IV - Mexico

It had been ten minutes since the screaming started. Bane and Talia were having dinner.

"It's not that I dislike Shan Yu," Bane was saying. "It's his choice of imagery. In the passage, he says that to truly know a man, you must hold him over the edge of a volcano."

"Which is true," Talia said, waving her fork around. "Show a man his death and you will know him for who he really is."

"I don't disagree." Bane had a morphine drip in his arm, it was the only way the pain could be kept at bay while he ate. And these dinners with Talia, when she came by every now and then, tended to take a while. "I just never understood why it had to be a volcano. Why not a knife to his throat? It's a lot easier."

Off to the corner, the screams had given way to harsh voices. Two men, asking questions. This time there was sobbing, and the faint smell of piss began to drift into the room.

"I like the volcano," Talia said. "It's more dramatic."

"It's unnecessary," Bane said. "I've always preferred Katsumoto. Or Yu Shu Lien. They understood the economy of words."

"And see how they ended up. Katsumoto was gunned down by his own countrymen, and Yu Shu Lien was assassinated."

"That has nothing to do with their poetry!"

"If they'd tried tossing their enemies into a volcano, maybe they wouldn't have ended up that way," Talia said, with no small amount of cheer.

Bane took a swallow of wine. It was vintage red, a gift, Talia had said, from Miranda Tate. What sort of a name is Miranda Tate, Bane had asked. The sort no one in Gotham was likely to ask questions about, she had said.

Not too far away, something was sizzling. It smelled an awful lot like the roast pig on the table. The screaming began again, echoing through the room, so Bane had to raise his voice.

"If you like Shan Yu so much, you should read Hanzo. He lived through different times than Shan Yu, but you might enjoy his choice of imagery…"

The Lieutenant came over. He had blood all over his leather apron, and a pair of glistening prongs in one hand. He waited for Bane to finish what he was saying, and for Talia to remark that she had never read Hanzo, before making his report.

"Wayne has an armory in the Applied Sciences wing of the company building," he said. "It's completely off the books, but seeing as that one wrote the books, he can say for sure."

"Applied Sciences…" Talia closed her eyes. "That's in the basement."

"Did he say anything else?" Bane asked.

The Lieutenant shrugged. "He thinks we're with the Joker. Thinks that lunatic followed him all the way here, after what went down in Gotham. He thinks now he's told us Bruce Wayne's secrets, we'll let him go."

"Continue to let him think that," Bane said. "And give him another ten, fifteen minutes. Just to make sure he isn't lying."

The Lieutenant nodded, and then turned to Talia. But she just gave him a smile, the sort Bane had seen turn other men weak.

"The potatoes are marvelous," she said.

The Lieutenant made a stilted sort of thanks, and returned to his charge.

"I don't see why we shouldn't just kill him," Bane said. He didn't have to say who he was talking about. They were on a brink of a conversation they'd had at least a dozen times before.

"He must be punished for murdering my father," Talia said patiently. "Punished, as each man who laid hands upon my mother was punished."

She emptied her glass. "And when he falls, all of his city should fall with him. Only from the ashes of the old can the new be built."

She put the glass down, and the ring it made filled the void left by the man's screams – it seems he didn't have ten or fifteen minutes left in him.

"I will do this," she said, eyeing him directly. "Even if I have to do it alone."

Bane chuckled at that.

"Are there any volcanoes in Gotham City?" he asked.

Talia raised an eyebrow. "Not that I know of."

"Then we'll just have to improvise." He raised the bottle. "More wine?"