A/N: So our scene is pretty much an abandoned apartment complex around West Burnley. This is still on track with our previous chapter, and exposes a bit of Tuesday's past and daddy-issues. Of course it's Gilda-centric, as most of their arguments are. Tuesday has a secret, and she thinks (under such circumstances) that she should really tell Harv...especially since it has everything to do with Gilda.
Chapter Four: Gilda
"Six is a lot of money," they say.
"I know." Tuesday sighs out the reply, wrapping herself in his divided jacket and sitting on the edge of the counter top. She feels a horrid draft through the complex, likely coming from the many broken windows throughout the apartments.
Duce, Miller, Jase, and Nora are downstairs, she thinks. Playing poker, for sure.
Harvey grunts while rolling his shoulders. Left hand twisting at the wrist and clenching to loosen stiff joints as they count their leftovers from the last heist. Their bad eye catches Tuesday staring with an expression of distress. She bites her lip and curls the toes of her bare feet, shuffling her position around until she simply stands and breaths.
"Shouldn't this be his problem?"
A valid point. Her father leaves his debt to his barely adult daughter and his possessions to the state. She wonders over his train of thought, fingers tapping anxiously to some fast-beat rhythm against the window sill. She adjusts her posture before leaning back and clearing the feel of sand dragging down her windpipe. She walks back into the little kitchenette.
"He's in hiding." She says it past a raspy cough. He assumes it's just nerves.
"And?" They shove the cash to the side, scrutinizing her expression. Everything about their henchman says nerves and secrets. They hate that.
"He can disappear as well as his clients." She says, though more to herself than the two of them. She's speaking more and more nowadays. They can't tell if it's annoying or informative.
"Your point?" That's right...Harvey never knew. She'd left him ignorant of that particular branch of information, and with good reason.
Her father mainly prioritizes knowing economic worth and bank funds, selling off numbers to higher ups who'd like knowledge of how much is where and how often. It makes the job of robbing Gotham easier, she'd assume. An information broker, if you will. He plays with big numbers and even bigger people, and he's well-known for his figures and often correct predictions.
Full refund if it's a miscalculation, he'd say.
Nothing in this city is ever foolproof, there's always a loophole.
This isn't math, Tuesday, it's problem solving.
Warren Cassidy – on the other end they refer to him as 'Fade'. A secondary form of employment that involves bountied individuals with the need to disappear just as her mother had to. His own wife was the first client, in need of forged documents and a clean slate. Then a second co-worker of his requested a staged death. Payoffs to coroners and morticians, thugs and fresh-meat criminals straight out of high school had loaded pockets. It's been so easy ever since. So painfully smooth. She's curious as to why he borrowed money – from Sionis of all people.
But the problem was that Harvey knew all of this. Two-Face looked up her background with discomforting ease before even considering her a reliable underling. Face knew her father's name and multiple professions. Where she'd attended high school, her home address, her most favored yogurt shoppe. Where she'd started college and at what year she'd dropped out. They knew everything about her, whether she liked it or not.
But there was that one fact (not really about herself, but more involving Harvey than anything) they'd been ignorant of. They didn't know her secret. They shouldn't know. But it seems that guilt was forcing her off the cliff of opening her goddamn mouth, and the only thing preventing her from holding it back was respect.
"I should tell you." She scratches her leg and tenses for a very brief moment, voice feeble. There's obvious self-spite curling at her fingertips and causing constant discomfort. A physical guilt that was pinching at her nerves. They could see it in her face, the graceless frown that pulled distastefully at the edges of her lips and the shifty movement of her brown, brown eyes.
"Get on with it." They snap and cross their arms. Neither had time for this...they had a heist to plot out.
"You know Fade?"
"Everyone's heard of Fade. Everyone knows who he is. What's your point?"
There's this elongated pause that they absolutely despise. It annoys the piss out of Two-Face, and Harvey can't help but tap his foot to express his impatience. She needs to get on with it. He hated a lack of information and that's exactly what this was.
"If you're gonna' tell us he's your old man, we already-"
"He helped Gilda leave Gotham." She interrupts him monotonously through dry lips, lungs contracting out of uncertainty. Her hands clench at the cuffs of his jacket hanging loose on her shoulders, and she's re-opened the cut in her tongue with the same teeth that'd inflicted it. Bitter iron overwhelms her taste and Tuesday scrunches her nose at the sensation.
Gilda. Gilda. Gilda GildaGildaGilda.
It always came down to Gilda.
"He covered her tracks, so Harvey would never find her."
There's another dreadfully long pause that she wishes she could fill in. It's clouded with tension, thick with discomfort and inner panic. Since the beginning, this drowned fear of Gotham's fallen saint has kept her lips sealed and interest intact. Her loyalty to Two-Face was unmatched, rivaling that of Harley's towards Joker. She wondered exactly how far she'd go.
"You want a loan?" It's a toneless grunt, pushed out by Two-Face rather than Harvey. He rolls his back off the wall and stuffs his hands into the depths of his pockets as though bored. His bad eyes glances towards the money on the counter, gesturing as though she were still welcome.
They'd need to take out another few locations and trucks. One bank wouldn't even carry that on hand. Six million fucking dollars that was entirely bull shit.
"No." She bites her tongue again and fiddles with the ends of her hair. Red stains her lower lip and they scowl looking at the color.
"Then what‽" Face raises his voice, holding back expeditious anger.
"I'm not sure." She whispers.
They walk forward and invade her personal space. They tower over her with a significantly intense aura of intimidation. Their body stiffens and their snarl curls deeper at her lack of cooperation. He'd figured he could trust her, Two-Face couldn't care less...but Harvey was quiet. Unnaturally so.
Because of Gilda.
"What'd the bitch tell you? We want to know." He growls it out and grabs her by the hair; the opposing hand holding her jaw and directing her attention.
Tuesday didn't move, it'd be unwise to in any situation that was remotely similar. He compares her reaction to a deer in headlights, wide eyes and shallow, quick breathing that felt cold past her lips. The tense muscles that prepare for pain and the panicked curl of her toes indicate trepidation. He'd seized her threateningly a hundred times before, and every time there's the obvious expression of fear for only a brief moment. But even now, as she's done every single time in the past, Tuesday manages a calm state of mind in which she breathes and seems undeterred. Her patience is unfathomable, even after so long.
"I promised something unreasonable." It comes out soft behind a sigh, fast and without hesitation. He releases his grip before stepping back, hands slinking back into his pockets as he noticed the bruises half-healed adorning her neck. He recalls the instances he'd put them there by threat. Vividly.
"Like what?" Two-Face's tone changed – it was much more quiet. Almost as if they were debating their options on how to handle the situation. Harvey was finally resurfacing, and for once it wasn't something she'd feel relief over.
Tuesday knew where the line was drawn, but for once she was willingly overstepping her bounds.
"That I wouldn't let Harvey die."
Tuesday steps back, her bare feet pressed firm on the hardwood floors. They're cold, uneven as well. She briefly imagines a life with flat floors and a soft bed, a kitchen and a laundry room, but it includes Two-Face. It would always include Two-Face. It wouldn't be a life if it didn't include Two-Face.
"Unreasonable? Unavoidable." Two-face chuckles, folding their hands behind their back. His eye wanders towards the distant corner of the room with their nose scrunched in contemplation. Trust was now an issue, though it'd never been before.
"I'm aware." She says it before a held pause. "Gilda still loves him."
"Fuck Gilda." A phrase so frequent that it began to sting, almost like an insult. Spoken with careless honesty by one man and untruthful spite by another. Harvey held on to his once fruitful relationship with a bitter regret; he still loved Gilda, there was no doubt in her mind. It was recent that he'd just let her go – but this would cause doubt to resurface. Two-Face resented that, they had to stay focused. This was all excessive bullshit he needed to step over like a casualty.
He needed to kill her, get it done with.
'You wouldn't.'
'It's necessary,' he argues.
'You'd rather die.'
'She's dead weight.'
It startles her, how swift the tides changed. Her eyes cross staring down the barrel of his .22 and her eyes water at their forced look of derision. They take a step closer, the gun lowering to her forehead and touching at the delicate spot over a previous scar. But it'd always been this way, whether Tuesday would admit it or not, ever since she'd seen that expression of determination and complete insanity. The day she sat on the side of Harvey's hospital bed and watched him snarl at an internal debate. And a different man (his secondary person...a new individual with grit) glowered at her, raging at his confinement within the psychological ward of St. Jude's hospice.
Gilda cried. She'd cried her blue eyes gray, and then left. And Harvey had never seen her after that. Apparently Cassidy had.
Tuesday had been hit, and thrown, and kicked and cut. Grazed by a bullet, and once stabbed. Petrified with fear and pushed over the edge of sanity. Two-Face has slapped her, choked her, and pulled her hair countless times, but he'd never pulled a gun. Never aimed with set intentions and not once seemed so threatening. Not like he was now.
Harvey wasn't in control. Harvey cared too much about Gilda's whereabouts to just retire his only source of information. She didn't think he'd have killed her either way.
"You're becoming a liability, brat." Face says, tapping her chest with the pistol in an uncomfortably steady manner. Their coin comes out, glinting with a stare of indifference as he holds it up.
"I'll leave, then." Her fingers run subconsciously over the black card in her hand, tracing the large 'S' of 'Sionis' in sheen gold letters. He catches that, ignoring Harvey's pestering to look his henchman in the eye.
"You're not working for that scum." The bitter irony in that statement stung. She feared for her life.
"I have to."
Normally this sort of work came easy, especially when encouraged by the target. He scowls, realizing that if their positions were to be switched, Tuesday (and that goddamn trigger finger of hers) would have gladly put six bullets in his front without hesitation. Then reload, and add another six to his back. Whether it be out of loyalty or simple enjoyment. She liked to shoot people; they wouldn't judge her. Actually...they couldn't judge her.
And maybe, that's why Two-Face couldn't kill her, either. It was difficult to find someone to relate to, anymore. And that form of socialization was necessary despite however many rouges protested the need for companionship. They all had some form of common ground with The Bat in particular. He hid behind that mask, using it as a second identity just as Two-Face was to Harvey. Two entirely different people...one, strange, restless body. And Renee. Don't get them started on Renee. The same feeling of indifference, a literal outcast with a stubborn, merciless personality and a need for justice. But Renee Montoya was on the other side of the spectrum – the law. Tuesday, with her silent loyalty and her practiced aim, was not as relatable...but she was on the same side. And that earned the most points.
They lower their gun and scowl, bad eye vicious with intent. Good eye sullen and somewhat distrusting. She wonders, briefly, what she'd just done to their relationship. Could she even call what they had a relationship? Did she even matter, in their perspective? It burned to think of anything so dramatic. But those were the realistic questions, and they were necessary.
He flips the coin. Her breath hitches in her throat, her eyes seem to bug out at the quick idea of death. Was this what her victims felt like? Seeing her aim at their forehead? Oddly enough, she forces herself to smile. It was the usual small, sincere, patient upturn of lips – rancid by the fear in her eyes and stiff body language. Her lungs pace erratically and her hands shake in fists at her side. Her throat feels raw. She could die. He could actually kill her.
She wouldn't retaliate with her own firearm. Tuesday couldn't. This was Two-Face, not some punk or paid-gun. She's on the brink of tears, and that makes them regret ever flipping the coin.
She's beautiful.
Where's Gilda?
It lands: tails up.
And Two-Face turns away from her, pocketing his cent. She stands, idle and suddenly calmed. Harvey notices, and throws their gun on the counter as some sort of mock reassurance. Because Tuesday was never terrified, but, scared or not, she always seemed fine in the aftermath. Was this what guilt felt like? Looking someone in the eyes and regretting the last ten minutes because of a simple expression? Because he made a girl cry?
Harvey needed sleep.
Two-Face needed a smoke.
"Figure out your plan..." They groan, entirely frustrated. "...before we change our mind."
She leaves the complex the next morning, Sionis' card still in hand.
So many guest reviews! I'm so glad you're all liking the story so far! I'm flattered! I decided to write a bit more with the influx of reviews and feedback, so here you go! I hope this doesn't disappoint!
Next chapter we see how Tuesday fairs on her own, as well as how she confronts Black Mask and her supposedly large sum of debt. Two-Face is still pissy, and Harvey finds his obsession with his wife expanding unhealthily. Six million dollars is still a lot of money.