Chapter Ten: His Only Crime
The room cleared, emptied of the bulk of the people until only a handful remained.
Doctor Steele held himself rigid, Bane mirrored his stillness.
Blake begin to perform useless cardiopulmonary resuscitation, filling Bruce's dead lungs with air, pumping the chest of Bruce's corpse.
Officer Peaches Peechborn hovered in the doorway, her right foot over the threshold and her left foot out, a partially invited vampire.
Bane took a measured breath before speaking.
"You expect me to surrender?"
"I expect you to choose wisdom, do not let this be the hill on which you die," Dr. Steele stated, desperately maintaining a modicum of neutrality to his verbal tenor, adding in a much lower voice.
"This is temporary," Dr. Steele whispered furtively, anxiously imploring Bane.
Bane sniffed the air, parted his scarred lips, tasting and smelling the servant within Doctor Roderick Steele.
Could see the devotee just under his exfoliated skin's surface.
Bane's actions were driven by the easily impressionable core he saw within Roderick Steele, how simple he would be able to manipulate, bend the pliancy until it broke.
Roderick and Bane's eyes remained locked, their pupils reacting to the flickering overhead lights, dilating and contracting in concert, nostrils flaring, revealing nothing.
Bane's actions were composed of pure theatricality and deception as he sank to the surface of the hospital bed, slow to swing his legs up and partially lean back, not enough to completely leave his belly vulnerable.
Dr. Steele cleared his throat, needing to vocalize, inside he was a pressure cooker.
He had to put some trust in Bane, having to look away in order to search the hospital drawers for the restraints. His position afforded him the benefit of everyone else setting the table for him, he didn't know which side of the plate to place the soup spoon or where the extra pillows were in a patient's room.
He forced himself to move without urgency or fear as he approached Bane with the first of four nylon restraints, all dull grey and bright yellow Velcro.
Bane held himself still as Dr. Steele closed the first cuff around his thick wrist, the arteries dark blue under the surface, ridges of scar tissue disappeared under the adhesive strap as it was secured.
Dr. Steele glanced down at Blake as he continued CPR on the definitely dead Bruce.
"He's dead, Detective," he said, oozing apathy as he repeated the restraint process on Bane's right ankle, feeling more secure after Bane's left ankle was effectively locked into place.
Dr. Steele plucked a folded blanket from a chair in the room and haphazardly covered Bane's naked body.
Bane allowed Dr. Steele to restrain his remaining free limb, became penitent, he was distracted.
He had purposely not inquired about anything further of the life growing inside Talia's body.
He hadn't wanted to display a flicker of interest for the child.
The child he already knew she carried.
His child.
Bane's only crime had been how much he loved Talia.
Ras al Ghul's contempt was a permanent sentence, he would've taken Bane's life had he known the extent of their love for each other, the passion that persisted while he was living and carried on long after he was dead.
Ras al Ghul had high hopes of being able to use Talia as a bargaining chip in any and every conceivable way, all in the name of progress to fuel his delusions of grandeur.
Talia had never wanted to play along and in the beginning, she fought him. She learned to stop fighting back so that the beatings would cease.
Learned to pretend.
At an early age, she found love with Bane, along with affection, security, and as much safety as he could provide within Ras al Ghul's stranglehold and oversight.
The only time Talia had ever freely given her body to another man had been with Bane.
Every, single, other time had been because Ras al Ghul was forcing her to use her body to secure deals, move mountains, and reward members of his disgusting cohort.
Ras al Ghul had only successfully sold and married Talia off once, she'd quickly become pregnant with the bipedal beast's child.
She'd went to the garden and employed other homeopathic measures to purge her uterus.
She'd emptied her uterine contents twice further before the half-man demanded that he'd be refunded for the broken cunt that he'd been sold.
Ras al Ghul had been consumed with fury.
Blinded.
He had beaten Talia to within an inch of her life, letting the gods decide if she lived or died.
If Talia died, he'd essentially have lost nothing.
If she lived, she could continue to be a soldier as long as she bent the knee, served in penitence.
Bane had cared for her, nursed her back to health, never left her side, never ceased his watch.
After her body healed, Bane and Talia shared stolen moments when they could, always careful to ensure never getting pregnant, eventually securing conventional birth control.
They lived and loved under the cloak of darkness, secrecy, until Ras al Ghul was murdered by Batman.
Once her father was gone, Talia was free to love Bane openly, but they chose to keep it hidden from prying eyes, allowing neither to be used against the other, no one ever suspecting anything, finding intimacy and the sharing of each other's bodies when they could.
Bane allowed himself to relax somewhat into the hospital-issued pillow, under the thin blanket that Dr. Steele had casually thrown over him. He remembered how they had discussed the plan for an heir, a successor, a product of their love after they had liberated Gotham City.
They had grown anxious towards the end, overconfident, that they had allowed for the planned life to begin somewhat prematurely. They'd found each other's bodies in a ransacked penthouse, locked themselves behind the mahogany double doors, eager to find each other's naked flesh.
Barsad had remained outside, the only one with knowledge of their true intimacy. He was trusted and armed to the teeth.
Bane closed his eyes as he felt a twitch in his cock recalling the afternoon when they'd foolishly thought they'd secured the crown, eager to celebrate in each other's naked bodies.
They'd created the life that was growing in Talia that wet afternoon as they'd imagined a child sitting next to them on the throne.
It had been an unusually heavy day of rain over Gotham City, puddles everywhere, people were splashed by Gotham Transit busses.
People were cranky from having wet socks and fogged up glasses, patrons held up the goddamn lunch line as they took time to shake the rain from their umbrella outside Tom's Diner.
Checking their reflections in the window that boasted the daily specials in a colorful, looping cursive.
Talia had been waiting in the penthouse that had once belonged to a hedge fund manager and his trophy wife.
She'd showered, completely comfortable with Barsad outside the penthouse suite's double doors.
Talia had perfumed the bathwater with some of the luxurious oils left behind from bottles that hadn't been shattered from marauders invading the posh space.
She'd dried off and slipped on a long-sleeved silk blouse in a deep hunter green, the fabric falling in smooth liquid waves over her body, neglecting to wear anything underneath.
Bane's footballs had sounded with urgency as he took the stairs up to the penthouse, not one to confine himself by choice within the elevator car, to allow himself to be at the mercy of metal cables and a possible ambush once the steel double doors opened.
Barsad nodded at Bane's approach but otherwise no acknowledgment of anything further.
Bane locked the doors behind him, his body tingling with anticipation, his fingers nearly shaking as he engaged the deadbolt.
He'd found Talia in the master bedroom, reclining on an antique chaise that had been carefully upholstered in an imported French linen, her long legs bare, the skin gleamed fully from the lotion she'd applied.
The sight of her would make a sage weep.