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 borrowed one of Bane's lines from The Dark Knight Rises in this chapter. I couldn't resist. It just fit so well, and I've missed having Bane around for two chapters. It was nice to have him back in spirit.
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Chapter Seventeen
Foresight had never been one of Blake's strong suits. Long range planning was, as a skill, better developed by children whose parents survived their formative years. Looking ahead was a dreary, dismal prospect for orphans, not to mention an oft-times pointless one. Most of the kids from Blake's cohort at St. Swithin's didn't survive Gotham, and those that did ended up doing so only by the loosest possible definitions. Blake had dragged more than his fair share of former housemates into lock up for hard drugs and harder lifestyles over the years.
It was one of the reasons why Blake had opened up the cave to allies actually: the family made up for his limitations, providing strategy and plans when he would just normally dive in, fists first. Kind of like now, Blake thought, because any member of his team would have offered a better strategy than running through the basement until a better course of action presented itself. Especially since he had no idea where he was going or what he might find down there.
He found cover, then, so he could slow down and get his bearings. The stairs descended straight into near pitch blackness, and while Blake's night vision had always been solid, he suspected Strange's serum might have improved his vision as well. Earlier, he had just barely been able to survey his surroundings. Now, Blake could see everything – the decrepit brick walls, the brown concrete floors, the sheet metal vents and rusted pipes criss-crossing the ceiling. The stacks of old furniture strewn haphazardly over the floor. He avoided those, turning away from the stairwell towards the ancient furnaces to his left.
The urge to kill overwhelmed him the second Blake came to a halt. At least while running, he was distracted from it. Now, he was dizzy with bloodlust. Every beat of his heart washed another wave of adrenaline over his senses, overpowering reason, logic, what little grasp of strategy he tried to possess. Blake wanted to know what the creature's insides looked like. Wanted to run his hands through muscles and sinews, to decorate the ugly basement with the ugly entrails of the wretched beast now searching for him through the darkness.
Blake forced his mouth shut and held his breath. Would have stopped his own heart too if he could will it. Slowly, his body fell back under his control, his thoughts stopped spiralling off into monosyllabic chants of hate, kill, pull, tear, and he actually found himself getting ideas. The old furniture, he noticed, was centred around a larger stack at the mouth of a nearby corridor like a barricade. An odd place for hospital staff to leave it, but not quite so odd for someone looking to lock something inside.
"Bane," he whispered, half in thanks but mostly in astonishment. The mercenary's earlier assessment had given Blake the impression that the creature had simply been thrown into the basement and was too dumb to find his way out. Apparently, Bane had actually gone to some lengths to keep the creature contained. Blake scoffed quietly. "I'll be damned."
The furniture had held once, but it had suffered some major damage when the creature escaped. Blake couldn't risk using it again. There didn't appear to be any locked rooms that he could employ either, not down here. His best – and perhaps only – option was to incapacitate the creature. Or, at the very least, just slow him up until the cavalry could arrive. Without, Blake grimaced and fought his way through his inner monster's clutches, killing him.
Self-doubt chewed at his abdominals, but he made the promise out loud. "I am not going to kill him," Blake whispered. "I won't. Shut up. I won't." He was just going to pull himself back before it came to that. The family would get here before he could fly off the handle. Something would happen, and it would stop him this time.
...and that was the extent of Blake's plan.
He didn't give himself any extra time to contemplate murder. The constant chant of kill, tear, rip was drowned out by the pounding of his heart, the thunder of blood in his ears, the sudden silence that preceded battle. Blake flanked the creature, taking up a broken chair from the floor as he did so. Not that he needed an extra weapon, but Blake felt safer not using his hands. The last time his fists had their way...no, he wasn't going to think about it. Not now. He was going to stop himself this time.
Strange's experiment was marching right back towards the barricade of furniture. Perfect. Blake raised the chair over his head. One blow to the head, one non-lethal blow to the head, and his job would be done. This hellish night would finally be over.
He heaved the chair down with all the strength he could muster, forgetting, of course, that the strength he could muster now was considerable. That his new musculature was designed to kill, not to injure, and he might be doing just that all over again. The thought stayed Blake's hands for just a second, catching him mid-swing: he shouldn't be here right now.
Blake almost turned around. Almost. He almost had a chance to bolt up the stairs, inject the antidote, and hide out until help arrived. Leave all this crime fighting to the professionals. Stop making sacrifices when he had nothing left to give. He never got the chance though. The creature turned around, caught the chair and tore it from Blake's hand, then brought it crashing down across the former detective's face and chest.
The blow brought Blake to his knees, reeling not from pain but the complete absence of it. His whole body had hardened to stone, the nerve endings sealing up inside him, impervious to damage. The only evidence he had been struck with in his cognition, which stopped for just a moment, blackened, and then reset like a computer. Blake's inner monster rose to the occasion with a snarl, and he almost allowed himself to be overtaken. He had never felt more alive than right now, when pain was a distant memory and the only thing standing in his way was an ever weakening will.
Losing control had just felt so good before. It would feel even better a second time around, especially if he never came back to his senses.
The creature swung the chair again, summoning Blake back to himself before his killer instincts could take over. He folded his arms into a block. His veins pulsed Venom green through his skin upon impact, reminding Blake once again that he was running out of time. In fact, he was living strictly on borrowed time.
"Is that all you got?" he dared in his Nightwing voice.
Strange's experiment roared in response before lunging, catching Blake in a tackle that made him black out for another second. When his vision returned to him, Blake found himself laying a barrage of punches into the creature's chest, hard enough that greenish bruises plumed through the pale skin before the healing factor could stop them.
He rolled away before the compunction to start biting and ripping became impossible to resist. His old training as Nightwing saw him back on his feet with another weapon in hand, this time a piece of old lead pipe about the same length as one of his old eskrima sticks. Blake didn't bother with his inner turmoil a moment longer. He dove towards the creature's still lowered head fist-first, pipe at the ready. The family could come up with a strategy when they arrived. Blake was the only one there now, fighting, and he was going to fight on his terms: not theirs or the monster's.
Even with his full strength behind it, Blake's weapon barely had an effect on the creature. The pipe practically bounced off his bare scalp and back to where Blake found it. He risked a second swing then as well as a third, taking advantage of the creature's position. When Strange's experiment finally returned to his feet, Blake slammed the pipe into his abdomen and then behind his knees, hoping to knock him down again.
The creature stood his ground despite the blows and immediately began flailing his arms and torso about. He looked like he was trying to swat a fly instead of catch a human opponent. Thankfully, Blake was faster and more coordinated, his body summoning up all his Nightwing trailing anew. He ducked and rolled, landing hits around the creature's knees, thighs, and forearms to little or no productive effect. All Blake managed to do was irritate the creature into another tackle, one he dodged. Strange's experiment ended up on the other side of the room, head tossing this way and that in a mad but futile search for his opponent.
He was too stupid to notice Blake rushing him from behind this time. Not until the former detective slammed a pipe across the back of his neck anyways, but by that point it was too late. The blow to the base of his spinal column brought the creature to his knees with a pathetic, broken wail, a sound that almost made Blake crumble too. His hands shook as he lifted the pipe for another swing. "I'm sorry," Blake said firmly. "Christ, I'm so sorry..." For everything too: for what Strange had done, for what he was doing, for what he had failed to do earlier. Blake was sorry.
That didn't stop him from swinging the pipe though. Nothing could by that point. As sorry as he was, Blake still had a job to do. He wasn't going to let this thing reap havoc in Gotham, no matter how much it killed him to do it.
He struck a few inches below his intended target, slapping the pipe between two of the creature's prominent vertebrae. The blow would have crippled any regular person, but it wasn't enough to take down Strange's experiment. In an instant, the creature was back on his feet, arms outstretched, spinning wildly on his axis. He collided with Blake and just started pounding.
Blake barely had time to breathe, let alone think. He was pure reaction in those moments, blocking and failing to dodge, retreating and somehow getting draw back into the creature's orbit. There was no pain, only punches and head butts; he was caught up in chaotic grabs and locks that had no names, were invented in all the dark places that the Venom had unlocked in this poor man's head. Every time he managed to slip out, Blake was sucked right back in again, this time with less of a chance of escaping. He was fighting a losing battle.
Well, Nightwing was anyways. Blake felt something else creeping into his sinews that longer the fight progressed, something stronger and more powerful than the creature he was fighting. Something darker and angrier and terrifying. Something that made him choke back a roar, pull back from an attack, and hide behind defensive manoeuvres his body no longer understood how to use. He was losing two battles now, and Blake wasn't sure what was going to break first: his body or his brain.
One punch caught him squarely under the jaw before a meaty hand wrapped itself around his puny neck. Blake was lifted clear off the ground and shoved into a wall.
Something inside him snapped. It wasn't his body. Blake had lost his body a long time ago.
Blake shoved his thumbs through the soft flesh on the creature's wrists until they popped out the other side.
The last thing he heard was the creature's broken scream again, right before they were both thrown sideways into the darkness.
Only two chapters left by my calculations. Happy reading!