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: For the first time in several years of being on this site, I have finally penned and posted the penultimate chapter to a story. Apologies for the delay: I was back at work last week and penning a conference proposal. The next installment shouldn't take too long. I have been working on drafts of it since I started.
Thank you to everyone who has been so much as glancing at this story. To the followers, the people who favourited, those kind fellows who left reviews: much obliged. I do hope that you're still hanging on until the end! Enjoy!
Chapter Eighteen
Blake was vaguely aware that he was still throwing punches, but every swing was being thrown aside by one very quick, very powerful arm. The sheer wrongness of defeat caused white spots to dance across his reddened vision. He was on a collision course with reality, but the Venom-induced anger hadn't gone away, nor did Blake particularly want to see it go. He had resigned to completely losing himself in this fight. There was nothing left for him to come back to anyways.
He kept fighting with the lone arm then, right up until the moment his vision returned, bringing the sight of a monstrous palm along with it. Blake tried to tear the hand off of the arm it was attached to, but even at his full strength, he was no match for his opponent. The hand slammed into his face, knocking him back to the ground. He didn't feel the pain of the impact, but he did feel the thumb and fingers tighten around the sharp groves of his features, locking in place. No amount of Venom could have given Blake enough strength to free himself either. He roared, kicked, and pounded; he tore at flesh until blood splattered over his fingertips. Blake sobered somewhat and tried to kick at whoever was pinning him down, but he couldn't see to aim, and his assailant was too fast for him anyways.
The sounds of a fight continued, but this time, they weren't coming exclusively from Blake. He forced himself to steady just for a moment to listen, and sure enough, those broken, whining noises were a few feet away from him. The metallic hiss of a respirator was closer, hovering just above, close to the hand still crushed against Blake's face. He felt a whole new wave of anger crest inside him, inspiring his limbs to fight again with renewed vigor. This time, Blake actually managed to elicit a small grunt from the man holding him down. He earned his freedom a second later by punching again, this time hard enough that his assailant's wrist snapped while being thrown aside.
Bane made a sound, something low and throaty, buried deep beneath his mask, mouth, and Adam's apple. It was unlike any sound Blake had ever heard: a weird amalgamation of animal, human, and machine. Under normal circumstances, Blake might have taken it as a sign that he had gone too far. Pain was the only sensation strong enough to generate a sound so anti-language as that, and much as Blake hated Bane – all the more now that he had all but lost his mind – he didn't want to cause the mercenary any pain. As these were not even close to resembling normal circumstances though, Blake took the sound as an invitation. If Bane could feel the pain of a broken wrist, he would definitely feel the pain from being ripped to pieces.
Blake couldn't stop himself, didn't want to stop himself. He dove into Bane before the mercenary could fully recover from having his wrist broken, and the two fell together, away from Strange's creature who Bane had pinned to the floor. They landed in a heap of flailing meat, Blake laying every blow he could and Bane defending with that same preternatural speed and surety he had displayed in the padded cell earlier. Even with his wrist broken, even without the advantage provided by Venom, Bane still managed to hold his own. The fact just made Blake even angrier and even more uncoordinated. He started cursing, swearing, yelling in a vocabulary of monosyllables, because Bane had destroyed everything. The Batman, Gotham, Blake...everything.
He was so lost in a flurry of rage that Blake didn't notice Bane quietly gaining the upper hand. The mercenary looped his legs up in front of Blake's broad chest and pried the former Nightwing from his perch, slamming him against the floor in the process. Blake was temporarily stunned when his head struck the concrete. Not as long as he should have been, but long enough that Bane had climbed back to his feet by the time Blake's senses returned to him.
The scariest part for Blake was that he was already back on his feet too, ready to attack again.
He tried to tell himself that he was prepared for this, that letting go was part of the plan, but staring Bane down with a death glare and having no recollection of why struck Blake deeply. The fear penetrated his Venom frenzy and put him right back in the padded cell moments after his first black out. This wasn't him. He didn't want to kill Bane. And as much as he didn't want to live in pain, Blake didn't want to be anybody else either. Strange's serum was a perversion of existence, a violation of the human condition, and Blake wasn't going to stand for it.
The violence was rising inside him, bubbling up like a tide of pure hellfire. Blake's voice, his real voice, the small, quiet one that only a precious few had ever been privy to, emerged from his throat in one desperate plea. "Help," he said. "Help me."
Blake thought he saw Bane nod. He couldn't be sure though. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than self-control slipped through his fingers again. He saw red once again, literally, and tried to charge. Thankfully – or unthankfully – Strange's creature saw fit to rejoin the fight, and at that moment, pounced on Blake from behind.
Venom had silenced all the pain receptors in his body, from his head to his arms to his legs, causing Blake to all but forget about his old injuries. Until now, of course. Strange's experiment pounded his fist into Blake's lower back, directly above where his injury used to reside, and there it was again: pain. Fresh as the fateful day four years ago. Blake's back exploded with agony anew.
The scream that tore itself out of his throat wasn't angry; it was pure, unadulterated suffering. Blake's chest swelled with distress. The pain split his body in two and threatened to tear him apart: arms and chest one way, hips and legs the other.
Strange's creature punched him again.
The knot at the base of his spine, that elegant circle of mangled flesh still housing the bullet, came very suddenly undone and went free floating through his body. That shouldn't have made the pain worse, but it did, because now the pain was passing through his bloodstream. Rounding all the sharp curves in his abdomen. Swelling into a stone between his lungs. Shooting like a bullet through his GI tract.
All. Over. Again.
Blake didn't feel the third punch. He was oblivious to Bane tearing the creature from him too. There was no room for anything else inside him except the gunshot wound.
He was vaguely aware that he was turning. That he was reaching out through the darkness towards the kneeling form of Strange's creature. That his hands wanted to do terrible things and he couldn't stop them.
But Bane could. In fact, Bane did. He swept his injured hand in front of Blake's outstretched arms.
"No," he commanded. "This city has broken too many good men already, Robin John Blake, and I have saved your life too many times for it to take yours."
Bane's other hand swung calmly into view. He was wielding the pipe Blake had held earlier. "It would be best," he wound up for the first blow, "if you do not watch."
Blake couldn't look away though. "You don't have to-"
Two wet slaps followed: first the pipe striking the creature's head, next the creature's heavy body hitting the floor. The rest of the sounds got wetter and wetter, juicier and juicier, until the pipe clattered to the floor.
The next thing Blake knew, Bane's foot was pressed tightly against his sternum, and he was being kicked down to the floor. He tried to fight, but the pain was still coiled so tightly at the base of his spine there was no use even trying to move of his own volition. No matter how much the monster inside wanted to kill.
"You would have done it if I did not," Bane remarked pointedly.
Blake could barely breathe. His lungs were sandwiched between the mercenary's weight and the pain. "So why did you?"
Bane pulled something long, thin, and glistening from his pocket. "Because I can live with taking a life."
He knelt down, placing more and more weight on Blake's chest as he did so to ensure the former detective couldn't move. The closer he got, the clearer the object in his hands became. Bane was wielding another syringe, and this time, Blake didn't think it was loaded with anesthetic.
Do or die time. The pain flared warningly, excited to finally rule him once again. Blake shook his head. "No. Please. It's better this way. Just leave me here."
Bane tilted his head inquisitively.
"There's nothing left for me," Blake's voice cracked. His heart was breaking under the weight of the mercenary's foot.
"You are no monster," Bane uncapped the syringe.
Blake grabbed Bane's ankle with both of his hands, hissing as his back twisted again, but fighting for one last ounce of clarity to pose his last request. "Leave now," he begged, before the monster inside added, "Or I will tear your leg off and beat you to death with it."
Bane's eyes gleamed, enamoured by the threat. "The Bat did not choose you to be his successor because Gotham needed another half-hearted monster, little bird. Darkness does not fit you, no matter how Strange's serum might have poisoned your mind. You are a light for Gotham, a beacon. Don't let yourself be extinguished now that times are at its darkest."
"You said you didn't believe in hope."
"I believe in hope; I do not trust it."
"Then why..." Blake was gasping for every small ounce of air he could. His vision was starting to blacken. "Why trust me?"
"Because your will is stronger than my distrust," Bane replied. He poised the needle towards Blake's neck. "This is going to hurt."
Needle stick. Sharp pain in the back of his neck. Strange's voice saying, "This is going to make it all better." A rush of dry heat spread down Blake's spine like a desert wind. No hemorrhaging this time. Just a long, slow burn that added to the first in his lower back.
His vision went white suddenly, and Blake gasped. Air filled his lungs and sat there, stagnant and stale, because his blood didn't seem to be going anywhere. Blake had learned how to describe pain over the years, but there were no words for whatever was happening now. Every nerve ending in his body cried out in great cacophony, silencing all his senses in one searing sonic boom.
He sensed movement. Darkness circled on the white of his vision, creating a single long tunnel above him. The last thing Blake saw was movement in the beyond, a single black speck that fell closer and closer, one that lengthened and bobbed and finally took shape as the silhouette of a bat.
...one last installment to go! Happy reading!