Batman Beyond: Two-Face II
Chapter 5: Two Hearts Reunite
By ShadowHawk & Demoness Space Pirate
Author's Notes: to the Readers who read this fanfic, just to let you know this fic takes places after my friend Demoness Space Pirate's fanfics Same Ol'' Game, Just New Players & Gray Shadows of the Past. Disclaimer: We don't own the characters used
Terry and Max walked side by side as they made their way across the university campus. Max listened attentively as Terry read the Gotham newspaper which states 'Police and the populace are confused in opinions of the new Two-Face compared with the Two-Face of the past due to his two-sided escapades.'
"Two-Face is a murderer!" Complains GPD officer Shaun Henricksen.
"Two-Face and his lackeys looted my jewellery shop!" complains Margaret Hanson owner of Hanson's Jewellery store. "Two-Face is a philanthropist!" States Marie Valentine worker from the Gotham City Orphanage.
"Two-Face is kind." Describes Maxwell Spends. "He paid off the mortgage of my home."
"I don't get it." Max said taking the paper from Terry.
"Neither did I until Bruce explained to me, it seems Two-Face can sometimes be the better of two evils." Terry said.
"Huh?" Max asked looking away from the paper.
"Sometimes Two-Face takes a step away from wreaking havoc and do a few good deeds depending on which side his coin lands on."
Terry said in a low whisper so no one else could hear him. "Did you find anything on our two-sided friend?" Terry asked.
Max sighed. "I spent hours hacking through police files and everything, nothing! So I traced a few suspicions of my own and came up with this! It's not much but it's all I could come up with." Max said handing Terry a missing person's report.
"Jeffery Dent? Do you think there's any relation to Harvey Dent?" Terry asked.
Max shrugged. "Didn't have enough time to check. But the report says he disappeared from the hospital, his girlfriend made it and his mother later made a second, nothing about a father."
Terry smiled, "That will have to do, thanks Max."
"Sure thing as long as you buy me dinner as you promised." She stated walking away.
Terry sighed as he took out his cell phone and began dialling, "Whenever I get a break that is. Hey Bruce we might have a lead..."
Melanie Walker formerly known as Ten of the Royal Flush Gang stood in the cold back alley of Deckard's Kitchen, the small restaurant in which she worked. She had hope of finding solitude so that she could think but the floating glows of embers on the ends of the cigarettes of her co-workers shattered all hopes of that.
Her mind careened on a river of mad thoughts of how everything was going wrong for herself and the people she cared so much for. Her beloved brother Jack was recently sent to prison, he had made himself King and formed a new Royal Flush Gang to continue with his heritage of enjoying a lifestyle of luxury and wealth from the results of crime sprees. He had offered his sister a place in his new gang but Mel had refused and continued on with her normal life.
There was also the case of her recent boyfriend. A shout from the backdoor broke Mel from her thoughts. "Walker! Your break's up!" Mel worked mindlessly taking orders and serving food. No doubt her tips would be low again, but how could she look happy for the costumers if she was worried constantly.
Melanie sighed as she slowly cleaned off the table of the last customers. She looked back into a shady booth seat staring longingly. It was at that booth she had met him.
She had been working at the restaurant for a month when she was pushed to cover two extra tables until her co-worker made it in. At table nine two riotous men chatted loudly from time to time letting loose a crude catcall at Mel. At booth two was a dark haired man engrossed in a newspaper and a cup of coffee. She could not help but find him attractive. His face was strong yet hinted that he was an intellectual, when she had refilled him on his coffee a pair of gorgeous brown eyes smiled at her from beneath his lovely dark brown hair.
They were ready to strike up a conversation when the men from table nine shouted for their check. Keeping in mind that the restaurant was a place of service with good attitude and a smile Mel kindly gave the men their check.
The skinnier of the two stood holding up a five-dollar bill between his fore and middle fingers. "Here's a tip for you cutie." He had said stuffing the money into the front of Mel's uniform. His friend contributed to the degrading moment by groping onto Mel's rear end.
Mel cracked her knuckles; it had been sometime since she last had a chance to workout her fighting skills.
"Excuse me," A voice said as a pale hand grabbed the wrist of the man groping onto Mel's butt. "That isn't a way you should treat such a lovely woman." They turned to see the man from booth two bending back the molester's hand, with a sudden spin of the body and a tug of the arm he flipped the man onto his back with a loud crack.
The reminding man balled his fist. "Why you son of a bit-ugh!" His words didn't make it out as Jeffery grounded a single fist into the man's belly. With a groan he fell onto the ground along with his body.
When the day was over the two men were band from the restaurant much to Mel's delight, two less perverts to deal with. Her shift had just ended as she walked home to her apartment in the warm afternoon when a single rose was placed before her. "Your knight in shining armor returns." Mel looked up to see it was the man from before.
"And I thought chivalry was dead." She commented smiling taking the rose.
On their first night together he had told her he was a scientist who specializes in chemicals. He told her he was working on a new type of acid that he hoped to find a way to make sure it wouldn't harm humans called Vitriol that was still under develops. They had been dating one another for sometime, which pleased Mel for it was the first time she didn't go too quickly with a fellow due to her constantly moving family. Mel was at last at peace since she couldn't be with Terry.
The upcoming week was going to be difficult, that Mel knew already. She had used the time she had saved for vacation (whenever she choose to take it) and spent a great number of days at the bedside of her healing boyfriend Jeffery. It was only a few weeks ago when she received an emergency phone call from the lab in which Jeffery worked, it was one of his fellow associates relaying frantically onto her that some sort of accident had happened.
"We had just came back from lunch and Jeff went to work on the Vitriol when the beaker exploded in his face. God Melanie he started screaming and his skin was falling off." Those words haunted her as she rushed to the hospital that night.
She remembers talking with one of the many lawyers of Power Laboratories. He had wasted time with all the legal terms he had hoped she did not understand then finally got to the point.
"...Therefore we take no responsibility for what has happened."
The tired Mel just stared at him. "You mean they are just leaving him like this?" She looked into his room where his scarred body laid connected to tubes and monitors. "But his job benefits states full medical coverage."
"Sorry ma'am." He said, and with a sympathetic nod he walked away.
Mel felt upset, confused, and worried all at once. She took a peek inside the hospital room once again, he was asleep, and resting thanks to the many sedatives they had given him to ease the pain. With reluctance she left to walk off her frustration in the sterile halls.
The plastic cup full of hazelnut coffee felt warm against her tired hands. How would they pay for everything? She wondered. The hospital bills and later physical therapy for his recovery would kill them. Her greatest of worries was explaining to him why they would have to struggle to pay for the charges with no help from his former job.
When Mel made it back to the room she found everything in shambles and utter chaos.
The cup of coffee fell onto the ground as she gasped. "Jeff." She called looking around the havoc struck room. "Jeff? Jeffery?" She searched frantically until her eyes fell onto the bandage that once covered a great deal of his face sitting on the edge of the bed. Taking the bandage into her shaking hand she collapsed on the bed, staring out of the open window.
Grace Dent mercilessly scrubbed the tile surface of the kitchen countertop. Since hearing news of her son's disappearance she had been keeping herself busy with errands and other household chores. When she saw her son's once handsome face smeared carelessly in the news her work effort increased until she found herself doing certain jobs over and over again claiming she could do better.
Harvey Dent sighed as he watched his wife, it pained him to see her like this but she needed an outlet for her frustration or else she'd worry herself bad. She could not be blamed Jeffery was her only son, their only son.
When he found out what had happened to Jeffery he understood what he was going through. Schizophrenia. He knew everything about it. It involves reaction to a traumatic incident mainly Jeffery's scarring and the refusal of help from the company at which he worked. Or it could have been other traumatic events in his past, he couldn't be completely sure. With schizophrenia the main personality is always there, a person could feel such a need for security and protection from an outside person they can fully trust that they almost literally create a new persona to accompany them in life, something like a child who plays with an imaginary friend. Only this so-called imaginary friend is ingrained in the person's mind and manifests as a voice within his head, a voice that can at times take control of the subject if it's allowed to.
Fortunately for Harvey Dent be it him or whether he was slowly being cured he had almost regained a single persona, though at times he swears he can feel his other side within him. Harvey sighed sitting down on the couch of the living room. "I know you're there, I've been around the Bat long enough to know." He said looking forward out the window into the orange sky of dusk. Batman changed from cameo-mode and looked onto the no longer scarred figure of Harvey Dent. "So you figured out that that's my son out there." He said.
Batman nodded. "The police are having trouble figuring out who he is."
Harvey frowned as he laced his fingers together and leaned forward. "When Grace first had him and placed him into my hands I promised him I wouldn't let him grow up like I did." Harvey cringed as he thought of his abusive father. "He would never have a reason to become what I became."
Somewhere behind him a phone rang and Grace answered. "I gave him an outlet for his anger or any feelings he may have. But I failed." Harvey went on.
A delicate hand descended on Harvey's shoulder. "You didn't fail honey." Grace said kissing him on both his normal cheeks. "Everyone's worried about him. His girlfriend, well she was going to be his fiancée if it weren't for the accident, had just called. She recognized his picture in the paper." She looked up to face Batman but her eyes fell on the empty window. "Bring my baby back to us." She begged silently falling into her husband's arms as she began to cry once again.
Mel returned home exhausted from the day. Working and worrying about what had happened, what had snapped in him that made him don his father's old suit? With a worn out groan she opened the door of her apartment and stepped into the darkness. Dropping her soiled uniform and mail onto the floor.
Suddenly someone clasped her over the mouth and pulled her inside. Mel wasn't in the mood to put up with robbers; she had a rough enough morning. With a twist of the body she escaped her capture's grasp and delivered a high spin kick to her assailant's upper body. A single hand blocked the attack, "Still a little too slow on your deliveries." Said a gruff voice.
Mel's eyes grew as she recognized the voice. "Jeff?" She asked lowering her defences.
Two-Face ignored the mention of the name. "When did you start working overtime?" He asked lightly. She smiled no doubt now that he's really her Jeff.
"Gotta pay the bills somehow." She stated straightening out her clothes.
"It would be easier if you'd just steal the money you needed." He teased already knowing what she will say.
Mel laughed weakly "You know I've gone straight." She said reaching for the light pad to illuminate the room.
Two-Face's hand shot out to grab her wrist. "No lights, please."
Mel looked onto the silhouette of her lover. "Why, because of your face? Jeff, I'd have to be the most ignorant person in Gotham not to know what you look like now. Your face is in all the papers and on the news!" She stated angrily.
Two-Face growled in his throat, "Jeff's dead! Besides you couldn't love a monster."
Before Mel can stop herself she belted him across his strong chin. "Don't you dare tell me who I can and cannot love!" She quickly turned on the lights and saw his scarred face. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
"You see." He said turning to leave her.
Mel sobbed reaching out a hand to stop him.
"No... It's not that. It's... it's the fact that you left me like that. Not a word, no letters, no calls; the only way I knew you weren't face down in a gutter is from seeing your face on the newspapers calling you a wanted man. The point is that you came back to me." She cried wrapping her arms around him.
Two-Face looked down at Mel who was hugging him dearly which confused him, why was she doing this. "Jeff... Jeffery's gone." He said gently pushing her away
Mel looked up to him with tears in her eyes. "No. 'Two-Face' is the fiction. Jeffery's the reality. You're a good man, a decent man. Don't you remember?"
Two-Face removed his coin from his pocket, to love or to hate, to live or to die, questions and feelings all confusing him. Jeffery or Two-Face.
"Forget the coin. You have to decide--!" Mel shouted as she knocked Two- Face's hand that held his coin.
As it fell to the ground it kept spinning, Two-Face tried to speak but the words failed him "I... I..." The coin stopped and fell onto the ground face up on the bad side.
Two-Face looked at the coin and then Mel and said to her, "I love you, I hate you, kiss me." He said pulling her to him. He gently cupped her chin and kissed her passionately.
Mel was surprised when he deepened the kiss and gently pushed her against the bed. Two-Face was usually the reluctant one, and now he was taking charge. He pressed his body to hers and a moan escaped her lips.
Kind and rough, love and lust, scarred red flesh on smooth white skin. Lips and hearts locked together. Love and lust.
In the time that followed, as Two-Face was getting dressed, a whirlwind of emotions went through his head. He had made love to her, no slept with her again. Two-Face knew that somewhere deep down inside that a part of him wanted to be with her. Not just have sex with her, but make love to her. He wanted to wake up to her in his arms every morning. He wanted this deep down inside, but with the war againest Batman, it could never happen.
He looked down on her sleeping frame. She seemed to almost be glowing. She was a striving angel that had fallen from her cloud in the heavens above. "There Jeff," Two-Face said to his other half. "You saw her again. Now we can get back to the work at hand." Placing a single kiss on Mel's temple he walked out leaving behind his jacket.
Mel awoke to the glow of the neon lit night creeping through the blinds of her bedroom window. The clamor of the nightly noise alerted her to reality. "Was it another dream?" She wondered looking about the empty room. Just another one of the series of dreams of her love, that teased her and left her lonely, cold, and empty on the waking hours.
She tossed the covers from her and lay on her back looking up at the ceiling with its chipped paint. "I have to see the super about that." With a deep sigh she sat up and taking a seat on the bed's edge. She brought her knees up to rest her chin on as she clasped her hands onto the hard yellow soles of her feet. She peeked around the room hoping it's not as empty as she thought it is and spotted the black and white jacket hanging on the doorknob. Barely stepping foot onto the cold floor she grabbed the jacket and brought it back to bed, holding it, hugging it as if it where fitting on a real body.
"Jeff..." She whimpered as two tears fell onto the white of the jacket's fabric. She had lost him again.
To Be Continued...