It was clear that luck was not on Toby Mawson's side. Typical. It was just bloody typical. Toby had made it very clear to his superiors just how much he had relished interviewing the psychopathic mass-murderer known as the Joker. Anything above sheer revulsion would be wanton exaggeration. So, in an insane flash of cruel ingenuity, they had pressganged him into becoming a resident psychologist in Arkham Asylum.
Arkham. Just the name gave him shivers. The home of the criminally insane. What were they thinking turning it over to him? As he pulled up in his freshly painted reserved spot, Toby thought of some of the patients in the massive building. He had seen a few names blasted across the news recently. Joker. Bane. Some, he had heard breathed between other psychologists with whispered dread. Quinzel. Zsasz.
But there was only one there who Toby had actually grown to respect and admire. The man had been a hero, a legend. He had almost single-handedly crippled organized crime in Gotham, locking up small time criminals and cutting off the big-time mobsters. They called him 'Gotham's White Knight', and 'the face of justice'. But not anymore. Now he was 'the fallen idol' and 'murdering psychopath'. This was the man that Toby had to meet.
He grabbed his briefcase, stepped out of his small black Mercedes, and jogged up to the asylum through the sheets of rain. The building loomed before him, a dark stony mirage that glowed brilliant white in the flashes of lightning. When he stepped inside, it was like walking into a mausoleum. There was no sound, not even an echoing voice, and a chill choked the air of any life or happiness. The cream walls and grey floor made it seem like Toby had just stepped through a portal from the real, colourful world, to a dull, monochrome one. Good to be back, Toby thought bitterly, as he walked down a corridor to the side of the main entrance.
"Any possessions?" Toby asked the cop standing beside him as they walked down the hallway to the interviewee's cell. Toby had left his briefcase and heavy black coat in his office, and was brushing the water off his suit.
"Only a revolver and a coin," said the cop. Toby was eager to get in and get out, so the portly man had a hard time keeping up with his long strides.
"A coin?" Toby asked, frowning.
"Yeah, he's still got it with him."
"Why's that?"
"Well, he seems kinda attached to it." The cop coughed slightly. "He killed two cops and put another one in the ICU for trying to take it from him. We figured we might as well just let him have it."
"What's so great about the coin?"
"Nothing. It's one of those trick coins with two heads, but one side's charred black, like it was in a fire." He snorted. "He's just a nut."
"That's what I'm here to confirm."
"Confirm?" asked the cop, laughing. "Believe me, any idiot can see it, you don't need a doctorate."
"I guess this'll be a short interview then," said Toby giving the cop a small, sidelong smile. They stopped outside a cell and turned to face a thick metal door with an electronic lock. "Has he done or said anything while he's been in there?"
"He's just been sitting down in the corner, playing with that coin. He hasn't said a thing. Oh, there was one thing," he added. "When we tried to take the coin, he kept mentioning someone called Rachel. He was screaming "don't take her from me"."
Toby sighed. "Alright, thanks." The guard nodded, and strolled away. "Rachel Dawes..." Toby muttered under his breath. He had prepared several reports for Miss Dawes before; she was reported to be one of Gotham's best District Attorneys. And she had been, before she was killed in an explosion in the Gotham suburbs. He had read in several magazines about the quiet relationship she had been having with 'Gotham's saviour'.
"Definitely a subject to avoid," Toby told himself. Sighing, he typed in the key to the electronic lock, causing a loud buzz. He reached out, hesitated slightly, and opened the door.
The cell walls were coloured that same cream colour that has covered every hallway and cell since the invention of paint. The blankets on the low bed were a dark green, and the floor was a dark grey, like the hallway outside. The bed was by the wall, and a chair in the centre, but both were empty.
Seated on the bed at the end of the room, legs sprawled out in front of him, was Harvey Dent. He was facing away, so Toby could only see the right side of Dent's body. What he saw was a handsome man, with sandy blonde hair and tanned brown skin. His eyes were closed, and his head was angled back slightly, resting against the wall. He looked calm and peaceful, almost serene, like a monk in meditation. In his right hand, he was flipping a coin from finger to finger. The coin slid smoothly along his hand, back and forth, back and forth. One side of the coin was silver and shining, the crowned head of liberty stamped on its surface. But every time it changed finger, Toby glimpsed the other side of the coin. It was black, charred and cracked. On it was the face of the devil, a crown of thorns on its head. That side of the coin didn't shimmer with the reflection of the strip lights on the ceiling. It sucked in all brightness, and fed it to the darkness within. Toby took a step into the cell.
"Who are you?" asked Dent in a deep, clear voice that gave no hint of insanity, or even anger or hatred.
"My name is Dr. Toby Mawson," he said. "I'm a new psychiatrist at Arkham."
"Why are you here?" asked Dent, his voice still perfectly level and incurious.
"To assess your mental condition and establish whether or need you need to be here. You mind if I sit here?" Toby asked, pointing at the chair.
"You said you're new here," Dent stated, ignoring the question. "So am I the first person you're seeing?"
"Technically, yes," said Toby, sitting down.
"Then how can you assess my mental condition if you've got nothing to base it on? You can't use yourself because all crazy people think that they're not crazy. For all you know, you are. It wouldn't exactly be fair to make a judgement on me without 'assessing' someone else. Not very equal at all."
"Actually I have," Toby pointed out. "I met the Joker about a week back."
"Ahh the Joker," said Dent, a small smile curling up the corner of his mouth. "Now there's a guy who's on the same wavelength as me."
"Well, the general consensus is that he's insane," said Toby flatly. "So doesn't that mean you should be here too, given that you're 'on the same wavelength'?"
"No", said Dent, the smile falling from his face. "Each individual should be given an equal chance."
"Well, you were given that chance. And you chose to do good," said Toby, thinking of the great Harvey Dent. The image in his mind darkened. "But then you turned against your cause, and turned to murder." Toby leaned forward. "What I really want to know is, why did you do it? Why did you fall?"
"'Good'," said Dent, sneering. "People like you use that word too much. People who believe in their own purity and virtue so much that they try and enforce it on others." His voice had rapidly become harsher and more menacing, and his face was no longer serene, but bitter. "But what is 'good'?" he asked Toby.
Toby paused for a moment, frowning slightly. "You can't define it, you just know it instinctively," he said. "The term is indefinable, but the meaning is there in your head."
"Well if the meaning is in your mind, then it's personal, subjective, different for each and every person. And of course, no man would consider harm to himself to be good, so what you consider to be 'right' is nothing more than selfish egoism and self-preservation."
"And the preservation of others."
"That's what you say to reassure yourself that you're in the right. But you're only looking out for yourself. Take murder, for example. You say killing anybody is wrong, only because you don't want to be killed. You can't say 'killing me is wrong' because that would be considered selfish."
"What does it matter about our intentions?" asked Toby, shrugging slightly. "The end result is that people aren't killed."
"Oh intentions and beliefs are everything when it comes to good and evil. A serial killer could believe that slaughtering virgins and bathing in their fresh, warm blood is good. That's his belief. But does that make it good? To you, no. That makes the term 'good' redundant, wouldn't you say?" Dent began to speak more earnestly, and the endlessly turning coin in his hand quickened its pace. His head was no longer leaning against the wall, instead straight upright and alert. "It's an illusion, nothing more than an empty excuse to do what you want. That same government that says you can't unload a shotgun slug into your neighbour says that it's absolutely righteous and necessary to drop a nuclear bomb on 100,000 strangers." Dent snorted in contempt. "Hypocrites, one and all."
"What do you consider to be good?" Toby asked curiously.
"I don't believe in good and bad, right or wrong."
"The rumour was that you like duality - clear-cut black and white scenarios."
"That kind of duality is an illusion, because there is no single right or a single wrong."
"Then what do you believe in?"
"Chance." Dent stopped flipping the coin and held it between his index finger and thumb. Twisting it to show Toby the clear side and the burnt side, and back again. "Fair, equal chance. 50/50." He said it like a devout worshipper praying to his deity.
"I don't understand," admitted Toby, frowning.
"Since right and wrong are obsolete, you cannot judge a human being. Every action and thought they have ever had has been biased and prejudiced, and everyone who examines them is biased and prejudiced. No one can be trusted with the decision. No one but Chance." He said it as if it were a name, a person. "Chance is the only constant, the only pure method. It is justice in its true form."
"So a man who murders, rapes and steals should be given the same chance as a man who cares for his kids, gives to charity and is faithful to his wife?" Toby asked sceptically.
"Exactly. Do you see the purity, the justice in it?" asked Dent earnestly, almost eagerly.
"Not really, no."
"That's because you can't let go of your own prejudices. "Good man". You can't give up on using that word, can you? You're so used to being able to judge people that you can't fully rise above such petty and narrow-minded perceptions."
"So if you had to choose, who would you send to prison?"
"I don't know. I'd flip a coin and see. A 50/50 chance. That is what's equal. That is what's fair. Oh, and I wouldn't send them to prison either, if luck wasn't on their side. I would kill them." The way he said it almost as an afterthought, without any care or interest in his tone sent a chill up Toby's spine.
"Why?"
"There are so many choices of what you can do in life. Choosing one of those fates would be affected by bias. Indeed, the very act of choice isn't fair. Who has the authority? Community service, forced labour, imprisonment, solitary confinement. Your fate in this life is determined by the perceived severity of your crimes. But in a fair chance, in a truly equal opportunity, the only options can be life and death. Everyone has an equal chance to live, or to die."
"Does that include you?" Toby asked, angered by Dent's attitude towards justice. "Are you willing to flip a coin over your life?"
"I already have." Dent chuckled. "And it seems that Lady Luck has a crush on me. She doesn't want to let me go."
"And what about me? Should I live, or should I die?" Toby couldn't believe what he was actually asking.
"Let's find out," said Dent. He balled his hand into a fist and balanced the coin on his thumb. With a flick, he sent the coin flying. The instrument of judgement spun in the air, and Chance toyed with it, playing a game with life and death. The coin landed on Dent's palm, and he put it on top of his other hand with a smack. Like the impact of a judge's mallet on the board. He drew the hand away slowly, and the shadows melted away, revealing a black coin.
Dent turned his head, and looked Toby dead in the eyes, and for the first time in their meeting, Toby saw the real Two-Face. While the right side of his face was full and unblemished, the left side was completely destroyed. There was no skin, and Toby could see the jaw muscles and teeth clench together. Charred black and crimson flesh lay on the surface, raw and burnt. But worst of all was the wide, perpetually staring eye, with no eyelid to blink. In that eye, Toby could see the fire that had killed Harvey Dent. He could see the fire from which this new monster, this Janus, had risen. And he could see the fire that burned with baleful hatred within the man's soul.
"Looks like your luck's run out, pal," growled Two-Face. He made a mock gun with his hand and pointed it directly at Toby's forehead.
Toby felt a chill run up his spine. "So, you're Two-Face."
"Yes, we are." When he spoke, it was lower and darker than Harvey, and he lingered on every 's' sound, like a vicious serpent in human form. "The coin and the man, two faces for each."
"Let me guess, there's a 50/50 chance of either side coming up?"
"Of course." Two-Face smiled. "You're starting to understand us, Doctor."
"Can you tell me your side of the story? What's your angle on this 'flip-a-coin' method of morality?"
"In that regard we see eye to eye." Toby unwillingly looked at the ever-staring baleful eye, and quickly looked away again.
"Then what's the reason for the split?" he asked, trying to get the image of the inflamed crimson skin out of his mind. "How are you different from him?"
"I am the one who guides him. I put him on the correct path when he strays. And he does, frequently." He sounded bitter, resentful.
Toby cocked his head. "Example?"
"He failed to act. He failed to protect the one we loved."
Rachel Dawes. Toby knew he had to be careful here, any reference to her that didn't quite please Two-Face could set him off. He was just starting to see the other side, he couldn't risk breaking it off now.
"How could he have saved her?" he asked cautiously, echoing Two-Face's way of referring to Dent in the third-person.
"He knew she would be targeted. He could have found the corruption within Gordon's unit. Cut away the rotting flesh with a cleansing blade. But no, he let them burn into him instead." Two-Face shook his head, then turned so that his unburnt side was showing.
"He probably doesn't know what it's like." His voice was softer - Dent again.
Was he talking to himself? Toby wondered. And were the shifts this rapid? Dent glanced at Toby.
"Do you know, doctor? How it feels to be half a whole? To throw your life in another's hands without any fear of falling?" There was so much pain in his voice. Pain, grief and loss. Toby knew that none of his own brief relationships could even be compared to the love between these two people.
"No, I don't."
"Then you don't know what it's like to have that half of your heart ripped away, burnt and scattered to the ashes." As he spoke, his voice grew darker, and he turned his head again.
"And it's your fault the fire claimed her," said Two-Face.
"But you were in the same situation as her," Toby said, trying to console him. That wouldn't set him off. He looked down at the file in his hands and read off the information. "Tied to a chair in a warehouse full of oil drums. Both of you at opposite ends of the city. It would've been impossible for you to reach her in time, even if Batman had saved you sooner."
"Excuses, excuses." Two-Face tutted, shaking his head. "Don't encourage him."
"What happened to Rachel wasn't-"
Two-Face turned so both sides of his face could be seen, and slammed his fist down on the hard bed. "SHUT UP!" he yelled.
Oh shit. "Harvey."
"DON'T EVER SAY HER NAME!" he bellowed. Both eyes, one burning with hatred and the other blurring with tears bored into Toby, and both voices screamed out at him.
"Okay, I won't. Just relax."
He breathed heavily. "You don't deserve to speak of her! It's because of you! It's because of them! It's because of everyone that she's dead!" His looked down at his fists in his lap, shaking with uncontrollable rage.
"Does that include you?" Toby asked tentatively.
He raised his head. It was Two-Face. "That depends. Which one of us are you asking?" He sounded so calm. It was like they were different people. Toby caught the irony of his own thoughts.
"Both of you, I suppose."
"He doesn't think he's responsible. Always blaming everyone else."
"And what do you think?"
"What's it to you?" Two-Face narrowed his eye. "Our thoughts are ours alone."
"That's quite a paradox. You obviously think differently. And yet, you share the same mind."
"Someone had to fill the space left by her. One that could do better."
His head suddenly turned to Dent, and contorted. He seemed to be struggling. "No," he gasped, straining. He changed back.
"You're right, we shouldn't be telling him these things," said Two-Face. He glared at Toby. "We should kill him. Prying into our business. We should kill them all for imprisoning us. They all deserve to die."
"No. No."
"What's that, you want to talk now?" taunted Two-Face. "Done with your pathetic anger?"
"You're only calling yourself pathetic," said Dent.
"Oh no, Harvey. We may be roommates in the little cell called your mind, but we're two very different people."
"You're out of control; I have to stop you!"
"I'm out of control?" Two-Face repeated in disbelief. "Thanks to me, we're in more control than you've ever known. I've given us purpose. A path. Unhindered by deliberation and doubt; everything that held you back before. All that is left is the coin." Two-Face raised it to his eye. "Only the judgement: life or death. And we are its instrument." Again, like a worshipper praying to his deity.
"We're serving a terrible master," said Dent. He sounded in pain, unwilling. "This man, he's done nothing to us. Yet the coin judged him."
"Nothing to us?" Two-Face repeated again. "Still so selfish. Only worrying about personal slights. He's part of the system that is imprisoning us here. Enforcing his false justice on the world. And he must have done wrong some time in his life."
"But everyone has," Dent protested.
"Exactly. They all deserve judgement." He clenched the coin so hard that his knuckles paled to a deathly white. He raised his eyes to the ceiling, and the sky beyond it. "The goats will be cast into the fire," he breathed. "And the sheep will learn from their trespasses and embrace the truth."
"But this is wrong! It's not right! It's not fair!"
"Don't be weak!" spat Two-Face. "Your weakness cost you everything once. It cost you half your life!"
"No, that was chance, fate." He sounded like he was repeating something he'd told himself over and again, like a mantra. "We can't alter the balance, even for our own benefit."
"You're pathetic. Trying to justify your own failure. Trying to forge an explanation."
"There was no reason for her death. That's the way the Joker works: no reason, only instinct."
"No, you know why it happened. She died because you were biased. She died because you were weak."
"You're wrong." Dent covered his ears. "I'm not listening!"
"She died because of you!" Two-Face was relentless.
"No, it was the Batman..."
"Blaming it on others, as always."
"... and Gordon. And The Joker. And all those cops that betrayed justice."
"They weren't betraying true justice, none of them were. Even Joker."
"But they were all so selfish, doing everything for their own gain, no matter the cost for others. No matter that it cost Rachel her life."
"So why didn't you kill them before she paid the price of their selfishness?"
"I... we can't change fate."
"No, but we can quicken fate's hand. Bring the hammer down on them sooner rather than later."
"That's no different!"
"How many people would we save by killing one? How much suffering, how much pain? She would have survived, if you'd had the will to act."
"I had the will, but it wouldn't have been fair."
"Less fair than her death? Stop trying to hide from the fact that you are responsible."
"Stop it!"
"'Stop it!'" Two-Face echoed his words in a child-like sing-song voice. "Gonna cry?" he taunted. "You're a child! Pathetic!"
"I hate you," Dent whispered.
"It doesn't matter if you do. I am part of you. I am you. But either way, you don't hate me. You hate the fact that I'm here, and she's not."
"Go away!"
"Go away? I can't go away! You created me! I didn't ask for any of this!" There was pain buried deep beneath his anger.
"Then I'll un-create you. Just leave me!"
It was a long time before he turned back to Two-Face. "Where would you be without me?" he demanded quietly. When his head began to turn back, he yanked against it and grew angry, shouting. "How far have we come because of me! You needed to become strong, but you couldn't do it alone. So you made me. To help you. And yet, you fight me every step of the way! But we will make the choice, regardless. The just choice. And in the end, you will thank me. Together, we are strong."
"Power corrupts."
"Like I said before, we are not the power, we are only the instrument. And an instrument cannot move, it can only be moved." He flipped the coin across his fingers.
Harvey didn't respond; Two-Face didn't turn around. He smirked, then addressed Toby, not looking at him. There was only the burnt side of Two-Face to see.
"I don't have anything to say to you, doctor," he said. "I want you to leave now." He had reverted to his original tone. Monotone, uncaring, neutral. Toby had learnt more from silence than speech, and there was nothing he could say anyway. He stood without a word and turned to the door.
"Remember, doctor." Toby turned, and Two-Face held up the burnt side of his coin. "Your luck's run out."
And with that, Harvey Two-Face sat down on his bed, closed the one eye he could, and became silent.
Toby left the room. Just as he closed the door, he heard a tapping sound as the coin resumed its endless revolutions across Two-Face's fingers. The door slammed with a buzz as the electronic lock reset. Toby walked briskly down the hall to his office, his shoes clicking against the floor.
It sounded like the patient drumming of Fate's fingers.