After a long night of work, Renee was relaxing at home, chatting idly with Barbara over Batgirl's communicator. They talked about nothing in particular, just odds and ends in between Oracle's orchestrations. Renee was more than ready to wind down and sink back into normal life.
"Glad it's at least been quiet on the Arkham front," Barbara muttered, as she called out a routine mugging to her other agents.
"You're gonna jinx it," Renee chided her. "Been so long, I'm getting worried. You know better than me, you never want to give them time to think."
“I guess. Still, I admire my cheerful optimism, and I stand by it."
Renee laughed, and kicked her feet up on the footstool. Her rest was interrupted, unfortunately, by a powerful, frenzied knocking on her door.
"The hell is that, I can hear it all the way over here?" Barbara asked.
Renee was wary, moving her feet back to the ground. "I don't know...stay with me, Babs."
The pounding continued, and she heard a strained voice call her name. "Renee...Renee, are you there?"
"Who--" Barbara started to ask, but Renee shushed her.
"Renee....please, Renee, I need your help...please, help me!"
"Harvey?" she asked in little more than a whisper, and opened the door.
He stood at her doorway, more haggard than ever, his hands over his face. His jacket was thin and tattered, but still unmistakable property of Arkham Asylum. His hands shook, his knees trembled, and when he finally lowered his hands, Renee found out why.
Harvey Dent's face was as smooth and unblemished as the day he'd been born; both sides symmetrical and unscarred, with no sign anywhere of Two-Face.
"Please, help!"
*****
The library of Professor Hugo Strange was vast, and filled with every type of knowledge. There were sweeping shelves, full aisles of medical and psychological texts for the staff's reference. Here and there were lighter fare, novels and even newspaper comics to provide entertainment and rewards for the patients. But in the deeper parts of the library at Arkham were rarer books, meant for the Professor's use alone. After months of good behavior, Harvey Dent was given free rein to roam the shelves in the evenings. That night, he had gotten himself into the back of the room, and carefully taken out the volume he wanted. The strange and loathsome book that seemed so out of place in this repository of modern knowledge. The weird tome that seemed to beckon him with terrible solutions.
He had been thinking on it since he first found the magic. There was part of him that still doubted, but a part of him needed to believe that the ritual would do what it claimed. And even the part that didn't believe still wished. There was evil in the book, but Harvey didn't care, not while there was evil in him. To get rid of the voice, there could be no real harm in trying.
"No harm but getting us both killed," the voice hissed back in his ear. Like in everything else in his life, his two sides were in opposition. More than anything, that made Harvey feel that he was doing the right thing.
Harvey opened the well-worn book to the right page, giving it a last look-over. "A spell for the cursed," began the old description. The ink was wearing away from the pages, bits and pieces of the words left illegible. But he knew what he needed for the spell, and how to do it. "And I'm nothing if not cursed," he muttered to himself, before taking the small crystal out of his pocket.
He had gotten one of his orderlies to bring it for him, after several weeks of asking with all of the district attorney's old charms. It was a simple piece of clear quartz, cut with a biting point at the top. Harvey stared into it like a mirror, hating his reflection as always. With a long breath, he began to murmur, reading out of the book.
"I call upon the magic of the Earth, to set right what turned wrong. The cursed man begs to return to the natural state, begs for his curse to leave his body and soul. I offer this sacrifice to prove my need," he recited, and drove the point of the crystal deep into his bad wrist with little more than a wince. The tough skin cracked and the blood flowed down the sides of the crystal until it was coated.
The fiery pain began instantly, well beyond the pain in his wrist. His head felt like it was splitting apart, and the sickeningly familiar feeling nearly made him drop the book. He clung to it though he sunk to his knees. He struggled not to cry out; just not draw attention to himself, not until it was over. Harvey fell forward, his forehead on the floor, his eyes clenched tightly against the fire. He couldn't tell how long it went on, his focus only lasting one more moment, then one more moment after that, and one after that, losing count of how many he went through.
Finally, just before Harvey gave out entirely, the pain receded. He gulped air, trying to pace his breathing. The first thing that hit him was the silence. For the first time in his entire life, he was alone in his own mind. His own thoughts floated through it; relief, confusion, the after-effect of pain. And slowly, through those thoughts and the silence, he heard another source of ragged breathing.
He lifted his head and stared. His brokenmirror image sat on the ground in front of him; also looked around in shock, turned his gnarled, knotted hands in front of his face. The bloodied crystal lay on the floor between the selves, and Harvey Dent and Two-Face stared at each other from either side of it. Two-Face was nothing but a scarred mess of a man; both eyes were red and burning, his skin greenish and mottled over every inch. He wore a tattered copy of Harvey's simple shirt and pants, mercifully covering some of the sight. There was no hair on the burned body, and his skin was stretched tight over a knobbed, bulky form.
Each man had a dripping wound in his wrist, and Harvey seemed to notice it first. He had to focus on the pain in his own body as that was the only part that made sense. He couldn't process his double, not now. And as he reached into his pocket for the bandage he'd brought, he could hear the footsteps running out of the room. He heard the door slam open as he wrapped his wound, heard the terrified shriek of the orderly as Two-Face ran past her. Harvey just shut his eyes tightly and waited for the sounds to be over. When he finally stood and went for the door, the orderly had fainted, and a trail of knocked-over supplies marked Two-Face's path to the outside world.
Harvey followed, as fast as he could. He needed to find help. He couldn't do this alone.
*****
Harvey sank further into the chair as he completed the strange tale for Renee, and Oracle as she listened in over the communicator. The bandage on his wrist was prominent and stained, more proof of the story even if Renee hadn't already believed him. She had been convinced of the magical power involved: she could see Harvey's whole face for herself.
There was part of Renee that couldn't get past that sight. She knew that she needed to be thinking, knew that there was a desperate danger somewhere in the city tonight. She knew that action needed to be taken. But for just a few seconds out of each minute, she looked at Harvey's old face and her mind went backward. She was a rookie again, looking at her mentor and friend. She wanted to let him take care of her problems. But Harvey was in no shape to do anything, and Renee kept shaking herself out of her daydream.
"We'll find him, Harvey. But we're going to need you to help us. You're sure that he's dangerous?" she asked, just as a formality. "What do you think he's going to be up to?"
"I don't know," Harvey had to admit, slumped quietly, and didn't touch the coffee Renee had brewed. "But I know what he is...all the doctors decided he was some personification of my negative qualities. Anger, violence, aggression, rebellion, those kinds of things. I know him even better...he's that and more. He can't stand the orderly world. Can't handle rules and authority. He's going to do something, I just don't know what."
Barbara's voice came back over the speaker, "You seriously don't know any better than we do? Harvey, please, we need all the information we can get."
"I don't, I don't know!" he insisted, his voice nearly breaking. Renee had never heard him this perturbed. "He's not here anymore, I can't hear him, he's not there, I don't know what he wants to do! I'm alone..." he trailed off, swallowed hard and tried to set his face back to a calm expression.
Renee knelt in front of his chair, and grabbed both of his hands. "Harvey, listen to me. You are not alone. We're going to get you through this, and we're not going to let...him do anything bad." She only realized as she was speaking how awkward the pronoun was. But there wasn't time to worry about what to call Two-Face. "I just need you to tell me one thing. How much does he know?"
"He'd know about you," Harvey said very quietly, voice heavy with guilt and remorse. "We were...separate, but we were the same...we went through it all together. All of the same memories, until we split."
She nodded, tight-lipped and worried, and turned back to her communicator. “Oracle, just stay with him. I need a minute, and I’ll be back.”
“Just don’t waste any time,” Barbara’s voice came back. Renee bit her lip, understanding the emotions she knew her friend was fighting. Oracle’s identity was one of the best-kept secrets in their line of work; even people who knew who Batwoman once was didn’t know who she had become. With Batgirl’s identity already compromised, they couldn’t risk Harvey finding out that it was Barbara on the other end of the conversation. And that meant that Babs was holding herself back from being too comforting to the man she had also called a friend. . “I want you back here within an hour, we need to get this handled before anything happens.”
“Okay. Fast as I can,” Renee promised, and turned back to Harvey. “Stay here. Help yourself if you need anything. I’ll be right back.”
*****
In downtown Gotham, the phone rang in a small apartment, and roused the two women from their television. The older woman lifted the receiver and brought it back over to her chair before answering. “Hola?”
“Mama, I need you to listen to me carefully.” Maria Montoya heard the voice of her daughter, with that calm worry that came from her years of training. “You and Lou need to get out of here. Visit a friend, take a vacation, just get out of Gotham.”
“Renee, what on earth? What’s the matter, are you okay?” she asked, glancing toward her other daughter, Louisa, on the couch.
“I’ll be fine. You need to go. I’m on my way to make sure you do.”
Renee could practically hear her mother put a hand on her hip.. “Renee, I have lived in Gotham City my entire life, I can think of nothing worse than what I’ve already survived.”
“Mama, please, you have to trust me on this. I’m downstairs, I’m coming up.” Renee hung up, and Maria sighed as she hit the door buzzer.
A moment later Renee came through the door, expecting her mother’s protest. “Why do you only visit when something’s wrong?”
Renee ignored her, and appealed directly to her sister. “Lou, you’ve got to go, just visit someone, have a weekend, I just don’t want you two in town. Someone…something dangerous is out there and you’re in danger.”
Louisa’s dark head was cocked, trying to read Renee’s face. “You never do this…not even when you were a cop…you really mean it, don’t you?”
“No, I’m just bored tonight!” Renee bit her lip to keep her temper, looking between her mother and sister. “I know I don’t visit. I don’t call. I know, and I’m sorry, but
please Mama, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
There was a long silence, and Maria sighed deeply. “Fine. But don’t you ever say your mother do anything for you, Renee.”
“I won’t,” Renee promised t. “Now go, I have to get home.” She spared time to give each of them a desperate emotional hug before she ran back off.
Renee could focus now. She quickly returned to her apartment, needing to begin to plan, and afraid because she didn’t know yet what Two-Face might do. But now she could face the problems, now that her family was safe. Now if Two-Face wanted some kind of revenge, or just wanted to hurt her, he was going to have to face Renee alone. That thought, Renee could handle.
*****
The night was young, and the city was perfect. The monstrous body that Two-Face had been given was ungainly and lurching, but he was growing used to the movement, even growing to love the way his shadow stalked the pavement.
He had never been so free. Untethered, independent, in control. He had been getting used to control, ever since he got his own face, but there had always been Harvey, always holding him back. He’d been useful, in his own way. But this life was so much sweeter. The world spread out before him as he crept into it, hungry to pick the fruits that dangled in his reach.
His first prizes were already coming to him. A couple walked down the sidewalk; a man and woman in love and holding hands, as though such sap could protect each other from the night. Two-Face was thrilled to relieve them of that delusion.
He came upon them like a whirlwind. There was a sudden thunderclap of laughter, deep and chilling. There were touches, pinches, pain. There was a scream, such a lovely long scream from the woman as her lover’s hand was torn from hers, replaced by a corded mockery thrust against her soft fingers. She began to run, her heels pounding into the pavement; tiny cries as they clicked faster and faster, the racing heartbeat of a chased rabbit. He waited, tried valiantly to fight the force that blended into the shadows. Two-Face reveled in his panic.
He chased when the man retreated, feeling out the strength of his form. After a short run he found himself beginning to tire, and he stopped. The fear on both of their faces was enough prize for now, enough of an appetizer. Two-Face lingered to watch them cling to each other. The woman cried in the wake of his assault, the man struggled to hold back his own tears.
It was beautiful. It was his. The whole city was his.
Two-Face continued to walk, made small offerings to his chaotic nature wherever he found the chances. He came across a vicious dog tied outside an apartment, and grinned as he undid the rope. The screams followed, more sweet screams in his ears as the creature sowed confusion and fear each way he ran. Two-Face didn’t even stop this time to watch the fallout. He just enjoyed the shouts, lingering where his presence spread through the city. Wherever he went, chaos was going to follow.
His mind was nowhere near Renee Montoya, as much as she had feared so. Eventually, he would want to see her punished, the Batgirl who put him into confinement. She was most certainly in danger. But now, this first night free, he only wanted his own small pleasures. It was worth the lack of direction to have the spontaneity, the unpredictability that he loved.
Two-Face reached into the pocket of his faded institutional clothes, and his fingers closed around a copy of the coin. When Harvey had been split in two, everything on his person had likewise been doubled. Two-Face pulled his former fetter out and inspected it closely. It was just as it always had been; one face clean as a whistle, the other darkened and damaged almost beyond recognition.
He made one small detour that night, a single purposeful act. He made his way to the waterfront, leaned over the railing and flung the copy coin across the surface of the water, sending it skipping before it finally sank into nothingness. There were no more chains. There was no more Harvey Dent. There was no more coin. There was nothing to control him any longer.
He was free.
******
The silence was deafening. Harvey couldn’t get used to it so quickly, not even having tried to prepare himself for the difference. He could hear every tick of every clock in the apartment, every coil humming in the kitchen, each time the air conditioning turned itself on and off again. He could hear his own heartbeat, his own breath. But no one was talking. The scratching in his skull had gone, the snide comments, the hissing whispers. He knew that this was for the better. This was what he’d always wanted. And he could be good now, he could be the person he had once been. He just hadn’t thought it would feel so empty.
When Renee returned to her apartment, Harvey still hadn’t moved. He didn’t even seem to hear her come in, he was too fascinated with his own hands, holding them in front of him. He turned each over slowly, as if still expecting one to turn mottled and green, expecting his body to revert to its scarred state, even after all he went through to be whole again.
There was a block of ice in Renee’s stomach. He looked like a lost child, a stray dog, needing protection and guidance. It scared her tremendously.
All that Renee could think of was the Harvey Dent she’d met when she was sixteen years old: the prosecutor gunning for District Attorney, so sure of himself and dedicated to fighting crime. He had been decisive, strong-willed, proactive. He had been the kind of man you knew would never fail you, the man you could turn to in the worst of times, who would find you an answer. The man that the poor and innocent depended on to escape unlawful jailing. A modern-day knight in a shining business suit.
Now Harvey was in his own worst time, and now he was the one who needed defending. He sat so still, lost in thought and paralyzed with the decisions he had to begin making. When he finally realized that Renee stood behind him, he tried to smile a grateful smile that came out limp and burdened. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks.” She swallowed hard and took a seat next to him. “What do we do?”
He only shook his head, leaning back into the cushions. “I can’t help…I can barely think. Just have to stop him before he hurts someone…everyone…”
With another slow gulp, Renee tapped the speed-dial on her phone, knowing Harvey was too out of it too pay attention to who she called. “Oracle, I’m back and getting ready. What’ve you got for me?”
“Only a couple reports so far,” Barbara replied, and Renee could hear the furiously clacking keys on her laptop. “But he’s out there. We knew that much. There were a couple things near the waterfront but nothing decisive, just…weird. I’ve got a 911 call from a hysterical woman saying she got jumped by a monster. There were a few more sightings, but no one’s sticking around to give us much to go on. Even the beat cops were too startled when they saw it to give chase.”
Renee exhaled slowly, trying not to think about the incompetents who’d replaced her on the force. “Anything’s better than nothing. I’m gonna suit up, I’ll be on the streets. Harvey’s going to stay here,” she added with a glance to him. He barely reacted to the plan, just nodding and sipping his stone-cold coffee. “Anything you can get, get it to me.”
“Absolutely. Good luck out there. Harvey, I’ll stay on the line,” Oracle added, and Renee left her phone on speaker as she went to change into her suit.
She paused as Batgirl, before she left to begin the search. Harvey turned his head when he heard her movement stop, glanced over her with a far-off look in his eye. “You wear purple now?” he asked with a very soft laugh.
“What, it’s that bad?” she asked back, just happy for a glimpse of her old friend again. “Harvey, you relax if you have to. We’re gonna get him, we’ll stop him. And then it’ll be over, okay? He’ll be gone.”
“Forever?” The word lingered in the air, and she thought she knew now what had been haunting him so.
She didn’t have his answer. Instead, she fastened the communicator in her cowl and moved toward her window over the alley. “It’ll be okay,” she assured him, and swung away, leaving Harvey more alone than he had ever been.
*****
Gotham hadn’t yet begun to panic; reports of monstrous figures were unusually commonplace here, and not yet enough to make the news reports. For most of the residents, it was a normal night, promising falsely to break into a normal morning. For the small group on the outskirts of town, the night was about to become much more interesting.
Harley sighed when her dinner plate was put before her, reaching her foot to scratch one of the hyenas who waited so patiently under the table. “Beets again? Ivy, we had beets for days!”
“Well we grew a lot of beets,” Ivy tried not to snap back at her friend. “Better this than letting them go bad. I thought you liked them, anyway.”
“I did, I did.” Harley poked the vegetables with her fork. “On Wednesday. When they were new.”
Ivy sat down to her own plate and dug in, almost vindictively enjoying her dinner. “Okay fine, no more beets. But you have to do some of the shopping if you want other stuff.”
“We can just send Bonnie and Clyde out hunting!” Harley suggested brightly, feeding a bite of beet to Bonnie. The hyenas had made themselves well at home, once Ivy had adjusted the dose and given them their inoculations. “They can bring back like squirrels, or deer! You want to cook a deer?”
“Not really.” Ivy rolled her eyes when Clyde’s nose nuzzled into her leg, but gave in and allowed him a bite too.
The conversation was interrupted by a loud bang from outside, and Harley immediately abandoned her dinner to get up and investigate. Her scream cut through the house and she ran back into the kitchen panicked. “Ivy there’s something outside and it’s like some kind of giant scab and it’s gross and creepy and make it go away!”
When Ivy went to inspect for herself, her first thought was that Harley’s description had been pretty accurate. It took her a long minute of looking to realize what this creature had to be. The color of the skin, the buggy eyes, the wildness in his gaze gave him away. Ivy didn’t have the smallest guess how it had happened, but she knew that Two-Face was after her.
She opened the door with her fiercest gaze, finding him about to knock again. “What the hell is going on?”
“Hello, Ivy.” Two-Face twisted his grimace into a grin. “Been a while since we met.”
“Not since you framed me,” Ivy replied, still standing in the doorway, and enjoyed the company of the hyenas when they came up to either side of her. Both growled, neither the slightest bit comfortable with the deformation before them.
“Yeah…you’re mad, huh?” he asked her, still with the slash of a smile on his lips, stuck into the wilting face. Ivy couldn’t hold back a shudder, and that made Two-Face smile wider. “Knew you hated us.”
“Us?”
Two-Face stepped closer, making the hyenas start to bark, their hair standing on end. “You oughtta know better than any. You made us…you freed me.”
Ivy stepped backward into her doorway, her eyes still locked on the freakishness of the man in front of her. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Or what happened to you. But keep me out of this!”
“Scared of me.” Two-Face let out a deep chuckle. “You don’t get it…not here to hurt you. Want to thank you. Want to help you.”
She kept staring, trying to keep her fierce face on. “Thank me?”
“For me,” he started answering, those burned eyes wild with excitement. “That trial…so long ago, huh? Scarred poor Harvey’s pretty little face. Gave me my own. Now pretty little Harvey’s run off on his own, and it’s just me. Just
you, and me,” he added, looking straight into Ivy, “And him all defenseless.”
“Him…Harvey Dent? I don’t understand. I don’t want anything to do with this,” Ivy protested again, starting to close the door.
Two-Face threw his fingers into the doorway, not even wincing when the door slammed against them. “Fine, don’t go after him. Guy who tried to put you away, sent you into your exile…come on…you want him gone much as I do.”
“But
you're Harvey Dent.” Ivy kept the door open this time, too confused to insist that he leave.
He spat onto the ground, and ignored the hyenas as they snapped at the intruder. “Nah…maybe I used to be. Just me now. Just power…just the useful bits…strength, fight, I got all I need to take him down. And then he’ll never tie either of us down again,” he finished, the eyes boring straight into Ivy’s.
Ivy was quiet as she thought about his words. She brought her hands down to touch the hyenas’ heads, to call them back. Bonnie and Clyde slunk back at the order, crawling toward Harley, who watched the scene unfold from around the doorway to the kitchen. “Prove it.”
“What do I got to prove to you?”
“You said you wanted to thank me…want to help me out…so prove it,” she challenged. “I can use you. You help me out with something. Then I think about getting back at Dent with you.”
The twisted grin widened and Two-Face stuck his hand out. Ivy shuddered when she took it to shake, cold to the touch, rough and almost scaled by the damage she had caused so long ago. “This is gonna be good.”
Ivy turned around and went back into the house, leaving Two-Face in the doorway for now. Harley grabbed her arm when she passed the doorway, pulling her into the kitchen with her own face full of worry. “Ivy, what’re you doing? This is creepy and weird and totally bad! I thought you weren’t gonna be bad anymore, didn’t you say that?”
Ivy gently pulled Harley's hands off of her arm. “Trust me. You’re gonna be the hero tonight,” she whispered, sure that Two-Face couldn’t hear. “Get someone’s attention. Whoever you can find, however you can. We’re turning him in,” she finished, and quickly put a finger over Harley’s lips to keep back the proud squeal she knew was coming.
“You got it, Ivy!” Harley subdued herself with a wary glance at the figure in the door. “You just don’t get hurt…you gotta stay safe too.”
“I will,” Ivy promised, and pushed Harley toward the side door, watching just long enough to see her scamper outside.
She kept walking toward a small study and found the information she wanted. Ivy’s face was calm, but she couldn’t help being excited. She couldn’t be sure what was going on. But it would sure as hell be useful to have that monstrosity on her side, to finish a project she’d been dying to complete. All she would need to do was put aside the bubbling, unfamiliar guilt gnawing at her stomach.
