The Laughing Spider #34
The bat rose in Harley's trembling hands, splinters digging into her palms. Her knuckles were white against the worn wood, blood from cracked ribs making each breath taste like copper.
"You're one of the bad men." Her voice didn't crack this time. Steadier than it had any right to be. "Coming for my mallet." She shifted her stance, finding balance despite the pain radiating through her torso. "But you're gonna have to go through me first, Bane."
Each of Bane's breaths was mechanical thunder: hiss-click, hiss-click. The tubes running to his back pulsed with luminous green, casting shadows that made his already massive frame seem to fill the entire tunnel. His muscles weren't the bloated excess of street-corner dealers. They were architecture. Purpose made flesh through will that refused to acknowledge human limitation.
His visible eye studied her with the patience of someone examining an insect under glass. Taking inventory of the torn jacket strips serving as bandages. The protective stance that knew it was futile but stood anyway. The way her body angled between him and the Spider's wrapped form like a prayer made physical.
Then he laughed.
The sound held no mockery. No cruelty. Just something that might have been recognition.
"I have never seen such fire in your eyes, Harley Quinn." The accent thickened each word, turned them into something almost tactile. "You who have been shadow and echo. The Joker's broken reflection." His massive shoulders rolled, a predator's stretch. "But now you burn with something of your own."
"He's mine." The words came out fierce. Possessive. "Not yours. Not anyone's but mine." She raised the bat higher, muscles trembling with the effort. "And I've smashed bigger skulls than yours, so maybe think twice before you take another step."
The threat should have been comedy. A woman who barely reached his sternum, exhausted and injured, threatening a man who'd snapped Batman's spine like kindling. But something flickered across Bane's expression. Not fear. Something closer to hunger.
"There," he breathed, taking one measured step forward. "That refusal to accept the obvious. That beautiful, doomed defiance." His hands flexed, veins standing out like cables under his skin. "I have broken warlords who commanded armies. Dictators who ruled nations through fear." His eye gleamed behind the mask. "But you -- you I will savor breaking."
The tubes pulsed brighter. Whatever flowed through them responded to his anticipation, feeding his system with chemical promise. His frame swelled incrementally, not grotesque but inevitable. Violence given form.
"Come then." He spread his arms wide. Open. Vulnerable. An invitation that was also insult. "Show me these flames burn hot enough to matter."
Harley charged.
The bat cut air in a wide arc, aimed where temple met jaw, all her weight driving forward. The form was good -- chaos had taught her well. Desperation and love weaponized into a single strike.
Bane's hand snapped up. Caught the bat mid-swing.
The wood should have shattered his palm. Should have made him flinch. Instead his fingers closed around it like a vice finding home, stopping her momentum completely. He held it there between them, studying her face with clinical interest.
"The Joker taught you form," he observed. "But form without conviction is just performance." He yanked.
Harley stumbled forward. His other hand found her throat -- not squeezing, just holding. A reminder of how easily this could end.
"You swing with desperation," he continued, almost gentle. "With the fear that it won't be enough. And fear makes you weak."
He released her. Pushed her back with just enough force to make her catch herself.
"Again."
She gasped, hand going to her throat, but her grip on the bat never loosened. Behind her was the Spider. Her Good Night. The thing that made her more than just echo. The thing worth dying for.
She swung again.
This time Bane didn't catch it. He stepped inside her arc, massive fist driving into her ribs where bone had already cracked. The impact was surgical -- not trying to kill, just to teach. To break her down into component parts.
Air exploded from Harley's lungs. Something inside her chest gave way with a wet crack. She fell, caught herself on one hand, tasted blood. The bat clattered away, spinning across concrete.
"You see?" Bane said, voice almost kind. "The fire flickers. Soon it will die completely."
"No." Harley forced herself up, hand clutching her side where ribs ground against each other. Each breath was shattered glass in her lungs. "You don't-- you can't--"
She lunged. No weapon now. No technique. Just nails and teeth and the animal refusal to stop.
Bane caught her skull in one hand, fingers spanning her entire head. Lifted her effortlessly while she kicked and clawed at air.
"The flames are dying," he said, and something in his tone might have been regret. "Soon only ash remains."
He threw her.
Not hard enough to kill outright. Just hard enough to break something final. Harley hit the tunnel wall, ribs compressing, vision whiting out. When it cleared, she was on hands and knees, coughing blood onto concrete.
But crawling. Back toward the Spider. Back to her mallet. Fingers found his wrapped form, pulled herself close. Protective. Pointless. But unable to stop.
"Pathetic," Bane murmured. Then his head tilted. "Yet..."
Something had changed.
A finger. The Spider's finger. Twitching beneath the makeshift bandages.
Then again. More deliberate this time.
Jake's wrapped hand spasmed. Fingers curling inward, releasing. His chest hitched with something that wasn't quite breathing but wasn't quite death either.
Bane crouched slowly, massive frame lowering until he was eye-level with the wrapped form.
"Interesting."
Jake's wrist flexed. The sound of tearing tissue. Green fluid leaked from beneath the wrappings, splattered weakly. Where it landed, the makeshift bandages began smoking, dissolving. The discharge was pathetic -- nothing like the toxic cables that had killed men in the factory. But present. Proof of something still fighting.
"She means something to you," Bane said quietly, not to Harley but to whatever remained conscious in that broken body. "Even now. Dying. You hear her pain and respond."
His hand moved to the Spider's wrapped face. Pulled fabric back slightly, revealing one eye. The lid sealed shut with dried blood and chemical scarring. But beneath it: movement. Rapid. Dreaming or aware -- impossible to tell.
"Then stand," Bane commanded, voice hardening. "Fight. Protect her. Show me flames worth breaking."
Silence. Just Harley's labored breathing and water dripping somewhere in darkness.
Jake's form didn't move. Couldn't move. Whatever had caused those twitches wasn't enough.
Bane waited. Ten seconds. Twenty. His expression cycling from anticipation through disappointment toward something resembling anger.
"No." He stood abruptly, motion violent with frustration. "This is not what I came for."
"I expected a warrior," Bane said, each word clipped. Controlled. "The one who hurt Falcone. Who killed men with his hands." He gestured at Jake's form. "Not this pathetic, dying thing."
He turned back to Harley. She'd managed to sit up, back against wall, eyes defiant through the pain. "Were your clowns lying when they said he made Batman retreat?"
Harley's stare turned to spite. She said nothing.
His hands clenched. The tubes pulsed faster, responding to his rage.
"Fine. Die together then. You and your broken mallet." He moved toward Harley. Not rushing. Just walking with absolute certainty. "I will collect his corpse. You can keep each other company in hell."
Harley tried to rise. Her legs wouldn't cooperate. Ribs screamed. All she could do was raise her hands -- useless, trembling, but refusing to surrender.
Bane's shadow fell over her. His hand rose. Fingers spread.
Something caught his wrist.
He looked down.
A web. Green. Smoking where it touched his skin. So weak it was already dissolving. More concept than substance.
But present.
Bane's head turned slowly, following the strand to its source.
Jake's wrapped arm was raised. Wrist extended. The wrappings had burned away completely, revealing chemical-scarred flesh weeping green fluid. His fingers trembled with the effort.
The web snapped. Dissolved.
But Jake's arm stayed raised. Reaching.
Bane released Harley. Straightened. Turned fully to face Jake's form.
His smile held something almost joyful.
"There it is." He breathed the words. "Even dying. Even with nothing left. Still willing to fight."
He crossed to Jake in three strides. Crouched. His massive hand found the wrapped chest, felt the irregular heartbeat beneath.
"I want to see those flames burn properly," Bane said quietly. "Want to watch you at full strength before I break you." His eye studied the wrapped form. "But right now you are incomplete. Merely dying."
His hands moved to Jake's wrapped arm. Found where bone had set wrong -- bent backward, radius and ulna crossed impossibly. His fingers probed the damage.
"The body is a machine," he said, almost to himself. "Machines can be repaired."
He gripped Jake's forearm. Other hand found the elbow.
"This will hurt. But improper healing is permanent."
He pulled.
The sound -- wet, sharp -- bone grinding as it tore free from incorrectly-fused tissue. Jake's wrapped form convulsed. A sound escaped the facial wrappings. Not quite scream. More like air forced through damaged vocal cords.
Bane didn't stop. His hands moved with surgical precision, finding correct alignment. When he located it, he pushed. Hard. Bones clicked into anatomically proper positions.
Jake's body went rigid. Then limp.
"One down," Bane murmured.
He moved to the other arm. Found similar damage. Repeated the process. The sounds were worse -- more wet, more wrong. But when finished, both arms lay at proper angles.
Next: the spine. Bane's hands moved to Jake's back, finding where vertebrae had compressed and shifted. Where chemicals and trauma had warped the structure into something barely viable.
"This requires care."
His hands were surprisingly gentle. Each vertebra addressed individually. Slight pressure. Adjustment. Constant crackling as bone realigned, compressed tissue expanded, neural pathways found proper routes.
Jake's body arched despite unconsciousness. Harley, watching from the wall, made sounds between sob and scream.
"His body tries to heal," Bane observed, finishing with the spine. "But it heals wrong. It needs direction."
He sat back, studying his work. Jake's wrapped form looked less grotesque. Arms at proper angles. Spine no longer impossibly curved. Still broken, still dying, but structurally corrected.
"Structure alone is insufficient." His hand went to his belt. Found a case -- reinforced, locked. Opened it with practiced ease.
Inside: three syringes. Each filled with liquid glowing the same green as his tubes. But brighter. More concentrated.
He held one syringe up to the dying light. Studied it. Then held it out toward Jake's wrapped hand.
"Kobra-Venom," Bane said. "It breaks weak men. Destroys them. Turns them into animals that die screaming." He placed the syringe in Jake's wrapped palm, closed the broken fingers around it. "But strong men -- men with will to survive -- become something more."
He leaned closer, voice dropping.
"I offer you a choice, Spider. Take this poison. Let it war with the toxins already killing you. Perhaps it creates structure from chaos. Perhaps it gives your body direction to heal." He paused. "Or perhaps it simply makes your death more agonizing."
Jake's wrapped hand trembled around the syringe. The fingers tried to flex. Failed. Tried again.
"Only brave men survive its effects," Bane continued. "Only those with flames that refuse to die. If you are merely broken -- merely dying -- then this will end you mercifully." His visible eye gleamed. "But if you are what I believe -- what I hope -- then you will burn brighter."
"A furnace worth putting out."
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