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: I was overwhelmed by the number of hits this story got after the last installment. I'm so excited that people are interested! Special thanks to anyone who even glanced at the first chapter, not to mention everyone who followed/favourited the story. It's a pleasure to know that you're enjoying it. Kind reviewers, you make the writing even easier. Here's hope chapter ten will have you back for more. Thank you!

Chapter Ten

True to his word, Bane gave Blake a booster of anesthetic after he made the proper adjustments to the Venom pump. Blake had just enough time to notice the cocktail was a little heavier on sedation before a wave of dizziness knocked his eyes back into his head and the world fell sideways into blackness.

He thought he heard voices in the darkness - an inquisitive metallic growl and a tired drawl conversing – but Blake couldn't make out what they were saying to one another. They were just white noise narration for the flood of memories plaguing him, some of Strange, a few of an operating room, but most of Nightwing, the cave, the family. All the things that before-Blake took for granted and after-Blake couldn't stand to think about. Blake tried to hang onto the way it felt to walk on two legs and fly between rooftops while he wasn't in pain, but the sensations were fleeting. Passing. And then...gone.

Blake opened his eyes.

Something was wrong.

The lucidity was new but not alarming. Blake felt himself falling back into his old routines. He could still feel his new personality simmering beneath the surface, waiting, but it was continued, leaving only Blake's old training to take over. The fact that he wasn't in pain seemed off to him, disorienting even, but that wasn't it either. Blake sensed something else was amiss, something other than everything else in his crazy, messed up life. More than the serum mutating his body. More than owing his life to Bane.

He took stock, but it was difficult between the drugs and the serum. Blake wasn't sure what he felt and what he didn't. He shifted where he was lying. His back was silent, alarmingly so. No answering twinge or spasm anywhere, even in his left leg, and the drugs could not account for that.

They also couldn't account for the phantom itch in his right foot.

His blood ran cold. No. He had never had any phantom sensation in his right leg. Blake propped himself up on his elbows, wincing from the stiffness in his now bulky shoulders, and stared at his right foot. He didn't want to look, didn't want to be reminded, but he felt something he hadn't felt in two years. Chill. Slight itch right below his toes.

Blake's heart lodged itself in his throat. The Venom coursing through his veins had mended the nerve to his leg.

Two years. The damn leg had hung useless at his side for two years without a prickle, tingle, or whisper of activity, and all of a sudden, Blake was noticing things. The feeling of fabric against his skin, the chill of the room on his toes, the adrenaline flooding his veins. Tears collected on the edges of his vision, but Blake was too stunned to brush them away. He stared in awe at his leg, lost in how utterly right it felt to feel anything again.

Which was nothing compared to how Blake felt when his foot started moving.

The sound he made was as much a laugh as it was a cry. Venom hadn't just healed the nerve; it had regenerated the atrophied muscles. Blake was still stiff, but he quickly discovered that the rest of his leg responded to his commands. He could bend his knee, point his toe, apply weight to the joint. In his excitement, Blake forgot his broken self and kicked himself into a standing position, just like old times.

Well, not quite. In old times, he wouldn't have very nearly toppled head first into the floor from the weight of his new physique. Blake's shoulders hadn't reached the proportions of the monster he'd seen earlier, but they much larger than he ever thought possible, than had ever been possible. His legs were barely used to hauling his old torso around, let alone the newer, bulkier one.

Still, the very fact that he had moved gave Blake a high that not even Bane's painkiller cocktail could match. His back hadn't so much as tickled, and even now, standing almost upright, Blake only felt the flex and pull of muscles, not an explosion of agony.

He held the wall for support, knees buckling from the shock of it all despite their new muscle mass. Strange had kidnapped him, tortured him, and used him as a test subject against his will, but the serum had just given Blake his old body back with a few additional perks. Blake didn't know how he felt about that. It was hard to think about all the terrible parts of his current situation when he was up and walking around again.

The locks squeaked, rattling the walls. Bane strode into the room, allowing the door to slide nearly shut behind him.

"You are ready to face the darkness then, little bird," he walked the length of the room slowly, eyes never leaving Blake. His gaze waved the embers inside Blake to flame, but the anesthetic was still strong enough to suppress the urge to destroy, kill, rip, tear...

Blake tore his eyes from Bane and fixed them on the nearest wall for several long moments, regaining himself. He picked the wrong place to look though. Several square feet of the padded wall had been ripped half to hell as some point, and Blake couldn't shake the sensation that he knew how.

"You should be proud of your handiwork," Bane said. "For someone of your stature, in as much pain as you were, that kind of property damage took great strength."

Blake tightened his grip on the wall, but this time it wasn't from elation. He glanced back at Bane and tried to make a joke in spite of the liquid nitrogen flooding his veins. "I told you I wasn't little."

"Not so little anymore," Bane knelt down and picked up his coat, the ancient sheepskin jacket Blake recognized from the Occupation. It was rolled up around the same place Blake had been lying, like a pillow. He didn't get a chance to comment on it before Bane spoke again. "Though still too small for battle with Strange's beasts."

"Give me a couple more hours. I'll be bigger than you."

"It will take more than sheer size to tear me to pieces, little bird, but if you care to try, I would be happy to disabuse you of your newfound confidence."

Bane held his stance proudly, patiently, like a prize fighter waiting for the next round with an opponent on his last legs. The coat hung from one hand. Blake shook his head. "No," he said, though the voices in his head urged him to charge Bane, take him, break him down. Blake looked at the floor to remind himself who he was, all that he regained, before saying, "Thank you, by the way. That anesthetic is really...taking the edge off."

"I will leave you with some after I have left, along with the antidote."

Blake nodded. That wouldn't be so bad. The second Bane was out of the picture, he could get in touch with the family, could get the night straightened out and his life back together, whatever that meant. The hard part was apparently over. Hourly injections followed by the antidote: the night was turning into a piece of cake.

"You should be close to done," Blake replied. "How long was I out?"

"Long enough."

For someone so well spoken, Bane could be ambiguous as all hell. "In hours?"

"Two."

"It's soon," Blake commented. His heart hammered in his chest impatiently though, yearning for this nightmare to be over. "Can you handle another decrease in the dosage?"

Bane's shoulder's twitched in the best approximation of a shrug his massive body could muster. He looked like he could handle anything. Blake wasn't so sure though. In less than six hours, Bane's body had undergone rapid detox from one of the most addictive substances on the planet. His anesthetic could be covering up graver symptoms. Blake couldn't take the risk of killing Bane for the chance to call the cavalry into Old Arkham and do battle with other Venom freaks. "We'll wait," he said finally.

Another twitch. "Strange's monsters and men seem to be contained to the building so far."

"How do you know that?"

"I surveilled them while you were unconscious."

"You went looking for them?"

"Our paths crossed."

Blake was pretty sure he knew what the answer was, but he asked anyways. "Did you kill them?"

"Strange's men, yes. The monster proved more powerful than I anticipated though. He is contained, for the time being, in the basement."

"That's...oddly humane of you."

"He fell through the floor and I did not wish to pursue."

That was more like it. Blake couldn't help but feel grateful. "Well, thank you. I know that you would rather see them tear Gotham apart."

"The floor is more deserving of your sentiments," Bane replied.

"I'll go thank it then," Blake tried to keep the tide of anger welling up inside him from overwhelming his newfound clarity. "Where did you leave him?"

There was an undercurrent of laughter in Bane's voice. "You are not strong or smart enough to challenge Strange's creation."

"Then help me."

Even filtered through his mask, Bane sounded disgusted by the notion. Blake made a fist to relieve the rage building inside him. The Venom side of him was getting stronger despite the drugs. He was going to need another shot soon if he kept talking to Bane. "Fine," he spat, breathing through the fury, "Am I at least free to leave the room?"
"You have always been free to leave," Bane replied, "Provided you were able to get through me."

Part-dare, part-threat, all-menace, pure-Bane. Blake didn't lose his temper from the challenge though. On the contrary, he was thrilled by it. Between his mental clarity and the loss of his pain, Blake felt all his old Nightwing sensibilities called to action. He kept his eyes trained on the mercenary and walked to the door. His body was stiff, but it was moving, and the thrill was almost a whole new kind of crippling for Blake.

All the while, Bane didn't move a muscle, not even as Blake slid his fingers into the door jam and opened the cell. He was able to move very quickly though, Blake noticed, when he saw one of Strange's monsters marching towards them from the hallway beyond.

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