Terra Firma

Gordon

His voice was harsh and admonishing, and I felt offended by it. I halfway wanted to go off on him... staring at his eyes that were slightly distrustful--I mean, two hours and we'd been scouring and cleaning and investigating the scene. And he decides to show up on a whim to talk to me?

And .. and... has anyone besides me noticed that the mayor looks like he's wearing eyeliner and mascara?

Jay

Just sayin.

Gordon

"I mean, enlighten me on the situation here, Commissioner Gordon. I'm afraid I don't understand. First, my nephew tells me he's shot in the hand and beaten by two of the most high profile killers in Gotham, after they are asked to stay. I find out from another one of your officers that one of those same killers comes dancing back in, leaves after bombing the place, which you were so kind as to not inform me. I then find myself staring at a file photo of one of your "best guys on the force"---your words, am I correct?-- on GNN next to The Jo--The--that man...?"

"Yes, Mayor Garcia," I added tone in my voice, trying to remind him of the fact that I'd been handed the position by him four years ago, "But I know some secrets of my ow--"

"And then! Tell me why, under your guidance, no police apprehended this situation? Why you put them on hold...?"

I crossed my arms,

"That would've worsened the situation."

"And? You can't just stand by and watch like this is some kind of circus! Do you realize this place could've blown up---"

"Gordon." One of my men stood beside me and Garcia glared.

"We searched the whole building again like you said."

"And?"

"No explosives."

I held two detenators in my hand, one that strapped tightly around the chest and the other that was previously stuck around someone's upper forearm. I waved them up to Garcia's darkening face. Two red wires stood frayed, probably a precautionary cutting done by a man who I was normally wriggling my own spectacles over.

I threw both the detenators in between us, staring at the Mayor solidly.

"You know what these are?" I asked plainly.

"...Timebombs. Detenators to timebombs."

"No.

They were only heart monitors."

I walked past him, going out to check on the children and staff evacuated.

Just two casualities I knew of. Amazing, with who we were dealing with.

Riddler

Words are powerful things. Sometimes you don't even need the full force of action to get people to do what you want.

The pen is mightier than the sword,

and I lived by that rule.

Angel

For some, love is a fire or a speeding train. Something that hits you in this grand and spectacular way. A thing that deafens, a thing that blinds and sears right through the bone.

For someone like me, love came softly. Creeping like a spider over silken sheets, or a mime with her heart beating softly in her head.

"No, no no no no!" I watched him from afar as he scrambled about, grabbing up fistfuls of the coins, throwing them around, sweeping them with his fingers, inspecting each one with the deep blue eyes.

In his hurry, one came flipping out from the group of many, rolling slowly in its heaviness, heading on a steady course to me. I simply bent, picking it up, when it reached my toes.

"Harvey.. Harvey..." I said softly.

"where is it where is it where is it can't lose it! I lost it! LOST SO GODDAMN MUCH--"

"HARVEY DENT, GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF."

I gasped to myself, surprised I'd yelled that way. But I did what I had to do. I had to snap him out of it, had to help him. The past days, weeks, whatever you wanted to call them--of my confinement I didn't like seeing him get like that. I didn't like seeing the angry glare from his one bad eye spread to the other side of his golden, unflawed face. I cared about Harvey. I wanted to see him smile, even when it was physically impossible on the one side.

I cared...

I befriended...

I (almost I thought I did) fixed...

I loved Harvey Two-Face.

I didn't even know it in that moment of holding out his quarter to him, as he got up shakily from his knees like a newborn calf and reached to meet my delicate fingers and hold it. I let the coin slide, burnt side down into his palm. His eyes darkened with the weight of it clinging to his hand, but in that moment, they still gazed at me with a tenderness. A desperation. I tightened my jaw, confused as he moved close to my face, grazing his cheek against mine.

It wasn't that I was afraid anymore.

It was just...

(this is wrong)

He reached up to touch my neck and I pulled away, stuttering on a breath:

"H-Harvey, I can't."

"Stay." He commanded in his confident lawyer voice.

"No, no I have to go--"

"I can get them for you! The boy and your friend? I can find them!"

"It's not that."

His eyes looked so saddened, and I wanted to cry. But I held my face straight.

"Then... will you come watch the sun set with me?"

"The sun---wait, what?"

"The sunset. Watch it with me."

"What about--"

"I do it every evening. No one notices. No one cares." He spat the last word at the wall beside us, and I felt he needed me there for some reason.

So I said, "Yes."

Riddler

"Duh I went back to work... What? What Susan? Oh, well they let me go this morning. This morning! Yeah, they let me go cause it was self defense or some shit. Really honestly, the final straw was he'd called me fat..."

I tapped my gloved fingers impatiently against the counter. Jesus, where was this chick's boss?

"AHEM." I didn't even make it sound like a clearing of the throat, I just yelled the actual word. She looked up, whispered something to Susan, and clicked the phone closed.

"Does your supervisor know you're on the phone...." I squinted at her name tag, "Evvie?"

The brunette glared, "We closed five minutes ago. Don't get smart with me, I've been drinking frappucinos all day," despite her sarcastic tone, her too large brown eyes smiled up at the stack of books, "Someone likes C.J."

"Cosette Jean."

"Tch. Yeah. But the natives call her C.J. Geez... tourists."

I blinked, shocked by her endearing rudeness, as she pointed her little lazer gun at each book with a beep sound. I was quite sore and tired, but I'd managed to change my suit, snag another cane, and clean myself up a bit before stopping by here on a whim. No one had recognized me thus far, because well... everyone in this town keeps their eyes down and their noses stuck in their own stories.

The young girl's face turned bone white at the last book in the stack, and her hands began to quiver.

"Edgar Alan Poe, huh?"

"Yes." I straightened, puzzled by the strange and vacant look on her face.

She suddenly smiled. Her teeth were slightly crooked but somehow it added to her face, and she put the books in a bag. I handed her a few twenties and slipped out of the door, limping slightly even with my cane because my back hurt.

What was with the look on her face? I shrugged, feeling too contented to care. I had enough drugs to keep the Caped Crusader and a Lucius Fox under my command for a few days (kept them at a seperate place of course), I had a way to win over the girl, and I'd just bought another pack of cigarettes.

So I walked on, moving further within my own plot. Hardly aware of how things would intertwine--how life was forming its own little riddle for me.

Who am I?

Angel

It really is surprising (and in this case fortunate) how unseeing everyone in Gotham is. We were standing on a bridge overlooking the point of water... four years ago... Poison Ivy decided to prevent the deaths of mothers, children, and scumbags alike. I was thankful we were alone. But still. It seemed like his face was a giant magnet, attracting negativity and blackness.

I no longer cared.

I stared as the orange sherbert light and deep purple haze of the sky reflected off the small wrinkles of his brow and tiny crow's feet around his handsome eye. His light yellow hair blew a little with the breeze and I leaned over the bars, smelling the romantic scent of dusk. I grinned, despite the dark clouds that threatened to build in the sky. I couldn't help it.

I had no idea what I would do from here. He was silent, in his own thoughts. He stared off into the sky and looked as still as the water below.

When he opened his mouth, thunder ripped off into the sky. A light rain began to build up and I rubbed my arms. He seemed unaffected by the sudden shift in the weather.

"Do you know how many people I've killed?"

I said nothing.

"Fifty."

I turned my head.

Knowing things...

We stayed silent for even longer. The sun sunk and the moon began to peek hauntingly through the clouds. I vaguely remember admitting to him that I'd never shared the story of my mother with anyone before him. Not even my best friend.

Not many know what it's like, loving a man you know you can't ever have.

He seemed to get the wrong impression from himself, because he said plainly:

"I love you."

I turned.

"No. No, you don't."

He snapped impatiently and the thunder boomed, "Don't say what I feel!"

"You're not in love with me, Harvey. You're in love with Rachel Dawes. And the only reason your mind is telling your heart that you love me is because I happen to remind you of her." I pointed off to the moon, screaming over the rain now pounding in my ears, building as my emotion cracked with it, "...And you know what? I love you! I am in love with HARVEY TWO-FACE, but I can't do anything because he'll never ever love me the same way!"

He stared down at the ground, watching the glinting concrete under our soaking shoes.

"You know it." I tried to hide a sob, "You know it and I know it too. That's why I have to go--"

"You don't have to go." He said suddenly. He reached into his other pocket.

No. No. No. No.

I could only stare, shaking from something other than cold and wetness, watching as he drew out his gun and held it up to the moon light.

His face lit with something.

"This needs to be done..." He whispered lightly. I froze, horrified. Visions of my mother poured through my brain.

(mad birds

don't deserve

to die

in such a sorry state...)

"The moon is so beautiful.... like you, see? It's a big silver dollar, flipped by God. And it landed scarred side up, see? So He made the world."

"Harvey, listen to me..."

"You know, I have lived my whole life trying to be fair. I got spit and stomped in the face by a man who knows otherwise. He won, in the end. But... I can still win. I can save the world and be fair."

He moved and stood atop the bar of the bridge, still stoic and upright even when the ledge was slippery and thin. I watched in horrified fascination as he raised his right hand with the quarter in it, staring into the moon like he was taking an oath:

"I am a lawyer. Yes. We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice. Insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. God bless America."

He then raised the left, the one with the gun, to his mangled head. I cried out an objection but he ignored it.

"I am a liar. No. We the acid scarred bitches of history of evil and hypocrisy exalt criminals to office. Vietnam, El Salvador, Chile with lovely missiles, roaring bombs of the rich, the oil of Iraq, and the white and the pious and burn children and torture women. Forever and ever, Amen. God bless America."

He snarled those words, looking down at the quarter in his palm and rubbing it with his thumb.

"The world's chances couldn't be better." He smirked, flipping it in the air. I raised my hands to my mouth, my tears mixing quietly with rainwater.

It landed and he looked surprised. He turned to me, smiling. And for half a second I though he was going to climb down from that awful place as he spoke to me. His soft words were clear, carried on heavy rain droplets.

"I was never as sure and happy like The Joker. Never pretty like Poison Ivy. Never an obnoxious braggart like The Riddler.

(the riddler cosette the coins and his smooth voice beyond the door)

"I have always been the hero that worked behind the scenes, the villian that stayed quiet in the shadows. I never robbed a bank or danced wildly to alarms in the asylum. In the end, I just did what I thought was fair. I've lived the quiet mobster life, and I will die the quiet villian--"

"NO! I can help you Harvey, just please let me help you!" I reached my hands to him, tried to reach for that gun clicking too surely against his calm head.

"I'm done burdening people." He said simply, his hand squeezing the trigger gently,

"No one will ever really know the horror that was Harvey Two-Face. Except for an Angel, of course."

Thunder screamed, I screamed, a tiny gun screamed so loudly it tore into my ears every night for the rest of my life.

Harvey swung forward, and I heard the unmistakable sound.

Ivy

SPLASH.

He cackled, "Come over here, Ivy there's tons of puddles over here!"

I giggled in reply, rushing into the next alley opening like we were shopping in a grocery store and he'd just found a great sale. The rest of that day passed like a cloud floating breezily over a picnic--it still was to me, even though it was raining like the end of the world would arrive very soon. I could see in his eyes he felt the same, as he hurled himself at more puddles like a child.

He began to sing in his gruff off key voice and I sang with him:

"IF ALL THE RAINDROPS WERE LEMONDROPS AND GUM DROPS, OH WHAT A RAAAAAIN THAT WOULD BE STANDING OUTSIDE WITH OUR MOUTHS OPEN WIIIIIDE: OOOOAAAOAAAOAAAAOOOOH--"

Sirens blared suddenly and he swung me by the nearest large trashcan, pushing me violently against the wall and slinking down close by my side. We were soaked so badly our clothes became as thin as skin. I was freezing and my hair was frizzed and clung to my head like seaweed. But all that didn't matter. We were happy.

The patrol car passed and he got up, blowing a rasberry to the entire world.

I stood at his side, staring into the moon hiding beneath the raging night.

"I'd uh, ...I'd ask you if you've ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight... but I can't dance."

I smirked, "I used to dance in highschool."

He said nothing, turned back and sat by the dumpster. I raised my eyebrows at his thoughtful shift in mood.

"You could've done anything." He laughed, "Coulda... been a singer or a painter. A top model. I would look at your pictures on Vogue, maybe. ...And you're standing right in front of me..."

"Yes."

He swung his head side to side, his mop of hair sticking to his scarred cheeks, "I should've let you go."

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm not... I'm not. You know that."

I sighed, crouching in front of him, "Jack."

"Huh."

"If I ever had a real doubt in my mind, I wouldn't have followed you to the van. I wouldn't have taken those syringes. I wouldn't have answered the unknown call on my cell phone. I wouldn't have walked home at all after you and I met.

...To be honest, I would've been pretty damn bored."

I looked up from the ground and he'd leaned his head back against the dirty wall with his mouth slumped open and his eyes closed, making theatrical snoring noises.

I slapped him angrily and he leaned, kissing me.

I stayed close to his face, stroking his scars. For once he didn't try and pry away.

I was feeling rather sure of myself, and opened my mouth to say the words I'd been wanting to say and mean to someone for 29 years.

But it was just like him, to ruin a moment. Even our own.

"We should go. Gambol's been whining about how we need to at least find where Daisy went."

Well, I agreed with him on that. For once. He got up, holding his hands out to me. Confused, I stared at the jagged nails for a few seconds. Then I smiled, grabbing onto them.

He pulled me up violently, laughing while he swung me wildly around and tugged at my ear until I shouted at him.

"HA! You always fall for that, I don't know why you always fall for it."

I rolled my eyes shoving him away. He fell and got right back up, swinging his arm around me with a smooth flair. Well, smooth to a boy on his first date at the movies.

Lightning seared through the sky in a threatening manner.

"Shittiest damn weather in Gotham, hm?" He cackled.

"Mhm." I said simply.

Greatest day of my life.