Inside a 30th floor suite at Gotham's renowned Hotel Waverley, an adulterous union abruptly came to an end as Christopher Ainsley-Wood pulled out of his partner, slapped her naked thigh and raised himself from the bed.
"Thanks, Babe," he said callously.
"Hey wait a minute, we're not done here, Chris," she whined. "I didn't —"
"I'm sorry, Cassie," he interrupted gruffly. "Didn't I tell you? Mayor Garcia invited me to his box for today's game. I don't want to miss the opening kickoff."
"No, you did not tell me! What was the point of us even coming here if only for an hour? I wanted today to be special, to order room service and spend the afternoon in bed together," she pouted. "Now I feel like a whore."
"Cassie, it can't always be about what you want, alright? If we're going to continue to see one another you'll have to be more like my wife and learn not to complain."
Christopher reached for his clothing and headed for the opulent bathroom, leaving his disappointed lover alone in the king-sized bed.
"I wasn't complaining," Cassandra protested after he had emerged, showered and dressed. "I just wish I'd known. Maybe we could have put it off for a better day."
"This is my hotel suite," he said testily as he sat on the bed to put on his socks and shoes. "I have a house account here. Stay as long as you like and order room service if that's what you want!"
"Now you're angry again! Talk to me, Chris." She rose up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her naked breasts against his back and laying her head on his shoulder.
"Did you argue with your wife again? Did she make you angry this morning?"
"I don't want to talk about it," he muttered.
"Then divorce her," Cassandra whispered. "I'll be a much better wife to you."
"That's not going to happen," he scoffed as he shrugged her off and reached for his suit jacket. "My family would never accept you."
Cassandra frowned. "You mean…because they're racist."
"I wouldn't go that far, Cassie. It's just that they're old-school. They believe people should stick to their own kind, and they expect certain refinements in a wife. It's lucky for you I don't share their beliefs."
Cassandra's lip trembled as Christopher buttoned his beautifully-tailored suit jacket. It was then that she noticed the damage to his right hand.
"Your knuckles are bruised. What happened?"
"Don't fuss, Cassie," he admonished, irritable again. "Why do you have to be so inquisitive? It's nothing. I slammed the door on my hand."
"Here then, let me kiss it better…"
"You know, you really have to do something with this hair," he said, as he pulled roughly on her mop of curly bleached blonde hair. "Wear it up or tie it back, but don't walk around looking like you just got laid!"
Cassandra was rendered speechless by his ugly words. Two big tears rolled down her cheeks. Sometimes he was impossible to please.
"Now look, I'm sorry we quarrelled," Christopher sighed as he kissed her on the forehead and wiped her tears away. "I have to go now. I'll call you later?"
"Bye," she murmured forlornly as she heard the suite door close.
She sobbed quietly into the sheets for a time, until she steeled herself and rose out of bed to retrieve the room service menu from the desk. She was determined to order champagne and caviar for lunch, neither of which she had ever tasted before.
As she put the phone down, she noticed Christopher's billfold and cellphone on the desk. He had mistakenly left them behind, and it was far too late to catch up to him.
—
An hour later Gotham City was invaded by an army of mercenaries. They were led by a charismatic, muscle-bound masked man who announced himself by blowing up much of the infrastructure of the city, including major roads, tunnels and bridges. The explosions began at Rogues Stadium, just after kickoff at a game between the Rogues and the Rapid City Monuments. To the horror of the sold-out stadium, an entire section of the field imploded and a row of elite skyboxes burst into flames.
Dressed in a sheepskin coat, the masked man strode out to the edge of the sunken field to address the crowd. He was accompanied by armed men who rolled a live neutron bomb out onto the field. He also held a prisoner — a scientist who was the only man who could diffuse the bomb. To cement his hold on Gotham, he shocked the crowd by killing the scientist and threatening detonation if anyone tried to leave the city. He then sent the traumatized crowd home under martial law, with the promise of more to come.
The next day, the tyrant offered up his manifesto at the gates of Blackgate Prison. After exposing the villainy of Harvey Dent and Commissioner James Gordon, he blew open the prison's massive metal gates. As the armed and jubilant inmates flooded the streets, he preached anarchy. The rich and corrupt were to be cast out of their homes, spoils were to be enjoyed, and a civilian army would be raised. No one would interfere with the people's lawlessness. Most emphatically, he insisted that Gotham would survive.
He then climbed into his armed vehicle and returned to City Hall, where he had chased out staff and installed his own men.
—
Later that same day, a distraught woman somehow managed to evade the throng of mercenaries who now guarded City Hall.
Dried blood stained her displaced nose. Her left eye was black, blue and bloodshot. Her swollen lips were split in two places and there were bruises along her jaw and at the base of her neck.
Determinedly, she pushed through the lobby past the mercenaries and charged up the stairs towards the mezzanine.
Given her wounded and disoriented state, the mercenaries believed that she was fleeing the anarchy in the streets. In the lobby, a man named Dolan calmly spoke into his walkie-talkie.
"Deranged woman coming your way, brother. Black eye and a broken nose."
Static was heard over the walkie talkie as the man on the other end of the conversation replied.
The young woman tripped and staggered on the top stair before managing to right herself. She looked around frantically until she was stopped by a bearded mercenary armed with an assault rifle pointed directly at her.
"Halt," he shouted. "This isn't public property any more. It belongs to Bane now. Trespassers will be shot on sight!"
"No… no, don't shoot. Please don't shoot," she begged in a small voice, cowering to her knees and covering her head with her arms.
"I'm counting to five, then I'm going to blow that busted nose clean off your face."
"Wait, please! Is…is that his name? Bane? May I speak to him, please?"
The corners of the man's thin lips drew up, and a cruel giggle burst forth from his throat.
"May you speak to him?" He mimicked once his laughter had died down. "No, you may not, lady!"
Without warning his hands were all over her, patting her down in search of a weapon, lingering on her firm breasts and the sweet spot between her legs.
"Nice," he murmured.
The woman stiffened, wincing while the mercenary molested her. When he was done, he raised the barrel of his rifle once more.
"Last chance, sister. Go back the way you came. My guys will escort you out."
"Wait! You have every right to be cautious," she exclaimed, "but I didn't come here to kill anyone. Your masked man did me a favour yesterday."
"What do you mean by that?" The mercenary demanded, suddenly curious. "Bane doesn't do favours."
"Can't you allow me to tell him myself? He's a cruel man. He might appreciate what I have to say, because I suppose…I suppose it's warped."
"Warped, huh?" He swatted her hard in the mouth and shoved her. The woman fell to the floor, and moaned softly as fresh blood poured from her split lip.
Disgusted, the mercenary picked her up by the collar of her expensive tweed coat, and dragged her offside the common area.
Her head rolled as she caught sight of another figure — a giant whose presence blocked the skylight above. Here was the man she had come to see. He was the masked monolith who had commandeered both the stadium and Blackgate Prison.
She stared at him, consumed by stark terror. He was half man, half monster, and she instantly regretted her decision to seek him out.
A low hissing sound of enhanced respiration sounded, and then the giant spoke.
"What is this?" he asked, his robotized voice brimming with annoyance. "Why is she here?"
"Who are you?" the bearded man demanded as he kicked the woman's side. "You never told me your name! We gotta have names here!"
Slowly she lifted her head, rolled over and raised herself on her elbows.
"My name is Parker… Parker Ainsley-Wood," she replied as she brushed her long brown hair out of her eyes.
"Stop wasting our time, lady! Why do you say Bane did you a favour?"
She stumbled to her feet with an effort that took some time, much to the annoyance of both men. Gripping the high-heeled shoes that had slipped from her feet, she directed her terrified gaze at Bane.
"Thank you, Mr. Bane," she gasped, "for what you did for me at the stadium yesterday. You…you saved my life!" Her cultured tones began to squeak uncontrollably. "You set me free." Tears flowed and she lowered her head, deeply ashamed of showing emotion in front of the villain.
Bane did not look directly at her, nor did he respond right away. Instead, his attention was focused on the mezzanine windows behind her, as if she were not even there.
She was about to turn away and retreat down the stairs when he finally responded.
"And how did I save your life?" The rough, metallic tones of his voice echoed throughout the common area. She recognized the same unusual cadence from the news broadcasts, except now he sounded far less friendly.
"When you blew up the stadium, sir, you killed my husband. He was one of the guests…in Mayor Garcia's box. He didn't call or come home last night. The news reports say that everyone in the box was incinerated in the blast."
Bane digested the information and glanced at her briefly.
"If you are grateful to me for killing your husband, then it was he who inflicted these wounds upon you," he concluded.
"He beat me within an inch of my life yesterday, and tried to strangle me. He would have killed me next time," she declared, wiping tears mixed with blood from her face with the sleeve of her coat. "I owe you my life. I owe you everything. Whoever you are, no matter what you've done, I want you to know that."
"Enough," Bane bellowed, turning away from her. "Throw her back into the street where she belongs." He then gestured to the floor with his massive forefinger. "And clean up this blood."
"Alright, out you go!" the bearded mercenary ordered, grabbing her arm and hustling her away from Bane. As he pushed her down the stairs he was met head on by a man dressed in hospital fatigues.
"Hey, hey, hey! What the hell is this, Barsad," the man demanded as he observed Parker.
"Bane ordered me to throw her out. She's a high-society dame from uptown. Managed to get by our guys to see Bane."
"Well, she's not going anywhere just yet. My arrangement with Bane stipulates that I work as a doctor without borders. This woman needs medical attention. She'll get it from me no matter who she is."
"Deals are made to be broken, as I'm sure Bane warned you. Sooner or later you're gonna overstep your bounds with me, Doc. When you do, I'll be waiting," Barsad sneered.
The doctor stared down the mercenary, unfazed by his threat. He was bigger than Barsad and closer to Bane in size.
"And you better hope you never get hurt during this occupation, because if you do you'll go to the bottom of the list for treatment, no matter how critical or how painful."
Barsad smirked. "Nah, that'll never happen. You may have lost your medical licence, but you still got rules," he heckled.
"Big shooter with an even bigger mouth," the doctor countered calmly. "You're nothing without that rifle. Just a scrawny little guy who I could take with one arm tied behind my back!"
Before Barsad could lunge at him, both men were chastened by a long shadow of disapproval looming above.
Bane had observed the entire exchange between them.
"Take your patient to the infirmary if you must, Dr. Velez," the masked man boomed irritably. "Don't let me see you engaging my men again, or else your saintly mother will learn the truth about you!"
The doctor glanced warily at Bane. "Come with me ma'am. We'll get you fixed up." He brushed past Barsad and steered the bewildered Parker back up the stairs.
—
Parker's eyes fluttered open to unfamiliar surroundings.
"Well hey, Parker," Dr. Velez said brightly. "You slept a good twelve hours."
"Where am I," she asked groggily as she raised herself from the hard bed and immediately noted that she was dressed in an unflattering cotton hospital gown.
"You're still at City Hall. It's four o'clock in the morning. When you arrived here yesterday you were injured and dehydrated. I put you on a drip, gave you a sedative, set your nose and cleaned you up."
"Oh, of course," she said, vaguely recalling the doctor rescuing her from the bearded man, and being treated for her wounds. "You're Dr…Velez? Since when is there a hospital at City Hall?"
"Bane declined to occupy the city's hospitals because he doesn't have the manpower to police them. Instead, he set up a temporary medical facility here to treat his injured men."
Parker observed the makeshift hospital around her. She was in a large, bright room. Curtained racks divided hospital beds, but she couldn't tell if there were any other patients.
"I need to visit the ladies' room," she said apologetically as she climbed out of the uncomfortable bed.
"I'll bet you do," the doctor replied cheerfully. "You have two bags of saline solution in you. Washroom's down the hall to your right."
Once she had voided her bladder, Parker stared at her reflection in the long washroom mirror, freshly horrified by the damage inflicted by her husband. He had hit her many times before, but with the latest incident he had risen to a new level of violence.
"If you're done with me, I'll get dressed. I really must go home," she said as she returned from the washroom. "I want to sleep for a week."
"You get back into bed," the doctor ordered firmly. "Given your injuries, I want to monitor you for a few more hours to make sure you don't have a concussion. And anyway, it's too dangerous out there in the dark, what with all the anarchy. Bane lifted martial law, and the gang he riled up at Blackgate has been tossing people like you out of their homes and into the street all night long."
"What do you mean 'people like me'?" she frowned.
"Rich people," he replied bluntly.
Parker clutched the neckline of her hospital gown. It was all coming back to her now. She'd watched Bane's speech at Blackgate, but the news of Christopher's fate had understandably distracted her.
Her eyes regarded the muscular doctor curiously. "Tell me, Dr. Velez, why is a nice doctor like you working for a man like Bane?"
"I'm a gynaecologist by trade," he replied without hesitation. "I slipped up — I had a fling with one of my patients. She was angry when I broke it off, accused me of seducing her and reported me to the medical board."
"I see," she murmured, pausing to think of her own cheating husband. "Was it worth it?"
"I lost my wife, my kids and my license. And now I work for Bane. You tell me," he shrugged.
He settled into a chair opposite her bed and observed her with interest. "Now that you know my secret, how about you tell me yours? Who did this to you? Who beat you up?"
Parker sighed, at first intending to tell another version of the same old story — that she had fallen, or collided with a door. But there was no point in hiding it any longer, and she had already told Bane.
"It was my… my husband."
"I thought so," he nodded. "I just wanted to hear it from you. You weren't very talkative last night."
Resigned to telling the truth, Parker sighed nervously before continuing.
"Christopher – that's my husband – he was invited by the mayor to the Rogues game. Yesterday I saw a news report that said the mayor was killed along with the guests in his skybox — all burned beyond recognition in the explosion. I was traumatized the whole day because Christopher had tried to strangle me, and I was so grateful that it would never happen again that I rushed here to thank Bane. He ordered his men to throw me out, and that's when you found me."
"Jesus! So yesterday you were relieved to hear that your husband was dead. How do you feel about it now?"
—
Elsewhere at City Hall, the masked mercenary settled into the desk chair in the mayor's office as Barsad entered. Neither man had slept, preferring to closely monitor the street violence encouraged by Bane the previous day.
"Check this out, Bane," Barsad said as he grasped the remote and raised the volume on the massive video screen that lined the wall opposite the mayor's desk.
"Gotham City News has now acquired a list of the three guests who were expected to attend the Mayor's skybox. Missing and presumed dead along with Mayor Garcia are 40 year-old Alex Khadri, 48 year-old Jimmy Albertini, and 30 year-old Christopher Ainsley-Wood, all of Gotham City. It's tragic news for the families of the victims. As many of our viewers may be aware, the Ainsley-Wood family is one of the original founding families of Gotham."
"How about that? Uptown girl was telling the truth," Barsad exclaimed. "You killed her husband and all she wanted was to thank you for it. And here I was thinking that she came to scratch your eyes out with her manicured nails, all because of what you'd done to Gotham."
"No one is to breach the main doors again," Bane ordered coldly. "Anyone who attempts to ascend the main stairs will be shot on sight, be it man, woman or child."
"I already told the guys downstairs." He was used to anticipating and carrying out Bane's orders, and took particular pride in reading his commander well.
"The husband was a handsome guy," the sniper observed as photos of the skybox victims rotated on the screen. "A rich, blonde, blue-eyed pretty boy asshole who beat his wife!"
Bane leaned back in the mayor's desk chair, spreading his rough palms along the edge of the expansive desk, and feeling a new power course through his veins.
"That is precisely why it is necessary for Gotham to die. Men like him have corrupted this city to its core," he mused as he frowned upon the photo of Christopher Ainsley-Wood.
He turned to his laptop, soon learning that Ainsley-Wood came from a family of financiers, but had quickly established himself in his own company as a ruthless hedge fund manager. Bane's mask hummed with interest as he read further into the man's life and reputation.
His spouse Parker was known more for her charity work rather than her presence on Gotham's dazzling social scene. Following her lavish wedding, she had gradually withdrawn from the limelight.
Bane reasoned that her privacy was understandable, given that her husband beat her. He scanned her photos impassively, noting that without the bruises and broken nose she was a natural brunette beauty. Of course, she would be nothing less.
He then proceeded to read an account of the couple's wedding. The heirs to two of Gotham's oldest and wealthiest families joined together at historic St. Andrew's Church, followed by a sumptuous evening reception at Wilkinson's Farm. The bride was resplendent in a spectacular Vera Wang wedding gown…
Beneath the mask, Bane sneered at the ridiculous description.
They were Gotham royalty, and fairy-tale weddings like theirs were met with great anticipation. Such occasions allowed the people to live vicariously through the display of wealth and privilege.
There would be no more of that now. If Bane had communicated his message properly at Blackgate, the people now understood that the upper classes had held them down with myths of opportunity. It was time for the people to fight back.
Bane's reverie was suddenly interrupted by Barsad's voice.
"Let's go, brother. Talia will be waiting."
—
"Congratulations, Bane. The work you accomplished over the past few days is nothing short of exemplary. Of course, I expect nothing less from you. You started a fire under the people, and brought the wealthy and powerful to their knees."
Bane had arranged to meet with his exotic partner-in-crime in the ancient wooden freight elevator at the rear of City Hall, which he had taken out of service for their meeting. Barsad stood outside the elevator door, safeguarding the two senior members of the League of Shadows.
Dressed in the clothing of her alter ego Miranda Tate, Talia al Ghul wore a navy double-breasted jacket, black pants and boots. It was sensible clothing that was consistent with Miranda's situation, as she was now forced to live in the offices of the Wayne building.
Bane nodded once, acknowledging her praise while fully anticipating criticism.
"However, I was shocked to learn the news of John Daggett's murder," she continued. "I trust I have you to thank for that."
"His money and infrastructure were important, but he knew too much and his erratic behaviour had become a threat to us," Bane observed calmly. "He gave us what we wanted. We had no further use for him."
"We've talked about this before, Bane. You have a history of disobeying me or failing to consult with me. Daggett's death was not your call."
Bane thoroughly enjoyed the times when Talia became angry with him, because it was then that he could see how much she felt truly threatened by his power. Ever since Bane and his mercenaries set up shop in the tunnels months ago, he and Talia had been locked in a silent battle over who would be remembered as the true mastermind behind the destruction of Gotham.
He'd done all the heavy lifting, and yet he knew that Talia would ride the wave of victory all the way back to the League's base once their work was done.
She would have help in that regard. The League of Shadows valued subtlety above all else, and Talia practised the delicate art of deception. Bane was only too aware that within the walls of the League of Shadows, he was defined by his brutality. He had used every part of his body as a means to kill at one time or another – his hands, his knees, his elbows, his feet, his forehead.
Who would remember him for his fine military mind and brilliant dictatorial skills. Who would remember his masterful oratory? Talia might grudgingly acknowledge him in one of her charitable moments, but Ra's al Ghul's old guard would continue to see him merely as monstrous, masked muscle.
That was going to all change, if Bane got his way. He just needed a plan.
"Your impulsiveness has cost us money, and we will be five months here," she hissed. "What are you doing about finding us a new benefactor?"
"Do not worry, my dear Talia," he assured her in a lazy tone. "Daggett's death does not impoverish us. I have resources, and in a few days I will deliver you a new revenue stream."
—
Author's Note: There's a lot to chew on in this first chapter. Please let me know what you think. Thank you so much for reading!