"When you two come back," Bane said, and his voice dropped to something low and even, "you'll find a different answer waiting."
He stood with that for a moment.
Then, slowly, the hard edge in his expression softened into something more complicated. He unclenched his hand and let it fall to his side and thought about Bruce. About the heal that had just moved through every person in Velmora without Bruce asking anything in return for it. About the number of times in recent memory that the scales had tilted in the Reign family's favour because of that young man's involvement.
He thought about Sophie, SS Ranked now, moving faster than Bane had moved at her age by a considerable margin. Some of that was her. Most of it was her. But some of it was the environment around her, the people she was tied to, the situations she had been pushed through.
He picked the ledger back up.
