#◖| THE LAW KEEPS ME WHOLE / HARVEY DENT .

[halfdent]

GILDA 𝙿𝙻𝙴𝙰𝙳𝙴𝙳 : “you have to stop this—before it’s too late!”

Dampened  eyes  ,  he  grabs  for  the  counter  to  anchor  himself  ,  misses  it  ,  slips  to  his  side  ,  confused  &&  scared  ,  the  rage  that  boiled  within  him  seeming  to  simmer  as  he  regains  some  semblance  of  self  .  Heart  pounding  in  his  chest  &&  he  gasps  for  air  .  𝐍𝐎  ,  𝐍𝐎  ,  𝐍𝐎  ...  Not  again  .  It's  been  𝐀  𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐇  now  ,  it  started  when  he  had  accepted  that  infernal  coin  from  his  father  on  a  visit  the  care  home  ;   frequent  black-outs  ,  only  to  find  the  women  he  loves  rendered  to  fear  when  he  gains  consciousness  .  If  he  had  known  such  a  benign  thing  would  lead  to  this  he  would  never  have  accepted  it  .

Shaking  breath  .  ❝    N-no  I  -  ,  Baby  ,  I'm-  ❞      Eyes  adjusting  he  can  see  the  chaos  of  their  kitchen  .  ❝    I'm  sorry  ,  I'm  sorry  ,  @dentsgrace  .  Oh  God  .  ❞      He  picks  himself  up  ,  body  threatening  to  give  way  ,  eyes  finding  her  in  her  under  the  swaying  light  on  he  ceiling  ,  something  must  have  disturbed  it  .  He  knows  what  .  Palm  comes  to  shield  his  tears  from  exposure  .

A  gasp  for  breath  as  his  mind  fabricated  the  most  dire  of  outcomes  &&  he  asks  .  ❝    D-Did  I  hurt  you  ?  ❞    

[leafyeyes417]

I decided to create a masterpost or two with all the reblogs that I like in hopes that when someone sends out the “help me find that post” I can find it faster. It will be added to slowly because I do not have the patience to do it all at once. Also in no particular order of preference.

Keep in mind none of these posts are my works and I do not claim them as such.

If you see *** they are really good prompts with lots of reblogs.

Will be edited later, last updated: 7-21-24

Masterlists

Multi-story masterlists

dcxdpdrabbles

Hdgnj

Tu-turu-turah

Specific Story lists

Jason is Catnip to Danny

Hyena Danny

Finally Getting Help

Wrong Robin

Badger Day

Man has needs

Almanac

Take out for Dummies

Danny is just some guy

Changling AU (part 5, other part links at bottom of post)

Fast Car Driver Danny

Haunted Car

Harmless Series

Don’t eat anything

Hero Tweets

Just a Bite

Single posts

Ellie-centric

Ellie realizes how dangerous Danny’s home is

Danny’s Rescues from the Infinite Realms

Green Lanturn & crew stuck in IR

Dead on Main

Jason courting Danny with a casserole

Overprotective Fenton parents shovel talk

Danny courts Jason by giving him wine cups made from the Joker’s kneecaps

Jason becomes a Ghost Summoner after giving Danny food***

Dream Lover***

Soulmate summoning ring gone wrong

Dead Tired

Coffeeshop accident

Dead Serious

Dead Silent

Danny kills the joker with his thighs

Danny on the run from the GIW

Superman startles Danny and gets a concussion***

Danny In Gotham

Sleepwalker Danny who escapes all traps

Unknowing Fae Danny works at coffee shop

Danny pretends to be a Vampire***

Feral McGee

Danny only gets a Vacation from work in Gotham

Danny seems like an Oracle of Delphi***

The GAV affected by Fear Toxin

Tucker streams while Danny does what Danny does in the background***

Danny is kidnapped(?) by Batman***

Danny gets hired for a money laundering front***

Portal is built in Gotham, not Amity

Naga Danny

Villain Danny

Danny’s obsession is twisted, forcing him to be a villain

Danny teaches heroes their mistakes by being the villain***

Adopted Danny (as in not Bio Fenton)

Danny is Hal Jordan’s son

Harley asks Batman to take away her son

Harvey Dent is Danny’s bio parent

Danny adopted by Bruce Wayne

Danny distribution system

Danny makes a sales pitch to join the Batfam

Reincarnated Danny

They wake up as Talons

Reincarnation

Clockwork reincarnated as Alfred

Misunderstanding’s that end in chaos

High Danny mistakes Batman for Jack

Mis-text-derstanding

Summoning Danny

Number is not in service

Danny: Please get that stalker (Ra’s) away from me

Demon Twin/Brothers

Damian is normal by Amity standards

Maybe(?) his lost twin

Nyssa steals Danny

Danny undercover in Amity

Jazz decided she wanted a brother

Tim Twins/Brothers

Danny and Tim are half-siblings

Danny sleep teleports to another dimension

Jason and Danny are brothers

Jason is a Baby ghost, adopts babier ghost Danny***

Ghost King Danny

Danny needs to take care of the Lazarus pits

Danny finds out there is a Ghost LOA

Miscellaneous

Danny possesses the president

Danny takes Jason’s online cooking class

Danny forgot what is regular human

Jack was a hitman named Phantom

Ghost Calls

Danny & Jason have the same scars

Superman was supposed to wait for the JLD

Water Core Tim

Fenton Driving curse still applies

Danny asks Wonder Woman to make him a grave on Themyscria***

Kryptonite is actually trapped souls

Danny and self-fulfilling prophecy

Danny pretends to be a demigod son of Hades

Danny gifts Red Robin a jar with Ra’s eyes

Vlad Cloning Danny was actually a much worse offense, breaks oldest ghost law

Amity got put back in the wrong place after the Pariah Dark fight.

Jason involuntarily taken to the ghost hospital

Phantom Letters

Danny learns Astral magic

Miscellaneous Angst

GIW succeeds in shooting the portal

DPxMarvel

Loki falls through to the IR and is adopted by Danny

Pure DP (not crossover)

Danny was Eldritch the whole time

Danny gets sprayed with a chemical where he hallucinates the person he hates

Demon!AU (with Art)

[ursulasfishandships]

You Saw Beyond- Part Four

AN: Hello! Sorry for the late update, I had senior prom and all the drama that comes with it. I will be posting a masterlist soon so all of the chapters can be organized nicely. It really does make me happy to see all your nice comments and messages. I enjoy writing and I'm happy you enjoy my writing <3

“It is nine in the morning, why are we watching National Geographic?” Harvey Dent groaned as all of the interns sat on the couch. Falcone pressed pause, the TV freezing on a red-headed woman holding a potted plant. 

“This, Mr. Dent, is your client. Mrs. Pamela Isley Anderson. She is a TV personality who has made tons on her shows about gardening.” 

“Hey, I know her!” Harleen interjected, “My mom watches her shows all the time. Yeah, Sexy Seeders!” Bruce and Harvey let out a little chuckle. You were unfazed by the topic. 

“You can laugh boys, but she has been accused of murdering her 60-year-old husband. Her step-daughter caught her covered in his blood. She claims she did not kill him, but refuses to give an alibi.” 

“Did she?” Selina asked. 

“Well let’s just say Pamela is popular for her love of violent plants. It’s not out of the question.” Falcone moved to put the remote down. You raised your hand excitedly. “Hands, who think she killed him?” Edward watched as the whole group raised their hands and yours shot down. “Great. Here’s where you come in. Pamela has… trouble trusting me. I don’t speak her slang, but you kids do.” Your hand shot up again, but Falcone waved you off. “So what I need you to do is convince her to share her alibi. To the jail.” The group stood. Edward kept his eyes on you. It was so odd to see you in business attire. You looked so out of place. Edward also noticed how you hadn’t said anything to anyone after your rejection. But he couldn’t keep thinking about you like this, he had the case to focus on. At the jail, he approached Pamela. 

“Mrs. Anderson? I’m, uh, Edward Nashton. I’m co-counsel with Falcone for your case. I also brought with me our interns. These are the real cream of the crop from Gotham Law.” He stuck out his hand to her, to which she just glared. “Ah, alright.” He coughed. “We’d like to discuss your case with you. We want you free as soon as possible. That way you can bring your message back to your fans.” 

“Well, that’s all I really want.” She crossed her long legs. 

“Perfect. We just need an alibi.” 

“No can do.” She shook her head. “Put me on the stand and I’ll be forced to lie.” 

“But, what about a plea bargain?” Bruce interjected. 

“That’s cute,” She taunted, “Do time for someone else? No. Way.” 

Selina spoke up. “With a plea, you would only do a couple of years. That’s pretty reasonable.” 

“Not really.” 

“Wow, what could be so bad that you can’t even give your alibi?” Harleen gawked. She always said that was off the top of her head. 

“Sugar, you have no idea.” Pamela stood from her spot at the table. “Now get out of here. I want a legal team who is actually willing to help me.” She shooed them away. Edward turned around, defeated. The rest of the team followed suit, except for you. Edward watched as you approached Pamela. 

“Ivy?” You asked hesitantly. 

“Oh my god, you follow me?” Pamela’s tough exterior dissolved, giddily smiling at you. 

“Totally! You helped my bamboo sprout, Fabio, go from a shoot to a shot!” You fangirled. Edward had no idea you were such a fan of Pamela. Why hadn’t you mentioned it soon-?

Falcone. 

“That’s amazing! At least someone on this legal team gets me.” 

“Of course, I believe you didn’t do it either. I mean there’s no way you would shoot someone. If you did kill someone, you would be more creative. And you wouldn’t get caught.” Edward thought about what you said for a moment, you were right. The motive was clear, but it just didn’t seem like the kind of kill the plant lady would go for. Edward watched as your conversation became more hushed. Pamela was spilling something to you. You pulled away from her and held out your pinky. 

“Promise?” She asked. 

“Your secret is safe with me.” The pair of you locked pinkies. Edward was shocked. You had won over their client with a short conversation. You were incredible. Falcone pushed past him. Edward followed. 

“Where’s Pamela?” He asked harshly, it was his fault he was late. 

“The guard took her away.” You said. Falcone’s face started to fall. “But I got an alibi!” 

“Great! What is it?” 

“I can’t say.” Your face fell. The rest of the group came into the room again. 

“What?!” Falcone whipped around to look at her. 

“I swore not to tell.” You looked around at the rest of them for a bit of sympathy. 

“Y/N, this isn’t a little pinky-swear thing,” Selina said, arms crossed. 

“You’re so right, it’s a big pinky-swear thing. I mean think about it, Pam isn’t guilty. She’s the queen of plants. Plants are proven to make people subliminally happier! And happy people just don’t murder their husbands.” You smiled sincerely, but Falcone was having none of it. He turned over to Edward. Shit. 

“Edward - a word.” He motioned for them to walk over to a separate corner. “Edward, I gave you two tasks. I was very clear. Lead the legal team and get me an alibi. You are zero for two.” He didn’t give him a chance to speak before turning around to the group. “Field trip over. Get back to work.” They moved to the door but Falcone turned to stop you and Edward. “Not you two. I don’t want to see glasses or legally dumb again today.” And they were left alone. You turned to Edward. 

“Eddie, I’m so sorry-” He wanted to believe you and how important this was to you, but you weren’t showing it. Maybe you were just like those mean girls. Using him. 

“I don’t need you to be sorry, I need the alibi.” 

“I can’t! Having an alibi isn’t the only way to win a case.” 

“No, but it would help us win.” He was getting angry. You could tell, you put a hand on his arm. 

“We have to do this the noble way.” 

“This isn’t about nobility! We are trying to save someone’s life.” 

“Are you the one who was all about nobility? Now here you are, just trying to impress Falcone.” You shot back. So this is what it was like to be on the other side of your fervor. 

“He’s my boss!” 

“A great boss who wants you to jeopardize your client's trust and integrity?” You poke his shoulder. He was taken aback by your actions and words. 

“Well, when you say it like that…” 

“Exactly, dork. My word means something, just as much as yours.” You softened up, noticing he was getting it. You nudged him towards the door. He looked at his feet as he followed you, thinking. 

“No one has called me a dork since 8th grade.” He muttered, not hurt, just surprised. 

“Maybe not to your face.” You giggled. That should’ve hurt his feelings, but it didn’t hurt coming from you. You made it sound like some silly thing that had happened to him. You made it all feel like a coming-of-age movie. 

“Why do you always have to be right?” He slumped his shoulders as they walked through the parking lot. 

“I’m not all the time, just whenever I’m with you. Come on, let’s go.” You grabbed his arm and pulled him across the street. 

“Where are we going?” He was helpless to you, not because of his lack of strength. No, he could easily overpower you if need be. But you had entranced him. 

“I love your little grunge-y nerd look happening here, but cargo pants are so not lawyer chic.” Your hand had slipped from his forearm to his hand. You were heading to the mall. 

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to judge a book by its cover?” He chuckled. 

“Yes, but I don’t like to pick up tattered books, do you?” 

“Heh, thanks. Really sweet.” It was his turn to roll his eyes. She was mean, but she was right. 

“The world isn’t perfect, you know that. I’ve been judged my whole life, too. I had to change my pink to navy.” 

“You’re right.” He sighed, trying not to focus on how sweaty his hands were getting. 

“I know.” You smirked. 

“Where are we going?” 

“You said you trust me, right?” 

“Yes,” 

“Then don’t stop now.” 

<?>

[cannibalgh0st]

Ok bear with me I swear it relates to your stuff eventually.

The other day it occurred to me that since Bruce Wayne's mom is Martha Arkham instead of Martha Kane in the Reevesverse, then Bruce's cousin may be Jeremiah Arkham, hapless chew toy of a asylum director to supervillains who break down his mind and spirit, instead of Kate Kane. I believed the thought deserved more brainstorming, thinking about how big cousin Jeremiah probably spent years insisting his little cousin is clearly unstable and needs medical intervention only to be shut out by Alfred. But I felt like I didn't know enough about the character to do much with it, so I went looking for posts and edits and stuff to get a better idea.

I have not seen Gotham, but you are one of the people I follow who sometimes puts it on my dash and makes me wonder what is going on there. (Cool fan art, by the way. As always.) One of the things that keeps me from picking it up is knowing there's no Harvey Dent. Because, come on. A show about teen Bruce, and it doesn't have Harvey, his old pal Harvey? Harvey, who felt so similarly about Gotham City as Bruce, who wants to go to law school and get into the courtroom and politics and fight injustice through that avenue instead of vigilantism, and Bruce loved and respected him so much for it? Harvey, the guy who gave Bruce another person to believe in? The golden opportunity of dramatic irony and angst in showing him long before he became Two-Face just thrown away? For what? How could they? Why?

Anyway. My search results did not turn up many edits about Jeremiah Arkham, but it did show me a whole lot of some guy from Gotham that had me go, "Ah. That's why."

You know, typically, me personally, just speaking for me, I'm usually a Joker and BatJokes hater. But I have no principles when the ex best friend trope is in play. I get it this time. His dorky pre-Jokerized look is pretty cute, too

@emma-d-klutz honestly I always think about the name "Jeremiah Arkham" and how it connects to Martha in the Reevesverse. It's actually cool that you made the comment that he isn't relates to Kate in this verse???? Which I didn't even get until you brought it up! I'm so use to them being cousins 👁👁 but yes in Reevesverse Jeremiah Arkham and Bruce Wayne are cousins!!!!! That's insane!!!!!

Also don't get me started on Gotham with having no Two-Face!! Harvey Dent was a wasted character and it hurts me he wasn't even on the show long :((( also he's a full on adult! Also Harvey Dent/Two-Face is one of ym favorite characters and it sucks that his story was short and didn't line up with Bruce's????? I like to think in Future!Gotham that Bruce started University and ended up being friends with Harvey (pre Two-Face!!)

Also I love Jeremiah Valeska so much and I cannot get over him😭😩😩😩 so dorky and cute! Honestly I really miss this Jeremiah!!!

[halfdent]

𝐀  𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐎  𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏𝐒  𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐍��  .  Or  so  his  psychologist  &&  caregiver  had  said  .  All  his  life  Dent  believed  something  else  .  He  believed  the  bad  should  be  punished  .  Just  like  his  father  .  Punishing  the  '  evil  '  that  was  inside  of  a  young  Harvey  .  ...  Guess  he  wasn't  far  off  of  the  mark  .  He  leans  back  ,  sighs  ,  not  in  agitation  ,  more  reminiscence  .  ❝     I  was  A  CRUSADER  ,  like  The  Batman  .  Minus  the  fancy  gadgets  &&  the  cape  &&  cowl  .   They  called  me  '  APOLLO  '  .  The  young  district  attorney  with  fantastical  dreams  of  ridding  this  city  of  crime  .  Still  ,  we  fought  the  good  fight  ,  THE  BATMAN  ,  JIM  GORDON  &&  I  .   ❞      Why  ?  Why  he  𝐇𝐀𝐃  to  take  things  to  such  extremes  ?  Hand  lowers  his  coffee  ,  fingers  had  held  it  from  mouth  of  the  cup  .  ❝   I  never  had  a  choice  .  Never  once  in  my  life  .  I  thought  -  Maybe  I  could  fight  it  .  But  I  can't  .  No  one  can  .  ❞  

❝    I'M  HARVEY  .  ❞     He  affirms  .  He  isn't   𝐓𝐖𝐎-𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄  so  HARVEY  would  suffice  .  Though  appreciates  the  notion  that  the  kid  even  cared  enough  to  ask  .  Finally  he  waves  to  one  of  the  barista's  points  to  his  coffee  ,  she  gets  the  idea  .  This  was  more  of  one  of  his  regulars  the  𝐓𝐖𝐎  𝐁𝐘  𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐂𝐀𝐅𝐄 .  ❝   That's  what  we're  doing  .  𝐓𝐖𝐎-𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄  ,  HE'S  A  KILLER  ,  HE'S  A  CRIMINAL  ,  but  he  wants  the  same  things  I  want  .  I  know  it  .   ❞    The  two  personalities  before  had  no  real  way  to  officially  communicate  .  Recently  the  veil  ,  all  the  confusion  had  been  lifted  .

His  alter  had  confided  in  him  ,  all  their  lost  memories  ,  his  own  motives  &&  HARVEY  in  tern  had  confided  in  him  the  identity  of  THE  BATMAN  .  ❝   YOU'RE  JUST  A  KID  .  You’ll  learn  in  time  that  this  crusade  your  on  ?  It  pulls  things  out  of  you  ,  from  deep  inside  ,  the  things  you  were  afraid  to  accept  about  yourself  .  But  it’s  the  only  way  .  No  choice.  -  do  you  understand?   ❞  

Having seen the BEST of people, the caring, the community, the support, Virgil's SOUL had always sang to help those around him. Before the "BIG BANG", before his powers, Virgil did what he could where he could. Not through crime fighting but through things like outreach programs, helping out at his father's Community Center. He would step in to CHALLENGE a bully, to PULL the attention to himself & AWAY from the aggressor's victim. After the event, when Virgil's life was changed forever, when he ceased to JUST be Virgil Hawkins but evolved, changed into STATIC, that's when his real OUTREACH began. When he saw a need for a metahuman to help people, save them, from others changed by the BIG BANG that had less than heroic intentions. Most of their interests were greedy, ignorant, while others where MISGUIDED, some were just EVIL. Virgil tried to save the civilians, but he also tried to save EACH & everyone of the VILLAINS that he went against. Virgil, hated having to fight them. There was no reason other than that Virgil couldn't just STAND BY & DO NOTHING while these guys terrorize his COMMUNITY, his CITY. Dakota City. Which eventually helping other HEROES. Like Batman, the Titans, & the Justice League, once. Hence being in Gotham, visiting the BAT FAMILY.

"Yeah....Thanks, man. I PROMISE." As Virgil grabbed the back of the chair, on the other side of the table, he sat down SLOWLY, looking at Harvey's FACE, trying to figure out if he was JOKING or not. Giving a SLIGHT chuckle as he took the seat, looking down & shaking his head in a humorous disbelief.

This was interesting. NICE even. This man, that Virgil had previously fought against, was now, not only talking to Virgil CIVILY, but sharing his wisdom with Virgil. Inviting to see the beauty of this GOTHIC city, that was seemingly lagging in time, almost stuck in the 40s or maybe the 50s, & Virgil did. Looking around at the city's grandeur, the beauty of its architecture. WAIT did he say SAVE? Virgil knew that he VIBED with some of what he heard Two-face say, never understood why he was a villain, but Virgil never KNEW that Harvey had ever tried to save Gotham.

"Wait...Did you JUST say you have tried to SAVE Gotham many times? Hey man, TELL me MORE bout that. I knew I VIBED with ya. I always wondered why Bats fought you, or why ya had to go 'nd take things to such EXTREMES, ya know? And, yeah a coffee sounds great, man. THANKS." Virgil TRIED to ask his question without being too invasive or pushy. He wanted to put the pieces together about who Harvey Dent actually was. Why DO the things that Harvey called 'SINS' gather his thoughts before continuing. Furrowing his brow, & bridging his hands by interlocking his fingers.

"Sorry, man. I wasn't TRYIN to get too personal, there. I mean, I DO wonder. Like th' way I see it, is IF your willin to call your actions 'SINS' that means ya KNOW that your past actions didn't hit th' mark of saving or helping the city. So then if you REALLY have a DESIRE to save Gotham, JUST DO SO. Your past is past, Harvey. err... What would you PEFER to be called? Sorry, man." Shit Virgil hadn't asked what Harvey wanted to be REFERRED by. Virgil knew that the man had other personalities & the like but also Virgil believed it polite, friendly & more caring about the other person, to ASK & find out what they preferred to be called RATHER than the name that Virgil had heard from OTHERS.

@halfdent

[dented-nado]

Well since you specifically asked: Twiddler

“Yah I like Eddie but he’s straight // BAD LUCK, HUH?”

“No he’s not”

“NO IM NOT??”

Shenanigans

I’m dying right now, the ol’ Harv(ey) stubbornly thinks that Edward fucking Nygma is s  t r a  I g ht love it.  Still one of my fave convos we’ve ever had.

==================

Eddie’s POV

 =====================

It had been about a year since he had joined the sort of halfway home that Bruce Wayne had opened up for Ex-Rogues. However Eddie was somewhat convinced the billionaire he now realized had been Batman the whole time (pfft, he totally could have figured that out… he just… hadn’t…) rather liked having he, Harley, and Harv(ey) as a sort of odd band of roommates. And well… a literal mansion wasn’t a bad place to stay in by any stretch of the imagination.

He certainly had expected (and been quietly and not so quietly jealous) that because Harv(ey) and Bruce had apparently been close as far back as when they were children, Wayne would certainly be ecstatic to have Two-Face hanging around. He still was a little bit taken a back that well… anyone would want him around.

But he really was trying to reform. Maybe part of it was because the routine had gotten boring and he’d started finding more quiet and less destructive games and puzzles more entertaining these days. Besides, he realized he could have more fun with such things when he wasn’t being hauled back to Arkham because he’d taken things a little too far so often.

That being said, he had a new focus, a new goal.

And that was the previously mentioned Harv(ey) Dent. The giant, the absolute unit that towered over him.

Two souls for the price of one. Harvey was quietly intelligent (though sometimes a little bit delightfully oblivious), kind, and soft. Then Harv, he was bold, had a wonderfully fun fashion sense, and had a gravelly voice that admittedly caused Eddie’s mind to pull a blank at times.

They were a man that could have half their face burned to a crisp with acid and still be the only man that had been in Arkham (in Edward’s opinion) that could really get it.

He still remembered the first time “two-face” had been escorted into Arkham, the sight of them had knocked the wind right out of him, completely stopped his plotting for his next attempt to outsmart Batman.

Sure, perhaps he had heard and sort of seen images of Harvey Dent, the famous distract attorney that had been nicknamed Gotham’s “white knight” on the tiny, crappy TV they were occasionally allowed to watch when they were let out of their cells. But that never did him justice.

Seeing him here? Up close?

What a man. A handsome man, carved by angels and blessed by the devil

Now if only he could get Harv(ey) Dent to notice him.

Since that day he’d tried time and time again under the hope that maybe just maybe… this giant of a man would consider a relationship of sorts.

He tried to impress them with his vast intellect, sitting close to him and going off about any fact or subject he happened to know. He then tried to drill Harvey about his knowledge as a lawyer (which he thought also might just be interesting to know). They were certainly a good listener… and Harvey warmed up to talking about legal jargon and the pains of law school with Eddie eventually.

He was able to talk to Harv about their mutual love of fun patterns and bright colors and agreed that anyone who dissed it just didn’t understand fashion. He also realized soon that Harv loved to talk when he was acknowledged, and Eddie was more than happy to encourage him to and lightly swoon at that voice.

However, they were still only on a ‘good pals’ basis.

Which maybe Eddie could have accepted, except he caught Harvey staring at him at times, smiling slightly whenever Eddie would talk about what interested him. And Harv, he had gotten Harv to laugh a few times.

There was something there, he knew it, but for some reason he couldn’t puzzle out, Dent wasn’t acting on it.

It continued to this day. Harley had suggested to Edward he simply outright tell Harv(ey) Dent he was interested in them. But that wasn’t fun or interesting, and certainly not as romantic as Eddie would like.

So, after years of frustration now, he decided he’d go to the one person who had known Harv(ey) Dent their whole life for advice.

 ============

Bruce’s POV

============

“So, that’s my dilemma.”  Edward finished, pushing up his glasses in a very matter-of-fact way.

Bruce sighed. The only person who had ever rivaled his own stubbornness and… stupidity when it came to others having an romantic interest in them, was in fact Harv(ey) Dent. This would no doubt be difficult.

He wasn’t even sure how he managed to get into a relationship with Clark and Diana, so he wasn’t sure how much of a help he’d be trying to get Harv(ey) and Eddie to pair up.

“I’m decently sure he’s interested in you.” He replied.

“I’m quite sure too, however nothing I do seems to get them to do anything.” Eddie expressed, looking completely exasperated.

“hrrn....” Bruce grumbled thoughtfully. “What have you tried so far?”

“Well… I’ve given them gifts, flowers seemed like a sure-fire method- yet he seemed to somehow take them as a platonic gift.”

Bruce stared at Eddie for a long moment. “Who gives flowers platonically?”

Eddie shrugged.

Bruce sighed. “Dammit Harvey… Harv…” He mumbled under his breath. “I could try talking to them, get some better idea of what’s going on their head, could be Harvey and Harv keep arguing on how they want to respond.” He suggested.

Eddie nodded thoughtfully. “That may be the case, that is a possibility I had not considered… thank you for your assistance batma….. ah… Bruce…” He corrected with a slight grin.

Bruce half smiled back.

Batman was on the case.

====

“So… Harv…. Harvey…” Bruce began wandering over to where they were sitting.

They were seemingly switching between drinking a hot coffee and a Frappuccino.

Harvey had complained more than once that because of their disagreements Harv ended up making them consume way too much sugar. Too much caffeine in this case it seemed.

Their eyes flicked over to him.

“Hi Bruce.”

“What’s up Pretty Boy?”

Bruce sat down across from them. “Eddie seems to be interested in you.”

Never hurt to be blunt with a lawyer.

Harvey snorted. “That’d be nice… he is really cute but…”

“I’m sure Eddie is straight, just our luck, right?”

Bruce had never been so shocked in all his life.

Straight?

Eddie…

Straight?! E d  d I  e.

Str a I ght, Edward Nygma E Nygam s t ra ight

The two concepts being put together caused a complete error in Bruce’s mind that was slowly beginning to fry.

Who could possibly conclude that Edward was s t r aight?

The riddler…. The riddler who for a while greeted Batman like he was lowkey interested in a literal love-hate relationship

Edward

Str a I ght.

“Are you… fucking kidding me?” Bruce ended up stammering before he even realized it. “He’s not… at all!”

Harvey blinked at him a few times in surprise.

“What do you mean?”

Bruce gaped at them. They couldn’t be serious.

“Harvey… I… Harv… he… he’s not exactly subtle about it. In fact he’s very open, very much out and proud, flaming even. I’m sure he’d agree.”

Harvey looked at Bruce through squinted eyes. “Are you sure Bruce?”

“Sure, maybe he’s a bit more flashy than your average guy, but that doesn’t mean gay.” Harv added with a shrug.

“He calls you handsome at least 3 times a day.” Bruce said still staring at Harv(ey) like they were absolutely insane.

“Lots of people do.”

“Have you ever seen him even flirt with any women??” Bruce asked in disbelief.

“No but… well there’s always been more men in Arkham, and when do you even have time for that?”

Bruce was somewhere in-between wanting to laugh at them and slap them.

“He’s given you flowers.”

“Pretty sure he’s just being friendly.”

“Friendly…” Bruce wheezed.

This conversation was taking years off his life at this point. He shook his head and texted Edward.

“Get in here (the living room downstairs) It’s important”

Edward slid in and sat peppily down on the couch with Bruce within a few minutes, causing Harv(ey) to look between Eddie and Bruce in confusion.

“You rang Mr. Wayne~?” Eddie asked with a cheeky grin as he leaned his head against his hand.

“You know what these men just said to me?” Bruce began folding his hands together.

“Bruce nooo…” Harvey pleaded.

“No no, I think he should know.” Bruce insisted.

Eddie raised his eyebrows comically high. “Well don’t keep me waiting, what’s the tea?”

Bruce cleared his throat. “They said… they’re sure you’re straight.”

Eddie stared at Bruce for a minute, eyes widening.

“Me?” He asked completely baffled.

Bruce nodded.

Eddie threw back his head and laughed until his face turned red and he had trouble breathing.

Harv(ey) looked on stiffly, feeling as if they had made a mistake somewhere as the dawning realization slapped them in the face.

 ============

Harv(ey)’s POV

===================

It was bad enough they had put themselves in denial so far they had missed out starting something with the small bean-pole riddle-man much earlier…

But now because they had convinced themselves Eddie was straight and therefore could have no interest in them… Eddie and Bruce were refusing to let them live it down.

And Bruce seemed to have gotten literally everyone in on the joke. Anyone Bruce hadn’t told between his partners and his massive family, Eddie had told.

Harley had begun kissing Ivy in front of them while they both traded off saying “no homo tho” between kisses until Harv(ey) groaned and left the room in a huff, leaving them both laughing maniacally.

Eddie had begun dramatically entering a room with a flourish announcing “Ladies and Gentlemen, Guys, Gals, and Non-binary pals, the straightest man alive has arrived, you may all start the party.”

Even when they first slept together, Edward had started quietly laughing and mumbling about “how straight, and very much not gay at all this occurrence was.”

Bruce hadn’t been able to look at them in weeks without breaking out into a full on belly laugh at his expense, mumbling something along the lines of “The Riddler, st r a I ght, good lord...”

On one hand they were happy Bruce was laughing more but god dammit…

They felt a bit dumb about it to say the least.

“How did we ever think Eddie was straight?” Harvey thought to himself.

“I don’t fucking know. I really… really… don’t.”                                                                                          

Well… maybe giving everyone a little levity while still being able to date a cute red-head that seemed to know the strangest facts about almost everything that they could enjoy listening to him babble about for hours happily…. Was all worth it. Even if they were embarrassed by their comically stupid brand of denile.

[prettyyoungandbored]

Becoming Mrs. Wayne [The Dark Knight] Three

Pairing: Christian Bale!Bruce Wayne x OC

Summary: Demetria Gallagher knew her cozy life would change the second she became engaged to Bruce Wayne. But what she doesn’t know is she’s getting more than what she agreed to. (I am trash at summaries.)

Warning: Language, Minor Panic Attack

Taglist: @dragonballluver

Previous Chapter

“We have an issue.”

Jack closed the door behind him. Jack was a college friend of Demetria and Harvey who co-ran a moving company with his brother, Max, in Gotham. He’d been there to help Demetria move in to the one bedroom so it was a no-brainer to ask him to help her move.

Demetria looked up she loaded the last box ontop of the dolly

“What broke?” She asked, the knot in her stomach tightening.

He waved his hand reassuringly “Nothing broke. Everything is secured in the truck.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

“There’s some paparazzi outside.”

She rolled her eyes and groaned. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” 

“It’s not a whole lot. Just like two, maybe three.” 

“No it’s definitely three,” Max confirmed as he glanced from out the window. 

Demetria threw her hands up as she walked over to the window, Jack trailing right behind her. The three of them watched as across the street, three men stood around with cameras in their hands.

She could think a few ways they could’ve gotten her address. One was from the Gotham Gossip, the other was someone at GCN tipped off the Gotham Times who also tipped off some other publication. 

“Should I call the cops?” Demetria asked.

“Yeah, that’s gonna go over real well,” Max snorted.

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“Just keep going and ignore them, I guess,” Jack shrugged. “Best you can do.”

She closed her eyes. “I thought I had more time before I had to deal with this.”

“Can you call Bruce?” Jack asked. 

She shook her head. “He’s at work.” She stepped back. “We’ve got these boxes left and then it’s over.” 

She began rolling the dolly when Max stopped her. “Let us do that.” 

“And have them catch me empty handed? Not a chance.” 

“Fair enough.” 

She quickly went into her purse, grabbing her keys and iPod with earphones wrapped around it. She shoved the iPod in her back pocket. “Here’s the plan. Jack, give the keys to Mrs. O’Neill. She’s in the room 301. Tell her I say ‘thanks for everything.’ Max, take one last look around and make sure nothing is getting left behind, alright? I’ll meet you two in the truck.”

Both men nodded their heads. She grabbed her purse and swung it over her shoulder, She rolled the dolly out into the hallway and into the elevator. 

Upon getting inside, she let out a deep sigh and rubbed her temple. She could feel her throat closing in and chest tightening, a sign she needed to do her breathing exercises. She inhaled slowly, holding it in for seven seconds before breathing out. 

She knew she would eventually have to deal with it when Bruce wouldn’t be around, but as she’d said, she thought she had time. Either way, she’d had to deal with it and it looked like today was the day to begin doing so.

She put her earbuds in as Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chains” filled her ears. 

The doors opened and she rolled the dolly out into the lobby, watching the men across the street watch her moves. She inhaled and exhaled slowly. 

“Here goes nothing,” she mumbled. 

She opened the door with one hand and pushed the the dolly with the other. The men hurried across street, their cameras flashing her as they stood on the street.

She kept her eyes on the truck and even with the pounding of Mick Fleetwood’s drums and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nick’s powerful vocals, she could still hear the men yelling at her.

“Demetria, where’s Bruce?”

“Demetria are you moving in with Bruce?”

“When’s the wedding?”

“Give us a smile!”

“Demetria is it true you dated Harvey Dent prior to being with Bruce?”

She pulled her lips back, mentally reminding herself that responding to them would only make things worse.

She rolled the dolly into the back of the truck, setting her purse down before unloading the boxes. She knew they were there, watching her unloading, and photographing her from behind. While her throat really started closing in, she continued to breathe. She then put the empty dolly up against a box before grabbing her purse and going down the ramp. She kept her head down as she made her way into the driver’s area of the truck. 

Closing the door, she could still see them photographing her from in front of the car. She kept her eyes down as she pulled out her phone and began texting Bruce. 

Heading to the mansion in a bit. There’s paparazzi outside my place but everything is fine. 

She leaned her head back, continuing her breathing exercises when her phone buzzed. She looked down to find it a text from Bruce. 

Are you alright? Are you safe? 

I’m fine. I’ll see you tonight. Love you. 

Jack and Max got into the driver’s area with Jack at the wheel and Max right beside Demetria so she was in the middle. 

“Vans all closed up and everything is good,” Jack said. “Let’s move out.” 

The paparazzi moved off to the side as the van pulled forward before driving off. 

“How much do either of you want to bet that I’m going to be criticized for not wearing a seatbelt?” Demetria brought up.

 ____________________________________________________________

As they loaded boxes into the storage area of Wayne Manor, Demetria kept looking over to see the mansion. 

It was still being fixed, with certain areas built and ready, while others were covered in tarp. 

Bruce had shown her photos of what it looked like prior to the fire. For a mansion, it wasn’t overly designed, but rather cozy and the kind of place a kid would be lucky to call home. She’d hope that when it would finally be rebuilt that it would look exactly how it did. Knowing Bruce’s attachment to the house, it probably would. 

“So this is where you’ll be?” Max asked. 

“Yep,” she responded popping the “p”. “We’re moving in the second it’s ready.” 

“I remember when this place burned down,” Jack said. “Real shame. But I heard Wayne’s all cozy and whatnot in his penthouse.”

Demetria shrugged. “It’s just an apartment.” 

“Yeah with a helicopter pad,” Max snorted. 

Bruce’s wealth was a big topic of discussion that Demetria’s mother and older brother would bring up with her and it made her sick to her stomach. “It’s not that big of a deal.” 

“Demetria, can I ask you something?” Jack brought up, as he set down a box. “Are you...are you two planning on having a prenup?”  She cocked her head back. “Excuse me?” 

Jack and Max exchanged looks. “Look, I know he’s your fiancé,” Jack began, “but I mean, the guy is known for having a new girlfriend each month.” 

“Hell, sometimes it’s weekly thing,” Max chimed in. 

Demetria folded her arms across her chest, anger boiling up inside. “What’s your point?” 

Jack sighed. “Look, don’t get defensive...”

“Jack, what is your point?” 

He eyed Max. “I just wanna make sure you’re taken care of incase he hurts you or...you know...” 

“I’m fine,” she retorted. “Our relationship is fine. I’m aware of who he’s been with, but it’s not like that. If everyone stopped believing in this idea they conjured up about him based on the bullshit gossip magazines write about him, they’d see he’s actually kind and smart and thoughtful. Yea, he dated and slept around, but like you guys haven’t?” 

She turned to Max. “I couldn’t even keep up with your count after sophomore year.” 

She turned to Jack. “You know the lengths he went to to keep our relationship a secret so that not only I could keep my job, but that he would protect me from get hounded by the fucking press every night? If he wanted to leave, he could’ve. I gave him every chance to, but he refused. Thank you for you concern, but we’re gonna be just fine.” 

She walked away leaving Jack and Max alone. 

Her phone vibrated as she made her way back to the van. She pulled it out to find a text message from Bruce. 

I love you too. More than anything. I can’t wait til’ you’re all mine. 

______________________________________________________________

Hours later, Demetria entered the Wayne Enterprises building. She made her way to the front desk and by the time she opened her mouth to speak, the woman at the desk beat her to the punch. 

“He’s on the 24th floor. Top of the building. ” 

She gave the woman a nod. “Thanks.” 

She made her way into the elevator and pressed the button. She was thankful to have the elevator to herself when a man with balding, blonde hair rushed in. She gave him a friendly smile and watched as she reached over and pressed the button with ‘18′ on it. 

She could feel his eyes on her and she adjusted her purse on her shoulder, keeping her eyes in front of her. 

“You’re Bruce Wayne’s fiancé, right?” he spoke up. 

She looked over and gave him a small, but friendly smile. “Yeah, I am.” 

“Coleman Reese. I’m the mergers and acquisitions law accountant.”  “Nice to meet you.” 

She looked away but could still feel his eyes on her. She began playing with the engagement ring, hoping he’d take a hint. 

“Wayne really shelled out big ones for the ring, huh?” he spoke up. 

She laughed nervously, shrugging. “I wouldn’t know.” 

She pulled back her lips, wondering why his eyes wouldn’t leave hers. At this point she couldn’t tell if he was just weird, nosy, attempting to make a move, or just trying to make conversation. Either way, she hoped it would end soon. 

“You worked for Gotham City News, right?” he asked. 

Jesus Christ, dude, she thought to herself.

“Uh, yea, I did.” 

“Just out of curiosity, did any one there ever do some digging on the identity of the Batman?” 

She furrowed her eyebrows, holding her in her urge to ask him why the fuck he was asking her this. “I...I’m not entirely sure. I was just a junior talent booker there. I wasn’t involved with the stories reporters worked on.” 

The elevators doors then opened, her heart leaping with excitement. Coleman gave her a disappointed, but kind nod as he left. “Nice to meet you.” 

“You as well,” she responded. 

The second the doors closed, she mumbled, “The fuck was that?” 

Reaching the 24th floor, Demetria got off the elevator and wandered around looking for Bruce’s office when she heard someone say, “Miss Gallagher, I presume?” 

She turned around to see a gentleman with grey hair and a warm smile approach her. She recognized him as Lucius Fox, Wayne Enterprises’ CEO. 

“Lucius, hi! I’ve heard so much about you,” Demetria remarked, holding out her hand.

He shook it. “And I you, Miss Gallagher. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Bruce talks a lot about you” 

“Well hopefully he only tells you good things. Speaking of which, where’s his office?” 

Lucius laughed. “I’ll show you.” 

The two walked side by side, as Demetria’s eyes fell to the glass windows. “How do you guys get anything done with a view like this?” 

“We do our best.”

He directed her to an office with glass windows all around, her smile widening at the sight of Bruce staring at something on his desk.

Bruce’s face lit up, closing the binder on his desk.“Sweetheart, what’re you doing here?”

She wrapped her arms around Bruce’s waist. “I just wanted to drop by and say ‘Hi’, and thanks to Lucius I was able to find you.” 

Bruce smiled at Lucius. “I hope she didn’t give you much trouble.” 

Lucius grinned. “Not at all.” He eyed the binder. “Is that the full report you wanted me to look at?” 

“Yeah, I made some adjustments you’re gonna want to look over.” 

“Will do. Demetria, a pleasure.” 

“Wonderful to meet you as well, Lucius.” 

Her eyes scanned Bruce’s office, admiring the mahogany wood that shine at the touch of the sun. It was organized down to a tee, not a single paper sticking out from the stack. The decor was kept to a minimum, not a single photo album anywhere. 

“I’m glad you stopped by,” Bruce said. “I have a present for you.” 

Demetria turned to him. “Is that so?” 

“Consider it a moving in gift.” 

“I told you I didn’t need you to-.” She cut herself off when he handed her a manila folder filled with paper. She pulled her lips back, holding back laugher. “A folder and some documents. How romantic.” 

“Open it.” 

She opened the folder to find documents pertaining to Gotham's Saint Swithin's Orphanage, including contact information, funding break downs, etc. The way her eyes crinkled made Bruce’s heart melt. 

“Thank you,” she said, giving him a quick chaste kiss. “This is perfect. I can start making some calls tonight, get a meeting set up-.” 

“Yeah, you might want to wait a couple days.” 

Demetria looked up. “Why’s that?” 

Bruce smiled. “What are your thoughts on setting sail for a couple days?” 

[halfdent]

She  got  him  there  .  ❝   Well  ,  I  AM  a  lawyer  .  Maybe  I'm  just  biding  my  time  ,  collecting  evidence  .  ❞  A  gap  barely  even  fills  his  next  deflection  .  ❝   Kidding  ,  kidding  of  course  .  ❞  The  woman's  unstable  ,  intelligent  still  they  are  missing  gaps  of  societal  knowledge  .  Unfamiliar  with  certain  customs  .  𝐈𝐓'𝐒  𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆  .

He  could  bring  her  to  justice  ,  wouldn't  that  be  all  he's  devoted  himself  to  ?  Though  watching  her  now  he  sees  something  far  from  the  killer  he  perceived  when  she  had  failed  her  mission  .  She  may  well  be  biding  her  time  too  .   Though  her  lack  of  social  skill  intel  what  he's  suspected  about  them  for  a  while  now  .  𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃  .  From  a  young  age  most  likely.

❝   I  took  someone  in  who  needed  help  ,  to  be  in  a  home  ,  ...  a  man  ...  A  GOOD  MAN  helps  people  &&  he  provides  a  home  for  a  woman  .   ❞  Though  in  this  situation  ;  they  are  still  strangers  under  such  circumstances  .  ❝   You're  free  to  leave  when  you're  ready  but  for  now  this  home  is  safe  for  you  .  ❞  Stacking  the  plates  onto  the  drying  rack  he  finally  motions  to  pull  up  a  seat  in  front  of  them  .  ❝   Anyway  .  I  wanted  to  talk  .  Just  a  talk  .  ❞    He  deflects  .  ❝   Tell  me  something  about  you  .  Anything  at  all  .  You're  a  real  enigma  .  ❞      Of  course  he  needed  answers  .  Who  wanted  him  killed  &&  why  but  he  knew  better  than  to  poke  the  tiger  .  ❝  Look  ,  you  probably  don't  believe  me  but  I'd  like  to  help  .  I  made  a  promise  to  myself  &&  to  this  city  that  I  would  help  people  ,  people  like  you  &&  me   .  ❞  

Jokes  brought  back  memories  .   Memories  ,  they  were  sure  they  might  lose  forever  .   Not  a  fear  without   𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐓  .   Their  own  dad  forgot  an  entire  person  he  used  to  be  .   What  was  stopping  them  from  doing  the  same  ?   They'd  already  made  sure  she  got  the  same   𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐄  .   The  metal  arm  sitting  as  a  reminder  of  that  fact  under  gloved  hands  &  long  sleeved  shirts  .

Their  dad  joked  .   When  he  was  actually  able  to   𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑   himself  .   More  &  more  ,  they  saw  a  man  who  liked  to  laugh  whenever  he  had  the  chance  to  .   It  didn't  happen  often  ,  but  enough  for  them  to  remember  it  .   Enough  for  the  curl  of  Harvey's  lips  to  give  her  a  moment  of  remembering  what  they  got  a  taste  of  .   Before  everything  had  been  taken  away  from  them  all  over  again  .

Nervous  figits  occupy  her  movements  ,   𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐃𝐄𝐍   from  his  view  thanks  to  the  task  of  dishes  .   That  &  the  pink  tint  covering  their  pale  cheeks  upon  thinking  about  that  comment  .   Nobody  talked  about  their  laugh  …  When  was  the  last  time  they  even  did  that  ?   Their  focus  returns  on  Harvey  with  that  question  ,  pulling  her  back  to  reality  once  more  .   One  green  eye  ,  &  one  blue  narrow  in  focus  .   A  state  of  concentration  from  wherever  their  thoughts  had  been  trying  to  take  her  .

❝  You  took  someone  in  who  was  trying  to  KILL  YOU  .  ❞    Her  accent  betrays  her  slightly  .   Sounding  condescending  ,  low  &  blunt  .   No  ,  they  are  that  blunt  .    ❝  Most  people  wouldn't  do  that  .  ❞    That  wasn't  all  of  it  .   There  was  𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆  else  .   Familiar  maybe  …  But  it  was  too  soon  to  tell  .

[screamting]

 Dick’s first day of school snuck up on them.

 Bruce drove him down in a rusty small blue honda civic from the 1990s. They’d picked it up off the lot for under 3,000 and were using it as a way to ferry themselves to the junkyard to pick up parts for their      special    car--but for now, they were using it to drop Dick off at school.

 Drop Richard Malone off at school.

On paper, Alfred paid for Dick to attend Gotham academy. A private school. It had both boarders and day students. Dick would be a day student, so long as it was feasible. 

...on the first day of school, Bruce drove Dick down to his alma mater (which translated to ‘place you never wanted to visit again,’) and dropped him off outside the gates.  

“Want me to walk you in, Chum?” he asked, despite it not being any  Malone’s alma mater yet, and Dick glanced back at him and shook his head sharply, mumbling a quiet “see you later,” before going off towards the gates. 

Bruce turned to drive home and realized, belatedly, that Dick had never  not been homeschooled. 

He waited for afternoon to pick Dick up again, and resolved to remember to pick up milkshakes on the way back, so he can ask how the day was with a backup plan. 

--

“It is not the right time of year to prune,” Alfred told him. It was far too close to school starting. Far too close to fall. “But, I suppose, it isn’t  impossible . It will just be a good bit trickier to know which branches need it.”

Bruce obligingly bought a new plant from a chain store--a nursery would’ve properly pruned it weeks ago, but chain stores didn’t have that same attention. Alfred brought it home in a little green planter: a tiny bush cut into a lopsided circle.

“This isn’t, in fact, how to do it,” Alfred said, setting it beside Bruce on the patio table. “Can you tell me why?” 

“..it doesn’t target the dead branches,” Bruce said, and Alfred gave a nod. 

“It’s indiscriminate. And  quite sloppy.” 

He handed Bruce a pair of pruning shears. 

“With it cut like this, it’s a little difficult to find the dead branches, but you’ll manage.”

...after a moment, Bruce shoved his hand inside the bush and just… gripped one of the little branches that didn’t have any leaves on it between his fingers. He glanced at Alfred, who nodded obligingly and gave a smile that felt far too much like it was meant for a child. 

“How far back do I cut?” 

“As far back as you can.” 

Bruce nodded and pushed the shears in. And snipped.

The metahuman had power over plants, the paper the day before had said. She argued she’d been acting in self-defense. Her children were crying out for help. And so she helped.

(“‘ I is hearing the scream of a flower as its stem is twisted from the ground,’”  Dick read aloud by Bruce’s bedside, trying to work through the recommended reading list for his level. One year behind his age level wasn’t bad for three years on the road, but it was a lot to catch up on all the same. “‘  I is hearing the soft moan of the old oak, like an old man dying, weeping, when it is felled.’ ”)

As the state of New Jersey did not recognize plants as people or her as the property owner, her appeal was denied. She would spend several years above minimum in Belle Reve for aggravated assault.

(even though the one she assaulted wasn’t there. Bruce hadn’t stepped into court. Bruce hadn’t said a thing. There was one phone call, and a woman, naked, trapped outside on a Gotham street, and then  five other people stepped forward, claiming to be someone she’d attacked. 

And he didn’t know what to think about that. If what everyone said was true was true, or if it was just falling into the fallacy of mob mentality. If it was easier to accept what was said as true. Even if he'd seen the violence first hand, it was  him  being attacked, that was  different--)

He kept his mouth shut, and reached for the next dead branch, and clipped. 

“...and how would I trim something that’s not dead, but it might… be overgrown? Or the wrong height?” 

“Hmm,” Alfred said, still watching him. “Well, first we will need to get you a proper ladder.”

Justly imprisoned or not, the metahuman--a former botanist called Pamela Isley--would be in Belle Reve for several years. 

Maybe he could change something in this town while she was gone.

Therefore, Mr. Malone came to the Gotham Parks and Recreation office, asking if when he got this 501c3 approved that he be allowed to enter Robinson Park and clean up the place.

And the budget-starved Parks office said  fuckin’ do it if you’re brave enough, man , and sent him on his way. 

It was… much easier than he expected, really. But perhaps the Parks department carried so little influence no one had even bothered to bribe them to keep people out. All the same, he’d listen to that backwards warning. 

He drafted the papers in two days. He worked over it at dinner, trying to fill the gap that had once been occupied by discussing with Dick where to travel next and how to best avoid a million impending dooms. He had a free consultation with an attorney in the morning who looked up at Bruce over his glasses, eyebrows up, and reminded Bruce that the park was where mob deals went down and that grassy lady attacked a fella the other day. 

Bruce said that was fine. He knew. He wasn’t here to cause a ruckus.

Legal documents. Articles of Affiliation. Mission Statement. It was helpful to have a second pair of eyes that actually expected the little bureaucracies innate in law, things that Dick and Alfred preferred to grumble at rather than knot through. Not that Bruce had been trained in law himself, but his school friend, Harvey Dent--

(was still in the hospital. Burn ward. He’d stabilized, but wasn’t often conscious--)

...Bruce submitted the paperwork after the Parks commission met with him, and then all he had to do was draw up a budget and wait. Alfred ‘lent’ Mr. Malone the startup money to establish a paper trail. After the initial donation, Bruce could make periodic donations to himself in various names; have miraculous windfalls whenever cash grew thin. Even without any backing or campaigns, he could make this startup impossible to fail.

--

...the problem is, Bruce has long proven his judgement is impaired.

When Dick returns from school not sniffling but  vibrating with stress all the same, Bruce’s first thought is to run and start over somewhere else. 

He thinks it might be an averted suicide response. The need to pack up and leave the current problems behind. With a hardline against being able to die, his mind latches onto another option. A fight-or-flight response that only hits  flight when the problem isn’t something that can’t be physically fought off, like a tween coming into the car and sitting down in the passenger seat with a deep sigh. 

...Bruce asks how his day was. 

Dick says it was fine. 

Bruce doesn’t ask if he wants a milkshake. He goes through the drive-through and buys some anyway. They go home and work how to install tail fins on the car frame slowly coming together in their garage.

--

...the ‘suicide’ response isn’t the only thing that lingers. Bruce isn’t really sure ‘lingering’ is the right term, actually. The flight response only arises when things can’t be handled directly in front of himself anymore, but the fight response--

Bruce has impaired judgment. 

He proved it as soon as his first ‘suicide’ response sent him to the League of Assassins, and he decided to not flee the moment they made it clear nothing would continue until he took a life. He proved it when he wasn’t able to avoid dragging a literal child in the middle of a personal crisis into his mess, rather than leaving him somewhere safe and far, far away from him. He proved it with each near-death experience from Deathstroke in Metropolis to Isley in Gotham. 

And yet, here he was again, finding himself cleaning up the Batman suit long after Dick was put to bed, adjusting it with better material to withstand a bullet’s penetration. 

The people at the parks department weren’t wrong. It would be dangerous to work the area while the mob still operated widely inside it, and he would not cooperate alongside the mobs for protection. The alternative was therefore relatively obvious: get rid of the mobs. 

Mobs weren’t  exactly like a snake, but they did function well enough like one. Cut off the head. And like a hydra, if new heads sprouted--smother them. 

...that, at least, he knew how to do. Kidnapping and recon, and finding information. Find proof of a mob boss’ wrongdoing and get a prosecutor not so cowardly to be bribed. Hand the information over. Don’t let them fail the charges. High profile dangerous people wouldn’t be kept in a local jail, but would likely be transferred to a higher-security prison, circumnavigating the cluttering, and with a focus on high-priority prisoners rather than most random people out on the street, they would be moved through the system more quickly, hopefully at least stalling out their operations in the meantime, if not shattering the whole system beneath them with the sudden departure. 

This was the best plan he had, and it relied far, far too much on too many external variables--finding a clean court, getting a jury that felt safe enough to actually put their foot down, finding witnesses willing to testify, a prosecutor who wouldn't be bribed--

(fuck) 

--and dealing with a Commissioner whose good graces he might’ve worn out. 

…

But the alternatives were to allow this to continue growing, complicit by his own inaction. 

(he was already complicit enough in too many crimes.)

(How did you clean up a world that you yourself aided in the destruction of?)

--

Prosecutors that couldn't be bribed?

They ended up like Harvey Dent. 

--

Batman appears without Robin that evening, because it is a school night and Dick needs to sleep. He stops what crimes in progress he comes across and starts watching Robinson Park more closely. 

He doesn't interfere inside it. He just watches. Plants cameras in the bushes and on the branches of trees, and zips his way out, to watch the footage and get to know the day and nighttime patterns of the area. 

It… will take time. That's something he's not used to. Dick and he worked fast on the road, and even before that he was either handed his information by the ones lower down the chain or only spent a handful of days doing legwork to verify things that'd been missed. Instant gratification, he guessed he could call it. Just… dealing out a death and being done with it. 

(And somehow, he'd drawn the line at known violent mobsters and Deathstroke.)

...he had to do a  lot of meditation to get through the park video feeds. He had a lot of work stacking up between tracking down faces from the feeds. Police database of mugshots helped more than he expected. He started a tally of how many people in the mugshots were brought in bloodied and who brought them in to look into later. 

After all, if Gotham was going to get rid of its mob problem, the police force would need some pruning, too. 

--

Gotham recidivism was above 80%. Bruce gargled his coffee and tried very hard to not spit it out somewhere, because somehow, he was more tired by this statistic than shocked. A bit of, ‘oh, I knew it would be high, but  really?’

No fucking wonder there weren’t enough cells in the world. 

(What do you do when you can’t put anymore garbage in a landfill?

Learning what a  fucking recycling program is might be a good first step.)

It's okay, though. He's totally got a handle on this. He's already been looking into what makes recidivism lower, and the difficulty of access to jobs for felons seems like a big one. Lack of change to living situations that caused pettier crimes like reselling material or shoplifting. The inside prison situation has an effect, according to Norway, which has a prison system Bruce isn't even hoping to replicate, even if he were a living millionaire with a clear conscience. 

Reading other people's’ writings on recidivism has… definitely helped clarify things for him, even if all he can think of for the worst of criminals is still to lock them in a cell far away from  everyone or until the death penalty finally takes it out of his hands. 

But it is one thing to lock up a murderer who sabotaged a family performance and killed in front of an audience, and children, and  child … versus locking up the child who killed trying to protect their family from an abusive partner. 

They’re different. They have to be. 

If Bruce has any right to be alive, he has to be able to believe in gray areas. 

--

Bruce drops the first of several Maroni forerunners on Gordon's desk in the northern precinct. When he finds the precinct desk vacant, he pays a visit to the commissioner’s house instead. 

The thought process is that it would probably be best to clarify that the dropoff isn’t an attack on the commissioner's authority. It’s an opening for compromise. Bruce will be mindful of the incarceration rates, but he won’t be leaving Gotham and he’d like cooperation from the police when it came to prosecution.

Unfortunately, he proposes it in the form of a paper note (written in his off-hand) slipped onto Gordon’s bedroom table where the man will notice it as soon as he returns for bed, which is much more threatening than he fully realizes.

(He doesn’t imagine Gordon’s daughter will find the note first and replace it just as she found it after reading. Then again, he doesn’t ever find out it happened, either.)

--

The county’s defense office wants to cut a plea deal with the gangster brought in, because no one wants to be the next Harvey Dent. The Assistant DA, a woman named Rachel Dawes, seems willing to try, but the department is extremely reluctant to support her, even as she steps up to take Dent’s place until another election can be held.

In the precinct, Bruce’s audiobugs catch officers he’s tracking placing bets on how long until someone finishes Dent off in his hospital bed.

Bruce decides he needs to be more aggressive.

-- 

Twenty-seven aggressive anonymous tipoffs and two synchronized FBI raids half a month later, and Bruce is startled when the door to his bedroom opens and Dick walks in. Bruce doesn't really jump in surprise anymore-- it’s more of… half reaching a position to fight, and stopping in a split second as he realizes the threat doesn't exist.

“Ah,” he says, “do you need--?”

“I was at school,” Dick says, answering the question in an odd way. He didn't need anything, he'd just come back from school--

Bruce’s neck snaps up to look at the clock, while the other part of his brain realizes that it’s nearly dark outside. 

“Did Alfred--” he says, a panicky shame he’s not used to rising up within him. 

“No,” Dick says, shrugging his backpack off and slumping onto bed. “When I realized you weren't coming I walked home.”

Bruce's throat feels tight. “You should've called.”

“Figured you were busy,” Dick says, watching the ceiling, “you've got more important stuff than school.”

Bruce remembers, the pain less raw with years, the slow agony of a school day, knowing there must be more he could do than sit through the farce. 

He remembers that agony of adolescent uselessness clearly, pain dulled or not, but he’s also wisened to its falsehood over the years. There was little he could manage at the time.

“...I’ll set an alarm next time, but school isn't unimportant,” he says, keeping calm and controlled for an extra moment, before doing a double-take on the thought he’d had just a moment before. 

Adolescence?!

--

School is over a month in. Dick’s anniversary is coming up soon. Bruce has gotten the Feds back in Gotham and an internal investigation into the police force for corruption. His nonprofit is finalizing some paperwork and looking into how to hire nonviolent offenders and start training them for small-time landscaping and cleanup by contracting with a local pre-established landscape crew that mostly does the outer and northern Gotham estates. Harvey Dent is conscious but minimally verbal in the hospital. And Dick is thirteen, officially a teenager. 

Bruce does not know how teenagers are different from younger children. He does not recall being any different than he is now at either age. Only morose haze interspersed by flashes of overwhelming tension and temper. 

Harvey once knew him at that age. Not that Bruce could talk to Harvey--not… as himself. The man Harvey knew was long, long dead, (or, it would be simpler if that man was dead, and Bruce as he was now was a new man entirely--) and it’s not as though Bruce could ask advice anyway. 

Still. Maybe he will send Harvey some flowers they’ve started in the backyard...

Once the Justice League gets out of his living room. 

Aside from Superman calling over the phone whenever he seems to please, once a month Martian Manhunter seems to show up, posing as just another social worker or lawyer or family friend, here to check in on how things are going with adoption, or the 501C3, or the… latest cookies out of the oven. 

And if it’s not Martian Manhunter helping Dick sneak cookies off the cooling rack, then it’s Wonder Woman, which is somehow even worse. 

There are not a lot of situations when Bruce would rather a mind reader with incredible telekinetic powers who could mentally and emotionally cripple him with a thought be in his presence, versus just a very strong lady who could rip him in two by breathing. 

Diana Prince has made that situation a monthly occurrence.

She came this time while they were in the garage, putting together a much-overdue car engine. Alfred had insisted on dinner before business. Diana Prince stands in his house for over an hour by the time the rope finally came out and they got down to business. It is an hour too long. Bruce doesn’t think he’s had more than a few words of conversation with her since they moved into Alfred’s townhouse late summer, but he has heard the same questions out of her mouth far too many times. 

“Have you been hurt lately?”

“No,” Dick says, because he only patrols on weekends, and Bruce makes sure he’s kept well away from anything that looks like it will have guns.

“Are you being treated well?” 

“Yes.” 

“Are you happy?” 

“Y…”

...Bruce blinks for a second, before he realizes that Dick’s teeth are clenched tight and his face is turning faintly to another color. 

“Dick…?” Diana says, before Dick gives into the rope, and says the truth.

“No.” 

He’s not sure if anyone else can hear the air leave the room, but it does, and Bruce feels his lungs collapse in the vacuum left behind. His stomach shrivels into a ball. 

He wants to run from the room, but his feet are too heavy and slow to move, so he just crosses his arms even tighter, and digs his fingers into his ribs.

“...why is that?” Diana asks. She doesn’t even glance back at Bruce when she does it. She doesn’t even glance away in the first place, even as Dick is screwing his eyes shut. The color his face has settled on is red, and blotchy, and fast. 

Dick drops the rope from his hand and hiccups. 

Bruce can’t move to comfort him. 

...Diana looks between Dick, and the dropped rope, and pulls it back into the lasso loop. She stands. 

“...I’m going to head outside for a bit and give you two some privacy.” 

She turns and walks out to the garden, where Alfred is still watering the flowers. 

Dick hiccups again, and Bruce is a stranger in his own body as he sits on the floor cross legged, and pulls Dick into his arms. 

...he’s a lot bigger than he was when he was eight and curled into Bruce’s side, just minutes after his parents fell. Bruce puts his hand on the kid’s head, fingers running through the cropped dark hair. 

“...Dick?” Bruce says. “Dick?”

He doesn’t get a response. He sits there, uncomfortably rubbing Dick’s hair, until Diana returns some long minutes later, announcing it’s about time she headed out. 

“I’ll see you next month,” she says, mostly to Dick, who still hasn’t looked up. 

Even as Bruce wonders if it’s a threat, something in his chest loosens when Diana leaves and Dick stays behind. 

Eventually, they get up, and try to get ready for bed. 

—

Harvey Dent wakes up again.

The last thing he remembers is a gun being pulled on him; a court case that he  had to win, no matter what—

The nurses are alerted to his consciousness by the sound of his screaming. 

Bruce Malone has no reason to visit him. No clearance. No nothing. All he does is run a small nonprofit startup, currently sending out applications to the very criminals Harvey put behind bars. 

He doubts Batman would be welcome.

— 

Gotham elects temp-head Rachel Dawes to permanent DA to finish out Harvey’s term by seventeen votes. Bruce doesn’t rig the election, though he thinks of doing so. Instead, he spends the week beforehand trying to disrupt the bribery network connecting the ballot counters to the remaining mob and asking Robin to go make sure the paperless polls aren’t hacked the night before.

...Robin isn’t happy with Bruce going out on his own still. But they compromise, some. 

They send Harvey flowers.

They leave a note on Dawes’ desk. An offer, if she needs anything. They don’t want her to end up like her predecessor. 

—

In the morning, at the first hint of workable weather, Bruce has some on-parole inmates and recent-releases standing in the middle of the park, shivering, holding shovels and rakes. 

This is the first day they’ll be working together and training on the job. There will be a stipend associated with the work. Tools are provided. There’s just—they haven’t done this before. And neither has Bruce Malone, who failed to shake off his kid, Richard, who is sitting off on a picnic table not far away, arms wrapped around his snow pants and pouting furiously. 

...He stays quiet as Bruce starts showing the group what they’re supposed to be doing— first snipping the large bushes down to size, raking the sticks and leaves into piles, and then coming up the back with shovels to help define areas for mulch beds around the bushes. Generally they would not be pruning this early into fall, but… the bushes have to go. 

It’s step one (ignoring Bruce’s personal twenty-step plan midway through execution) to help keep the park safe and free-er of illegal activities: just being able to see into the damn park. 

Once they actually start working, Richard gets up from his perch and glumly takes a rake, helping follow along and pulling the old foliage and branches into a set of neat piles a couple feet out of the way. 

It would be one thing if Dick seemed to be having fun, but… he doesn’t really. He’s tolerant enough with the car (whose construction has largely stalled) but he’s never really had the kind of brain like Bruce’s which likes the simple, repetitive patterns of gardening, or kata, or math. 

(“I don’t  want to stay home,” Dick had said that morning. 

“Then wouldn’t going out with a friend be better?” Bruce said over breakfast. 

“I don’t  have any friends!”

Bruce did not respond to that, and had escorted Dick to the park.)

...they pack up in the later afternoon, when the sun is still high but before banks close-- Bruce gathering up all the direct deposit information for the ones who sound interested in coming back, and paying the rest with checks. Dick waits in the car.

When they drive back home, something big, and blue, and midwestern is already in their kitchen, and is talking to Alfred about pie crust technique. 

( Hell. )

Superman is wearing his full goddamn uniform as they enter. He turns and smiles when they come into the living room, raising up one big hand to greet them.

“Hey there! Decided I’d stop by.” 

“....You did,” Bruce agrees, while Dick seems to perk up, eyes widening at the very large and blue man leaning on the counter. 

Dick had  met Superman already. Spent a week at least on the same spaceship as him. Stared him down over Bruce’s unconscious body. Somehow, it wasn’t stopping him from having that bright excitement in his eyes, now. 

Maybe Superman was more exciting when he presumably wasn’t here to arrest anyone. 

Presumably. 

“Uh-huh,” said Superman. “And Mr. Pennyworth was telling me some about how things have been going for you here! Community service work. Sounds good.” 

Sounded  innocent was more like it. Sounded like prisoners in bright orange vests on the roadsides picking up litter for fifty cents an hour. Doing time, paying back society for all he’d done to it— yeah, he figured it would sound good to Superman. 

“It is,” said Bruce. 

Dick, maybe in a better mood now that they were out of the Gotham smog, saves him again. 

“Are you here for dinner?” Dick asked, not quite on his tiptoes—not on his tiptoes at all, actually. 

He’d grown again, Bruce realized. Now he stood almost to Bruce’s ribs, where once he’d had to stretch to reach. 

“No, I didn’t think I’d be  that  welcome,” Superman said, smiling sheepishly, and  good.  At least he  knew.  “I’m just the messenger this time. Because we  are going to have to start cashing in on that deal we made.”

For a moment, Bruce’s heart stills, and he feels Dick tense just a little bit beside him. 

(Is it wrong, for a moment, that he’s still glad that Dick tenses when they both know it won’t be him attacked?)

“Woah, woah, no scary faces—“ Bruce’s face had  not changed. “We just need your input. Information sharing, remember? Flash has had some weird things going on in his neighborhood and we thought maybe it’d be something you’d recognize.” 

...Right. 

Right. 

He was getting protection from This League in exchange for cooperation, not just his dignity. 

Before he could pull himself back into his body, Superman added, “and Robin too, of course.” 

“Robin doesn’t  need to—“ Bruce began. 

“—Robin would be  delighted ,” Dick said, raising his voice unnecessarily high and drowning out Bruce’s own. 

Bruce looked down at Dick, mouth flat. Dick stared back up at him, scowling and arms crossed. 

“You  hate busywork,” said Bruce. 

“It’ll be fine!” Said Superman,  suddenly in his face  , arms moving between him and Dick, pushing them apart, like they were  dangerous to each other— “Flash was just going to bring his kid, uh, flash along with him, and thought it would be good for them to meet. Should’ve led with that. Just, giving kids friends in their own age bracket.” 

Bruce had stood rock still, staring at the same spot Dick had been, now blocked by Superman’s arms. He did not look away. 

“Yes,” Bruce said. “You should’ve led with that.” 

—

...the next evening, his attempts at trimming his hair were interrupted by Alfred, who was quick to steal the scissors away and finish things himself. Soon, it was short enough he could slick it back for the first time in… a while. He pulled on one of his better dark turtlenecks. Business slacks. Dark shoes. Dark. Maybe too obviously a hide-away-in-the-background type dark. 

They met Flash… on the other side of a zeta beam. Bruce hadn’t ridden one since first being escorted from the Watchtower to Gotham. 

He hadn’t  forgotten how uncomfortable it was, but it was one thing to remember in the mind and another to be given a reminder in the body. 

Neither he nor Dick were in costume. There was no reason for Batman and Robin to suddenly be in Central. There would hopefully be no reason for anyone to suspect Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson to travel so far away from their little safe haven and attack.

Flash, however,  did have some things to protect still, and so he waited on the other side of the zeta with his bright red costume made darker in the night, and an unfortunately bright smudge of yellow standing beside him. 

“Hey, Bats,” Flash said, holding out a hand. “Nice to meet you  nicely this time.” 

Bruce was really glad he hadn’t given in to breaking this guy’s legs. That would have made this reintroduction unbearably uncomfortable. As it was, he met the hand slowly, and enough of a sound for acknowledgement.

Flash didn’t say anything about it, turning instead to Dick. “And you! Also glad to see you’re doing fine; hooow’s the ankle. This is my sidekick, Kid Flash.”

There was no time to answer to the ankle before Flash had introduced and thumped the yellow teen him on the back, getting the very encouraging response, “I’m not a kid I’m a  teenager, ” which was too obvious to have needed pointing out, considering the cracks in his voice and the speckles acne surrounding his lips. “Don’t embarrass me!”

“I would  never do that.” 

(While Bruce remained cold in his skin despite the warm night, beside him, Dick let out a little bit of a laugh. Almost a few huffs of one, really. It was softening. It was enough to unfreeze Bruce some and get him going again.)

“You needed help with identification?” said Bruce, stepping forward to end the introductions. 

Flash’s expression changed back to serious in a… flash. At least he didn’t look disappointed. Or surprised. “Yeah. Follow me, there’s a place a little more private down the street.”

That place ended up being a deli bakery. One that had very much closed for the evening, and had shuttered its windows for good measure. This made very little difference to Flash, who pulled out a key from a very discreet pocket, and opened the staff door in the back. 

“They donate the day-old stuff to me,” Flash said, grinning, like that explained much at all. “Why don’t you kids go see if there’s anything set on top of the counters in the back?” 

The little yellow flash made a sound that wasn’t quite a whoop, but wasn’t quite quiet, either. 

And then the little hand reached out, grabbed Robin’s wrist, and pulled him through the door behind the counter.

“Woah, easy, chief.” 

Flash’s hand wasn’t touching Bruce, no, but it was  in front of him, ready to block and restrain in a movement as Bruce took a step forward to follow.

He turned to look at Flash, and met his same hard eyes looking back through Flash’s mask. 

“They’re just gonna look around and see if they can find some food. It’s fine.” 

Bruce  knew that was just what they were doing, of course. He just wanted to— check. Just to make sure. It was a closed up shop of people they didn’t know in a city that was too dark and empty at night, save for a few well-maintained streetlamps and a pair of teenage girls walking down the sidewalk to the seven-eleven, sticking close together in the Midwest fall—- 

“Let’s just get a seat and wait for them, and we can get started. How’s that?” 

Flash had removed his hand, and was gesturing now to one of the booth seats near the bar. Not by the windows. Maybe far enough from the windows that anyone who looked in and saw a book light on would just assume management was doing the books late.

(Bruce’s jaw was not  tight , it was just his teeth kept pressing down together. He sat down across from the seat Flash gestured to. It was better to get through work quickly, and head home.)

“Okay,” said Flash, suddenly in the booth with him. Bruce almost still felt the breeze of the movement as a book-clipped green folder was produced and laid out on the table. “So, this is a case that’s been going on a little while. Take your time and let me know what you think of it.” 

The file was pushed over to Bruce’s side of the table, and he took it quietly, removing the clip and flipping it open. 

He disregarded the notes and bios and instead turned first to the photos. 

...he did not  like  looking through other people’s photos. All he could think of was that he would have liked a  bit  closer look at the doorframe, or just a little bit out of angle, or frustration at someone’s focus being a little bit out. That was why you took  lots  of photos of course, but it was still a gnawing anxiety in him that they were going to just  miss something. All he had were his eyes through someone else’s lense and someone else’s word to take for it. 

Which he was very bad at liking. 

….but that was just what this was, he guessed. The case was from five years prior. A body of an older woman on the floor of an enclosed porch. Broken glass. Gunshot wound to the left shoulder, close enough to the heart she’d probably been dead within a minute or two, long before the first police officers had arrived. A bullet hole in the wall behind her. Fallen out of her chair. Glass window of the porch had shattered. A bullet had been extracted from the wall, looking like a .22– moderately furnished house with plastic sheeting over the couches. Wicker chairs. An expensive security system had captured what were rendered as stills of the moment the bullets entered the cameras view, and a man a minute or so later on the front door at the other side of the house, running inside, presumably to inspect.

There were other things. They seemed comfortably middle to upper-middle class, from the photos, and finally turning to look at the profiles confirmed it. 68. White. Retired with a moderate stipend. Married thirty years. No priors or connections that Bruce might consider linking to any of the people  he knew. Just things like public intoxication, driving violations, a few fines—

Her husband was found with her, and owned the same caliber gun that had broken the glass encasement, shot the woman, and knocked her out of her chair before lodging in the wall. He’d run in from across the street to investigate the gunshot, he said. He denied doing the deed, and circumstantial evidence was not enough to make a conviction on—

...Bruce flipped through the folder again, frowning. 

Flash, who had pulled out his phone, looked up. “Something?”

“...what is it you want me to say about this?” It was a neatly put together file. Very neatly. No real loose ends, if everything in it was true. What was he supposed to be catching, here?

“Just, I guess, your thoughts. Anything stand out?” He took the moment to arch his back and stretch his arms out a bit, one hand still holding the phone. Smiled a bit. Friendly. 

Bruce frowned while looking at Flash this time. 

“This is a test,” he stated, “and I doubt just to see if I’d throw out a name just to be ‘useful.’”

Flash blinked innocently at him, but he was still smiling. “I mean, haha, can’t blame us too much…? You found a  lot of trafficking chains, but, I mean—“

“The case has already been closed, and you’re certain of who did it,” said Bruce flatly. He flipped the folder shut and shoved it back across the table. “I’d rather see the scene myself, but if the numbers are right, the bullet hole is too steep an angle for a flat lawn if the husband shot from shoulder height. Someone half his height, or someone kneeling  or lying in the grass. He’s old enough to have trouble getting up from that position, much less from the edge of the yard, to run around to the front of the house and avoid grass stains from a new cut lawn. There’s not enough other information to know who might’ve had a motive to make it professional or not.” 

…

Flash blinked at him, leaning his elbows on the table to watch. He wasn’t smiling or laughing anymore. Good.

“Yeah,” Flash said. Moved the folder off the table, to the booth seat, out of view. “Some kids were playing with their new .22 in the yard across from the house and accidentally shot her through the window. They confessed a few months ago.”

It was a small enough crime that news wouldn’t have made it to Gotham. Or been widely publicized at all, if ‘kids’ meant they were  still minors. That would make them thirteen at most at the time of the shooting—

Bruce wasn’t sure if his throat was full of acid or metal as he said, “Is there anything else for me to look over?” 

Flash hesitated a moment (an eternity for him, surely) and said, “Well…”

Bruce stood and made a  straight fucking line to the door Dick had been pulled in and not yet emerged. Flash called out, “Hey—!”

….even as the hand fell on his shoulder and tried to pull him back, Bruce had frozen in the doorway. 

On the other side, he could only see a bit— the doorframe was too narrow and he dared not step closer—but he could see enough.

He’d wondered, a little bit, why Robin hadn’t emerged when he’d begun speaking. Surely he was loud enough to be heard from the back room. They were only meant to be separated minutes. Just a quick mission. Now, he could see, though—

Dick, sitting on an industrial chest freezer, his legs kicking, not near touching the floor. 

He was holding a popsicle. One of the fudge ones. Partly eaten and the top of the stick beginning to show, and Robin didn’t see how it was beginning to drip down over the crinkled plastic wrap, and would soon run over his fingers. 

He was busy, looking at Kid Fash. Kid Flash squatting on the floor with a creamsicle, holding it up to the color of his suit, and visibly whining with an orange tongue, a pouting face—

And Robin ignored his own melting ice cream to laugh.

...Flash’s hand tugged on his shoulder again, this time gentle enough that Bruce felt it. He turned with the pressure, and headed back for the booth. 

He sat down in it, across from Flash and his already-solved case folder. 

“...this was not for case files, was it,” Bruce said, staring at the table between them, feeling very stupid and small. 

“I mean,” Flash said, looking almost as embarrassed as Bruce was shamed. “...we did want to know. But… we thought maybe my uh, my cousin could use someone who could relate to him.” 

Ah yes. For  Kid Flash’s sake. For the boy who they’d never seen publicized before, who was complaining about his outfit color as if he hadn’t chosen it, who didn’t know that in Flash’s ‘occasional empty diner hideout’ he was allowed to run off and eat before being told. 

Not for the boy that for the past month Diana’s pitying face had hung over, the boy who had eagerly asked to Superman to stay for dinner, and who Martian Manhunter would deliver sleeves of choco cookies to, even though they had more than enough money to purchase a box for themselves.

...perhaps Bruce should be glad Flash wasn’t the best at lying. Perhaps Bruce was too used to looking for tells, and mistook super speed masking for the truth. 

“I see,” was all he said. 

When he’d been a child, there had been plenty of others who knew death, and who had never moved him an inch for all their crying. He’d done his best to make that untrue for Dick the past few years, and now they knew each other’s grief inside and out. 

Bruce did not know what else to do from there. 

It was grief all the way down. 

“He’ll need to learn how to counter people who might actually know how to fight speedsters,” he said, watching the table. “There’s pads in the basement, if he’d like to improve sparring with Dick sometimes.”

Flash blinked at him again. Flash sat up straighter, grinning. “Oh?”

“Oh,” Bruce agreed, looking up to scowl. “But for fuck’s sake, bring more than one casefile next time.”

—

On Robin’s anniversary, a gang fight breaks out in the Diamond District.

Something gone wrong. A shootout.

Bruce isn’t sure if it could’ve been called a shootout before the police arrive. By the end of the night, the building is on fire, and a gas vein has blown. Heavy smoke drifting down the street causes a panic, and then a stampede— 

He doesn’t want to let Robin out tonight. 

On the news, it looks like there are fights breaking out in the stampede. There are people lying down, specks of color on the ground as the helicopter news anchor tries to describe the scene. She’s pure professional. Cold eyes. Clear eyes.

The smoke momentarily engulfs the helicopter, and she begins crying. 

He does not want to let Robin out tonight.

He will deal with the outrage in the morning. 

—

(On Robin’s anniversary, Harvey Dent sees the fires and hears gunshots from his hospital room. He drags himself and his IV stand away from the bed, towards the window, and fumbles with the latch with ineffective hands. The nurses come with the heart monitor alert. When they sedate him, Harvey is still screaming “Burn it down, burn it down.” )

—

...as often as it happens, Bruce doesn’t think Gotham knows how to deal with tragedy. Wasn’t it common by now? Weren’t they used to it? But as much as the flags should’ve flown half mast and statues been erected, the world stood still— the next morning, school busses take the children to school, and their parents march out to work. 

Bruce has a distinct face, but with enough makeup and a red wig, he can seem to be a different person for a while. He can dress himself up as officer and with enough confidence and disdain walk right passed the caution tape and into the crime scene the next morning. 

Is it still accurate to call several city blocks a crime scene? Is it a crime scene at all? 

There’s caution tape around it. He knows what the words mean in his head. A shape, more than a real definition, with real letters attached— a block of space that has crumbled differently from the world around him. A depression of buildings, some with more tarps laid down than others. 

Most of the bodies have been taken to the morgue by now. Not all of them. But most. 

Is he going to sneak into the morgue tonight? Is he going to cut open an innocent person who gave no consent to him? To do more than what their family may have agreed to? Will he just steal the coroner’s report and assume they did their jobs properly? 

….it is Gotham. He will assume nothing until proven otherwise. Even now it feels like the police are more rattled than usual, like something has actually gone and bitten them and made them pay a bit more attention.

Inside the building where the shootout started, he starts to look for the bullet holes and take pictures. He looks for scorch marks to track towards the origins of the blaze. 

He doesn’t find a blown gas vein, no matter how hard he looks. 

There was a difference between a storage building and a warehouse. This was a storage building. It had perhaps had a secretary and some organizers. Someone in charge of keeping track of records. There had been unused parts of the building. Bare rooms without much beyond stripped light switches and unpainted walls. One or two empty office spaces, for meetings perhaps. For presentations. 

It was on the second floor where he found the lab. What appeared to be the remains of a lab, in any case. It had been shot up through the floors, and the papers had burnt up in the fire. Police hadn’t officially come up this high yet. The stairs didn’t seem stable. Bruce had not specifically used the stairs. As long as no one saw him slip back down, it would be fine. 

It seemed as if the lab had not been in use at the time of the shootout. Fortunate. The beakers were broken, but they were all clustered together near the sink, clean, and so presumably had all been put away after any use. There was nothing sitting out that seemed to have been mid-use. He would’ve believed a Bunsen burner might’ve started part of the fire, but there was none of that, either. 

...there  was one thing. A broken tankard in the corner that had caused most of the damage, to be certain. A high caliber round seemed to have punctured it, either from the floor below or fired from the hall outside. Otherwise, there would’ve been another body up here, or at least the remnants of one. But the sudden decompression seemed to have mostly left just… a badly scattered room and shrapnel damage on the opposing wall. 

He was about to move to the next room when he noticed the faint texture inside the tank and a matching sort of stain on the ceiling above. 

...he moved closer to the tank, holding his breath and not daring to hope (should he be  hoping  for something?) and investigated. 

A thin layer of green-ish white powder layered the insides of the tankard. An explosive cloud of the stuff must have also flown towards the ceiling and stained it during decompression. He’d assumed it was an oxygen tank. Assumed wrong. 

Taking out a few q-tips, he picked up a few wipes and sealed them away in an evidence bag, did another once-over of the room, now trying to double check everything and ignore his ‘assumptions’, but the burnt papers remained largely illegible, and the cleaned lab materials yielded nothing new. 

He moved on to the next room, and slipped out quietly from there to check the rest of the street. 

—

He arrived back home in different clothes just about the time that Dick (picked up by Alfred) returned home from school. 

The kid looks at Bruce as Bruce enters the front room, and a silent but perceptible drone passes between them. 

For a moment, Bruce simply looked back, wondering what it was he was supposed to say here. 

Eventually, he fumbles in his pockets and pulled out dust-covered q-tips. They’d done this lots of times on the road, hadn’t they? And it had been fun, then. “Want to help identify oddly colored dust?” 

Dick lets his head drop back with an open-mouthed groan at the ceiling, but he does come to the garage lab without… any other response than that sound and movement.

...Bruce was not sure what that meant. 

—

Who the  fuck was rigging exploding nitrous oxide cans to deliver green-dyed powdered LSD?

—

Monday, at the park, he tells the ones who show up they can stay and work in the park as they’ve been doing the last two weeks, or they can come with him to help clean up the areas damaged by the fire.  

Most of them, eight out of the ten, peel off to go help with the fire damage. He can’t say he expected that. But they wander out of the park, keeping together in a group, and spend the day with magnet sticks picking up nails and crooked metal and stacking bricks up out of the walkway. They hose down the ashes to stop dust and at Bruce’s insistence, scoop the ashes into garbage bags instead of just washing it all into the sewer. 

It gets him some weird looks, but no one is ready to argue with him after only working for two weeks, because these are the ones who  stayed  for that daily stipend-- there’s not a contract here; these ten are the ones who hate this work less than anything else they might’ve had available, so they break out two flat shovels and bag things up, wearing cotton masks to avoid inhalation. Bruce trots back to the park to get the truck and pick up all those bags for disposal.

He’s prepared for the ones they left behind to have skipped out early, unsupervised, but as he rounds the (now lower) hedges to look at their base of operations he finds… they actually have acquired an extra person. 

No, the shovels aren’t moving and the hedges don’t look that different from what they’d been like this morning, but that’s still not  abandoning a position. And instead they have some soda cans from the nearby vending machine, and are leaning on a termite-eaten picnic table, talking with rapt interest to Dick Grayson. 

Bruce paused to take it in a second time. Dick certainly clocked him coming into view even though the kid didn’t turn to look his direction. Dick was still there, though, sitting on the other side of the picnic table with a fizzy orange juice and his legs crossed under himself. It wasn’t Bruce’s day to pick him up, Bruce was certain, and yet he had a moment where he had to think of it again to make sure, and checked his phone, and his pocket schedule. But his instinct was right, and it was indeed Alfred’s day to pick Dick up from school while Bruce worked here in the park--

He started to walk over just as Dick turned and raised a hand in greeting, letting the recruits cue into his presence before he was close enough to startle them. And yet, they were still startled enough to look at their shovels and very obviously say “shit,” even when Bruce was still too far away to actually hear it. Then, one seemed to realize they had cursed in front of a tween, said “shit” again, and smacked themselves on the forehead.

Dick’s nose wrinkled up as he smiled. Bruce couldn’t hear it, but he knew it was a laughter snort. 

(He did not acknowledge his jaw untensing as he walked up to Dick who was smiling and sociable again.) 

He came over intending to smile and say words and have a nice conversation, and… then he was close enough and realized he didn’t know what to say. Did he tell them not to corrupt Dick? Would they take that as him implying they were poisonous to others? Would Dick take that as him being protective and spoil the mild good mood? If he told them to take the rest of the day off since clearly things weren’t going to happen, was that dismissal? Or was that chasing them off? Would it be a threat to their paycheck, even though he intended to pay the day’s wages fair as always?

Things seemed to be going almost well lately. The park was slowly being cleaned and Dick was in better spirits than he’d been for two days since the anniversary--

“Oh, he stalled out, don’t worry about it.” 

It is not  embarrassment, but Bruce does snap out of his train of thought and back into the present. “Sorry,” he says, and looks to the two grown men in their baggy jackets and laced up work boots and secondhand hats. “We’re just finishing cleaning up some of the ash. If you come help move the last bit, we’ll all call it a day.”

As they got up and started shuffling away from the picnic table, Bruce did glance at Dick, and after a moment of still confusion, say, “Coming?” 

...the expression Dick gives him was not a smile. But he did come. 

-- 

They throw the garbage bags in the back of the trunk, and pack it largely to the brim. Surreptitiously, before Dick can climb into the passenger seat, Bruce digs out a simple dust mask and hands it to him. With barely a second look, Dick puts it on and rolls down the window before settling in. It’s smooth, and no one asks questions or looks much askance, because he and Dick are good by now at not announcing  something is happening that is different than normal to the world at large. 

(And Dick has become very good at seeing through that with Bruce, but Bruce is… starting to wonder if perhaps, he has taught Dick too well to hide anything that would draw attention that something was wrong. Like a wounded animal could run on a broken leg, or a predator bleed from the mouth, and neither would ever make a peep.)

They drove the bags of ashes home to hide behind the house’s perimeter walls, and Bruce tried to explain. The dust, and the huge plume of heat and smoke that could’ve blown even heavy particles down the street, and the sort of cues that psychedelics took from the state you were in. How most people probably wouldn’t exactly get a good trip, surrounded by gunfire and smoke. And maybe there was something else he missed, in the ash, unsafe for casual disposal, how he wasn’t  certain he hadn’t missed something--

Dick laid his head back on the car seat, sighing through his mask, and Bruce stopped his mumbling.

Glanced over. 

“...maybe I can… arrange for Flash to take a look, if you want to come along,” he offered as they pulled onto their street.

Dick sat up a little straighter, a little light in his eyes.

--

...he wondered, maybe unkindly (but mostly tiredly), if Dick would rather move in with the Flash and his sidekick. He didn’t have any real evidence for this. Kids did tend to be fairly excited to see friends around their own age, and just because someone might enjoy a trip to a festival didn’t mean they wanted to live in one.

...yet, Dick probably would’ve been quite happy, adopted into a renaissance fair circuit.

Maybe it wasn’t that Dick needed more friends. Maybe the issue was Bruce.

But it’s too late to change that now, isn’t it? Dick drew his line in the sand in front of the Justice League, and Bruce had given him too many secrets to have to keep, and there was nowhere else to go. 

—

Bruce goes to Gotham Academy early. Very early. Two hours before pickup is meant to be.

Dick has gotten into a fight. 

The parents of the other kid are already there when Bruce arrives and is shown to the principal’s office (it is in the same place it has been since Bruce went here) and ushered inside to the sound of anger and snapping threats. 

The office is wood, with a centered carpet and a large mahogany desk at the center, and surrounded by three adults and two children, one of them his. 

Dick doesn’t have a scratch on him, unless you count a faint bruise starting to show on his knuckles. The other boy, who is bigger and taller in every way, has a tissue up to his nose and an ice pack on his ear, and is simultaneously shielded and towered over by his two parents, neither of whom have stopped arguing with the principal since Bruce arrived. 

He barely gets a chance to get to Dick’s chair by the wall when he is also pulled into the argument by a “Is  this little heathen yours, Mister Malone?” from the mother. 

Things are not going to improve from there, he’s pretty sure.

“What’s going on?” he asks the principal instead, who is a balding white man with age spots on his face and horn-rimmed glasses on his nose. 

“ Master Richard here has assaulted Master Reynolds--” the principal begins.

“--and we will be pressing charges if adequate disciplinary action is not taken,” says the father.

“But what actually happened,” Bruce says, and somehow the noise gets louder in the room. Not the physical noise of three or four people talking at once, but also the hot dissent from Dick in his corner, the hidden bloodied fear of the boy he attacked, the principal patting the desk with his hands over and over, trying to call attention back to himself. Fluorescent lights bright as static. Itchy polyester fake turkish carpets even though his shoes. The room is small and red-orange with wood stained to look like cherry, yellow copper accents on the studs of cushions and trophies and the frames of portraits and certificates hung on the clustered walls--

Dick is suspended three weeks. 

--

Dick is curled in the front seat of the car, furious that Bruce didn’t defend him enough and fight back, and get his sentence reduced or vetoed entirely. His body is balled up tight enough he’s no bigger than he was at eight, curled around the seatbelt in a haze of fury. 

“He was  picking on people  ,” Dick says in a way Bruce knows means Dick had seen it before, but this time it had crossed a line. “  He should be suspended.”

‘He’ is getting two stitches and a formal apology written (ostensibly) by Dick. Dick will not be the one writing it, even if it’s his name at the bottom. ‘He’ will be in school, not in trouble for bullying but now with free reign to his targets without Dick to stand in the way. If Dick was even in the way before at all. If being in the way without being physical meant anything in this case. 

“You’ll just have to be more subtle about it,” Bruce says, trying to be encouraging. Because Dick didn’t do anything  wrong to step in. Maybe it didn’t deserve a bloody nose, maybe it could’ve been handled some other way, but he still hasn’t been able to wrangle the exact story out of anyone but he is certain that--

Dick goes “RRR” and kicks the windshield hard enough that Bruce startles and slams on the breaks. 

Their seatbelts jerk tight and a car horn behind them blares. 

...there is the faintest tap on their bumper, but Bruce is already speeding the car forward again, heart pounding too hard to stop. 

There’s not even a scratch when they get out at their house later.

--

He goes to Dick’s bedside in the evening. Dick’s lying on top of his covers with the lights turned off in a darkening room, staring at the wall opposite the door. There was music playing before, but the CD player turned off as soon as Bruce turned the door handle. 

He sits by Dick’s bedside and asks if he’d like to go out for the evening. 

Dick agrees, but there isn’t much laughter that night, except the sort Robin scares people with.

The mood is still there the next morning.

--

It is Superman’s turn to check in. Apparently. 

The visit is unscheduled (and probably because of  Dick’s suspension) and today involves casserole, which Bruce is primed automatically to dislike. 

"Yes?" Bruce says upon seeing big blue and buoyant in their kitchen, hovering over the kitchen island with a glass dish covered in aluminium and Alfred looking over a handwritten paper beside him. 

"Oh, hey, good morning there," Superman says, as if he's surprised to see Bruce here when there was no other person for him to be there to  see . "I was just dropping off the casserole recipe Alfred wanted to try."

…one of the only people for him to be here to see. But Bruce still doubted a casserole was a real reason for a whole visit. So Bruce tries again. "Did you need something?"

Alfred looks up from the paper with a frown and without a word starts shooing them out of the cooking space if they're going to be talking business. "I dunno. Was there something you needed to talk about?" 

They make it to the couches of the living room, though neither of them sit down. 

"No," says Bruce.

"Alright then," says Superman, who Bruce is learning is an asshole. "I heard some stuff happened with Dick at school?"

Which is entirely unsubtle and a very clear sign that Superman is not leaving until Bruce asks  some  sort of question or resolves whatever this is. 

So fine. Bruce hasn't even had some fucking coffee yet. He'll ask a question. "What would you do if your child, who is aware that at nightime they can go out and punch abusers and rapists, during the daytime attempted to defend an underclassman, and as a result are threatened with criminal action or suspension while you are trying to lie low and causing a big fuss about it and fighting the decision will do the exact opposite of laying low, severely limiting their freedom regardless of if we win."

Like a coward, Superman's expression says he had been thinking of Dick as a kid who was not  Dick , and sheepishly says, "I guess, what would your parents do?"

Bruce thinks he feels it this time. The expression on his face turning colder. He feels it the same way Dick can always see the change. "I wouldn't know that, now, would I?"

...this was why he left in the first place, wasn't it. This eternal loop of days upon days surrounded by people who just  forgot or never could let him forget. It's been easier as an adult, almost-- it's normal now for people's parents to be dead. It's normal to not have people ask after them like limbs they can't see have detached. Even if Superman doesn't know his old name, doesn't know that stupid story about a boy billionaire and his rich family, its jarring to realize that even the most alien being on earth just assumes--

--well, of course. He would know  all  humans have parents. 

But the bite in Bruce's voice is cold enough, and the way Alfred's slight shuffling in the kitchen goes quiet, it's enough to get through apparently-- Superman's head is ducked down embarrassed and he says, "right, sorry," because perhaps Bruce returning to Gotham to the fucking Wayne Butler's House should've been enough reason to realize he didn't have any family left of his own. "The person who raised you…"

"Nothing they said," Bruce interrupts, "has ever done anything about this."

…

Maybe he's angry. He hasn't had any coffee yet. But he turns to end this conversation and walk out to the garden, and hears Alfred's sigh from the kitchen. 

But he's telling the truth. 

Even if Alfred had found something new to say in the years since Bruce tried to bite his therapist's face off, if he's tried to say it to Dick, it clearly hasn't been working. 

--

There is a thing like a piston beating up against his head. A hammering rhythmically at the front of his skull. One thing, then another, then another, then another, and when he wakes up the next morning to one more ring there will still be all the ones behind him, echoing through the halls still unresolved. 

He wasn’t made to live like this. How was anyone made to live like this? One thing after another and another and when he wakes up in the morning there are still more banal, useless things to do in a world that eats up and eats up and eats up--

How does the grocery store clerk wake up each morning? How does she go to bed at night knowing the same thing will happen the next day, but worse, and more tired, and less pay, over and over, for eternity.

[al-fletcher]

Two-Face story pitch (working title: “Caudillo”)

This post was mostly inspired by reviews and musings about Two-Face by @about-faces — all scans are also by him, so full credit to Hef here.

tl;dr — Harvey Dent and Helena Bertinelli clean up Santa Prisca together, until it all comes crashing down.

The nucleus of this idea originates from two different strands, the first being that according to Batman Annual #13 (“Faces”, by James Owsley/Christopher Priest and Michael Bair), Two-Face maintains a hideout in Santa Prisca:

(The guy in green is Batman is disguise, but that’s a long story so let’s put that aside for the time being...)

I swear the review from which I got this scan had Hef envisioning Two-Face sipping mojitos in a white suit on its balcony, but it appears my memory has failed me actually it was in the comments. At any rate, that image isn’t too far removed from this great piece by Dustin Nguyen, which pretty much forms my mental image of Harvey for this story:

(Source)

In further evidence of my increasing cretinousness, I swear Hef’s Face the Face review had something along the lines of pondering the possibility of Harvey and Huntress (Bertinelli, not Wayne) teaming up, but once again, it’s not there! I must be losing it. The last time they ever came close to working together was in No Man’s Land, which eventually ended in tears, but enjoy the little wave he gives her here for now:

(Source)

Anyway, I’d like to explore the potential dynamic between them, what with Harvey’s...unusual approach to law and order, and Helena’s usually-more-brutal-than-most-of-the-Batfamily methods, set in the context of Santa Prisca, that hive of lawlessness(, scum and villany), with just a small touch of ~social commentary~.

The actual plot would involve Helena travelling to Santa Prisca to hunt down associates of the people responsible for her family’s deaths and bring them to justice (TIL it appears that only the DCAU has Steven Mandragora as chief party to the massacre), and somehow being cognisant, maybe through Oracle, that Harvey Dent keeps a base there, and makes him her first point of contact.

Two-Face, who happens to be hiding out there at the moment, offers her a deal: if she helps him and his gang out (working name: the Double Cross Gang, employing double daggers ‡ as their symbol), he’ll gladly give her a lead. Additionally, Harvey, beyond his Gotham connections, recognises Helena because her family’s tragic end was one of the first cases he ever worked on as a mid-level deputy in the DA’s office, and he even interviewed her at one point.

The chief point in her even considering this partnership, or contract, is that Santa Prisca has recently fallen on hard times with natural disasters (be they earthquakes or tornadoes, seeing as the Caribbean has been struck by both in recent times), and in keeping with themes dating as far back as his Golden Age origin, Harvey is in fact acting as his district’s philanthropist:

(Source)

Under Harvey’s leadership, the Double Cross, or Dos Cruces, gang has been organising relief and providing protection against looters and other predatory gangs, forming a law unto itself (with obvious parallels to NML here), even subordinating the local police force under his control. Thus, Two-Face and Huntress strike up a working relationship not unlike a bizarro version of Gordon and Batman’s (and Harvey’s before the acid hit):

(Source)

The main difference here is that Two-Face is basically using Helena as chief enforcer against the chiefs of other gangs, leading to Helena being highly conflicted about the whole matter, seeing as she nominally should be acting in the interest of the law — but then again, in a place as lawless as Santa Prisca, what is justice, really? Is what Harvey’s doing any worse than what the local authorities could manage? Does that in any way justify his intervention?

I don’t know how exactly it would end — probably with some sudden yet inevitable betrayal, maybe by a local lieutenant fearful of an American takeover of their operation, or by Harvey’s disgruntled vassals in the police force — but it would (as with all things Harvey Dent, sadly) come crashing down, probably explosively since this is a comics-inspired story, after all.

If Batman was to appear at all in this story, it’d only be right at the end to bring Harvey back to Gotham, and maybe trade some musings with Helena as they contemplate the ruins.

That’s what I’ve got so far. What do you guys think?

N.B. “Caudillo” is a Spanish term meaning “leader” which eventually came to be adopted by military strongmen in the Latino world, and by everyone’s favourite falangist Francisco Franco himself, in case you didn’t already know.

@about-faces @possessedloser @mirrorfalls

[not-for-granted]

This is really good art.  But this whole post reminds me of what I said regarding Harvey Dent’s D&D alignment(s) years ago, since there was some small but contentious disagreement over what he might be given years and years of inconsistency with the writing of his character. Harvey Dent is Lawful Good. This should be self-evident in how he’s an incorruptible DA trying to bring criminals to justice in a city that he loves. His ‘Big Bad Harv’ side, the side he keeps buried down, is Chaotic Evil. It is his Id that urges him to act on violent impulses, selfish desires, and seek retribution for slights both real and imagined. So his ‘Two-Face’ persona, that he presents to the world and is the core character that would be played in a D&D setting? If he became a scarred vigilante, ala Darkman, he might’ve been Chaotic Good, but in his pursuit to clean up his city by becoming a crime-lord / supervillain, he’s decidedly Lawful Evil. That coin that he uses isn’t to be chaotic, it’s to help him decide in a fair, just, lawful way what to do when confronted with an important choice. And his main targets, even as a member of the Batman Rogues, usually are other criminals, especially if they escaped justice when he was DA.

We all love the "becoming the very thing you sought to destroy," trope. but I have a growing fondness for "destroying the very thing you sought to become"

[misfitgirlwrites]

Chapter Six

        "He didn't touch you, did he?" Bruce asked as he drove down the street.

        "Nope. I'm perfectly fine." 

        "You're not perfectly fine if you're asking for Scotch." He glanced at her.

        "Well, I'm decent." Aniyah shrugged.

        "Decent enough to talk about it?" He asked.

        Aniyah nodded, looking at Bruce, "I didn't think it was that bad, I mean, it could've been worse. Considering he pretended to be in his straight-jacket the whole time." 

        "And you said he killed the DA?" Bruce asked.

        "It couldn't have been anyone else. Bruce, he gives me the creeps." Aniyah shivered.

        "I can imagine."

        "He asked me if I believed in love at first sight. I'm worried about that." She continued on.

        "Love at first sight? Is that what he calls it?" Bruce glanced at Aniyah before looking back at the road.

        Bruce zoned Aniyah out as he sighed quietly. Anything that could possibly happen to Aniyah if The Joker broke out of his cell again ran through his head, making him tighten his grip on the steering wheel, "Think about this, Aniyah," he started.

        "Yeah, what's up?" She looked at him.

        "If The Joker is serious about his, love at first sight claim, imagine what could happen." 

        "Yes, Mr. Billionaire, make me paranoid." Aniyah deadpanned, sitting back, "More dead bodies would end up in my car." She mumbled.

        "Think worse than that. The Joker doesn't do the same thing twice."

        "If he breaks out of his cell again, he might actually leave the Asylum this time and--" Aniyah bit her lip, cutting herself off.

        "And come for you." Bruce finished, "I'm not going to force you to do anything. I'm not going to nag you about it either. You know that I care about you and I don't want to see you hurt. So you should really consider leaving while you have the chance." 

        Aniyah nodded, "I'll consider it. But, since we've hit the caring part of this subject. How long have we been friends, Bruce?"

        "Since we were four." He smiled slightly.

        "Exactly. And I'll always be here for you. We've been friends for a long time, so you should know by know how I feel about you bottling your emotions." Aniyah sat up in her seat and leaned on the armrest, giving him a stern look, "And honestly, as your best friend, I don't like finding out that Rachel was engaged to Harvey Dent and that The Joker killed her, through research." 

        "I know you don't." Bruce sighed.

        "I know it's a touchy topic, but I know you're not okay Bruce, so next time, come to your best friend for help, or Alfred, because he'll tell me anyway," Aniyah smirked as Bruce chuckled.

        "How's Mom doing?" He asked, changing the subject.

        "Mom is fine, I guess. She misses you."

        "Who wouldn't?"

        "Bruce. We're going to fight, okay? You and this cocky attitude." Aniyah laughed.

        "Does she know you're here?" Bruce asked, chuckling.

        "Eh. No? Not that she cares. I think she's still in Germany working on her art."

        "That'll be a conversation I don't want to miss. You sound a little jealous." Bruce mumbled, parking his car.

        "Hardy har har. Funny." Aniyah rolled her eyes playfully, getting out of the car.

        Once Aniyah and Bruce sat down in the restaurant, she sighed, rubbing her arms.

        "I should've brought a jacket." She mumbled.

        "Can't say I didn't tell you." Bruce shrugged, taking off his jacket and tossing it to her. 

        Aniyah rolled her eyes and smiled slightly, putting it on, "Oh, I meant to ask since you pulled me away from my laptop before I could find out myself," She glanced at Bruce, "What happened to Batman?"

        Bruce shrugged, "On the news, it says he killed Harvey Dent."

        "What? He couldn't have done that." Aniyah shook her head.

        "And why do you think that?" He asked as a waiter came with a bottle of Scotch and two glasses. "He did act like he was above the law--"

        "But, the law isn't much help when it comes to criminals like Joker. Or else there wouldn't have been a dead body in my car." She pointed out. "And last time I checked, criminals were terrified of Batman, so whatever he was doing, he was doing it right." She added, pouring Scotch into her glass.

        Bruce smiled slightly, "You're defending a vigilante who, one: disappeared, two: is wanted for killing a District Attorney, and three: you've never seen before." He stated.

        "Honestly, I think Gotham still needs Batman." Aniyah downed her first glass and poured herself some more.

        "It's kind of like a comic book. This city is in major need of a hero."

        Bruce's smile faltered, letting her words sink in.

        "I mean, me and you grew up in Gotham. This place, as fucked up and corrupted as it is, is still our home. You wouldn't want to see this town burn, would you?" Aniyah raised an eyebrow.

        "No. No, I wouldn't." 

        "And Batman felt the same. He was brave enough to take matters into his own hands. He's a hero in my book." Aniyah downed her second glass.

        "Let's get you some food before you down the whole bottle." Bruce chuckled.

        Aniyah smiled and nodded. ~~~~~~         "You can't take one experience and just assume things like that. She's in Arkham for a reason."

        "Yeah, yeah, I get that! But I feel it. Poison Ivy just has a point to prove--"

        "And she's proving it by trying to destroy Gotham." 

        "...True." Aniyah chuckled, playing with the leftover food on her plate, "But still, she seemed interesting."

        "I guess you can say that." Bruce put his fork down and grabbed his napkin to wipe his face.

        "...Do you really think he'll escape again?" Aniyah looked at Bruce as he stared back at her before shrugging.

        "You shouldn't waste your time thinking about what an unpredictable man might do next." He said.

        "...So what am I supposed to do? Sit and wait for him to come to me?" Aniyah sighed.

        "That, or go back with Michaela."

        They both stared at each other. Aniyah sighed, pouring herself some more Scotch.

        "Okay, look. We both know you're too stubborn to leave. So why keep bringing it up? The best thing to do is to keep up with everything. Talk to his doctor. Make sure you're safe." Bruce said.

        Aniyah nodded, "Okay, I will. But, I'm ready to head home now."

        "Too many drinks?"

        "Shut up and take me home, Mr. Billionaire." Aniyah chuckled, getting up.

        "As you wish, Lady Blueberry."

        "You know I hate that, Bruce, stop!" She snorted.

        "But you laughed, so I don't really think you hate it." Bruce chuckled as they left the restaurant.

[daleisgreat]

Batman: Dark Knight Rises

I picked up the BluRay for today’s film, 2012’s Batman: Dark Knight Rises (trailer), shortly after it hit video way back in 2012. I have neglected it to the backlog for so long because by the time I saw it in theaters I overdid it on the caped crusader’s films and needed a break. I say this because to get hyped for director Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film I watched the four Batman films from Burton & Shumacher in the weeks leading up to Dark Knight Rises and our local theater was doing a release day special to watch all three of the Christopher Nolan Batman films in a row which a friend and I did after I got done helping him move earlier in the day. It made for a long day, and while it was an unforgettable experience, it was still spending nearly half a day in the theater and I kind of associated the Nolan films with that memory for a period of time and so I needed a break from them for a bit. Nolan was riding high after the critical and commercial success of his previous two Batman films, so expectations were through the roof for Dark Knight Rises. This picks up in the aftermath of The Dark Knight’s ending where Batman indirectly killed a rogue Harvey Dent, but him and Commissioner Gordon decided to cover-up Dent’s darker half and celebrate Dent as a fallen hero that Gotham needed to absolve its crime dilemma. It is now eight years later and both Batman and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) have disappeared from the public eye. The first act helps establish a new evil is on the rise going by Bane (Tom Hardy), who quickly accumulates power and establishes a base in Gotham’s sewers that prompts Wayne and Batman both to return to Gotham and meet his biggest foe yet.

Dark Knight Rises introduces a few other new players to Nolan’s films with the biggest standout being anti-hero master thief, Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman (Anne Hathaway). This was my first major exposure to her and she is flawless as Batman’s off-and-on ally. Officer Blake (Joseph-Gordon Levitt) is an up-and-comer for Gotham PD, and is one of the more proactive members of the force to react to the Bane threat and quickly gains trust from both Batman and Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman). Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) is trying to become a player in Gotham by establishing a future clean energy source. Upon this re-watch I was flabbergasted I completely forgot about Detective Foley (Matthew Modine) who is an incompetent cop who wants to bust Batman. It would be criminal if they were absent, but Nolan knew it would not be a Batman film from him without the returning affable Batman allies in tech-man Luscious Fox (Morgan Freeman) and his loyal butler Alfred (Michael Caine). I loved the first two acts of Dark Knight Rises. Nolan does a great job at establishing the new characters with Selina taking advantage of her stealth and cunning to keep me guessing which side she is really on and Bane gradually amassing resources and power to become a legitimate threat to Gotham. I loved how it plays off the consequences from the aftermath of The Dark Knight in a big way to set up the present-day Gotham. There is a fine balance of action and exposition sequences that constantly kept me glued in for the next big set-piece sequence. There is the nice gradual build in pacing in the first two hours when there is this sudden shift into overdrive I was never fully able to settle in with to the film’s detriment.

A nice side-effect from holding off nearly eight years to re-watch Dark Knight Rises is that I recall some negative press from critics on how Nolan’s trilogy wrapped up and I wanted to distance myself from it to go into this again with a fresh set of eyes. The chief criticism I recall was there being not a lot of fans for the voice used for Bane. The Elephant Man-esque voice has been the butt of many Internet jokes in the years since. I will admit, it does not sound all that menacing, but it grew on me throughout the film and that combined with Tom Hardy’s excellent use of body language resulted in it not coming off as a hindrance all these years later. A qualm I vaguely remembered is that even though Dark Knight Rises is two hours and forty-five minutes long, it flies by because it tries to crunch in about four hours’ worth of cinema into that timeframe. This is not knew from Nolan, and as a matter of fact he is usually pretty good at this type of filmmaking and making longer films breeze by with his brisk cinematography in mind-benders like Inception and The Prestige. However, I do not know whether if it was due to a poor script, clashes with corporate officials, budget or filming restraints, but something happened with the filmmaking here that results in many ‘straighten-your-tie’ moments. Minor-yet-pivotal points of the plot happened in a blink-of-an-eye, and there were several points where I found myself rewinding to pick up on some of these little details. This mostly breaks down in the final act where a lot happens in terms of events and time passing by. Bane pulls off a power grab at a football game in a big trailer-pleasing moment (featuring one completely unaware of his surroundings Heinz Ward) while Batman is banished to a mysterious pit. A lot of time goes by while Gotham succumbs to martial law, but the way it all plays out seems haphazard and confusing to keep up with. It felt like Nolan was told he had a half hour to forty-five minutes of cuts to make to keep the film under three hours and he chose the all-important final act to take the brunt of the cuts.

The last stretch of action also comes off clumsy and rushed. It requires a lot of suspension of disbelief where the seemingly unstoppable Bane established in the first three quarters of the film all of a sudden comes off as easy pickings for Batman and Catwoman. I get the whole ‘Batman does not kill’ edict from DC comics, but this once again leads to Nolan having to find another way for Batman to indirectly kill off a major villain for the third film in a row, but it comes off incredibly weak on-screen. Finally, there are convenient lines of dialogue thrown out for Batman somehow surviving a severe stabbing and escaping a six mile nuclear bomb blast radius…..sorry Bats, but I simply could not buy it. The BluRay has a bonus disc that has nearly three hour of bonus features on it. Far and away the marquee extra is The Batmobile. It is an hour long, in-depth look at the history of the Batmobile from its humble beginnings in the comics and early TV serials, until it started to really pop in the Adam West 60s TV show and evolved into the elaborate designs from the last several movies from Burton, Shumacher and Nolan. They interviewed designers of the cars from nearly all eras, have a great showcase of all the Batmobiles next to each other at a vintage drive-in and it wraps up with a touching tribute by bringing the Batmobile to a children’s hospital. Definitely do not skip past The Batmobile.

The rest of the extras are divided up into three areas: Ending the Knight, Gotham’s Reckoning and Reflections. Ending the Knight is comprised of about a dozen smaller features mostly highlighting an individual action sequence or set-piece moment and how the production team pulled it off. Gotham’s Reckoning is character profiles of Batman, Bane and Catwoman and is where we see the most interview time of Bale, Hardy and Hathaway. Reflections is only a couple quick features touching on the crews memories from making three films together and putting a bow on their trilogy. I am a sucker for these, and a lot of these are well made and do not come off as quasi-trailers like a lot of other shorter, thrown together behind-the-scenes pieces on other home video releases. From this two hour lot of extras I would say the half hour of character profiles and the Gameday feature detailing the football game bomb sequence stood out to me the most. A superb collection of extra features all around; I would have been bummed with the lack of a Nolan commentary, but he is featured prominently throughout these extra feature interviews so much that it more than makes up for it. I know it sounds like I bagged on a lot of the film, but it is mostly the last act of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises where things fall apart. Again, this is purely speculation on my part, but it mostly boils down to feeling like Nolan being told he had to cut a half hour out of the film and he decided to sacrifice a good chunk of the last act. The strong first two acts combine to make this a quality comic book movie and despite being a couple notches down from Nolan’s previous two Batman films, I would still rank it in the top third of comic book movies all things considered. Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hercules: Reborn Hitman Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[gotshadowbanned-feralfungii]

A Beautiful Day to Die

Chapter 6

“Death Is a Law, Not a Punishment.”

Pairings: Jonathan Crane/Edward Nygma, Past Harvey Dent/Edward Nygma, backgrounds Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel

Summary: 

Edward looked out the window at the sun moving in the sky and knew he had to speed this up.

“Say what you wanted to say.” He ordered flatly, not bothering to look away from the window.

AO3 Link

1/2/3/4/5/6/7

Note: Before reading, please note that Harvey is making a personal choice for himself based on what he's comfortable with. This isn't me trying to say something about people with identity disorders or other mental illnesses. This is just how he feels about it right now.I think we might be approaching the end soon, though I make no promises. As always, comments and kudos are deeply appreciated and help me push myself to keep going.

“This is… a long list.” Harley almost sounded impressed as she read down the list Edward had written of all the people who might want him dead. The three of them were at a table in the library, speaking quietly and looking over the pages of paper spread across the table. “Wait, why are your parents on this-”

“I don’t want to talk about that.” Edward cut her off quickly, clearing his throat. “I doubt they’d have the cunning to set all this up anyway, or that they’d believe me to be worth the effort. I just… wanted to cover all my bases.”

“Fair enough.” She shrugged. “Still, you piss off an awful lot of people…” She sighed as as she tried to sift through the five pages full of names of people that might want to kill Edward Nygma.

“People just don’t like it when someone is smarter than them.” Came the defensive explanation. Jonathan scoffed, and said the first actual sentence since his frightening laughter.

“And I’m sure that’s all it is.”

“Your sarcasm is not appreciated.”

“I don’t care. Now, this… ‘Harvey Dent’ is at the top of your list. What did you do to him?

“Wait, do you not know who he is?” Edward had to ask first. Harvey wasn’t just well known on campus, he was well-known in the city itself. Everyone loved Harvey Dent and Harvey Dent loved everyone, or so he claimed. Those close to him saw a darker side, occasionally. But he still had a good heart. Edward hated it. Jon just stared at him blankly instead of answering, so Harley did it for him.

“Jonny doesn’t really… know a whole lotta people.”

“By choice, I assure you. I am not unobservant.”

“...Right.” Edward sighed, rubbing his eyes. His head was pounding. His body felt worse and worse the more he died and came back. The implications of that were frightening, but he already knew he had to put a stop to it all. It didn’t change anything. “He’s… my ex, but we never dated.”

“That makes perfect sense.” Jon replied dryly.

“You rejected him and he didn’t take it well?” Harley guessed, tone laced with a sympathy that did not register in even an inch of Jonathan’s being. Edward dropped his hands back onto the table and sighed, shaking his head.

“...No. No, loathed as I am to admit it…” Edward took a deep breath, closing his eyes and bracing himself for something that was so fundamentally against his very nature: Talking about things that upset him.“We were sleeping together. Just casual at first, then it seemed more… emotional, and we were spending more time together outside of it. He was… really nice to me, so I thought…” His lips pressed into a thin line and his fingers twisted around each other restlessly. “I asked if he wanted to go steady, and he verbally ripped me to shreds.”

“Jesus.” Harley whispered as Jonathan cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“We really don’t need to know-”

“Since then he keeps following me, showing up wherever I am, asking after me all the time… He keeps trying to talk to me, but I honestly don’t care to hear anything he has to say.” That caused Jon to hum in thought and lean forward, eyes narrowing as he observed Edward’s body language.

“Maybe you should.” He said finally.

“No.”

“Jonny has a point, Eddie.” Harley popped a bubble with her gum before continuing. “If he’s at the top of the list, whatever he has to say might be real tellin’ of whether he should actually be on the list at all.”

“I don’t want to be alone with him.” Edward countered.

“So you won’t be!” She offered the solution as if it were simple. “We’ll hide nearby ‘n listen in, and if he tries anything then we fuck’im up!” The way Harley said that was so cheerful, it was as if she wanted that to happen. Edward did rather like the idea of someone who wronged him getting beaten to death…

“Alright.” He agreed after a moment. “Okay. I’ll call him and ask him to meet me in my dorm. You two can hide in the closet.”

“Aw, what?” Harley drew out the word in a pouty whine. “But we spent so much time just coming out of the closet!” There was silence as both men stared at her. She crossed her arms and pouted more effectively. “Oh c’mon, that was funny!”

“Low hanging fruit, Harleen.” Jon sounded almost as if he were seriously scolding her, then he turned back to Edward. “Call him.”

And so he did.

Harvey was excited, or at least sounded like he was. He actually thanked Edward for agreeing to talk to him and showed up at his dorm in record time, looking alarmingly nervous despite his smile. Edward let him in, and they stood in silence for a good minute before Edward offered him a seat in one of the girls chairs. Then more silence as they sat down. Neither knew what to say. Edward looked out the window at the sun moving in the sky and knew he had to speed this up.

“Say what you wanted to say.” He ordered flatly, not bothering to look away from the window.

“...Right.” Came the eventual reply, before Harvey cleared his throat and continued. “I… I wanted to… apologize.”

“Mhm.” Edward hummed, feigning boredom.

“I was needlessly cruel in the way I spoke to you, when- Well, I doubt I need to specify. I… You know I have… my moods. You know that. That’s not an excuse, but at the time…” Edward saw him shift uncomfortably in his seat out of the corner of his eye. “At the time, part of my brain was telling me that… Being mean would be for the best. Cut you deeply and cut things off completely. I knew how to hurt you and I thought if I made you hate me, then things would be… easier.” Harvey took a breath and let it out slowly. “Not an hour after you left, I realized how irrational that was. I realized I shouldn’t have betrayed your trust that way. I should have explained myself properly.”

He paused for long enough that Edward glanced at him. Harvey was looking at him with a nervous gleam in his eyes that Edward had never seen before. Harvey was always so sure. Always so confident. He looked vulnerable now. A part of Edward knew how hard that must have been for him, but a more prominent part revelled in it. He just looked at Harvey expectantly, eyes tired and body aching. Eventually, the other man got the message.

“... The real reason I rejected you isn’t because I didn’t… want you. I did. I still do. But…” Every fibre of Edward’s being was screaming at him to cut Harvey off. He didn’t want to hear this again. He didn’t want to be told why he wasn’t good enough. “I’m not well.” Harvey said finally, voice strained and eyes dropping to a point on the floor. His posture was slumped, defeated, his elbows on his knees. He usually sat so tall and proud. Edward was stunned into silence for a moment.

“You’re sick?” He didn’t look sick, aside from how tired he seemed.

“Yes, but… not the way you might think. Edward, my ‘mood swings,’ the way I get sometimes… There’s more going on than I let on and it… that’s not… It’s…” He sighed harshly, dropping his head into his hands. “...I’m not well. I’m not. I’m very mentally ill, Edward, and I’m getting help but… At this point, I’m just…” He took another breath, running his hands down his face as he looked up again. “A real relationship means taking care of each other. It means being there for each other. It doesn’t mean you walking on eggshells every time you talk to me. I can’t get into a relationship with you when the way I treat you depends so heavily on something I don’t have a handle on yet. I’m scared, Edward. I’m scared of this, I’m scared of myself, and I am in… no fit state to take care of anyone right now.”

“...You said you’re getting help?” Edward asked softly, after a long moment of Harvey waiting anxiously for a response.

“I am. I’m learning some coping mechanisms and they’ve started me on some medication. It’s too early to know if it’s doing much yet. Listen,” Harvey started. “I’m not saying mentally ill people can’t be in healthy relationships. They absolutely can. But me, personally? I don’t feel like it’s something I should be doing right now. It’s not something I’m comfortable trying. Not until I have a better idea of what’s going on with me and how to handle it.”

“Then why even bother talking to me?” There was no bitterness left. No anger, no resentment. Just exhaustion. Harvey looked at him with a small, sad smile.

“Like I said, I was needlessly cruel. You didn’t deserve that.” Edward wasn’t sure he agreed.

“...Well, I won’t deny this helped a little. I appreciate the closure, Harvey.” Being polite was painful. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to be petty and bitter. Instead, Edward stood and gestured at the door. “Now… Please leave. I need some time to myself.”

“Of course.” Harvey stood as well, and as he approached there was a moment where Edward thought he was going to kiss him. Time slowed down, and Edward had no idea whether he wanted to allow it or not. He’d enjoyed kissing Harvey, before. But Edward was extremely picky about who he touched and who was allowed to touch him in turn. Harvey had lost that right. But Harvey just walked past him to the door, and then he was gone.

There was a moment of silence before the clamour in the closet started up. There were curses and banging as the two people inside tried to get out. Edward was sure he heard something about ‘ridiculous noodle legs’ and 'knife elbows' just before the doors flew open and Harley went sprawling onto the floor. She looked up with a smile and a small wave.

“Heeeey, Eddie.” She pulled herself off the floor as Jon gingerly stepped out of the closet, closing it behind himself. “So, we ain’t killin’ him?”

“No.” Was all he said in reply, loathed as he was to do so.

“Shame.” Jon commented dryly, eyes on the door. “He said he’s afraid of himself. I’d like to see how far that goes.”

“Hey, Jon?” Edward started innocently enough. Jon looked at him in question as he approached, and tensed when Edward put his hands on his shoulders. He looked deep into the frozen blue-grey of Jon’s eyes and said very simply: “You are the most deeply unnerving person I have ever met.”

“You are not the first to tell me that.” Jon told him flatly, but Edward just grinned.

“Bet I’m the first to say it as a compliment though.” He stepped back, taking his hands off of Jon and looking to Harley as the other man just stared at him in confusion. Harley, however, was looking at the door.

“...I think there might be an easier way to do this than interviewing every single person on your five page hate-list.”

The three of them look at each other, realizing they all thought of the same thing at the same time. No one said anything until Edward sighed wearily and complained:

“I hate being bait.”

[halfdent]

Eight  hours  was  the  minimum  ,  being  the  district  attorney  was  demanding  ,  && he  had  made  a  promise  to  the  city  .  These  last  few  weeks  she  had  distracted  him  from  his  pursuit  .  He  can't  really  blame  her  ;  she  was  a  woman  lost  .  A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND . Not  certain  of  their  own  identity  or  where  their  place  is  in  the  world  .  Always  looking  over  their  shoulder  .  She  lives  in  fear. 

He  had  offered  to  sleep  in  their  room  time  to  time  ,  they  didn't  seem  so  content  with  falling  asleep  at  times  ,  understandable  .  DENT  couldn't  claim  his  sleeping  habits  were  much  more  of  an  improvement  .  𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐂  𝐄𝐗𝐇𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍  .

Money  laundering  case  .  He  had  to  stay  back  at  the  office  ,  compiling  all  the  details  he  would  need  for  the  morning  trial  .  When  he  got  home  .  It  was  late  enough  for  the  lights  off  not  to  be  an  immediate  concern  .

Keys  in  the  door  ,  he  moved  into  the  living  room  ,  chairs  strewn  about  .  Eyes  followed  them  to  the  open  basement  door  ,  quickly  finding  the  gun  on  the  table  .  He  crept  towards  it  ,  careful  not  to  make  the  floorboards  creek  .  Someone  was  in  his  home  ,  someone  -  PEOPLE HAD HURT HER BEFORE .  They  had  found  them  .  His  hand  reaches  for  the  firearm  ,  the  feeling  in  his  grip  now  one  he  was  too  familiar  with  .  He  was  never  legally  meant  for  a  gun  .  Psyche  evaluation  left  him  empty  handed  when  it  came  to  getting  a  licensed  weapon  to  protect  himself  with  .  Permit  or  not  .  He's  making  an  exception  ,  making  haste  down  the  stairs  ,  preparing  for  the  worst  ,  images  flashing  in  his  𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃  𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐃   ...

That's  when  he  finds  her  ,  curled  up  ,  seconds  past  before  his  mind  catches  up  that  they  are  trapped  in  theirs  ,  lowering  the  gun  he  moves  closer  ,  dropping  to  a  crouch  .

 ❝ Anya  ,  baby  ,  WHAT'S WRONG  ?  ❞  He  wanted  to  go  straight  in  ,  hold  her  until  she  would  stop  shaking  ;  he  knew  better  .  The  people  she  escaped  from  .  𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓  𝐃𝐈𝐃  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘  𝐃𝐎  𝐓𝐎  𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒  𝐏𝐎𝐎𝐑  𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍  ?  He  can  only  imagine  .  He didn't want to . But he could . ❝   I'm  sorry  I  was  gone  longer  than  expected  ,  I  thought  maybe  we  were  ready  for  this  .  ❞  Inevitably  not  .   ❝ Hey  -  Hey  it's  okay  ,  YOU'RE SAFE  ,  you're  safe  here  .  ❞  He  moves  just  an  inch  closer  ,  testing  the  waters  .  ❝ Anya  ,  LOOK AT ME  .❞   He  needed  her  to  see  it  ,  see  the  sanctuary  behind these  eyes , heavy with exhaustion as they are . They have a warmth to them .

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘  𝐇𝐀𝐃  𝐓𝐎𝐋𝐃  𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐘  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘  𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃  𝐁𝐄  𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐄  𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐓  𝐇𝐈𝐌.  That  he  could  leave  them  at  the  house  without  having  to  worry  or  call  nearly  every  five  minutes.   Anya  didn't  BLAME  Harvey  for  the  nervousness.   Had  the  roles  been  reversed  ,  Anya  couldn't  say  the  idea  of  leaving  a  mentally  delicate  former  assassin  alone  for  eight  hours  was  an  idea  they  would  have  been  comfortable  with.   But  this  was  a  chance  for  Anya  to  show  that  she  could  be  fine.

If  only  they  had  been  right  about  that.

The  new  morning  routine  was  what  they  focused  on  what  he  left.   Walking  the  house  to  make  sure  it  was  still  empty  ,  workout  inside  ,  eat  ,  &  from  there  it  was  usually  ready  whatever  she  could  find  in  the  house  ,  or  sketch  in  the  sketchbook  he  got  after  finding  out  they  had  a  knack  for  drawing.   Most  of  it  had  been  spent  drawing  ,  but  she  alternated  between  the  activities.   TV  was  STILL  something  they  hadn't  managed  to  make  to  try  yet.

It  had  been  while  they  were  sitting  in  the  living  room  ,  the  early  stages  of  a  sketch  of  some  foliage  outside  while  they  let  themselves  zone  out.   The  quiet  was  nice  ,  but  those  watchful  scans  continued  even  while  they  drew.   ALWAYS  VIGILANT  in  case  their  suspicions  ever  came  to  be  true  ,  &  agents  came  to  Dent's  door  after  finding  her.   While  it  wasn't  an  agent  that  caught  their  attention  …  It  had  been  a  delivery  man.   Harmless  ,  any  person  would  see  them  all  the  time.   What  registered  in  Anya's  mind  ,  was  DANGER.

Then  the  doorbell  rang.   Heart  started  pounding  ,  &  her  throat  felt  IMPOSSIBLY  tight  as  eyes  shifted  to  the  kitchen.   Harvey  didn't  keep  guns  ,  but  she  did.   All  hidden  ,  the  locations  only  known  to  them  that  they  had  STASHED  around  the  house  just  in  case.   One  of  them  fastened  under  the  nightstand.   Much  more  effective.

Reaching  for  the  gun  ,  they  made  their  way  to  the  front  door  ,  another  RING  of  the  doorbell  from  the  delivery  man.   Heart  beats  pounded  EVEN  HARDER  ,  LOUDER.   They  were  only  a  few  steps  away  from  the  door  now.   Nobody  was  getting  in  here.

The  door  flung  open  ,  &  the  poor  ,  unsuspecting  man  was  met  with  &  UNFAMILIAR  face  ,  &  gun  drawn  &  ready.   Survival  instincts  well  kicked  in  ,  opposite  blue  &  green  eyes  stared  down  the  young  man.    ❝  WHO  SENT  YOU?!  ❞    Their  voice  was  serious.   DEMANDING  an  answer  before  cocking  the  gun.   The  delivery  man  ,  simply  dropped  the  package  ,  before  running  back  to  the  safety  of  his  truck. 

FUCK!

Reality  sunk  in.   Eyes  watched  as  TERRIFIED  child  as  far  as  the  woman  currently  standing  on  the  front  porch  as  stunned  ..  &  SCARED  as  the  young  man  speeding  down  the  street.   It  wasn't  really  …  It  wasn't  a  THREAT.   It  was  just  a  kid.   Just  a  kid  who  was  doing  his  job.   Hands  shook.   Metal  clinking  as  the  gun  shifted  in  their  hands.   Seconds  later  …  Eyes  began  FRANTICALLY  looking  around  the  street  ,  before  quickly  retreating  inside  before  anyone  else  saw.

From  there  ,  Anya  had  SNAPPED.   The  gun  dropped  to  the  floor  …  Legs  felt  UNSTEADY  &  soon  …  Seeing  the  house  around  her  wasn't  a  task  they  could  complete.   The  rest  …  That  was  something  that  Anya  couldn't  remember  after  it  all  went  black.   They  couldn't  remember  the  BREAKDOWN.   The  single  hole  in  the  wall  from  a  punch  leaving  cuts  on  their  fist  ,  before  retreating  to  the  only  place  they  knew  they  could  get  somewhere  dark  &  cold  …  THE  BASEMENT.

By  the  time  @halfdent  came  home  ,  the  house  was  DARK.   Lights  having  not  been  turned  on  once  the  SUNLIGHT  no  longer  served  it's  purpose  to  light  the  house.   Chairs  shuffled  from  a  STUMBLE  during  Anya's  retreat  to  the  basement  ,  the  door  leading  their  open  ,  &  the  gun  sitting  on  the  floor  near  the  table.   The  missing  person?   Huddled  in  a  corner  ,  knees  squeezed  IMPOSSIBLY  TIGHT  on  the  floor.   Shivers  &  tremors  here  &  there.

[hysterialevi]

In the Smoke pt. 12 (Cobblebats)

From Bruce’s POV

THE NEXT DAY, CITY HALL

Walking through the cubicles and past all the other employees, I made my way towards the Mayor’s Office in hopes of getting to visit Harvey, and see how he was doing. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who left the hospital prematurely, and if the rumors I heard were true, then Harvey would act as the new mayor until Hill recovered back to full health. Though, considering his current state, that was going to be a long time. 

Half of me felt guilty for assaulting Hill in such a brutal manner, and I still couldn’t believe the damage I’d dealt, but my other half hoped he would never be able to set a single toe outside the hospital ever again. After the things he did to my mom, a few punches to the face were nothing compared to his crimes, and he was lucky that the drug knocked me out before I could continue. Though, it was also what stopped me from being able to help Harvey.

Staring at the door to the mayor’s office, I bit my lip out of nervousness, just trying to picture what Harvey looked like now. I had yet to see the aftermath for myself, but the doctors were all saying that one side of Harvey’s face had literally been burnt completely off by the spotlight, and now he was forced to wear a prosthetic. And I thought I was having a hard time.

Approaching the front desk, I mentally scolded myself, feeling foolish for allowing Oz to sweet-talk me so easily the previous day. It was more than obvious that he didn’t truly “fancy” me back, and yet, with only a simple wink and a few honeyed words, he was able to make me entirely forget the original reason I went to see him.

I hated myself for letting Oz manipulate me like that, and I also hated him for using me, but at the same time, I couldn’t deny the fact that I loved it. He may have been a dick, but he was a charming one, and I found it almost impossible to resist him, no matter how much of a prick he could be. What the hell was wrong with me?

After gaining permission to see Harvey from the secretary, I freely pushed open one of the doors which was slightly ajar, only to enter an empty room.

“Uh,” I gazed around a bit, “...Harvey?”

A solemn voice answered me. “Back here, Bruce.”

Turning my head towards the source, I spotted the “mayor” on the balcony with his back facing me. Something felt...off...about him.

“Take a seat,” Harvey insisted, skulking away from my line of sight. “I’ll be right out.” 

He brought a hand up to his head. “C’mon,” he muttered under his breath, sounding frantic, “...not today. Stop stop, stop. God. This has to stop.”

Not wanting to darken the mood just yet, I ignored the insane ramblings that spilled out of his mouth and pretended like everything was fine, leaning back into one of the chairs.

“I, uh, never got the chance to congratulate you,” I called out. “That was quite the acceptance speech.”

“Yeah, thanks!” Harvey exclaimed, almost a little too happily. “I know you weren’t thrilled about me getting back out there so soon. I’m glad I didn’t listen to you.”

I felt myself smiling at that. Well, at least he wasn’t completely overwhelmed like me. That was something.

Just then, Harvey joined me inside, shutting the balcony’s doors behind him as he adjusted his prosthetic. He turned to me with a friendly expression.

“You know, Bruce,” he began, “I’ve been looking forward to this my entire career--the day Harvey Dent takes his official portrait as Mayor of Gotham...”

Harvey wandered behind his desk, standing in front of me. He slowly started to remove the prosthetic, his cheerful vibe suddenly fading away.

“...and he looks like this.”

I had to hold back what would’ve been a yelp of shock, and my eyes nearly bulged out of my skull at the sight. I knew that Harvey had been severely injured...but...I never imagined...this. 

The left half of his face had been horrifically charred with intense blotches of black burns, and chunks of his cheeks had been taken out--so much that I could literally see the back rows of his teeth through his jaw. What the fuck had Oz done to him?

“...my...god, Harvey,” I breathed, “I--I’m...so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It isn’t your fault.”

“Except that it is. If Penguin hadn’t threatened to drug me, you wouldn’t have sacrificed yourself. You wouldn’t be in...this situation. Why did you do that anyways?”

Harvey sat down across from me. “I couldn’t risk him harming you.”

I sighed. “I appreciate your concern, Harv, but you have to take care of yourself too.”

The two of us sat there in silence for a moment, hesitant and anxious as we pondered whether or not to address the elephant in the room. 

“Bruce,” Harvey finally said, leaning closer. “About what I told you at the debate...”

I knew exactly where this was going. “...you said you loved me.”

He nodded. “And I meant it. It might sound cliché, but I truly feel like you’re the only person who genuinely understands me. The only one I can actually turn to if I ever need help, and I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone else with your level of compassion. It’s...incredible. And with all these things combined...let’s just say it didn’t take much effort to fall for you.” He cleared his throat.

“Listen, Bruce,” Harvey carefully took my hand into his, as if he were unsure of what my reaction would be. “I need to know something.”

I remained perfectly still, not daring to move a muscle. “...all right.”

“Now, I want you to be completely honest when you answer this. But,” Harvey took a deep breath, turning his head slightly in order to hide the damaged half of his face from me, “do you...do you think you could ever love me?”

Shit. I always knew this question would come up eventually, and as much as I was attracted to Oz, I couldn’t deny that Harvey never failed to make me feel cared for. 

Even though I hadn’t returned his affection in the past, Harvey was always there for me, and constantly did everything within his power to keep me safe, risks be damned. Though, after what happened last night with Oz, it wasn’t as if I could just act like there was nothing between us. I mean, it was clear that Oz didn’t consider our relationship to be serious, but I had already gone past the point where backing out was still an option.

Truth be told, I was torn between them. They were both good friends of mine, and both of them had managed to gain my attention in some way. I didn’t know what to do. 

I decided that--no matter how complicated it would make things--I would tell Harvey the raw truth. The man got drugged and lost half his face for me, for god’s sake. It was the least I could do.

I tightened my grip on his hand. “With time...I think it could be possible.”

Harvey beamed at that and smiled ecstatically, chuckling both out of surprise and joy. 

“You...you actually mean that? You’re being serious?”

I returned the smile. “Completely.”

Without warning, he sprung up from his chair and hauled me into the air with a huge bear hug, twirling me around the office.

“You can’t even begin to imagine how glad I am to hear that, Bruce.”

He put me back down after a moment, still holding me close as he pressed my head against his broad chest. I had to admit, I felt extremely safe in his arms. Secure. Like nothing in the world could touch me. It was a feeling I hadn’t experienced in so long, and I cherished it.

“Look at what a fool you are,” Harvey growled suddenly, “falling in love like you’re in a damn fairytale.”

I was taken aback by the abrupt change in tone and gave him a concerned glare, cautiously stepping away from his grasp.

“...what?” I asked. “Harvey, what are you talking about?”

“Harvey this, Harvey that, Harvey everything. It’s always about him, isn’t it? Just another thug disguised as a politician--a pretender to the throne. I don’t know what you see in him. Harvey Dent does everything by the book, to the letter of the law. But it isn’t working.”

He switched back to his normal voice, carrying on a conversation with himself, going back and forth as if there were a third person in the room. 

“Sure it is--he’s turning things around.”

His other half wasn’t convinced. “Barely. Slowly.”

He scoffed. “I’d like to see you do better!”

There was a sudden increase in his volume. “Watch me!”

“Oh, yeah? And how’re you gonna fix this mess?”

“Simple. Easy. Curfews after dark. Checkpoints at every bridge. Mandatory identification cards. 24/7 video surveillance.”

A little frightened at the scene, I tried to snap him out of it. “You’re acting strange, Harv--”

He slammed his fist onto the desk, causing the objects resting on it to tremble. “This whole city’s acting strange!”

I flinched slightly at the outburst, staring at him in fear. What the hell just happened?

Harvey shook his head and blinked a few times, a look of realization glowing on his face.

“Sorry...sorry about that, Bruce. Guess I got a little lost there. Probably not getting enough sleep these days.”

“Look,” I said, trying to ignore the fact that he just went mental for a second there, “we’re both under a lot of stress right now. We should be able to lean on each other.”

That seemed to help him a bit. “Stronger together, right?”

“It’s the only way.”

Before we could talk more, the office’s door creaked open as his secretary, Deborah, peeked inside.

“Uh, Mr. Dent? The photographer’s ready for you.”

Harvey immediately hid “that” half from her, waving a dismissing hand. “Thank you, Deborah. I’ll be right out.”

With that said, Deborah took her leave and Harvey placed the prosthetic back onto his face, taking a coin out as he observed its surface. 

“Please, Bruce,” he looked up at me. “Don’t tell anyone about this. If anyone finds out, or thinks I’m not fit to be mayor...it’s all over. Everything I’ve worked for.”

“Your secrets safe with me, Harvey.” I assured him.

He let out a breath of relief, heading for the exit. “Thanks, Bruce. I owe you. Again. Again and again.”

Halting in front of the door, Harvey adjusted his tie and glanced over his shoulder to say one last thing to me.

“...see you around, Bruce.” And just like that, he was gone, disappearing among all the other people crowding City Hall while I stayed behind in his office, trying to figure out what on Earth occurred back there. Was that the drug taking effect? Or was Harvey just under that much stress? I honestly didn’t know which explanation I preferred.

Just then, almost as if on queue, I felt my phone buzz. It was Oz.

Oz: Stacked Deck. 6 PM. Drinks are on me. No business talk. Just some fun.

Oz: Also promise I won’t be shirtless this time.

Oz: Unless that’s what you want ;)

I mean, it was, but I was more excited about finally getting to spend some time just hanging out with Oz. Ever since we met at that park, it was just one job after another, and it never really felt like we really had a chance to relax. I typed back a quick reply.

Bruce: I’ll be there.

Oz: See you soon, love.

Good god, even his texts were charming. 

Pocketing my phone, I hastily made my way out of City Hall and back to my car, planning to head home for a short rest and some time to freshen up. I missed sleeping in my own bed more than anything, and I hadn’t spoke with Alfred in a while either. I just hoped that I would be able to avoid my father while I was there. Every conversation between us felt like an interrogation these days, and I couldn’t remember the last time we acted like a real family. 

Though, if things carried on like this with the Children of Arkham and Oz, it was possible I may have already found a new one.