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The first time he looks at her, she’s a flushed child with wide eyes and wild hair, lips pulled back in a snarl as two nurses wrap her up in a pristine white straightjacket and a doctor injects a sedative into her arm.
Harvey is terrified of this place, of the nurses with the muscled arms and glass eyed doctors that check the girl’s unconsciousness with their feet before walking away without a single concern, letting the nurses drag her away legs first. But Father says this is the best place for him, that this place will banish ‘him’ for good and wouldn’t it be just wonderful if the voices just… stopped?
So he holds his head high and does his best to keep his hands from shaking as the unconscious girl’s arm bumps into his shoe as she disappears down the corridor.
He has to believe there’s salvation in this place.
There has to be.
He meets the girls once more on the gardens, almost three days into his stay. She’s dressed in an oversized pajama shirt and her dark hair has been combed to perfectly frame her heart-shaped face sweetly, there are twin, round burn marks on her forehead that she doesn’t seem to notice, but Harvey can see clearly in contrast to her ivory skin, but does not dare to ask about.
He blinks when she sits by his side on the grass, thin arms immediately wrapping around bony knees to protect her from the cold that is not there.
“You are the one with the voices, right?” she whispers, voice soft, subdued.
Harvey pales, mouth closing and opening uselessly until her pale hand is resting against his own in what, he guesses, must be her way of comforting him.
“Don’t worry,” she continues, pale eyes set on her wiggling toes. “No one’s gonna judge you here. We are all sick after all.”
He blinks, eyes on their joint hands.
“It’s true,” the girl assures. “Bobby likes to hurt himself, and Vickie sees colors all wrong. And there’s the twins, they like to burn things. Animals mostly.”
“What about you?” he finally asks, his voice muted, afraid of this little burnt doll that can turn into a monster at the blink of an eye. One of the aforementioned twins – Boy Twin, Harvey dubs him – giggles maniacally and waves a box of matches in front of his sister’s eyes, prompting one of the muscled nurses to tackle him to the ground. “Why are you here? Apart from being spontaneously violent?”
The girl smile a small smile.
“I kissed Jackie and my Dad says I shouldn’t have liked it,” she replies. “It was the most amazing kiss of my life.”
“Who’s Jackie,” Harvey asks, tilting his head.
“The girl who worked the kitchens at my home,” the girl sighs.
“Oh,” he says, just because he doesn’t know what else to say.
She keeps her smile as she nods.
“Oh, indeed,” she giggles. “I’m Janet Collins.”
He allows himself to smile back.
“Harvey Dent.”
“Nice to meet you then, Harvey Dent,” Janet greets, shaking his hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you to get out of here alive.”
Harvey is not sure why, but he believes this girl’s words whole heartedly.
They spend the following years together.
Harvey soon learns to breath and push with all his might to silence ‘The Mean One’’s voice and kill the eyes that reflect on the mirror. Janet’s hands hold his own and her voice hums melodies she has no name for until there is only her imaginary music inside his head. He also learns to put his medicine at the back of his throat and how to hack and coughing to get it out as soon as the nurses’ backs are turned. To press a cool, wet cloth against Janet’s burnt forehead as she spasms in his bed and her throat runs ragged with her nightmarish screams.
They both hate the room with the lights.
Janet, has stopped lashing out as per Harvey’s coaching’s. She takes her own meds against her teeth and crushes them as finely as she can before rinsing her mouth with the water she is supposed to swallow while Nurse Rodgers – the biggest nurse of them all – pats her head patronizingly and tells her it’s a matter of time before she grows used to the taste.
Vickie tells them that they would never get better if they don’t take their meds, and Harvey wanted to point out ot her that it is logically impossible to get better if they all took the same red and blue pills, since they all are sick in different ways, but Janet’s pale hand on his shoulder kept his lips sealed.
When, a few months later, Kevin – the resident kid with autism – starts vomiting blood and magically their pills change from red to green, even Vickie has to start burying her meds under the rosebushes and practicing her hacking and coughing to prevent discovery.
They are sick, yes, they know it, but they will not be their lab rats.
Five months later Boy Twin is moved into another hospital after he tries - and magically enough, succeeds – to set Bobby on fire and Girl Twin develops manic depression on top of all her other issues.
Her daddy touched them wrong, she tells them at night, and his touch would burn so hard that they just had to reciprocate, it’s not her brother’s fault, it’s just how he expresses his love.
Bobby nods as much as his scarred neck will allow and Harvey’s thumb tightens against Janet’s own for reassurance.
When one of the dangerous ones – the ones with no names that are always tied down and sedated – is driven away on an ambulance, eyes bleeding and teeth an abnormal shade of black-green that no normal mouth should ever have and the doctors are suddenly looking at them with contemplative eyes is the day Harvey decides he needs to leave and that Janet is the one that will help him.
He slips into Janet’s bed at night, covering her mouth with his hand and only blinking in surprise when he notices her eyes reflect no fear under the moonlight.
He smiles.
“I know how to get us out of here,” he whispers urgently. “But I need your cooperation.”
Janet’s eyes narrow.
“Are you in love with me?” she hisses, removing his hand from her face with both of her own.
He gapes.
“What? No!” he protests. “You are the only girl here that The Mean One doesn’t mind and you need to prove to your parents that you are normal before you fall into bed with Girl Twin again and she douses you in gasoline or something!”
She locks gazes wit him, lips still pursed.
“As soon as we know it’s safe, we split paths then?” she says, eyes hard.
He nods.
“Then I’ll date you,” she promises. “And I’ll coach you so your episodes are not that obvious.”
“We’ll be out of here by spring!” he promises back and kisses her cheek, laughing as her face twists in utter disgust.
They start sleeping in eachother’s arms despite the rules and smirk in triumph when the doctors send them confused looks as they lock them in solitary confinement as punishment.
“The Lesbian and the Wacko?” they hear them whisper and high-five eachother under the bars of their separate cells. Janet’s grin is so wide it makes her look deranged that Harvey kisses his new girlfriend’s forehead as soon as they are released – much to the amazement of Bobby and the rage of Girl Twin – and he kinda guesses it must be love, or the closest to love his damaged psyche will ever experience.
To him, Janet is not a pretty girl, not by any stretch of the imagination, but, hell, even The Mean One seems to feel fondness for her as if she was a small animal, a pet and Harvey wants to believe it has to mean something.
“It’s as close as I’ll ever get,” he mutters, snorting when their new resident psychopath, Clyde, nods and pats his head absentmindedly.
“Women, huh?” Clyde murmurs back, eyes set on the pigeon he’s currently pulling the legs off of.
Harvey ignores the pigeon’s agonized shrieks in favor of nodding his agreement.
They plan seems to be working perfectly.
By April, that very same year, Juliette Dent has her arms around her son, whispering into his ear how she always knew his ‘episodes’ were just a phase of teenage rebellion and how happy she is that he was able to get such a cute girlfriend out of such a horrible experience.
“You must come visit us soon, Miss Collins,” Harvey’s father says, eyes hard.
Janet nods.
“I will ask my parents as soon as I am settled back home,” she promises, her usual small, shy smile turning her face into a thing of loveliness. Had Harvey not seen her hours ago with her tongue down Girl Twin’s throat, he might have thought her ‘cured’too.
He snorts.
Janet and himself become a tag team of indulgences. He takes her to expensive restaurants and reads Wilde and Poe while his date fucks other women on his equally expensive hotel suites. She then takes him to Crime Alley and to Gotham Bay and watches over him while he unleashes The Mean One’s rage onto unsuspecting small criminals, and even lets him use her cool presence to calm him down afterwards.
They blame the teeth tracks on Janet’s neck and his bruised legs and back on their passionate and quite insatiable sex lie and grin when the adults shake their heads at them.
Ah, youth.
Harvey is about to enter Law School and maybe plan for his future when Janet sneaks into his apartment without his invite, soaking wet from the pouring rain and thin and pale as always, she looks like an apparition of a legend, the early sketch of a foreign movie monster.
“Jan?” he asks, because he has nothing else to do when she’s shivering from the cold and her eyes are bloodshot and even The Mean One on the back of his head is huffing in concern for his Janet-Pet.
“We’ve been together for six years, Harv,” she whispers, lips bitten, dry. “Do you think you could ever learn to love me?”
His eyes widen.
“Please,” Janet begs. “Just think about it.”
He frowns, unable to face her and her broken eyes.
Janet has been by his side since day one. Ice-cold, calm and silent in ways no one he has ever met has been before – Bruce before his breakdown could be considered a close second, but that was a long time ago – she lent him her strength whenever he needed it and only asked for his respect in return. She convinced his father to allow him to study law instead of the traditional medicine and she always made sure he had everything he needed before she left for the day.
Fondness, yes, Janet is wonderful and his other half.
But to love Janet.
Romantically love her?
He sighs.
“I think…” he whispers. “I think you are the closest I have ever come to care for.”
Janet rests her back against his window, slowly relaxing her legs until she noisily slides into the floor.
“But you won’t ever love me,” she finishes for him. “You are to damaged, too split to be able to love.”
He nods.
Her arms wrap around her knobby knees and Harvey has the akin dejavu of seeing that same woman as the little girl that she once way, forehead scarred, always cold, always looking for a place to sit and protect herself.
He pales.
“Are you in love with me?” he asks, voice hoarse.
Moonlit eyes glare at him.
“Don’t be obtuse, Harv,” she hisses. “You know how I hate human stupidity.”
Harvey scowls.
“Then…?”
She sighs, face pressing against the cool glass and allowing her breath to mist her view.
“Father still holds me mentally unfit to live on my own,” she says, eyes lost onto the city. “And won’t change his mind until I’m happily married and pregnant with his first grandson.”
Harvey chokes.
“You want me to…” he hesitates, and sure, it would be particularly difficult to get hard for Janet – that she is not pretty, she has grown into her features and has become a beautiful Ice Queen – but to actually lay with her and…
“No offense, Harv,” she interrupts with a bitter laugh. “But I don’t want my baby to get your voices.”
The Mean One huffs, offended, but Harvey can see the logic behind Janet’s words. They don’t know whether their own particular weirdness can be passed down genetically, and while Janet’s particular weirdness is only bad to her family and the circles she moves in, it wouldn’t be such a problem for her to raise a baby that likes… a different flavoring once he or she reaches puberty.
His weirdness on the other hand?
He wouldn’t want Jan’s baby to live through that.
“Then you want me to dump you,” he surmises.
She nods.
“As soon as you start Law School you can be distant,” she pauses, a single tear running down her cheek. “You can realize that adult life is different, maybe you realized that I’m too childish and you need a better, more clever girl for you.”
He closes his eyes, understanding her fear and her pain.
They need to do this so she can be free.
“I’ll get a blonde, your perfect opposite,” he promises.
“I’ll be heart broken,” she continues. “Three months should be enough to allow my own school mates to help me heal, one will fall into bed with me.”
“You thought this one out,” he says, not at all surprised.
“I worry we won’t be able to see eachother for a year, maybe more.”
Harvey thinks about it, about the seductive whispers of The Mean One and a life without Janet’s cool skin to drive him away. He has been practicing how to keep himsilent, has been able to keep him while he studies, but he also knows that Janet’s temporary solution will be more permanent than she thinks.
She’s going to have a baby.
He can’t be her priority any longer.
“I’ll start seeing someone,” he tells her. “A childhood friend started therapy with this amazing doctor. He says she’s good.”
Janet nods, shoulders slumping.
“You will call if anything happens, right?” she asks, her eyes finally meeting his.
“You will be busy with your new life and your ba…”
“Harvey T. Dent!” she snaps.
Harvey sighs, crawling on his hands and knees to her spot on the carpet and resting his head on her lap, sighing in pleasure when her slender fingers card through his hair absently. Nowhere in the world will they ever find such a perfectly damaged match for themselves, and they know it.
Together, in silence, they watch the rain fall for the last time.
If any shed any tear, none will acknowledge it.
It would take four years and a lot of heartache for Harvey to hear from Janet again and, as soon as he heard her weakened voice on the phone – groaning his name, sobbing in pain and fear – all thoughts of his career and the restaurant where he was sitting with his parents, his blonde Grace and Bruce flew out of his head with the urgency to reach her
It didn’t matter that Grace – sweet, kind, beautiful Grace with eyes like the sky and hair as golden as the sun – called his name as he dashed out.
It didn’t matter that Bruce – his best friend, broken brother, so much wasted potential – chases after him, midnight gaze full of worry.
His parents will be pissed, but Grace will think him sweet and Bruce will joke that he still has feelings for his rowdy ‘Janice’.
They won’t understand the all-encompassing need of belonging and kinship Janet inspires on him. The need to pull her through or he won’t make it out himself. Maybe this is what it feels like to have a brother or a sister, to actually care.
He can’t be sure.
He arrives at the hospital looking like a frightful apparition, all wide eyes, hands shaking, sweat sliding down his brow, he thinks he might be frothing at the mouth a little, because a nurse is rushing towards him, wanting to assist him – intubate him, sedate him, call the police on him?
“Janet Drake!” he screams at the woman, holding onto her shoulders tightly, feeling ‘The Mean One’ close to the surface and, for once, not able to care about it.
The nurse’s eyes are wide, fearful – he must really look diabolical – but before she can scream for help, there is an older-looking nurse grabbing his arm and smiling in understanding at him.
“She’s fine, sir,” she assures him, gently leading him to the third floor. “She was scared at first, being all alone, but when she sees you are here will be so happy.”
Harvey doubts it.
The older woman stops before a door and opens it for him, her smile impossibly cheerful in ways Harvey has never seen. Inside the room there is a bed donned in expensive cotton and white, where Janet’s black hair and sallow skin stand out in stark contrast, her pale eyes slowly gaining focus as they land on him.
“Your husband is finally here, Mrs. Drake!” the nurse beams, ushering Harvey in.
He wants to correct the woman, but Janet is laughing softly, her hair falling in her eyes as her cheeks start turning pink.
“Janet?” he greets uncertainly.
“Harvey,” she replies, offering her pale hand for him to take. “Hello Mean One too.”
“Are you okay?” he asks, ignoring the gruff-snort in the back of his head. “What happened? Why are you here? Why are you alone?”
Janet closes her eyes, her shoulders relaxing as soon as her hand is grasped within Harvey’s own.
“Jack is trapped in New York,” she whispers. “Snow storm has him sharing a room with Stark.”
“You are avoiding the question, Jan,” Harvey growls.
“Help me sit up?” she snaps back, struggling on tired limbs to place herself upright. He reaches instantly to pull her up, fluffing pillows as he used to do for her when they were young and her aches had a more real cause, a frightening one , and scowling when, instead of replying, Janet simply leans back in her pillows with a sigh of relief.
“Janet….”
“Here we go!” the old nurse calls back as she returns into the room pushing a small bundle of blankets into Harvey’s arms, beaming ‘congratulations’ over and over as she check’s Janet’s I.V. fluid and her pulse before tittering away.
Janet’s pale eyes sparkle in amusement the more Harvey pales and how can she smile like that when there is a miniature hand reaching for his Italian silk tie and an exact replica of her blue eyes is staring back at him curiously.
“Harvey,” she whispers. “This is your godson, Timothy.”
Harvey gapes.
“Timothy?” he asks.
Janet nods.
“Jack still thinks of you as ‘that asshole that dumped me and broke my heart for a leggy blonde’ so naming my son Harvey was out of the question,” she explains, smiling. “But I remembered your middle name and voila, he’s still named after you.”
A tremulous, tear filled smile worms its way into his face as he listens to her explanation. As he understands why she called him and cared nothing when he was mistaken for her husband. Janet would never want a child of him, because she has seen with her own eyes how his ‘issues’ broke him, and she would never want that for a child of her own.
But he will always be the most important man in her life.
Never her love, because he is not sure she is capable of loving anymore – if the room with the lightening fried her ability to love as it fried his – but her brother, her other half, the one person she can call her own.
Just as she is to him.
Timothy chooses that moment to coo at his godfather, small hand tugging at his tie.
Harvey feels like crying.
“Jan,” he whispers, his eyes locked with his godson’s. “My middle name is not Timothy. It’s Terrence.”
Janet’s eyes widen, her cheeks coloring at her mistake.
“Oops?” she says.
“It’s okay,” he shakes his head, wondering if it’s Baby Timmy’s soft voice the thing that is lulling ‘The Mean One’ and whether it’s something to do with Janet herself, because her son seems to have the same power over his darker self and isn’t it wonderful?
“I like Timothy better too,” a nurse whispers as she enters their room, cheeks flushed, eyes hopeful. “You have to keep it Janet.”
“It’s not like I can change it,” Janet shrugs, nodding in greeting at the newcomer.
Harvey eyes this new, younger nurse with distrust, his arms tightening around his Baby Timmy’s fragile body, teeth bared to show he is serious.
The nurse rolls her eyes.
“Still not functional enough, Dent?” she asks, unmoved. “And here we all thought you would be the one to get ‘better’ the easiest.”
Harvey’s eyes widen when he finally recognizes those almond-shaped eyes and full lips, the way her dark hair curls behind her ear stylishly despite the manic grin she is throwing his way.
“Girl Twin?” he gasps. “I thought you would be brown and crispy by now.”
Girl Twin raises an unimpressed eyebrow.
‘The Mean One’ hisses that he doesn’t want to share Janet and Baby Timmy with her.
Harvey scowls.
Janet smirks at them both.
“Thank you for coming, Dana,” she says. “It makes me feel better knowing you two can look out of my baby boy.”
Harvey wants to protest that Dana – Girl Twin, she will always be Girl Twin to him – used to burn shit up, that Bobby was a living proof of that, but he literally has a voice on the back of his head he calls ‘The Mean One’ and his years as a lawyer tell him his argument would be ridiculous and thus, he is not a best candidate either.
He simply wraps Baby Timmy tighter in his light blue blanket and watches over him as he yawns.
In a way, Harvey thinks he feels love when he looks into those tired blue eyes, when those rosy cheeks snuggle into his chest.
He thinks he can love this baby as his own.
He holds Baby Timmy in his arms while Janet and Girl Twin chat and plan to meet, strokes his soft head with careful fingers when that old nurse from before calls ‘Nurse Winters’ to help her with a patient and feels a little colder when he places Baby Timmy into his mother’s arms and wonders how much of Janet’s broken psyche will be able to spare love for her son.
He hopes it’s a lot.
He knows he can’t be around Jan and Baby Timmy as much as he would like. Jack Drake would not allow it and he still has a life of his own, a career to foster if he wants to get out of his parents’ scrutiny, but, maybe, when he is free of them… free of expectations.
Maybe he can take Jan and Baby Timmy away and he can love the child all that his mother can’t and together they can make it a project to make sure Baby Timmy grows up to be a normal boy, a sane adult?
He silently decides it’s a great plan.
He makes it a point to never miss one of Baby Timmy’s birthdays.
He always sends a present and receives a ‘thank you’ letter in return. He hears from Jan how Timmy likes photography and he sends the most expensive camera he can find – with Bruce’s help, of course – and is delighted beyond words when he receives a picture taken by Baby Timmy himself, all six years of age, shyly smiling at from a bathroom mirror, his present gently cradled in his small, pale hands.
He frames the picture and puts in in his desk to remind himself that there is a part of him that actually loves.
And then his life goes downhill.
On his first year in Arkham he tries to brive a guard into sending and upgrade, flowers, even a stupid birthday card, but he is not allowed. They think it’s a scheme, and won’t let him contact anyone on the outside.
He still receives a picture of the park outside his old office window, childish writing on the back.
‘The Police called and said you wanted to send a present,’ the message states. ‘Thank you for thinking of me, godfather. – Love, Tim.’
He falls asleep with a wide smile on his deformed face, the picture clutched against his chest.
He will escape Arkham for the first time to attend Janet’s funeral, and thinks he might feel sad when he body is lowered to the ground.
Bruce is there and so is his oldest brat, both standing respectfully by Baby Timmy’s side, supporting him in his loss. He doesn’t understand how come his once best friend – he still likes to believe they were friends – came to know his baby Timmy, and when did they become close enough for him to be there, but still, he is grateful and makes it a rule that no machinations of his will ever touch Wayne Enterprises or the Wayne Family itself.
Though, the twinge of envy that Bruce can be there for Baby Timmy when he himself – the boy’s godfather! – cannot makes him burn his friend’s car to the ground and cackle in glee even when Batman finds him and beats him back into confinement.
When he wakes up, once again in his room – his padded walls, his barred windows – there is a solitary picture on his bedside table of Janet’s favorite flowers – Camellias.
A note on the back.
‘Thank you for coming, Godfather. Mom would have been grateful to have you there. I know I was happy to see you. – Love, Tim’.
He finally allows himself to cry for his friend – his other half, his sister, his own – and his inability to keep his promise to her.
Years pass in a blur of Arkham riots, escape attempts, fights with Batman and his little sidekick, and therapy that sometimes helps, and sometimes makes it all worse. He makes sure to check on Baby Timmy every so often – send birthday gifts, feel pride over his amazing intellect and grades – and then he burns half a block in what the Joker calls a temper tantrum when he finds out that asshole Drake woke up from his coma and took Baby Timmy out of Bruce’s home, spouting his bullshit about the loving, concerned father, and finally shipping his godson out to some ridiculous boarding school for no apparent reason other than his own inability to care for a child as spectacular as Baby Timmy.
Yeah, Batman stopped his tantrum, and yes, Baby Timmy was returned to Gotham eventually, and he keeps hanging around Bruce and his family from what he can read on the papers and he writes to his friend, - hoping the warden might allow the letter to reach Bruce – asking for his permission to meet Baby Tim face to face once more.
Bruce, unfortunately, never replies.
And he is being petty – he knows it – but he tips Boomeran on all the weak points he can remember Jack having, gleefully asking that the ausie makes him suffer as much as he can before he kills the sorry bastard.
He receives his first visitor on Arkham that very same night.
Girl Twin looks statuesque as a masterpiece in her cream-colored dress and cheap as a hooker on her expensive designer coat, her hair falls in gentle waves around her face in remembrance of the way Janet herself wore it all those years ago.
She looks phony and demented.
A mockery of the woman she once loved.
He narrows his eyes.
“What do you want, Girl Twin?” he snaps, hiding in the shadows of his cell.
He is not in a showy mood tonight.
“My name is not Girl Twin,” she scoffs, raising an eyebrow. “You should use my real name once in a while.”
He rolls his eyes.
“What do you want then, Nurse Winters?” he mocks.
Dana crosses her legs, hands demurely resting on her lap. Janet’s gold and silver wedding ring glinting on her finger.
He snaps forward immediately, hands banging against the bulletproof glass that separates them.
“When did you get that!” he hisses, his eyes narrowed, teeth bared.
She grins.
“My husband gave it to me,” she says simply, a soft smile plastered over her ruby-colored mouth. “And it’s Nurse Drake now.”
“You married Drake?” he growls. “You dared?”
“I had to get close to my godson, somehow,” she shrugs. “Insinuating myself into their family was the best option. A lot better than sending ridiculous presents twice a year from prison, don’t you think?”
“You stole Jan’s life!” he roars, not able to understand her motivations.
“Not stealing, no. I would never steal from Janet,” she scolds, shoulders shaking with mirth. “I sleep on her side of the bed, I wear her ring and her clothes, I have the love of her husband and her son. Don’t you see, Mean Harvey? Janet and I can be together forever if I can become her. She won’t be dead if she lives through me!”
He spits onto the glass, just where her ugly face should be.
“You sick, selfish bitch,” he snaps. “And you call me the non-functioning one.”
“You are the one locked up in a cage like an animal,” she sneers. “And I’m the one that sleeps surrounded by Janet’s love every night.”
Harvey has never felt such clarity in his life. The Mean One and The Meek One are in perfect synchrony as they stare at the little bitch that tried to steal Janet’s hand-crafted happiness from Jan and she deserves to suffer.
Death will not be a mercy he will give her.
“Have fun giving Janet’s memory justice without your husband and child,” he mocks, laughing when her composure falters and she glares at him.
“What do you mean?” she hisses.
“A crook is on his way to off Jack,” he says casually, walking back to his shadowed corner, hand knocking onto the wall. “My friend Bruce Wayne will fight you for Baby Timmy’s custody if I ask him. He has a weakness for orphans, as you might have read on the papers.”
Girl Twin’s jaw tightens.
“I’m Timothy’s step-mother,” she snaps. “Janet’s baby is mine.”
“He’s fourteen,” Harvey shrugs. “Court will ask him to choose and, Dana, he won’t choose you over Bruce and his happy family. They were at Janet’s funeral and you weren’t. He loves them.”
Dana pales.
“He wouldn’t,” she whispers, shaking her head. “He has Janet’s eyes. He loves me.”
“Does he?” Harvey laughs. “He’s with Bruce right now, isn’t he?”
Right on cue The Joker starts laughing maniacally from his cell to Harvey’s left – he can always count on the clown to make his life more dramatic – and Girl Twin’s face loses all color as she dashes home to try and save her new family or die with it.
Depending on how gone she actually is.
Two weeks later he reads that Mrs. Dana Drake, nee Winters had a breakdown after the tragic death of her husband and now resides in Saint Catherine’s while her step-son, Timothy, has moved back into Wayne Manor where his mentor, Mr. Bruce Wayne, has sworn to keep his best interests in mind.
He sends over Bruce’s favorite chocolates and a thick coat for Baby Timmy – the boy’s too thin and will be cold this coming winter – with a few chips for the kid’s computer stuffed in the pockets.
Only the best from STAR Labs for his godson.
Bruce himself comes to see him this time, all suits and awkward smiles, he sits in front of him on the cheap plastic chair Girl Twin once refused to use and waits for him to be ready.
He scowls.
“What?” he asks.
“you have some color on your cheeks,” Bruce says, shrugging his shoulders uncomfortably, forcing a small smile on Harvey’s face.
“Only you, Brucie,” he snorts.
The other man chuckles, cheeks flushing.
“Tim wanted to come himself,” he says carefully. “The courts said I was a bad foster guardian if I allowed it, so…”
“So you came to check on Two Face yourself,” Harvey finishes for him.
Bruce nods.
“He told me you are his godfather.”
Harvey’s chest swells.
“I am,” he replies. “Janet and I were good friends.”
“I thought you dumped her after starting Law School. Odd.” Bruce frowns.
Harvey laughs.
“She thought I would be able to look out for her kid nonetheless,” he explains with a shrug. “All the good that did them.”
Bruce sighs, running a hand through his hair.
“Tim says you never forget his birthday,” he murmurs. “And that you always send things he needs or he actually likes. He treasures your presents.”
Harvey perks up.
“You want to know if I’m stalking the kid?” he asks.
“The thought did cross my mind, yes,” Bruce replies, tilting his head in that puppy-ish way he had adopted since his return from Tibet.
“I’m locked here, Bruce,” Harvey growls. “And whenever I get out, Batman beats the hell out of me and drags me back.”
Bruce looks pained for a moment.
“I also spare Drake Industries and Wayne Enterprises in all my hits,” he adds. “I’m not soulless.”
“But you know exactly what Tim likes and what he needs all the time,” Bruce protests, scowling.
And it suddenly dawns on Harvey what this conversation is about. His old friend doesn’t want to check on him and make sure it’s safe for Baby Timmy to visit him, nor does he want to make sure there’s no dangerous stalker after the boy.
Bruce is jealous and wants to know how Harvey – fucking Two Face – managed to form a connection with his godson while in jail and how his damaged mind can understand Baby Timmy’s needs when he can’t.
Because Timothy Drake is nothing like the brats Bruce has been collection over the years and he’s out of his depth with Tim’s usual silence.
He sighs.
“Timothy was raised to be his momma’s child,” he says. “He will never tell you what he needs or wants, or even seek it out himself. Jan raised him to be independent.”
Bruce’s eyes widen, his whole body leaning forward in his chair to give Harvey his undivided attention.
“Then how do you…”
“I observe, just like I observed his mother,” Harvey shrugs. “If there’s a picture of him on the papers and he looks thin, I send him cookies. If I read he’s studying I send him a computer. His letters are wordy, so I send him books and they are also pictures, so I check on cameras.”
Bruce stares.
“That’s it?” he asks.
Harvey nods.
“Janet noticed things and provided for Tim at the best of her ability,” he explains. “Jack didn’t.”
“And I have to learn how to do it too,” Bruce sighs. “He sent you something.”
Harvey nods, extending his hand.
Bruce handed him a stack of pictures.
Most are of the Manor and the gardens, the sky, flowers and colorful things that might have captured the boy’s attention. Also, Tim has taken a picture of himself, once again from the bathroom mirror.
He has grown from the small child with hesitant smiles and a too-big camera in his hands to a sullen teenager with broken eyes and even more shy smile.
‘Dad died and Dana lost her mind, my best friends are gone too and I feel so lonely,’ he wrote. ‘Still, knowing you think about me is comforting. Thank you, Godfather. – Love, Tim.’
Harvey closes his eyes, swallowing.
“His friends are gone?” he asks.
“They grew up together,” Bruce replies. His usual, vague explanations that tell nothing and everything.
Typical Bruce.
“Damn it,” he curses, clenching his fists. “Give him this.”
Without a word, Bruce receives Harvey’s jacket from his former friend.
“Tell him I wish I was there to do it myself,” he orders. “He’ll understand.”
He watches Bruce leave with a heavy heart and crushed hopes. A part of him wishes to believe that Bruce will find a way, will learn to help Timothy.
The Mean One tells him Bruce is too broken to love his baby boy like he deserves.
He wraps his arms around himself and pretends the weight of his Baby Timmy is still there, that his small hand is still holding onto his tie and that his pale blue eyes stare into his own as he yawns.
He plans his new escape as he surrounds himself with pictures of flowers and birds and flashlights and the sky, of a shy teenager staring at the camera from a mirror.