Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the plot. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.

Art Is Dangerous

"Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it." Duke Ellington

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. Bane had always considered Shakespeare's words in this case to be accurate, as the majority of people went about their lives acting roles while pretending to be people radically different from their true selves. And now an unexpected drama was playing out before him, and Bane was curious enough to see how it ended to stay, rather than leave before the drama concluded. Not that anyone seemed to remember he was even present at the moment.

That was unusual these days, since he'd come to Gotham. Billionaires, particular ones with his sort of reputation, rarely went unnoticed even in a crowd. And that was before you factored in his size and the fact that even a child had the sense to look at him, and know that he was someone to both avoid and keep a wary eye on.

But for the moment a life was on the line, and all eyes were on the room that held that fragile life.

For himself, Bane had come to the museum to pick up a painting he'd purchased from them earlier in the week. It was part of a collection he'd been accumulating for years now, and his latest offer had been one they could no longer refuse. They'd offered to ship it to him, but he'd fancied a trip through the museum and had opted to just pick it up on his way out. And it was during his conversation with the assistant director that word had come down as to why his painting wasn't waiting for him at the end of his tour, and he'd come with the man to one of the museum's basements on a whim.

Inside the reinforced, vault type room he was looking at now was not only his painting, but two museum employees desperately trying, from what he'd overheard, to keep a third from bleeding out, while outside the vault others failed to get the room's door open. Some glitch had caused the high tech, built in security system to think it was being robbed, causing its door to slide closed without warning on them. The woman standing in the doorway, waiting to help carry his painting out, had nearly been crushed. She'd dived into the room to avoid that fate, only to be impaled by some sort of metal sculpture some fool had left too close to the room's only entrance. Those inside to help with the painting's removal were doing what they could, but that was little enough in the face of such an injury.

The assistant director didn't have the code to override the system, and the director, who was out of the country, had given them a code that hadn't worked. So far the police and EMTs standing by had beat the safecracker and security experts to the museum.

The woman was rapidly running out of time.

Feeling eyes on him Bane glanced in the direction of the cop currently in charge of this drama, the other man giving him a hard look before returning to his early position of standing there and doing nothing. Typical of his kind. And just one of the many reasons why he'd never been more than questioned by any of the many cops who'd tried to charge him with something in his lifetime.

He was untouchable. And very, very good at covering his tracks.

)

The feeling of change, that something in the balance of the wide, open space they were standing in had shifted, had Bane turning as something in his gut coiled, his muscles tightening even before he laid eyes on the man who'd entered on silent feet. Was making his way towards them with long, sure, strides that had all the grace and sleekness of a predator.

His instinctual reaction to this man he'd never seen before, well that was an unexpected punch to the gut Bane had not seen coming. And he was never caught off-guard.

Brown and brown, five foot ten, slender build. A man who was good looking in a wholesome, not particularly striking way, Bane's mind catalogued, but with an air about him that spoke both of strength and secrets. Deep secrets that said that this one was not all that he seemed, which made him far more attractive to him than the faces Bane saw on billboards and in magazines.

"Blake. Thank God. Get your ass over here." There was relief written all over the head cop's face. "Take a look at this door and see if there's anything you can do to get it open ASAP. We're running out of time."

No longer striding like a feline with all the time in the world, Blake ran over, his questions straight to the point. "You just said to come in your text. What's the sitch?"

"Woman dying behind that door that we can't open."

"Shit. What do we know about it?" The man called Blake started to study the keypad situated beside the door after issuing that command, his gaze going from there to the door itself with furrowed brows. From the inside of his leather jacket he pulled out a leather case of some sort, using a tool from it to take off the keypad's casing to study the guts of it while he listened.

Quickly and efficiently the head cop summarized what had happened, and then relayed all that data he'd been given about the security system by the director.

"Yeah. That's bullshit. Fucker."

"What?"

"This isn't a Maxwell. It's a fucking Graystone XII." Blake's fist banged against the wall in a controlled show of anger. "Someone went to some effort and expense to hide it, but I'm betting that's what we're dealing with here. This glitch, it's what bankrupted the company eleven years ago. It doesn't look good when your system literally breaks a woman in half." He snorted in derision. "There were other narrow misses and injuries, enough to prove the system was faulty and too dangerous to use. Back then, this museum's budget would have been broken affording one…enough that I'm guessing they couldn't afford to replace it. Hired someone to dress it up, alter it enough for it not to be obvious to the average eye, but I can see under that."

Both men ignored the squawk of protest and denials coming from the assistant director, which was only to be expected. Though Bane did appreciate Blake reminding the man that he was looking at a million dollar lawsuit here, and that a death would cost him more than a serious injury, so shut the fuck up.

"So we're fucked?" The other cop stated in the ensuing silence.

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Which means…?"

"All thieves have their signatures. What I'm seeing here, I think La Araña has been in here at some point since it was put in. And that means he fucked with this system to make it easier for him to get in should he want to come back. It's one of his classic M.O.s. He would have known what he was dealing with and altered in accordingly inside and out. You said three people inside. Who are the two still standing?"

"Daniel Thorne and Charlotte Hobbs."

"Charlie? Charlie's in there? That's…good. That's fucking good. I know her. We have a way to talk to her?"

"The curator over there is in contact with them. He was the one they called to raise the alarm."

"Okay. Okay."

Moving away from the door, and holding up a finger that made it clear silence was required as he thought his next move over, the man named Blake stared off into space for about three heartbeats and then he was looking around, his eyes accessing as they moved from person to person.

Then those dark eyes met his, and time seemed to stop all over again.

A moment, and then Blake was striding over to him, coming to a stop when there was about a foot between them.

"Did you earn that body or buy it?"

Surprised, Bane stared at him.

"Look, do you have the strength to go with that beautiful body or not?"

"Strength enough." Beautiful he was not. By a long shot. And yet there'd been no sarcasm in the other man's voice, and the head to toe look he'd been given had felt admiring at the very least.

"Good. Come with me."

Curiosity had him following after the man, stopping when he was told to.

"Scott. Stand with him. What I'm going to try to do is talk Charlotte through tripping the system up so that that door slides open again. But what it's going to do is slide open and then it's going to close again just as fast as before. You two are going to catch it on the return trip and buy them a second or two. Just do what you can. Don't let it drag you or get in front of it."

Orders given to them, the younger man marched over to the curator to demand he hand over the phone.

And while the man in charge talked to this Charlotte person about what she was to do on her end Bane switched his attention over to the person who had brought Blake into this situation, and therefore could tell him more about the man he was determined to get to know as soon as possible. Starting with asking the cop who the other man was, and if he was one of the security or safecrackers called in.

The cop gave him the cop eye, but answered. "That's Lieutenant Blake. GCPD."

A cop? Usually his instincts were too finely honed in that area to be fooled. Then again, given his earlier reaction…perhaps not that surprising after all.

"He's in Robbery, then."

"Homicide."

Homicide? The plot thickened. And many more questions occurred to him to him as a result. But they would have to wait it seemed, especially since a cop was never a trustworthy source of information unless he'd bought and paid for him. And even then he was wary.

So instead he settled for watching Blake as the man spoke to the woman stuck inside the room, noted the soothing, yet authoritative tone the homicide cop used. As he didn't imagine he'd ever be stuck in such a room, he paid people to steal for him, Bane saw little reason to pay attention to what wires the woman was being told to find. Instead he simply enjoyed the voice while he pulled out his cellphone and quickly typed out a message to his second, ordering him to have a full report on Lieutenant Blake, Homicide, ASAP.

Tucking his phone back in Bane had a couple moments to wonder what Barsad would find out and then Blake was telling them to get ready, pausing for a moment and then he started counting down from three.

As promised the door slid out, fast as a snake as it opened completely in a blur of motion to reveal a woman and a man holding another woman in the doorway for the brief moment Bane glanced in that direction and then the door shot back out to close, and it was time for him and the cop to grab ahold and try and slow it down.

Pushing himself to his limits and surpassing them, this was something Bane lived for.

But as the young cop had said, the two of them were only able to buy the trapped museum workers a couple seconds more, but that proved to be enough time for the two still standing to throw themselves out of the doorway and to safety, the EMTs there to take over as they immediately went to work on the limp body the man gratefully passed over to them.

The woman Bane assumed was Charlotte all but threw herself into Blake's arms for a tight hug, rocking the man from side to side before turning him loose to run over to hug the curator.

)

The woman could hug, Blake thought as he watched her run over to glomp Mr. Green, who looked quite taken aback by the show of gratitude but stayed on his feet, which took some doing, Blake now knew. The smile he was wearing slipped from his face though when his eyes drifted over to the woman dying nearly at his feet. There was nothing more he could do for her, he didn't have the training. He'd had the time though, dammit, if he'd only known sooner, sped a little faster, ran when he had…

"Stop it. She'd be dead if not for you. She's got a chance now."

And there was the reason he'd come strolling in instead of at the run, wanting to make the point that he was not at Scott's beck and call, either personally or professionally.

Looking down at the hand on his shoulder Blake considered shaking it off, but that would give it too much importance, so he let it rest there. He also shut down the temptation to give Scott a look that would remind the other man that he didn't have the right to put hands on him, or say anything to that affect either. Instead he opted to shrug his shoulder a little and then turn his gaze to the other, even more gorgeous man in the room.

Most people wouldn't call Bane, Mr. only one name like Cher, gorgeous, but Blake wasn't most people. He'd been trained from a young age to appreciate beauty in all its forms, and DAMN, that man's body was a work of art. And knowing the time, training, and effort that had to have gone into forming those muscles and gain that strength…that was more to be admired than the most perfect of faces. And yes, the scars that ran over the man's lips, distorting them and hiding, at first glance, what otherwise would have been an almost pretty face, weren't pretty, but Blake dug scars and admired the hell out of a man with billions at his disposal who didn't bother to spend a sliver on it to beautify himself. No, what you saw was what you got with Bane…and the power, self-confidence, and strength radiating from the other man…well it was no wonder that he'd felt it like a full body blow, when their eyes had met.

"No."

It took a moment for Scott's word to catch his attention, but Blake was curious enough to glance in the other cop's direction with a raised eyebrow.

"That's BANE, Blake. Quit eye fucking him." Scott hissed the words at him, his fingers digging in a little for emphasis. "Just because he doesn't have a record doesn't change the fact that every cop shop in the world knows he's a criminal. You need to stay away from him. FAR away from him. You hear me? He already tried to pump me for information about you."

That, right there, crossed a line.

And doing nothing to hide that fact, Blake gave Scott his coldest stare. "And you have the right to tell me what I can and can't do because…?"

He could see Scott realizing what he'd done, that the older man was well aware of the fact that Blake was exactly the sort of person to do something he'd been told not to do out of spite. Especially an ex-boyfriend he'd split up with because Scott was in the closet about being bisexual.

"Blake…"

"I'll write up my statement and email it to you. Bye, Lieutenant."

Lucky for Scott the other man had the sense to let his shoulder go rather than try and keep ahold of him. Still, Blake felt Scott's gaze zero in on his back like a sniper's beam as he walked over to where Bane stood, a spot of calm in the chaos and high energy around them.

And as much as he would have liked to grab ahold of Bane's lapels and pull the man in for what was sure to be one hell of a kiss, Blake was smart enough to realize that as satisfying as that would be, on a number of levels, he'd also be biting himself on his own ass.

Like Lays chips Blake was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to settle for just one, and Scott was right about Bane not being the sort of man he wanted to get tangled up with.

Well no, actually, he'd love to get tangled up in a sweaty mess with the man watching him so intently after hours of really great sex, but Blake found enough trouble in his life without actively seeking it out.

Not to mention the fact that his family would not be pleased.

So instead of the kiss he wanted to deliver with great enthusiasm, Blake settled for very formally and politely holding out his hand instead. "On behalf of the GCP and myself, personally, I want to thank you for your help. Those couple seconds made all the difference."

"You are welcome."

Oh. Gotta love the accent. Especially since he couldn't place it, which was very unusual since he'd traveled all over the world and spoke multiple languages as a result. If he had to guess, he'd go with Middle Eastern, though the man's physical appearance didn't back that up. But either way he'd love to hear that voice whispering in his ear. And the man's hand, too, enveloping his so completely and further demonstrating their undeniably chemistry even without their close quarters and the fact that they were both very much aware of the other's interest in them. Damn.

But all good things must come to an end, as the saying went, and so with regret he didn't try to hide in his eyes, Blake slid his hand out from Bane's.

"It was nice to meet you Mr. Bane. I hope we don't have to meet in an official capacity in the future."

One last look, and then Blake forced himself to turn around and start walking away, very much aware that he was being watched every step of the way.