Bane busied himself around their makeshift yard as Jane remained seated in front of the fire, both of them were comfortable in the silence.
"Good morning neighbors," came Deborah's cheerful voice as she drew closer, holding her own thermos of coffee.
"Good morning," Jane said brightly, rising to her feet to give Deborah a hug. "Please sit," she added, pointing to the bare earth.
Bane watched from afar as the two women chatted until Deborah's thermos was empty.
Deborah laughed, "I almost forgot why I came over in the first place, dad refused his shower earlier and I have a tub of hot water that I don't want to go to waste."
Jane rose to her feet when Deborah stood, eager to immediately say yes with how much she wanted to wash every part of her body but also stalled by hesitation and confusion.
From where he was eavesdropping, Bane closed the distance to the fire where the two women were talking.
Jane was grateful for the immediate warmth when Bane wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close to his side.
"Deborah, you are well?" Bane asked perfunctorily as he squeezed Jane impossibly close, a shaft of sunlight wouldn't find space to shine through between their bodies.
"Yes, thank you," Deborah murmured, tucking an errant lock of hair behind her ear as she tightened the lid of her thermos.
"And your father?" he added.
"Yes, actually that's why I came over, dad refused his bath and I have a bubble bath that I don't want to go to waste. I thought you two could take advantage of it," she added, a light blush highlighting the apples of her chubby cheeks.
Deborah had no way of knowing the effect that her innocent statement had on Jane.
Jane had assisted her mother autopsy infants, children and an old man who looked just like Arlene's dad. She kept her expression frightfully neutral as Bane leaned down and whispered.
His words were only for Jane, each syllable delivered on a hot exhale against the soft curve of her earlobe.
"I'd like you to indulge me again Jane," he growled.
She suppressed a shudder, smiling easily at Deborah, "you know that does sound nice, it's still a bit chilly," she added lamely.
"Come over whenever you want," Deborah said merrily before tightening her already tightened thermos lid and making her way to the adjacent, carved out living space.
Jane's smile remained as Bane called out to Deborah. "We'll walk with you, it is a little chilly," he parroted from Jane.
Deborah paused and waited for Bane and Jane to catch up. It ended up with Jane being nearly carried by Bane as he slowed his pace and shortened his stride to match Deborah's.
Bane was eager to get to the private bath, the warm cleansing water and Jane's full attention.
He felt renewed since touching and filling her, knowing her breathless gasps and low moans would scare away any veritable demons that threatened to skewer his Achilles.
Bane found himself angry that Jane didn't seem to have been reborn through his touch, accepting his plunging thickness, not promising him more.
He frowned as he held Jane tight, she looked further fatigued, drained of even more color, close to visibly ill.
Bane clenched his teeth until his jaw popped as he forced himself to continue courteous small talk with Deborah, patience for Jane's naked flesh a potent reward that made him practically salivate while an increased blood flow began to make his cock tingle with basal want.
As Bane conversed easily on the outside, inside his guts were roiling. As his mind remained consumed by how much he craved a different reaction from Jane and how he was going to ensure it, the first of his followers descended upon Gotham City.
These nameless men, ignored by everyone, slipped into their costumes before entering a house of god.
One of many amongst Gotham City, this cathedral boasted stained glass more than one hundred years old.
The men took the stairs into the crowded mass two at a time, dressed in all black, they adjusted their stiff, white collars, these men were no longer men.
They were vessels of Bane's rage turned into vessels of insidious violence.
The hand-written letters of Bane's list of names vibrated with growing frenetic energy, each pen stroke eager for blood.
The two men were of average height, build and for all accounts and purposes, looked like two priests just walking into a church.
They walked to the first row where on the right, the newly minted mayor and his wife were sitting.
Mayor Pascal and his wife Eleanor both looked up at the two priests.
"Yes, fathers?" the mayor asked as the mute priests each opened a battered book.
The cathedral was packed but no one would be able to accurately describe the shooters.
All the detectives had to operate on was 'two priests', nothing else remarkable about them.
The mayor and his wife had no chance of escaping when each book fell to the tile floor and the priests were each left holding a short-barrel handgun.
Eleanor died from the first gunshot.
The .40 caliber bullet tore through her heart, the other five bullet wounds were for no one's benefit.
"Who are you?" mayor Pascal managed, choking, drowning to death as his lungs filled from fluid.
"Call us legion for there are many," the shooter said as took off his collar and dropped it onto the mayor's lap, his fingers twitching as his brain's electrical activity slowly ceased.
The discarded, hollowed-out books they'd dropped hadn't even been religious manifestos but instead were cookbooks.
Bane's voice reverberated in the forgotten men's ears as they calmly left the church.
"Men shall not live and be sustained on bread alone."
"But blood."
Tom Sky watched from across the street as the church was soon swarming with GCPD sedans and SUV's.
He had a full day ahead of him in order to procure everything on Bane's list.
Tom had a benefit few had within the city, no one really saw him, he could flit and float from lily pad to lily pad.
Undetected.
Unseen.
Unimportant.
Tom watched the police activity a little while longer before making a theatrical about face and headed to the rear of a nationwide chain sporting goods store.
As Tom waited for the opportunity to slip inside the store and go on a shopping spree, back at the encampment, Deborah told Jane that there was shampoo and body wash by the tub.
"Get in the water before it gets cold," Bane murmured, his tone hoarse as he dipped a hand in the sudsy water, finding it still quite pleasantly warm.
Deborah had found she needed to overheat the water to more than scalding with how long it took to bribe, coerce, or threaten Philip into a bath at least once a week, ideally more. By the time Philip's body hit the water, it was quite room temperature with how long it had sat there.
Jane was drawn to the water, almost like she was rapidly devolving and too close to the edge of the fucking gene pool as she slipped out of her clothes, remaining standing in a mismatched bra and pair of panties.
Bane didn't say anything as he stripped entirely and closed the short distance between them.
"Turn around," he growled.
Jane tried to not blatantly stare at his naked body but had no control of her eyes that memorized his bare flesh.
"Please," Bane rasped, his cock hanging heavier between his thighs as Jane pressed her lips together and turned around, falling still, rigid.
Jane inhaled sharply when she felt Bane's lips land in the middle of her shoulder blade; his fingers pulling her bra clasp apart.
She struggled to keep her breathing under control as he pushed the bra out of the way and slipped his large hands around to cup her breasts.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked, his voice strained from the effort of self-control.
His question seemed out of place in conjunction with the touch of his hands.
Jane nodded as Bane smoothed his hands down her sides to settle on her hips, squeezing her taut flesh.
"Where did you sleep?" she asked as she laid her hands on top of his, pressing her lips together as she felt his cock began to harden against the curve of her bottom.
"I didn't," he practically growled. "I didn't need to," he added on a groan.
Bane continued as he moved his hands to her bra's clasp and fumbled it apart, yanking it away from her body.
The plain cotton landed soundlessly on the leaf-strewn ground.
Jane turned around in the circle of his arms, staring up at him as she became the body electric, every nerve ending enhanced as she laid her hands against his chest, moving her palms in slow circles over the dense muscle under his skin.
As Bane led Jane to the still warm tub of sudsy water, the air holding the faint scent of hibiscus and honeysuckle, back in Gotham City, Tom Sky strolled up the concrete flight of steps into the Gotham City Police Department.
Tom Sky walked into the police station and through the bustling waiting room.
No one really noticed Tom Sky, they didn't want to see him, always sort of looked around him.
He moved easily to a restricted area and slipped into the linen room.
Tom unrolled a black trash bag he'd had tucked up in his sleeve, the plastic crinkled as he filled it with GCPD uniforms and a police radio an officer had neglected to return.
Tom left the police station as easily as he'd slipped inside, his bulging bag hoisted over his shoulder.
He was fond of one of the techs that worked in the Central Stores department of Gotham City's Mercy Medical Center and found Jenifer Sinclair finishing up her smoke break.
"What ya got for me Tommy?" Jenifer called out on a smoky exhale when her eyes landed on Tom and his black plastic Santa sack.
Tom bowed deeply before reaching into the bloated bag and pulling out a baby blue paperweight with a daisy in its glass center.
He'd snagged it from an officer's desk on the way out of the station.
"My lady," he murmured, the glass globe nestled in the center of his palm.
Jenifer blew out an acrid cloud of smoke before she reached out and plucked the glass ball from his hand.
"That's lovely, thank you Tom," Jenifer said as she rubbed her thumb over the shiny surface, looking up as she added. "You're out shopping early, what do you need?"
Tom smiled, "one of these days I'm going to show up and put a ring on your finger but for now it's unfortunately all business."
Jenifer grinned as Tom read off the list of medical supplies that Jane had dictated for removing Bane's modified chest tube.
Jenifer arched an eyebrow as she gathered the items, "everything okay?" she asked in a serious tone.
Tom echoed his earlier bow, "it's always better being around you, until next time, au revoir."
Jenifer powered her way through one last cigarette while she watched Tom Sky walk away, the garbage bag bloated with all but one item on his to-do list.
Tom had osteoarthritis and the weight of the bag was proving too ambitious to finish his shopping.
He regretfully would need to venture out much later in the day or even the following after needed rest.
As Tom trudged back to the encampment, needing to take multiple breaks to allow his aching bones some temporary solace, back in the curtained area within the encampment near Deborah and Philip's living space, Bane held Jane's eyes as he squatted and tugged down her panties, the fabric a slighter lighter shade than the bra.
Jane held her breath, neither of them blinking as he never looked away as he pulled the cotton fabric down to pool around her ankles.
He held his own breath as she stepped out of the panties as he rose to his feet.
In tandem, they each stuck a foot in the soapy water, letting the warmth slide up their calves until the pull of the cleansing, soothing water did them in and they eagerly sank under the opalescent bubbles that popped upon contact with their naked skin.
Jane couldn't have pretended that the water wasn't an astonishing relief even if she tried.
Bane's lips pulled into a small smile at some of the tension leech away from Jane's shoulders as she settled back against the metal lip of the tub.
He reached under the soapy surface and closed a hand around her closest ankle.
Jane relaxed further against the edge of the steel as Bane ran his thumbs up and down the arch of her foot, moving in slow circles and varying pressure against her heel.
"Come here," Bane rasped as he tugged on her ankle.
Jane pressed her lips together, her intimate center ached from his recent touch, his deep plunges had left her feeling uncomfortable in the drought since she'd allowed a man inside her.
Jane kept herself low in the water, not wanting to rise up and expose her breasts despite the intimacy that had already occurred between them, it was something small and just for herself.
She reached out and balanced herself by gripping him, her palms settling and clutching the smooth caps of his shoulders as she settled on his lap.
Bane failed to suppress a groan as Jane's thighs spread wide as she shifted over him, his cock was painfully hard and throbbed in time with the rising beat of his heart as she reached down between them and gripped his thick length.
Bane felt a growl of frustration threaten to spill from between his lips as he narrowed his eyes at Jane.
He couldn't tell what she was thinking.
What she wanted.
What she needed.
Bane moved his hands to her hips, squeezing her taut flesh as she tentatively moved her hand up and down the length of his pulsating rigidity.
He dug the pads of his fingertips into her supple flesh until she gasped, pulling her body closer to where she teased his length.
"I need more Jane," he admitted, not caring if he sounded like he was opening his belly and offering up his liver.
He was hypnotized as the tip of her pink tongue darted out and moistened her lips before she shifted until she could press her lips to his.
Jane released his hardness and slowly slid down his shift, moaning lowly as her intimate center stretched around his rigidity, the aching became touched by the spark of wet pleasure as Bane kept his hands firmly grasping, massaging, and squeezing her hips, letting Jane control the pace of how much he was allowed to fill and possess her.
The water sloshed over the sides of the tub with Jane's steady rhythm of sliding up and down Bane's vascular shaft, the thickness so hard it throbbed as he filled her. He wanted to yank her down to meet his cock, wanted to hear her gasp at the end of each thrust.
He felt goosebumps break out on his naked, wet skin when he felt Jane's center tighten around his plunging length.
A lot of the soap bubbles had popped or dissipated with the sloshing and agitation and there was not much remaining to camouflage any part of their naked bodies. He stared down at where her pussy buried itself around his painfully hard thickness, beginning to salivate in anticipation of when he'd be able to taste her, bury his face in her lap and worship at her intimate center.