You've reached the Gotham City District Attorney's Office.  No one is available to take your call.  If you wish to leave a message for Harvey Dent, please stay on the line and wait for the tone.  For a directory of Assistant District Attorneys, press "2".  If you have an actual emergency, please use the Bat Signal hang up and dial the Gotham City Police Department at 9-1-1.  To speak to an operator, press "0".   *pause, and then the sound of the tone*

Harvey looked down at the slight blond woman who was curled up beside him in bed. He'd been silent since they finished, unable to think of the right words. He hadn't explained his change in mood at all - just came home with dinner and a briefcase full of cash (which she didn't know about...but that she probably should, since some of it was for her). After a moment, he sat up.

"I'll be right back," he grunted, getting out of bed.

A minute later, he returned with the briefcase. He spun the dials on the latch locks and opened it up.

"Here." He held out several stacks of hundred dollar bills to Nadine.

“Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it,” the Chechen repeated into his cell phone, waving his hand in a dismissive fashion at the person on the other end of the line. As he did, ashes from the cigarette he held flickered to the ground. He made his way out of a nightclub that he owned. With the deaths of Maroni and Gambol, business was quite lucrative. At the moment, with a few drinks in him and his security detail out of sight, the Chechen was feeling rather invulnerable. It was a dangerous feeling. Before he could enjoy it or remember that he should take precautions, the barrel of a gun was being pressed into his back and a hand squeezed his neck with a vise grip.

“Don’t fucking move,” Harvey Dent rasped.
The Chechen was momentarily confused as Dent pushed him back toward the alley where the former DA had been lying in wait. By the time the Chechen started to struggle against Dent, it was too late. He was up against a wall with the gun pressed against his chest.

“Dent,” he managed.
“Surprised?” Harvey’s smile was almost maniacal.
“I’d heard rumors,” the Chechen said.

“Rumors of what?” Harvey wanted to know, “That I was dead? That I was alive but might as well be dead? What?” He grabbed the Chechen’s collar, knocking the man’s head against the brick wall.

“That you were alive,” the Chechen’s words were almost slurred as he recovered from the blow to his head. He looked around, his gaze unfocused, trying not to look at Dent's face.

“The face too much for you?” Harvey grabbed the other man’s chin and forced the Chechen to look at him. “You like that? You did this, you son of a bitch. You and those other cowards!”

The Chechen stared back, flinching as he was forced to study the twisted, discolored scars.

“How does it feel to take a man’s life?” Harvey sneered, his face closer to the Chechen’s. “To take everything from him—his work, his family—his fucking face?!” Forgetting about the reason he’d come to see the Chechen in the first place, Harvey reached for his coin. “Now you’re gonna know what it’s like to have everything taken from you.” He shoved the coin in the Chechen’s face. “Heads you live, tails you die.”

“Wait!” The Chechen did not like the odds. He’d had a risky time of it lately, especially with the Joker running wild. “What do you want? You’re-you’re right. We did that to you. The Bat got out of hand. You were collateral damage. What do you need? Money? Protection?”

“Money, for starters,” Harvey said, remembering why he was there. He named a figure. “Cash. Delivered at the place of my choosing. That’s monthly payments, not one lump sum.”

The Chechen nodded.

“You screw it up, you lie to me—just remember I know how you move your money and how you operate,” Harvey said, “I remember everything we had on you and what I don’t remember, I can still access. Building blueprints, financials, which of your men would turn on you for a shot at some extra money.”

“And if I decide it would be easier to kill you?” The Chechen wasn’t planning on it, in fact had already decided that Dent could be useful to him, but asked anyway.

The man they were calling Two-Face grinned. “You can try to kill me, but you already failed once. And this time I’ve got nothing to lose.”

[A set-up for a larger entry to follow.]


The rain wouldn’t stop. Harvey felt like a caged animal, pacing back and forth across Nadine’s apartment while she was at work. It was nearly a month since the first night he’d stayed. He didn’t know how he was going to make a living or even simply live his life, but he knew he couldn’t stay cooped up much longer.

“Errgh,” he let out an annoyed grunt and went for the hall closet. A moment later, Harvey retrieved his gun and holster. After throwing on a trench coat and his hat, Harvey went out the door, rain be damned.

It was dark outside already – fall had snuck up on the City and the days were shorter. In his state of seclusion, Harvey had barely noticed the change until then. Once he was out on the street, he headed downtown, a sliver of an idea in his head. Maybe…just maybe…there was a way he could get some income. It was a risk, but what did he have to lose?

[Written for arkhams_dr as part of my Fic Requests post.]

( Trademark )

Follows this post.

Though Nadine fell asleep with relative ease once he managed to convince her that the Scarecrow was nowhere in the vicinity, Harvey had a more difficult time. All he could see was Duela’s little face, brows knit with worry and confusion, peeking out of her bedroom door. He was both thankful and regretful that she’d gone back into her room without another word. He was glad there’d been no scene – that Nadine hadn’t rambled on about the Scarecrow to their child. Until now, they’d managed to keep the source of Nadine’s episodes between themselves, just like the source of Harvey’s income was a grown-up discussion had after Duela was in bed, if at all.

Despite Duela’s quiet retreat, Harvey couldn’t help but feel as though he should’ve gone to her, made sure she was all right. Instead, he held Nadine while she slept, wondering if he was a bad father for choosing his wife over his daughter, wondering if this was a common occurrence that he’d never noticed before. It wasn’t, but he still slept fitfully.

The next day was Saturday. He had nothing to do, work-wise, and so he decided he would try to talk to Duela while Nadine busied herself around the house. If anything, he could promise her something fun for the day – ice cream, a walk to the park. That always made things a little better when the apartment became stressful.

He thought this over as he got shaved and dressed for the day. One glance over at the still-sleeping Nadine and Harvey knew it was the right thing to do. He would try to be truthful with Duela – as much as he could be with a seven year old. She couldn’t become like her mother – having nightmares and delusions, believing some unknown monster was after her, being afraid. His girl would not grow up to fear the way Nadine did. He would make sure of that.

With one last look at Nadine, Harvey exited their bedroom. Duela tended to get up early, busying herself with books or toys until her parents woke, and so Harvey knocked tentatively on her bedroom door. “Ela?”

The Batmobile roared up to the rundown duplex, nearly coming up on the sidewalk as it pulled to a stop.

Inside the driver's seat, Harvey Dent struggled with the car's controls, which he was obviously unaccustomed to.

"Hurry the hell up," he muttered to the absent Jonathan Crane. Crane was supposed to be waiting for him. All he'd told the doctor was "meet me outside the apartment at the appointed time." They didn't have a whole lot of time. You could only be inconspicuous in the goddamn Batmobile for so long. This was either going to be the best birthday present or the one they remembered because it landed them in jail...or, you know, both...

Harvey wasn't sure how many minutes--hours?--had gone by since Crane left Nadine's apartment. He'd flipped the damn coin more times than he could remember. Now, as he sat on the couch--he let out a little laugh--now he'd turned to a higher authority.

"Well, what do you think?" he asked the Glock, pointing it at himself. "Stay? Go? Out of the apartment? Out of Gotham?" He made like he was listening to the gun. "Really? Leave forever? You're going to have to do better at convincing me than that..." He was silent for a couple of minutes, listening to whatever demons in his head rambled on.

Scotch. He just needed a bit - the last of his bottle. He poured himself a tumbler and hastily took a gulp. "Now," he said out loud. "Tell me more." Another pause, and then he laughed out loud, unbalanced, desperate. "Is that so?" He pressed the gun up to his jaw, his breathing ragged.

*repeated coinflip - ting, ting* Can't decide...

Fresh from court, Harvey sat down at his desk, checking his pile of messages. He ran his fingers through his hair and stifled a yawn. The day was dragging and he still had to conduct an interview for the vacant ADA position. His eyes fell to the file folder that an assistant had put on his desk earlier in the day. He picked it up, realizing that the prospective candidate was coming in within the hour.

Nadine Lewis was written on the tab. She was the last interview in a long week full of interviews. How hard was it to find a dedicated employee who actually believed in what they were doing? Difficult, apparently. He loosened his tie a bit, leaned back in his chair and began to go over her file. There were notes from the head of human resources and a post-it with Rachel's handwriting, indicating that she'd talked to the woman herself and had a good feeling about her. He was apt to be skeptical - a person could sound like anything over the phone or on paper. He read the file several times over, absorbed in it.

"Mr. Dent? Your 3:30 is here," one of the file clerks said, peeking her head into his office about twenty minutes later.

Harvey looked up. "Hm?"

"Nadine Lewis?"

"Right." He nodded and sat up straight, but didn't bother fixing his tie. "Send her in."