Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harvey wakes up too quickly. Harvey wakes remembering the nightmare that was his life -- except he isn’t, can’t be, because he’s thirteen and desperately happy to be away from home; not forty-one and wishing he could flip a coin and choose to be Harvey again, Two-face raging in the back of his mind.

Harvey acts normal, rises from his bed and slips on his clothes. Dresses normal, trying not to run his hands down his whole, un-scarred, un-burnt, body. He stands in the mirror and fusses with his uniform so that it looks as perfect as hand-me-down, and on a scholarship to Gotham Academy gets. Presses his hair down, being careful not to slick it down with too much gel, or all those voices, would mock him and ask when he was going to start his dead end job, selling broken down cars.

He shakes when he looks in the mirror and sees his face, unmarred, un-burnt, and so, very, very handsome. Apollo, they used to whisper at him. Apollo they used to praise, - so beautiful he was until he burned for it. He tries to forget the nauseating flurry of memories, as he gathers his books. He has to be thinking ahead to class, to the ringing bell. 

Harvey sits in class, writing his notes down and watching the teacher pace across the room.

He sat very still, listening, taking it all in, the rest of the class of heirs, and inheritors or new money joking the class away.

Harvey’s mouth goes tight, -- almost blank as his eyes accidentally scan the room, and he can almost pick out what happens to the faces he comes across. More than half of them will be dead by the time he turns thirty. 

As he writes his notes, his hands shake.

The Joker is never kind to those who beg, especially when he crashes a party for a good time.

He can’t meet Bruce today. Which is good. Bruce would know something was wrong, and he would ask. Harvey didn’t think he’d have the heart to lie. Not to Bruce. Never to Bruce. He wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face.

He’d only half listened to Bruce’s plans as the anxiety of the end of the term is coming , and I don’t want to go home again , bounced around his head. Somehow, like always, Bruce knew, and tucked him into a rare hug. 

Harvey shook his head, pretending to write notes when the teachers watched him like a hawk and ignored the rest of the students. The condescending you don’t belong here , and the pitying too smart for your own good that permeated their interactions made Harvey’s stomach do flips.

He would prove them wrong.

In fact, Harvey was sure in the past that was now a dream, he already had.

Harvey sits back in his dorm room, passing the unusually lonely Wednesday night flying through his homework. Usually he would treat it with more care. Think over each word, and try desperately to appeal to the teachers with every stroke, the see, aren’t I smart, and worth the scholarship , dripping off of every sentence. He doesn’t bother, - he knows it. Inside and out, the other life, the dream , settling in him with a ferocity that could not be ripped away. 

It’s not long before he has a nice stack beside him, already organized and filed away for class tomorrow. He itches to leave Gotham Academy -- to head straight to the D.A’s office. To bring some change to the corrupt city he loves so much. But Harvey is a child, -- for all he remembers being a man grown. 

Harvey settles on his bed, and remembers the cruel voice, that made him Two-face. He should miss him.

Arm curling around his pillow, breathing in the faint lingering scent of musk, falling asleep, Harvey decides he misses Bruce more.

*Summer comes quickly, hot and relentless in Gotham. The apartments are all concrete, the A/C is broken, and his father is always drunk.

Harvey remembers being quiet. In his dream-life, he learns, if he wants to stay safe, he has to stay out of reach too. So he leaves. Never stays home for more than an hour or so. By the end of summer, Harvey can tell others like him apart even if he was blinded when his father aimed for his head.  They all have the same scuffling limp when walking across the concrete sidewalks.

The times when the summer heat threatens to kill him more than his father, Harvey walks back home, creeps in for a drink of water, and doesn’t look at the food in the refrigerator, no matter how much his stomach eats him from inside. He remembers how damning that food was, and he would never eat it again. Practically feels the stitches in his stomach and down his back, just another scar Bruce could never forgive in that dream.

When he gets desperate, and the blackness crawls at the edges of his vision, he calls Bruce with the forgotten change littering the sidewalk, and wonders if Bruce can hear the lies spin on his lips. 

Harvey would rather starve with his terror, than go back to school, go back to Bruce, broken and bruised. The night before school starts, he scuttles away from the house with a candle, glasses, and his uniform, measuring himself and trying to do needlework by candlelight.

If any solace comes from that long, sleepless night, it will be that come morning his uniform will not hang off of him.

He doesn’t want to see Bruce worried.

He wants even less to give his tormentors ammunition.*

Harvey freezes as the boys holler around him, throwing his homework around his head, and scuffing his backpack up, almost ripping it at the seams. He should fight, he knows that. He should curl his hands into fists and let them do the talking as they break noses and make the boys howl in pain.

But he can’t. He can’t. Harvey doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Doesn’t want to remember the way he hurt those innocent people in the dream. Harvey doesn’t want to turn into Two-face again.

So he freezes. 

And then the boys start pushing.

And yelling, spitting into his face.

*He flinches, and curls into a ball, the I’m sorry dad, I’ll be better slipping out of his lips before he can think on it. He forgot how much he used his fists as a way to forget that reflex.

The boys stop, - a rare commodity, from what Harvey remembers of his dream. Harvey doesn’t see the queer way the boys look at him. One of them starts to reach down, down to him, reaching and hoping to grab him .

He doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, dancing away from that hand. He grabs his backpack, the homework he can reach, and books it back to his dorm. 

The dorm would be safer. 

Under the bed would be safest.

At least, until he was with Bruce.

“Harvey?” Bruce kneels next to the bed, hands poised over the space underneath the bed. “Are you there?”

“Need something, Bruce?” Harvey tries not to snap, gnaws on his lip and hopes the words come out softer than he thought.

“Are you...Do you want to do some homework?” Bruce coaxes, and Harvey doesn’t fight the urge to stick his head out.

Bruce was always safe.

“Already did it.” He mumbled, as Bruce leans over and musses up his hair. “Hey! C’mon, Bruce.” He pouts at Bruce’s smile, trying to fix his hair.

“Then, can you help me with my homework?”

Harvey rolls his eyes, “Like you need any help at all.”

Bruce’s shoulders brush his, “We could go for a walk.” Bruce offers, already pulling out his homework.

“After curfew?”

“Not the first time we’ve done it.” Bruce shrugs nonchalantly, watching him with a sharp gaze. “Are you really okay, Harvey?”

Harvey’s lips thin themselves, and he almost wishes he had a reason to face away from Bruce and those damning eyes of his. “Why? Why do you care?” Harvey asks, not for himself, but for the dream-him. The one who drifted away from Bruce with time, and terror, and agonizing acid pain splitting him in two seemingly forever.

Bruce sits back at that, then slumps closer to him, hands always hovering, waiting for permission. Harvey sinks into his offered embrace.

“You’re my friend, Harvey.” Bruce whispers into his ear, “I’m always going to care.”

“What if-- what if I’m worse than my father?” Harvey hiccups on the verge of tears, and hates himself for it. He doesn’t cry. He can’t cry. Not in front of Bruce. Can’t show that he’s... weak , like his father always said.

“You won’t be. You’re too good, Harvey, to ever be like him.” 

And Harvey finally hears the way Bruce holds himself back from spitting in anger, from cursing his father’s name, and kicking mud upon the grave that won’t be built for years to come. He thinks dream-Bruce loved him this much too.

“You-- You’ll be so good to Gotham. And you’ll help put people like your father and worse away. You’ll clean up the city, and--” Bruce wavers, softly squeezing him, “And you’ll make sure my parents never happen again, -- to anyone. I’ll always be beside you, Harv’.”

Harvey sniffles into Bruce’s shoulder, letting a tear fall down his cheeks, “Promise?”

Bruce’s voice is a warm like Wayne manor when it rains. Like the smell of burning pine in the fireplace, Bruce’s voice cracks like the logs, burning with love, “I promise.”

Harvey is fifteen and the boys have stopped bullying him. That never happened in the dream-life. One day, a classmate approaches him, Alex something, Harvey can’t remember, he doesn’t care.

Alex stands uncomfortable, and Harvey tries not to bolt, or hunch, as the boy mindlessly cages him in with a hand against their lockers, trying to look tough, to look scary, to be strong .

*“If you,-- If you want to talk or whatever, about stuff, I’m here, I guess. You’re not the only one who...yeah.” Alex offers flatly, and pushes away before Harvey can even think to respond. In the dream-life, his bullies never offered him anything, and neither did Harvey. 

Later he asks some of the ever gossiping girls, always willing to say something for just a small errand, I promise . It turns out no matter how much money you’re born into, it doesn’t stop your dad from beating you blue and purple. It just means people care even less, and gossip even more.

*Harvey wonders if that was why they found Alex’s body in the communal showers, pale and bloodless, with cuts on arms and an even bigger, unseen wound in his heart.

Those friends of his, Harvey’s other bullies, he remembers their pale skin, and the heart breaking cries as cops dragged Alex’s body from the showers. He thinks they loved him, too.

When Sunday rolls around, and Bruce is too busy with homework, Harvey hovers outside Alex’s door, and knocks.

He wonders if he can spare Alex the pain of his dream-life.*

Bruce doesn’t like Alex. Or Alex’s friends.

He gets protective. Always stepping in between them, gritting his teeth and curling his fists. They tease him now, and Harvey lets them. Even smiles back when they do, and they all end up laughing. Growing closer between the hurt that no one speaks of.

Everyone but Bruce it seems.

Bruce gets lonely. Harvey watches as Bruce swans off with another gaggle of girls, flirting and winking, and pulling away. Bruce doesn’t say it, but just as well implies it when he’s always too busy to come along when Alex and them are around.

It all comes bursting forward one night. Bruce’s anger, that is, and all the separation between them couldn’t save Harvey from the storm.

They fight, and Harvey doesn’t want to do it ever again.

Bruce was furious. And Harvey thinks, in no small part jealous.

Harvey wonders if Bruce ever noticed he was jealous too. He was jealous, and angry, and scared that Bruce would leave him to fend for himself.

“You promised!” Harvey quivers, but he doesn’t yell, no longer afraid to cry in front of Bruce. “You promised you’d always be with me. But you’re not! You just run after the next girl, and the next, and the next, and you leave me alone . It’s not fair! Who else am I supposed to go to?”

Bruce doesn’t say anything after that. His mouth shut tightly as if someone had super glued his lips together. He swallows thickly, clenches his jaw, and leaves.

Harvey watches him and pretends his heart isn’t breaking.

When Bruce shows up in the morning, still silent, but there, they pretend they’re not growing apart too.

Just shy of sixteen, Bruce brings Harvey a bouquet of flowers, sweet bright daffodils, and blooming white tulips.

“I’m sorry, I ran away, Harvey. And then I- I didn’t want to let others have you. I’m sorry I hurt you. I was jealous, and I wanted you to myself--”

Harvey barely lets him finish, squeezing Bruce into such a tight hug, he’s surprised it never leaves a bruise.

“I’ll never forgive myself, Harvey. I should have never yelled at you. Never been like him.” Bruce holds him in his hands, still clutching that bouquet like a lifeline, “Can you forgive me?”

“Always, Bruce. Just-- You could never be like him , Bruce, never.”

“I won’t. I’ll do better.” Bruce sobs into his hair, shaking like a leaf in the wind, “I promise.”

"It's my fault too." Harvey says, "I'm sorry I ignored you. That I made you feel so alone."

Bruce sniffles dropping the bouquet, hands curled into his hair, "Just don't do it again."

He and Bruce heal slowly, over time, and together. Alex and his friends back off when Bruce is near, and though Harvey never learns why, the girls always tempt him with their knowledge. He decides he doesn’t need to know.

Bruce, he thinks, has made it clear how close he and Harvey are. Harvey isn’t as bothered as he should be. Simply happy that they’re back.

Happy that Bruce didn’t leave him.

In the dream-life they never kissed. They were almost, and never enough, and it’s the wrong time.

In this life, they do.

They sit with their legs tangled around each other. Bruce leans in slowly, eyes staring down at Harvey’s lips and then back up to his eyes, over and over while they do their homework.

Harvey nuzzles Bruce’s cheek, in a fond goodbye, as he scribbles the last word before he has to leave at curfew. And without a word, their stalemate breaks, Bruce pressing their lips together in a chaste kiss, their lips mashing together and both of their hearts racing.

They’re sixteen, and Harvey has seen Bruce do worse to a girl under the bleachers, laughing, smiling, and moaning, with his head between her thighs. He wonders why Bruce doesn’t look at him the same way.

Bruce turns the deepest red Harvey has ever seen, then he apologizes. Harvey bites his lips, nods, and like the sweeping summer rains, it passes over them, and leaves just as quickly.

When Harvey accidentally finds him under the bleachers again, he pretends not to see Bruce and another boy with pale blond hair.

It doesn’t spare him the hurt.

 
*Harvey is seventeen, and desperately limping towards Wayne Manor, rain thundering down around him. The purple bruises are spreading, and if he steps too firmly, Harvey swears there’s a click. He doesn’t stop to check, -- just keeps walking through the pain. Blood drips down his nose, broken maybe, he can’t tell - but he perseveres. 

He has to get to Bruce. He has to be safe . Bruce will know what to do. Bruce will know how to calm him down.

He falls to his knees at the wrought iron gates, a trembling cry coming from within him.

He barely has the mind to push the speaker button, as he falls to the scrapping concrete, fingers slipping from the wet gate.

He lays in the rain, staring up at the cloudy sky, for what seems an eternity before Bruce scrambles around him, calling furiously for Alfred over the roar of the storm.

“Harvey, I’m here. I’m here, don’t leave me. Harv’.” Bruce begs above him, tears falling from his eyes.

Harvey thinks he tries to smile before his world fades to black, Bruce holding him in his arms.

Harvey wakes to the smell of disinfectant, and the sharp smell of petrichor crawling in from the window. Someone holds his hand tightly, desperately whispering, and making it wetter with their tears.

When Harvey opens his eyes, just able enough to squint with their bloating, he sees Bruce ragged and sobbing into his hand.

His throat is too dry to cry, what comes out is a garble of noise and Bruce climbs across the bed and sobs deeper into Harvey’s neck.

“You’re okay, Harvey.” He says, eyes puffy and miserable, “You’re safe. You’re awake.” He repeats over and over. Harvey wheezes, feeling too numb and tired to answer. Bruce was there.

Everything was okay.

At seventeen, Harvey is emancipated. The cops, and therapists, and social workers come and go so often, Harvey barely remembers to thank them. Bruce, as always, is beside him. Alfred a shadow never far behind.

As much as dream-Bruce loved him, Harvey doesn’t think he can hold a candle to Bruce's anger. Bruce was still a child, not eighteen yet, but the way those Wayne lawyers had ripped into his father…

He could taste the vindication on his tongue as the GCPD renounced all ties with Christopher Dent in the light of the courthouse. 

Seventeen has never been Harvey’s lucky number. He thinks it could grow on him.

It’s been years since he awoke with the dream-life in his head, and the small details elude him. He wrote it down somewhere he knows, but trapped between a warm bed, and a sleepy Bruce, Harvey can hardly make himself care.

They graduate tomorrow, and Harvey will go to NYU, -- and Bruce, he supposes, wherever the wind takes him. Harvey doesn’t want to let him go. Almost wants to throw his scholarship in the air, and follow Bruce wherever he leads. But the city needs him.

Gotham needs its’ White Knight.

He watches over Bruce sleeping peacefully, and wonders if the Bruce in the dream life ever slept so well. They’re a tangle of each other’s limbs, and Harvey finds great comfort in it. In them . Bruce won’t be the same when he comes back, and a part of Harvey wants to protect that small innocent spark that has never experienced what dream-Bruce did. He can’t though.

Like the two sides of his favorite coin, Gotham needs its' Dark Knight too.

Chapter Text

At eight, before his parents passed, Bruce loved many things. His parents, the Mark of Zorro, playing in the park pretending to sword fight, Alfred, and Harvey. More things than he could count, really.

After his parents passed, Bruce loved only two of them. Alfred and Harvey were all he had left. All that reached out to him in a bleak, and stormy world.

That, and a newfound sense for justice.

Bruce doesn’t notice at first, thirteen and gangly, with a voice starting to break at every other word, because Harvey is smart.

Harvey’s one of the only people who can keep up with him. Punctual as a tack with his schoolwork. The I can’t chance that I get kicked out, Bruce, I need this scholarship, a wisp on his lips . Bruce sets aside a time, and sticks to it no matter what, they’ll get their homework done. Even if it means Bruce has to erase his answers, scan his homework, and then give an almost blank copy to Harvey because the bullies have ripped his homework to pieces again. And Harvey can’t ask the teachers for help. They’d only imply he didn’t belong.

He wishes Harvey would come to him for help. For anything and everything.

Time passes and the noticing never goes away. Harvey stops taking notes in class -- He still gets first place.

*Bruce is no stranger to anger, or helplessness. Years watching Harvey’s skin turn mottled blue and purple have given him a long worn patience. An understanding that only those who want to be helped, can truly be helped. It doesn’t stop the confusion that overwhelms him when Harvey stops fighting his bullies.

He’d curl his fists, but never raise them. Grit his teeth, but never use them to bite. Harvey’s anger changed from explosive to something else. 

When Harvey was angry, he didn’t yell. Not anymore. He went quiet instead. Whispered, didn’t raise his voice, ever. 

Bruce can almost see why in the glimpses between the untold. Harvey doesn’t want to be like his father. Angry, yelling, drunk, and hopeless. His smile turned saccharine in the light, as the teachers crowded around, wishing he’d go back to being a problem student. He never did. 

Bruce decides, wrapping his hands in gauze, if Harvey doesn’t want to fight, he would have to fight for him.*

Bruce is fifteen and Harvey is fifteen and the impossible has happened. The bullies stopped. Bruce doesn’t know why or how, but they’ve stopped.

They try to get closer to Harvey, and Harvey lets them. Standing beside Alex Mantoni and his posse, Bruce begins to feel the real inklings of loneliness. 

So he leaves. Pretends to be busy and overworked, and stressed, -- everywhere else but looking at Harvey looking at Alex. He’s fifteen and he throws himself into a gaggle of girls to get away from the hurt, the desperation clawing in his chest. 

From the lonely, inescapable thought of Harvey was always too good for me.

He can remember them, all those girls he barely talked to, more interested in getting in their mouth than what came out of them.

Charlotte Hudson, blonde and brown eyed. Looked just as sweet yet venomous as a viper once another girl tried to step up to Bruce.

Iris Maybell, brown curls, brown eyes, big smile. She tried to stick around the longest, but Bruce understood that she just wanted bragging rights. Who wouldn’t want to be Bruce Wayne’s longest girlfriend?

Anna, Regina, Helen, Judy, -- Bruce stopped trying to remember, and stopped trying to fill the Harvey shaped void in his heart.

The build up of resentment and emotion happens so gradually that Bruce doesn’t think when he erupts.

He does the unforgivable. He gets angry . Spitting, white hot angry, and he’ll never forget the look on Harvey’s face when he starts to yell. Never forget the way he stepped back, just an inch -- it felt like a canyon between them.

At the moment, Bruce sees but he doesn’t look. Too caught up in his emotions that he doesn’t care for Harvey’s. Too jealous, and helpless, and possessive, because they were supposed to be best friends. Bruce and Harvey , not Alex and Harvey. 

After all, how can Bruce stand aside and let someone else take the one person in the whole world who understands him? The one person who can stand with him, in heart and mind?

Harvey speaks to him. He cries, and if feels like Bruce has committed an unforgivable sin for all that he doesn’t believe. Tells him it isn’t fair, and that slaps Bruce in the face more than anything. He clenches his jaw and leaves, because it’s not fair that Alex gets Harvey more than Bruce.

But he knows - knows just like Mother taught him, that people are people not things, and he doesn’t have a better right to Harvey than anyone else.

He feels them growing apart, and faintly, Bruce wonders, what if he’s the problem?

Before his sweet sixteen, Bruce apologizes with all the heart he can muster, tucking away the jealousy and terror of loneliness. Harvey deserved better. A friend, a partner that wouldn’t monopolize him and devour the light that he was. 

He studies for hours, looking through countless flower dictionaries and poems. Eventually he decides, fretting over the bouquet with Alfred for days, fresh deliveries of flowers coming every morning.

Daffodils for a new beginning.

White tulips for forgiveness.

He apologizes and Harvey squeezes him into a hug he will never forget. Forgiveness is a weight off of his shoulders, dashing away at all the jealousy writhing inside of him.

“I’ll do better.” Bruce cries into Harvey’s hair, breathing in the darkening blonde strands as if Harvey’s hug could keep him in one piece. “I promise.”

“You can’t protect him from his father, Wayne. We both know that.” Alex Mantoni sits with his posse, and Bruce stops smiling.

“And you can?” Bruce snipes back, and Mantoni shrugs.

“At least we can understand him better.” Mantoni shoots right back, and it sets Bruce on edge.

“He’s my friend. My best friend, Mantoni. You’re just the guy who used to bully him. I won’t give him up.”

“We’re not like that anymore,” Mantoni grumbles, “You’re not used to sharing, yeah?”

“What does that matter?” Bruce snaps at him, “Back off.”

“Or what?” Mantoni smirks, baiting him.

Bruce almost growls in frustration at his jibing, before settling on a glare. “Or else.”

At sixteen, Bruce does the impossible. He kisses his best friend with the nerve of someone with everything to lose.

He’d built up to it with what he’d learned from countless girls. Look at his lips, and then back at him, and down again, over and over.

When Harvey finishes up his homework, something tells Bruce, it is now or never. He chooses now.

He leans down, as Harvey’s nose brushes against his cheek in goodbye, and captures Harvey’s lips on his own.

It lasts an eternity. Their lips locked and kissing. There is no tongue, because Bruce is too afraid to try. Too afraid to admit that the electricity between them in more than a childhood crush, and friendship twisted awry. He can taste Harvey’s skin if he tries to remember, feel the soft of his lips pushing together. He wants with an endless longing.

It ends in seconds, and all Bruce can hope it that Harvey will pull him closer and kiss him again. He stares at his lips as Harvey pulls away, turning his head away.

Bruce does the only thing he can to mask his disappointment, and the voice chiding him in his head chanting stupid, stupid, stupid.

He apologizes.

Harvey takes it with a grace Bruce wishes he had.

And then he and Oliver Queen shack up, just for curiosity. If Bruce looks at him in just the right light, it almost looks like Harvey’s dark golden threads twisting in his hands. That is up until Harvey stumbles on them under the bleachers, and whatever fleeting lust was building up dies at the very sight of Harvey’s plastic smile.

Bruce barely manages a passable if impersonal apology before he’s stumbling after Harvey, trying desperately to pretend everything is normal.

*Bruce is seventeen when the buzzer to the front gate goes off. His stomach is teeming on the edge of hysteria. He doesn’t wait for Alfred, doesn’t care for propriety, instead he races to the gate.

It storms outside, just like when Mother and Father—

He knows there is no reason for the worry, and yet--

Bruce ignores the storm, the rain pelting him with big fat drops, chilling his skin. An omen of terror courses through him, and Bruce wills himself to look through the rain, and through the lighting streaking across the sky. He is deaf to the rumble of thunder, when he screams and runs to the gate, to the fallen figure on the other side of it.

The pit in his stomach grows, and Bruce can feel his world falling apart when he sees Harvey sprawled out on the concrete, broken and bruised so badly Bruce can’t tell where it starts or ends.

He screams for Alfred, the fright making his voice pitchy and cracked. He knows Alfred will come.

“Harvey, I’m here. I’m here, don’t leave me. Harv’.” Bruce begs looking down at Harvey’s swelling eyes. Harvey doesn’t answer him, and Bruce feels nausea climbing up his throat.

“Please, Harvey.” Bruce begs, feeling like the child who watched his parents die in front of him, begging for them to come back, the echo of gunshots ringing in his head.

Bruce holds him in his arms, screaming and crying as the splash of Alfred’s shoes hitting the pavement grows closer, and Harvey goes limp.

He doesn’t know when he stops screaming. Yelling incoherently, as Alfred takes one look and races back inside for the phone. As the ambulances arrive, and end up having to take Harvey and Bruce together, because Bruce can’t be pried from him no matter how much the EMT begs.

It takes several men to tear him off as they approach the hospital and the doctors work around Harvey carting him away. They tear his hands from Harvey’s wrist and neck, the only way he could feel his pulse and Bruce breaks down as the doors to the emergency room close and he is on the wrong side.

He is not beside Harvey.

Alfred runs in, drenched and wet, so achingly familiar from all those years ago, and settled next to him. Bruce cries into his shoulder. 

How is it that the people he loves make the world fall apart?

The doctors think he’ll never wake, the trauma to his head too severe; but Harvey always beats the odds, and Bruce has hope even if pieces of him are spiraling into free fall. 

He spends weeks next to him, the joy of fully sprouting a beard spoiled by the choking terror that he will never get to see Harvey smile and run a hand over his stubbled cheek. 

“Wake up.” He whispers over and over into Harvey’s hands, unable to stop crying. Alfred had stopped trying to tear him away a week ago, only listlessly dropping by to try and feed him.

Bruce didn’t have the heart to say no and an appetite to say yes.

His heart jumps into his throat when a garble of noise breaks his muttering. He doesn’t stop himself, climbing across the bed gently, before burying himself at Harvey’s side and deeper into his mottled neck.

“You’re okay, Harvey.” He says, more for himself than Harvey, “You’re safe. You’re awake.”

Harvey doesn’t answer him, but he squints at him, and wheezes and Bruce knows he would get better.

Everything wasn’t okay, but soon enough it would be.

He had lawyers to call, a best friend to convince, but foremost, a friend to hold.

“Don’t worry, Harvey. I’m here.”

Bruce can taste the triumph on his tongue when Christopher Dent stands cowed before the Judge and Jury. The fury that still simmers low in his gut, is slowly quenched as his lawyer pulls out picture after picture of the abuse Harvey is still healing from. He can see the juries' distaste, their horror, and within the hour, he knows their deliberation.

The GCPD renounces all ties with Christopher Dent, but only in the courthouse. It sours the victory, if only a little, that people will pass Christopher Dent on the street and still think he’s a good cop, when he couldn’t even be a passable father. The GCPD is quick to pass and bury the case, and it stings. Even with the weight of the Wayne name behind him, Bruce cannot bring Harvey true justice, the knowledge that Christopher Dent would rot in prison until the day he got out.

His muscles thrum with the need to break every part of Christopher Dent that had ever touched Harvey in malice. The violence and anger, that has stewed and stewed, and stewed , for almost a decade of his life. But he can’t touch him. He was too close, his lawyer had warned him, and if he touched Christopher Dent, someone would follow it back to him. Or worse, pin it on Harvey. And Bruce couldn’t take the risk, no matter the temptation to rend his bones from their sockets.

When he gets home, Harvey is there. Weak and more brittle than Bruce has ever known him, but alive, and whole. Bruce comes home with a smile, and they hug each other tight enough that it hurts to breathe.

“We won, Harv’.” Bruce whispers to him that night.

And then, “He can’t hurt you anymore.” Every other night after that. A promise and a reminder. Harvey didn’t have to live with the ghost of his father, not if Bruce could help it. Not while he lived.

Bruce forces himself to sleep that muggy Gotham night before graduation, and Harvey lies beside him, lost in thought. He wonders what Harvey thinks of, that makes him have that pensive, drawn face.

But he doesn’t ask, mouth filled with a sleep heavy tongue, and a warmth in his core as their limbs wrap together, and Bruce wishes he could stay in this perfect moment. There are so many things Bruce wants to say to Harvey on their last night together. 

I love you, I have loved you before I thought to wonder what love was.

For every hour I spend away, under stars you won’t be, I’ll miss you.

--But Gotham, it needs me too, and I can’t ignore it anymore than you could your dream.

Instead, sleep pulls at him, a call to a greater future blowing in the wind. When Bruce wakes, he’ll say goodbye to the love of his life, Alfred, and Gotham, and follow the mission he’s sworn himself to since he was a child. For now, his path called him elsewhere, until he could go home again.

Chapter Text

Somehow it feels right that they say goodbye at the docks. When the sun is dipping low into the harbor, the last rays of sunlight glinting off of Bruce’s face. An entirely new future is in front of them, he knows. He hopes.

“Are you going to miss me?” Bruce asks, luggage slung over his shoulder, and at his feet. Alfred is waiting in the car, giving them a pretext of privacy. 

“Wouldn’t I ever?” Harvey smiles, and leans in to give him one last hug. “You’ll write won’t you, Bruce?” Harvey asks, because the thought of keeping up a regular calling schedule with wherever Bruce will go, leaves him with a headache.

“Every chance I get.” Bruce hugs back, in a crushing embrace. 

They stand in silence, as the sun steadily disappears, and the ship’s last boarding horn goes off.

“It’s time.” Harvey says, in lieu of anything else, staring off into the bay. 

“Yeah, it is.” Bruce pulls away, and gathers his things.

“I don’t want to say goodbye.” Harvey admits, watching as the last rays of sunlight catch in the blue of Bruce’s eyes.

“See you soon then.” Bruce smiles at him, as his hand reaches across to tuck a stray strand of hair into his ear.

“See you, Bruce.”

Harvey aches as he watches Bruce leave. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it did, Harvey knows. It didn’t hurt when he saw Alex Mantoni off, nor any of the other, miscellaneous friends he had made throughout the years. But it would make sense, that it would only happen with Bruce.

Bruce who was leaving to chase a greater future, - a dream, a goal. One that Harvey could barely comprehend. Bruce who was leaving him, leaving his home, and letting the past slip off his shoulders.

Harvey watched Bruce until the ship was past the horizon, and then, he was only in his memory.

Chapter Text

The day he finally left Gotham was fair, and warm. The sun lingered even when it should have set as Bruce turned to say goodbye.

“Are you going to miss me?” Bruce asks, watching as Harvey’s face grows fonder by the second. The day was so fair, and the sun so tender, Harvey’s hair glowed despite everyone else being bleached by the sun.

“Wouldn’t I ever?” Harvey gives him what must be his last smile. The smile that Bruce will bundle up in his heart, like all the others' past. The smile that he will use to kindle the fire of his duty and determination. The memories to keep him whole and warm in his days to come.

They share one last embrace, and Bruce breathes in the smell of Harvey. Inks and the crisp smell of books, the smokiness of Gotham and the ever present smog.

“You will write won’t you, Bruce?”

“Every chance I get.” He says, because yes is never quite enough. As they hug, Bruce draws him closer, squeezes him tighter. If he could imprint the shape and feel of Harvey onto his skin, and in his memories--

Standing in silence, Bruce does everything short of trying to take a photo to capture their last moment together. He buries his nose in golden strands, fingers splayed between the waves, and for once, Bruce wishes for a locket full of hair, if only to carry Harvey with him wherever his journey will take him. To breathe the scent of him in an unfamiliar land, to carry home with him wherever he may go.

“It’s time.” Harvey whispers into his ear, breaking Bruce from his thoughts. The last boarding call goes off from the ship, and their goodbye draws bitterly close. Bruce pulls away, and gathers his things, already missing the warm arms wrapped around his waist. His close friend, and love, wrapped around his heart.

“I don’t want to say goodbye.” Harvey tells him. 

His mouth goes dry. Bruce watches the last rays of sun catch on golden hair, “See you soon then.” He says. Afraid to say anything more. Instead he reaches across, to that lone strand of hair, always too long and unwieldy, and tucks it into Harvey’s ear. And everywhere the skin of his finger kisses Harvey’s skin, he wishes his touch would leave an imprint. 

“See you, Bruce.”

Would Harvey forget him? Would the memory of him fade from Harvey’s mind, to nothing more than a passing pen pal that was always a world away?

Harvey was his picket fence. The heart and hearth where he lay his home. Every dream of home he’d ever had, had Harvey in it.

If he had asked, Bruce would have given it all up. Stay Bruce, stay . He could almost hear it so clearly. 

Bruce would have let it all go. His vengeance. His training. His goal and self-proclaimed duty.
He would’ve run back into his arms never to part away. To live life for happiness and love, to heal and be healed.

He could see it then. Together they would have gone back to Gotham, living the life of the rich and the carefree. And there they would be married and grow old and raise their children. Yes, Bruce knew, before he knew what love was, that he could do it all for Harvey Dent.

But as Bruce stood on that dock, on his last step into the boat, -- he waited. A second that lasted an eternity.

Bruce held his breath, but Harvey did not ask, and Bruce did not answer, as he stepped out onto the boat and into his future.

Chapter Text

At 20, mornings are a rush of shoveling down breakfast in between a muffled phone call to Alfred, checking in and making sure Harvey has enough time to eat. College is a drudge of studying, memorization, and mock trials, all building up to his dream.

Harvey doesn’t have time for romance, as any hopeful law student would tell someone sane. He barely has time to have a mental breakdown before exams. How could he find time to date? 

Bruce sends letters. So many letters that he does his best to read. He goes where the wind takes him, and Harvey would be green with envy, if he wasn’t chasing his dream as well. Sometimes his letters carry hints of spice, traces of dirt, or coffee stains, and he cherishes them even more. No matter how busy life gets, he takes a moment to answer. To write back, no matter how cramped his hand gets. Harvey often finds his letters growing longer and longer, and as much as he loved to hear from Bruce, it was a poor replacement for the actual man himself.

He longed to hear the timbre of a voice he had long forgotten. How had he changed? How had he stayed the same? Written words were only a ghost of the man Harvey wished he could see.

Eventually Bruce fades to a fond feeling one would get from an old pen pal. A feeling that sparked to life whenever a new letter came in. Harvey reads his words like one would a fantasy novel, with a desperation to get away from the legal jargon that was most of his life.

One day, the letters change. It’s no longer about training, or finding himself. Of becoming stronger for the sake of Gotham. Of a new teacher and a new way of fighting.

Bruce meets someone. And his heart twists when Bruce’s looping handwriting describes them with such a strong fervor that it makes him want to be sick.

He knows he shouldn’t. That Bruce isn’t his, and never has been, and will likely never will be. He should be happy that Bruce is in love.

He should be happy. And yet-- 

Bruce is a million miles away from him, and in love with a woman Harvey can almost conjure up with distant watercolor memories. The daughter of a demon. Talia Al Ghul. He knows with the certainty that having lived two lives brings, she is beautiful. The most beautiful woman alive.

They will be in love, such a beautiful and happy love that it will create Bruce’s son. And then they will break each other’s hearts. It brings him no joy to know this.

Still, Harvey can’t stop the jealousy more than he can stop himself from crying at the drop of a pin as he reads Bruce’s last words, tossing the letter aside and sobbing into his pillow like a lovesick thirteen year old.

Bruce isn’t his-- He’s not-- He’s not-- He will always belong to someone else. Talia Al Ghul. Silver St. Cloud. Selina Kyle. Bruce isn’t his to have. To keep.

Ignoring his roommate, Harvey tosses his covers over himself and tries to suck it up.

How can you lose something if you never had it to begin with?

Visits to Wayne Manor are rare, but mandatory. Every other month, like clockwork, Harvey will drive past the open gate, park his beat up car he got on sale from an upperclassman having a breakdown and ring the doorbell. Alfred will greet him like he always has since he was a boy, and hurry him along to tea and the baked confection of the day.

“And how might you be today, Master Harvey?” Alfred asks, when they sit for afternoon tea.

Harvey gives him a sheepish smile and knocks back the offered cup with all the grace Alfred taught him that he can muster, trying to hide his overnight study session.

“I’m doing fantastic, Alfred.” He lies with a wide smile, breathing in the scent of the Darjeeling Alfred had brewed for tea.

“Oh?” Alfred usually says, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. “Is that so, Master Harvey? Might I ask, then, why do you think such a heavy layer of concealer would let you pretend you’ve slept more than four hours?” 

“I’ve definitely slept more than four hours, Alfred.” Harvey says, the lie not even phasing him as it might’ve once felt like a death sentence. Alfred would never hurt him for telling a lie. Alfred would never hurt him, period. And well, politicians and would-be district attorneys were basically career liars, right? He was only helping himself.

“So, if perhaps, I were to have laced your tea with just a mild sedative enough to make a normal person momentarily-”

Harvey doesn’t hear the rest of Alfred’s prepared speech, and falls to the comforting warmth of Alfred’s drugged tea. Alfred: 100, Harvey: 3

He should’ve known better than to lie to the man who brought up Bruce.

Harvey wakes up with a racing heart, and an all encompassing terror that he failed his finals. He trips getting out of bed, before he spins in place remembering Alfred’s chiding face, and the fact that he hadn’t taken his finals yet. He’d been stripped of his shoes and jacket, at Alfred’s ever polite nature and peeks around the room with a sheepish grin.

“You’ll rest now, won’t you Master Harvey?” Alfred appears from the shadows, and Harvey jumps out of his skin.

“Alfred!” He puts a hand over his racing heart, and startles from looking for his jacket. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have the time-- You know how law school is Alfred.”

“Master Harvey,” Alfred sighs at him, his jacket slung over Alfred’s mannerly elbow, “If you do not rest, I am afraid I will be forced to make you rest.”

As soon as Harvey has the gall to laugh it dies a quick death at the chiding look Alfred gives him.

“ Alfred -”

“I will find a number to call Master Bruce at, and if that fails, then I will appropriately speak with your mother-”

“I’m resting!” Harvey falls back into bed, ignoring Alfred’s approximation of a smile.

He melts into the bedding, as nimble hands all but tuck him in, the edges of his vision already going black.

“Have a good rest, Master Harvey.”