Chapter Eight: Words That Will Launch a Thousand Networks
"Don't think your offers illicit any excitement Miss Mourn, nothing is more enticing than breaking the people of Gotham City," Talia murmured coolly, reaching out to grip Gwendolyn's chin. "Even though you possess a rare beauty," she added in a low tone.
"Stunningly so," Bane thought, careful to keep that agreement to himself, his visible features expressionless.
"You can't make me," Gwendolyn hissed, angry, tired, her body moving through the shock response.
Talia's smile fell and for just a flicker in time, the time it took for the heart to beat or blink one's eyes, saw Gwendolyn as a threat to her crown and control but pushed it aside, knowing Bane's heart only beat because of hers.
"We'll see," Talia growled before leaving the room and Wayne Enterprises altogether.
She had no idea the huge bullet she'd dodged when she left when she did, heading to an abandoned strip mall where they'd be filming the Breaking News that would interrupt every soap opera, every free throw and tv streaming porn.
People would be left with blue balls, hands stopping mid-stroke at Talia's words through Gwendolyn's beautiful lips.
Bruce might've told Miranda that he was going to the ballet but had actually come back to Wayne Enterprises to get a new toy from Applied Sciences when he heard the gunshots from the upper floor.
Not too long after Talia had left the room, Bruce, dressed in his skintight suit, tossed smoke grenades into the hallway, and choked one of the armed men into unconsciousness, beating and maiming his way through the gauntlet of dangerous men, drawing closer to where Bane was locked in the plush office with Gwendolyn.
Bane saw a man run by the doorway, his balls lost, squealing about the Bat.
Gwendolyn gave a startled cry when Bane moved with ferocious speed and grabbed her narrow wrist. She didn't have much time to process everything and was soon handcuffed, her hands pulled tight behind her.
"Just a moment Miss Mourn," Bane murmured melodically as he pushed her down onto one of the sturdy office chairs before Batman appeared in the doorway to the office for his office.
Gwendolyn could hear the restrained glee in his tone and see the bounce in his heavy step as he turned to face Bruce dressed as the fetish flying Bat.
Bruce's voice emerged in a gravelly tone dressed as Batman.
"Bane," he stated.
"Mr. Wayne," Bane murmured.
Gwendolyn blinked rapidly at the giddiness in Bane's voice and what he'd just revealed.
Bruce's hand moved with reptilian speed and whipped a few titanium daggers towards Bane, the edges serrated, designed to tear through flesh.
Bane moved with a fluidity that was more evolved than other men, his fist shooting out and slamming into Bruce's strong, sculpted jaw.
Bruce spit a mouthful of blood on the wickedly expensive carpet before growling as he launched himself at Bane.
As Gwendolyn watched them fight, it reminded her of her father handcuffing her around a tree when she was a young child as he trussed up a deer when she couldn't kill it. He'd taken the gun, killed the deer, made her watch everything that happened postmortem.
Gwendolyn watched from the office chair as Bane and Bruce exchanged a barrage of punches and kicks. Each man grunted with the heavy blows to their midsections, knuckles splitting and bleeding from the impact.
Bane was biologically superior to Bruce, stronger and faster as he caught Bruce around the neck, his large forearm squeezing against the underside of Bruce's chin and against the front of his throat.
The sound of Bruce's hyoid bone fracturing was astonishingly loud in the room.
Gwendolyn watched the Batman claw at Bane's arm, reaching to his utility belt and fumbling for a weapon.
He never stood a chance.
Gwendolyn looked up and became trapped under the weight of Bane's gaze, neither of them blinked or looked away from each other as Bane clawed through the leather protecting Bruce's bare skin and tore out the front of the billionaire bat's throat.
His thick fingers dug around Bruce's neck, severing arteries, and tearing veins, ligaments stretched and broke under his aggressive touch.
Bane let Bruce's body flop to the floor, he'd eventually succumb to cardiac death from complete exsanguination.
Gwendolyn flinched when Bane tossed a chunk of Bruce's throat at her feet, his hand covered in blood, gore thick around his knuckles and under his fingernails.
"That's why you're going to say every word Talia tells you."
Gwendolyn released the breath she'd been holding as Bane's eyes swirled with chestnut fire, his breathing accompanied by a mechanical hitch.
"Do you understand?" Bane asked in the wake of her stunned silence.
Gwendolyn nodded and mumbled incoherently.
"You'll have to do better than that Miss Mourn."
"Yes, I understand," she whispered, exquisitely beautiful but fragile in her shock and fear.
"Good," Bane rasped as he held her trapped in his gaze as he wiped a bloody hand mostly clean before he rummaged through the laundry basket of bright, expensive fabrics from high-end boutiques boasting couture labels.
He tossed a peacock blue blouse and second skin mini skirt in front of her, he'd seen the outfit only once after his deep dive into a world where Gwendolyn spoke to his every sense.
"Time to change for the show," Bane murmured in a musical, maniacal tone as he unlocked the handcuffs, reattaching one cuff around the arm of the chair, still allowing her ample room to move around.
Gwendolyn held her breath as Bane fiddled with the metal cuffs before taking a few steps back and turning around, leaving her staring at his wide shoulders and broad back.
Gwendolyn took the nonverbal cue to change into the colorful, couture fabrics he'd dropped next to her feet, Bruce's torn larynx had landed wetly next to pile of imported silk.
As Gwendolyn changed, Bane's enhanced sense of hearing could detect the sound of the smooth fabric sliding up her thighs. The faint metallic tingling of her pulling up the zipper made him press his scarred lips together behind his breathing apparatus. His body still tingled from the adrenaline dump of snuffing out Bruce Wayne's life, eating the head of the bat.
Bane stared down at the floor, allowing himself to close his eyes for just a minute as he recalled the episode he'd seen of The Morning Hoot, where Gwendolyn was changing into the outfit she'd worn on his HD screen during a replay of the broadcast.
Gwendolyn had been walking up the steps of Gotham's City Hall, reporting on and condemning a protest about people wanting stricter gun laws.
Bane had stopped hearing her words and found his eyes drawn to her long legs as she stalked in her stilettos up the steps to the Mayor's office.
He grew mesmerized as he watched her pound on the Mayor's door, demanding who they thought they were restricting hers and all the loyal Gothamites Second Amendment Rights.
After it grew silent for a few moments, Bane raised his head. "Are you decent Miss Mourn?"
Gwendolyn cleared her throat, "yes."
Bane turned, making the appearance casual, liking what he saw, remaining neutral even though he felt an electrical rush inside, a beaver's dam holding back the roiling Pacific Ocean.
Gwendolyn's face was flushed, makeup smeared and her hair a mess. Bane held her eyes as he reached for and handed her the makeup case he'd seen open on the marble top of her vanity. He gestured to the sizeable, attached bathroom with the deep blue and grey subway tile.
Bane stood in the doorway as Gwendolyn brushed her hair, fixed her makeup, and blew her nose.
Gwendolyn's voice broke into his thoughts as his eyes tracked her long strokes with the wood-handled brush.
"What is that woman going to make me say?"
Bane remained quiet a long time, so long that she pauses in mid-stroke, turning towards him, adding. "Why me? Why OWL? There are several stations around the city, we were number two in the ratings after the last fiscal year."
"But none speak like you Miss Mourn, none spill their divisive, inciting rhetoric with the same passion."
Gwendolyn swallowed back nausea, hearing the masked man continue to describe her show like an ugly, aborted dumpster fire, and her, the goddess spewing necrotic hatred.
"That's not who I am," Gwendolyn spit as she rose to her full height, taller with the heels, trying to square her shoulders.
"It's who you've chosen to surround yourself with and you've convinced Talia that you are a strong believer in every word you profess. The citizens of Gotham lap up your words like mother's milk."
Gwendolyn flushed and turned back to look at herself, avoiding her own eyes as she continued brushing her hair, it was soon gleaming under the bathroom's lighting.
"I'm not like my father, it's just a job," she repeated as she tossed the brush to clatter in the sparkling white sink.
"There are many jobs around the city. What sort of living arrangement does this mere job provide you, where do you call home Miss Mourn?"
"The Gotham Towers," Gwendolyn murmured. The Towers were exclusive, she was almost ashamed of what she possessed. There was a lot she didn't agree with when it came to her father but liked what the money gave her."
"Who else lives there? Is there a Mr. Mourn?"
"Just me, I'm surprised you didn't uncover that in your research," Gwendolyn scoffed as she pulled a plastic-handled blush brush from a purple, zippered pouch.
"About as much research as you and your network perform on the veracity of your expert guest's knowledge and expertise."
Gwendolyn seethed in silence as she worked through her makeup routine, finding solace in the ritual, focusing on the soft bristles of the brush tickling the line of her jaw.
As Gwendolyn avoided Bane's eyes in the mirror, back at the OWL Newsgroup skyscraper, Detective Blake continued to methodically interview each person present in the newsroom at the time of Gwendolyn Mourn's abduction.
All of his calls to Bruce Wayne continued to go directly to voicemail.
As he questioned each witness and hostage, back at Wayne Enterprises, Gwendolyn closed and latched the makeup case.
She couldn't suppress the flinch when Bane reached past her, plucking the oblong makeup case from the top of the sink.
Bane smiled behind his mask. "We'll address your fear later Miss Mourn, for now, it's time to get you to the stage."