So, as you're going to find out in a second… I have completely revamped this story. I have completely changed the way I am writing it. I'm keeping the same plot, I just hated the way I was writing it. (One of those weird writer things, you know? When you read through it and the day you read through it, it sound likes shit. Yeah, that happened to me.) So, please, re-read the first chapter and read this one and celebrate the new joy of a brand new story. I haven't edited two words of this, so forgive me for errors. Thank you so much for the support! – D
My eyes enlarged as I took in the muscle of a man with a large scar trailing down his spine. Pricks went up mine at the sight of it. "Who is your friend? She is much too clumsy and loud to be Selina." He laughed dryly at his own comment at my expense.
"Someone I'd like you to meet. I think she can help you." I rolled my eyes in the dark, recalling when my uncle said the same thing to me all of those years ago before he brought Jada into my hospital room. What makes other people feel like they know what will help for other people? The man scoffed and rose from the concrete block, towering over us. I swallowed hard when I recognized the mask on the man's face as he turned in our direction. My head shook back and forth as I tried to find words to use that would sound like coherent speech. Fuck no. Not Bane. His skin was incredibly smooth over his rippling muscle, the only hair being his eyebrows, which were in the most unpleasant expression. His eyes burrowed into mine and I could feel him exploring my memories and thoughts. The vulnerability made me bite my tongue in anger. "Bane, this is Doctor Holly Engel. Holly, I want you to meet Bane."
"I know who the fuck this is," I spat. He hurt thousands of people and possibly killed even more. What could I possibly want with a sadistic fuck like this? "I this is my proposition? To do what? Murder him, because good old 'Batman' can't get his hands dirty?" Bane chuckled. He folded his arms, his chest heaving up and down. "Because that's the only thing I can even think of to do with him."
"Holly…" Bruce started, walking towards me with his hands up. He looked like he was approaching a hostage negotiation.
"What?" I snapped.
"I need your help."
"With?"
"Bane."
"What about Bane?" I asked, rolling my eyes to the monster. His eyes were still locked on me like I was a target. A chill filled the air around me in the most unpleasant, god awful way. The muscles in my back tensed. "What do you possibly need help with? He's behind bars and still breathing- problem equals solved."
"I like this one… she has a… certain fire and energy about her," Bane added, taking a step towards the bars, towards me. I turned and raised my finger, ready to redirect my anger, failing to think of anything witty to say.
"Shut your fucking mouth," I quipped. Bruce sighed and pressed a button on the wall beside him. We all watched as a plexi-glass barrier lowered itself from the ceiling. It connected and sealed with the ground of Bane's cell with a loud clunk noise. Bane pointed at Bruce, but we couldn't hear him. If he was even talking. I stared at him.
"Hey," Bruce breathed in a calm voice. "Look at me, Holly. Ignore him. He's trying to bog you down. Don't let him win." Bruce grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face him. His brown eyes were warm and kind. His hair was long and dark brown, wavy, slicked back with spots of gray peeking out. "I called you out here, because you're the only one I can trust with this. I need to know about Bane's mask."
"Take it off then," I smarted, not wanting any part of Bruce's plan.
"I would, but he's rumored to be disfigured. You were the best reconstructive surgeon in Gotham."
"Yes, I was," I corrected, interrupting him. I never got back into reconstructive surgery after criminals started shelling out large amounts of money to have their faces remade so they could stay off the radar.
"You were very successful. You were hand picked out of every other surgeon to help Harvey Dent." Harvey's name made me immediately think of his face and the terrible shape it was in. That was the first and only time I ever cried for a patient. He was a strong, brilliant man who became a broken soul. I hated making rounds to his room when he was in the hospital.
"Yeah, and it's been awhile." Bruce laughed.
"I'm sure you could pick it up again, very easily. You shouldn't be so modest. You're an amazing surgeon." Modest? Amazing? Bruce Wayne – the charmer.
"So, he needs his face fixed. Why? Why not just take off his mask and let the fucker rot?" Bruce cleared his throat and regarded me seriously.
"I don't kill people, Holly. I don't care if he is a fucked up individual. That would make me no better than the other people in this asylum." I raised an eyebrow to him and looked at Bane, who was stomping around his cell, banging on the plexi-glass. "I want to know about that mask. I want to know what chemicals he's been living off of. And you're the only person I can trust with this."
"Yeah, you said that," I cracked.
"I'll pay you fifty thousand each day you're here with him, starting today." Jesus. I tried to maintain a poker face, but knew I was failing. "I need to make sure that I can stop this from happening again. Just in case there are more of him." More? He hurt so many people. He orphaned so many children. He put those criminals back on the streets- the abusers, child molesters, rapists- I felt a buildup of anger. Bruce and what remained of the police were still cleaning up the criminals that escaped during the time of Bane. That could happen again?
"I'll help you, but I want nothing to do with him after he recovers, you understand?" Bruce nodded. "I just want to make it absolutely clear to you that I'm not doing this for the money, either. I'm doing this so you can stop another Bane before he does the same thing. If I help you – history better not fucking repeat itself," I warned, holding a finger up. Bane flexed and bucked his head back before slamming his hands into the concrete block he had been sitting on. The ground shook below our feet. Bane had successfully turned into a pile of rubble.
"I promise you I'll keep this from happening again," Bruce spoke in a low voice a few inches away from my ear.
"You fucking better – so help you God."
I walked into my apartment, the familiar soothing silence falling enveloping me as I walked to my brown cloth couch. It was just what I needed. I held Bane's file in my hands as I plopped down on the cushion, feeling a smile pull at my lips as I sat my feet on the matching ottoman, kicking my heels off. Finally. Bane's file felt like a damn phone book. I inspected the beat up manila folder. It was obvious it had been around for a while, due to the coffee stains on the front, the scrawled notes, and phone numbers on the front of it. I hadn't eaten for hours, but it didn't bother me. The only thing I could think of was the surgery. The surgery that Bruce took upon himself to schedule for 3 in the afternoon, tomorrow. I looked over at the calendar hanging in my kitchen and smirked. Poor old Mrs. Cole was going to have to wait another day or two for her hip replacement, the sad old bitch. She was rude to me, so it was hard for me to feel sorry about it. I stared at the file, not really wanting to open it. I bit my lip and scanned my living room. Now I'm pretending objects are people I need to avoid. I rolled my eyes. I wonder what Jada would have to say to that. I snorted at her serious expression as I explained to her my new dilemma in my mind and opened the file.
Paper clipped to the inside cover was a picture of Bane before his transformation. I felt my jaw drop open as I took in the sight. It was a major difference compared to the monster he had become. He was muscular, his full lips pulled up in a small smirk, holding his card with his name and registration number. He was attractive, well groomed, with longish hair, and a clean shaven face. His blue eyes seemed to be churning with something I couldn't quite put my finger on. "Liam Dorrance," I whispered. So you do have a real name. "And you were born in Dublin, Ireland," I read, scoffing a bit. I flipped through the long list of charges. A page shook itself loose from the pile and fell, I instinctively reached down to pick it up immediately. I turned the paper over to meet the same blue eyes, this time behind a large metallic mask, churning with nothing but pure hatred. A chill rolled down my spine. I turned the paper over and shook myself loose. I wasn't going to let that asshole get to me. I didn't let people into my life or mind like that. I was single and alone for a reason. Clearing my throat loudly, I pulled the front piece of paper out again.
DORRANCE, LIAM "BANE"
/ Height: 6'5" / Weight: 300 / Hair: None / Eyes: Blue / DOB: Apr 16, 1975 /
Born in Dublin, Ireland to AILIS DORRANCE and EDMUND DORRANCE [see file] of Bray, Ireland
Graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Engineering and a degree in Medicine on May 6, 1993.
Known to speak: Spanish, English, German, French, Russian, Mandarin, Urdu, Persian, Portuguese, and Latin
Sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment in The Pit for his father's sentence on June 6, 1995, was broken out by RA'S AL GHUL [see file] on August 4, 2007. Recently emerged in 2011 from hiding, with a permanent mask on his face. [see updated images]
Known to be an affiliate with The League of Shadows [see file] and Suicide Squad [see file] and TALIA AL GHUL [see file]
I shook my head as I read through it. "Father's sentence?" What in the hell? "And fucking Cambridge?! With a double major –" I tried to think. I barely made it through my damned Medicine degree and this man earned a double major with an Engineering degree. I scoffed and turned his picture back over. "Who the fuck are you?" I asked out loud, as if I would get a response. Wow, yeah, we're going to have a serious talk with Jada about talking to in adamant objects soon. I sat, scratching my head when a knock came from my door. I cocked an eyebrow at it. I wasn't used to visitors. At all. I trudged to the door, staring at the door with my head cocked to the side. I opened it slowly and was greeted with an overly ecstatic burst of energy. Arms threw themselves around me, holding me in a tight vice grip of a hug. Venus. I could tell by the tickling of frizzy hair on my face. I scrunched my face up.
"Holly!" she cheered, squeezing me. I patted her shoulder awkwardly.
"Hey Venus," I choked.
"I hope you remembered we were doing dinner tonight," she stated, holding up a bag of Chinese take-out. Oh, shit.
"Of course I remembered," I mumbled, shutting the door as she made herself at home. She placed the bag on my kitchen table and I watched her eyes catch the file on my couch.
"Well, if you're too busy being a big, important surgeon, I can leave." I could hear the jealousy and anger in her voice.
"No," I sneered, sitting down at the table. "It's just a new case a friend asked me to look into."
"Oh," she started, waving a finger at me as she sat a container of orange chicken down before me. "Speaking of friends…" I sighed silently. "Do you still see Bruce Wayne?" Fuck, not Bruce.
"As a patient, yes," I answered. A patient that I regard highly and do not wish to see tainted or pissed off.
"Well, I've been working on a new serum at work and I feel it could be very valuable and useful in the right hands of an investor." I slicked back my ponytail and stared at her, watching as she pulled her baggy pants back up onto her hips. Her clothes were always too large. She looked sizes larger than what she really was. She placed two glasses of water on the table and sat across from me, raising an un-plucked eyebrow in my direction. Had anyone known who we really were and what we were really like, I'd say my personality fit more into the way Venus looked instead of the way I did. I was too well groomed and cared what too much about my appearance to not care about my relationships with people. She was outgoing and quirky and I was brash and quiet. My job made me care about my appearance. If I walked into a patient's room looking like Venus, I'm quite sure I wouldn't have anyone else showing up at my doorstep. Venus, being a chemical engineer and pharmacist, sat around a damn microscope all day, hanging out with other carefree nerds, so she had nothing to worry about.
"We'll see, okay? Bruce is my most well respected client. He's a fucking billionaire for Christ's sake. I don't know his feelings on all of that shit. We don't exactly talk about business deals and ideas while he's in my office for a check-up." But, we can talk about murderous freaks who need to have their faces reconstructed. She furrowed her eyebrows at me and pointed her fork in my direction.
"It's not shit," she scolded. I rolled my eyes.
"You know what the fuck I meant," I spat back, rising up to the challenge. I wasn't trying to make it a damn argument.
"Any bit helps." She backed down and took another bite.
"And you think I don't know that?" I asked, not letting the anger leave my voice.
"Just forget it and eat," she mumbled, hunching her shoulders in defeat.