Chapter Nine: Day Five at Sea: Truth is Spelled C11 H17 N2 O2 S Na

As the massive cargo ship The Maybutnye moved across the second largest ocean in the world, up on the bridge, Captain Aleksander Dymtrus stomped to his private quarters when his thirtieth phone call to Miranda Tate was met with an electronic voice that continued to repeat that the number was out-of-service.

Aleksander slammed the palm of his hand on his teak dresser before forcefully yanking open the top drawer and pawing inside his neatly folded clothes for a velvet box he had hidden for his voyage across the ocean with Miranda Tate.

Aleksander blew out a breath and dialed Talia's alter ego as he opened the hinged jewelry box. As he was again met by the same out-of-service message, his pupils dilated to capture the magnitude of the pear-shaped diamond nestled in the platinum band.

Down in the plush interior of the adjoining cargo containers, Lena's brain neurons fired erratically as she tried to make sense of reality.

"Who am I now that the city I vowed to protect has been burned to the ground?" Lena asked herself as she shook her head to the present moment of being locked in the exhale of the man who was responsible for the upheaval.

Lena pressed her lips together and barely suppressed a moan when Bane's fingertips found her naked flesh beyond the lavishly overpriced linen.

"How many?" Bane murmured as he inhaled his opiate inhalant, his pupils bleeding black as he was lost how to get answers to his question without hurting her.

Bane knew how to get answers no matter how much they didn't want to be spoken. He had conquered attacking clans, nations, and marauders by stripping flesh from bones, filling lungs with water and disarticulating joints and snapping ligaments.

"Why does it matter?" Lena stalled, unable to retreat with her back pressed firmly against the headboard.

Bane fought to control his breathing as he thought of the amount of people he'd watched Talia seduce, how many times she would fuck or fondle without caring who saw. Bane clenched his teeth so tight his jaw popped as his hatred threatened to overwhelm him.

Lena's heart was on the brink of leaping from her chest when Bane abruptly stood, remaining silent as he held his hands out to his side and closed them in and out of loose fists.

Bane found his words caught in his throat which had been shoddily repaired as best as a brilliant surgeon's hands could perform.

"I need you to answer me," Bane finally rasped and tugged the matching sheet from his waist. Lena blinked hard as the luxurious linen that mirrored hers fell to the floor to puddle in silken fluidity.

Lena cleared her throat and shifted on top of the mattress, tugging the decorative pillow out from under her leg as he extinguished the small bedside light, blanketing the room in near darkness.

The cones and rods of Bane's retinas sent an overload of messages to his brain, his photoreceptors were fatty-livered geese bursting with ripeness for the holiday table as he would've gladly eviscerated his belly to find out how many men had been inside Lena's body, touched her and made her blush.

"Who perished in the flames that claimed ownership to your body?" Bane managed raggedly as he closed the small space and returned to the side of the mattress. "Your heart?" he added and felt his lungs spasm as he fiddled with a dial and smothered his nervous system like a howling baby in its bassinet.

Lena kept the imported linen pillow between them, a flimsy, tasseled shield as she slid found herself moving biocentrically over to give him space.

"It's all gone now, there's nothing left of the past," Lena murmured as Bane tugged the pillow out of her hands and tossed it somewhere to land on the floor of the darkened container.

Bane lapsed into silence as his neurons perked back up, lightly slipping the delicate linen away from Lena's naked skin.

"Does allowing him to touch me, wanting him to touch me, make me a criminal?" Lena asked herself as she quickly found herself encircled in his arms, pressed against the front of his body. Their intimate flesh kissed as Bane deftly kept her affected thigh free from the whisper of any weight.

Bane would've torn the translucent wings off of a fly if it caused Lena's body the slightest discomfort.

"Who did you belong to?" Bane growled; his tone inhuman, accustomed to speaking in the language of the dead.

Lena shook her head, bombarded by too many thoughts to process.

"Tell me," Bane murmured in an easier tone as he settled his fingertips under her chin and even in the dark, she could feel the weight of his eyes.

His body spoke louder than his brain and didn't allow her a chance to answer before he slid his fingertips down the front of her throat, over the bony prominence of her sternum between her heaving breasts before dipping his index finger into her belly button.

"Is that what I'm going to be to you?" Lena said quickly, finding her voice stronger as she added. "Your fucking possession?"

"No," Bane nearly snarled, saliva filling his mouth from his malfunctioning glandular system.

"What then?" Lena pressed when Bane lapsed back into silence as he shifted his weight and moved his free hand to encourage his hardening cock to become rigid until it pulsed with growing pain.

Bane licked his lips behind his mask as he gripped his thick length and clumsily knocked the inside of her upper thigh in his eagerness to fill her.

"You'll be my wife," Bane snarled, his triune brain slipping for a moment before he plunged his cock inside her until he was stopped only by her intimate pink folds and growing wet tightness.

Lena felt her breath leave her lungs as he pushed himself inside her. "Why do you want so much, so fast?" she managed as her brain grew electric with the overstimulation.

Bane initially answered only by thrusting more assertively as his systemic arteries pumped oxygenated blood from his left ventricle and flooded his body tissues, not trusting his voice to speak.

Bane sank himself with excruciatingly slowness until he was seated in her intimate center. As he was savoring the moment of feeling her body tighten around his cock, he noticed the bruises scattered about her supple flesh. Varying shades in different degrees of swelling from his rough handling.

Bane shifted his weight until he could trace the rough tip of his index finger over the damaged skin. He'd never stuck around for the post-mortem lividity and rigor mortis show of the lives he'd ended. He was a natural predator, a tiger that feasts without needing to explain, a lion that tears open the gut of a zebra to get to the juicy bits without a single fucking apology.

Lena's increased breathing stoked Bane's adrenal glandes to pump more hormones throughout his body.

"All I've known is darkness," Bane murmured as he stopped tracing the perimeter of a random bruise before placing his fingertips on her lips. "Surrounded by carnivorous organisms, the only sustenance tainted," he added as he brushed his thumb across her lower lip.

Bane increased his rhythm, stealing any chance Lena could have to speak.

"The only rest was among the detritus of corporeal bodies, nothing was my own," Bane growled, his voice reverberating through the mesh front of his mask.

Lena felt conflicting tsunami waves crash inside her. "Then you are saying I'm your possession," she tried to accuse without breathlessly moaning, wanting to squeeze her thighs tight to his waist as he rhythmically plunged his pulsing rigidity inside her.

"No," Bane answered immediately, his movements grew urgent and erratic as he gripped her chin until Lena had no choice but to meet his eyes, his orbs penetrating hers even in the darkened container. She tasted melted copper from the original fear Bane invoked in the earliest evolved strand of human DNA, his intensity could tear apart the veritable double-helix.

"No," Bane repeated on a primal groan as he felt his control fall-apart. "You're my light, what men have died for," he managed before his balls pulled up tight to his body. His cock spasmed as his violent spike of pleasure made him break out in a fine sheen of sweat.

Lena's breath was compressed from her lungs in a rush as Bane collapsed on top of her, her midsection became a rapidly deflated souffle as he wrapped up her naked limbs in his formidable embrace. Bane rolled to his side, pulling Lena with him until she was straddling his hips, staring down at him.

Bane's softening cock gave a couple more spasms before sliding out of her tight center, a rush of hot fluids followed his receding cock and spilled down his muscular thighs to stain the luxurious linen.

Lena couldn't keep a hiss of pain escaping from between her lips when her bandaged thigh rubbed against the outside of Bane's hip. He quickly dropped his hands to Lena's hips and tried to gingerly move her until she was lying back on the mattress. His large hands were still clumsily aggressive as he put a similar decorative pillow under her injured thigh.

Behind his mask, Bane's lips pressed into a firm line, his want for answers had not been diminished. He narrowed his eyes at the square gauze bandage on the inside of Lena's thigh.

Lena pulled the sheet that hadn't been stained over her breasts as Bane remained in silence, his eyes losing focus as his need for answers began to overwhelm. A choked sound emerged from his scarred throat and lungs as he moved with the fluidity of an extinct sea creature, grace shrouding certain death as he grumbled something incoherent and disappeared into the adjoining cargo container.

Lena looked at the empty doorway in confusion long after Bane had disappeared from her sight. She adjusted the pillows behind her head and smoothed the linen over her lap as in the adjoining container, Bane rummaged through an embattled duffle bag and pulled out a zippered case with six pre-loaded syringes.

Bane frowned down at the needles, each holding a fast-acting dose of C11 H17 N2 O2 S Na, Sodium Pentothal.

Truth Serum.

The yellow liquid in the syringes was the bright yellow of movie theater liquid butter, copiously saturating each fluffy piece of popped corn.

Bane plucked one of the syringes free and stared down at the rapid-acting barbiturate, remembering the last time he had used the potent, schedule three drug to force words from the reluctant tongue of a South American dictator.

~ Seven Months Earlier ~ Nestled Deep in South America ~

The humidity had been so heavy under the lush forest canopy as Bane had walked in slow circles around the ousted dictator, ripped from his Ivory Tower residence by a military coup.

Bane and company had disguised themselves with the uprising soldiers and smuggled the former leader who killed his own people away from the reach of the furious mob.

Barsad had driven an ATV with no-flat tires miles to a part of the jungle that was undiluted with the filth of humankind, insect's shiny eyes widened at the sight of masked Bane, the titanium faceplate much like an exoskeleton of a gossamer winged creature.

The disgraced leader, now covered in mud with a shattered nose shouted for order even as he was kicked in the gut and tied to a tree.

The previous illustrious and untouchable dictator looked up as Bane's shadow fell over him.

"Where did you hide the diamonds?" Bane asked, watching the fallen leader's right eye twitch as he shook his head and started babbling in his native tongue.

Bane glanced over at one of his armed mercenary brothers-in-arms and gave him a curt nod.

That small movement prompted the equally scarred and tattooed man to stomp towards the restrained former leader and slice his left ear free with a wickedly sharp tungsten steel blade.

The world leader shouted gutturally, only undiscovered species and elusive felines heard his cries as the fearsome man added the freshly severed cartilage to his crude collection on a blood-stained necklace made with twine.

Bane found himself applauding the fallen leader's fortitude and squatted down to plunge the syringe full of Sodium Pentothal into his thigh.

The former dictator's eyes widened as he knew full well that anything he was asked would create an answer to spill from his tongue.

Bane smiled behind his mask as he watched the fast-acting barbiturate inhibit the former world leader's brain's higher cortical function.

Bane shook himself back to the present moment when he heard Lena cough from the other room.

He returned to find her wiping spilled water off her chin after drinking too fast.

"What is that? Another antibiotic already?" Lena asked as her eyes fell to the syringe in his hands, unease filling her at the differing color of the contents.

Bane nodded, hate rising inside for himself at his imminent actions.

Every cell in his body took up arms against the other, nature versus nurture.

Bane's neurons entangled with each other as he walked back towards the empty side of the bed, each step a concerted effort with the battleground of his central nervous system.

"I'm sorry," Bane murmured raggedly as he slid the needle into the supple flesh of her exposed hip, depressing the plunger as the primal side won as his brain's hemispheres nearly divided with the conflict.

Lena frowned as she watched him pull the needle from her skin. "That burned, what was that?"

She looked up at Bane, her eyes clouding at his silence and empty gaze.

Lena shook her head as the burning sensation trickled into her body, absorbed by her tissue, rapidly causing her to feel like she had after polishing off a fifth of Jack after her parents had died.

"What did you do?" Lena shouted, a well of undiscovered energy blossomed in her limbs and she tried to slide away from him, prevented from moving far with the tangled linen wrapped around her and the fast touch of the barbiturate.

"Nothing that will linger," Bane murmured and captured her flailing wrists. "Just something to encourage you to talk to me," he added as Lena shook her head, feeling warmth fill her body and cause her to sag in his arms, her resolve weakened, compliancy all but ensured from just 35 milligrams of the yellowish, 5.7 pH balanced serum that violated the Geneva Convention, Human Rights of Man, and Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"What was that?" Lena repeated on a slur, rubbing her hip and the sharp prick of pain that radiated lightning twinges from the injection epicenter.

"Shhhhh," Bane uttered, an uncharacteristic soothing sound from the man whose hands ended lives, as he collected up the heavy thread count duvet cover and wrapped it around Lena, mummifying her in the decadent linen.

Lena's eyelids grew impossibly heavy as Bane gathered her up like a broken baby bird and tucked her close to his side, allowing her the temporary solace of the linen between his hands and her naked skin. "When…..?" Lena managed before trailing off into drowsy silence, mimicking the near twilight state of being anesthetized.

"When what?" Bane asked, pulling her tighter, his fingers digging into her skin through the opulent linen.

Lena maneuvered a hand free of the high thread count state of mummification and rubbed her eyes, squeezing the bridge of her nose as she spoke in a halting, staccato manner, every syllable a huge effort.

"When are you going to," she managed before pausing to inhale her tired lungs. "When are you going to stop hurting me?"

Bane raised a hand to cup her jaw, his vocal cords paralyzed as he traced the rough pads of his fingertips along the line of her cheekbone. "I can only give you the perception of choice," he admitted.

Lena closed her eyes as the weight of his gaze became too overwhelming and she was certain he was watching the oxygenated blood arrive to her brain from her internal carotid artery.

"Who holds your loyalties now Officer Fischer?" Bane asked as he ran his finger along her closed eyelids, the dark fringes of lashes feather soft against the tip of his index finger.

Lena was heavily drugged but still managed a chuckle, "there's no one left for me to protect anymore. They're all gone."

"Who perished in the flames that you held close?"

A deep frown pulled at Lena's forehead as she shook her head, "pretty much everyone I've ever known lived in Gotham. I only have one aunt left who lives in Arizona," she added.

Bane watched her struggle to contain her words, the drug's stranglehold would make her forthcoming and there was nothing she could do to stop from answering any of his questions.

"Did you have a lover who died in the fire?"

"No."

"Did you share your life with anyone?"

"No."

"Did you mean the oath you took to Gotham City?"

"Yes."

"Did you mean the oath you spoke to me?"

Lena blinked rapidly and bit her lower lip to keep from speaking.

Bane gripped her chin with his fingertips, speaking just one shade less of being unkind. "Did you mean the oath you spoke to me?"

Lena's cooperative and candid brain was stuck, Bane's question spiked too much to glean the genuine truth, rendering her mute before the drug forced her to make a few incoherent noises.

An amused twinkle flashed through Bane's warm, pulsing irises as he made a note to circle back to the question. He squeezed her closer, whispering against the crown of her head, his exhale hot through the mesh front of his mask. "How many men have you let inside you?"

Bane felt Lena tense in his arms, his ironclad hold forced her to turn her head until her lips nearly brushed against the warm skin of his throat.

If Bane hadn't been holding her as tight with no room for sunlight to even shine between them, he wouldn't have been close enough to hear her whisper.

"No one before you."