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: Thank you to AnaBananabby, Stream'sxCupxOfxTea, and texasberry87 for following and the kind reviewers! I do hope you enjoy the next installment.

Chapter Two

Blake's whole body went numb, first with fear and then with rage. "You're lying," he spat, trying to keep his breathing measured and his pulse steady. His face twisted a little in anger but remained otherwise impassive. "Strange wouldn't have performed any procedure on me. I'm no good to him as a test subject."

"You were once a protector of Gotham City," Bane explained, "The Nightwing. That would be enough for the good doctor to use you for his experiments."

"That was a long time ago." Four years to be precise, though Blake didn't want to be. The day he had to hang up that costume and take a spot behind a computer monitor was fresh as ever in his memory and hurt a hundred times more than his back ever could. "I'm not Nightwing anymore."

"Perhaps not in body," Blake felt Bane's eyes fix on his abdomen in a straight shot towards his scars, "But in mind, you would make a perfect specimen for Dr. Hugo Strange."

"What did he do?"

"What does it matter? You'll never get the antidote in time without my assistance."

Blake wracked his memory for clues, fighting the rising tide of panic welling up inside him, but all he found were fragments. Tatters. Shards of recollections. He remembered a white room and a face half-obscured by a surgical mask before being struck by the beams of an overhead lamp and a voice telling him everything was going to be better.

Needle stick.

Burning sensation in the back of the neck.

Oh, God...

"What did he give me?" Blake demanded. "Tell me, or I swear I'll let that pump run dry."

Bane, courtly as ever, replied, "You're in no position to make demands."

"The hell I'm not. I'm the only hope you've got of getting off Venom before you start detoxing."

"And while I am in the throes of detox, who is it that you think I will be going after, little one? Old Arkham is abandoned save for a small detachment of Strange's guards. You will be easier to tear apart than them." Bane's black, deadened stare told Blake that this wasn't an unappealing option to him either, even with the prospect of detoxing from Venom thrown into the mix. "I've long made peace with my death," Bane assured him, "But you fear it, enough to live in excruciating pain, to trade your life to the man who crippled Gotham and her Dark Knight."

Blake scowled at Bane. "I have people out there looking for me right now."

"You have people looking for a tracking device, one that Strange removed when you were being transported to this place. They will never find you here in time."

"They're better than you think."

"You're willing to bet your life on that."

It was a question, not a statement, but Bane's observational tone was a sharper, more brutal blade for Blake. He steeled his resolve: yes, he was willing to bet his life on that. There were four other people in the cave now, one big, happy Bat Family, and one was the best hacker in the country. Any minute now, they were going to come crashing through that door to his rescue.

Blake was nagged by a terrifying doubt though: but what then? Even if his allies managed to locate him at Old Arkham, even if they fought their way through Strange's men (likely) and Bane (less likely, especially with Venom in his system), they would still have to figure out what Strange had injected him with and procure an antidote of some kind. Blake assumed they would only have a certain amount of time to do it too. Whatever the injection was didn't seem to have taken hold yet. The chances of Bane being any more talkative after being beaten were slimmer than they were now as well...especially if the pump ran dry.

A wave of utter helplessness rose within him, and while Blake braced himself against it, he still felt the impact break him in two. For a split second, his face fell in defeat, but Bane had an eye for broken and recognized the expression immediately. "You are alone, little one," his words echoed into the empty, desolate chamber and rattled Blake to the core, splintering him even further. "I think it best you follow me for your own good, and I shall be your guide and lead you out through an eternal place."

"Shakespeare," Blake muttered accusingly.

"Dante," Bane corrected him.

Blake scoffed, "Fitting."

He glanced around the room once more, now that he had his bearings and a purpose. If the only way out of Hell was through it, he might as well start walking. The room, however, wasn't promising. There wasn't enough light for Blake to see, let alone work, and all the dust, rust, and waste – the withered papers on the floor, rotting furniture, cobwebbed ceilings – were just waiting to cause an infection or muck up the pump's controls. "Strange's lab had electricity...I think," the memories flickered in his brain, but Blake still couldn't place them. "We're gonna need to find a room away from his men with light. Sanitary conditions...better than this place anyways: an exam room, the operating theatre...which ward are we in?"

"Minimum security."

That didn't help, Blake realized. He hadn't been in Old Arkham since before the Occupation, and his head was reeling just from trying to locate the room they were in from his foggy recollections of prisoner drop-offs when he was a cop. As Nightwing, he had to know the layout of New Arkham, but that facility was more streamlined. They were rats in a maze here in Old Arkham, unless Bane had as good a mind for geography as he did for conquering cities.

"There are secure exam rooms on the fifth floor," Bane said.

"How do you know?"

"I have been a resident of the Narrows for many years."

Those would work. "What floor are we on now?"

"The basement."

"And I take it the elevators are down?"

"Unless you intend to alert Strange's men to our location."

Blake's stomach bobbed in his throat like a cork. Sitting hurt. Standing hurt. Walking hurt. But what was coming next, he knew, was going to be a whole new breed of agony for him. "Stairs it is, then," he heard himself saying.

"Indeed," Bane agreed. He started to rise.

Blake didn't notice the mercenary's hand around his throat until it was too late. His vision sputtered, his mind shut down, and everything went black.

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