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: Happy holidays, everyone! I hope everyone has enjoyed the wait. This chapter is a little rough, penned in a rather disjointed sitting, but I am getting closer to the conclusion! Thank you so much for the kind comments and those that favourited/followed. Enjoy the next installment!
Chapter Fifteen
Sunrise in Gotham was a bittersweet affair. The city was all iron and steel, harsh edges and gray gloom during the day; dark alleys and eerie shadows at night. Caught between the two though, and all the rawness of Gotham faded away. She was sleek, sultry, and promising against the fire of the horizon. The last remaining stronghold in battle. Blake used to wait for it after patrol each day from the tallest points in Gotham: Wayne Tower, the clock tower, the GCN station. As happy as he was to find out that Gotham was still standing, still beautiful, in spite of it all, the passing of another night saddened him. The sun meant taking off the mask, hanging up the costume, and pretending the world was at peace before the war started again that night.
Hence, Blake had to pause when he emerged on the rooftops of Old Arkham. The sun had just appeared on the horizon, a small sliver peeking through the imposing rooftops beyond the river. The angle of the light made the light pollution invisible, leaving the sky a pristine navy-indigo with the moon hugging Wayne Tower's right side. He hadn't taken in a sky like this in four years, not because he couldn't access rooftops, but because it just wasn't the same to watch from the sidelines. These were Nightwing's skies, not John Blake's. After a while, he stopped looking up. Now, it was impossible not to: he had to face the morning, embrace it, hold onto it. After the night he'd been having, Blake felt like he earned the dawn. Duelling wits with super-villains, fighting bad guys...this was just like old times. He felt like he was just coming off a patrol, even felt the phantom itch of the mask on his face for a second.
Well, almost. Blake balled his killing hands into fists. Some parts of the evening were new, and they hurt like hell. He had fallen further than four years away from Nightwing in one night, and there were still miles to go before he could do anything about it. Not to mention very little time left. Sunrise meant that the family would be rejoining real life. They had identities to maintain, jobs to do, school to attend in some cases. They wouldn't have any time to search for Blake. If they were even searching for him. He hadn't exactly told them about the surgery.
Surgery. Again, he was stricken by that same memory: white room, kind voice, and burning sensation flooding his arm. Blake charged through the flashback – he really didn't have time for half-forgotten surgeries right now – but the feelings that lingered were too acute to dismiss. The family might not know to search for him. They might just head straight back to the cave and head back to their other lives.
"No," Blake declared, marching across the rooftop. No, he wouldn't allow himself to indulge that. They called themselves a family for a reason, and not just because it started as a cheesy inside joke. They stuck together, the birds and bats in Gotham. They were going to notice he was missing, and they were going to come for him. He just needed to get a signal to them.
Communications were unreliable in the Narrows prior to the Occupation, but following Bane's regime, they were all but nonexistent. Especially in Old Arkham apparently. Blake had checked the few remaining consoles and phones in the asylum, but he either couldn't get power or a connection. He got to higher ground then. The computers in the cave received satellite images of Gotham, the perfect bird's eye view, and a well placed bat signal – no matter how ad hoc – would definitely attract their attention.
He saw the smoke rising from the far wing and headed towards it. Strange's lab was still smoldering. Authorities didn't dare enter the Narrows anymore, leaving the criminals to govern the area at their own discretion. The fire would burn until it inched too close to another crime lord's territory, and then they might extinguish it. Until that time, Blake was free to channel as much of the blaze as possible into a signal. Something big, something dramatic, something that would get the attention of every bird and bat in the city.
The ground beneath Blake's feet grew warmer and weaker the closer he got to the blaze. He felt himself start sinking slightly into the floor below, the weight of his new muscles just barely supported by the blaze underneath. Several hours ago, he would have had no way to harness the fire into a signal, but now that he had his legs and Venom strength, he knew exactly what to do. He reached the hottest part of the roof, biting the insides of his cheeks to keep his inner monster at bay in face of the pain, and stomped his foot into the roof with all his strength.
The roof immediately collapsed under the force. Blake jumped back before he could fall through, narrowly avoiding the small fire that leapt through the hole he'd just created. "Still not the dumbest plan of the night," he told himself, and it really wasn't. Stomping holes into a burning building was a stroke of genius compared to some of his other great ideas.
He kicked another gaping hole in the ceiling, then another. His Venom infused body absorbed any of the damage the roof and fire might have inflicted. Even the heat seemed to pass through him, rising into the soles of his feet and then fading. The exertion stirred the monster inside him to attention, issuing another mental chant of kill, tear, rip, destroy and driving Blake to take out a larger part of the ceiling he intended. He yanked himself away from the destruction before he stomped himself through the floor and took several deep, calming breaths away from the flames.
The sun was more than a sliver on the horizon now. Blake blinked against the warm morning light piercing the waves of smoke. Even as Nightwing, he had never felt more alive than this, more capable. Blake hated what he had done to Strange's creature, hated what he wanted to do to the other experiment locked in the basement...
But.
But he didn't want to go back to how it was before. Not physically. Blake was tired of the pain, the pills, the life behind a computer monitor. Tired of watching the family enjoy his inheritance. He wanted sunrises like this: sunrises spent fighting for Gotham, working for good. Sunrises spent hurtling toward catastrophe and averting it at the eleventh hour by dumb luck or just relentless fighting or both. Strange had, in the worst possible way, given Blake his life back, and now, the former detective wasn't sure that he would be able to take the cure when the time came. If he couldn't have his body back, Blake thought darkly, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be incarcerated as a monster. He wouldn't know what was happening anyways.
Blake took out his indecision on the roof, carving out a jagged wing with his foot through the inferno. He didn't have a place in the cave anymore anyways. They didn't need someone sitting behind the scenes watching the monitors anymore than they needed the roid-raged freak he was now. It would be better to disappear, make this his last great mission. Save Gotham from Strange and then fall into obscurity. He couldn't have asked for a better way to say good-bye to the city he loved. The city that took his spine, that took his leg – that city could have his life, gladly. Blake would hand himself over with a demented, bloodthirsty smile on his Venom-deranged face.
He stamped out another jagged wing on the opposite side of the initial hole with greater ferocity. He had given Gotham everything. EVERYTHING. Without any hope for repayment. Why couldn't he have just one thing in return? Gotham would spare the man who broke her, but Blake would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair because he made enemies with a psychotic clown.
Blake very nearly followed his roar through the roof into the inferno, but he marched out of the flames at the last minute towards the ledge and cried out at the city instead. The skyscrapers, the houses, the damn sunrise: all of it. Every horrible inch of it. He shouldn't have to choose between his body or his brain. He shouldn't have to risk either. He had done enough for this city, not to mention given more than enough, to deserve one break.
He tore himself away before he could tear the rest of the roof apart, surveying his handiwork from a safe distance. The hole in the roof was vaguely bat shaped. Large enough to be seen by patrolling vigilantes on the roof and deliberate enough to catch even a passing gaze on the computer monitor. They would come, Blake knew. They might already be coming now. And when they did...he sighed. Blake didn't know what was going to happen anymore. He wouldn't go back. He couldn't go back. He wasn't sure he could risk Strange's antidote if that's what it meant either.
"DAMN YOU," Blake cursed. Oh, his inner monster was really liking this new attitude. He felt the fires inside him rise as high as the blaze through the roof and had to start walking away to keep from kill, tear, rip, break, destroy. He hated being forced into this position.
He re-entered the asylum through the door he originally exited. The darkness of Old Arkham was soothing. Blake felt his rage quelled somewhat by the silence and the solitude, felt the monster subdued through disassociation. Gotham ceased to exist inside these walls and no longer held that powerful sway demanding Blake lay down everything he had left in her name. He would end this, and he would survive this, and the family was coming, and this nightmare was almost over.
His heartbeat slowed. The rage subsided. Time to go check on Strange's other experiment, Blake decided. No use just standing around when there was work to be done. He traipsed off down the hall, flying down the stairs to the main floor. He could just check and make sure the creature was secure, and then...think about taking Strange's cure.
It had been easy, several hours before, to notice the signs of the creature's approach. But now, bulked up on Venom and hyper-focused to keep from losing his mind, Blake almost missed the feelings of the floor vibrating beneath his feet. He stopped at the door to the main floor, held his breath, and waited to make sure it wasn't just his heart.
Nope, not his heart. Definitely the floor again. Strange's remaining creature had climbed out of the basement, and he was drawing closer and closer to Blake. Just as well, the former detective's face twisted in fury, because his own monster was rising closer and closer to the surface too.
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