'd begun to feel some sort of loyalty."

She gave him a look and then continued. "I'll probably need to do the first trial on a rat, or something. Can one of your people bring me one?"

His eyes searched hers.

"There will be one for you in the morning. Get some sleep."

000

"Sorry, little guy," said Katty softly as she pushed the needle into the top of the rat's thigh and injected the medicine into him. He hopped away as soon as she let him go and licked the entry point, then gave her a look as though to say, is that all?

"For now," she told him, and pushed him into a carrier.

"Are you so desperate for company you'd talk to a rodent?" Bane's mechanical voice was amused behind her.

"Gotta have an intelligent conversation somehow," she said with a mock cheerfulness, and put her head on her hands on the counter, watching the rat. He didn't seem to be reacting to the medicine at all and suddenly she felt Bane at her side, leaning on the counter and watching the rat too. He was much too close; she could feel the heat radiating off of his big body. His mask hissed and then he spoke.

"How do you expect the testing to proceed?"

She watched as the rat started to groom himself. "First, I want to make sure none of the drugs kill him. I need to see how they effect him, if they slow him down or make him sleepy or any of that." She frowned. "I should probably record his heartbeat."

There were a few moments of quiet as she thought and watched the rat. "Then I'll have to play with the dosage and all that according to how he responds to it. Then- then I'll have to see if the drugs make him able to function when he's in pain."

"And how will you do that?"

She looked at the rat, now cleaning his tail. "Break his leg and give him a shot."

The rat became very relaxed while on the medicine, but apart from that, there was no change. She waited eight hours for the effects to wear off, and gave him the second drug. It made him significantly slower and sluggish and so she decided to lessen the dosage when she did the "pain trial". The third drug was the one that seemed to be most efficient; the rat's heart rate slowed only a little and he seemed calm but very alert. She wrote everything down, even the things that seemed unimportant. She recorded the dosage she'd used (thanks to basic algebra and Google, figuring it out had been one of the easy parts), the rat's actions, when she noticed the medicine beginning to take effect; anything that seemed slightly relevant went down in writing and she stared at her notes when she was done, reading them over and over with head phones and music in her ears.

If I survive this, at least I'll be able to get a job as a dealer or a mixer, she thought to herself. The rat twitched his nose at her.

She couldn't do it. She couldn't break the little guy's leg; she'd known she wouldn't be able to since the moment she'd first realized she had to. She'd had to ask Bane to do it and he'd given her that measuring, calculating gaze.

"Are you incapable?" he'd rumbled at her.

"Of hurting something like this? Yes." There was no shame in her voice. His eyes searched her face.

"You truly are good," he said after a few moments, his voice a low rumble and his eyes very dark. "Down to your core. What a strange thing."

She'd started but before she could say anything, he'd moved over to the rat and there was a crack and squealing.

She followed him and grabbed the third drug, injecting it into the squirming and squealing rat's thigh. Bane held the rat as still as possible and Katty set the syringe gingerly on the counter before grabbing the iPad.

"Keep holding him," she told Bane and felt his eyes on her as she did a quick Google search.

Fifteen minutes later the rat was much calmer and he had a splint on his front left leg made out of cotton bandages, surgical tape and several toothpicks. Bane's big hands were still grasping the warm, wriggling body.

"Okay," said Katty, pushing her blonde hair out of her eyes. "You can let him go."

With a surprising gentleness, Bane set the rat on the counter. He sniffed at his leg, licked it a few times, and then looked up at Katty, his whiskers twitching.

"Go on," she told him. "Walk."

And, a few minutes later, he did. His movements were awkward, thanks to the splint, but he seemed to move without pain and ate the food Katty offered him. She looked over at the masked mercenary to find his dark eyes already on her.

"I think we have a winner," she said softly.

000

She didn't sleep that night. She changed the drugs out as needed and recorded everything, and early the next morning, when Bane came into the kitchen shirtless, she looked at him and held up vial number three.

"We definitely have a winner."

He looked at the vial with unreadable eyes and his mask hissed. "Good. What do you need next?"

"Your weight," she said flatly. "So I know how much to give you, to see if it works."

Good night, he was massive. Most guys towered over Katty, it was just part of being as short as she was, but she was still struck by the incredible size difference between them. It wasn't just the height, either; he was muscular in a way she didn't expect to see in real life. And his body was riddled with scars, though that part didn't surprise her as much.

He gave her a nod after a few minutes of silence, and when he turned, she saw that the scar at the base of his skull extended down his spine.

She realized why he needed the mask.

He left the apartment and came back two hours later with his weight and she quickly did a few equations and Google searches before coming up with a dosage.

"Alright," she said, holding up the syringe. "Come here."

He quirked an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his now (thankfully) covered chest, but he made no move to her.

"Bane, come on, we don't know if it'll work unless we try it on you."

"Yes, we do," he said mildly. "I'm hardly the only two hundred and twenty pound man in the city.

For a few seconds she stared at him in confusion and then it clicked.

"No," she said.

"Oh? Shall I bring you your family, then?"

"I'm not going to experiment on people-"

"-or your friends, they're all quite beautiful." His eyes burned and she closed her mouth.

"Fine," she said, her voice very hard. "Fine. Go find someone. Offer them food in exchange, or something, and I'll need a lab with access to some medical supplies."

He raised his eyebrow again.

"Testing on a human is not like testing on a rat," she snapped. He lifted his hands out to his side and gave her a deep nod.

"As you wish."

000

He took her to an abandoned pediatrician's office and then left with two of his men, pausing at the door to look back at her. His mask hissed and his voice, when he spoke, was a mechanical rasp.

"I don't think I need to remind you what happens if you try to escape."

She clutched at the strap of her back across her chest and gave him a flat, hard glare. "No, I got it. Thanks."

After a moment, he nodded, and then they were gone and she was alone. She pulled Google up on the iPad that was very quickly becoming her lifeline and began gathering supplies. Cotton swabs, disinfectant, band aids, a stethoscope and the arm cuff for blood pressure. Then she started doing research on the best way to give a shot, how to clean it, and how to measure a person's vital signs.

About two hours later, Bane returned alone. She rose to her feet slowly, setting the iPad down, and raised her eyebrows.

"Change your mind?" she asked him. His eyes were very dark.

"No," he said. She heard shouts, male shouts, one of which was very familiar, and stared from Bane to the door and back again.

"What-"

"They were slightly less than willing," he said, his mechanical voice light. Katty stared at him.

"You said you would pay them with something-" her voice was rising.

"This was easier."

She stared at him in utter disbelief and then his two mercenaries burst through the door, shoving two men to the ground, both looking like they were around Bane's weight, both with bags over her head.

She had a violent flashback to her own abduction and her eyes flashed back to Bane's.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

He spread his hands wide, his eyebrows lifting in an expression of mock innocence. "You needed live subjects, my dear, and I have supplied you with them. Take off the bags."

The mercenaries yanked off the bags and Katty had to choke back a strangled scream as the boy kneeling on the right was revealed.

It was her brother.

To Be Continued


A/N: WHOOHOOO AND HERE. WE. GO.

As always, thank you guys so much for your reviews! I always get really excited when i see a new one, so you are definitely appreciated.

I started to do a bunch of research for this chapter and then I decided to do only the research that the character did. I read something once that an author shouldn't include more factual information in a story than the character knows, so I pretty much relied on my own knowledge (I AM NOT A DRUG DEALER, I PROMISE), common sense, and basic Googling. It was very interesting to write!

How do you guys think the Sexual Tension is building? I definitely want it to be slow burn because I love building it up. Tell me what you think!

Love,

Paradisical