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 don't write fight scenes very often, so I'm afraid my skills are a little rusty. Hopefully the chapter still reads well despite my lack of practice!
To all those that follow this story, added it to their favourites, or reviewed – I write this with every chapter, so it sounds repetitive, but I'm going to keep writing it until the story's done – thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. There is nothing quite like your hits and comments to get me writing another installment. I'm thrilled that you're enjoying the story and I truly appreciate the feedback.
Chapter Eleven
Blake couldn't figure out if he was terrified or excited in that moment. He knew he should be terrified; he certainly had been in the showers. But another part of him, and Blake wasn't sure whether this was Nightwing or his newer, more dangerous personality, was thrilled with the anticipation of a chase or a fight.
...or a kill.
He mimicked Bane's movements, coming to stand beside the mercenary with his back against the wall to the left of the door. Upstairs, it would be easy to track the monster's movements, but they were blind, deaf, and cornered inside the padded cell.
Man, Blake reminded himself at last. All night long he'd been reflexively calling Strange's experiments monsters, but that thing outside, whatever had been done to him, whatever he was now, had still been a man at some point. Might still be one, under the Venom. Might still be one again... Blake looked to the door and strained to hear any activity outside of it. If Strange's experiment charged the room, they could trap him inside. A padded cell was far more secure than a derelict basement. Then he could be safely transported to new Arkham, and between Bane's anesthetic and Strange's leftover Venom, he could be cured.
"Bane," Blake whispered, then stopped himself. That preternatural stillness had come over the mercenary once again in waiting as he prepared for whatever Strange's experiment had in store. He cast a brief glance at Blake out of the corner of his eye, a once and final warning, and then settled back into stillness.
Maybe Strange's experiment hadn't seen them after all.
The sound of old concrete shattering caught Blake mid-exhale.
Blake threw a hand to Blake's chest and pushed him back against the wall, holding him there. As usual, he had plans of his own, and Blake knew better than to think they included letting Strange's experiment live.
They could hear the punching and tearing now, the sound proofing having been compromised with the concrete. The creature's frantic grunts filtered through the wall on the far side of the door drawing nearer and louder every passing second as more of the wall was ripped away. Bane almost disappeared into the wall he was so still. Blake had never seen that level of sheer concentration before, at least not combined with a ferocity like Bane's.
Blake decided he was feeling a little more terrified than excited now. As Nightwing, he was used to taking down a small army of men on a regular basis, but he had been so deeply retired for the past four years that there was no telling how much of the training his body remembered. He could maybe have handled Strange's experiment, maybe, at the top of his game. Might have even landed a few hits on Bane while he was at it. But even this many years after the Occupation, Bane still looked like an almighty force to be reckoned with.
Blake stifled a groan. If he could get Bane out the door first, he thought, he could use himself as a human shield. Not the best or most likeable strategy, but it might get Bane to pause long enough to lock Strange's experiment up inside.
Blake's new personality had some suggestions too, but he ignored them with all his might.
The creature outside gave a roar loud enough to penetrate the areas of wall that were still sound proofed. The sound cut through Blake's admittedly weak concentration, because a similar roar rang out inside him, just as loud but a little bit angrier. He felt Bane's hand press a little tighter to his chest in response, as if the mercenary could feel the rage building inside him. Blake's terror nearly doubled when he counted six slow heartbeats between wanting to tear the mercenary's arm off to when he finally got a handle on himself and stopped growling.
The door bounced open on its hinges once, twice, three times, and then there was a long, interminable silence. Blake heard another low growl from outside. The creature was learning, considering, and...walking away? His footsteps thundered back up the hallway several paces, sending more concrete rattling from the walls. Blake tilted his head forward, staring past Bane's profile to the door. Venom didn't permit people to just walk away from fights, least of all when they were so close to bloody satisfaction. The creature couldn't be that stupid. He would come back, harder and faster than he had before.
It dawned on Blake just as another roar filled his ears: the creature wasn't walking away; he was getting ready to charge.
"You will run," Bane told Blake. The creature's footsteps thundered towards the door like a death knell.
Blake shook his head. "I won't let you kill-"
How the door wasn't torn from the frame was an absolute miracle. The creature charged into the cell with the force of natural disaster, his gigantic right shoulder dropped down in front of him like a battering ram, and only stopped when the far wall refused to break in front of him. He was utterly massive. Blake had thought him mammoth before, but now, up close, monster seemed like a perfectly appropriate descriptor for what thrashed about before him. Seven, maybe eight feet tall; shoulders like medieval stocks and muscles bursting through the skin. Veins wove ornate green patterns under his skin, throbbing and pulsing.
Blake felt a great pang of sympathy at that moment. Strange had truly and utterly destroyed this man, so much so that Blake couldn't even see the parts that would be worth saving.
He wondered bleakly if the same would be said about him, when he turned.
Bane interrupted Blake's musings by grabbing him by the arm and whipping him out the door. Now was the time he was supposed to run, but Blake didn't get more than a few steps before he glanced over his shoulder and saw Bane reaching for the Venom pump on the monster's back.
"NO!" he shouted.
Not his best idea of the night so far. The creature whipped around in response, monstrous arms flailing, and threw Bane clear off his feet towards the door.
"Bane!" Blake rushed towards him, but the mercenary was standing again like he'd never been knocked down in the first place. He moved with an agility and adeptness that seemed impossible for his size in those next moments. The monster started swiping again chaotically, insensate with rage, and Bane dodged every one of them as if they had rehearsed. He struck quickly and effectively, his movements a total blur. Blake could only register the meaty slaps of fist hitting flesh, not the actual punches themselves.
It was a kick of some kind to the knee that brought the creature crashing forward. He bowed before Bane, mammoth chest heaving with growls and roars and unsatisfied bloodlust. "Come on," Blake beckoned, but Bane wasn't listening. He was reaching for the pump again, and this time, he wasn't going to be stopped. Not easily, anyways.
Even if Blake's body didn't remember the training, his mind certainly did. He switched easily into vigilante mode, adrenaline smoothing the stiffness in his joints, and became Nightwing all over again. He rushed Bane with all his newly developed strength.
Bane, however, was still Bane. Had been ever since the Occupation, would continue to be until the end of time. He caught Blake with an elbow to the stomach and threw him back towards the open doorway.
Then he tore the pump out of the monster's back.
Blood, Venom, and spinal fluid splashed through the air in a macabre firework before settling in a mess on the white padding beneath their feet. Strange's experiment let out a fierce roar that, even within the cell, was deafening, and he thrashed with renewed vigor at both his assailants.
Blake was struck twice in the legs by the creature's blows before he could pull himself away. The pain should have been unbearable, but his body seemed to absorb the impact rather than react to it. He hadn't even necessarily felt the bite of Bane's elbow or the hallway floor when he landed. His muscles had instead flexed up, stiffened, forging themselves into the rock solid physique Venom was so famous for generating.
That should have worried him, but it didn't. Blake was too fixated on the tortured, snarling face in front of him, the one of the man Bane had just sentenced to die. "Why did you do that?!" he demanded over the creature's growls.
Bane said nothing. He took a silent, cautionary step away from the writhing creature, raising the pump like a trophy above his head. Blake watched the pump fall to the floor and heard it shatter under Bane's foot.
The creature lunged towards Blake like a mad dog with two feeble hind legs, causing the smaller man to crawl back across the floor and out of his reach. Blake had a chance. He could lock Bane up inside the cell, leave him to his death. Being saved meant nothing if it meant saving the mercenary too. The only thought that stayed his hand was not the one Blake anticipated. Nightwing would have weighed the risk of shutting the door with putting himself in the creature's reach, but at that moment, all Blake could think about was how much he wanted to kill Bane himself.
He rose to his feet, thoughts darkening despite himself. Bane had taken the whole city hostage, had broken the one hero Gotham truly had; he'd released the criminals and psychopaths from Blackgate and Arkham. And while he might not have pulled the trigger on Blake's doorstep that day, Bane had let the Joker loose in the first place.
And now he had sentenced another innocent to die horribly.
Focus, John. He had started growling again.
...shot the Commissioner, killed countless hundreds in a kangaroo court, countless thousands more from his Occupation...
He wasn't Nightwing anymore. Strange's experiment was the only thing standing between him and sweet, bloody vengeance.
...kill him, rip him, tear him, break him...
Blake let the anger take over.
He didn't stop until he heard a skull cracking beneath his fists.
And then he started tearing.
...happy reading?