Archive of Our Own

The three-part knock on the hotel door came at sundown. Didn’t matter where in the world Eames was, what time zone. Whenever Arthur arrived, it was always at sundown.

Eames opened the door, and Arthur slipped in, quick and sure as a shark in his sleek grey suit. So composed, so streamlined, with his slicked black hair, his carefully guarded expression. He carried a black canvas satchel in one hand, and he put it down carefully on the nearest chair before turning back to Eames. His gaze skated over Eames’ eyes for only a second before fixating on Eames’ mouth, and Eames gave him a small, sly smile. He knew what was coming next.

Before Eames could even say “hello,” or “where have you been these past weeks?” or “how did you find me here in Santa Prisca?” Arthur was on him. He didn’t kiss his lips—he never did—but he gripped the hair at the nape of Eames’ neck. Arthur yanked Eames’ head back to bare his throat, then latched onto the exposed column, sucking hard. Eames didn’t fight him—he melted under the heat of Arthur’s mouth, the jolt of delicious pain from his scalp. Arthur pulled harder, nipping into Eames’ tender flesh. It was an outward sign of dominance, but Eames knew better—it was a sign of Arthur’s own surrender.

Eames opened himself to Arthur, tried to embrace him. Instead of reciprocating, Arthur grabbed Eames by the wrists, holding them against Eames’ sides. Arthur was strong, so much stronger than his lean frame projected. He could keep Eames pinned easily—and not just because Eames wanted him to. He pushed against Arthur a bit, just to test him, just to get him to make that delicious little warning growl in the back of his throat.

He let go of Eames long enough to unbutton his shirt, to slide his fingers over the contours of Eames’s chest. He was wearing a silk shirt with pink palm fronds patterned across it, and Arthur raised an eyebrow, as if surprised by Eames’ choice. Eames didn’t care; he liked the shirt. It was comfortable, and it made him look like any other gringo tourist come to Santa Prisca for the luxury resorts, easy narcotics, and cheap flesh for sale. No one suspected a man in a shirt like that of being here for nefarious deeds of his own.

The shirt hit the floor, followed closely by Eames’ trousers. He stood only in his undergarments—tight white tank top, white boxer briefs, white socks—while Arthur was still fully dressed. Arthur was sweating, badly, in his thick three-piece suit in the tropical heat. Eames went to undo his tie, and once again, Arthur’s hands clamped around his wrists like vices. Eames opened his mouth to protest, but his words transformed into a cry as Arthur’s teeth latched viciously onto his nipple through the shirt.

Arthur devoured him, eventually releasing Eames’ wrists to grope his chest, his buttocks, his rock-hard erection. There was no finesse to his caresses, just a raw desperation that bordered on the punishing. Eames didn’t mind. He liked punishing, especially when Arthur slid his hand down the front of his underwear to palm his cock.

Eames gasped, the pressure sudden and exquisite as Arthur stroked him in long pulls. It was almost too rough, but a spurt of precum slickened things just enough to keep it on this side of pleasurable. He moaned, closed his eyes, then opened them again. He wanted to memorize Arthur in this moment—the little crease between his dark eyebrows, the way his pink tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip. He looked almost angry. It disturbed Eames just how much that turned him on. Arthur’s dark gaze darted up, and Eames caught it with a slight smile. Having fun there, darling?

Arthur snarled as he gripped Eames’ biceps and whirled him around. He shoved him, and Eames slammed against the wall. His face connected with the plaster, hard enough for genuine pain to blossom across his bottom lip, blood wetting his tongue.

His own blood—coppery, hot, the most sickeningly rich thing that he’d ever tasted. It flooded his mouth, coursed freely down his throat, stifling his scream into a high-pitched gurgle—

Arthur pressed against Eames from behind, his weight solid, hot. It banished the nightmare image, the hallucination. It was just too much Somnacin. It wasn’t real. This moment was real, with Arthur yanking Eames’ underwear down to his knees. There was the crinkle of tearing plastic, and moments later felt the cool, slick pressure of Arthur’s lubed fingers pressing against his hole.

Eames couldn’t help it—he cried out shamelessly, pressed back against Arthur’s fingers as hot ripples of pleasure radiated through him. Despite his earlier roughness, here Arthur took his sweet time. He was practically gentle as he massaged Eames’ flesh, spread him open one wet digit at a time. He stopped only to apply more lube, and by the time he had three fingers twisting in and out of Eames, Eames was practically sobbing.

Arthur’s fingers slid out, then wiped across the back of Eames’ tank top. Eames waited, entire body thrumming with anticipation as he heard the rip of cellophane, the rasp of a zipper, the rubbery slip of a condom being unrolled. Arthur grabbed Eames’s hips, yanked him back lower, forcing Eames into a half-squat. He wasn’t worried—he knew he wouldn’t be holding the position for long. Arthur’s cock nudged against Eames’ opening, pressing into Eames with little effort. Eames cried out as Arthur drove himself all the way inside, and Arthur slid two of his fingers into Eames’ open mouth. Eames sucked them, hard.

As Arthur fucked him, Eames was drunk on the rich, debauched cocktail flooding his tongue: the saccharine sweetness of lube, the earthiness of his own musk, the coppery tang of his blood. It fueled his gyrations, his wanton moans. Arthur gripped him harder, his thrusts intensifying into a furious rhythm—the pounding of war drums, of machine-gun fire, of a riot in full bloom.

Arthur pulled his fingers out of Eames’ mouth, leaving a trail of spit across his cheekbone, and threaded them through Eames’ hair. That was the signal—Arthur was ready to come. Eames snaked a hand down around his own cock, stroking in quick pulls as Arthur’s thrusts became quicker, harder, more erratic. Arthur yanked on Eames’ scalp, and the sharp, tingling discomfort was the push Eames needed to send him spiraling over the edge. Everything became heat and fluid and pulsing light, and all at once he was free of his body as well as utterly immersed in it. He came hard, jism slicking his hand and belly as Arthur went rigid behind him with a guttural cry.

Arthur’s cock slid out wetly, and his weight vanished from Eames’ back. Eames shivered at the warm rush of fluid running down his leg. A strange calm filled him, languorous and complete, even as Arthur hurried away to the suite’s bathroom and slammed the door. Only when Eames heard the water running in the sink did he finally move, pushing himself away from the wall. There was a small bloodstain on the beige paint from where his face had connected, and he licked his thumb, idly trying to rub it out. Most of it disappeared, but  a red tint still remained. No bother.

Arthur’s quick retreat didn’t bother him either. Much. Eames had come to expect it of these little liaisons. After the first time—in Casablanca, ironically—Arthur had even punched a hole in the bathroom wall, then walked out of Eames’ hotel room without looking at him again. It had been five weeks before he’d found Eames again, working an underground gambling ring in Suva. Not that Eames had been counting. He’d known that Arthur would be back.

Arthur always came back.

Eames composed himself—cleaning himself with his damp briefs, changing into fresh undergarments, back into his discarded clothes. He fixed his hair in the decorative mirror hanging behind the couch, then touched his lips, searching for the source of the blood. Apprehension knotted in his belly, pressing against the deep calm he’d been feeling. It all looked fine—the tear hidden on the inside of his lip—though his fingers continued to probe his mouth, his teeth, his nose with increasing urgency. It’s fine, it’s all fine, it’s all there—

He heard a small rustle behind him, and he turned to find Arthur standing in the bathroom doorway, staring at him with an intensity bordering on invasive. That was new. Normally Arthur couldn’t stand to look at him for at least an hour after they fucked.

“Next time, watch the face,” Eames muttered. He realized they were the first words he’d spoken to Arthur since he arrived.

“Maybe there won’t be a next time,” Arthur snapped. He went to the satchel he’d dropped by the door, straightening the bottom of his vest. His suit was immaculate, which amazed Eames. Even while fucking, Arthur remained fastidious.

“That’s what you keep saying, and yet here you are.” Eames smiled at Arthur, a sardonic little twist of his lips. His cut twinged dully, turning his smile into a grimace. “Seriously, though. You know I don’t mind a bit of rough, but not the mouth. It’s a delicate thing.”

“Delicate?” A strange, furrowed expression crossed Arthur’s face, somewhere between curiosity and annoyance. “You can’t tell me that no-one’s ever punched you in the face before.”

Eames scoffed, even as a knot tied itself in his belly. “You asking if I’ve ever been in a fight?”

“No, I’m asking you to tell me a time when you got hit in the face.” His hawkish eyes bored into Eames’.

“So very specific.” Eames sighed and ambled over the table in the corner, where a bottle of white rum and two glasses waited. He poured out a measure for himself, not bothering to offer one to Arthur. He knew he’d say no. “Of course I’ve been punched in the face. More times than I can count.”

“Which time was the most memorable?”

“There was the time in…” The memory slid through his fingers at the last second, leaving him confused. He tried again. He swore he could remember—the impact of fist against flesh, the taste of blood in his mouth, the pain radiating up his jaw and down his spine. For the life of him, though, he couldn’t remember his attacker’s face, the place they’d been, the situation that had led to the violence.

“Eames?” Arthur’s voice was careful, measured. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know, Arthur,” Eames snapped. “Why does it fucking matter? You looking to best the experience?” Eames thumped the bottle down with enough force to make the fluid inside slosh up. He took a long drink from his glass, drowning the unease churning in his belly with the sweet burn of liquor. He spread his arms out, and locked his gaze on Arthur’s. “You want to punch me, be my fucking guest, but you sure as hell won’t ever get to walk through that door and fuck me again without so much as a ‘hello, how have you been, Eames?’”

Arthur’s dark eyes sparked, his jaw clenching so tightly that Eames could hear his teeth grinding together. For one moment, Eames was sure that Arthur was going to do it—close the distance between them and send a roundhouse right at Eames’ jaw. Fine. Eames was ready. He’d seen Arthur fight, he knew his moves, his strategies. He could best him easily.

Arthur held Eames’ gaze for a whole five seconds before looking away. His shoulders slumped, and he let out a long, controlled breath. “No.” He turned his attention to the satchel still dangling from his hand, and headed towards the couch. He pulled the silver PASIV case out of the bag and began to prep it.

Silence thickened in the room, broken only by the clicks and whirrs of Arthur setting up the machine. Eames watched him work, fixating on how Arthur’s nimble fingers danced across the controls. Less than ten minutes ago, those fingers had been inside of Eames’ mouth, up his arse, milking brutal pleasure from him. Now Arthur was back to business as usual—terse, cold, antagonistic.

“You know, you hating yourself for fucking me is starting to get a bit old.” Eames hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud until Arthur looked up.

“I don’t hate—”

“Yes you do.” Eames finished his drink in a long swallow, and put his empty glass back on the table with an audible clink . “I would like to remind you, Arthur, that you’re the one who approached me for this partnership. I was perfectly happy where I was, scamming casinos across Northern Africa before you came along with your dream-share nonsense. Then, I was perfectly happy keeping things professional until you decided to take my flirtations seriously and—”

“Stop,” Arthur said, a tinge of desperation in his tone. He took a deep, steadying breath. “Look, I’m…I’m sorry, all right?”

Surprise rocked through Eames. An actual apology, from Arthur? Was he dreaming?

“This…this thing between us was unexpected for me, all right? I’m still getting used to the idea that I’m with…that I’m…” he waved his hand helplessly in the air, his face tightening.

“That you’re fucking a bloke?”

A mix of relief and remorse smoothed Arthur’s expression. He opened his mouth, as if he was going to argue, before uttering a strangled, “Yeah. That’s it.”

Eames gave a short, sympathetic laugh. “You should probably spend some of your down-time with a therapist. Could help you out a bit.”

“Is that what you did? See a therapist?”

“No.” Eames snorted. “I’m completely fine with myself the way I am.”

“Are you, now?” Arthur asked carefully. “No regrets? No bad life choices?”

“Starting to regret letting you in the door today.” Eames rolled his eyes. “Look, as much as I’m loving this third-degree pillow-talk, don’t we have work to get to?”

“Fine.” Arthur pulled a thick, manila folder from the satchel. He slid it across the coffee table to Eames. “This is the target.”

Eames opened the folder, and was greeted by a full-color, glossy photo of a young man with a sharp, chiseled face. He wore a dark grey Armani suit, and his golden-brown hair was swept back in an expensive style. On the surface, he looked just like any other high-powered money man, but there was something to the set of his jaw, the shadows around his eyes that spoke of something simmering just under the surface.

“Recognize him?” Arthur asked.

“You two seem to share a tailor. Otherwise, no.”

“That’s Bruce Wayne. One of the richest and most powerful men in the world.”

Wayne. The name rang a bell in the back of Eames’ mind, made the hairs on the back of his neck raise. Yet, nothing readily came to mind.

“He lives in the US, in Gotham City. You know the place?” Arthur continued.

“You think I don’t know my geography? Of course I know about Gotham.” Everyone knew about Gotham. It was like New York, London, Paris, Tokyo. However, thinking of those other places didn’t knot Eames’ belly, make cold sweat prickle across his arms. There was something about Gotham. Something Eames couldn’t quite grasp…

“You ever been there?” Arthur asked. He pulled out a postcard from under Bruce Wayne’s photo, a sweeping city skyline with “Greetings from Gotham!” typed in a blocky Art Deco font.

“No,” Eames said, shaking his head. He leafed through the folder. There were newspaper clippings from various decades: “Thomas and Martha Wayne Killed in Mugging,” “Bruce Wayne Back in Gotham!”  “Gotham Under Siege.” He stared at the picture under that headline—a grainy photo of a bald, broad man with a strange, skull-like mask strapped to his face. A chill rippled down Eames’ spine, dread pooling in his belly like cold mercury.

“Look familiar?” Arthur asked.

“Perhaps.”

“He was on every news channel every day for about three months last year. He called himself Bane.”

Bane. Not a name—a title. A threat. A promise.

“Funny name to give your kid,” Eames said, forcing himself to keep his voice even. He dropped the clipping back onto the pile, and moved on to the next document in the file. Even though his eyes scanned the document—some sort of affidavit or such—he took nothing in. His mind was still filled with Bane’s masked face, his confident posture. Even from the bad photograph, Eames could read the strength, the calm menace radiating from him. The very definition of power.

“Really? You didn’t hear about any of that?” Arthur’s voice rose an octave. “The occupation of Gotham by a terrorist organization? Bane? The bomb that exploded off the Eastern seaboard?”

“No. Sometimes my work requires me to spend some time underground and offline.”

“In a fucking cave?”

Eames’ exasperation rose. “Look, I’m sorry to tell you this, darling, and I know it’s hard for you to hear, but the United States is not the center of the world. Did your news cover the coups in Bissau or Mali this year? Or the famine in Somalia that’s killed over 260,000 people? No. I don’t think so. Not for more than few seconds on a slow news day. Some man in a mask holds a city hostage for a few weeks. That sounds like life in most of the world.”

“You ready to get down off your fucking soap box?” Arthur snapped. “Fine. You’ve never heard of Bane. More importantly, you’ve never heard of Bruce Wayne. That makes my job even harder.”

“And exactly what is your job?”

“Tonight, it’s to show you around the dream-level of Gotham that I’ve been building for three weeks.”

“And ultimately to…”

“To extract the location of the fusion reactor that Wayne Enterprises says they stopped working on, but our client is sure Bruce Wayne still has.”

“I see.” Eames leaned back in his seat, idly rubbing at his jaw. “So we’re going to follow Wayne in his dream, see where he leads us?”

“Something like that. We need compelling bait, though. That’s where you come in.” Arthur slid a photograph out from the bottom of the stack. Arthur’s fingers still covered the face, but Eames could see that it was a woman in a suit. “Your talent for forging is remarkable, but this is going to be your biggest challenge yet.”

“What, you think I can’t forge a wom—”

Arthur moved his hand, and Eames’ world stopped .

No breath, no blood, no life. Nothing but her eyes, the same pale shade as the desert sky—blue as hope.

He couldn’t breathe. His chest was crushed, lungs struggling to fill in their broken cages. His nerves burned, heat and jagged agony racing through his body. He couldn’t think, couldn’t focus, couldn’t be, not without her, not without his Ta—

Eames shoved the picture, the entire folder away. Papers fluttered like a flock of birds before settling haphazardly on the table, on the floor. Arthur watched, tight-jawed and steely-eyed, saying nothing.

“No.” Eames stood up. “No. I’m not taking this job. Find yourself another forger.”

“Why?” Arthur stood as well, began picking up the scattered documents.

“I don’t owe you any exp—”

“Yes you do. We’re already committed to the job, both of us, and you know we can’t walk away now.”

“Bloody watch me.”

Arthur walked over to the picture of the woman. He picked it up, studied the image. “What is it about her that’s setting you off?”

“None of your goddamn business.”

“It’s every bit my business if it’s going to cost me half a million dollars and a price on my head.”

“Sod off.”

“Tell me.” He brandished the photo at Eames like a badge. “Tell me why you won’t even look at her!”

“She looks just like my wife!” The words exploded from Eames, cutting through his heart like shrapnel.

“Your wife?” Arthur’s voice became low, incredulous. “Wait, you’re…you’re married?”

“Not anymore, I’m not.” Eames felt like a puppet, the words coming from a faraway part of himself.

“What does that mean? You’re divorced?”

“It means that she died.”

Arthur froze. He blinked slowly, his hands balling into fists before relaxing again. Such a strange reaction. Confusion? Anger? Jealously?

“When?” Arthur asked quietly.

“Last year.” It simultaneously felt like yesterday, like a lifetime ago. He didn’t think of her, didn’t remember—her musical laugh, her soft hands on his face, her eyes bright as she gazed at him. God…he hadn’t…he hadn’t let himself think of her in so long…

“What was her name?”

Eames closed his eyes. He saw her smile—small and sweet and perfect in the dim light. Her face felt so small in his hand, her body warm and fragile beside him, childlike…no, womanly. Strong and lean and hot, so very hot, like fire—

Eames shook his head, trying to sift through the storm of conflicting sensations, memories. He opened his eyes, and stared down at his hands. He wore no ring, and the more he thought, the more he realized that he couldn’t remember what his wedding band had looked like. It had been so long since he’d worn it that he’d even lost the tan line.

“Eames, what was her name?” Arthur repeated, a bit more urgently.

Eames couldn’t answer. He wouldn’t answer. Arthur didn’t deserve to know. Her name was a holy name, a secret burned upon his very soul. There would only be one way to get Arthur to forget this line of questioning.

“Take me to this Gotham of yours,” Eames said, stepping back towards the prepped PASIV. “Maybe I can find a new angle on this without having to create a forge of this woman.”

“Miranda Tate,” Arthur said slowly, putting the picture on the top of the stack. “Board member of Wayne Enterprises. Also rumored to be Bruce Wayne’s lover.”

Eames’ stomach knotted like a fist, his vision blurred. There was no reason in the world that bit of information should affect him so. This Miranda wasn’t his wife. He forced a deep breath through his nose, and picked up one of the two needle-tipped tubes connected to the PASIV.

“All the more reason for me not to create the forge,” Eames said, keeping his tone glib as he secured the needle into his wrist.

“Why’s that?” Arthur asked as he picked up his own tube.

“Bruce Wayne is definitely not my type.”

Arthur snorted. He settled back onto the couch, and fixed Eames with a steady gaze. “You sure you feeling up for this tonight?”

“Absolutely,” Eames lied. In the thirty minutes Arthur had been back in his life, he’d dredged up old ghosts and strange new concerns. Eames felt off-kilter, strained, and wanted nothing more than to lose himself in a couple of mojitos and a few rounds of roulette at the casino downstairs. He couldn’t let Arthur know that, though. Arthur, who prodded and questioned him at every turn. Eames was fucking sick of it. He was a bloody professional. He got the job done, no matter how he was feeling .

Eames leaned back on the couch, getting into as comfortable position as he could. “Shall we do this?”

“OK,” Arthur said. He reached out to press the button on the PASIV, then stopped, and gave Eames the strangest, saddest look. “I’m…I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Just start the machine.” Eames closed his eyes even before Arthur pressed the button.

The first few times he’d gone under with Arthur he hadn’t even noticed the sensation of falling into sleep. Now, after almost eight months and twenty-seven trips, Eames could practically detect the slow creep of the narcotic in his bloodstream, the vanishing of the waking world and the creation of the dream around him. He could feel Arthur’s mind brushing against his, weaving a new net of reality to catch his consciousness, and he opened himself to it, welcomed it. He needed a new reality more than ever today.

When he opened his eyes, he was standing on an abandoned city street. The steel and glass buildings towered up towards the winter sky, and slushy, grey snow filled the gutters. Everything was grey and icy and sharp, and Eames shivered as the wind sliced through his thin tropical shirt.

“You could’ve warned me I’d need a jacket,” Eames muttered, his arms coming up to cross over his chest. He hated the cold, with a passion. He could handle the sweltering humidity of the jungle, or the arid burn of the desert, but put him in even the lightest snowfall and he would devolve into a shivering mess.

“Here,” Arthur said, handing over a coat that he had draped over his arm. Convenient. Eames studied the coat as he took it—worn brown leather, lined with cream-colored sheepskin. It definitely looked warm, but as he shrugged it on he noticed that the collar stood high, all the way to his cheekbones.

“Is this really necessary?” Eames grumbled. “If you were planning on bringing me a coat, couldn’t you at least have brought something a bit more subdued?”

Arthur didn’t answer. He was already walking away from Eames, down the abandoned street. Eames noticed that his coat was a simple, black parka, almost too thin for this sort of biting weather. Maybe Arthur was used to cold weather.

Eames followed him, his feet crunching in the snow. He scanned the street, realizing suddenly what was so odd about it all.

“Where is everyone?” Eames asked. “This is Gotham City, right? It has one of highest population densities in the US.”

“Hiding,” Arthur said, without turning around to look at Eames. “From the terrorists.”

A jolt went through Eames. “Wait, did you build Gotham during that occupation you were telling me about?” He looked around at the empty streets, the darkened windows above. Many of the ones closer to street level were even broken. This looked nothing like the Gotham that Eames knew from the television—and yet, there was something oddly familiar about it all. “How is this going to help convince Bruce Wayne’s subconscious to reveal the location of the reactor?”

“Trust me,” Arthur said quietly. “He’ll show up.”

Something in the way Arthur spoke made the hair on Eames’ neck stand on end. He opened his mouth to ask another question, and stopped when he heard a deep rumble behind them.

Arthur stopped short, and turned back to Eames. “We have to get off this street.”

He grabbed Eames by the bicep, and led him into a narrow channel between two buildings. Eames had sense enough to stay still and quiet as the rumbling grew louder and louder, the ground vibrating beneath his feet. After a few long seconds, a huge, armored truck lumber past, escorted by two smaller, deadlier looking combat vehicles. Fuck, who were these terrorists, to have this sort of arsenal?

Arthur and Eames remained in their hiding place for almost a full minute after the caravan had passed. Finally, Arthur nudged Eames’ shoulder, prompting him to follow him deeper into the alleyway.

“We’ll take back streets,” Arthur said. “I built a shortcut.”

“This is quite the involved level.” Eames’s suspicion grew as he carefully stepped around a bulging mountain of black trash bags. It looked like there hadn’t been any garbage service in weeks. He was suddenly glad that it was winter. In the summer, the stench would’ve been unbearable. “A lot of little details.”

“I do my homework.” Arthur paused at the mouth of the alleyway, scanning the intersection before continuing on.

“This is more than homework. This is memory.” As soon as Eames said it, he was certain of it. “It feels too sharp. Too concrete.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, then. I spent a full week in Gotham. Mapping the city on foot, talking to people who had survived the occupation. A lot of them had pictures and videos they hadn’t been able to get out at the time. Their stories were compelling.”

They passed a wall, the grey bricks spattered with dark red-brown paint. It wasn’t until Eames saw the icy blue hand poking out from under the pile of snow that he realized that it wasn’t paint at all.

“I’ll bet they were.” Eames pulled his jacket closer around him, trying to fight off the chill. “Where exactly are we going?”

“The city center. That’s where Bruce Wayne will want to go.”

“You sure about that?”

“Positive. It’ll be important for you to know the layout there.”

Eames fell silent as they walked on. It was eerie, this shut-in city, like something out of a post-apocalyptic film. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see a shambling horde of zombies coming around the corner—down here, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility at all. He reassured himself with the presence of his HK P2000 tucked into his waistband. After the first time he’d been torn apart by a band of raving subconscious projections, he always made sure he had a gun on him.  He shuddered at the memory, placed his hand on his weapon.

They walked for what felt like an hour. Eames took in all the details of the streets, the buildings, the landmarks. They had to hide from another couple of armored caravans, but at least they were easy to hear coming. As the buildings got bigger, the blocks tighter, Eames began to hear a dull roar. Not the same as that of the rumbling vehicles, but more like...

“Is there a stadium nearby?” Eames looked around. “Sounds like a match is going on.”

“Stadium’s across town. At least, it used to be.”

“What happened to it?”

Arthur sighed. “You know, you may really want to consider a subscription to the New York Times online at some point.”

Eames’ face heated. Arse. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t get a decent internet connection where he traveled.

Arthur obviously was taking this occupation rather hard. Eames couldn’t blame him, he supposed. Most Americans he met were still quite sensitive to even the mention of the terrorist attacks in New York on 9/11, and that was over ten years ago. These events were fresh, so even if they hadn’t been of the same magnitude, fear fed upon fear. Most Americans weren’t used to feeling vulnerable. They lived in shiny plastic bubbles, distracted by blinking, electronic toys and the base pursuit of empty wealth. Even the slightest hint that their empire was a fragile house of cards built upon corrupt politics, dirty money, and the blood of the innocent sent them into sniveling, frothing indignation. They believed the lie that their wealth was deserved—a divine right—rather than the spoils of exploitation, of slavery. These people, these Gothamites , did not see the river of blood that flowed in their wake, the mountains of crushed bones left behind by the starving, the mad, the unjustly incarcerated—the forgotten. One day, those forgotten would rise up, claw their way over the gilded gates and devour the corrupt as they slept in their feather beds—

Eames’ feet moved faster, his adrenaline surging. The sound of the crowd grew louder, and from here he could tell it wasn’t the good-natured roar of friendly football rivalry. No, it was the sound of violence, of hatred—of war. He rounded a corner, and there, at last, was the city center. Where normally the area would be alive with the bustle of hundreds of suited drones scuttling around to collect the stinking refuse of money, today it churned with open brutality as two armies clashed in the street. Uniformed police officers fought men in cobbled together armor, fists and feet flying as empty guns clattered to the icy ground.

Eames’ blood thundered in his ears, his breath came in hard pants. A tiny voice of reason told him he should grab Arthur, turn back to safety—but reason was drowned by a red wave of fury as soon as he saw the black figure fighting in the middle of the churning crowd.

Everything came into focus, heat racing through his muscles like fire through a forest. His feet carried him forward, into the fray, towards the shadowed form at the eye of the storm. A police officer rushed Eames, and he quickly dispatched him with an elbow strike. Another followed, and Eames flipped him as easily as if he were a child. He was hot, burning from the inside, and he shrugged off his thick coat so he could more easily swing his arms, move his body in the ballet of violence that was as second nature to him as breathing.

As he reached the center, the man in black armor turned to him. Batman. Bruce Wayne. No. It couldn’t…it couldn’t be him…

“So, you came back to die with your city!” Eames said. His voice sounded strange, muffled, but it felt stronger. Right, somehow.

“No. I came back to stop you,” Batman growled.

Eames’ anger flared. Batman was just a little road bump, a minor obstacle. He had defeated him before, broken him across his knee like dry wood. He would break Batman again, and leave his body for the coming fire.

The fight was different this time, though. Batman was quicker, stronger, hungrier. Where before he’d been hesitant, now he was sure. Where last time he’d defended, this time he lashed out. He fought with conviction, with passion. Like a man who had faced his own darkness, and made it into his armor, his sword.

Eames had ached his whole life for an opponent like this.

It wasn’t a fight—it was a dance, their steps made in time to the staccato beat of striking fists, elbows, knees. They circled and swung, each punch meant to be a finishing blow. There was no yielding, no mercy, and Eames knew he had Batman cornered, outmaneuvered, defeated—

And then Batman struck him across the face.

Pain ripped across Eames’ face like fire, like clawing fingers. He reached up to touch his mouth, and instead of flesh, he felt a web of metal and plastic. Panic bloomed in his chest, closing his throat. He struggled to breathe as his fingers fumbled with the mask, only to be knocked away by Batman’s hand. The pain grew into agony, nerves screaming out from his mouth, up his nose, down his neck. He wanted to howl, but only a strangled, gurgling sound came out. If only he could reconnect the tube Batman had dislodged, he’d be fine again, back in the fight.

Batman never gave him the chance. His assault was relentless, punishing. Eames let his pain fuel his fists, berserker rage giving him the last push of strength he needed to finish this once and for all.

He missed. His fist sank into the stone column, cracking it as easily as plaster. All the fight left him as the pain consumed his senses, and Batman whirled him around, slammed his fist over and over into the bright spot of agony, cracking him open like an egg. Eames staggered back, trying to escape, but Batman planted a solid kick to the center of Eames’ chest, and he was falling backwards through the double doors of the courthouse, sliding across the marble floor—

Into a sea of gripping, clawing hands. Furious bodies writhed around him, stinking of sweat and vomit and desperation. Eames fought them off as best he could, but he was overwhelmed, consumed by the fury of his fellow prisoners. Ragged nails scrabbled at his face and mouth, gouging out chunks of soft flesh. Fists slammed into his jaw, shattering bone, chipping teeth. He forced his scream down into the bottom of his throat. He couldn’t let her hear, couldn’t distract her, couldn’t scare her as she climbed to freedom, to salvation. He kept his eyes on her as long as he could, watching her ascent, and the last thing he saw before he was pulled down into hell was her tiny form flying through the air, a shadow fleeing the nightmare world to rise into the light—

A gunshot cut through the cries of fury echoing off the walls, and the prisoners scattered. Eames was left, curled and panting, too terrified to touch his face. He could feel the torn flesh, the missing pieces, the broken parts that would never heal. Another gunshot, and Eames dared look up into to the light, terrified that he’d see her small body falling, shot out of the sky like a pheasant.

She was gone, though. At the lip of the pit stood the silhouette of a lean man. He was too far away to make out his face, but Eames was in so much agony that he no longer had control over his senses. There was no fixing him, no going back. It had been worth it, to know she’d made it to freedom. Talia. His Talia.

He didn’t hear the third gunshot. One minute Eames was curled in a puddle of his own blood at the bottom of the Pit, the next he was clawing awake in his hotel room in Santa Prisca. He didn’t wait for Arthur. He yanked the needle from his arm and threw it down on the machine. His heart was beating so fast he thought that it would break out of his ribcage, his entire body quaking and doused in cold sweat. He had to get to the bathroom before he—

He made it just in time to the sink, retching up the rum he’d drunk only minutes before. Minutes. God, it felt like fucking hours had passed. His face still burned with the phantom memory of torn flesh, shattered bones, and he quailed at the thought of looking in the mirror, facing the damage that had been done. He splashed cold water on his face, and when his fingers encountered his nose and his lips—whole and unbroken—he finally dared a look. His face was fine. A little red, very wet, but unmarked.

What…what the fuck had that been about? Never before had a shared dream taken such a dark turn, or had Eames lost himself like that. Had this been some new blend of Somnacin? Or was there something Arthur hadn’t told him about his level design? Either way, there was no way he was going to take this job now.

Eames stepped out of the bathroom, ready to spark an argument, when he saw Arthur by the bar. He was pouring himself a drink. He never drank with Eames. Ever. It took Eames a moment to realize that the bottle was clinking against the glass, the liquor sloshing unevenly into the tumbler. Arthur was shaking. Eames’ anger deflated a bit, and he joined Arthur at the bar. He took the bottle from Arthur’s hand, and finished pouring his drink. When he was done, he poured himself one as well.

“What happened?” Eames asked, bringing his own glass to his lips. He still felt an odd sense of relief that he even had lips.

“I…I don’t know.” Arthur sipped his drink, grimaced, then slammed it back down. He swallowed it roughly, then gave a harsh sigh.

“Was that a new compound?”

“No. Same stuff we used before.” Arthur reached for the bottle again, but then thought better of it, and pulled back. Eames filled his glass again for him.

“That riot. Were those your projections or mine?” Eames asked.

“I…I’ve never seen anything like it. Both, perhaps?” Arthur picked up the glass and sipped at the rum. He stared at Eames with a pleading sort of desperation. “You sure you’ve never been to Gotham City?”

“Oh, I think I’d remember if that was what it looked like when I visited.” Eames couldn’t shake the odd dread in his stomach, the memory of his vague déjà vu.

“When…when a person suffers a traumatic event, they can sometimes repress the memory. Bury it deep inside.”

“I am not repressing anything, Arthur,” Eames snapped. “I don’t repress. That’s your department.”

Arthur didn’t take the bait. He leaned forward. “You might not even know you’re repressing. That’s how it works.”

“So, you’re telling me you think all that down there was my fault. That I created that riot, that fight with that…that fucking freak in black armor, that prison—” Eames shuddered, waved his hands in front of him as if to physically banish the thoughts. “No! I don’t dream like that. That was all your doing, and I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but I am under no uncertain terms taking this bloody jo—”

“You’re off the job,” Arthur said quietly. “You can’t do it. If even a walk-about sends your projections into a full-on frenzy, there’s no way you’ll hold it together enough for the extraction. I’ll have to find someone else.”

“Well, fucking good luck to them,” Eames muttered. He was half relieved, half disappointed. It wasn’t so much the money he would be missing—though that certainly did hurt—it was the fact that he had failed in a task that had been set before him. He’d risen to every other challenge Arthur had placed before him. Now to have botched it without even knowing how or why—it was maddening.

They were silent for a long moment. Then, Eames put his empty glass down on the table, and went back to their work area. He didn’t look at the open file folder, at the news clippings and photos, but instead focused on resetting the machine as Arthur had taught him. A few seconds later, Arthur joined him at the couch, and began cleaning the papers up himself.

Once the PASIV and the file folder were back in the satchel, Eames realized that Arthur had no more reason to stay. He’d gotten his shag and his work done. He had no idea if or when he’d see Arthur again. The thought made his stomach knot unexpectedly.

“Look, I’ll be in touch,” Arthur murmured, his gaze downcast.

“I’m sure you will,” Eames said, unable to hide how unconvinced he felt.

Arthur looked up then, and his eyes held Eames’ for a long second. “I promise.”

“Even though I’m a shit partner who you believe is repressing some rather nasty memories?”

Arthur’s gaze slid down, stopping again at Eames’ mouth. Eames didn’t smile this time, even when Arthur’s fingers came up to graze Eames’ bottom lip, touch his cheek, the hair at his scalp line. It was an unexpectedly tender gesture, and Eames found himself leaning into it. To his surprise, Arthur leaned in, too.

Arthur’s lips were dry against Eames’, warm, and soft. It was a hesitant kiss, almost chaste, a direct contrast to the brutal passion that was Arthur’s brand of intimacy. It scraped at something raw inside Eames, something vulnerable, and he didn’t know whether he wanted to push Arthur away or draw him closer.

Arthur made the decision for him. He pulled back, brow furrowed, eyes bright.

“What was that for?” Eames asked. He couldn’t help but notice his voice was shaking.

“For your mouth,” Arthur said quietly.

Ah. A kiss of apology, from when his ardor had gotten the better of him earlier. How unexpectedly sweet of him.

“It feels all better now.” Eames smiled at Arthur, but it felt fragile somehow. Unsure.

“I’m sure it does.” Arthur’s voice seemed brittle, and he took a step back towards the door. “I’ll find you soon. After the Wayne job.”

“Good luck with that,” Eames snorted. He waved Arthur away. “I’m curious to hear how it works out for your next forger.”

Arthur had his hand on the knob when he stopped, and turned back to Eames. “You’re not a shit partner, you know.”

“How kind of you to say so,” Eames said. “Even if you still think I’m hiding something.”

“Everybody’s hiding something. It takes real courage to face it, though, to make yourself accountable for your actions.”

“You done with your speeches, darling? I have a casino downstairs calling my name.” Eames crossed his arms across his chest.

“Fine.” Arthur yanked open the door. “Enjoy your secrets while you can.”

“Good night to you, too.” Eames chuckled and waved Arthur away, even as discomfort spread coldly in his belly. That sounded vaguely like a threat, and Eames didn’t like threats. Hell, he didn’t like anything about what had happened here tonight—getting wounded in the face during sex, the odd third degree from Mister “repressing my homosexuality” Arthur, the warped scenario that had consumed him during dream-share. Who the hell did Arthur think he was, accusing Eames of repressing memories? Eames knew who he was: a con-man, a drifter, a widower.

As he turned to get his coat, Eames caught a glance of his reflection in the decorative mirror over the couch. For one moment, he saw him —the shaved head, the bulging muscles, the black mask. Bane.

Eames slammed his eyes shut, his hands cradling his mouth, his jaw, his nose. All there all there all there…

*********************

“You awake, rookie?”

John Blake blinked slowly, his eyelids leaden. It took a few seconds for his eyes to focus, for his mind to settle back into his body. The shape hovering above him blurred, then came into focus—Jim Gordon, face crinkled in concern.

“Yeah,” Blake slurred. He tried to sit up, but his head spun. He laid back down against the heavily padded chair, and closed his eyes. He breathed in deeply through his nose, trying to steady himself using the meditation techniques he’d been practicing. When he opened his eyes again, Gordon was offering a bottle of water. Blake took it with a short, “Thanks.”

“It didn’t work, did it.” It wasn’t a question. Gordon took off his glasses, started cleaning them with a silk handkerchief from the pocket of his brown trench coat.

Blake stalled by taking a long drink from the water bottle. “It almost did.”

“But it didn’t.” Gordon looked at Blake sharply, and suddenly he was a beat cop again, getting a dressing down from the lieutenant. Never mind that Blake hadn’t been a cop for almost a year now, or that Gordon was technically Blake’s sidekick these days.

“It’s the closest I’ve gotten so far!” Blake snapped. He sat up carefully, testing his balance. He looked down at his wrist, at the clear tubing connecting him to the PASIV device. He pulled the needle out carefully, and applied the small, round band-aid he had ready on the tray beside his seat. “He was there in Gotham, as Bane. He remembered. I saw it.”

“Then why isn’t he awake?” Gordon stepped aside, and Blake got a full view of his fellow dreamer—Bane, sprawled out unconscious on a cot, still connected to the PASIV. His eyes were closed above his mask, as they had been for the past eight weeks, maybe longer. He was hooked up to other tubes as well, IVs, catheters—everything he needed to keep him alive while he slept without end. He had been like this when Blake had found him, hidden deep in the sewers of Gotham in his private lair. It had been a challenge moving him here, to Blake’s own subterranean hide-out, yet that had proven to be the easy part. Two months Blake had been working to wake Bane without dropping him into Limbo, and this was the closest he’d ever come. It still hadn’t been good enough.

“I don’t know,” Blake admitted, which pretty much summed up this entire situation. He knew the rules of the game, but not why they had to follow them:  don’t unplug Bane, he has to wake up on his own, don’t take him above ground.

That last rule was the only one Blake understood. If they took Bane to the surface, the feds would be on him in a heartbeat. They sure as hell wouldn’t bother with waking up the number one most wanted criminal in the world. They’d just unhook him from the PASIV, and let him stay comatose for the rest of his life in prison. It was too good a fate for Bane, after what he’d done to Gotham, to the world. Bane needed to be awake and aware of every crime, every transgression, every life he stole. Blake would drag him back into the light, lucid and afraid, to stand trial and sentencing in a court of law. Bane would feel every moment of his life incarcerated.

As long as Bane thought he was Eames, he remained free. Blake couldn’t let him. He didn’t deserve peace, or happiness, or—

As he approached Gordon, he couldn’t help but look at Bane, the black, wired mask covering his face. Blake’s mind filled with the image of Bane looking up from the bottom of the pit, his face broken, torn open, and he shuddered.

“A word in private?” Gordon asked. He still didn’t believe that Bane couldn’t hear them, despite all the tests they’d run saying otherwise. Blake was positive that he wouldn’t even hear a bomb going off right next to his head.

Gordon put a hand on Blake’s shoulder and guided him out of the medical bay, and out into the Batcave at large. Here, the sound of rushing water muffled their words.

“Look, I know what you’re gonna—” Blake started.

“You can’t keep doing this alone,” Gordon said.

Surprise rocked through Blake. He thought for sure that Gordon was going to try to talk him out of continuing this mad crusade, as he had after every other failed attempt to wake Bane. Blake had the speech memorized: “I spent half my career on the force having to look the other way when my partners bent the law to their advantage, and I’m not doing it again, even for you.”

Part of Blake was amazed that Gordon had volunteered to be part of Blake’s mission. Once he’d retired as Police Commissioner, Blake—and everyone else who knew Gordon—had been sure he would head to Chicago, try to patch things up with his family. To be fair, he had, for a few weeks. Then one day, Blake had found him standing outside of his apartment building, holding a newspaper bearing the headline, “Gotham’s New Protector.” Blake hadn’t asked him once about what happened in Chicago.

“Look,” Gordon continued, “I get that you want to be the one that cracks this case, but sometimes you’ve got to know when to call in help.”

“I have help,” Blake huffed.

“More than me. More than that freakshow that you keep trying to milk information out of. You need a team—”

“ He didn’t have a team,” Blake snapped. He was very keenly aware of all the ways that he wasn’t Batman—no college education, no years of secret martial arts training, no mountain of wealth to keep the mission going. Sure, Bruce Wayne had left a fund for Blake, and contact information for someone called Lucius Fox, but Blake sure as hell wasn’t going to make a phone call to the head of Wayne Enterprises without a good reason. At heart, Blake was still just a simple police officer, who’d barely made detective before he’d quit. From reading Bruce’s files, Blake knew that in Batman’s first year he’d taken down one of the biggest gangsters in Gotham and had made a mortal blow to the League of Shadows. All Blake had done in his first few months as Gotham’s protector was recapture the some of the escapees from the Blackgate break-out, and stop a few robberies and small drug deals. Beat cop stuff.

“And he almost ended up dead,” Gordon snapped back. “Maybe if he’d had more than his butler to help him, things would’ve been a lot different.”

Blake’s chest felt tight, his stomach churned. Part of him wanted to yell at Gordon, unleash the torrent of anger that always roiled just under the surface of his skin. He had better control than that, though. Years and years of practice kept his expression flat, his posture neutral. Instead of taking a swing at Gordon, he checked his watch.

“I gotta get ready for work,” Blake said. He headed deeper into the Batcave, towards the armory.

Gordon followed. “The occupation changed Gotham. I know for a fact that I make a few calls to some of the guys we worked with they’d sign up in a heartbeat. Tim, Jason—”

“No,” Blake said. The knot in his chest tightened. “This is my job. He trusted it to me.”

Gordon sighed deeply. “You’re even more stubborn than he was.”

Blake didn’t dignify Gordon’s comment with a response. Instead, he focused on preparing himself for his night’s patrol. To his credit, Gordon simply helped him into his Kevlar armor, his boots, the helmet that doubled as a mask as it extended down over his nose. It had all been left behind for him by Bruce, oddly tailored to his measurements. It hadn’t been the Batman armor—and for that Blake had been both grateful and a bit disappointed—but instead a sleeker design with dark blue highlights.

Once he was dressed, he headed for the bench where Gordon had prepped Blake’s belt earlier with what he’d need for the night—smoke pellets, tasers, stun batons, grappling hook, pepper spray, nylon restraints. All non-lethal forms of subduing perps.

“You sure you don’t want the cape?” Gordon asked, pointing to the last piece of the ensemble Bruce had left for Blake.

Blake shook his head. “No capes.” It wasn’t a style thing—he honestly didn’t know how to use it. Batman used it to glide through the air, stun his enemies in combat. Whenever Blake practiced with it, it just dragged on his shoulders like dead weight. Maybe someday, but for now, he’d stick to grappling and jumping.

“Look, just do me a favor tonight.” Gordon reached into his pocket, and pulled out a white business card and one of the vials of Somnacin they’d taken from Bane’s hideout. Curious, Blake took the card, read the name: Dr. Pamela Isley, Botany and Plant Science Dept., Gotham University. He looked up at Gordon with his brow arched, though Gordon couldn’t see it through the mask.

“She’s worked with the force a couple of times on some cases. Take her a sample of this Somnacin stuff, let her take a look at it. She might be able to tell us more about it, maybe even create a different compound that’ll help us get through to Bane.”

It wasn’t a bad idea at all, but he eyed Gordon suspiciously. “Why can’t you do it?”

“I’m retired, remember?” Gordon shrugged.

“Yeah, well so am I.”

“Nightwing’s not. Go talk to her tonight while on patrol. She works late, I hear.”

“What, you want me to just go to her office, knock on her door dressed like this?” Blake waved his hands at his outfit.

“Maybe try the window.” A small smile tugged at the corner of Gordon’s lips.

“Fine. If I have time tonight.” He pocketed the card and the vial, and headed towards the Batpod parked near the cave’s exit. He had no intention of going to the university, not tonight, or any other night.

“Do me one more favor,” Gordon said.

“You’re asking an awful lot of favors tonight.”

“Don’t go talk to the freakshow.”

Blake remained silent. That had been exactly where he’d been headed first.

“He only gets under your skin.”

“I just have a couple more que—”

“He hasn’t given us anything useful in weeks. Please, Blake, don’t let him mess with your head again.”

Blake sighed as he straddled the Batpod. Gordon was starting to get protective. All because last time Blake had come back from Arkham Asylum, he’d been off his game just a little bit and gotten himself shot by a perp he’d been pursuing. Sloppy, yeah, but the Kevlar had saved his life.

“This’ll be the last time,” Blake said. He didn’t sound convincing. He revved the Batpod’s engine to life, as much to drown out Gordon’s protests as to warm the vehicle up. He gunned the engine, and without looking back at Gordon, he zipped over the metal bridge that led to the cave network that would take him to the surface. He didn’t need to leave Gordon instructions, he knew his job by now—monitor the Batcomputer, stay in communication, and change out Bane’s IVs and Somnacin as needed.

The autumn wind bit at the lower half of Blake’s face as he raced through the night. He felt like a shadow swimming through a sea of black as he darted around the slower-moving cars on the highway. Speeding through the Gotham streets on this dream machine was definitely his favorite part of his new gig. This was something Blake knew he could do well—handle a motorcycle of this magnitude. All his dad had owned was a hog, so Blake had been the only kid at his school who’d been dropped off by Harley. Wasn’t as cool as it sounded, especially since his dad always insisted on wearing his colors when he rode. After his dad had been shot, Blake had thought he’d never ride again, until he’d been forced to learn in the police academy. There, he’d realized how much he’d missed the speed and maneuverability of the machine, and he clocked in as much practice as he could before he graduated. They never let him have one on the force, though. Always stuck him in a car. Yet another perk to having gone freelance.

The ride to Arkham Asylum took half the time in the Batpod as it would’ve taken Blake by car. He took back roads into Gotham, through the mostly-abandoned Narrows. It amazed Blake that even after everything, there were still people brave—or desperate—enough to stay. As he approached the Asylum, he cut the engines and rolled the last few feet to a deserted garage that he always used for these little visits. He activated the vehicle’s security protocols, then—for extra measure—covered it in a tarp he’d found in the debris.

Scaling the walls of the Asylum was a surprisingly easy task. It was an old building, covered with craggy hand-holds and lots of decorative ledges, and Blake climbed with the grace of a spider. Good thing he wasn’t afraid of heights.

Crane’s window was near the top of the building. Perhaps, since he’d once been the head of the Asylum, they felt he’d earned a penthouse cell. Whatever the reason, Blake was grateful. It meant he had a relatively private window. Blake perched himself on the thick ledge outside.

“Hello?” He called out. “You awake in there?”

“Always.” Jonathan Crane’s voice lilted through the thick bars of his cell, a second before his pale, spectacled face appeared. “I thought it was about time for one of your little visits. Tell me, how is my favorite patient doing tonight? Is he still dreaming away?”

Blake’s skin crawled under his armor as Crane gave him a wide, Cheshire smile with those impossibly full lips of his. He didn’t look afraid, or even worried. He never did. Not even when Blake—as Nightwing—had discovered Crane monitoring the unconscious Bane, or when Blake had threatened to rough him up to get him to talk. He’d just chuckled, and allowed Blake to take him in. He claimed that he had overdosed on that fear toxin of his years before, and was no longer afraid of anything anymore. Blake hoped to prove him wrong.

“Yeah, he is,” Blake said. “Though I’m getting closer. Bane remembered this time. He became himself again for a few minutes—”

“Did he remember when you were with him as Eames, or when you took him down into the dream?” Crane steepled his fingers. His curiosity was genuine—Bane was an experiment to him.

“He remembered down in the dream,” Blake admitted.

“That’s your problem.” Crane sighed in mock exasperation. “He’s not remembering himself, he’s dreaming that he’s remembering himself.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means his mind can easily reject the memory as a construction. A nightmare.” Crane pushed his silver-rimmed glasses up further on his slim nose. “He’s not just repressing, he’s actively building new memories to replace the ones he’s trying to forget. Can you blame him?”

“I blame you,” Blake snapped. This whole situation was Crane’s fault. In the confusion following the battle of Gotham, Crane had managed to escape, and get the wounded Bane to safety back down into his lair. Crane had tended his broken ribs as best he could, but there had been something he hadn’t been able to fix—Bane’s spirit. He was hollow. Broken. The perfect subject for Crane’s newest and most dangerous toxin. According to Crane, Bane had volunteered for it. Blake wasn’t convinced.

“I do have to commend you, though, on your ingenuity—using dream-share within dream-share to try to make him aware of himself. You may well be on the right track,” Crane said.

“I showed him the picture of Miranda, of Talia, like you suggested,” Blake said slowly, “and Eames told me that she was his dead wife. He’s never had a wife before in our previous visits.”

“Are you jealous?” Crane asked, still with genuine curiosity.

“No!” Blake started. “Why the hell would I be—”

“Because you’re intimate with him.” Crane stared at Blake unflinchingly.

Blake felt as if he were falling. He gripped the side of the building tighter, tried to steady himself with a long breath. How the hell did Crane know?

“Eames is designed to be irresistible. Charming. Seductive. Of course you’d fall for him.” Crane leaned forward. “Tell me, honestly, how many times did you go under before you let yourself be seduced? How much of the compound did you take before you started to believe your own constru—”

“Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth,” Blake growled through gritted teeth. “Or so help me god, I’ll—”

“What? Break through these bars and kill me? I don’t think so.” Crane gave him a lazy smile. “You may be a weak imitation of your predecessor, but you definitely abide by his code. No killing.”

Blake’s face was on fire, his heartbeat racing. He felt like he could break the bars, snap Crane’s graceful neck like a twig.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone that you’re exploring your repressed homosexual desires with the construct of the man you hate more than anything. Your secret is safe with me.” Crane placed a finger over his lips momentarily. “But seriously, in the interest of science, how many sessions before you started to get confused yourself? Before you believed in, what do you call him? Arthur?”

Blake didn’t answer, though he could tell him without calculating: two. Two sessions were all it took before Blake had begun to confuse himself with Arthur, began believing his own story. He’d had to. Each time he’d simply tried to “break in” to Bane’s dream, Bane’s subconscious projections leapt all over him like rabid dogs before Blake had even made it a block. He’d eventually figured that the best way to get in was to present himself as a friendly presence—a fellow con-man looking for a partner. It had worked. Too well.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” Crane said. “My Blue Flower compound is flawless. The most powerful Somnacin derivative ever made. Dreams so vivid, so convincing that the dreaming mind will always find a way to rationalize whatever it sees. Parade of blue dragons down main street? Fine, it’s the St. Dragon Day parade. Make your wife into a giant fly? She was like that when you married her. Find a handsome stranger who fills your every lonely desire? Forget he’s a terrorist warlord who ravaged your city.”

“Crimes which he’ll pay for. In full, when I wake him up,” Blake snapped. He leaned closer, trying to menace Crane. “Tell me how to get him to remember who he is!”

Crane just sighed, tapped his fingers against his lips. “Perhaps you’re going about this wrong. Maybe you shouldn’t be trying to get him to remember he’s Bane. Maybe you should be trying to get him to forget he’s Eames.”

Blake was startled. He hadn’t expected a genuine answer. Crane was mercurial, by turns evasive and helpful. Which was why Blake kept coming back, despite Gordon’s protests.

“You said that he remembered himself when you took him to occupied Gotham. Tell me about it,” Crane said.

Blake did, in as best detail as he could—Eames’ slow change in posture, in demeanor the closer they’d gotten to city center. He told him about how he’d waded into the thick of battle as soon as he saw Batman, and how—as in reality—Batman had defeated Bane.

“Then, it all shifted,” Blake said. “Bane got kicked though these double doors, and then suddenly we weren’t in Gotham anymore. We were in a desert somewhere. He was gone. It took me a second, but I saw…I saw this little kid crawling out of a pit in the ground. I thought it was him, for a minute, until I looked down into the pit and…” Blake trailed off as the memory of Bane’s torn face filled his mind.

“And…” Crane gripped the bars, anticipation gleaming in his eyes.

“I saw his face. His real face. Messed up. Bad.”

“You saw his origin,” Crane whispered in delight. “The genesis of his pain.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“That. That is your moment!” Crane said. “When he is most weak. You make that his reality, and Bane will come back to you. He’ll have nowhere else to go but consciousness to escape his suffering.”

Blake felt sick to his stomach, remembering the bloody figure huddled in the darkness. He’d known full well who was down there, what he had done, and Blake’s—Arthur’s—first impulse had been to put a bullet in his head to end his misery.

“Make him relive that moment again, and again, and again. Glut him on his darkest memory. Or, or, or, or!” Crane’s voice rose in pitch, his eyes growing wide and manic. “Make it even worse! You said there was a child who escaped the pit?”

Blake nodded slowly.

“Kill it. Kill it while he watches.” Crane clapped his hands. “I guarantee, that will snap him back.”

Blake had heard enough. “Or maybe I just finally take the gamble and pull the damn plug.”

“And you drop him into Limbo.” Crane’s voice dropped in disappointment. “He stays asleep forever.”

“Or so you keep saying.”

“You want to ignore my instructions, fine, be my guest.” Crane shrugged. “But you can’t just unplug someone from Blue Flower. They have to consciously wake up.”

“I’ll find a way, without becoming a fucking monster like you freaks,” Blake said. “I’m not torturing him into wakefulness.”

“He’d do the same to you, if the tables were turned,” Crane said placidly. “Don’t confuse Bane with Eames. As much as you want to.” He stepped back from the window, into the shadows of his cell. “Our time is up, I’m afraid. Do mind your step on the way out.”

Blake grit his teeth, biting back the litany of curses he wanted to spit at Crane. Times like this he wished he could get to Crane through the normal channels, to get into a room with him…

And beat him to a pulp.

Blake swallowed down his anger as he leapt off the ledge, aiming his jump for a rooftop only a few feet away. He was so distracted that he almost missed, and he had to scramble for purchase on the stone before he pulled himself up.

Fucking Crane. Fucking Bane. Fucking Eames.

Blake ran across the roof, and dove off the edge towards the next one. The adrenaline began to clear his mind.

Gordon was right. He needed a new angle. He needed help.

He leapt to a fire escape, and let himself hang before swinging himself out to grab an exposed pipe. He was getting better at this acrobatics stuff.

He would go to the university. Maybe this botanist really could give Blake some intel on the compound. If she could build a different version of it, one that didn’t make Bane’s dreams so bulletproof, Blake might be able to crack him without having to break him utterly…

Bane’s bloody, torn face filled Blake’s mind once more. It would’ve been easier if, above the ripped flesh, Bane’s eyes had been filled with despair. However, even from his perch at the top of the pit, Blake had seen what had been in Bane’s eyes in his darkest moment: hope.

Blake couldn’t kill hope. That’s not what he did. Bruce—Batman—had been a symbol of hope for Gotham, and Blake wouldn’t start his tenure as Nightwing by destroying it—even if it belonged to a fucking sick psychopath like Bane.

Especially if it belongs to Eames.

Blake roared as he made a long jump across two high buildings. He landed easily, ducking into a roll and continuing to run. He reminded himself that Eames was a lie. A construct. A mask, every bit as potent as the one Bane wore strapped to his face. Arthur was Blake’s mask, his armor. The tool he’d use to bring Bane to justice—

And lose the closest thing you’ve ever had to having a partner in your sad, strange life.

He dropped off a short building, right in front of where the Batpod was parked. He was so distracted that he hadn’t noticed the three shadows lurking in the garage until he caught the flash of a silver blade in the street light, the rattle of chains. Perfect. He could really use a fight right now.  He pulled his stun batons out of his belt and activated them, dropping into a defensive stance as the three perps approached him.

This was his reality now. He was Gotham’s protector. It’s new dark knight. He couldn’t forget that, ever, no matter what the cost.