Chapter Twelve: Regret on Bended Knee

Biology would eventually prove that the body was not Maureen and that of Sara Carlton's, but a good amount of time would pass before a proper identification would come to pass.

Before Isaak left Arkham Asylum in the second ambulance, he would toss Sara Carlton's head, hands, and lab coat into the 400- degree, static gate, single cylinder incinerator.

As Isaak carried out the task of cleaning up and staging the crime scene, Bane continued to stalk towards the first of two idling, waiting ambulances with Maureen shocked and still in his thickly muscled arms. Each had their rear doors flung open and emblazoned with the bright blue and gold emblem from Gotham City's Rapid-Response Paramedic Services.

Maureen's attention perked back up as Bane carried her closer to the diesel-fueled ambulance.

A man with a slick, grey eyepatch emerged from behind the steering wheel and met Bane and his prize at the rear of the ambulance.

Bane settled Maureen to her shaky feet and pointed to the gurney inside the medical vehicle. "Choose a place to sit doctor."

Maureen shook her head and looked rapidly between Bane and the one-eyed man with a gun tucked in his tactile vest.

Maureen whipped her eyes back to find Bane's, "please," she implored. "Just take your freedom and go, I won't remember enough facts to be helpful."

Bane pressed his lips together, hearing her fear and anxiety nearly runneth over. He attempted, poorly, to soften his gaze and relax his physical rigidity as he remained wordless but stepped closer until he invaded every square inch of her breathing room.

Maureen froze as he placed a large hand on the natural sway of her lower back. "Doctor," Bane simply said as he applied a butterfly's kiss of pressure, moving his palm in barely perceptible circles. Maureen fought a sob as she struggled to step up onto the ambulance's metallic step with her stilettos, her bound wrists throwing her off balance.

Bane found a sudden amusement in her vertical predicament and shifted to stop behind her as he fluidly moved his hands to her hips and lifted her off her couture-heeled feet until she could awkwardly walk towards and settle heavily on the gurney with its crisp white sheet and scratchy, grey blanket.

The quiet man with the eye-patch served as both a driver and additional deterrent for Maureen attempting anything foolish. The dangerously, effective man slipped back behind the wheel as he handed Bane a matte black satellite phone after Bane settled across from Maureen on a dark red bench, equipped with an oxygen tank, suction system and copious sterile dressings, IV tubing, and endotracheal tubes.

The armed man steered the first ambulance through the employee parking lot, moving slowly over the large speed bumps before kicking the engine into gear on the main frontage road outside of Arkham.

Bane glanced over at Maureen's stoic profile as she was turned watching the miles fall away through the heavily tinted rear windows. He watched her frown as they continued to be driven past exits and drawn further to the center of the city and the industrial area which was relatively foreign to Maureen.

Bane was both pleased and surprised when Maureen broke the silence first. "What aspects do you regret about our meeting and interactions?"

Maureen was anxious to hear more about what he meant, she found she'd been dwelling on his words since they'd left Arkham.

"I regret the violence that has accompanied our introduction, I would've preferred different circumstances."

Maureen couldn't help but be intrigued, drawn to the poisoned well.

"How would you have liked to have seen us meeting?"

"Would you like to know?"

"If you'd like to share."

Bane smiled, hearing her return to speaking to him as though there was a desk between them.

"I would've liked to have met you without the perception that I am a criminal in your eyes."

As Maureen's mind swirled with too many possible answers, coupled with the bombastic upheaval of her life and the miles were further devoured under the ambulance's tires, across the city at Bruce Wayne's sprawling estate, Selina and Bruce huddled next to the tablet's screen and ordered Thai for lunch from the newest Michelin Star winning restaurant helmed by a celebrity chef husband and wife.

As Bruce and Selina's clothes eventually slipped to the floor and they fucked on the imported Tuscan tile before the glass noodles in peanut sauce arrived, across the city, the absconded ambulance continued further south at a decent speed in the commuter's lane.

Bane saw Maureen's normally composed features, struggle with his naked admission. He immediately switched his train of questioning.

"Which of those pills help with cramping?" Bane asked as he gestured to the paper bags next to her on the gurney.

Maureen immediately put back on her doctor's coat. "Tell me about the cramps, where are they? What's the pain from a one to ten?" she asked as she rooted through one of the paper bags for a bottled pill of pale pink antispasmodics.

"Are you experiencing any other pain or discomfort?" Maureen asked as she awkwardly dumped a couple tablets into her palm.

Bane shook his head and reached out a hand with startling speed and latched onto one of her cuffed wrists.

Maureen watched, overwhelmed in the small space as Bane bowed his head and unashamedly licked the drugs from the palm of her hand. Bane felt like he was feeding from the veritable goddess Herself, as his rough tongue lingered and teased the webbing of skin between her fingers.

Maureen tried to yank her hand back with a startled gasp, "don't do that again," she intended to stay strongly but it came out of her mouth in a breathless command instead.

It would be difficult to determine which of them were breathing harder unless they were both clinically measured.

Bane lazily nodded as he slowly blinked his dilated eyes and leaned back.

Maureen settled back as much as she could and crossed her legs, instantly hating that there wasn't a desk in between them, feeling exposed.

Bane dropped his eyes to her ankle and the scar that was obscured by her sand-colored nylons. He danced his gaze up the front of her leg and line of her thigh until his eyes found the hem of her rich amber pencil skirt.

Maureen was waiting for his eyes to meet hers and initially only blinked in the wake of his words.

"Why were you crying earlier?"

"I wasn't," Maureen finally lied.

"You were."

"I was not," she sniffed and would've crossed her arms had they not been cuffed.

Bane kept his smile to himself as he leaned forward, letting his strong thighs spread wide until he could rest his elbows in the center of his large quadriceps.

"Then tell me what you meant when you answered 'gone' in regard to the word 'love'?" he pressed, her scattering of answers not enough to even wet his beak.

Maureen paused, remembering the handful of word associations he tried before moving on to a hands-on introduction.

"I don't think I meant anything specific," she tried before lamely adding. "A lot of that was most likely a shock response."

Bane leaned back, keeping his powerful thighs spread apart as he rested his large hands over his knees. "Then let's run through the questions again."

"Fine," Maureen succinctly answered, as though there were varying multiple choice responses.

Maureen looked down at her stained, bloody wrists, anxious to be out from under his gaze, not considering his eyes remaining on her, watching as she started to rub her wrists as best as she could on the scratchy grey blanket covering the gurney.

Maureen was so focused in scraping the tacky blood off her smooth skin that she didn't notice Bane begin to root around the various clear-fronted cabinets surrounding them.

She nearly squealed when Bane's hands closed around her hands and began to clean off the blood with individual square pads that were saturated in isopropyl alcohol.

Maureen remained still, doing her best imitation of one caught up in Pompeii on the day that the ground began to shake under her feet, as Bane opened up package after foil-lined package of wet pads that drank up the sticky blood like a thirsty man turning to seawater.

Bane spared her beautiful face occasional glances as he methodically wiped her skin clean in even strokes.

"Guilty," he murmured.

"You," she whispered as she raised her eyes to meet his. "You're still guilty," Maureen said bluntly.

Bane nodded, "I am under your laws," he agreed as he returned his attention to a particular stubborn, tacky clump of blood and bits.

"Fear."

"Yes," Maureen said, even though fear was too mild a word.

"Sex," Bane said as he caught her eyes, forcing her to blink first.

"Important," Maureen answered after a pause. She considered repeating 'marriage', as she had earlier in her office, never sure why she didn't.

Bane paused his hands on her wrists as he held her in stasis under the weight of his gaze.

"Marriage," he rasped as he traced his rough fingertips to her left ring finger and began to spin the diamonds in their titanium bed around her finger as she did at the start of each and every session.

Maureen cleared her throat, "love," she managed, barely above a whisper.

Bane set the last alcohol pad aside and traced his thumb over the inside of her wrist, feeling her pulse pound under the pad of his thumb. "Love," he echoed lowly, feeling her pulse speed up under his thumb.

Maureen pressed her lips together, remaining wordless as she shook her head.

"Love," Bane pressed.

"Once," she finally said and found it difficult to look anywhere without seeing Bane, his broad body eclipsed her with its proximity, devoured her light and air.

"Just once?" Bane asked as he closed his large hands around her forearms, rhythmically squeezing her taut flesh as he watched her nod.

"Where are we going?" Maureen asked, anxious to change the direction of the conversation.

Bane took his eyes from her briefly to glance out the rear window, "a place to plan and fulfill."

"To fulfill what?" Maureen asked as she also turned to look out the heavily tinted window.

"Ras al Ghul's destiny," Bane murmured as he turned back to face Maureen. "Talia will not die in vain for this city," he added.

"Why not get far away from here? You have a head start," Maureen stammered before Bane interrupted her.

"I do not run from anything Doctor Hightower," he growled.

Maureen cleared her throat, realizing her inadvertent insult. "I didn't mean to imply that, I meant you could create a different future, one without violence," she furiously backpedaled.

"What kind of future could I have?" Bane asked, curious if she was offering him platitudes or speaking from a place of an electrical nerve cluster. Maureen stumbled for her words, failing uncharacteristically in speaking in a clear and coherent manner.

"I don't know, anything," Maureen began and gestured with her cuffed wrists at the driver she would later learn was Sebastian. "You have so many people around you, one of them could secure you a house, anything you need for a new identity," she began before trailing off under the weight of his attention.

"What would I do in this new life?"

"I don't know," Maureen shrugged. "Do you have any other skills besides murder?"

She couldn't cover her growing smile due to her shackled wrists as she pictured him in a rapid slideshow of varying occupations.

"What is amusing you Doctor Hightower?"

"I'm not really amused," she admitted.

"What are you then if not amused?"

"I'm terrified," she said, hating the sound of her admission. "Isn't that the goal?" she spit.

"No," Bane said simply after a long pause.

"No?" Maureen quickly rebutted.

"I understand the fear you have now, but I hope to see a lessening moving forward."

"Forward to where?" she whispered.

"That's yet to be determined," Bane admitted.

"You expect my fear to go away just before I die?" she scoffed.

"Why do you think you are going die so soon?"

"Because of your fulfilling of this destiny," she started. "I assumed my death would be directly at your hands or however you plan on destroying Gotham City this time. Did you find another Russian scientist and a neutron bomb?" Maureen added.

Part of her actually did wonder if Bane had located one or the other.

Bane shook his head. "I've not found another Doctor Pavel," he stated and leaned closer to Maureen, setting his hands on the edge of the gurney on either side of her hips.

Bane marveled at her seemingly supple hips that were hugged tightly in the designer fabric.

"I found something else this time, something better, Bane added as he lightly danced his fingertips down the outside of her thighs and settled his palms on the tops of her knees.

Maureen dropped her cuffed wrists to push at his hands. "Don't do that," she whispered urgently, no place to escape to that he couldn't follow. She had nowhere to run that wouldn't bring him closer than her own shadow.

Bane lifted his hands from her knees and returned them to the sides of her hips, a breath away from touching her as he dropped his voice to a guttural growl. The words were a dull rumble throughout his broad chest. "You do not need to hold onto any worry that your life is threatened in any way."

Maureen raised her cuffed hands between them, "how exactly can you expect me to think that?" she asked as she shook her wrists and added in an close to angry, exasperated tone. "If you're fulfilling this supposed destiny, doesn't that mean you're supposed to die. I'll certainly be counted among the remaining what? Heretics? Heathens? Because I believe something different than you, that makes me so damned?"

"No, I will not die amidst the rotten waste of this city once I destroy it, nor will you," Bane stated evenly.

As Maureen's eyebrows knitted together in a deep frown as she tried to process his words, Bane lifted one hand to pull the cuff key from his pocket, speaking again as he began to slip the key into the lock.

"You may struggle to believe me," Bane started. "But the time we spent together in your office truly offered me insight into how and who I was living my life for."

Bane became hypnotized by the tip of Maureen's tongue that darted out to wet her lips before she whispered. "I suppose I am a little astonished to hear you say something like that," she admitted and looked down as he slipped the metal loop off one of her thin wrists before turning his attention to the other one.

"I will avenge Talia and her father. I will honor The League of Shadows, but we will retain our lives."

Maureen waited until Bane removed the second metal cuff before speaking. "What's the quality of life I'll be retaining?"

Bane slipped the handcuffs into his other pants pocket before answering, returning his free hand to her side. "Is there a place you've longed to travel?"

Maureen looked down at her just freed wrists and rubbed her hands together, focusing on an imaginary chipped nail, trying to buy time to put together an answer. "I've never really thought about it, I'm okay with where I live, what I do, what I can afford," she mumbled.

"Tell me where you'd like to live," Bane stated as he smoothed his hands up and down the outside of her thighs.

"I can't, I don't know, this is, I can't, you can't," Maureen tried to say before she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Bane let her have time to collect herself, rhythmically kneading the taut flesh of her thighs as he waited for her to speak, freely able to memorize her exquisite features as she kept her eyes shut.

"There have to be other questions you want to ask," Maureen finally said as she opened her eyes, suppressing a flinch when Bane came into focus, his face uncomfortably closer.

He nodded as he thought about the blue and white marbled cover notebook he had stashed in one of the duffel bags of supplies that was already loaded on the ambulance with them.

Maureen gave herself a standing ovation and twenty-one-gun salute along with a flyover from the Blue Angels when she didn't flinch, shiver or shudder as Bane drew close enough that his exhale warmed her lips.

"There will be a more appropriate space for those conversations," Bane murmured, his breath barely sounding above the heartbeat that thundered in his ears, his heart beating erratically in its opaque pericardial sac, deep under the dense musculature of his broad chest.

Maureen let out a low breath when Bane sat back and crossed his arms.

Any reprieve from his attention Maureen thought she might've had was quickly dashed as Bane couldn't seem to help himself as he openly dropped his eyes to the pointed toes of her shoes and openly dragged his gaze up her body, nakedly assessing until the air grew palpable from the intensity of his scrutiny.

Maureen kept herself still as Bane's eyes traced the curve of her calf and shape of her kneecap from her crossed legs. He eagerly lapped up the view of her thighs before her flesh disappeared under the short length of her deep, rust-colored skirt. Her untucked blouse made it difficult for him to see the shape of her waist and belly.

Bane's eyes fell to the curves of her breasts that were apparent under the deep green silk of her blouse. The few opened buttons gave Bane a view of the softness of the tops of her breasts and smoothness of her decolletage.

Bane settled his eyes on the hollow at the base of her throat as Sebastian kept the ambulance moving at a steady clip towards a private airstrip on the outskirts of Gotham City.

Two fully fueled Cessnas waited on the poorly maintained air strip.

A couple of the men in Bane's army had flown Black Hawks in the twenty-year war in the Sand Box.

Bane moved his eyes along the curve of her jaw, dancing to the highest point of her prominent cheekbones and up to her wide eyes, fringed with thick lashes.

Bane noted their redness had dissipated.

"Why were you crying earlier?"

"I wasn't, Maureen sniffed resolutely.

"Tell me what or who made you cry," Bane demanded.

"I wasn't," Maureen insisted as she crossed her arms and stared down at her lap.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Bane said, taking a sharp U-turn as he saw a shroud of panic begin to settle over Maureen.

Maureen looked up as Bane continued.

He was unable to articulate his penitence for the desecration of her temple. Bane searched her eyes as he spoke, she became the goddess incarnate, watching him impassively as he sank to his knees to the ambulance floor in front of her couture clad feet.

Bane gathered up Maureen's hands and pressed his lips against her palm. "I regret that you had to bear witness to my actions," he breathed.

"Do you?" Maureen asked as she stared down at Bane.

"I do," he said raggedly, keeping the timbre of his voice as gentle and non-threatening as possible.

That wasn't really possible.

"Tell me about the insight you gained from our sessions together," Maureen asked as Bane kept his face buried in her hands, his lips pressed to the center of her palm.

Maureen couldn't help but shudder at the hot exhale that accompanied Bane's words.

"I learned to look at my actions through the eyes of others, to know when to acknowledge and move forward, create a list of who to ask for forgiveness."

"You're not accustomed to asking for forgiveness," Maureen stated as Bane pressed his nose to her wrists and inhaled deeply, tasting the cocoa butter notes of her body butter.

Bane raised his head to find her eyes already on him, "do you know who's at the top of my list?"

Maureen shook her head, "who?"

"You."

"Me? You want my forgiveness?"

"Yes," Bane murmured raggedly.

Maureen raised her hands and cupped his jaw, making slow circles with her thumbs on the points of his cheekbones before tracing around his lips, the scar tissue a rough ridge under the pads of her thumbs.

"Tell me the actions you want me to forgive," Maureen murmured.

"I disrespected your office, your space," Bane began as Maureen listened, searching his face and the very tone of his voice for deception, seeking the veracity of his testimony as she counted the steady beat of his carotid pulse, visible in the throbbing, wavy artery at his temples, never spiking with each syllable he spoke.

"Does this prevent you from forgiving me or picking a destination?" Bane asked hoarsely as he snaked his hand up to grasp her left wrist, turning her stunning ring in a slow circle around her slim finger as he'd watched her do at the start of every session.

Maureen opened her mouth to speak but no words spilled from between her full lips. She looked down as Bane tugged with a little more force at the dazzling diamond ring.

"Don't," Maureen said in a sharper tone than she intended and tried to work her hand free from his impossibly unbreakable hold.

Bane stole her breath when he lifted her hand and slid his mouth around her finger, yanking the ring free as he wetly ran his tongue around her slim digit.

"We'll return to this conversation later," Bane murmured as he slipped her ring into his pocket when Sebastian brought the ambulance to a stop in the desolate hangar.