A/N: Anything recognisable to Gotham belongs to it's rightful owners. I only own Penny and a few extra OC's who may be scattered along this fic.
I first published this piece of fanfiction in 2015 under a different username, it was born after I was writing another fic which paired Penny and Alfred Pennyworth. In that fic Penny had been friends with Harvey for a long time and through writing that I started to enjoy their chemistry so I wrote this. At some point I purged my fanfic account and for a few months that was okay but two years later I deeply, deeply regretted that decision. I don't know why I did it. Thanks to the wonderful fanfic archive I managed to track down a few of them, this included.
I read the whole thing through and I wanted to republish it because it was a piece I was proud of and quite frankly Harvey Bullock will always have a very special place in my heart. So here we are. I'm going to republish it with minor changes and now that Gotham is finished I'm thinking about potentially continuing it because that show, as far as I'm concerned, did Harvey dirty. I think this fic will be quite canon divergent therefore but given how little the writers seemed to give a crap about Harvey's life I figured I can get away with it.
If you enjoy please do review =)
"C'mon kid. It'll be somethin' and nothin' but we gotta check it out in case the nosey old bat next door makes a complaint." Officer Hauser said. The man was older than Harvey by a good number of years, weight around his stomach and Harvey knew that had to be from all the doughnuts Hauser put away. "I can't afford another telling off from the damn commissioner and you know it. The douchebag is still on my back about all that hulabaloo you caused last Thursday in uptown."
It hadn't exactly been Harvey's fault that a suspected murderer had run into a restaurant in the poshest part of Gotham, ok so maybe his comments had been a little unwarranted and maybe tasting food off some petrified diner's plate had been a bad idea. In Harvey's eyes though it had made him look like some cool sophisticated movie cop. He'd been damn proud of the line he'd come out with too and he still barked out a laugh at the memory.
Harvey Bullock had been on the force for a few years, he was working his way up to Detective, hell he was ready to be a Detective right now but he had to wait until one of the other detectives retired. That's what the commish said, a pretty weird way of working things but he didn't mind doing it if he was guaranteed the job.
Harvey Bullock, was 25 and aching to be a detective, readying himself to put the world to rights. For now though he was investigating a domestic in down town Gotham. If there was one thing Harvey Bullock abhorred it was domestic violence, especially towards women and it unfortunately was something that happened all too often in Gotham. Harvey couldn't save every one though, he couldn't save every woman and kid and he'd had to learn that pretty damn fast. Not only did the system not support it, half the time the women didn't want to press charges; too scared or too in love to say something. Harvey hated these calls because they made rage bubble under his skin, he wasn't angry with the victims not for a moment, he was angry because he couldn't help them, couldn't make them see. Occasionally he'd come across a woman who had attitude to go along with her bruises, they usually had a few words for the officers and neighbours and they were usually the ones whose husbands came home looking as beat up as they did. Harvey would hardly call those one's domestics, some relationships were just fucked up, some people's relationships just worked like that and who was he to judge them? As long as no kiddies were getting hurt, they could beat each other black and blue for all he cared.
Domestic calls Harvey hated, there was no guarantee of which kind it was going to be, women and kids were one thing but another was animals and that irked Harvey too. Hauser had told him several times that his problem was that he wanted to save everyone and everything and he couldn't.
Harvey knocked on the door a little harder than necessary and waited, he was expecting a man to come to the door, tell him everything was alright when really it wasn't. Instead he was met by a heavily pregnant blonde girl. She had to be in her twenties or late teens and she had bruises on her face, they littered her arms.
"Jesus what do you want?" The woman asked him leaning against the door frame. She sounded so much older than she looked and that attitude, you could see the fire right behind her eyes.
"We had a noise complaint ma'am. Lady down the hall said it sounded like you were getting beat up pretty bad, lot of screaming." Harvey said seriously, pushing his hat up slightly with his finger. "What happened there?" He asked gesturing to her face.
"Look, nosey old bats down the corridor need to keep their damn ears off the wall, and cops with nothing better to do need to keep their noses out." The lady replied arms folded across her chest. "Do I really look like a battered wife to you?'' She asked him and Harvey just gave her a look because what was he supposed to say to that? She did look like a battered housewife, but she looked exactly like the sort that would sock it right back to the chump who'd hit her. She was pregnant though and no man, no man should be hitting a pregnant lady. Ever. He should be doting on her, rubbing her feet, letting her cry and get mad over the wrong flowers or cake, not smacking her about. It made Harvey angry but he kept his exterior cool.
"What you gunna tell me you walked into a door?" Harvey asked with a chuckle.
"You gunna believe me if I tell you I walked into a door?" The woman replied.
"Maybe, let's see how good the story is?" Harvey offered and the woman tilted her head before shaking it and stepping away from the door.
"I walked into a door and another door, I walked into the fridge a few times too and I can assure you the fridge came off worse. I live alone Detective, occasionally scumbag baby daddy comes around and I'm stupid enough to let him in." The woman replied. "I'm fine, go back to your doughnuts." She waved them off and started turn away. "I'd make that now, unless you want me to vomit all over you and your doused in cologne partner over there." She added when Harvey hadn't moved.
"Ok, ok I get the message." Harvey said holding his hands up and stepping back from the door. What else was he supposed to say? Supposed to do, she didn't want help. Sometimes behind the eyes it said they wanted help but all Harvey could see in hers was the want to be left alone and get back to whatever she was watching on the television. Harvey wasn't going to disagree with her or kick up a fuss where it wasn't wanted. He learnt his first week on the job about that when he punched a guy and got a firm wrap on the knuckles.
"We're good to go." Harvey said to Hauser who nodded and started to make his way down the stairs. "Look if you do ever need us, call the station, ask for Bullock." Harvey said seriously. The younger woman rolled her eyes though and turned closing the door as she went and disappearing to bring up dinner and breakfast with the morning sickness that the other officer's cologne had brought on.
Harvey would think about her, about the women of Gotham for a while in the car and at home until the next big case came along and he moved on, other things occupying his brain. He quite frankly wouldn't remember or meet her again until ten years later.
Now Harvey had been shaped by Gotham, he had been moulded to fit her form. He had been broken down by her and rebuilt so many times that he'd lost count. The good intentions of a detective wanting to make a stand were still there, still in his heart but they were being ground out of him. Harvey was finding he couldn't entirely fight Gotham, that eventually like his partner Dix he was probably going to end up swallowed whole by her.
It wasn't Harvey who spotted her, he was off duty and someone pointed out with a gasp the woman sat atop the apartment building, sat on the edge of the roof. Harvey didn't waste time in getting into the apartment building and up onto the roof, the elevator was broke and by the time he got to the top he was so out of breath his throat was hurting. A sharp pain made its way into his chest and he was wheezing hard.
The woman closed her eyes for a moment, not that Harvey could see, when she heard him. Harvey approached her once he had his breath back.
"Don't worry, I'm not gunna jump." She said as he approached, he hadn't even had chance to say hello. "I'm fine and safe."
"Safe, heh." Harvey had to laugh because there was a half empty bottle of jack next to her on the ledge.
"Yeah, safe." She said looking back at him for a moment. Harvey had a feeling he'd seen this woman before, everything about her was familiar but he couldn't place her. Harvey pulled out his own flask and took a deep swig. "I'm really not going to jump." She added. Harvey gave her a sceptical look and stepped closer. Deciding she wasn't going to be skittish around him he went ahead and half sat on the ledge, of course he was facing the roof rather than the pavement. His life might not have been a complete barrel of roses but he still didn't want to end it falling off a building by accident. He was planning a blaze of glory, going out a hero if he had to go at all.
"You'd think, in this city that people wouldn't notice, you know." The woman began. "That's why I came up here."
"You wanted to be noticed?" Harvey asked, alarm bells ringing in his head as he misheard.
"No, no the opposite. I didn't want to be noticed. You'd think in this town people would avoid others like the plague but jesus the amount of nosey do gooders. Can't sit on a damn bench for too long or a coffee shop without someone prying. I don't want to sit in the apartment because hell I'll go mad in there. Which leaves here, where people can't really see, where there's no one around. Only apparently people can see and apparently people can't just walk on by." She added letting out a laugh before sighing. "Surely you're not on duty Detective." Harvey tilted his head at her words, wondering both how she knew he was a Detective and how someone so relatively young could be so damn cynical. Sure, Gotham was awash with crime, a grey city with even greyer morals but it did have it's good points.
"Your badge is showing." She said gesturing to where it was on his hip.
"Oh, oh right." Harvey moved his jacket over his badge. "You got good taste." He said gesturing to the bottle on the ledge next to her.
"I know." The woman replied. "Still didn't answer my question. Surely, you're off duty?"
''What of it?'' Harvey asked looking up at her from under his hair.
"Surely you've better things to be doing, bars, broads, wives excetera." The woman rolled her wrist in the air and Harvey ignored her comment.
"So, what drove you up here then? Boyfriend trouble?" Harvey asked her and the woman looked to him and rolled her eyes.
"I wish."
"What you wish you had him back or you wish you could get a boyfriend?" Harvey offered as tactfully as he could.
"I wish it was that simple." The woman replied. "I'm still not gunna jump." She added. "I told you, it's just quiet up here."
"So, what is it then? Not something criminal is it?" He joked.
"No, really. I'm not gunna jump and I'm pretty sure a cop like you, in a city like this has a lot more to worry about than some broad having a nice relaxing evening on a rooftop." The woman replied looking over her shoulder at him, auburn hair gleaming in the moonlight.
"Maybe I don't got anything better to do than talk to a broad on a rooftop, maybe that's exactly what I like to spend my evenings doing." Harvey said with a grin.
"I'm pretty sure you've got bigger things going on than what's in my noggin." She tapped her head in a single second of vulnerability. "Not that I'm going to tell you anyway and not that I'm going to jump. You've done your duty, checked on me I'm not a danger."
"Well-" Harvey drew out the word and looked unsure. "That's not entirely true now is it? I mean if I leave you up here you could do anything, for all I know you could be planning murder from up here. You could be plotting anything, to throw that bottle over the side on someone's head." The young woman gave him an exasperated look. "Hey I'm just doing my duty, you want to stay up here, I'm gunna have to stay up here too."
"Jesus Christ! I just wanted some peace and quiet, that's all I wanted, really." The woman exclaimed. "Why can't you just not care? Really, I mean two Uniformed officers walked past the other night and yelled at me to jump." She added shaking her head and running her fingers through her hair again.
"Well I'm not in uniform." Harvey grinned.
"Ok! Ok fine!" The woman swung her legs back over the side, wriggled her toes a little before hopping up. "Look fine, proof I ain't gunna jump. I'll go home." She said waving him off.
"Ok, well now maybe you could let me buy you a real drink.'' Harvey offered. He was just trying his luck in all honesty. She seemed pretty firey and Harvey liked firey.
"Nuh-uh, no way! Goodbye detective!" She called heading towards the fire exit.
"At least tell me your name, and by the way, if your boyfriend does anything give me a call and I'll have some officers scare him." He said.
"Penny, my name is Penny, and I don't have a boyfriend! Wasn't gunna jump and I certainly wouldn't be jumping over a man!" She added before disappearing out of the door and down into the apartment building.
Harvey sat for a moment on the ledge. He wouldn't have left, that was a fact. He would have stayed there all night until she got down, if he had to, because he would rather be there just in case than leave and see her in the morgue the next day. He didn't need any more guilt on his plate, he already felt bad enough for missed shouts and cases sinking under his desk.
Harvey took a swig of the bottle she'd left and he could taste cigarettes on the bottle edge, he smiled to himself because had it been a different night with a different air to it, he could have probably gotten friendly with her. Harvey would always get along with a woman with good taste in Jack and Cigarettes, especially a red head with that kind of attitude.