Archive of Our Own

It's been fifteen years now since he met Harvey Dent. Sometimes, he wishes it had never happened.

Tonight, Harvey really should be back in Arkham. Bruce has never exactly liked the place and he thinks it's oddly telling how so many of the criminals he catches end up there instead of Blackgate. People say maybe that's just the effect that Gotham has on them, like the city has a will of its own, but Bruce suspects it's the other way around: this is the effect that people have on Gotham, like attracting like, the worst of them dragging others down until the way things are seems almost normal. Gotham doesn't have to be like this and the saddest part of all is that Harvey would agree with that, if asked. He might even agree that Batman is a necessary evil; Two-Face, on the other hand, would tell him Batman is a symptom, not a cure. These days, he's honestly not sure which of them is right, but he's also not convinced it matters either way.

Harvey should be back in Arkham, but right now he's definitely not: he's sitting in one of a pair of high-backed leather armchairs by the fireplace in Bruce's study. The two chairs face each other, each with one arm turned toward the fire and the other out into the room that's otherwise unlit. When he sat down, Harvey chose the one that puts the scarred half of his face mostly into shadow. Bruce wonders idly if the shadow is what he chose, consciously or subconsciously, or if he just wanted to be closest to the door.

Bruce sits down opposite him in the second chair, just a few feet away. He's still wearing the Batsuit, though he rarely wears it in the house, and he's careful with his gauntlets as he rests his arms down against the leather. Harvey looks at him, lit by the fire and only the fire, and the places the firelight touches the edges of his scars make it so very easy to imagine they're burns. If you didn't know better, you might think it was all an unfortunate accident. It looks like it's healed up, so you might think he's recovered. On both counts, Bruce knows better.

"Why am I here?" Harvey asks. He doesn't glance away, doesn't gesture or indicate what he means in any way, so Bruce knows Harvey knows where he is. He asked why am I here? not where am I? and it's been a while since he was last there, and there's been more than one set of serious renovations in the meantime, and more than one was more like a reconstruction, but Harvey's never been a fool.

Harvey knows where he is, and he's right: Bruce has brought him here for a reason. The fact there's a riot in progress at Arkham is really just a pretext.

It's been fifteen years since they met. Harvey knows him well.

---

They met for the first time at a fundraiser while Harvey was running for DA. Bruce wasn't invited but that didn't stop him. He's never really been the wait-for-an-invitation type in any of his guises.

It was a black tie event in ritzy hotel ballroom that wasn't actually the Ritz, the whole thing almost like someone on Harvey's staff was actively trying to make him as uncomfortable with the situation as they possibly could. Bruce caused a stir just by turning up but once he had a glass of champagne in his hand and had settled deep into schmoozy conversation with Harvey's campaign manager, attention died back down quickly. Bruce Wayne's social activities were usually great fodder for gossip but the kind of people Harvey and his team were courting that night liked to act like they floated high above it. Some of them even did.

He kept one eye on Harvey through the whole conversation. They'd been in the same room before, once or twice, at parties the current DA had probably insisted Harvey attend, but Bruce had had other concerns at the time so hadn't spared him more than a quick second glance. He recognized him, though, and not just from his campaign ads: Harvey Dent was tall and broad-shouldered with a physique he could have only gotten through time spent in the gym on a regular basis, and strong facial features that settled together in a surprisingly pleasing but distinctive way. Where Bruce was blandly good looking with a thickness of wallet arguably more attractive than he was himself, Harvey might actually have been considered handsome. He was definitely striking. Somewhat cynically, Bruce doubted that would hurt his campaign.

Harvey was already more or less on track to be elected the youngest DA in Gotham's history, though Bruce knew some people wondered if his success had more to do with mob ties - or else lack of clear sense of self-preservation in the absence of mob ties - than his skills or convictions or credentials. Bruce had looked into him, though, or rather Batman had, but he guessed the distinction made precious little difference when the one one who knew it had happened in the first place was him, and possibly Alfred even if he hadn't mentioned it. His investigations had led him to one clear conclusion: Harvey Dent was the real deal.

He'd had one glass of champagne in his hand since Bruce had arrived: he was just wetting his lips with it, to give the illusion of drinking without actually drinking, in such a professional way that Bruce had to admire his skill. He smiled and he shook hands and he said kind or inspiring words and though some of that felt polished, too, he had so much less of the usual political shine to him than any of his fellow candidates did. The others were basically just puppets dancing on the strings of Gotham's crime lords, but Harvey had turned down bribes and stared down threats from Falcone and Maroni, the Russians, the Armenians...it was a long list. As far as Bruce could tell, it was his genuine desire to make Gotham City a better and brighter place to be, at least for anyone who didn't break the law. The way he talked sometimes, in both his speeches and off-the-cuff remarks, Bruce almost believed he might do it. He certainly believed he'd try.

Harvey kept trying - and failing - to resist the urge to tug on his collar like it was a size too small despite the fact it clearly wasn't, though he at least tried to do it discreetly. Then there were moments between handshakes when he thought no one was looking when he rubbed his eyes and massaged his cheeks, like he was coaxing himself out of muscle cramps from all the endless polite smiling. Bruce was an old hand at long evenings of fake smiles by then, but he understood Harvey was as yet just a talented amateur. The suit looked good on him, too, even if he didn't look at home in it. He was wearing the right shoes and he was saying the right things but he was a lawyer at heart, not a politician. In the end, Harvey Dent was just a man - an attractive man, and not completely without guile, but just a man nonetheless, not a sleazy mouthpiece for the mob. Bruce found that reassuring.

"Mr. Wayne," Harvey said, when his campaign manager finally tore himself away from Bruce for long enough to shoo him over and say hello. Harvey smiled engagingly and he held out his hand, and Bruce shook it firmly. "Harvey Dent." He slapped his campaign manager on the back just a fraction passive-aggressively, and Bruce guessed he was the one who'd arranged the event. "Jackson tells me you've made a very generous contribution to my campaign. I'd just like to say thank you."

"Well, go ahead," Bruce replied, his tone at a vague enough point between teasing and glibly self-important that he hoped it would test his reactions. "By all means, thank me."

Harvey's not-quite-stiff smile turned thoroughly amused as the campaign manager, Jackson, turned visibly awkward. "Thank you, Mr. Wayne," Harvey said. He gave an exaggerated scraping bow. "From the bottom of my heart. And apparently also the top of my coffers." It seemed, to Bruce's satisfaction, that he wouldn't suffer even the very richest fools.

Bruce laughed out loud and told him, "You're welcome, it's the least I can do," and Jackson, apparently reassured that Harvey wasn't going to blow the donation in a spectacular way, excused himself to go make more not-exactly-subtle small talk with another potential donor. And, once he was gone, Harvey's expression turned just a little sharper. He leaned a little closer. He was a lawyer first and foremost, yes, and not a politician; Bruce saw that as a positive, but that did still mean he was a lawyer.

"Just so we're clear, donations won't buy favors," Harvey said, lowly enough that no one else would hear him. "I'm not for sale, Mr. Wayne, no matter how generous you might be." He raised his brows significantly. "Is that clear or should I ask Jackson to return your check?"

"Spoken like a man who's met Carmine Falcone," Bruce replied, wryly, and he felt his amiable public smile start to slide to one side just a little. He let it go, a calculated move so Harvey would see he was serious. "It's not a bribe, Mr. Dent. Think of it as an incentive."

"An incentive for what?"

"To make good on your promises," Bruce said. "Take it from me, you're not the only one here who cares about Gotham."

Then he pulled his smile back up into place, the action just as easy as with the other mask he wore, and he finished his drink in one swift gulp. He snagged another from a passing waiter's tray and raised it to Harvey. "Now, if you'll excuse me, you're not the only dance on my card tonight."

Harvey opened his mouth like he meant to reply but Bruce turned and walked away abruptly - he'd gotten himself a charming-but-rude kind of reputation exactly that way over the five years he'd been back in Gotham, the same five years he'd been wearing a cape when he went out at night. He left, quickly, just a well-placed wave here and there for some of those people who liked to think themselves above the gossip, ditching his full glass on the way. He did have somewhere else to be; there was an arms deal to surveille, and he planned to drop in on Detective Gordon. It just wouldn't be Bruce Wayne who paid the visit.

As he made his way back to the manor, he was at least satisfied that Harvey Dent's goals lay in the same direction as his own. He'd cast his vote and see what happened.

Harvey would do it all again if he was given the choice, just to say he never gave in to threats. Bruce, on the other hand, would change it in a second.

---

"You need to know something," Bruce says. "Something you should've known years ago."

The firelight flickers across Harvey's face and as he watches, Bruce tugs down the cowl.

---

When the DA's office came calling, Wayne Enterprises' lawyers initially did everything they could to block their way. They could do a lot. Considering the DA's underfunded, overworked cadre of employees, it was hardly a fair fight. Harvey Dent might've proven himself tenacious in the few months that had passed since he'd taken office, but he just didn't have the manpower to back it up; when Bruce invited him into his office, that was exactly what he told him.

"Maybe we do and maybe we don't," Harvey replied, clearly a little piqued by what Bruce had just said. "And that doesn't mean we're going away."

"You'll lose," Bruce said, then he held up one hand to forestall the inevitable, irritated reply. "That's not a challenge, Mr. Dent - it's reality. You'll lose. The company's lawyers will tie this up in litigation for months, if not years."

"If you think summoning me here and talking to me like this will intimidate me, Mr. Wayne..."

"I didn't summon you anywhere. And that's not what I think."

"Then why am I here?"

Bruce leaned forward against the edge of his huge, impractical glass desk. "Do you remember what I told you when we met?" he asked.

"You said something about how I'm not the only one who cares about Gotham."

"Do you believe that?"

Harvey frowned. "I did at the time. But there's something going on here, and you're really stretching my credulity."

"What if I told you I'll have my team back off and give you access to everything?"

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"What's the catch?"

"On-site access only. Nothing leaves the building. Small team, no more than four or five. Full background checks before you start."

Harvey raised his brows. "Anything else? You want my inseam measurement and the name of my fourth grade English teacher?" He sat back heavily in his seat at the other side of Bruce's desk. He huffed out an irritated breath. He grimaced. Bruce didn't point out how easy it would have been to find out either of those things, or both, given use of the internet or a company PI. He just watched and waited patiently as Harvey went through frustrated paroxysms.

"Look, thank you, I know you're being generous," Harvey said, eventually, once he'd let that frustration go and figured it all through. It wasn't what he'd wanted and it wasn't what he'd planned, that much was clear, but maybe that was the compromise: he was the district attorney, but that didn't mean high-priced corporate lawyers couldn't still make his life just as difficult. In fact, that almost guaranteed they would. "What do you need from me to make this work?"

"Just send the team's names to legal ASAP. We'll be ready for you in the morning."

Harvey nodded. They stood and they shook hands over Bruce's desk, leaning across it so when Harvey left, he left his handprint on the polished glass.

The next morning, Harvey came back with his team. Bruce was there when he arrived, bright and early at 8am. Harvey seemed almost as surprised by that as the office staff were, considering Bruce's rather well-documented lackadaisical tendencies when it came to visiting the company HQ. He showed them into the conference room down the hall from his office, offered them coffee and had a cart of breakfast pastries wheeled in, then he left them there all staring after him a lot like he'd offered them a million-dollar bribe instead of danishes.

He hung around in his office all day, working from his laptop and definitely not tuning into the video or audio feeds in the conference room while the DA's team went through his company's files with a fine-toothed comb. He had work of his own to do, albeit little more than signing off on stacks of papers that he read through with his customary speed - quickly enough to take it all in while making the admin waiting for them think he hadn't read them at all - and leafing through a pile of invitations as thick as his wrist before he logged onto his home system remotely to get a little of his other work done. With his feet up on the desk and a decidedly non-company-issue laptop perched on his thighs in front of him, the employees who passed likely assumed he was playing online poker or browsing for a new yacht or whatever it was that people thought he did when he was meant to be working. He did absolutely nothing to persuade them otherwise.

He sent the team a buffet lunch. He sent them pizza for dinner. Then they carried on the next day, too, and there he was again, the friendly neighborhood billionaire who made sure they got every last file they asked for and time with every last person they wanted to speak to, all with a smile and a steady supply of coffee shop lattes. They seemed suspicious in the start, but he guessed that was to be expected; after all, they were lawyers investigating his company, not a regular set of corporate VIPs.

He sent Thai food the second night and Chinese food the third night and Harvey called, maybe only half-joking, as Bruce was exiting the room, "Hey, you know, you can't bribe us with kung pao chicken!"; Bruce poked his head back around the door and flashed him a smile and a mock salute. The fourth night, Harvey followed him to the door and told him, pseudo-conspiratorially, stage-whispering so the team could hear, "Y'know, maybe you can bribe us with kung pao chicken." Bruce laughed as he walked away. For the first time in a while, he actually felt like he didn't have to fake it.

The fifth night, he sent Indian food. Twenty minutes later, Harvey walked straight into Bruce's office without so much as a knock and sat down opposite him across the desk.

"It doesn't look like you're here too often," Harvey said, and Bruce put down the remains of his naan and wiped his hands on a napkin.

"That's because I'm not," he replied. "I swear they redecorate after every time I come in just to screw with me."

Harvey nodded. He glanced around the room, then he stood back up and he walked around it, not that there was a hell of a lot there to see. All Bruce had was the desk and his desk chair, the two guest chairs sitting opposite, a couch that looked great but felt kind of like sitting on a stack of bricks in great leather upholstery, and a drinks cabinet he barely ever touched because he was barely ever there. There were no pens on the desk. There were no drawers by the desk to keep a pen in, even. There were no plants or artwork or photos of his family, not that he had much of one to speak of unless he could count Dick or Alfred, and frankly, considering the rest of the decor, a photo frame would've looked out of place no matter what was in it. It was the sleek, empty office of a sleek, empty company figurehead, with a killer view from the balcony outside that no one ever really got to see. Least of all him, because he was never there.

"You know, you don't need to buy us food," Harvey said. He glanced at Bruce briefly then looked back out of the window. "We don't work for you."

"I know that," Bruce replied. He stood and went to join him, looking out over the Gotham skyline. Wayne Enterprises HQ wasn't the tallest building there but it was close, and the view stretched out for miles. "Maybe I'm just being a good host."

"Most people would want to make this as uncomfortable as possible so we'll get out faster."

"Then those people are doing it wrong. If you get everything you need, then you'll get out faster."

"So you're trying to get rid of us?"

"I'm trying to help. But if that happened to be a side-effect..."

Harvey chuckled. "You know, you're a lot smarter than people give you credit for," he said.

Bruce gave an amused sort of huff. "Ouch," he said, one hand to his heart. "You're a lot less charming than people give you credit for."

Harvey made a face. "That's not exactly what I meant," he said, and Bruce reached over and squeezed his shoulder at least semi-reassuringly.

"I know what you meant, Mr. Dent," he said. "I know how people see me. Most of the time, it's not flattering."

Harvey nodded curtly. He paused and then he turned to leave. He actually got all the way to the door before he turned back to say, "If you know how people see you, why don't you do something about it?" And he left before Bruce could reply, not that he was sure what he would've told him. Honestly, he hadn't intended to let him think he was anything but a self-involved socialite. But, when he was gone, Bruce sat back down; the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if he even wanted to claw that bad impression back into place.

Harvey came to Bruce's office the next night, just to let him know the team was heading home; Bruce thanked him, and offered him a drink that he refused politely, and then they both went on their way. The next night, Harvey came in to tell him they were leaving, and he wavered slightly when Bruce offered him a drink. The next night, he took one, but he drank it quickly and didn't sit before fleeing like he'd just broken ten separate laws and not just accepted a drink after hours.

The next night, he took a drink when offered one, then he followed Bruce over to the couch and took a seat.

"This is terrible," Harvey said, then raised his glass of scotch. "I mean, this is great." He patted the couch between them, not that there was much space left over. "But this is terrible."

Bruce smiled wryly. "Welcome to my life," he said, swirling his scotch in his glass for effect. "Where nothing is ever really what it seems."

"Including you?" Harvey said.

"Including me," Bruce replied. "But for God's sake don't think too highly of me. Too many people make that mistake."

Harvey smiled faintly and he took a sip of scotch while he looked at him. It had been a long time since Bruce had felt like someone could almost see right through him, but it seemed a lot like Harvey could. Disconcertingly, Bruce liked it.

The next night, they had drinks on the couch again, grumbling about the lack of padding. The night after that, Bruce had his assistant bring cushions that didn't do much at all to help. The night after that, Harvey arrived to find a brand new couch sitting there in the office, this time a lot more like it had been designed for humans to sit on. They made it through two hours and three drinks before Bruce's cell rang and he had to excuse himself; Harvey assumed it was a date and teased him accordingly, but Dick had gotten himself into a little trouble he needed some assistance getting out of. He was fine after the rescue, and Bruce was grateful for that, but he went to sleep regretting the conversation he'd missed.

The night after that, they had drinks in Bruce's office. The night after that, they were back there again. Then the night after that, they had drinks on the balcony, wearing coats and gloves and scarves as it tried really hard to snow.

"It almost doesn't seem so bad from up here," Harvey said, leaning on the balcony's stone wall with his glass in his hand. "If it weren't for the sirens, you could almost believe we're winning down there."

"We?" Bruce looked at him with an inquisitive frown and Harvey looked straight back at him, levelly, completely unflinchingly. We, people who cared about Gotham, Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne, setting the world to rights every night over Bruce's overpriced but excellent scotch, as opposed to them, the ones who didn't give a damn, not Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne. Harvey, though admittedly he sometimes let his passion get the best of him and spoke first and thought later, had clearly put it that way on purpose.

Bruce, unnervingly, hadn't seen the truth till then. He shook his head as it hit him. He rubbed his face to try to ward off a smile. "You're not here for Wayne Enterprises," he said. "We're just a distraction." Harvey raised his glass in acknowledgement. "Who is it? Falcone?"

"Maroni," Harvey replied. He didn't even hesitate.

"So all of this was just a ruse?"

"No, you have a problem here," Harvey told him. "Just not a big one, at least not from my point of view. Some low-level industrial espionage you're going to want to take to your legal team." He took a sip of his drink. "You know, I shouldn't be telling you this."

"But you are."

"It seems a lot like it, yes." He paused a moment, looking out over the city, then he turned his back to the wall and leaned against it, looking at Bruce who looked back at him. "We figured if it looked like the DA's office was tied up here and the police department had their hands full with drugs raids, Maroni would let his guard down. I got the word an hour ago. Major Crimes took Maroni in."

"And you're trusting I won't sue you?"

"Well, technically, everything we did was legal," Harvey said, with a hint of a smile. "And you're not going to sue me, Bruce."

"Oh I'm not, Harvey?"

Harvey shook his head. "No, you're not," he said, sounding very sure about it. "I think you really do care about this city. I think you'd've done all of this willingly if I'd asked you to."

"So why didn't you?"

Harvey smiled. He finished his drink. "Well, I didn't know that I could trust you then," he said. "I only had your word for it." He pushed himself away from the wall and held up his glass. "Now I know. And I should get going. Thanks for your cooperation." His smile brightened further. "And the Chinese takeout."

Harvey headed for the door back into the office and for a second, Bruce watched him go. He had to admit, he was impressed - a little irritated, too, but mostly just impressed, because while he should've seen exactly what had been going on, all he'd seen was a district attorney fishing expedition like they'd tried to mount a couple of times before, except before he'd been significantly less impressed by that DA's credentials. Harvey's he knew were impeccable and he'd genuinely believed he'd expected to find some kind of dirty little secret in Wayne Enterprises' closet - he guessed he had, but it really was a little secret, and not one the company was trying to hide. Bruce guessed all the best lies contain some element of truth; he'd really have to look out for that in Harvey Dent in future.

He watched him go for a second and then he called, "So, do you play golf?"

Harvey turned back with a faint quirk of intrigue to his face. "No," he replied. "At least not if I can help it. The mayor's insisted once or twice."

"How about tennis?"

"Sometimes, when it's not the middle of winter."

"And how about racquetball?"

"Sure, I played a little in school. Are you asking me to play sports with you?"

"How's Thursday?"

"Around six?"

"AM?"

"PM."

"Thank God. These early mornings are killing me."

Harvey fished a card from one inside pocket and a pen from the other and he scrawled on the back, still wearing his gloves, then he held it up between two gloved fingers. "So text me the details and I'll see you there," he said. Then he went inside and when he left, he left the card with his personal cell number handwritten on the back of it by the empty glass on Bruce's desk. Looking at it, Bruce wondered if he'd just gotten himself a racquetball partner or a date. He realized sharply that he wouldn't have minded either way.

Bruce wasn't sure what he was planning, or if he was even planning anything. Maybe that should've been disconcerting because he'd been Batman for a little over five years by then and honestly, he usually had a plan, even if the general thrust of the plan involved having no plan and just a goal to head toward. He had no goal. And maybe later he told himself he'd done it to keep tabs on the DA's office but right then he absolutely wasn't thinking about work. He was thinking about how the past two weeks had felt like longer, and not in what he might've called a bad way. He was thinking about how spending time with Harvey Dent made him feel like a normal human being. Like he had a friend.

They played racquetball on Thursday, after Harvey got off work. Maybe that was where they would've said the friendship started if anyone had asked - a racquetball court at Bruce's gym. But Bruce was pretty sure it started the second he realized Harvey Dent had fooled him.

Later that night, in the Batsuit over Gotham, Bruce wished he didn't have to fool him in return.

---

"I know, Bruce," Harvey says. He sounds calm. He sounds certain. "I've known for a really long time."

Bruce frowns. "Well, you might have mentioned that before," he says. "It might have made things simpler."

Harvey chuckles. "Sure. But I've been trying to keep it a secret from Mr. Hyde."

Bruce doesn't have to be a genius to guess he's talking about Two-Face, not that any of the numerous psychiatrists and psychologists who've paraded through Arkham since Harvey's arrival have been able to say with any certainty whether Two-Face really is a separate identity within him or just Harvey on a lengthy psychotic break. No one has ever been able to prove that Harvey Dent is Doctor Jekyll to Two-Face's Mr. Hyde, except Bruce would like to believe it's true. It's easier than thinking the man he knew, the man he knows, has sole responsibility for all the things he's done.

Bruce rakes his hair back from his face. With his gloved fingers it's hard to tell but it's damp with sweat from the cowl he's just removed to bare his face; he takes off the gauntlets and sets them aside on the small side table by his chair and then he runs his bare hands through his damp hair instead. He feels awkward. The fire's too hot. He's forty-four years old now and he's still dressing up as a bat most nights. Once upon a time, before Jekyll and Hyde, he'd almost hoped one day he could stop wearing the suit, but now he's half sure he'll die in it.

Harvey knows about the Bat, though. It's not a surprise; he explained away the bruises in the showers after their twice-weekly racquetball games as crossfit and MMA, like Fight Club for bored socialites with too much time on their hands and even more money. Harvey's too smart to have ever really believed that, even if Bruce had made damned sure he actually did go do MMA at least once a week with guys who could barely even form a fist, let alone hit anyone with it. He'd even taken Harvey with him once or twice, though that probably hadn't helped; the way Bruce jovially kicked his ass at racquetball probably didn't do much to confirm the utter lack of coordination he displayed when it came to fighting. Alfred had once told him that he looked like a prizewinning ballroom dancer pretending to have two left feet when he tried to throw matches and pull punches, and he was probably right. And he should probably have asked himself what he thought he was proving by taking Harvey along to see that. Thinking about it, maybe he'd wanted Harvey to know all along. He probably wanted him to approve.

"Why are you telling me now?" Harvey asks.

But the thing is, he's really not surprised that Harvey knows. Harvey's known for years and Bruce has known that, too. He's just always acted like he hasn't, so maybe Harvey will have just a little doubt. All this moment is is an acknowledgement.

"That's not what I want to tell you," Bruce says, and he sees that Harvey understands the situation that's before him: he knew Harvey knew, and what he wants to say now needs to come from Bruce, not from Batman.

Harvey leans forward. "I'm all ears," he says.

---

After the accident - they called it an accident even though everyone knew that was far from what it really was - the city of Gotham agreed to pay Harvey's medical bills. He was one of their own, they said, youngest DA in city history, a true crusader, really turning things around. And all of that was true,sure, but their nice words fooled neither Harvey nor Bruce. Sal Maroni had thrown acid in Harvey's face and the fact he'd been able to do that in the first place, in the courthouse, mid-hearing, was absolutely on the city. It didn't take Batman or the district attorney to see what they were doing was covering their own asses.

When they brought him out of the brief induced coma, Bruce was there. Maybe he shouldn't have been, strictly speaking, but sometimes everyone in town knowing exactly who he is - and how much money he gives to which charities - has its marked advantages. Besides, Harvey had no living relatives they knew of, a bit like Bruce himself; it made sense for him to have someone there, even if that someone was inexplicably Bruce Wayne. The two of them having struck up an unlikely friendship following Maroni's arrest was fairly common knowledge, but a couple of years or so of racquetball and dinner out didn't add up to reason why Bruce should haunt the hospital.

Harvey woke in fits and starts, ten minutes here, a half hour there, just long enough for him to answer the doctors' questions through his haze of morphine. It was hard for him to speak at first, with the pain on top of the damage underneath the gauze; Bruce had seen the raw meat mess the acid had made of Harvey's handsome face, so he understood why talking was hard. Then, over the next forty-eight hours or so, he got steadily clearer. The extent of the situation at hand became clearer, too: Harvey was missing time and it wasn't just the 'accident'. He was missing the previous seven months.

It had taken three months to bring Maroni to trial. The trial itself had lasted four months, then Sal Maroni had been sentenced to life without parole. By the day of the accident, at a hearing around a possible appeal, Maroni had served almost two years in Blackgate, and Bruce and Harvey had played racquetball twice a week almost every week for all that time. Harvey had lost a huge chunk of it.

"We should allow his memory to return naturally," Harvey's lead doctor told Bruce. "Don't force it. Barring complications, there's a good chance he'll remember." So Bruce nodded and agreed. He figured he could do that. And as shitty as Harvey seemed to feel about his memory loss on top of everything else over the coming days and weeks, he also seemed grateful that Bruce was there. Unlike the other visitors, he didn't come to gawk.

Cutting edge treatment healed Harvey's acid-etched face in next to no time at all and left him with at least a portion of his nerve and muscle function, but it did nothing much to help how it scarred. He was discharged after six weeks and Bruce drove him home to his townhouse with Harvey giving directions Bruce really didn't need. Harvey let himself in at the top of the front steps while Bruce leaned back against the side of his inappropriately gaudy car.

"Do you want to come in?" Harvey asked. "I might still have coffee." He grimaced. "I really hope I don't still have milk."

Bruce smiled and shook his head and told him, "Thanks, but I'll have to take a rain check." Harvey nodded like he understood, but he couldn't have; Bruce had an appointment with Superman. "But if there's anything you need, you've got my number."

"I guess a game of racquetball's out of the question?"

Bruce raised his brows. "Yeah, maybe a rubber ball hurtling toward your head's not a great idea right now," he said. "How about I take you to lunch tomorrow instead?"

Harvey clearly tried hard to keep his expression neutral, but Bruce could see a flicker of a wince. He guessed he understood that; Bruce had gotten used to Harvey's scars already, given how much time he'd spent around the hospital and maybe helped by the fact he had a few of his own underneath his clothes, but the way he looked could be a lot to take in. He'd refused any kind of reconstructive surgery beyond what was absolutely necessary, too, something about how the city had already done so much for him and surgery would take weeks or maybe months of extra time he didn't want to waste - he wanted to get back to work and show the people of Gotham that men like Salvatore Maroni wouldn't get their way by violence and intimidation. Bruce guessed he at least had to respect that.

"Or I could bring lunch to you," Bruce said, carefully offhand.

"No, let's go out," Harvey replied. He smiled, a little lopsidedly, which they both knew would be how his smile would always look from then on. "If I can't show my face at lunch, how am I ever going to get back inside a courtroom?"

So they went to lunch the next day and talked and they ate while people both did and didn't pretend not to stare. They went to lunch again the day after that, and the day after that, a different place each day, till it seemed easier every time someone couldn't quite look away from the twisted mess of Harvey's face. They kept it up even when Harvey started spending a couple of half days a week in the office. He was trying to refamiliarize himself with the cases they'd handled not just in the time he'd been away but also in the time he still couldn't remember.

By the time he went back to work full time, it had been months and he still couldn't remember. By then the doctors were less positive about the probability of him ever regaining his lost memories, and Bruce knew it was wearing on Harvey. Truthfully, it was wearing on him, too. He'd shattered cups and broken pencils over moments when Bruce mentioned things from that missing time and though the breakages themselves were trivial, the emotion behind it really wasn't.

"I don't know what's wrong with me, Bruce," Harvey said, with his hands in his hair at his desk in his office, late one night. "There's things I still can't remember." He held up a file. "You see this?" He slapped the file back down on the desktop. "It's a transcript of a case I tried. And I don't remember it. Not a word." He sat back heavily in his seat. He raked his hair back from his forehead, his scars all twisted shadows in the low light from his desk lamp. "You know, I found a cufflink behind my dresser and I don't know if it's mine or not. I found underwear I don't remember owning in the laundry and I don't know if I just switched from boxers to briefs one day or if I had a lover I can't remember." He sighed. He rubbed his eyes and then he looked at Bruce across the desk, worn out and frustrated. "Did I ever tell you I was gay?"

Bruce nodded. "Yes, you did."

"Do you know if I was seeing someone?"

Bruce shrugged. "You don't tell me everything, Harvey," he replied. "And we're meant to let you remember this on your own."

Harvey grimaced. "I know, I know," he said, and sighed out a breath. "I guess I just wish I knew if I just bought some new jewelry or if I've been jilted over..." He shrugged exasperatedly and gestured at his face with both hands. "Well, you know. The obvious."

Bruce raised his brows. He drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk in front of him. "Look," he said. "If there was someone, he'd have to be a complete asshole to leave you because of that." He held up his hands. "I don't know. Maybe he doesn't exist. Maybe the doctors told him to let you remember."

Harvey looked at him with an expression on his face like maybe there was a question he wanted to ask him, right on the tip of his tongue. Bruce waited for it, telling himself it was fine if he asked and fine if he didn't, and the discomfort he felt as he waited was all about the ribs he'd bruised on patrol the previous night and not this, sitting in Harvey's office looking at him over a sea of file folders and empty Chinese takeout cartons that he'd brought along on the off chance Harvey had skipped dinner again. He had. He'd been grateful. But the question didn't come - Harvey sighed and closed his eyes and he rested his head back on the back of his chair instead. And Bruce, feeling a cold, hard twist down deep in his gut, stood up to leave. He'd told himself it was fine, but it wasn't.

"Lunch tomorrow?" Bruce asked.

"I can't. I'm in court."

"Thursday?"

"Lunch with the mayor."

"Friday?"

Harvey opened his eyes and frowned at him. "I'll call you," he said. "Maybe sometime next week. There's a case."

Bruce nodded curtly, then he turned for the door and he left without another word. He understood. Either Harvey needed space or he didn't want to know or he was too angry to see - he'd been turning angrier for weeks, since he'd gotten out of the hospital, and Bruce wasn't about to push him any further than he had to. That really couldn't be good for his recovery.

He didn't hear from Harvey on Friday. He didn't hear from Harvey the following week. He didn't hear from him at all for the rest of the month. He tried calling, sent a text or three, sent an email, left a message with his assistant and then decided, okay, enough was enough. If he didn't want to see him, or be seen by him, Bruce would let it be. It seemed the Harvey experiment had run its course at last.

Four months later, rumor had it Harvey Dent was making his decisions on the flip of a coin almost as scarred as he was. Four months after that, he was calling himself Two-Face. He'd killed a man and Batman had to set his sights on him.

Bruce can count on the fingers of one hand the times he's felt as hollow as the day that Harvey went to Arkham. He's never not blamed himself for that.

---

"Did you ever remember the time you lost after Maroni?" Bruce asks.

"No," Harvey replies. "It's still a total blank." His mouth twists bitterly. "Are you going to tell me the doctors said to wait?"

"I think we've been past that point for a while now, Harvey," Bruce says. "We need to talk about it."

But it turns out he doesn't have to tell him. He doesn't have to find a way to explain because as Harvey looks at him, realization dawns.

"It was you," he says.

Bruce doesn't disagree.

---

Once upon a time, before the 'accident' that changed everything, they played racquetball twice a week.

They played twice almost every week for two whole years, Bruce usually kicking Harvey's ass and Harvey surprisingly okay with that, given his occasional temper. It felt good that he didn't have to slow himself down for him. Harvey never seemed to mind that Bruce was only beatable when he was especially hurt from 'MMA'. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Harvey never commented on the bruises, or the stitches, or the grazes or the scrapes, at least not after the first few times. All he did was raise his brows as they went into the showers in a way that signalled concern and maybe a willingness to hear the story if he told it, but he never pried. And Bruce made sure they were alone there when they played, every time, to hell with the expense, so no one else but Harvey would see the ever-multiplying scars he hid underneath his clothes. At least he liked to think that was the reason why; given that friendly game or date at the gym? had come back friendly game for the past two years, it had to be the reason.

They'd just gotten out of the showers one evening after a game, towels around their waists and another in Harvey's hands that he was using on his hair, when Harvey cleared his throat the way he did in court. Bruce had sat in a few times, so he knew how it sounded.

"Look, Bruce, I need to tell you something," he said. He leaned back against the lockers that lined the wall behind him, rested his head back as he wrung the towel from his hair in both hands and said, "I'm gay."

Bruce snorted. "I know," he said.

"You know?"

"We've known each other for how long now?" He motioned to the towel in Harvey's hands and Harvey tossed it to him. He rubbed his wet hair with it. "I hate to break it to you, Harvey, but your sexuality is not a mystery to me."

"And it doesn't bother you?"

"Should it?" Bruce asked.

"I guess not."

Bruce stopped with the towel and let it hang down in front of him. "So why are you telling me now?" he asked.

"I wanted you to know."

"Because we're friends?"

"Yeah. We're friends and it seemed important."

"But no one else knows."

"Well, it's just--"

"--never seemed important?"

Harvey laughed. "Something like that," he said. "It doesn't come up much in conversation."

"So you're not out?"

"Not exactly." Harvey frowned. "But it's not because I'm ashamed. You know me, I'm focused on my work. I don't have time to meet people."

Bruce paused. It wasn't the conversation he'd expected to have that evening - usually they talked in the vaguest of terms about Harvey's cases and about the less vapid of the things Bruce spent his time on, charity work, functions they'd both been invited to, city politics...not who they were or weren't dating. Admittedly, Bruce had never known Harvey date at all, but that didn't mean he didn't look and so that didn't mean Bruce didn't know he didn't look at women, at least not often, and not usually in that way. He looked at Bruce that way more often, which Bruce had to admit he enjoyed.

So, he had to wonder what had made Harvey tell him - was it entirely for his own reasons or was there some kind of a precipitating factor at play? He'd known for more than a year by then that Bruce had dated men as well as women. One of his recent cases had involved a gay couple, but it was hardly the first such case he'd tried. Bruce had no idea.

There was just one thing: Harvey had said I don't have time to meet people. He didn't have a lot of time, no, between his work and eating and sleeping and playing racquetball with Bruce. But that didn't mean he'd met no one.

"You met me," Bruce said.

"That's different," Harvey replied, and he must not have brought his courtroom game face to the locker room because his expression said he didn't mean that even slightly. His expression said he'd been found out and Bruce, who'd been happy with friendship but open to ideas in other directions, finally felt like he understood.

"Is it?" he asked.

"Yes! We play sports. And you're out with a different woman every night. We're not lovers, Bruce." But his expression said he wanted them to be. It said he was disappointed that they weren't, and Bruce had no idea how he'd dismissed Harvey's interest before as a kind of vague, abstract attraction. He was meant to be good at reading people and usually he was.

"Do you want me to stop?" Bruce asked.

"Stop what, playing sports?"

"Seeing a different woman every night."

Harvey shrugged. "I mean, sure, life in general would probably go better for you if you stuck with just one of them for a while."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then you'll have to explain."

Bruce paused. It was probably a terrible idea and he asked himself if it was worth the risk, but the fact was he knew Harvey, he really knew Harvey, and he was damn sure he hadn't been imagining things, not now. So he unfastened the towel from around his waist and he tossed it onto the bench behind him. Harvey looked. Harvey stared.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"Stop what?"

Bruce sat down on the towel on the bench, shifting to get comfortable with his knees spread wide apart. He squeezed his thighs with both hands and then turned them, fingers pointing in toward each other as he moved his palms up higher. He watched Harvey watch him. When he wrapped one hand around his cock and squeezed, Harvey's eyes went wide.

"Jesus Christ, Bruce," Harvey said, maybe shooting for outrage but if so, the shot strayed really wide.

"Do you want me to stop?" Bruce said, and he started to stroke. He was hard in seconds, with Harvey's wide eyes glued to him.

"I don't know what you're asking me."

Bruce paused and set his hands back down on his spread thighs, letting his cock jut up between them, thick and stiff and flushed. Harvey was looking at him like he was trying really hard to look anywhere but down, but he did look down. He grimaced, teeth bared, as his gaze moved down over Bruce's erection, not because he didn't like what he saw but very clearly because he did.

"I'm asking if you want me to stop seeing someone different every night," Bruce said. "I'm asking if you want me to see you instead."

"Oh, fuck." Harvey sat down hard on the bench, opposite him. Bruce had almost expected some kind of half-joking not-quite-argument about how in general gay men aren't inherently attracted to every other guy out there living in the world, was Bruce really so vain that he just assumed Harvey was into him, did he really look so desperate that he'd hit on Bruce Wayne? But Harvey just looked stunned. He gripped his own thighs so hard his fingertips turned white, and he didn't say a word, like he'd hoped for this but hadn't expected it and now it was happening, he had no clue what to do.

"Harvey?"

"Yes." His gaze flicked up from Bruce's cock to Bruce's face. His cheeks were flushed. He swallowed. He made a face that wasn't quite a grimace and might've almost been a smile, then he did exactly what Bruce had done and tugged his towel open. He paused for a second like he was asking himself what in the hell he thought he was doing, and Bruce almost thought he'd balk when it actually came down to it, but he wrapped one hand around his cock. He stroked.

"Yes," Harvey said again, his voice straining as his cock stiffened. "Yes, I want you to see me instead."

"How about dinner tonight?"

Harvey laughed breathlessly, the sound a little desperate at the edges, though his hand didn't stop moving. "Oh God, I have to work tonight," he said.

"Then let's make it dinner in your office. You have to eat sometime."

"Sure."

"Around eight?"

"Why not."

"You want Thai?"

Harvey scowled exasperatedly. "Bruce, don't take this the wrong way," he said, "but please would you shut the fuck up?"

Bruce laughed breathlessly and rested his head back heavily against the wall and he watched Harvey do the same, his head clunking loudly against the empty lockers. Harvey spread his knees a little wider as Bruce watched and then he reached down to squeeze his balls and Bruce felt his own cock give a twitch of interest so overwhelming he could've almost come just like that from it, still relatively untouched. As it was, he leaked so much precome that when he moved his hand and ran it over the tip, his palm came away slick with it. When he stroked himself, it was easier, and the feeling made him press down hard against the tiled floor with the balls of his feet, making his thighs tense, making his jaw clench.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Harvey said, dazed, his eyes still on him as he squeezed his balls with one hand and the tip of his cock with the other. "Jesus, Bruce, the way you look right now."

Bruce bit back a groan. "The way I look?" He pulled his hands back just long enough to gesture at Harvey, who was sitting there all flushed damp skin and messy hair and taut muscle like something out of fantasies Bruce had tried hard to deny, then he clapped both hands back down on his thighs before he could say another word. Harvey's breath caught and he groaned as he squeezed himself slowly, closing his eyes for a moment and basically making Bruce's point for him.

"How long have you wanted this?" Harvey asked.

"Would you believe it started right now?"

"Absolutely not. That's so much bullshit I can't even fathom it."

"Week two. When I realized you'd tricked me."

Bruce swallowed, trying to keep still as his muscles tensed. He could feel himself riding the edge of an orgasm he didn't want to happen yet - it was far too soon but every move that Harvey made just pushed him closer. And sure, the likelihood was he could've wilted his erection just as quickly as he'd started it with just the right application of willpower, but the fact was he really didn't want to. Alfred was always telling him he should take time for himself and while he probably hadn't been referring to masturbation in a locker room, it didn't seem a million miles wide of the mark.

"You?"

Harvey laughed. "When you gave me your damn files. I swear to God, Bruce, if I hadn't thought it might break your pretentious glass desk..."

"It was sturdier than it looked. And they replaced it with a wooden one sometime last year."

"Sure, you tell me that now..."

Harvey pushed his fingers back behind his balls and rubbed there. He groaned out loud again as he stroked himself, the sound echoing faintly off the walls. He looked amazing like that, naked and hard and flushed and pushing his heels against the floor so he could shift his hips against his hands. It wasn't that he was unselfconscious about it - Bruce guessed he was self-conscious about it, but the part that sent a hot stab of arousal straight through his chest and his gut and down into his already ridiculously hard cock was the fact he was doing it anyway.

Harvey stroked himself, his head pressed back against the lockers, his neck tight and his jaw clenched and his teeth bared. His breath was quick, making his chest rise and fall, the muscles through his abdomen all taut and straining and when he rubbed at a place just underneath the head of his cock that made him groan out loud, the sound higher than before, tight and surprised, that was when Bruce completely lost control. He came all over the goddamn floor in thick, short bursts, scowling, till what was left trickled down the underside of his cock and down all the way to his balls. He didn't need to touch. And Harvey wasn't long after, coming all over his hands and his belly with his eyes still fixed on Bruce. Bruce was thirty-two years old then, but he felt like he was seventeen: reckless, and like he wanted to do it all again. Immediately.

"I think I need another shower," Harvey said, after a couple of minutes with them both just sitting there, slumping there, cocks softening as they caught their breath. So Bruce stood, and he held out one hand to him. Harvey took it. Bruce helped him up. They stood there, close together.

"We've got the place to ourselves for another twenty minutes," Bruce said. He shifted closer, Harvey's hand still held tight in his. He held Harvey's gaze, too. "We have time for that."

So they showered again, together, under one shower head out of the row of eight. Bruce set the water running and then walked Harvey backwards underneath it. Harvey put his hands on him, at his hips, and pulled him in. When Harvey's mouth met his, slow and hot and almost anxious but still without a moment's hesitation, getting clean was definitely a secondary concern.

They had dinner in Harvey's office later, out of cartons with disposable chopsticks and coffee mugs full of water from the fountain in the corridor because somehow, in his haste, despite all his usual organisation, Bruce had forgotten to pick up drinks. They kissed again with all the blinds firmly closed, Bruce pushing Harvey up against the locked office door with Harvey tugging up his shirt to press his hands against his skin, fingers following his scars. They kissed, pressing against each other, shifting against each other, till they almost said screw it and went back to Harvey's place, just because his place was closer than the manor. But Harvey really did have to work that night and it wasn't as if Bruce didn't have a high-profile secret identity to keep him busy, or a teenage sidekick and a protective butler who would likely wonder where he was. Reluctantly, Bruce left. Reluctantly, Harvey let him.

The next night, they had dinner out when Harvey unexpectedly didn't have to work. They skipped dessert and Harvey took him home with him to his townhouse full of law books and trashy crime novels and mail he kept making time to read but never quite got around to. They made out on the couch with their shoes and jackets off but everything else still on, Bruce's tie wrapped around Harvey's hand and Bruce's hand in Harvey's hair. Honestly, Bruce couldn't remember the last time he'd been so enthusiastic about going home with a date, even if he did have to duck out before midnight.

The night after that, Bruce went down on his knees in front of the couch and sucked Harvey's cock, slowly, till he was gripping hard at the cushions and basically begging him to let him come. The night after, they made it all the way upstairs and brought each other off on their knees in Harvey's bed, face to face and skin to skin and far too urgent. The next night, Harvey pulled Bruce down on top of him and they did it like that, face to face, naked and rubbing against each other. The night that followed, Bruce pushed into him and they did it like that, face to face and slow and deep. Harvey kept talking almost the whole way through it and Bruce found he really didn't mind. Somehow hearing the effect he had on him just made it that much hotter.

Nearly seven months later, a Gotham City crime lord splashed Harvey in the face with acid. He forgot every single day within those seven months. He forgot every night.

When a not-so-stray cufflink down the back of a dresser didn't jog Harvey's memory, Bruce never found another way to remind him of exactly what it was they'd lost.

---

"It was you," Harvey says.

"Yes."

"Just once?"

"No."

"Regularly?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"Six months. Almost seven."

"And no one knew?"

"Just Alfred. Maybe Dick."

"You should have told me."

Bruce takes a breath then sighs it out. "I know," he says. "But I'm telling you now."

Harvey's bitter smile turns wistful. "Only ten years too late," he says.

Bruce stands abruptly. "This was a mistake," he says, then he steps around to the back of his chair and puts his bare hands on it, squeezing, making the old leather creak. The knowledge that this was all a terrible idea isn't news to him - he knew that when he shoved Harvey into the passenger side of the Batmobile and took off for the manor at close to five times the normal speed limit. He knew it when he parked on the driveway like the manor was Batman's house and not Bruce Wayne's and ushered him inside. None of this was sensible. None of this was planned. But when he heard about the Arkham riot, there was really only one thing on his mind. Tim and Casssandra are more than capable of taking care of the rest.

Harvey's been doing so well since his last escape. Bruce couldn't let him slide again.

So, here they are.

---

The first time Harvey escaped from Arkham, it wasn't planned. At least not by him.

It was someone else's escape entirely. It was the Joker, trying his luck as usual, but instead of getting out himself, he only managed to let out two Bonnie-and-Clyde thrill-killers and the city's former DA. It had been eighteen months since he'd joined the patient roster; Harvey had long since been replaced by then.

The thrill-killers were easy to find once the bodies started dropping - Bruce was first on the scene with Dick there by his side, borrowed from Bludhaven for the occasion, and they had them cuffed and waiting by the time Gotham's finest arrived. Two-Face was harder, but it wasn't like he got out to cause mayhem; all he did was drag his replacement up onto the roof of the building he'd used to work in, out of the office that had used to have his name on the door, and he tossed a coin to decide if he should live or die. The coin said live, so he let him live. When Bruce arrived, the new DA was watching Harvey standing on the edge in his bland Arkham jumpsuit, about to let the coin make another choice.

"All I said was maybe he should try it on himself," the DA said. "I didn't think he'd take me seriously." Bruce knew Two-Face had interesting notions of what he should take seriously and what he shouldn't.

The DA ran as Harvey flipped the coin. When he jumped, Bruce jumped after him. Even if all that was in store for him was his return to Arkham, Bruce couldn't let him die. Jason was already dead by then, and Bruce could not afford to lose anyone else.

The second time, it was the Joker again, with Harley Quinn along to lend a hand. He was always trying, and usually failing because the hospital staff tried hard to be vigilant, but from time to time they got complacent or he got even more than usually creative. More than half the rooms were empty before Bruce arrived and he spent three months assisting the police in tracking down their former occupants. The Joker himself was one of the first ones they sent back, laughing all the way as Bruce tensely refrained from knocking him unconscious. Harvey was one of the last and when Bruce caught him, he was planning a way to get Maroni out of Blackgate, funded by what was left of the family. He didn't seem to see anything amiss with that.

When Harvey flipped his coin to decide if he'd go easy or go hard, it came up hard. When they fought, it was nothing like the couple of times they'd gone to Bruce's ridiculous hipster MMA club to duke it out. When he broke Harvey's nose then got one arm around his throat, all he did was laugh until he passed out. Bruce went home with Harvey's blood on him, smeared across his chin and seeping over his neck underneath the cowl. He spent longer than he needed to scrubbing it off.

The third time, three years ago now, it was Ivy.

It was a gas that wasn't really a gas that settled on everything it touched, bright yellow and sticky-chalky like buckets full of lily pollen had been cycled through the ventilation ducts. He'd breathed it in before he'd even realized it was happening and it was cloyingly sweet, anesthetic sweet, but instead of making him drowsy, it blurred his head and made his body burn. He knew exactly what the problem was.

She'd been threatening to do it for years but had never quite gotten the formula precisely right. How she was meant to have done that from inside Arkham remained a mystery at that point, but he didn't really want to find out if she'd finally succeeded. As he moved through the building, past woozy patients and passed out patients and pairs of patients going at it up against a wall, he got the impression she really had done it. And by then he was using a rebreather to filter it out of the air but his pulse began to race and his vision started to blur and his cock began to swell. She'd done it. There was no longer any question in his mind. Quickly, there were no questions in his mind at all.

Bruce had trained to function through the effects of various drugs, building up tolerances and learning to focus his mind, but this was different in ways he simply couldn't have prepared for. The heat of it flooded him, over his skin and through his muscles, in his blood; it made the room seem to tilt and judder around him, made his hands curl into fists at his sides, and he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, so he practically spat the rebreather back out into his palm. It took all his damned will and concentration to put it back into its pouch on his belt and not just toss it to the ground. And it felt like his suit was constricting at his chest and restricting his breathing but it couldn't have been; it was just the drug, making unfocused desire claw at his muscles and crawl through his skin, lacking direction but not purpose. He gasped a breath and almost tripped over his own feet into the corridor.

He couldn't risk leaving and exposing others to the pollen. He had to find a quiet place to wait it out and let Tim know to wear a mask when he went after Ivy, but he didn't have time for that first part; as soon as he'd finished with Tim, there was a hand over his mouth and an arm around his waist and even though his brain said danger! all he did was let himself be pulled backwards into a patient's room. At least it was out of the way.

"She's been planning this for weeks," Harvey said, his mouth right by Bruce's ear as he kicked the door shut and then shoved him face-first up against the back of it. He didn't need to ask who it was. The pollen in his veins was pleased by who it was. The pollen in his veins wanted him.

"She's been planning this for years," Bruce replied, tensely. "Let me go, Harvey. I don't want to hurt you."

Harvey didn't let go. "If you stay out there, they'll tear you apart," he said.

"Why would that concern you?"

"I'd like to do it myself someday," Harvey replied. "And I think we're going to need each other's help."

Unfortunately, he wasn't wrong.

In the start, Harvey didn't let go and Bruce didn't make him - he could have, it would've been simple if perhaps not exactly easy because apparently at some point (and knowing Arkham's frequent dysfunction, it was more than likely part of their rehabilitation program), he'd learned to fight like he meant it. Then Harvey did move and the way he pressed against him, up against his back, it was impossible to miss the fact that he was just as hard as he was. Bruce pushed back against him, entirely against his will and better judgment, and Harvey hissed in a breath. Then Harvey swept Bruce's cape forward over one shoulder and raked his hands down the back of his suit. Bruce shivered. When Harvey shoved one hand in hard between his shoulderblades and the other went around his waist to press between his thighs, he shivered again. He couldn't help it. He wanted it.

"How does this come off?" Harvey asked, tugging at Bruce's belt, so Bruce fumbled at it with his gloved hands until it unclasped and fell to the floor.

"And the pants?" Harvey asked, with his fingers scrambling ineffectively at Bruce's waist. And he knew it was a terrible idea, one of the worst he'd had in years, but he really couldn't help himself at all as he released the waist seam and let Harvey push his pants down to mid-thigh. Without the suit there to hold it, his cock sprang loose with the tip pressing maddeningly to the back of Harvey's door. Harvey gave his backside a stinging slap with the flat of one hand that Bruce couldn't formulate any kind of adequate response to and then went down on his knees and bit him there, too, roughly, teeth and stubble against skin. Then he spread Bruce's cheeks with both palms and though what was left of the logic in Bruce's brain was screaming he should stop this, that he shouldn't even have let it start, all he did was stand there as the flat of Harvey's tongue rasped against his hole.

"Harvey," Bruce gasped.

The tip of Harvey's tongue teased the rim of his hole and then he said, pushing against it with his thumb instead, "Not Harvey. Haven't we been through this?"

They had, more than once, but Bruce didn't really care about that. He didn't really care when he heard not-Harvey's zipper, heard him stand, felt him rub the length of his cock between his cheeks. Bruce dropped into a crouch and rummaged through his belt pouches, too turned on and jittery and desperate to remember where the thing was he was looking for or even what the thing was called and he ended up kneeling and then Harvey was kneeling and by the time he'd found the oil - just a small tube of lubricant that he'd previously found handy in a variety of distinctly non-sexual situations - he had his cowled forehead pressed to the door and he couldn't take a steady breath. He held the tube back, waved it till he got Harvey's distracted attention, then waited. He did not wait patiently. In the seconds it took Harvey to slick himself with the contents of the tube, he could've wrapped his hands around his neck and squeezed the life right out of him just because he really, really wasn't fast enough.

Then Harvey rubbed the tip of his cock between Bruce's cheeks and they both groaned at the same time like a damned obscene duet. Then Harvey pushed in, not quickly but that was less to do with care than with exactly how far gone he was, too. They were on their knees with thighs spread wide, muscles straining, in the lights that were dimmed because of the Ivy-inspired riot, and Harvey clutched his hips so tight it should've hurt except all Bruce could feel was jolts of pleasure where he touched him. He could feel his thighs cramping but that felt good, too. He could feel his jaw clenched tight and his fingers pressing hard at the back of the door and his hard cock straining and his hole stretched tight and almost spasming around the length of Harvey's cock it felt so good. Harvey dug in with his nails as he started to move then he ran his hands under the back of Bruce's suit, pushed it up and Bruce groaned. He didn't care that the scars on his skin might give him away, even if there were so many more than when Harvey had seen them last. He wouldn't have cared if Harvey had yanked off his cowl and seen his face underneath it - the terrifying, dizzying, sickening thing was he might even have liked it. He hadn't felt even half so fucking helpless since the night his parents died.

When Harvey wrapped his hand around Bruce's cock, he sobbed out a breath and pushed against it then rocked back against his cock inside him, forward, back, again and again, fucking himself on the length of him. When Harvey's free hand pushed up under the front of his suit and splayed across his chest to hold him close, he'd have liked to have elbowed him straight in the jaw except he couldn't make himself do it. He was hissing breaths and Harvey moaned against his shoulder with every single movement and Bruce could feel it, he could really feel it, every nerve alight and raw and singing with the things Harvey was doing. When Harvey yanked on his cape and pulled his head back, when he pulled him into a kiss, rough, all teeth, when he kissed him back, it was like he felt it in every last inch of him. When Harvey came, pushed deep inside him, shuddering, bucking, gripping him tight and almost growling, he could feel it. When he came, too, in thick bursts over the back of Harvey's door like DNA meant nothing, he saw stars like he was concussed.

He almost passed out. Harvey did.

He remembers how he sat there afterwards with his back pressed to the door as he listened to the din outside, high-pitched laughter over over sobbing, too weak to even rearrange the mess he'd left his suit in. Harvey was out cold but he could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed and honestly, he didn't really want to wake him. He looked so much like the Harvey he'd known, lying there half-naked on the floor, and all it had taken to get there was Poison Ivy's patented sex pollen that made them fuck till he fell unconscious. Two-Face probably wouldn't have appreciated being woken. There was virtually no chance that shaking him by the shoulders would bring back Harvey instead, so he left him just like that.

It was another forty minutes before Bruce could move. The first thing he did was reinsert his rebreather to try to ward off a second brush with Ivy's pollen. The second thing was to pull his suit back into place so he might stand a chance of the Gotham PD not believing he'd just had sex with Harvey Dent's maniacal alter-ego. The third was to stagger out of that room, bumping into pollen-coated walls, and leave Harvey lying there in it. Judging from the bodies on the floors, in the corridors, equal parts guards and nurses and patients, he knew Harvey really might have saved his life.

He was gone by the time Bruce had checked the other rooms and the other survivors and advised Gotham PD to proceed with extreme caution, with full protective gear and the advice of their local bioterrorism specialist. He was gone but he hadn't gone far; he was sitting on the roof when Bruce found him, mostly dressed, hair sweaty, hands slick with blood. Another patient was dead at his feet. Bruce didn't recognize his face, but that might have been because of what Harvey had done to it. He might not have gone far, or even left the grounds, but Bruce supposed it still technically counted as escape.

Bruce didn't try to be quiet as he approached. His boots crunched on the iced-over snow. All he could say was at least it hadn't been summer, with all the barred windows wide open; who knew how far the pollen would have spread.

"So you're still alive," Harvey said, without turning.

"Yes." He paused. He took a slow, deliberate breath of cold night air, now he could breathe again. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Harvey glanced at him over his shoulder, showing his unscarred half just for a second. "What now? Are you taking me back in?"

"Toss a coin," Bruce suggested. So he did. He caught it, and swore, and pulled himself up to his feet.

"I guess I go back inside."

"Do you always do what the coin says?"

"Yes."

"Toss it again." He looked suspicious of Bruce's intentions, possibly rightly so, but he did it. He caught it on the back of one bloody hand and slapped the other one down over it. "Heads you win, tails you lose?"

"Of course."

"Heads you go inside. Tails Harvey does."

Two-Face nodded tightly. Then he looked down at the coin.

It was Harvey Dent that went back inside.

Three years have passed since then. Batman's visited sometimes, at night, and Harvey's never asked him if he knew which way the coin had dropped.

Bruce is glad he hasn't asked because the truth is, he has no idea.

---

Since Harvey came back, Bruce hasn't visited anywhere near as often as he ought to. He hasn't visited as often as he used to, either. He tells himself it's because Harvey's looking at cases for people who visit, so he's busy, but that's absolutely not the reason.

He tells himself he's busy but once, years ago, he replaced twice a week for racquetball with once a week at Arkham, talking with Two-Face even though that wasn't really Harvey. Since Harvey came back, it's been board games from the Arkham rec room maybe once or twice every month or so while Bruce tries - and disappointingly succeeds - to pretend he doesn't miss the time that Harvey can't remember. He tells himself he doesn't mind because they were friends before they were anything else, and there are things he has to do, commitments he has to keep that keep him busy, but he does mind. He's had moderately more success just trying not to think about it.

The first time he visited, before even the first of the escapes, he was wearing a suit but not the suit. Harvey, cuffed to the table in what may or may not have been an appropriate or strictly legal manner, smiled an almost vicious smile.

"Hello, Bruce," he said, as Bruce sat down. "Lost any cufflinks lately?"

Bruce frowned. "Harvey?"

"Guess again," Two-Face said, and he rattled his chains for dramatic effect.

That smile on his face wasn't Harvey's but the longer he stayed the clearer it became that what Harvey hadn't remembered, Two-Face knew. Honestly, he's still not sure exactly what that means, but he knows one thing now: Two-Face kept things from Harvey, was maybe the reason that he ever forgot, but Harvey's kept things from Two-Face, too. He just wishes he could be sure that Mr. Hyde won't rear his ugly head again because he has no doubt he's in there, waiting. He wishes he believed otherwise. He'd like to think one day he will, but that day is not today.

"I have to take you back," Bruce says. He doesn't say I shouldn't have brought you here in the first place but Harvey's a smart man - the part that goes unsaid is understood implicitly.

Harvey stands. He does it slowly, deliberately, so Bruce can tell he's not planning to bolt for the door and make a beeline for the Batmobile and go shout it from the rooftops that Bruce Wayne is really Batman, just take a look in the caves under his house. Not that they'd believe him - Arkham is not a place for the healthy. But it's a tabloid conspiracy wet dream he'd rather not have to laugh off every second interview until the day he dies.

Harvey comes closer. Bruce turns, his back pressing against the back of the chair. And Harvey comes closer; he's had to turn, given their new relative positions in the room, and so now the scarred side of his face is in the firelight, lit up lowly but clearly. Bruce brings up one bare hand and touches Harvey's scarred cheek the way that he never has before in all this time. Harvey's hands settle on the back of the chair either side of where Bruce is leaning and he doesn't do much more than flinch just slightly at the feel of Bruce's fingers on his scars. Bruce has felt worse than this, and seen worse than this, but he's always been intrigued. There's just never been a time for this, and he's not sure why he's decided the time is now. Harvey's not a free man and chances are he never will be. The fact he's here right now is a mistake Bruce can't believe he's made.

"I have to take you back," Bruce says again, but he doesn't move his hand any further away than Harvey's shoulder. And Harvey nods, but he doesn't move away, either. Bruce doesn't make him, though he thinks that they both know he should.

"Arkham probably won't be safe until morning," Harvey says. "You know that it's like when the inmates take over the asylum."

Bruce briefly considers pointing out that the word 'asylum' appears nowhere in Arkham's official description and no one there is technically an inmate, but the distinction in terminology he'd make with anyone else seems somewhat pointless with Harvey. What he says is, "So I'll take you back in the morning."

Harvey's lips quirk faintly. "Are you asking me to stay the night, Bruce?" he says, almost like he's teasing, and maybe he is on the face of it so it would be easy to laugh it off and lead him to a guest room, then stand guard for what's left of the night just in case. He could let this go and Harvey would let him, and he could just make sure he never does anything so damned reckless as this again. Except it's been fifteen years since they met and Bruce has spent most of them regretting it. He doesn't want that weighing on him anymore.

He takes two handfuls of the front of Harvey's starchy white Arkham coveralls and he eases him closer, slowly, so they both have time to reconsider. They don't.

"Yes, I'm asking you to stay the night," he says, and when Harvey smiles, it's nothing like Two-Face. When Harvey kisses him, it's nothing like Two-Face, either. It's like the first time all over again, like he's thirty-two years old and not almost forty-five. Harvey's scars don't make that big of a difference. He's not a different person than he used to be, at least not now.

When they go upstairs, Bruce is still wearing the suit and he leaves the gauntlets on the table by the fire. His cape sweeps the stairs as they climb and he wants to look back over his shoulder just to check that Harvey's still with him, but he doesn't, not quite, though he tells himself it's logic that stops him - he can hear Harvey's footsteps close behind, following, so he doesn't need to see. He doesn't expect him to vanish into thin air, like they're on a steady walk from Hades.

"Alfred," Harvey says, startled, as a door opens to their right.

"Mr. Dent," Alfred replies. He looks at Bruce, gloves off and cowl down, and he raises his brows; that's the only hint he gives that he's at all surprised. "Master Bruce."

"Alfred, I've left the car on the driveway," Bruce says, wincing slightly, because he knows how it sounds, because he knows Alfred knows which car he means and how ridiculous that is. "Could you bring it in?"

Alfred's brows attempt to crawl even higher. "Yes, I think that might be advisable," he replies.

"And my gloves are in the study."

"Ah." He glances at Bruce's bare hands, then at Harvey in his fetching Arkham jumpsuit, then back at Bruce's face. "I'll take care of it."

"Thank you, Alfred."

"Of course."

They all start to move again, Bruce and Harvey forward toward the bedroom and Alfred toward the stairs, until Alfred puts one hand on Harvey's shoulder and Bruce isn't sure what's going to happen until Alfred says, "I'm pleased you're well, Mr. Dent."

Harvey smiles as he replies, "Thanks, Alfred. So am I." Then they do move on. Bruce isn't sure if he's pleased or not but a long time ago, before Maroni, Alfred wanted him to tell Harvey about his own alter-ego. Now, he definitely knows. It almost seems like Alfred approves.

Bruce opens the bedroom door. He lets Harvey inside, and he follows him in, and he closes the door behind them. The light switch by the door turns on a lamp by the bed.

"Is this your room?" Harvey asks.

"Yes," Bruce replies, as he leans back against the door.

"I thought you might take me to a guest room after that. You know, pretend you're just lending me a bed for the night."

"Alfred wasn't born yesterday, Harvey," Bruce says, mildly. "He knows what we came up here to do."

"Does that bother you?"

"Why should it?"

"Look at what I'm wearing, for a start."

Bruce doesn't point out that what he's wearing himself is roughly twenty times weirder. "So take it off," he says instead, like the answer is perfectly obvious.

Harvey, far from arguing, takes off the Arkham-issue slip-on shoes. He takes off the jumpsuit and the bleach-white socks and undershirt and underwear he's wearing underneath. He strips himself naked in front of Bruce's bed while Bruce watches in the light of that one lamp, still leaning there against the door with his hands tucked in between his cape and the small of his back. Then he turns on the rest of the lights with a flick of the switch and Harvey grimaces at it but doesn't try to cover up. It's like he took take it off as a challenge, and keeping his cool as a result is part of that.

"So," Harvey says, hands on hips. "Do I look any less insane to you now?"

"You look saner than I do," Bruce replies, and this time he gestures at the bat symbol on his chest.

"So take it off," Harvey quips, though he sounds more amused than he sounds sarcastic.

Bruce undresses. It's not the most straightforward procedure given the suit but Harvey's patient about it as Bruce removes it all in sections, cape and cowl, boots, belt, top, pants, till he's just as naked as Harvey is. They've done this before, even done this here> before, but that was a long time ago and this feels different, not just because of Harvey's memory or the scars that he's picked up since then or any of his own. They're more than a decade older now and Bruce feels like it's been more than twice that long with all the injuries he's had, and they're both starting to go gray, and Bruce has an even greater bulk of muscle on his frame now than he did back then. So does Harvey, for that matter.

"You're staring," Harvey says.

"It's been a long time."

"You know, that wasn't a complaint."

Bruce's mouth twists into something that might conceivably be called a smile. "Then what was it?"

"An observation." Harvey quirks his brows. "Maybe an invitation to do more than look."

He doesn't need to be asked twice. He goes closer. He doesn't hesitate.

When they kiss, Bruce's fingers in Harvey's hair, Harvey's palms pressing flat to Bruce's bare back, Bruce can remember the way Harvey used to feel and smell and taste. He remembers the lotion he used on his face after he shaved, the lingering aroma of crappy courthouse coffee, nights in bed or out at dinner or watching old movies on Harvey's couch, wearing borrowed sweatpants so he wouldn't crease his suit and make Alfred frown at it. Harvey made him feel like he had a life outside of Batman. Since then, he's not been sure he has. Tim and Dick and Jason would likely have their own ideas on that.

He runs his hands down Harvey's back and makes him shiver. He squeezes his ass and makes him laugh. Bruce is strong enough that he could manhandle Harvey into bed but he walks him backwards instead, both of them almost tripping over Harvey's discarded Arkham fashions, and Harvey lies down and shifts into the middle of Bruce's vast, neatly-made bed. Bruce stretches out on top of him. He props himself up on his hands, looking down as Harvey brings up his knees to bracket Bruce's hips, and he can remember the last time they had sex, pushed up against the door of Harvey's cell, except neither of them had a choice that night and more than that, that wasn't really Harvey. As they lie together, skin on skin, Bruce knows this time it's him. This time, they have a choice. And Harvey chooses to lift his hips and press his stiffening cock against Bruce's belly.

"You look terrified," Harvey says, teasing. "I thought you said we'd done this before."

"Well, we were twelve years younger, I hadn't broken my back, and you--"

"--hadn't killed fourteen people?"

Bruce smiles wryly. "I was going to say you were pretending you didn't know I was Batman."

"Not very successfully, apparently." Harvey runs his hands down to Bruce's ass and squeezes. "Was I generally successful in other areas?"

Bruce shifts against him. He's hard against Harvey's abdomen and the pressure and the friction are still familiar, even know.

"Yes," he says. "Very."

Harvey parts his cheeks and presses two fingers between them, rubbing at the muscle there. "You look like you mean that," he says, then he pushes a little harder. The pressure makes Bruce's heartbeat quicken and his stomach tighten, and he moves, pulling himself up and straddling Harvey's hips in one smooth motion. He ends up with Harvey's cock pressed up against his balls, the tip swiping back against his perineum, making Harvey rock his hips just a little to maintain that feeling. Then Harvey's fingers are back at his hole again, teasing him, making his thighs go tight and his cock stiffen even further. He was always like this, unhesitating when it came to sex. Bruce is glad to see that hasn't changed.

He fishes a tube of lube from the drawer by the bed and Harvey takes it, and opens it, and squeezes some out onto his fingers as his cheeks flush red and Bruce watches. Then he runs them back, pushes them against him, pushes them in, and Bruce breathes through it, jaw clenched, teeth bared. There've been others since Harvey, he doesn't think either of them are under any illusions about that, and there've been other men, and other men he's done this with. He hasn't had to force himself to be aroused by it. Generally, it hasn't been unpleasant. He's even cared about some of them, albeit in a distant, almost abstract way. There is nothing abstract about his feelings toward Harvey. He has never been able to maintain a safe distance. It would have been so much easier if he had.

Harvey slicks his cock and Bruce stays still as he presses the tip against his hole. He always liked this part with him, the moment before penetration, knowing it would happen and knowing no one knew but them. Harvey holds himself still and Bruce shifts to push against him with his hands gripping hard at his own thighs. He feels himself give. He feels Harvey push in. And he settles down, taking him as deep as he can so that when he rocks his hips, Harvey moves in him and groans out loud. He was never particularly abashed about the sounds he made.

Harvey can't stop touching him, his thighs, the taut muscles in his abdomen, his wrists, his cock. Harvey braces his heels to push up against him and it's like every other time they did this, years ago, but not at the same time because while maybe it's true that Bruce won't be able to go again tonight, at least not more than once, he has more stamina and more self-control. He has more experience, too; Harvey wasn't his first man but he was only his fourth and Bruce has at least a dozen new tricks up his sleeve to show him. Except he doesn't, in the end. Because he's looking down at Harvey's face as he rode him, one half still handsome the way he used to be then and the other half something very different, though honestly, Bruce doesn't mind that at all. He's looking at him and he's rolling his hips and Harvey's in him, deep and thick and hot and hard, and suddenly, before he can stop it, before he really understands it's happening, Harvey wraps one hand around him and that's it, Bruce comes, with a bone-deep shudder and a bitten-off yelp of turned on surprise.

Harvey laughs breathlessly, looking one hundred percent as surprised as Bruce is though apparently he also really, really likes it. But then he wraps one arm around Bruce's waist, shoves with his hips and tips him down onto his back on the mattress. Harvey's not small and he's always been strong so Bruce shouldn't be surprised but he is, just long enough until Harvey pushes back into him, leaning down over him, bending him almost double. Bruce doesn't mind the stretch - maybe he's not as flexible as Dick is, with the thickness of his muscles and the patches of scar tissue, but the position is still easy. It gets harder when Harvey leans down low and kisses him, roughly, between thrusts of his hips, but that's still fine. It's good. It makes something in his back crack satisfyingly and he kisses back hungrily, grasping Harvey's shoulders, until he groans against his mouth and comes inside him.

Slowly, Harvey pulls out. He sits back on his heels between Bruce's thighs and Bruce stretches, looking up at him. And there's a moment as Harvey turns his head when he almost thinks maybe he's made the worst mistake possible, that bringing him here was even worse for his recovery than leaving him at Arkham through a riot, and it wrenches at his chest. But when Harvey looks back down at him, when he stretches out next to him, he's still Harvey. The relief Bruce feels is immediate and very, very welcome.

"Thank you," Harvey says. He's lying on his side with his head propped up on one hand, his other thumb rubbing at a scar by Bruce's hip.

Bruce frowns. "For what?"

"Does it need to be specific?"

Bruce guesses not. And he'd like to find the words to thank Harvey, too - for a lot of things, but mainly just for still existing. For the longest time, he'd thought he was gone. He'd thought Two-Face had stolen his memories and then taken the rest of him, too.

In the morning, he'll have to take him back to Arkham. He hates knowing that, but it's not something they can avoid. Still, this time he'll make it a point to visit more and the doctors are still pleased with the way he's progressed, so maybe someday soon he'll be allowed to leave. His townhouse is still there, and it's still his, though Bruce put all his things into storage for safekeeping years ago. If it's what he wants, he'll help him put it all back out exactly where it was. He pushes the thought away quickly but he also knows that if it's what he wants, he'll let him sleep here every night until they're both sure Two-Face is gone for good.

With some back and forth, they wrench the sheets up to cover them both, and Bruce reaches to the switch by the bed to turn out the lights. He only hesitates a moment before he shifts up against Harvey's back and wraps one arm around his waist. Harvey lets him, with a warm sort chuckle Bruce can feel right through his chest.

"Getting sentimental in your old age, Bruce?" Harvey asks, though he's not exactly pushing him away.

Bruce makes an amused sort of sound against the back of Harvey's neck. "Only where you're concerned, Harvey," he replies, and Harvey just hums like he's pleased by that.

It's been fifteen years now since they met and most of that time Harvey's been gone, replaced by someone who looks a lot like him but isn't him at all. Bruce has learned to plan for the worst where Two-Face is concerned instead of hoping for the best.

it's been fifteen years and sometimes he regrets that he ever met Harvey Dent. But tonight is not one of those times.