Chapter Thirteen: Bring Your Own Beverage
Jane finished dressing and putting herself back in some sort of perceived sense of order before finding Deborah stacking up an aluminum tray with cups, plates, and utensils as well as a stack of mismatched napkins.
"Let me help," Jane said as she plucked the leaning tower of plastic cups before they fell over.
"Thank you dear, feeling better?" Deborah asked as she led Jane to the long banquet table covered in several tablecloths connected end-to-end.
The long table was the result of several card tables being shoved together.
Jane kept her surprise limited to a series of rapid blinks when her eyes found Bane talking lowly to the flighty Tom Sky.
Bane noticed Jane first and kept his tone unchanged as he asked Tom Sky about all he'd seen about the city on his travels.
Tom Sky swallowed hard, he didn't like feeling caged and knew his new master would be compelled to benevolence with a demonstration of loyalty, fealty, and obedience.
"There are some agents from D.C," Tom shared. He'd been downtown by the police station and saw the two special agents outside talking with Commissioner Gordon.
Tom Sky was ignored by most and didn't register on Gordon's criminal radar, he could freely move about the city, unseen for the most part.
The entire time that Tom Sky sang about the agents, police activity and plan for Gotham's rebuilding, Bane never took his attention off Jane as she helped Deborah set the table.
"Tom?" Deborah called, "what did you bring for dinner?"
Deborah didn't know how Tom Sky sourced the meals he did. Sometimes he'd show up with plastic-wrapped pastries boasting expiration dates eons in the future and other nights, like that particular night, he'd slip into a restaurant and show up with culinary wonders under silver cloches.
Tom was grateful to any manmade deity at the sound of Deborah's voice. He excused himself with a flamboyant bow and tip of his imaginary hat before he flitted off to join Jane and Deborah.
Bane remained sitting long enough that Jane felt her concern rise and casually walked over to join him, having snagged a couple room temperature sodas.
"You okay?" she asked as she approached, holding out the can of soda.
Bane accepted the soda, setting it next to him before he cleared his throat.
"Just a little discomfort," he managed.
Jane may have been used to dead patients under her scalpel, but she could clearly hear that he was past the point of mere discomfort.
She settled next to him, on his injured side and angled herself towards them as though they were going to share an intimate moment.
Bane felt the cool pads of her fingertips on the inside of his wrist, counting his pulse and assessing his temperature.
From afar, Deborah smiled when she glanced over at Jane and the man she thought was named Vanek as Jane slipped a hand down the center of his chest.
Deborah looked away fast, not wanting to be an interloper in their private moment.
Bane held rigidly still as Jane smoothed her hand to where the rudimentary chest tube incision was slowly healing. She narrowed her eyes at some of the inflamed tissue.
"I want to look at this closer when we get back to the van," Jane murmured before she added. "Are you up to sitting for a little while longer?"
She no sooner finished speaking then she heard the click of the epi-pen that Bane jammed into his thigh.
Jane rolled her eyes and rose to her feet when she saw more people arriving and sitting at the table. Bane reached out and grabbed Jane's hand both out of want and necessity.
They walked to where everyone was gathering for the family style dinner amongst the unwanted, their outer arms brushed against each other, their skin imprinted with the touch of the other.
The touch didn't burn though, the contact didn't make them immediately pull away from each other.
Jane fixed her expression into one of an easy smile as she settled at the table, Bane sat in the chair to her right, Tom sky flew over to settle on her left.
Deborah was unusually giddy having met Jane, new life injected into her atrophied existence.
After everyone had a full glass of the beverage of their choice, Deborah began making introductions. "You know of course, my father Philip," she started before he loudly interrupted her what a scream.
"Flowers!"
A round of kind chuckles went around the table before Deborah continued. "This is Ezekiel," Deborah said as she gestured to a dark-haired young man who had a very oily complexion.
Deborah then pointed to the skinny girl next to him, "this is pimento and her brother Troy."
Pimento was tiny, forgettable, but her brother Troy had a distracting facial twitch on his strong square jaw. Jane refrained from smirking as she thought he looked like a couple of the jocks that ended up on her table. Guys that didn't quite understand what the word no meant, her opinion was reiterated by the turquoise blue stitched number sixty-nine in the center of his dark gray hoodie.
Jane might have thought about Troy and the notches he carved into his headboard from the unwilling, but Bane saw Troy's muscle mass, how easy he'd be to persuade to hurt for the promise of being able to hurt others.
Bane's mind was already moving in a different direction then Jane's as he looked at everyone that Deborah introduced.
Halo ground out one of his cigarettes when Deborah gestured towards him and nodded across the table. "And of course you know, Tom," Deborah gushed, blushing when she realized how shrill her tone had become.
"This is Geo," Deborah said as she gestured towards a more than 6 1/2 tall, wide-bodied man.
Geo used to be a really fat kid, then he lost a boatload of weight when he had his growth spurt.
He used to be bullied when he was a fat kid.
Once he lost the weight, leveled out at 6'9" and evened out at three-hundred pounds after shedding the excessive fucking blubber, Geo turned into a bully and a rapist.
Deborah didn't like him, she was scared of him.
Bane saw the type of sub-human material that Geo was composed of, he was already constructing plans to make Geo a pawn in a visceral display of power. Bane recognized Geo's capacity for strength and violence, but he also saw the quality within him that cried out to be put down.
Geo needed to be put down hard.
Tom rose as he did before every meal in which he sourced the ingredients. "This is quite local," he began with a wink as he discussed a very high, very white tower restaurant that normally only took reservations from where they were located adjacent to Mount Olympus. He giggled as he recounted finding the restaurant's back door propped open with a brick and an entire industrial cart full of plates of smoked pheasant, fluffy mounds of Israeli couscous, dotted with toasted pinenuts, and an apricot, plum and cherry reduced chutney.
Jane smiled to herself as she recalled walking by that very expensive, exclusive restaurant on numerous occasions, always planning on taking her mom there for a special occasion, never getting a chance. Inside her head, she toasted her mom as she raised her glass and allowed herself to enjoy the highfalutin meal.
She did need to eat after all.
Tension filled Bane's body as a large man stomped towards the table with a cooler clenched in his right hand.
"Oh, Barnabas," Deborah called out as she rose, setting aside her hot pink napkin aside to embrace the large man in the well-fitting pea coat.
"That's a nice coat," she said as she ran her hand down the outside of the large man's sleeved arm.
"This is Barnabas," Deborah said as she led the tall man to the table. "You might recognize him from some grainy videos of his boxing days in Kazakhstan," Deborah bragged. She had a hard time keeping her girlish crush under wraps as she lauded compliments towards the former heavyweight championship boxer, Barnabas the Bull.
Every part of Bane reverted back to his natural state as an apex predator as he looked at all the faces around the tables. His digestive system was complicated, and he moved his food around more on the plate that he actually consumed, knowing he'd have to deal with nutrition later.
He was back on the Serengeti, stalking a pack of mixed animals.
After Deborah had finished all the introductions, she sat down and took a sip off her red plastic cup. Jane knew it was only natural that she should stand and introduce herself and Bane.
She set her lime-green napkin to the right of her plate before she stood up. "Hello, I'm Jane and this is Vanek," she said as she gestured towards Bane's solemn form.
"Our world got turned upside down with the economic collapse, we lost our jobs and ended up from an apartment on Fifth to the back of that van."
Deborah nodded in sympathy, thinking how long it had been since the collapse of her own life and how much time had passed without much recovery.
"You two are married?" Deborah asked, not realizing how much she put Jane on the spot.
Before Jane could even really process the question and begin to articulate an answer, Bane's voice sounded.
"Jane will tell you we're not, so you don't ask her where her ring is," he said before he added in a gravelly tone. "I took the ring and pawned it, the last thing we had. I regret that and so much more," Bane admitted.
Jane's breath caught in her throat when Bane reached out and grabbed her hand. "There are certain things I will never be able to make up for," he said as he rhythmically squeezed her hand, but I will die trying."
Any kind of awkward silence was soon broken by Philip.
With his insurance being ripped out from underneath him, he no longer had any medication support. His poor brain was rapidly deteriorating.
"Flowers," Philip began before he sprang to his feet and sprinted away from the table, remarkably spry for his age and physical condition.
Barnabas quickly followed the retreating Philip, Deborah joining him.
Bane rose with the pretense of helping, even though that kind of unnecessary exertion would tax his healing body.
"Let them have their private time after they collect Philip," Jane murmured as Bane's hand remained firmly on hers.
He dragged his eyes to Jane's, how even in her fatigue, it didn't distort her beauty, only enhanced it.
"I'd really like to check out the incision," she added, unsure if she really wanted him to let go of her hand but certain that she wanted to be out from under the weight of his sole attention.
"As you wish," Bane rasped as he rose to his feet.
Jane exchanged pleasantries with everyone, telling everyone she had a headache.
At least that part was true.
"Talk soon," Tom Sky called to Bane's broad, departing back.
They walked back to the van in silence, Jane stifled a chuckle as she thought about how glad she was that she'd eaten so fast and stuffed her belly with how short dinner ended up being.
"Why did you say those things at dinner?" Jane asked once she'd pulled the rear doors of the van closed.