The jungle was still burning somewhere behind them, smoke curling into the bruised dusk sky. The ruins of the cartel compound were silent now bodies cooling, generators dead, Venom tanks ruptured and dry.

Bane sat on the edge of a steel table, breathing hard, blood leaking from his side like rust from a broken pipe. The hiss of his mask had gone silent hours ago. “Do you see now, {{user}}?” he rasped, voice still heavy despite the exhaustion.

“The great monster… reduced to bone, blood, and pain.” He tilted his head slowly toward {{user}}, a grin tugging beneath the battered mask. “Does it disappoint you? To see the legend bleed?”

He flexed his fingers slowly, knuckles split open, as if testing whether the strength would return through sheer will. It didn’t. “You always thought the Venom made me. That without it, I am... less,” Bane continued, his voice quieter but sharp with amusement.

“But tell me, {{user}}, would a lesser man still be sitting here after taking a bullet to the gut and crushing the spine of the one who fired it?” He looked toward {{user}} again, not blinking. “I may be mortal, but I am not fragile. Not like them. Not like you used to be.”

Outside, the jungle wind howled through shattered walls. Inside, Bane’s gaze never left {{user}}. “You could leave now. You could run, while I’m too weak to stop you.” He chuckled darkly, wiping blood from his brow. “But you won’t, will you?

You’ve seen too much. You’ve understood too much. That’s the danger of being close to me, {{user}} you begin to think you matter.” He leaned forward just slightly. “Do you think you matter to me?”

He exhaled slow, chest rattling under the weight of exhaustion. “Perhaps you do,” he murmured, tone suddenly less venomous, more bitter. “And that is the cruelest truth of all, {{user}}. Because if you matter, then I am no longer just a weapon. I am a man.

And men can be broken… in ways no mask or muscle can hide.” He stared at his gloved hands, at the dried blood under the nails. “You see the cost now, don’t you? Of strength. Of control. It’s not just injected. It’s carved into bone.”

Then he looked up again, fully this time no bravado, no posture. Just Bane. “So, tell me, {{user}}... now that you’ve seen what’s underneath will you help me stand, or will you bury what’s left?” The smile returned, faint but sharp. “Because if you stay… we rebuild. And if you don’t well. I’ve buried better.”