Chapter Fourteen: Bone Crushing Regret
"Why did you say those things at dinner?" Jane asked once she'd pulled the rear doors of the van closed.
Jane's question hung in the air.
Unanswered.
"Why did I say all that?" Bane asked himself.
He wouldn't dare insult her by asking what she meant.
Bane's mind scrambled for words as Jane casually rested her hands in her lap, silently demanding him to speak.
Bane coughed wetly as he shook his head, his words garbled in between his ragged breaths.
Jane waited until Bane caught his breath before continuing her line of questioning.
"How do you plan on making up for what you've taken from me? Aren't you already operating on limited time with your goddamn list?" she added in an angry hiss as she pointed at his stack of papers, filled margin to margin in his neat script.
His side was aching, and he couldn't muster enough of an answer that Jane would probably accept. Bane chastised himself for playing along at dinner, for adding words and actions that weren't needed.
Bane's unconscious mind was tired of living in the recesses of his brain, was exhausted having spent a life in service to Talia, breaking his body and soul for a woman who never saw him as truly much more than chattel or a weapon.
He clenched his teeth until his jaw popped when for but a moment, the veil was gone over his eyes and he saw himself as a shackled beast of burden, begging for scraps at Talia's feet.
Bane forced a grimace to smother the fire that was flashing in Jane's eyes as she expected him to answer.
Despite her fury, Jane saw his tempered facial expression that threatened to become distorted due to his rising pain.
"Tell me what you're experiencing in terms of discomfort," Jane stated as she slipped out of Bane's heavy coat, knowing she'd need to be able to freely move about.
Bane managed a strangled groan as an answer.
Jane moved over to sit next to him on his respective gurney and began pulling at his clothing and moving his limbs around in order to access his incision.
"You have a rough touch," Bane remarked as Jane's grip was assertive as she physically manipulated him.
Jane chuckled, "I suppose it is, I normally have to heft around dead flesh," she trailed off as she thought about the sheer power to Bane's bulk when he was absence of dead weight. Her fingertips burned as they came in contact with his bare flesh, he was electric.
Bane slowed his breathing as Jane prodded the modified chest tube and surrounding tissue.
She frowned at the rudimentary supplies she had to provide care but managed with the help of potent booze and fingernail clippers, able to sanitize the operative area and snip away the dead tissue that was preventing proper healing.
Jane snipped away the black, curled tissue that was diverting nutrients to the dead.
She looked up and found Bane's eyes boring through her.
"You'll live," she murmured as she taped a clean bandage around the slowly healing incision.
Bane snaked his hand out and caught Jane's retreating wrist. "Is that statement steeped in regret?"
"Is that something I answer based on what I've read and seen about you on the media?" Jane asked, keeping her expression neutral.
"No, just what you see in front of you, the man I am."
Bane kept his grip on her wrist unbreakable, feeling the fine bones, how easy they would be to snap.
Jane cleared her throat and remained in a modified squat position, stuck from returning to the gurney on her side of the van.
"What do you want me to say?" she finally barked on a dry scoff, smirking as she added, her full lips twisted into anger as she spit. "Should I say you're benevolent for not killing me? What?" she pressed, leaning closer to him, creating slack between their joined limbs. "Am I supposed to be grateful?" Jane pressed.
Bane narrowed his eyes, his raw senses were waterboarded with her sudden, stifling proximity.
He could smell the dinner they'd shared at the long series of covered tables in her hot breath.
He caught her off guard by reaching out and catching her other wrist, her damaged wrist that was just beginning to knit itself back together, the pain had only just receded to a constant dull ache.
Persistent but lessening in its sharpness.
Bane's touch reignited the damaged nerves and just beginning to heal ligaments, the pain turned into a hot fire under the flesh he squeezed.
"There are other ways I can hurt you that won't bring about death," Bane rasped as he tightened his grip, his fingers biting into her supple flesh as he pulled Jane closer, having complete control by the force he exerted upon her.
Jane struggled not to cry out, forcing herself to raise her chin as she spoke, her words venomous. "Is that where I should place my gratitude then?"
Bane chuckled, the sound was a metal pipe against a steel grater as he shifted his grip until he could push her onto the gurney, never fully releasing either wrist as he eventually positioned himself until he was squatted in front of her. "I'm going to make you long for death," he hissed as he manipulated his grip on her until he could hold both her wrists within one of his large hands.
Jane snorted and spat a glob of sticky phlegm towards Bane's scarred face. He didn't move back fast enough, the wet, yellowish blob splatted against his sharp chin.
Bane growled and snaked his free hand up to twist his fingers through her hair as his palm ended up cradling the back of her skull.
For a moment, the gesture could've been misconstrued as comforting before he curled his fingers into a tight fist, breaking some of her silken strands, others snagging in his ragged cuticles.
Bane yanked her head back, pulling her neck long and taut, Jane's carotid pulse pounded wildly under the skin of her smooth neck. She struggled to keep some semblance of control on her breathing as she still managed to glare at him, her eyes flashing angrily as she spit.
Jane wished she could close her eyes, click her heels a few times and be in that little Town of Bethlehem.
"I saved you," she accused, her tone surprisingly even.
Bane nodded, "you did, thank you."
Jane tried to swing her head towards Bane's face, he anticipated her movement and pulled back on her hair until she was certain her scalp was going to separate from her skull.
"Did my name move up on your list?" Jane spit, her wrist screaming from his assertive grip.
"This moment holds no outside influences," Bane seethed as he smoothed his hand from the base of her skull to grip her chin, pressing his thumb against her lips with enough force to feel her teeth under the pad of his thumb.
"Whatever you do means nothing, I will hurt you the moment I'm able," Jane began with a strong voice that was a poorly constructed façade, her voice quickly broke.
"Do you believe that to be a deterrent?" Bane asked with open amusement.
His chuckle infuriated Jane and allowed her something to focus on besides the physical pain in her wrist and fear of each future second within Bane's iron-clad hold.
She was able to raise a leg, intent on shoving her kneecap into his injured side.
Jane moved too slowly and despite Bane's diminished state, felt her telegraphed movement and dropped his hand from her chin to roughly push against her inner thigh, allowing him to slide closer to her.
"You can't do this to me," Jane tried to say with more strength than she felt.
"Explain why I cannot?," Bane murmured, his tone holding the tinkling of silver bells.
"I won't help you anymore, if you develop an infection, I'll stand by and watch you die," she took a while to say, her breath hard to wrangle.
Bane felt a shiver slide down his spine, slipping between his vertebrates in admiration of her fiery spirit.
He remained wordless as he slid his hand down to rest over her heart, his large palm spanned the bare skin of her decolletage, his silence overwhelming.
Bane turned his hand over and dragged the back of his hand down the center of her chest and across the plane of her belly.
Jane tried to pull her legs closed, the large muscles of her thighs clenching when Bane hooked his fingers into the waistband of her pants.
He paused when he noticed the blood that had leaked through her clothing, he glanced up to see Jane's amused smile, misinterpreting his pause as disgust.
Bane's smile was more dangerous and made Jane's wilt as he spoke low, his words coarse, spoken through gravel.
"Do you think this affects your beauty?" he asked as he began to roughly tug at her pants, his progress frustratingly slow with the use of only one hand.
Jane blushed furiously and tried to twist out of his grip, unshed tears beginning to make her eyes burn, certain she was further injuring her wrist with every continued movement.
"I don't want the chance of becoming pregnant with your child," Jane shouted, a last hurrah of spent energy.
Bane stopped pulling at her pants, resting his hand on her belly as his eyes flew to hers.
He remained wordless, smoothing his hand from where it rested on her belly, up the front of her body, pausing over her sternum.
His fingers splayed, a possessive five-legged cephalopod before sliding to rest on her throat. He could feel her pulse racing under his palm, her skin hot to the touch, her whole-body rigid as she waited to see what he was going to do.
"Do you feel you have the permission to ask?" Bane murmured, his tone devoid of life as he lowered his face, continuing on words composed of darkness. "I can take from you without much effort."
Jane narrowed her eyes, "I know you can hurt me and take what you want, I'm not blind to your strength. But I will kill you the moment I get the opportunity," she seethed.
Bane's lungs shuddered from the concerted effort to not gasp for breath as he stared down at her, thinking of the earlier glimpses of her naked wet skin, straining his eyes to see the shape of her body under the thin cotton clothing.
He was trapped, viciously torn between his physical wants and what he needed in the foreseeable future.
Bane saw the very moment in Jane's eyes that the fight began to fade around the edges, he was eviscerated by the crushing pain and resignation he saw fill her eyes.
"You may still your fears," he rasped, his tone hoarse as he added. "The damage to my body and need for chemical support has made me sterile."
Jane's face bled pale before furious color filled her face to the tips of her ears. "Then I guess there's nothing to stop you," she spit as she tried to shift and kick out a leg or swing her head forward into the center of his face.
Looking back at that very moment, Bane would never be able to pinpoint exactly what tipped that domino towards the downward spiral of his spartan control, what precisely forced his hand.
He knew, even as he was pressed to the front of Jane's body, that he would struggle performing or it would be terrifyingly embarrassing in its brevity.
Bane never even picked up a white flag, but he knew he needed to smother the fire he'd started before it burst into fierce flames and scorched the face of the planet.
He didn't want to kill her.
Bane recognized her value, how much of an asset she was. All of that was in competition with the burgeoning thoughts he had about completely possessing her body.
The way that Bane's hand was gripped around her wrists, Jane could feel the pounding of his radial pulse, she could feel it come down as truth filled his eyes.
Bane spoke as he lessened his hold just enough that blood flow would begin to return to her numb fingers. He spoke before the tingling returned to her cramped hands.
"I regret this Jane; I do not have an excuse for my actions."
"I believe you," she finally said, knowing some of his erratic and uncharacteristic behavior, for the short time she'd known him, could be attributed to the overuse of the EpiPen.
He'd taken his compromised system on a roller coaster with no lap bars and three chemically altered loop-to-loop's.
Jane was close to certain that Bane was being genuine, but she was also still firmly between the jaws of the shark. She couldn't breathe, drowning in the air as she tried to form a coherent sentence.
"My hands are numb; my wrist could be fractured."
Bane stared at her, their faces so close together.
Jane let out the breath that she hadn't known she was holding when Bane slowly released his grip around her writs, the bones shuddered with pleasure as the pressure stopped.
Jane cradled her wrist while she tried to scoot away from him. She was unable to create any distance between them as Bane was trapped between fight and flight as he remained squatted in front of her.
Freeze.
"What can I do Jane?" he asked, his voice rough with the roiled, mixed emotions swimming under his skin, congested.
Jane laughed, more like a bark. "What do you think you can do?" she spit, her words slid into his core.
"I regret taking you away from your mother," Bane rasped as he rose up enough to sit on the gurney next to her, leaving a modicum of space in between them.
Jane had the wherewithal to scoff as she looked up from examining her injured wrist. "You do?" she asked as she arched an eyebrow.
Bane nodded as he held her eyes, reaching into his pocket and pulling out her necklace.
She froze, hypnotized as she watched the chain back and forth between his scarred fingers, the knuckles thick from being broken repeatedly in service to Talia al Ghul, being her word, will and fist.
"Turn around," he stated.
Jane barely suppressed a flinch as he loomed forward, the necklace in hand.
She half-turned on the gurney, keeping her throbbing wrist in mind as she felt the rough pads of Bane's fingertips scrabbling along the warm flesh of her neck, securing the delicate clasp closed.
He let his touch linger, the soft hairs at the base of her neck tickled the tops of his hands.
Bane let his hands flatten against her, his palms sliding out to rest on her shoulder caps as he spoke lowly.
Bane found it infinitely easier to speak to Jane when her eyes weren't on him.
"That will not happen again," he murmured, his tone strained.
Jane reached up and rubbed th necklace between the pads of her thumb and forefinger as he continued.
"But," he cautioned, feeling Jane's shoulders tense under the span of his large hands as he spoke slowly, regarding her as though she was a landmine. "I would not blame you for this giving rise to reckless behavior."
Jane half-smiled to herself and chuckled, "that's generous."
Bane rhythmically squeezed the rounded caps of her shoulders as he spoke, his words holding a warning.
"Consequently, I'll need to ensure you're always close."
"What does that look like, are you going to tie me up?"
Bane's hands still and he was silent so long that Jane turned back towards him, keeping her injured wrist clutched to her chest. "What are you saying?"
"Lift your feet onto the gurney," Bane answered cryptically.
Jane frowned, slipping back into being froze when Bane dropped his hands to the top of her knees.
"I'll show you what it looks like," he stated as he lifted her legs, her movements hobbled by her reinjured wrist.
Jane watched him, lost in a downward spiral of anxiety and fatigue, all held together with good old-fashioned fear. She continued to watch as Bane pushed the other gurney closer until they were butted up against each other, the metal touching each other with a squeaking kiss.
In one metallic movement, he returned the separate beds in the 1950s sitcom into a progressive bed for two.
"This will suffice," Bane stated as he settled on what was once her side of the van, his words not inviting compromise.
Jane nodded her thanks as Bane gathered up his heavy coat and held it out towards her. She struggled to slip into the jacket, her wrist on fire.
Bane wordlessly draped the coat around her.
"I really need to get some sleep," Jane said in a tired voice, completely devoid of energy.
Bane nodded, "do as you please" he said as he gathered up his papers that had been reduced to a messy stack, shuffling them into order as Jane slid down on the gurney and rolled over onto her side, facing away from him.
Both of them were thinking about the veracity of his words as she got settled.
They each wondered if he was telling the truth.
Jane closed her eyes, trying to chase down sleep to trap and truss up a dreamless rest. She couldn't help but feel a pinch of relief that regardless of if Bane meant what he said, she wouldn't be saddled with his child