Chapter Seventeen: News on the Go

As the exit only loomed closer with each passing mile, back in her plush office at Wayne Enterprises, Talia stared at the door long after Detective Blake had closed it after dishing out Gotham PD intel.

Her mind whirred as she evaluated her plan of action going forward. She glanced at the clock on her desktop, calculating how long it would take Bane to arrive at the Tri-Towers with the Prime-Time princess in tow.

As Talia began to revise her plan, hours away, the exit from the highway grew imminently.

Bane gave a mechanical growl, the frustrated sound slipping from the front of his mask as the time drew for him to make a choice.

He reached up and angled the rearview mirror so that he could see Gwendolyn sprawled on the van's dirty floor.

Bane had known from the moment he'd seen her exquisite face on the tablet's HD screen that he could never share her world.

If he wanted her, he'd have to take her to his world, being sure to plant an orchard of pomegranate shrubs after he'd whisked her away.

"Apologies Miss Mourn," Bane wheezed as he let his eyes linger on Gwendolyn's unconscious reflection in the oval mirror as he took the northern exit.

He squeezed his hands tight around the steering wheel, his heart pounded in his chest with how close he'd come to defying Talia.

His forehead pulled into a frown as he flicked his eyes up to the mirror when Gwendolyn moaned from the filthy metal floor.

Bane wasn't ready to crucify his savior, he wasn't ready to pierce her side with a spear.

He needed to get Gwendolyn to the Tri-Towers for immediate medical attention.

Talia's personal physician Doctor August Fell lived in the Towers, he had the entire top floor as his living area and surgical suites.

Dr. Fell could perform vascular surgery in one area and dialysis in the other.

Bane kept the accelerator pressed to the floor, urging the large engine to devour the remaining miles between the van and the Towers, the shockwave of how close he'd come to lobotomizing Talia's dictations with nine-inch nails continued to reverberate inside his skull.

He was breathing heavily as the Tri-Towers finally appeared. Bane made a noise that echoed Gwendolyn's gasp of pain when he lifted her from the littered floor of the van.

Bane's footfalls were deafening inside the lobby of the Tri-Towers as he carried Gwendolyn to the elevators, holding in her arms as though she was his bleeding bride.

Doctor August Fell was waiting on the top floor when the elevator doors slid open.

He'd been made aware of Bane's presence through a variety of drone surveillance, human eyes on the ground and motion-sensor security footage.

Bane nodded at Dr. Fell as he stepped out of the elevator; the compression bandage he'd applied at the mall had slipped and Gwendolyn had begun bleeding again.

Dr. Fell had lost the privilege of legally practicing medicine on the soil of multiple countries and was wanted by Interpol and numerous other three-lettered organizations.

He had a questionable moral compass but could perform micro-surgery in a moving vehicle, could repair a torn open aorta with sweat running into his eyes.

Dr. Fell was not an entirely bad man, just a genius sociopath who could wield a scalpel in lifesaving or taking in equal measure.

Dr. Fell asked no questions and Bane offered nothing as he settled Gwendolyn's shaking body on a stainless-steel gurney.

"Sit, please," Dr. Fell said, gesturing to a few sofas.

Dr. Fell didn't wait for a reply, turning sharply on his heel in the direction that Gwendolyn had been wheeled.

Bane watched Dr. Fell walk away, pacing the sitting area that could've been called a waiting room.

As he paced, in the modified surgical suite number three, Gwendolyn's clothes were cut off and anesthesia started before the wound was prepped, eventually draped, the overhead lights trained on the bullet's entrance wound.

As Dr. Fell stopped Gwendolyn's bleeding, cauterized ripped open blood vessels, and cleaned out the wound, Bane paced the top floor, clenching his hands in and out of loose fists as he longed for the ability to go back in time and change the events in the mall.

As Bane paused in front of a tall bookcase, plucking books at random, his eyes moving over the words, not seeing the letters, back at Wayne Enterprises, Blake lingered outside the elevator, wanting to find a reason to go back and talk to the delectable Miranda Tate.

As Blake ducked into the men's room, checking his teeth, and smoothing back his hair before he walked back to Miranda's office, hours, and hours away at the Tri-Towers Bane leapt to his feet when Dr. Fell reappeared and walked back through the doorway, his hands freshly scrubbed and dried. He'd changed into a clean blue cotton top, the other had been splattered with Gwendolyn's blood.

Dr. Fell saw the concern swirling with fiery pyroclastic splashes in Bane's burnt chestnut orbs as he closed the distance between them.

"Everything went fine. The bullet went completely through with no structural damages. It'll take her some time to recover but she'll be fine. You can see her in a couple hours."

Bane blew out a slow measured breath as Dr. Fell summarized his surgical approach, suturing and wound closure and what to expect with Gwendolyn's recovery.

Dr. Fell held Bane's unblinking eyes as impressed that Gwendolyn's healing would benefit from a calm environment.

Dr. Fell left Bane to his thoughts, reiterating that he could see Gwendolyn in a couple hours.

In the time before he could see her, Bane walked around the top floor, looking into the various rooms and equipment as each minute seemed to move backwards.

Bane forced himself to walk without urgency as one of Dr. Fell's nurses on staff sought out Bane as he was staring out a large window, shielding his eyes from the sun that beat against the heavily tinted glass.

Bane followed the mousey brunette down a series of hallways, eventually coming to a private room, inside, the lilac privacy curtain was completely pulled closed.

"Just press that red button if you need anything," the nurse told Bane, pointing to a button on the light switch's plastic panel, before she left him alone, closing the door behind her.

Bane nodded his gratitude, waiting until the door shut before he slowly pulled back the curtain.

He felt a twinge throughout his broad chest as his eyes fell upon Gwendolyn under the deep blue bed linen, wires coming from under the sheets that monitored her heart.

A nylon cuff secured around her upper arm hissed intermittently as it recorded and displayed her blood pressure on a digital monitor.

Her upper chest and shoulder was swathed in layers of thick absorbent gauze, all secured with strips of paper tape. The coiled drain tube ran into a plastic bulb, collecting blood from the fresh, just repaired wound.

Bane walked to Gwendolyn's unaffected side, staring down at her sleeping face, the anesthesia drugs still heady in her system.

He tentatively reached out a hand and traced the pads of his rough fingertips in small circles on the top of her hand.

Bane drew his hand back as though he'd been burned when the privacy curtain was pulled open, a tech walked in holding a large pink basin of warm soapy water and a stack of clean, neatly folded towels.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I was told to give her a bed bath," the startled tech managed at the sight of Bane's formidable form.

He seemed even larger in the small room.

"I will do that," Bane stated in a mechanical melody that didn't invite argument as he took the towels and basin from the young tech.

The tech left, grateful to be dismissed.

Bane set the basin and towels on the bedside tray and locked the room door, turning his full attention back to Gwendolyn after he pulled the privacy curtain closed.

He saturated a washcloth, adding liquid soap and agitating the fabric until bubbles spilled over his large hands.

Bane delicately moved the towel across her sharp features, moving the cloth over her closed eyelids and down the bridge of her nose.

Gwendolyn made small sounds as Bane continued to uncover and clean her body in quadrants.

A mechanical hiss slipped from between Bane's lips and spilled from the front of his mask as his eyes fell on the bruising stippling Gwendolyn's supple flesh. He traced the rough pad of his finger over the deep oval marring across her soft curves.

He settled his hand on her belly, spreading his fingers as he stared down at her sleeping face.

Bane reluctantly pulled the linen back up to her chest, brushing a few errant strands of hair off her forehead, letting his touch linger as he reveled in her fragility.

A series of mechanical wheezes fell from the front of Bane's mask as he dragged the soapy cloth along her bare skin, stippled with bruising from his rough touch.

He knew he'd made her run, liked the enticing glow that radiated from her when she was scared, liked fucking her when she glowed from within, a roiling churning pool of original fear.

Bane scrubbed away the dried blood surrounding the taped edges of her bandages.

He felt a twisted coil of spine-bowing nausea hit his center with how close he'd come to losing her.

Almost losing Gwendolyn created a visceral need within Bane to possess every part of her, to bathe in her fragility and dine off of her as though she was a prized delicacy.

"It was necessary to bring you here Miss Mourn," Bane rasped in a mechanical melody as he ran the dry cloth in long strokes across the naked flesh of her chest and belly.

As he watched her dark nipples pucker and harden from the cool air, he realized how he'd been so hasty in touching her, filling her.

Bane looked down at Gwendolyn's unconscious form, dragging his eyes over the curves of her breasts as her chest rose and fell evenly.

"I will no longer disregard your pleasure," Bane growled in a powerful melody as he arranged her gown and linen until she was snug as an injured bug in a hospital bed.