Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: I am not a doctor and I'm only a half-decent researcher, so I sincerely apologize for any and all inaccuracies I've depicted here in terms of Blake's physical condition. In my defense, The Dark Knight Rises takes place in a universe where hanging from a rope and getting punched in the spine will cure a broken back. Hopefully my hackneyed descriptions will not offend your willful suspension of disbelief too much.

Special thank you to the reviewers and those that followed/favourite the story. As always the support is encouraging, and I hope you enjoy the next installments!

Chapter Nine

Blake was no stranger to narcotics, barbiturates, and sedatives by that point. He had been on every painkiller cocktail Gotham General could concoct before trying out some of the designer combinations offered by the pain clinics in the State. The best were the experimental drugs, the ones that blacked out whole weeks of his life or made milliseconds feel like eternities; they played with Blake's perception of time to the point where he forgot that he had a body, let alone one that was broken.

But whatever Bane stuck him with was a whole new breed of narcotic. The drug ploughed so swiftly and cleanly through his Venom induced rage that Blake barely registered the sudden loss of strength in his limbs. One minute he was locked in a fierce battle with Bane's mask, and the next he had slumped forward lifelessly, numb and dizzy and drained. Blake's eyes peeled back in his skull while his head lolled against Bane's forearm. He was vaguely aware of his hand falling to his side again, but everything had gotten so dreamy and unreal that Blake really couldn't be certain...or bothered to care for that matter.

He didn't pass out, for which he was grateful. The relief that followed was unlike anything he had felt before. No drug had ever managed to quell the angry throb in his back completely, but this one had shut every nerve in his body down. All Blake's pain receptors fell silent. He basked in the glory of absolute painlessness, welcoming it like an old friend. This was the body he had left behind years ago, the body they said he would never have again. Blake didn't care if he couldn't move, didn't care how helpless he was. If Bane wanted him dead, so be it: Blake would die right here, right now, in perfect peace.

"That stuff..." Blake slurred, "...issstrong..."

"It was created for my physiology," Bane replied, sliding his forearm from Blake's front. Blake felt himself bring moved but so did not care, even as he slopped against the floor in a boneless heap, because he didn't feel any of it. No spasms in his spine, no throbbing in his neck and shoulders, nothing. Pain was just a distant memory, some bad dream. Blake's real life was this slippery state of consciousness he'd entered, where the white walls spun lazily before his eyes and life itself felt perfectly optional.

Blake was lost in a daze. "...you took over Gotham on this?"

He felt the mercenary's fingers on his wrist, checking for a pulse. "Clearly, I overestimated the size of your body even with Strange's enhancements."

"I'm not little."

Bane ignored him. "The euphoria will pass in a few moments."

Blake let his eyes close, clinging to senselessness with all the strength he could barely muster. "I better enjoy this while it lasts then."

"I will administer a larger dose so that you might sleep through the worst of the pain after you have made the adjustments to the pump."

"What about...the rage?" Blake asked worriedly. He hadn't felt anything quite like the anger he had felt before, not even after losing his parents. "I can't help you if I'm a monster."

"The drugs should combat the psychological effects of the Venom," Bane replied.

Of course, Blake thought. He was on the same cocktail Bane was using. While that wouldn't suppress Strange's growth hormone, it would suppress his aggression and allow him to maintain self-control.

"How long have you been in pain?" Bane asked.

"Four years...two months...give or take a couple of weeks..." Not that Blake had been counting.

"The bullet hit your spinal column."

"Sciatic nerve," Blake corrected him. He cast one weary glance at the mercenary to make sure he was going to keep his hand, Bane having kept a steady albeit gentle grip on it for what felt like an eternity now. Bane responded with his usual disinterest though. He would hold Blake's wrist as long as he needed to and let go when it pleased him. Blake's eyes closed again of their own accord before he felt his hand lay safely on his abdomen, still attached. His mouth kept moving too, also of its own accord. "The damage is irreparable. The pain is chronic."

"That would not cause your paralysis," Bane noted.

The anesthetic kept Blake from resisting the prompt. "No," he muttered tiredly. "That was corrective surgery. Doctors tried to install a nerve block to numb the pain...and they did that. A little too well."

He made a sound that was as much as a laugh as it was a cry. As far as rude awakenings went, it wasn't Blake's worst. He had initially thought the loss of sensation was a side effect of the anesthetic. His left leg soon started echoing the agony from his damaged spine though, while the right just lay there, useless and silent, as still as Bane was right now.

"What about you?"

A respirator hiss was his only response. Blake forced his tired eyes open just a crack, wondering if Bane was going to answer him. The mercenary had tilted his head just slightly to the side. Blake just hoped he was asking for clarification and not pondering the best way to dismember the former detective.

"You," Blake stumbled for words. He gestured to his face before he could successfully craft the sentence. "What's the mask for?"

Bane's head resumed its upright position. "Corrective surgery," he replied simply.

"For what? A fight?"

Now Bane wasn't going to answer him. Blake sighed and settled back in on himself, ignoring how clears his thoughts were becoming. Just as Bane had predicted, the euphoria was starting to dissipate. The pain was coming back, and the violent tendencies were sure to follow.

"Who was it that shot you?"

Blake shook his head. "No," he bit his tongue, "I asked you a question first."

"What does it matter how I was injured?"

"I could ask you the same question."

Bane's eyes had taken on a more menacing quality again, but Blake was too numb to worry about his innards this time. He waited, allowing the hiss of Bane's respirator to lull him back into a pleasant, painless doze.

Blake was almost asleep when Bane spoke again. "It was a prison brawl."

"That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Oh, if looks could kill...Bane didn't turn his head, just glanced at when Blake was lying on the floor. "The man who shot you."

Threat, not a question. Blake swallowed the lump in his throat. "He doesn't have a real name," he admitted, stalling because he didn't want to utter his shooter's alias. Phantom razors danced over his arms and chest, making Blake want to crawl out of his own skin. They could have talked about anything else or nothing at all, but Bane had naturally picked the one topic that slashed Blake to pieces. Almost literally. "He goes by the Joker."

"The Clown Prince of Crime."

Bane's crackled, regal baritone almost made him sound like a true monarch. Blake's face twisted in disdain. "That would be him."

"The man who crippled the Nightwing."

More increasingly terrible nicknames. "You really got a thing for theatrics," Blake said bitterly.

"You were once a costumed vigilante, the Batman's successor."

Blake had to concede on that point. "Touché."

They went a long while without speaking after that, but Blake didn't find himself nodding off anymore. He started to feel a lot clearer, more in control than he had for hours now, years even. His back wasn't an angry mess of raw nerves, his left leg didn't throb endlessly with pain, the pressure in his chest was gone, his neck and shoulders no longer stretching to beyond their capacity. The last time Blake felt this awake was the night of his last patrol, just before Joker darkened his doorway. Since then, life was a blur of pain and pain management techniques, but none left his vision and cognition as crystal clear as this. Blake could have taken over Gotham on a cocktail like this. There were days when he would have taken over Gotham for a cocktail like this.

"What prison were you in?" Blake dared to ask. The last vestiges of his high were beginning to clear, but he wanted to know what place on earth could have created a monster like Bane.

The mercenary was not going to reply at first, judging by his profile, but after a long beat, he finally responded, "It is hell on earth."

"Worse than Gotham?"

A slight chuckle. "Far worse than Gotham. In Gotham, there is no light, no hope for escape, not for me, but in the Pit, hope is all there is."

"What's wrong with hope?" Blake wondered.

"Hope is an illusion. A promise unkept."

"I don't believe that."

"No," Bane replied, "You choose to believe instead that a psychotic with a history of violent behaviour would not shoot you if given the opportunity. That a group of doctors would be able to successfully block the pain from nerve damage. That you can stop Strange's monsters before they tear Gotham apart."

Right argument, wrong time, Blake thought, balling his hands into fists. "I can't just lie here and do nothing," he said darkly, and then amended that statement with, "for the rest of the night."

Bane didn't even bother to laugh that time. "You would do battle with two chemically enhanced beasts of burden armed with only an iron will and foolish hope."

Blake's face formed itself into his hardened detective's stare with just a hint of Nightwing's trademark grin. "Where," he asked, "do you think an iron will comes from?"

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