Chapter Three: Big Badges, Bigger Guns and the Biggest Balls
As Bane and Talia were kept in a constant slumber, oblivious to the world around them, ignorant to how they were the subject of virtually all of Gotham City from the Social Ticking Tock to the highfalutin National Radio for the Public.
Across the city, Selina had returned to her walk-up in Old Town, the familiar, comfortable living space made it easy for her to return to thieving, especially as the city healed, she was able to circumvent the veritable Event Horizon of loopholes, leap-frogging digital firewalls as the rich put their security systems back in proper working order.
She was one of many irate Gothamites that despised the legal system for keeping Bane and Talia so well cared for, her idea of due process would've seen them die where they'd fallen.
As she kept herself well-funded amongst the elite's titanium safes, silk-lined pockets and jewelry wives left behind as they vacationed in Ibiza, Detective John Blake was a regular at the sprawling medical center.
During the day he followed the hospital's protocol, wore a mask when directed and kept his hothead at a simmer.
At night, he donned the suit he'd put together from a variety of shops in downtown Gotham.
His ensemble held a bit of blue to accentuate his eyes, the fabric clung to his thighs and was a second skin as he breathed, walked and fought crime. He'd secured himself a full-bodied cod piece to give himself a fatter more enticing bulge, liking his reflected surface in building widows as he stealthily traversed the city at night.
Blake also wanted Bane and Talia to skip the legal sideshow in order to be found guilty. He worried they could be found incompetent to stand trial and make macaroni pictures and swallow their medications with vanilla pudding for the rest of their natural lives.
He grappled with the desire to smother them each in their comatose sleep every night, never following through, but the temptation built, he was steadily becoming a tempest in a tea kettle.
Behind Bane and Talia's closed eyelids, they each had the same dream on repeat, an endless loop played in the temporal regions of their unconscious brains.
It was always the same, Talia climbing to the top of The Pit and Bane watching below from the hard earth.
Instead of reaching the top, escaping, changing the face of Gotham City, she fell, crashing to the unforgiving ground.
In their comatose states, Bane had to watch her fall over and over, each time her body would break in a different manner.
If he was conscious, he would've winced as sometimes her cranial seams split apart, her wet grey matter, gelatinous as it spilled onto the dirt and shards of stone.
Fragments of her skull were tilled into the earth overtime, bacterium and other microscopic critters feasted on the smears of grey matter until it dried and became desiccated.
Talia was equally plagued as she missed each of her leaps by sheer centimeters, the ground rushing up to meet her.
The Pit didn't care that she wasn't afraid to attempt the jump.
Each time she fell, her skull became as fragile as a Faberge egg, splitting as it hit the ground, her brain's hemispheres splitting apart with a sickening wetness.
While Talia and Bane each suffered in silence, each member of the care team performed their respective tasks, completing their documentation and progress notes at the end of their shifts.
One of the certified nursing technicians assigned to the tight team was Theresa Maria Berezini.
She'd been employed by the Gotham Medical Center for just about a decade, moved through her tasks efficiently, attentively.
Theresa, Terry Berry to her grandmother, was painfully shy and introverted by nature, her therapist had suggested she join a gym or find something social.
She'd found a flyer for roller derby, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening from 6 to 9:30pm. The rink meeting times worked with her schedule.
She'd been attending The Gotham Rink for a few months, not wanting to be possibly recognized by anyone, she wore a hot pink wig that just brushed her sharp shoulders.
Theresa wore an ultra-tight tank top emblazoned with the number 69, the numerals as well as the team name in a glittery pink puff paint.
The Matching Carpet Riders.
Several times a day Theresa would massage an unscented lotion into Bane and Talia's skin, smear a flavorless lubricant on their lips, gently preventing cracking and chapping. She bathed them in bed, using a canvas lift in order to properly clean Bane's body, able to roll Talia side-to-side in the bed to reach her back.
Theresa filled a dark pink plastic tub with warm water, saturating cloth after cloth with an odorless cleanser that was safe for mucus membranes and acted as a body wash and shampoo in one.
A mess of tubes and wires seemed to sprout from every nook and cranny of Bane and Talia's bodies, like random eyes on a potato.
Theresa was careful to navigate her damp cloth around each electrode pad to nylon blood pressure cuff as she checked each of their backsides for skin integrity, her eyes peeled for any redness or blistering, harbingers of impending epidermal breakdown.
Sixteen weeks from the day that Talia nearly died in the Tumbler when it crashed, one hundred and twelve days since Gordon's breath kept oxygen moving to her brain, Theresa wrung out the washcloth before rubbing the cloth up the arch of Talia's left foot.
Theresa was careful to avoid the thick bandages on Talia's foot.
Out of all the injuries that Talia's body had endured and was slowly healing from, her left toe had broken in the impact from the crash and had to be amputated, she'd never again have a graceful sway to her hips.
Talia al Ghul had been hobbled by Gotham City.
Theresa kept the one-sided conversation steady as her hands moved on Bane and Talia's bodies.
The morning she met Bane after he'd been transferred from the Intensive Care Unit, she began folding and labelling his belongings as he was settled in the new room.
She hung up his leather shearling coat in the narrow closet, brushing her fingers along the lining and somewhat oversized collar.
"That's a nice coat," Theresa murmured to Bane as she picked up his hand, the top adorned with a large bore IV and tubing, continuing as she checked his fingernails, using a damp washcloth to clean away surgical bandage residue and bits of blood.
Gotham City was bipartisan, brother and sisters in arms over wanting to know when Bane and Talia would be seen.
When would the people hear them speak of their crimes?
John and Jane Q. Public were all collectively, practically salivating in anticipation of whether Bane and Talia would express remorse or threaten more carnage.
Virtually every branch of law enforcement was represented amidst the vast medical center.
They were all very vocal about when Bane and Talia would be brought out of their medically induced comas.
Doctor Roderick Steele was wishy-washy, cagey in his replies, answering above their intellectual capacity for comprehension.
On site at close to every minute of each and every hour of the night and day, badges and guns were everywhere.
No matter where one looked, or could throw a recycled, empty coffee cup, there was someone with a legal title.
State Police.
Highway Patrol.
State Bureau of Investigation.
FBI.
ATF.
DEA.
Marshalls.
Everyone questioned why the IRS was there, did it matter if Talia had filed her taxes?
Could someone in a coma be audited?
Could future conscious wages be pre-taxed?
The medical center was bustling with Campus, Park, Military and Special Police and even the Gotham City Mall security with their plastic badges and flashlights.
The Coast Guard had carved out a working office by the saltwater aquarium tank.
There were gaggles of GPD, detectives, Sheriff's and their deputies.
Even bailiffs loitered with private dicks, game wardens, probation officers and park rangers.
K-9 units patrolled the property eight days a week, twenty-five hours a day.
They all demanded answers from Doctor Steele about when Bane and Talia's eyes would open, and their ears would have to hear the impending judgement.
Outside, faces made for liberal and conservative TV spouted their opinions from their mouth holes, all their faces collectively angry, united.
Dr. Steele was evasive under their barrage of questions, as soon as he felt an interrogation encroaching, he excused himself for any number of reasons, daring them to question his stated need to give attention to other patients.
Even though Dr. Steele was not the primary physician of the medical center, his knowledge of neuroanatomy and the unconscious brain were unmatched on the Eastern seaboard.
Due to the pressure from every branch, stem and leaf of law enforcement, the talking heads on both sides of the political aisle, shouting until they were red in the face and their jugular veins stood out prominently on their well-educated, toxically biased necks, Doctor Steele was forced to carve out a space in his schedule to host a meeting with one representative of each head of the law enforcement hydra squared and update them on the health status of Gotham City's high-profile, dynamic fucking murderous celebrity duo patients.
The morning of the first meeting was overcast, the sky was full of pregnant grey clouds ready to start leaking on the city.
The meeting was held in one of the six administrative offices on the top floor of the medical center, the large round table's cherrywood surface gleamed dully under the fluorescent lighting of the spacious office it dominated with its presence. Each law enforcement representative was already in the room, each either seated at the table, leaning against the wall or milling about and reading the names under the photographs of the hospital's previous medical staff.
The room was rife with the warm odor of fresh donuts, cinnamon rolls and blueberry muffins, bloated and ready to bleed blue.
Doctor Steele chose to be fashionably late, taking his time to consider his usual coffee order before taking the stairs to the top floor, pausing on the metal, corrugated steel landing of each floor to update his social hate feed, see if anyone reptilian had slithered into his DM's as he sipped his piping hot latte.
Doctor Steele nodded to everyone in the room, greeting the stormy faces with a pleasant expression as he settled at the table, relishing in taking his time opening Bane and Talia's charts, unnecessarily shuffling the papers.
The questions began one at a time until the room was a veritable orchestra of louder and louder voices, thick, trigger-happy fingers tightening around ceramic mugs and crushing buttery croissants in their tightly clenched fists.
All the law enforcement representatives anger fed off each other, their voices became a hypnotic cacophony of harsh judgements, opinions and alarming demands.
Blake slammed his fist on the table, his blueberry muffin rose briefly from where it was centered on a white, ceramic plate from the impact of his fist against the table.
Everyone stopped speaking, moving, chewing and swallowing.
Dr. Steele didn't flinch, he continued toying with silver paperclips and made redundant notes in the margins, feeling the weight of Blake's glare, refusing to give him an inch.
Blake drew a deep breath into his lungs before speaking loudly, commanding, accustomed to being heard.
"Dr. Steele, we've all been patient here, it's been four months, it is time for the legal system to step in, end this charade."
"Charade, Officer….?" Dr. Steele began before Blake spoke louder. "It's Detective, Detective Blake."
Doctor Roderick Steele smiled, "what charade are you referring to Detective?"
Blake looked around the room, meeting a lot of eyes, receiving a lot of nods to continue, he was just words away from someone waving their lighter in the air.
"We've allowed you to tend to those two while the city began rebuilding, it is time for those two to face justice."
Multiple voices echoed Blake.
Blake refused to speak of Bane and Talia by their names, wouldn't grant them the importance of identity, a name, they were guilty, and Blake wanted to see them pumped full of phenobarbital and their life ended by the state or watch them piss and shit themselves as they were strapped to a chair and electricity coursed through their bodies until they ceased to live.
"The two patients you're referring to are under my care and are not neurologically ready to be brought to a conscious state," Dr. Steele began before Blake slapped the table again.
"Enough, GPD stopped the criminals you are harboring, GPD will be taking them out in cuffs today," he asserted, a drop of spit slipped from between his lips as he marched towards Dr. Steele.
Scattered applause accompanied Blake's declaration.
"Yes," Dr. Steele murmured, remaining neutral from expression to posture, "your brute force is responsible, but they are now under my care until which time I see fit."
"Your…guns aren't any good here," Dr. Steele added as he trailed his eyes slowly down the front of Blake's body, pausing at the crotch or maybe the gun belt.
Dr. Steele himself rocked five inches of fury when his cock was hard, stiff and ready to fuck.
Blake paused his forward momentum, standing up taller, his blue eyes practically glowing as he failed to force Dr. Steele to bend the knee.
Before he could come up with another threatening diatribe, Dr. Steele spoke.
"Detective Blake, this facility requires order, please return to your chair so I may continue this meeting, you'll find on the table, a summary of the care rendered to my patients, there is a progress trajectory that I will walk all of you through," Dr. Steele continued as he gestured to a stapled stack of papers in front of each swiveling, ergonomic chair.
The voices of the badged discontentment lowered to a barely detectable hum as Blake returned to the well-padded chair, forced himself to sit and direct his attention to the compiled papers that outlined Bane and Talia's care plans and expected outcomes.