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: The ending of the chapter gets a little...graphic. I tried to keep it T – and minimal – but just in case, there's a little bit of gore in the last couple paragraphs.

To those who favourited/followed, read and/or reviewed - Mrs. John Reese, Cesari5, OliviaSBellatore (no, not creepy, don't worry!) and Jessica, who I can't respond to through the site - thank you for your kind attention, viewership, and comments. They are greatly appreciated, as always. I do hope that you continue to enjoy the story! Thank you!

Chapter Twelve

Growling. Ragged breathing. Fabric tearing. Strange's experiment was still at large then. Trying to escape the cell. Maybe. Blake was having a hard time seeing at the time, and the sounds weren't conclusive. They didn't seem to be coming from inside of a cell. All the grunting and heaving seemed to be close and drawing closer with every passing second.

The concrete struck hard and solidly against his knuckles.

Blake stopped. Blinked. His vision returned in a blinding rush of white light. That growling was coming from his throat.

He closed his mouth and swallowed hard. The floor of the padded cell lay open before him, exposed through a gaping wound in the fabric. More of his handiwork? A chill dashed through Blake from his skin all the way to the marrow of his bones. He'd blacked out. And there was blood on his hands, on his chest, on his face, through his hair, along with small fragments of bone and tissue. Blake knew they weren't his, but hell if he could remember whose they were or how they got there or...or...

"John?"

Blake caught a quick glimpse of Bane hovering in his periphery, empty needle still brandished in one hand. Shock and shame forced him to look away, back to the floor and the bloody prints his punches had left behind. "Hi," he replied lamely. "Did I...hurt you?"

He had certainly wanted to, and even now, Blake could still feel rage simmering beneath his terror.

"I cannot be harmed, little bird."

Bane's tone was casual, but the words themselves cut Blake wide open and emptied him out completely. An almost painful numbness overtook his body. The obvious question lodged itself in his throat like a fist. Blake choked, spluttered, and dared to peek over his shoulder.

All he saw was red.

He turned around to the gash in the floor again. The words fell out of his throat and settled like shrapnel in his stomach. His ears were ringing. "I'm sorry," Blake said, trying to fill the silence, but the only person he needed to apologize to was already several kinds of dead.

"You needn't apologize."

"I just..." now the tears were coming, along with the hysterical laughter. "I just beat a man to death! I tore him to pieces!"

"Strange had turned that man into a monster long ago," Bane said. "There was nothing more that you could have done for him. Nothing you could have done to stop yourself."

"I could have saved him. I should have..." Blake's stomach forced itself into a chokehold and sent a splash of bile into the back of his throat. Red. The whole half of the room was red. He pressed a hand to his mouth to hold back only to remember that his hands were red too, not to mention flecked with pieces of Strange's experiment. There was absolutely no resisting his stomach after that; Blake broke into dry heaves.

As a cop and as Nightwing, he had seen his share of blood before. When it came to violence and brutality, Gotham's criminals were ahead of the curve. Some had actually painted the town red. But to be the perpetrator of such violence, to have something locked up inside that wanted to destroy and kill, was a new feeling for Blake entirely. He wanted to heave it out of him, but whatever had come over him – whatever had torn Strange's experiment to pieces – had settled nicely in the deepest, darkest recesses of his soul and was staying put.

Something warm and heavy was draped over his shoulders. Blake almost doubled over from the change in weight, but he was caught round the biceps and held steady. "That man was already destroyed when Strange captured him as a test subject. There was nothing more you or your inadequate asylum could have done," Bane informed him.

"So I was merciful, then?" Blake spat the taste of vomit out of his mouth. God, the smell of blood was everywhere.

Bane's mask hissed. "No, it was far too late to have been mercy."

The truth hurt, but Blake appreciated the honesty nonetheless. He would have been more hurt by any attempt to make him feel better. Not that Bane would.

"I've never killed before," Blake said quietly, as if that wasn't obvious enough from his reaction.

"But you have wanted to kill before. Men always possess the desire, even if they do not possess the courage. The Venom isn't planting ideas in your head, Robin John Blake. You have wanted me dead since you first learned I was in Gotham."

"Yeah, but I didn't kill you, did I? I had a choice; I let you walk."

"But you didn't have a choice with Strange's monster."

"He wasn't a monster," the words sounded as hollow as Blake felt, but he didn't care. "Strange's tortured a man into becoming that thing, and I...I..." he looked to his bloody hands and fell silent. "I guess I'm just Strange's monster now too. No better than, at any rate."

Bane huffed. "For a monster," he said, "you possess an awful lot of moral uncertainty, little bird."

"Yeah, well, for a man, you posses an awful lot of moral certainty," Blake took Bane's silence as an agreement. He tilted his head slightly towards the mercenary's arm. "How do you do it? Killing?"

"I learned long ago that life is not a right; it is a privilege. Life is a prize hard won in battle against fear, against doubt, against pain." Blake felt the mercenary's eyes tracing over his back at that moment, and his spine tingled from the ghost of the bullet wound that used to plague him. "Humanity is not a strong constitution though. People would sooner give up the struggle than fight for the strength to keep it. That's why their build institutions and laws to govern, why they hide behind artifice and semantics to protect themselves. Life is merely habit for them. When I kill, I am relieving them of a burden they neither want nor deserve."

Blake felt his heart breaking. "That doesn't help me."

"You did not ask for help."

Another hysterical laugh followed by a swallowed sob. "True."

There was no use asking the mercenary for help either, based on that response. Blake truly believed that all life was sacred, even murderous terrorists who threatened cities with nuclear holocaust or madmen who shot people in their own homes. He still believed that there had been a way to save the man inside Strange's experiment: more importantly, that there was still something worth saving. Blake didn't know what to do with that thought though. He tried telling himself that it wasn't his fault, that he wasn't in control of his own actions, but those were just excuses. He should have been stronger than Strange, stronger than Venom. Strong enough to save the creature, himself, and Bane.

Bane gripped his arms tightly, again as if responding to Blake's inner monologue. "You are still in shock," he said. "Can you walk?"

Blake nodded shakily, but Bane still kept a firm grip on him as he rose. Once standing, the mercenary's hands hovered just a moment before retreating. The sheepskin coat was left to hang over his shoulders. "Thank you," Blake said softly.

"It was necessary."

Oh, for the love of... "Where I come from we say, 'You're welcome.'"

Bane's shoulders twitched in a shrug. "Where I come from, we do not say, 'Thank you.'"

He didn't move after that, not until Blake did, and even then he was careful to stand between the smaller man and the mess he'd made. "It is not necessary for you to look," Bane told Blake when he tried to peer around at the remains.

The former detective shook his head. "No, I need to see this."

The mercenary's gaze was, as always, impassive though the way he hesitated made Blake rethink his decision for a split second. Even a hardened killer wasn't sure if he should get a closer look at his handiwork. Whatever lay on that side of the room was worse than the glimpse of red he'd gotten earlier.

But as much as Blake disagreed with Bane's philosophy of life, one thing they could both agree on was that life was a struggle. Life was filled with terrible things that people adapted to, fought against, or hid from. Blake wasn't one to hide, least of all from things he had done. He had to know what was stirring inside of him, what dark half Strange had unlocked, so that the next time they met, Blake wouldn't lose himself in the process.

He still regretted the decision when Bane stepped aside though. Just a little. Because the sight that greeted him was so much worse than he could have ever imagined. Red was an understatement. Red was a generalization. Red did not even come close to accurately describing the carnage he'd caused. There certainly was red covering every surface: the floor, the walls, even some on the ceiling. But then there was the pool of what looked to be gray scrambled eggs where the creature's head ought to have been. His right forearm was lying in the corner having been torn messily from the creature's body. There were also bite marks – human bite marks – on his thigh muscles where there used to be skin.

The air cleared out of the room. Blake tasted bile for the second time. "I'm sorry," he stammered. His heart skipped several beats and then played catch up. Bane caught him when he swooned. "I'm really sorry."

He pretended not to hear when Bane told him, "There is nothing to be sorry for, little bird."

...happy reading!(?)