Chapter One: In the Beginning
In the immediate moments after the neutron bomb's detonation, a bird's-eye-view of Gotham City showed the dead littering the streets.
In the days following the thermonuclear blast, Blake, Selina, and the majority of Gotham City believed that the Batman had sacrificed his life so that millions of others could live, a cowl-wearing, costumed, caped Jesus H. Christ, sans cross.
In the weeks that came after the neutron burst from the enhanced radiation weapon, Gordon was unanimously voted in as Mayor of Gotham City, people looked to him as exactly what the city needed to rebuild, renew, and flourish. Foley's widow joined him in support on the steps of City Hall as he gave his acceptance speech.
As Gotham City healed its infrastructure, across the city at Gotham General, Bane's body continued to knit itself back together following the extensive damage the impact from Selina's canon fire had caused.
Potter's Field was bloated from the vast amount of new, burials of the fallen who had followed Bane without question.
Bane had been brought back from the brink of death and carefully coaxed back to life with innovative surgical techniques. It was paramount to Gordon, Blake, and Selina that Bane was healed enough to be transferred to Arkham Asylum and undergo a thorough psychiatric evaluation and be deemed competent to stand trial for crimes against humanity and not get to stay in cotton pajamas making macaroni noodle pictures the rest of his days.
Multiple, minimally invasive surgical revisions later, Bane was finally deemed healed enough to be transported to Arkham Asylum for a complete psychological evaluation.
The morning discharge nurse gathered up the staggering amount of paperwork in Bane's patient file as he was prepped to be moved to the transport gurney, he'd be heavily restrained both chemically and physically.
Despite having a doctor sign off on his medical record that he was fit for transport and a mental evaluation, Bane remained in a severely weakened state. He felt like an earthworm that had gotten stuck traversing a sidewalk that turned hot under the beating sun and burned to death, exposed.
His opiate, aerosolized breathing apparatus had been removed and his physical agony was being treated by a much less potent pain management cocktail.
Bane's series of surgeries only added to the scarred landscape of his broad, muscular body.
His heart had stopped beating and he had to be shocked back to life in addition to an adrenaline shot straight to his still, unmoving cardiac muscle tissue.
Bane's vitals had been stabilized and he was pumped full of fluids, platelets, and universal donor blood before he was taken for the first of nineteen surgeries.
For many of the medical procedures, he'd been in an induced coma, thrashing wildly each time he was brought back to consciousness despite his numerous injuries.
The discharge nurse reviewed each medical procedure before she initialed the triplicate transportation log that would be inputted in Bane's medical record.
Irene Elizabeth Mitchell murmured each surgery aloud before she initialed and checked the corresponding box on the transport log.
1. Chest tube for collapsed right lung. IEM
2. Bowel resection. IEM
3. Titanium plate with six screws for left broken collarbone. IEM
4. Craniotomy, skull replaced. IEM
5. Splenectomy. IEM
6. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy. IEM
7. Appendectomy. IEM
8. Esophageal reconstruction. IEM
9. Bilateral kidney stent placement. IEM
10. Repair of stomach tear. IEM
11. Partial liver lobe removal. IEM
12. Bilateral pectoral muscle reattachment. IEM
13. Right bicep reattachment. IEM
14. Repair left bicep tear. IEM
15. Titanium rod to right humerus. IEM
16. Partial removal of left lung. IEM
17. Resetting of multiple rib fractures. IEM
of fractured pelvis. IEM
19. Abdominal laparotomy. IEM
Irene started an IV at a steady drip rate in the top of Bane's shackled hand.
The heavy sedative filled Bane's bloodstream and he recalled very little of the ride to Arkham Asylum. He didn't feel the shafts of sunlight against his closed eyelids as he was wheeled through the new inmate entrance of the Asylum.
Bane groaned as several pairs of latex-gloved hands moved him to a new gurney.
He winced as the squeaking wheels assaulted his ear's tiny cochlea bones.
The drip rate of Bane's IV was increased as he started to protest at the feel of the same hands began to peel away his hospital gown.
Bane lapsed back into a dreamless void, free of pain for just a while as he was evaluated by the intake tech, his scars measured and recorded as well as a measurement of his vitals, height, and weight after being hoisted in a canvas lift.
Bane remained locked in the sedative's stranglehold as he was wheeled to the exam room and dressed by another tech in a pair of loose-fitting, elastic waist-banded, cotton pants and short-sleeved shirt, both in a shade of burnt orange.
He was assigned an inmate identification number and a plastic band was wrapped around his wrist and scanned to register him into the Asylum's system.
A rough-hewn blanket was settled over Bane and the overhead lights dimmed as he was left to sleep before being moved to his temporary room until his mental competency could be evaluated.
The next 72 hours passed differently for everyone amongst Gotham City.
Over the next 4,320 minutes, Bane was slowly acclimated to life at Arkham, whether it be temporary or for a lifetime.
The following 259,200 seconds found Bruce Wayne returning to Gotham City to give a rousing speech for the new Mayor James Gordon, topped with a disgusting display of an ego-sponsored, money-saturated parade.
As red, white and balloons were dropped onto the adoring crowd of Gothamites, Gordon and Bruce slid to a quiet corner to talk, having to nearly shout over the lusty cries from the citizens.
"I've never stopped looking for you, even during all of this," Gordon said as the two men gave each other a half-hug.
"We need to make sure Bane is found competent and taken to trial," Bruce shouted over the celebratory screams of Gordon's voters.
"Can you get me into Arkham and talk to whoever will be evaluating him?"
Gordon nodded, "I can bring you along, I'm meeting the doctor there this afternoon."
Bruce nodded, confident his megawatt smile, renaissance man suaveness or good old fashioned check writing skills would secure Bane was eviscerated in a court of law, his ego still bruised from Talia pulling the wool over his eyes and nearly ending his life. Bruce shook his head as he vividly recalled Talia sliding the knife between his ribs, the metallic taste of blood that flooded his mouth as she whispered presumed farewells before she swaggered off to destroy his city.
"Who's the doctor?" Bruce asked. "Is it still Eduard Ault?" he added, remembering his failed bribing skills to get the antiquated psychologist to declare The Joker competent for trial. He gritted his perfectly even teeth as he could still hear Dr. Ault chuckle at Bruce promising to erect a building for Ault to practice privately in exchange for a desirable diagnosis.
The previous Neuroanatomist had retired a decade before and moved south to the Sunshine State.
Doctor Maureen Hightower had been promoted to Psychiatric Director of Arkham Asylum.
As the parade carried on in downtown Gotham, on the outskirts of the city at the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, Doctor Maureen Hightower pulled her 1967 SS Chevy Nova to a rumbling halt in her assigned parking spot in the lot badly needing to be repaved. She cut the V8 engine and pushed open the heavy door.
Maureen slipped out of her tennis shoes she used to drive and slipped on her red-soled, shiny black Louboutin's before slipping out of the muscle car and smoothing down her burgundy pencil skirt. She pulled on her crisp, white coat with her name embroidered in a wine shade that matched her skirt before she walked to the employee's entrance of the sprawling Arkham Asylum.
Maureen nodded to the guard on the opposite side of the steel door.
"Good morning Dr. Hightower," Carl called from behind his desk, two doughnuts on a paper plate next to him along with a cup of scorched coffee. The first doughnut was already being broken down by gastric juice in his large stomach. The bloated organ was nestled in his larger, fleshy midsection.
"How was your weekend Carl?" Maureen asked as she pressed the elevator call button.
"Just fine doctor, we barbecued with the neighbors, yourself?"
Maureen smiled tightly, "it was quiet. See you later Carl," she added before boarding the elevators, watching him disappear as the doors closed.
Maureen regarded her grainy reflection from the closed silver doors and blew out a low breath as the elevator climbed to the top floor, spilling out to the carpeted hallway that led to her large, corner office. Her healthy ferns enjoyed the near wall-to-ceiling windows of her office, sunny days made the space a lush, lively habitat inside the walls that contained the Asylum's suffering.
Maureen shrugged out of her slate-grey peacoat and hung it on the tarnished hook of her office door.
She made a beeline to the coffeepot she had on top of a small refrigerator, tired of walking back and forth to the employee lounge.
She measured out the grounds and added the appropriate amount of water before switching the coffeemaker on. As the coffee percolated, she attended to misting the ferns with her turquoise-blue spray bottle and plucking the dried and dead fronds from the living stems.
Maureen hummed a mournful ballad as she turned her attention to her daily calendar and traced the pad of her fingertip down her appointments for the day. After her first of three appointments with the Joker for the week, she had a meeting with the new Mayor James Gordon and Bruce Wayne.
Maureen could see why Gordon would be visiting but not Wayne.
She traced her finger further down the page and saw her notes for after the meeting where she was scheduled to see the new patient who was court-ordered to be evaluated for his competency in crimes against humanity or whether he'd spend the rest of his life at Arkham.
Maureen poured herself a cup of black coffee and after ensuring her office door was locked, settled in the plush chair behind her desk.
She shuffled through her inbox and read through Bane's chart. She shook her head as she read about the multiple surgeries, blood, and fluid transfusions and stainless-steel implants. Maureen reviewed Bane's intake information which all showed normal levels except for some vitamin D and B12 deficiencies from his most recent blood panel.
Maureen sipped at the hot French roast as she looked through the court proceedings and what the state was seeking to charge Bane with and her role in determining his competency. Talia al Ghul and many of the identified followers that had died along with her, were all posthumously charged, convicted, and metaphorically executed with so many candlelight vigils for crimes against humanity.
Maureen reached out and plucked a few chocolate candies from a cut-crystal bowl that was the only piece remaining in a set from her great-grandmother. She popped the brightly colored candies into her mouth and washed them down with the bitter brew.
Maureen fell headfirst into page after page of Bane's transfer paperwork, her analysis starting from progress notes recorded by his emergency and surgical room nurses.
She looked up at her closed door when a series of knocks rang out.
"Yes?" she called, quickly returning her gaze to the detail of one of Bane's surgeries and expected versus actual outcome.
"Doctor Hightower, it's Tommy," came the high-pitched voice from the other side of the closed door.
Maureen stood up and closed Bane's file before she opened the door to Tommy McShane, one of the more mild-mannered inmates despite slaughtering his wife and three daughters nearly four decades earlier. He'd never had an outburst since but would never again walk a free man since he had vomited up his daughter's deflated eyeballs soon after the police knocked down his front door, interrupting him as he was trussing up his wife.
"Good morning Tommy," Maureen said warmly as Tommy McShane returned her smile. "Come in," she added as she stepped aside and let him walk past her.
McShane, inmate number, TM19612601, was given more freedom among the imprisoned with his model behavior. He spent several hours a day around Maureen, helping her shred papers, empty the wastebaskets and ensure she never ran low on her bottled water, coffee grounds or chocolate candies.
Tommy puttered around the office while Maureen refilled her coffee cup and pulled out her notebook and began a fresh page with the date, ready to record her upcoming session notes with The Joker, despising that he wouldn't give her his given name or allow her to call him by anything but the criminal moniker.
Tommy McShane looked up at the clock, knowing he needed to finish up since Dr. Hightower was about to begin a session. He quickly tied the clear plastic garbage bag into a loose knot before gathering up his cleaning supplies and stuffed them back into their sunny yellow bucket.
Maureen rose from behind her desk and closed the door after Tommy, both murmuring courtesies before he'd back in the later afternoon.
She returned to settle behind her desk and began to dictate the start of her session notes where they'd be later transcribed by Dorothy Anne Parker, a miserable woman who liked to pretend she was related to the immortal, literary icon.
"This is Maureen Hightower," she started and proceeded to state the date and the Joker's ID number before pausing to take a sip of coffee. "Session number 475," she continued before confirming the Joker's medication regimen and searched her desk's leaning tower of paper for his recent blood work results, having been concerned about his liver values with the latest anti-psychotic in his system.
"As of our last session, he continues to offer delusions of grandeur and continues to meet seven of the nine criterium for Narcissistic Personality Disorder," Maureen murmured to the recording device before depressing the power button when three knocks from her closed door interrupted her. She glanced up at the clock and rolled her eyes, blowing out a breath of frustration at the infuriating tech Arnold Miles who always brought patients to her earlier than she requested.
"Hello Arnold, early again," Maureen said with a tight smile when she pulled open the door.
"Hiya doc, how's it hanging," the Joker drawled as he stood next to Arnold, more than a foot taller than the squat, chubby tech.
Maureen kept her smile plastered in place as she allowed Arnold to usher in the shackled Joker and secure him to the chair in front of her desk. The Joker's wrists were cuffed to the chair, standard protocol for inmate's with the Joker's violent proclivities. Maureen had made the critical and near-fatal error a decade before while she was in residency and misread a patient, not seeing past his façade of docility, and left him not as secured as the hospital dictated.
On cold days, her ribs ached from where'd they'd been broken in her foolishness.
Maureen settled behind her desk after closing the door, relieving herself of having to look at Arnold's porky face for at least an hour.
Dr. Hightower reviewed her standard questions, always eager to see which Joker she'd be talking with since his personality shifts were not predictable.
Maureen felt like every session with the Joker was like reaching into a candy jar and either losing a finger, contracting Ebola, or finding a cookie. Some sessions, the Joker would prattle on about how much he hated bats, particularly the kind that walked on two feet stuffed inside lizard skin shoes.
A cursory review of her session notes with the Joker would've also shown a multitude of sessions where he would talk about his mother. Some sessions he put her up on a pedestal and dropped to his knees in worship and other times he lamented that he never got to eat her spleen before he fucked her up the ass.
After Maureen checked in with the Joker on how he was sleeping and eating with the new medication, she set down her pen and leaned back in her chair, pulling her candy bowl closer as she settled in the plush leather.
"How've your dreams been?"
The Joker initially remained expressionless at her question. He'd told Maureen about recurring dreams that had begun plaguing him, not liking that he woke up feeling disturbed, hearing his heart pounding in his ears and the whooshing sound of blood rushing through his bloodstream, it sounded like waves crashing through the front of his skull as he laid in the dark and tried to push the darkness away.
"I dreamed about you last night," he whispered, slowly licking his lips.
Dr. Hightower pressed her lips together as she reached for her pen and made a check mark next to where she tracked the session topic as soon as the gates opened.
"Oh goody," Maureen thought to herself. "He's in a really good mood today."
"Did you?"
"I did, you wanna know what you were doing?"
"Would you like to share it with me?"
"Only if you really, really, really, want to hear it," the Joker let slowly fall from his lips.
"That's entirely up to you to decide."
"No," he Joker hissed. "Tell me you want to hear about it."
"Those are your dreams and if you'd like to share, then please feel free."
"You were naked," the Joker said on a high-pitched giggle.
Maureen nodded and swirled her cooling coffee, "and your nightmares?"
"I was naked too," the Joker cackled, ignoring her question.
Maureen finished the dregs of the coffee and set the cup to the side of her desk calendar as she glanced back at the Joker's latest lab values.
"How have your bowel habits been since starting the new sleeping pill?"
"Are you askin' how many times I take a shit?"
Maureen looked up at him, speaking as her eyes remained unblinking. "Not an exact number, just as long as you've had frequent, easy-to-pass bowel movements."
The Joker narrowed his eyes and sniffed. "Ya know, you really know how to kill the mood. Anyone ever tell you that before?"
Maureen picked up a handful of the candy-coated chocolate, considering his question before nodding. "A time or two," she said with a shrug. "How's your appetite been since the antibiotics?"
The Joker looked around the room, his eyes landing on the baubles decorating her bookshelves. "I could eat now," he said as he brought his eyes back to hers and added with a wink. "I ate my mother ya know?"
"Did you?" Maureen asked, making a dash in a column in which she tallied the stories of his mother's death.
The Joker's version of his mother's death violently varied from session to session.
Sometimes he said that he stayed at her bedside as she died from stage four lymphoma. Other sessions, he'd say that he had pushed her down the stairs, his only regret being that she's broken her neck on the first step and was dead before she finished falling.
More often than not, the Joker would say he'd assaulted his mother, fucking one or all of her holes with his cock or a blunt object before eating some part of her.
"I don't want to talk about my mother anymore," he said suddenly and would've crossed his arms if his wrists weren't cuffed.
"What would you like to talk about?"
"You."
"Me?"
"Do you like taking over Dr. Ault's office?"
"It's not too bad," Maureen admitted as she looked around the room. "It took a long time to get the smell of cigar smoke out of here."
The Joker chuckled, remembering the sessions with Doctor Eduard Ault where they'd bullshit about boxing, betting on the races and smoke Cubans until the office looked like it was on fire. "He had good cigars," the Joker wistfully remembered with a faraway smile.
"He has stage four lung cancer too," Maureen stated dryly.
The Joker shrugged and waggled his manacled wrists. "Better to be dying on the other side of these walls than inside them."
Maureen would've had a difficult time making a salient defense against his words and instead looked at the tops of his knuckles which were bruised and swollen.
"What happened there?" she asked as she pointed her pen at his hands.
The Joker's lips pulled into a smile, "checkers."
"Checkers?"
The Joker nodded, "it's a rough game," he added with a wink.
Maureen nodded and made note of his hands and the lack of an incident report in his file.
The rest of their session passed easily as Maureen remained pleased that the Joker was in a jovial mood.
After the session ended and the Joker was escorted back to his room by Arnold, Maureen recorded her closure notes as well as noted the medication change.
She stood up from behind her desk and stretched her arms high overhead on her way to the pocket bathroom tucked in the corner of the room.
Maureen washed her hands and regarded her reflection in the oval mirror over the sink before securing some loose tendrils of hair back in place after they'd escaped her low, loose bun. The glossy strands glowed under the bright lights; the seventy-five-watt bulbs made the inky black strands of her hair shine like that of a raven's pinfeathers.
She refilled her cup and settled back at her desk before she opened Bane's chart and began dictating the start of the notes for their first session.
"This is Dr. Maureen Hightower, Neuroanatomist at Arkham Asylum," she started before restating the date and Bane's temporary ID number. "I am here to examine and make a determination of the patient's mental status, in line with the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This analysis will be completed using the state's current legal standard and will include detailed analysis of the inmate's ability or inability to understand what exactly they are being charged with as well as determine if the behavior was deliberate and depraved or due to a mental health imbalance. At the end of the state's ordered analysis sessions, a summary will be provided to the court. Under Penal Code section 5656, the analysis will include whether a medication regimen of anti-psychotics would alleviate symptoms or behavior and whether the behavior can be addressed in a pharmacological manner. The analysis will be completed with a recommendation for placement within Arkham for a yet undetermined amount of time or deemed competent to stand trial."
As Maureen continued her notes, across the vast Asylum in the maximum-security wing, Bane laid on his back in his single-occupancy room and stared up at the plain, yellow ceiling.
He closed his eyes as he replayed the earlier conversation with his court-appointed attorney after a bland breakfast of watery oatmeal, triangles of irregularly toasted wheat bread and a paper cup of bitter coffee.
The small man in the ill-fitting suit hadn't been able to stop sweating around Bane and looked like he'd been trapped in a sauna at the end of each of their monitored visits.
Bane had no use for the diminutive man, he knew that his guilt was already decided and that the electric chair was humming to life.
The poorly dressed attorney finally mustered the courage to speak as he slammed his briefcase closed. "Hey man, you can write your own ticket when you talk to the head shrinker, I'm just trying to keep you alive here."
Before Bane was later led to the psych offices, he weighed the options of how to behave when he was given a psychological autopsy.
Bane had no fear of going to prison since he had no natural predators. He would enter the prison yard a king and rule as a God. He also knew it would be easier to escape Arkham Asylum filled with broken men that he could bend to his will and bring to his side over a maximum-security penitentiary.
As he continued to sift through the merits and demerits of each cement, barbed wire topped walls, across the sprawling asylum, newly minted Mayor James Gordon and Bruce Wayne were led to Maureen's corner office.
Ronald Ferguson, one of the armed guards escorted them to her office and knocked three times at the frosted glass of her office door.
Maureen opened the door and offered the billionaire and burgeoning politician coffee before gesturing to a pair of chairs in front of her desk.
Both men accepted coffee and waited until Maureen sat with her own refilled cups and thanked Bruce for the bougie gift basket with white wine, aged gouda and lavender, sea-salt caramels.
"How may I help you two today?" Maureen asked as she pulled her glass candy dish close and unconsciously picked out just the blue, candy-coated chocolates.
"Dr. Hightower, I'd like to put an end to the attack on our city. Make Gotham Grow Again," Gordon declared boisterously.
"That would look good on a campaign button," Maureen thought and smiled easily as Bruce cut in, leaning closer and flashing his beautiful, even-teethed smile.
"Maureen, I've read some of your published papers in the Journals. I'm impressed," Bruce purred and doubled-down as Maureen continued to pluck blue candies one at a time from the dish, wordless amidst her neutral expression.
"There must be a project I can fund."
Maureen blinked a few times and looked between the two men. "What is this?"
"Maureen," Bruce started and raised a manicured hand.
"It's Dr. Hightower," she interrupted.
"Dr. Hightower," Gordon intercepted. "I appreciate you taking the time to meet with us, the city needs to heal and in order for that to happen, Bane needs to be tried and found guilty. If he is remanded here, we can never move on. I know it's unethical and I apologize for ….," Gordon continued before Maureen interrupted.
"Unethical?" Maureen scoffed. "I have a job here, a very specific job. I'm going to determine if the defendant is mentally competent to stand trial or how long he will remain here, if not for an indefinite period of time. I will not put my licensure and name on the line for a gala or wing in the library," she added as she stood and nervously shuffled some papers and tapped them assertively on the organized but clutter surface of her desk.
"I have a lot to get to gentlemen if this visit was to merely shake me down," Maureen stated and walked over to her office door.
She pulled it open, relieved to see Ferguson across the hall.
Gordon put a hand on Bruce's forearm when he saw how fast the temperature was rising and the many ways this would blow back badly on his early weeks in office.
"Everything alright Dr. Hightower?" Ferguson asked as he stepped away from the wall he'd been leaning against.
"Yes, thank you, could you show these two to the elevator please?" Maureen asked as she slowly blinked at Ferguson.
"Sure thing doctor, I was just headed that way."
Bruce smiled and inflated his chest as he strutted by like a peacock with his brilliant tail feathers spread open, parading in his Gucci loafers.
Gordon tried on an unpolished, political smile and held out his hand. "Sorry for the intrusion doctor."
"Sure Mr. Mayor," Maureen said curtly and briefly returned his handshake.
Maureen watched them leave and blew out an uneven breath as she shook her head, remembering reading the notes about Bruce Wayne trying to buy off her predecessor to say the Joker was competent.
Dr. Ault had refused and recommended to the courts that the Joker spend the rest of his days at Arkham Asylum.
Maureen looked at her watch, she had twenty minutes until her first session with Bane.
Maureen returned to the bathroom to freshen up. She took out her contacts and put on her wire-rimmed glasses and slipped on her lab coat as across the vast facility, Bane watched the elevator buttons light up as he ascended to the top floor of Arkham Asylum and Dr. Hightower's corner office.
Bane shifted uncomfortably. The burnt orange cotton jumpsuit was itchy from the industrial detergent and his wrists ached from how tightly they were shackled to his waist.
Bane glanced over when Boris, the heavily muscled psych tech next to him, sneezed into the crook of his arm. The tech had a similar build to him and hailed from a fractured country in Eastern Europe. The large man had shoulders nearly as broad and forearms of the same vascular striation as Bane's.
Boris Sellane led a wordless, shackled, and shuffling Bane to Dr. Hightower's office and knocked on her door, his knuckles tapping the glass over her glass-etched name.
Maureen pulled open the heavy, mahogany-stained door.
"Good afternoon, I'm Maureen Hightower, I'll be …," she began before Bane interrupted her.
"You are the one whose opinion will determine my fate," he stated.
Bane's voice caught her off guard for just a moment. She'd seen a deluge of footage from Bane around the city and now the man that killed the nuclear physicist on the fifty-yard line was standing in front of her, heavily manacled with diminished strength and capacity.
Maureen nodded, "I only evaluate, they're not obligated to comply with my recommendation."
Bane nodded.
Maureen stepped aside so Bane could walk by, closely flanked by Boris.
Both men a moving wall of muscle.
