Chapter Seven: There's Truly No Place Like Home Sweet Fucking Home
In the hours it took for Jane to navigate the stolen Gotham City Coroner van to the steadily growing Tent City on the outskirts of the city, Special Agents Carson and McKay's plane landed at the bustling international airport and they collected their luggage after a lengthy wait.
In the heart of the city at the Gotham City Police Department, Blake stopped the report he was working on, looking to the doorway when Gordon knocked three times.
"Officer Fischer called in sick, I need you to pick up the two federal agents from Washington."
Blake balled his hands into fists. "There's no one else?" he practically whined.
He was a detective.
Gordon wasn't thrilled about the Special Agents coming and invading their territory with their federal badges and black suits.
"The more we cooperate, the faster they'll be gone son."
Blake blew out a sharp breath, clenching his teeth so hard that his jaw popped.
He plucked his keys from the top drawer of his desk and brushed past Gordon.
Blake kept the windows down and smoked his way through half a pack of cigarettes as he drove at breakneck speed to the airport.
He stomped to the airport's entrance, looking for the two agents.
Blake forced himself not to scowl as his eyes landed on the two Special Agents in their well-fitting black suits made by a European designer known worldwide by a single name.
The disappearance of Jane Bell as well as Talia al Ghul and Bane's body hadn't yet risen to the attention of the GPD.
That would come later.
He kept his fury contained as he approached the Special Agents, he wasn't an errand boy or ambassador to the fucking city.
"Hello officer, Special Agent Carson," he proclaimed jovially and extended his hand as Blake drew close.
"Detective," Blake stated coolly, speaking again after a heavily pregnant, crowning pause.
"Detective John Blake."
Blake's words hung in the air; plump fruit filled with juicy testosterone.
Carson's full lips twisted into a wry smile. "Pleasure to meet you Detective Blake," Carson said as his smile widened, and he returned Blake's firm handshake.
Their grip reeked of shared assertiveness.
McKay rolled his eyes at the two apex predators just talking on the Serengeti.
"This is Special Agent McKay," Carson said as he nodded back at McKay's stoic expression.
Blake and McKay nodded at each other.
The three men headed towards the exit.
Blake felt like he was being forced into the role of a fucking taxi driver as he loaded the agent's luggage in his trunk.
Agent Carson took the front seat and McKay sat in the right, rear passenger seat.
Everyone clicked their seatbelt as Blake navigated his classic 1967, panther pink, smog belching muscle car from the congested airport, eventually merging onto the freeway to head back to the GPD station.
Blake and the federal company were heading west as Bane and Jane were heading north.
Jane glanced up at the rearview mirror as she kept the van moving at a steady clip on the monotonous freeway. She narrowed her eyes, unable to look as long as she'd like. She was certain she'd seen a fleeting of sadness pass through the lens of Bane's eyes, witnessing the very shuddering of his ocular nerves.
Bane was lost in his thoughts, tormented by a replay of the last moments he'd shared with Talia.
She'd reconnected the tubing that Batman had knocked out of place, her movements gentle, full of tenderness.
"Goodbye my friend," Talia had murmured before she'd stomped away, her luxurious hair shining in the light streaming through the large windows, her heels clicking as she left his line of sight forever.
"Goodbye my friend," echoed in the front of his brain, making him squeeze his eyes shut, trying to force her voice into silence.
Bane moved his focus to his body, his pain.
He struggled to find the origin of the multiple aches that plagued his broad body.
His Kevlar body armor had saved his vital organs, his side hurt enough to cause sweat to bead on his forehead. He looked over at Jane as she signaled the van to pass a slow-moving station wagon.
She was going to be instrumental in him healing, pivotal in the role of keeping infection at bay and helping him regain his full strength.
Bane's hoarse voice interrupted Jane's thoughts.
"What's your name?"
Jane reached out and turned down the volume on the radio before answering.
"Jane," she stated as she kept her eyes glued to the road passing under the van's heavy tires.
"What was the manner of your employment at the morgue?"
"Junior pathologist," she murmured, flicking her eyes up to the mirror to briefly meet his.
The drive to the encampment was easy, traffic somehow on their side as Jane was able to keep the van moving along at a good clip.
She remained silent except for when Bane's voice would sound over the talk radio with a question.
"Who else lives at 1742 Clover Hill Lane?" Bane called from the back of the van, the gurney squeaking as he adjusted his weight.
Jane rolled her eyes as she turned down the radio and the host's rousing conversation with a pro-choice candidate. The host was of course all about saving the babies, not supporting them after they were spit out of a clown hole, of course.
She wondered if he was just sitting back there coming up with questions.
"Just my mom," she finally answered, adding after a beat. "I moved out three months ago today and haven't gotten around to changing the address on my license, always seemed like too much of a hassle."
Bane considered her words as they traveled back to him, he didn't want to ask if her decision-making would've changed if the address on her license was merely an empty house.
He wondered how it all could've been different if her only thoughts about the address on her license was what food would spoil in the fridge and the boxes she'd never gotten to unpacking.
In actuality, none of the food in her fridge, cupboards or pantry would spoil.
Jane would be remembered and talked about over copious casseroles as her house was packed up and eventually sold.
Her next-door neighbor Pearl Petersen-Schmidt always brought Jane her copy of the Sunday newspaper after she'd poached the coupons and read the obituaries. "Just in case I recognize someone dear," Pearl would always say as she scrutinized each dead person and grandiose summary of their life.
Pearl brought her ambrosia salad, she always doubled the amount of marshmallows and still questioned why she developed diabetes.
She should've been born a honeybee.
One of the security guards at the morgue, Carl, and his wife Jade, brought a tray of stuffed mushrooms with a reduced merlot sauce. Carl recounted the number of times he'd see Jane walk to and from the lounge for coffee until a handful of people in the department pitched in and bought Jane a coffee machine that took individual pods, so she didn't have to make the trek back and forth ten times a day.
Arlene made a trifle with rich poundcake, lush strawberries bleeding with ripeness and plump blueberries, their skin drum tight. The whole sweet mess was layered with a thick whipped cream. Arlene added a few drops of pure vanilla to give it a bold kick to the nuts.
Bane spoke again once Jane had turned the volume of the radio back up, the host now frothed up discussing guns and the white man's Jesus.
Jane blew out a sharp breath and turned the dial off a little more aggressive than necessary.
"Stop well before we arrive, remain unseen, we'll need to prepare before we arrive."
"Prepare?"
"Right now everything is too clean and orderly, we'll need to give the appearance of having less," Bane said as he moved to the front of the van, suppressing a pained groan.
Jane jumped when Bane's rough fingertips were suddenly moving on the clasp of her simple silver necklace.
Her hands clenched on the wheel until her knuckles turned white as Bane's large fingers moved with unexpected deftness and unclasped the strand of silver.
"This cannot be seen," he murmured as he slipped back to the gurney, dropping the necklace into the breast pocket of the cotton scrub top that now resembled a sports coat or vest a stripper would wear.
Jane nodded; grateful he'd lapsed back into a question-forming silence so she could flood the van with the conservative radio host back to denouncing anyone that didn't agree with them.
She suppressed a shudder as she could still feel his fingertips touch at the base of her neck, his ragged cuticles snagging her hair.
A few miles before the clearing that Tent City was slowly expanding, devouring, Jane pulled the van into an overgrown field, finding a patch of thorned berry vines that offered a modicum of privacy.
Jane left the engine running as Bane rose as much as the ceiling of the van would allow and pushed open the rear doors.
She looked in the rearview mirror as he plucked one of the stolen epi-pens from the floor of the van and jammed the needle into the meat of his upper thigh, releasing the epinephrine and temporarily shielding him from his pain and physical discomfort.
"Join me outside the van," Bane ordered, his voice stronger, pharmaceutically invigorated, engorged with vascular power.
Jane pulled the emergency brake and pushed open the heavy driver's side door, her feet heavy as she walked to the back of the van to meet him as he hopped out and rose to his full height.
Jane was wary of him, his eyes were wide, his pupils dancing in the melted copper striations of his cornea.
The drug had his nervous system doing pirouettes on an electrified razor wire.
She watched as he tugged the sheets from the gurney and threw them to the ground, stomping them into the dirt, dirtying them.
Jane bit back a small sound as Bane yanked apart the metal railing of the gurney. She covered her mouth as he began to beat the sides and hood of the van with the stainless-steel rod.
Bane's vision blurred around the edges as he dented and damaged the van, pulling off the plates and tossing them to clatter noisily into the back.
"Assist me," Bane demanded as he tossed the metal rod aside and plucked the dirty sheets from the ground. Jane copied his movements as he affixed the sheets on the van's dented sides, hiding the Gotham City Coroner printed on the sides and further adding to the façade of having less.
"That will not do," Bane murmured, his words delivered on a dangerous rasp.
"What won't?" Jane asked as she looked at the van, trying to determine what he was referring to.
"You appear too clean," he murmured, a warning instilled in each syllable as he moved too quickly for Jane to react, her movements hobbled over her concern for her aching wrist.
"You're overdressed for the ball," he added in a dangerous drawl as he tore at her scrub top in the same color as the one he was wearing.
Jane gave a startled shout as she stumbled backwards, barely staying on her feet. "What are you doing?" she managed.
Her offended tone made Bane smile, his scarred lips pulling back to reveal his sharp incisors.
His eyes moved over the shape of her body under the t-shirt she had on under the cotton top.
The scrub top had been torn from hem to neckline, torn apart like the curtains in the holy of holies the moment that Jesus H. Christ succumbed to cardiac death.
The t-shirt had once been brightly emblazoned with a 1980's hair band, named after an exotic spotted cat with a hearing impediment.
Jane moved laterally, keeping her good hand in front of her.
Her eyes never left his as she blindly reached into the ropy vines and crushed some of the berries until their burgundy blood stained her hands and dyed her cuticles.
Bane watched as she rubbed her crimson fingertips on her pants, not blinking as Jane squatted and gripped a handful of dirt and rubbed it along her sides.
"Dirty enough for you," Jane spit as she wiped her hand on the outside of her thigh.
Bane narrowed his eyes, his expression unreadable. "That will suffice. For now," he finally said.
Jane gave him a wide berth as she moved back to slide behind the wheel, his vascular system was bloated with the rapid beating of his heart, pushing blood through his broad form, making him practically glow from the energy.
Bane leaned forward as he resumed sitting on the gurney so he could see the approaching Tent City through the windshield he had littered with leaves and smeared with clods of dirt.
"Find a place on the edge," he directed, pointing to a few uneven clearings amidst olive trees and tall grass.
Jane gripped the steering wheel tight as she moved the van at a slow crawl around the periphery of the place where Gotham pushed those they found unsightly.
The Leper Colony of the city.
Concentration camps without ovens.
Internment camp without a free* meal.
That place where the sun shined upon a knoll.
She pulled the van to a stop in a space that was about as big as the postage stamp backyard of her freshly rented condo.
But this wasn't her home.