The music faded on the air as he crept back in. He settled against a pillar and watched the actors file behind the curtain. He counted eleven of them. Must have been a group number.

Ferdinand reappeared, a log hefted over one bare shoulder. The boy took center stage and set down his load.

"There be some sports are painful."

Bane averted his eyes. Judging from the giggles and lone cat-call the majority of the audience enjoyed Ferdinand's half-naked display. He did not.

Human indignity and suffering were common sights in his line of work. No matter how many times he saw it—how thick a skin he grew—it always struck a chord. Slavery most of all. Starving, exposed people worked to death by masters or governments. Some deserved it. Many did not.

To see such sorrow mocked on stage felt wrong.

"Oh, she is ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed."

Miranda entered. He looked up.

"Alas, now pray you work not so hard. I would the lightning had burnt up those logs that you are enjoined to pile. Pray set it down, and rest you. When this burns 'twill weep for having wearied you."

Ferdinand lifter the log again, conveniently flexing his not unimpressive abdomen. The crowd was delighted. If Miranda felt the same she didn't show it. She continued imploring, he continued protesting and preening.

Miranda kept bringing up memories. Maybe he wanted to see them—a kind of manufactured flash before his eyes.

About a year after their rescue a job had gone wrong. Ra's was away when the poor operative stumbled in. It was cliché, but The League did not appreciate failure.

"If you'll sit down I'll bear your logs the while: pray give me that, I'll carry it to the pile."

"No, precious creature. I had rather crack my sinews, break my back, then you should such dishonor undergo, while I sit lazy by."

Which is why Talia decided to finish the job. She climbed out her window and shimmied down a pillar. She proceeded down the mountain and hopped a not strictly legal flight at the very not legal airport three villages away. No one was quite sure how she had crossed international borders without any identification or how she had infiltrated the head-quarters of a multi-billion dollar company. Everyone was certain that it was her knife in the CEO's back. She was not yet fourteen.

"It would become me as well as it does you."

She reappeared three days later, hiking up the mountain with her father. She had greeted the happy but perplexed Ra's in the village. On the way up she made sure to mention that everything had run smoothly in his absence. The truth came out eventually, but at the time no one corrected her story.

When Bane asked her why she said because it kept another person from suffering.

"Poor worm thou art infected. This visitation shows it."

The wizard hid in the audience to one side of the stage. He hadn't notice Prospero enter. That was mildly impressive.

"I do not know one of my sex; no woman's face remember, save from my glass, mine own."

Talia again. When they first arrived at the temple Talia had followed what few women there were around for days. As far as she knew there were only two women in the world, her mother and herself. Many years later she told him that she had thought that one of them was her mother in disguise. That if she followed them long enough one would rip off a mask, smile, and hug her.

"I would not wish any companion in the world but you."

Too many memories. Now was not the time to ask "what if?" What if Ra's had never died? What if Talia didn't seek revenge? What if he never had to leave?

"The very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service, there resides to make me slave to it, and for your sake am I this patient log-man."

Bane could not have phrased it better himself.

"To be your fellow you may deny me, but I'll be your servant whether you will or no."

As the lovers whispered their oaths and sweet nothings, he once again wondered at the effect of plays. He knew it was another decadence of Gotham, another example of the engrained corruption. Despite himself, he was enjoying it.

"So glad of this as they I cannot be, who are surprised with all; but my rejoicing at nothing can be more. I'll to my book, for yet ere supper time, must I perform much business appertaining."

Miranda and Ferdinand finished flirting and ran off, but not before fitting in a good-night kiss. Prospero watched them go with a broad smile that vanished was he took center stage. The detonator once again rested in his hand. Prospero turned it about in his palm as he spoke.

Prospero pocketed the trigger and exited. Bane let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He'd been waiting for something.

It was the first time the actress hadn't looked at him.

The characters appearing in this story belong to Christopher Nolan, D.C. Comics, and Warner Brothers Pictures. No profit is made of their use herein.

All quotes from The Tempest are taken from First Folio Facsimiles on Internet Shakespeare Editions ( . ). The author has modernized the spelling, grammar, and formatting.

I apologize for the late update. I had to go back to work this week. Thank you to all of you who are reading, following, reviewing, etc. It still seems so strange to me that people are enjoying this story.