Bruce was awoken by the chaotic and raucous sounds, the synchronized footsteps of armed personnel storming in, much like the chaotic footsteps he'd hear outside the window on the many nights he spent in East Gotham during gangster firefights.
Suddenly, the damp musty smell from the cramped room returned, along with the ambiance from when the moonlight and night breeze would regularly rustle the window curtain.
Bruce woke up, he heard someone shouting and cursing, it was probably Amanda. She had taken Bane away and thrown him into the brutal sensory deprivation cell as well.
Bruce couldn't make an accurate judgment, for the hallucinatory effects similar to being under drugs hadn't worn off. He had only managed to clean up less than a tenth of the redundant codes he had created for himself. He might still be accompanied by these illusions for a considerable amount of time in the future.
But Bruce thought it was worthwhile, as he had just figured out something - the key to how Shiller had manipulated him.
But first, he had to find Bane.
Bruce hadn't entirely missed what Bane had said to him. At that time, he was busy coding and didn't have time to reply, but all the words were accurately recorded. When he emerged from the deepest layers of his psychic space, he began to carefully contemplate the information therein.
What caught his attention wasn't Bane telling him about his origins, Bruce had already guessed some of it. What truly intrigued Bruce was how Bane had planned to execute him.
On the second day when Bane was taken to the sensory deprivation cell, he heard Bruce's voice outside his cell.
"Hello, Bane."
While Bane prides himself on his ability to control his emotions, years of torment had made him as cold as iron. But when Bruce's light tone appeared outside the door, his arm muscles instinctively tightened, anger made him desperately want to tear something apart.
"I won't say anything, this is my payback to you." Bane said so.
"No matter, I just wanted to ask, you said that if you were to kill me, you would break my spine. Do you often do this?"
Bane fell silent, he believed Batman must have some kind of mental illness. Unfortunately, his knowledge in psychiatry was not as deep as his knowledge in surgery, a feeling of lacking the right tools at the right time overwhelmed him.
"Listen, based on this, I boldly infer that you might have professional knowledge in surgery, and your skills are much better than those doctors who inserted tubes into your brain, because the spine is one of the most intricate structures in the human body."
"I only agree with your last statement." Bane's voice still held a hint of suppressed rage, "that's why when I destroy it, it feels like ruining an exquisite work of art."
"Drop that circumlocution, I just want to know how much you understand about the human spine?"
"Much more than you think, boy."
"Good." Bruce reached out and knocked at the door saying, "Now, I am going to get you out of here, and then I will take you to a lab. In that lab, there will be a surgical bed and all the surgical instruments you need. It is definitely more advanced than any equipment you have seen before, because I participated in the design and layout of this lab."
"There is a special container in this lab that holds a nano control device. The device is implanted in the human spine. It can control the actions of a person completely through some principles that you won't understand even if I explain. I need you to implant it in my spine."
Bane fell silent completely.
"Do you really know what you're talking about?" After a long while, Bane finally spoke. Doubt was noticeable in his voice for the first time. He fell silent again, then somewhat hesitantly asked, "Have you lost your mind?"
"I have."
Bane felt silence was no longer a sufficient tool to express his feelings. He seemed to adjust his posture a bit and then said, "If I'm not mistaken, you're planning to let a mercenary who just framed you and made you end up in a special confinement cell, who is murderously unflinching, and who just expressed a desire to kill you, perform a surgical operation on you. You're handing him sharp tools to do as he pleases with the most intricate part of your body?"
"I am not going to be under anesthesia."
"You're definitely insane."
"So are you in or out?"
"No, why should I do that?" Bane refused outright. He took a few breaths and then quietly cursed, "Damn, no wonder Deathstroke told me everyone in Gotham is crazy!"
"Don't you want to know how I transformed Gotham? If you help me with the surgery, I'll tell you."
"A childish trick."
"So, are you in or out?"
"Add in how you overcame loneliness."
"I can't guarantee that. I rarely feel loneliness. I don't see it as something that needs to be overcome in the first place."
"Why?" The tone of Bane's voice was overwhelmed with confusion.
"Since my time in university, I have been busier than you could imagine, but I don't want to discuss this part right now. So, I'll ask you one last time, in or out?"
"Deal."
About half an hour later, the two of them came to a laboratory. As Bane was looking around the lab, his gaze landed on Bruce's face and asked, "When do you plan on removing these ridiculous bandages from your head?"
"Why should I remove them?"
"You don't think there's a need for disguise now, do you?"
"I'm not pretending to be anyone else." As Bruce spoke, he slowly started to unravel the bandages wrapped around his neck.
Seeing Bruce's face, Bane's pupils contracted, and he called out the name, "Bruce Wayne?"
This wasn't because he didn't know Batman was Bruce Wayne. In fact, Bane had already figured that out with his investigation. It was that he couldn't be sure the man standing in front of him was Bruce.
Three long scars crossed Bruce's face, one running from his forehead through the arch of his eyebrow to the temple, another slashed across his nose and encroached on half his cheek, and the last one sliced from the corner of his mouth on the left side down to his neck, appearing frightful and ominous from various angles.
"Before incarceration, Amanda will definitely inspect my injuries. Using dye or make-up techniques to disguise won't work. But a long time ago, my soul strength improved a bit, thereby my self-healing power is stronger than the average person's. I might need a few months to recover, but I won't be scarred."
Bruce unusually provided a detailed explanation, not for the sake of explaining though. He then emphasized, "So, you don't have to worry about your surgical skills - I usually won't die in normal circumstances."
Bane stood silently at his spot, looking at Bruce's face and asked, "I want to ask you a question that you once asked me - What's your home like?"
"A mansion... Shall we start?"
Bruce took off his shirt and lay down on the central experiment table. He gestured to the cabinet nearby and said, "The tools are all there. All you have to do is to cut open my back, expose at least three quarters of my spine, and then pour the contents of that jar directly onto it."
"The only difficult part is to avoid damaging the surrounding nerves, otherwise, it will cause poor contact."
"You do know there's a chance I could snap your spine, right?"
"If you want, you can do that, because once the nanomachine controller is connected, whether the spine is broken doesn't affect its use."
"Madman."
As Bane went to pick up the tools, Bruce lying on the bed felt like he had forgotten something. Normally, he wouldn't have this kind of worry, because his brain used to be very lucid back then.
But now, even when lying under the shadow-less lamp, he saw whirlpools filling in the details of everything he looked at. Joy and exuberance replaced reason and calmness, making him no different from a drug addict. Therefore, it's hard to ensure whether he had forgotten something.
When Bane stood beside him, he almost blocked all the light. His hand that held the scalpel did not hesitate at all. It directly slashed towards Bruce's back, but it did not cut.
Bane's eyes slightly widened. He exerted more strength, then doubtfully stared at Bruce's back, saying, "What's on your body?"
"What do you mean?"
"An invisible, very robust fabric. This scalpel is very well maintained, but I didn't feel any feedback of damage."
It suddenly dawned on Bruce what he had forgotten. To keep him from harm, Diana, Clark, Hal, Oliver, and others forced him to dress in a clothing similar to a divine artifact.
"Wait a moment." Bruce tried hard to concentrate his mind, commanding the divinely-powered clothing. His friends had previously mentioned that he could take off the clothing this way. After all, it was a precautionary measure, not a shackle. Bruce should be free to handle it.
Thanking them for their understanding, Bruce managed to make the clothing on his back vanish soon after.
Bane made the first incision, and following that, he almost revealed Bruce's entire spine with his sophisticated technique.
Bane fetched the can, stared at Bruce's spine for a long time, and when he unscrewed the lid, Bruce, with a slightly raspy voice, said, "Aren't you going to give it a try?"
"Try what?"
"To snap my spine."
Bane took a deep breath. He glanced at the tin, inside of which, the churning nanofluid resembled silver waves. Bane held the lid of the tin in one hand and turned his head to look at Bruce's somewhat lax eyes and said,
"I'm not an educator, but at least I've lived longer than you. Out of respect to your willpower, I must remind you, boy, this self-destructive tendency is extremely dangerous, and you should see a psychologist."
"I have, and there is no major problem."
Left speechless, Bane said while pouring the contents of the tin into Bruce's back, "Just hope that you didn't see a psychiatrist in Gotham."
Within the lab at Gotham University, Victor, clutching his wife's waist, grimaced at the pain on his face. Shiller tossed the bandage they took off into the trash can and said, "You should know I have no experience in surgery, should you?"
"Thanks, just found out."
Nora smiled, gazing at Shiller with slightly bent eyes and said, "You might want to ask why I'm not the one changing the bandage. The truth is, I'm worse than having no experience in surgery."
"Yeah, you're a qualified vet."
"Don't say that, dear. I am more gentle with fluffy little creatures than humans."
Nora's smile always carried a sense of coldness, not because she was in a bad mood, but that's her disposition. Shiller didn't doubt that Nora was like a gentle and virtuous wife only when she was lying in the cryogenic chamber. Otherwise, she might seem more akin to Mr. Freeze than Victor.
Suddenly, Nora's smile stiffened for a moment. The coldness soared to her eyebrows as she looked at Victor saying, "Someone is messing with the leftover nanomachine controllers. I caught a faint connection signal."
Victor immediately turned to Shiller. Shiller frowned, and Victor who was familiar with Shiller knew for sure that something exceeded his expectation.
With a raised tone, Nora voiced, "Someone is implanting the leftover nanomachine controllers into someone else. They are doing it right now... It's too late. The nerve connection is completed!"
Shiller disappeared from their sight in an instant.
In the space base, Diana, propping her cheeks in her hands, absently flipped through the documents in front of her. The next second, she looked up.
The sound of the coffee cup toppling and rolling down from beside her attracted both Hal and Clark. They all turned to look at Diana.
Diana first widened her eyes then frowned, "The divine power on Bruce's armor is telling me he is injured, somewhere on Earth. Hurry, let's go!"
After rushing to the location, all they saw was Florence Prison, nestled in the desolate land, shrouded in fog.