Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of DC Comics, Christopher Nolan, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: After Hugo Strange uses him as a test subject for an experiment in the Narrows, John Blake ends up owing his life to Bane and relying on him to survive. Several years post-TDKR. AU.

Author's Notes: Special thanks to girlbird3 and xXDontOfferMeDrugsXx for following this story; to MrsJohnReese for her kind review. Enjoy!

Chapter One

Whirring sound. Needle stick. Sharp pain on the back of his neck. Strange's face hovered next to him, grinning maniacally from ear to ear.

"Just administering your first dose of anesthetic, Mr. Blake."

No, wait, that wasn't right. Strange had said, "This is going to make it all better." Then a rush of dry heat spread down Blake's spine like a desert wind and he started hemorrhaging from his mouth, nose, and ears.

Blake blinked. Licked his lips. Tried to peer through his half-closed eyes but failed to focus on anything in particular. None of his other senses seemed to be working either. All he could hear was the steady throb of blood in his skull. All he could smell and taste was his own blood. He couldn't feel much beyond the steady ache that seemed to occupy every pore in his body, centred unsurprisingly on his lower back, but he knew he was propped upright against a surface of some kind. Steel wall, rusty...he shifted a little to get his bearings and woke up his lower back in the process.

The fresh wave of white heat cleared his vision. The black and tan blurs solidified before him, taking shape, revealing a derelict chamber and a hulking figure kneeling nearby. Though the man's head was lowered, Blake recognized that broad back and pale scalp anywhere: Bane.

Blake's breath hitched in his throat. Not from pain either, from disorientation, confusion. He couldn't remember where he was or how he got there, what Strange was doing with him, where Bane had come from... His last recollection of the immense mercenary was from almost ten years ago, in the wake of No Man's Land, and Bane hadn't even been spotted in Gotham since then. Upon seeing him now, Blake couldn't help but feel that he'd missed something, something important, but he couldn't focus on anything long enough to find out what it was.

Bane looked up at him suddenly. The only thing that kept Blake from flinching was his concussion, though he felt increasingly more lucid the longer he was under the mercenary's gaze. Adrenaline flooded his bloodstream, clearing the blood from his aching head and clarifying the lack of sensation in his right leg. He swallowed the lump in his throat, put on the brave cop face, and asked in a quiet, hollow voice, "You gonna kill me?"

"If I was going to kill you, I would have done it while you were unconscious," Bane reached for the collar of Blake's shirt. "You may wish for death before all this is over though, little one."

Blake grabbed Bane's arm before it could reach him, but his grip did nothing to deter the larger man from tearing the top of his t-shirt to reveal a bloody mess of cuts and scrapes. The air felt cold on his lashed skin. Blake hissed, and then muttered, "Don't play games with me."

"Ah," Bane started probing the wounds, issuing a groan from Blake, "You don't remember our little arrangement from the laboratory." The mercenary pinched hard against one of the cuts, prying out a piece of splintered wood from inside. It took every ounce of strength Blake had left not to cry out. As it was, he saw white when it happened and tasted bile in the back of his throat.

Laboratory – Blake's mind fixed on the word but couldn't place it. Everything was hazy, scrambled, like a television with a poor signal. "Why would I make any arrangement with you?" he demanded through gritted teeth.

Bane casually pried another piece of wood from under Blake's skin, a larger one this time. Blake made something akin to a sobbing sound. "Desperate men are wont to do desperate things: you were strapped to an operating table and required assistance. Tell me, what do you know of a substance known as Venom?"

Slowly, the clouds in Blake's memory lifted. Venom. A potent, addictive chemical similar to steroids. Scientists had discovered it in Central America, and it wasn't long before reports started surfacing of prison experiments, deaths. Blake had a sudden flash of memory, a jeering demon in glasses that did something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "Strange," he said, "Hugo Strange. What does he have to do with Venom?"

"You have heard of it," Bane finished his inspection of Blake's chest and pulled the smaller man away from the wall to inspect his back. The movement jarred Blake's spine into a spasm, and he cried out like a hydrogen bomb had detonated inside him. He tried to push himself away from Bane, back into the safety of his sitting position, but the larger man held him steady with the weight alone of his massive bicep. "I did manage to pull you away from the largest part of the ceiling when it fell," Bane noted, rubbing his calloused fingers over Blake's neck and shoulder blades in a search for splinters, "but it seems Strange may have injured you more severely with his ministrations than I suspected." The mercenary's hand travelled downward to the mess of scar tissue on Blake's lower back. "Or perhaps he may not have needed to injure you at all."

"Please," Blake tried to make his begging sound more like a threat, but it was hard to with how much pain he was in, "Stop."

"Because it hurts?"

"No, because it tickles," Blake spat. Apparently, his ability to use sarcasm was the only part of him that wasn't grievously wounded. "Yes, because it hurts."

"Pain is only in the mind." Bane replied, as if that somehow made the pain go away. He traced the scars on Blake's lower back some more, measuring them, prodding them, curious as a cat. A gigantic, terrorist cat. "

Tears started to creep their way down Blake's face. His mortification complete, he growled at the man next to him, "Let. Go. Of. Me."

"Your wounds must be cleaned. An infection would kill you in our current condition."

Blake scrubbed a hand over his face. The tears helped wash away some of the blood and mucous from his cheeks. He tried to focus on anything other than his own agony, and luckily, Bane had given him the perfect topic for conversation. "And just what is our current condition? Where are we?"

"Old Arkham. In the Narrows. Dr. Strange established a stronghold and a laboratory to use for his experiments."

"Experiments with Venom?"

Bane didn't have to answer. Blake knew. He couldn't remember how he knew, but he did. "So Strange injected you with venom?"

"In a manner of speaking."

Finally, mercifully, Blake felt Bane's hand withdraw and he was eased back into the wall. The fire in his back began to subside, and the pain settled into his back and thigh, coiling like a sleeping snake once more. Blake cast a weary glance at Bane. He wanted to glare but didn't have the strength for it. "What do you mean?"

"Strange's early experiments with Venom were unstable. Many of his test subjects died from exposure to the chemical. Those that did not tended to be killed off by the good doctor for being...unmanageable."

Understatement of the year, Blake thought grimly. Venom made people stronger and faster, gave them an accelerated healing factor and awful anger management issues. No wonder Strange's experiments were such failures. Of course, if Bane had Venom in his system...

Blake cast a worried glance at the mercenary. "How are you still alive?"

"Strange devised a new method of introducing Venom with his more recent subjects. He created a pump that would inject increasing amounts of Venom into an individual's system."

"So you have Venom in your system...right now?"

"Yes," Bane replied.

Blake's blood ran cold. He had seen Bane conquer an entire city, murder countless hundreds. Hell, this was the man who had broken the Batman over his knee. And Strange had given him a chemical compound that made his more powerful, more deadly, and less likely to hold back should those impulses take hold. Great.

Except, Blake eyed the mercenary carefully, Bane wasn't acting like he was on Venom. He didn't look any bigger than last time, which wasn't saying much, given how big Bane already was. He also didn't seem any angrier or more homicidal either, which, again, wasn't saying much.

"The effects of the Venom," Bane said, "Seem to be inhibited by this." He pointed to his mask.

"What does your mask do?"

"It releases a powerful anesthetic."

"Which would subdue the effects of the Venom," Blake nodded. He was starting to get it now, even if he didn't remember. The pump on Bane's back would have to be disconnected, and Blake had the technical expertise to do it. "That's the arrangement," he said quietly. "I remove the pump."

"Yes."

"Without killing you."

"Yes."

"How do you know I won't?" Blake asked.

"Aside for your mercy? Your morality? The fact that I have saved you now not once but three times?" Bane laughed mirthlessly. "In case those weren't incentive enough, I'm the only one who knows the procedure Strange performed on you...and how to reverse it."

Happy reading!