Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel

Batwoman stayed perfectly still, listening to the engine of the blue van as it cooled unhappily in the cold weather. It reminded her of the sound Harley made when she walked, erratic clicking that was measurable and also not. The cutting night air was no more kind to machine than to man, especially not in Gotham where the wind blew off the waterfront like the Arctic, chilling everything faster and more harshly then it would otherwise. The burley targets had gone inside the run down and bedraggled warehouse less than ten minutes before. It was likely not much warmer inside than it was outside considering the broken windows looming overhead so they had no reason to linger more than was needed. She could safely surmise that they would return with their cargo in relatively short order. That was what she was waiting on.

Soon it would not matter what condition the building was in. She was fairly sure Harvey would blow it sky high once he found out what it was being used for. Another random accident no one would tie to him, she would guess. He would not let Wayne be tied in any way to the event so he would not want anyone's name associated with the destruction.

She blinked her eyes a few times from behind the lenses of the mask, willing herself to focus the way she had not been adequately able to in days. Inevitably, her mind was drawn back to places it dared not go but had to none the less. She could not afford to think about it but she could not afford to forget it either. There would come a time, maybe sooner than she would like when she had to deal with the recent issues of her more complicated life. Batwoman's familiar mask was a welcome relief from unsavory, messy things humanity forced her to endure.

From her place shrouded in shadows, she watched the dancing beam of a flashlight bounce around and around inside like the typical twinkle in Joker's eyes. This was where she was most comfortable, in her element, hunting down crime and being a shadow. Like this, she knew what to expect, how to react, how to respond. Nothing was terribly blurry, there were clear-cut lines in the sand. There was nothing to flounder over; she knew the games, knew how to play, knew how to win. She excelled in this area of her life. Everything, every action or step was to cultivate the work she did from behind a black mask. She liked it best in that mask.

Recent events forced her to realize that she spent so much time becoming the Bat, being a creature criminals feared, being something other than human, that she forgot how to be human at all. Her Brooklyn mask knew how to function and excel in the party or business world, but throw her into other situations and she could hardly function, too busy trying to decide how she should respond in order to be Brooklynn and not Batwoman, trying to determine how vulnerable to be.

She spent so much time trying to remove the human element, the potential for weakness, and being an untouchable legend, that she forgot. She slowly, over time, began to forget she was, in fact, human underneath. She was painfully human, flawed, open, possessing the potential for an exploitable opening opponents might find. She could be killed, she could be hurt, and apparently; the part that was new to her; she could be saved. Whether she needed it or not, there were people out there that intended to protect her. Brooke, Batwoman, the Bastian of raw power, could apparently have others working to help her whether she wanted them to or not. She could have enemies and friends, and sometimes they could be the same person.

The Bat could not quite relegate that to her mind. She was inhuman, a force of justice. Justice might have allies but not friends because it could not afford attachments such as those. An enemy was to be dealt with, helped when possible, incarcerated when dangerous to others. Batwoman did not sit in the company of adversaries and then let them walk free. Brooke, however, apparently did. Brooke was also friends with Batwoman's enemies and allowed them to fight her battles with far more than condonable violence. Brooke was nothing but human; flawed and horrendously vulnerable to attack.

Dwelling on what she had done made the Bat antsy which only made her all the more still. Brooke would fidget because that was what people were supposed to do, she made sure Brooke used gestures most called nervous habits. They weren't habits, they were calculated actions intended to prove she was human, but they were fake; the actions were fake because Batwoman had no tells, she couldn't. Brooke was a mask intended for certain situations, but Batwoman was another mask created to handle other kinds of situations.

Until the night in the garage, she never wondered what her real face was if it could not always be the Bat. Was her real face something between the two?

She kept going back to that night, unable to stop the endless loops of collected information she tried to gather on this other part of herself, the in-between ground she clearly needed to establish if she was ever to function. Things could get slippery so very fast.

The person that allowed herself to be shoved into a car with three criminals and two hyenas was not Brooklynn and it was not the Batwoman. That other person allowed herself to be taken to some tiny cafe while the dogs waited in the car. Batwoman needed to know who that other person was and determine whether it was a danger to her or if it could be used to her benefit. She doubted that other part of her, probably that part that Arkham awakened, would bring anything but danger.

It was surreal, thinking of herself riding in a car beside Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and the "babies" with none other than Joker driving. It should have been one of those terrible jokes the clown usual made up on the spot. Batwoman in a clown car or something. It would not have been funny either way, simply confusing and hard to keep accurate score of. Even when she got into the car she knew it was a terrible idea but she allowed it anyway. Even so, it almost seemed natural while Harley had her arm draped over Brooke's shoulder, chattering away about nothing seemingly important. A large part of her insisted that being with these three people was more than natural, that they were her friends.

What were they, if not friends, all things considering? They saved her life, most likely, in Arkham with no particular promise of gain involved for them. For whatever reason, they prevented an ambush intended to catch or kill her. So far they had never hurt her even though they had chances. Logic and past knowledge told her not to trust criminals but her automatic response was to let them do with her as they liked. Deep down on the subconscious level, she trusted them, and that was inexplicably bad for her health.

Leaving the "dogs" in the car with promises from "mommy" to bring them something back, the three very dangerous criminals lead her into a tiny little cafe that looked like it had seen better days a few hundred years ago. No one shouted or pointed when they walked in, there was no terror. Then again, a look at the two women told her neither of them was in their villain attire. Coming to her rescue must have been spur of the moment. Pam seemed to be in more of a business casual under her long green coat. She looked good, normal, even rather cheerful with a nice spring in her step that might have nothing to do with the mayhem they left behind. Harley's coat covered nearly everything but the shoes were normal and her blonde hair was in those high tails on either side of her head, unadorned in her comical hat or the harsh makeup.

Joker was the only recognizable one of them even if his purple trench coat covered up what was probably his usual ugly mesh of colors, his face and hair would never allow him to be exactly subtle. Brooke had not taken notice of their clothing in the garage or the car, but she wondered over its meaning now. They must have been in a rush, it was the only answer. Perhaps they nearly had not made it in time to stop the attempt on her life. She wished that had been the case to an extent.

The girls tugged her to a table that must have been twenty years old. Harley dropped down into the booth with a huge grin, bouncing her way to one side before patting the vinal.

Brooke took another look at her surroundings, trying to understand what was happening. Even with two of the party seeming normal, Joker alone could usually cause a fright but the staff did not so much as blink. They must come to this place with some regularity. They could have been any normal group of friends going for coffee after work by the way no one so much as flinched at Joker's pitchy snicker at something likely only he noticed, about who-knew-what. When Harley grabbed her hand and tugged she allowed herself to be pulled into place. She could feel every spring in the seat but there was just enough padding left to prevent it from hurting.

Ivy and Harley bracket her in the booth protectively while Joker sat alone on the other side in a languid sprawl. She found herself adopting a timid posture just to afford herself a little space... and she really needed to gather her wits anyway. Even after the drive, there was still entirely too much adrenaline in her system and no place for her to expend it so her body responded the only way it could. Her teeth chattered and her fingers trembled if she did not clench her jaw and ball her fingers. The reaction made her angry but that only fed into her bodies rebellion. She was angry over a lot of things and there was nothing around her she could take her temper issues out on.

At home, she would have been able to run to the gym and work it out on a dummy, in a mask and cape she could work it out on dummies that punched back and carried weapons. At home, Alfred would have made her a cup of tea and poked fun at her until the anger and spiraling feelings died a natural death. With these people all those feelings could do was fester and the sheer amount of guilt suffocate her nearly to death. Reflexively, she took deeper breaths, avoiding slipping into familiar breathing exercises, but skimming them just enough to work toward control. Batwoman would not be shaking, and if she was, she would get it under control with training. Putting on a mask made her a different being, one capable of anything. Why was it harder without it? Weren't they the same person? Was it just because she could not hide her face, could not openly use the training she worked years to perfect?

Was it... because she trusted these people that much? Trusted them on the level of consciousness logic could not reach? The way she trusted Alfred and Gordon? Did she feel safe being a little out of control with them? Was she insane?

The group ordered something and the waitress was gone before Brooke even really knew she was there. As far as she knew, she did not order anything, which was fine. Though, how did this staff manage to stay so calm in the cafe of not one, but three super criminals? Did they really come here that often? Was this place just that desperate for patrons that they would take anyone that came in and be happy? Also, did these three honestly pay for anything? Did they tip? She never imagined them paying for anything they took but maybe they did pay some people. People they liked? Did they support local struggling businesses?

The shaking began to calm as she let herself be carried away by outside questions, musing over the unknown and more or less trivial. That was what she really needed, puzzles to keep herself occupied mentally.

Harley rested her head on Brooke's shoulder and Ivy pushed her whole body more up against her side like the redhead intended to hold her together by force of will. It was a little too much like Arkham, actually, like those long nights before the new dose of medication. No wonder she secretly trusted them. How could she not? They held her hair when she vomited and curled around her when her body went into spasms, making sure she did not hurt herself when she could not control herself. What part of that would make her fear them?

"Don't worry, sugar! We'll keep you safe!" Pam told her with such assurance that it seemed Dagget should be listening in right about then for his own protection.

Harley hummed her agreement, lifting her head when the desensitized waitress set four ordinary white mugs on the table. The milky brown liquid swirled slightly before stilling as the cups all adjusted to the stationary surface. When Brooke looked up at the brunet, it was to discover a tired, worn smile; when she asked if they needed anything else, her voice sounded thin as damp paper, but it sounded more from general wiriness rather than fear. It might have been the oddest thing to date when the woman simply walked casually away.

Joker propped his feet on her thighs under the table where no one could see, his heels were cold even with the socks. Where had he put his shoes? She did not respond more than to glance at him. It could have been an advance or simply because she was there. Looking at him though, she almost believed it was his way of connecting with her where no one could see, possibly even his own way to offer comfort. At the very least, this might have been the most subdued she had ever seen him. It might have been because he already had his fight for the night and it left him skating on the catharsis. She normally did not see him after a fight with someone other than herself but she knew from experience of many drives to Arkham that he was usually more relaxed after a battle.

Harley curled her fingers around the steaming mug, lifting it up in a salute, that shy sweetness tucked into her smile, "I know you said we should go out for coffee sometime but the occasion felt more like a hot chocolate kinda thing."

The slight wrinkle in Brooke's brow, one she had not been aware she had until it was gone, lifted when she looked at that expression, "Chocolate is never a bad alternative."

"Once a month, in particular, chocolate is a must for us ladies. Right?" Ivy offered sweetly, clearly relishing the wrinkle of disgust in Joker's nose at the reference he might have only understood because of Harley.

"So right!" Harley beamed gleefully, "Never could understand a girl that didn't like chocolate, that's for sure!"

"Could you not go there again?" Joker glared at Ivy while the other woman simpered back maliciously.

"I never understood why the subject is so disturbing to men. It's a perfectly natural part of life." Pam leaned forward, elbow on the table, chin on her knuckles.

Without breaking his glare with Poison Ivy, Joker reached unerringly for the container of sugar, twisted off the cap, and dumped the contents into his hot chocolate, as if that was his answer. He plunked the spoon into the cup and stirred venomously before taking and angry sip. For her part, Ivy looked pleased as a cat with the cream. Harley sighed loudly and shook her head. This could ratchet up into a real conflict if someone did not step in. Good thing stepping in was sort of her thing when conflict arose.

"How did you know they were waiting for me?" Brooke asked, no particular target intended for the question.

"We have our ways." Joker grinned that overly large grin, tone low and sinister but also somehow not intimidating.

"Magicians secrets?" She asked.

All three grinned like it was not much of a secret, but still one they could do well to hold onto.

"Something like that." Harley sang out the words.

"Harley called me to let me know what was going down and I came right over." Pam shrugged and picked up her cup, sipping delicately from it.

"Where were you before?" Brooke had to ask, needed to know what Poison Ivy might have been doing and how illegal it was. Joker and Harley were escapees, but Pam was supposed to be... on the right path. She had not been watching her very closely because she thought... she no longer needed to.

Pam grinned slyly, the tasteful wine lipstick leaving a slight trace on the cup when she set it down, "I was going on a date, but he can wait. This was more important."

Brooke's jaw dropped in honest shock, "You were on a date?"

"I hadn't gotten there yet, but like I told him, something important came up. Girls have to watch each other's backs around this city."

"Here, here!" Harley agreed just under uproariously.

"Then why am I here?" Joker huffed, making a show of crossing his arms petulantly over his chest.

"Comic relief," Ivy told him simply.

Harley was swift to jump in, as expected, "Oh, no, no, sorry, Puddin'! You were great too! It's just us girls used to share a wing in the clink, you know?"

He offered an unimpressed tilt of his brow, "I guess I should go make a club with Harvey, Eddy, and Johnny, then. If this is such an exclusive club, I mean."

"Oh, well, don't worry too much, Joker. Most people could mistake you for a woman anyway." Ivy innocently took a drink of the hot beverage and ignored the way his lip curled in a silent growl.

Harley chuckled nervously, "She's just joshin' ya, Puddin'! You know what a kidder she is!"

Brooke cleared her throat, "I'm guessing those men were the hire bunch from Dagget, right?"

They each turned attention back to her, nodding in unison.

Brooke turned a shy, wary smile on them, "So, why... if you don't mind me asking... did you stop them?" The narrow-eyed confusion and questioning tilt of heads made her continue, "I mean, you could have let them do it, or you could just turn me in yourselves for the money. Why skip out on a date, or drop anything, inconvenience yourselves for me?"

They barked out a few rounds of chuckles at her obvious expense.

"What do you think we are, cheap?" Ivy shoved her shoulder into Brooke.

"We'd never let you down like that! You're one of us now, even if you did get sprung from the joint!" Harley assured her cheerfully.

"Like they said!" Joker grinned too wide, "And besides, I'm pretty sure you could pay us better anyway if you were of a mind to offer us a reward for our good deeds. After all, it's good to encourage positive behavior, so they say!"

"Mr. J!" Harley admonished, scandalized, "How could you say that! She's our friend!"

"What?" His shoulders rose defensively, "She can afford it! It doesn't have to be cash, I accept diamonds or anything of monetary value really."

Harley almost jumped out of the booth, "Mr. J!"

Brooke could not have stopped the near hysterical laughter even if she had really been trying. It was funny! Hillarious, really! Probably the best joke she had ever heard in her entire life. She was one of them! The secret identity of the Batwoman was considered "one of the crew" as far as Gotham's most wanted were concerned. She was another lunatic that found her way in and out of Arkham, just like the rest of them. The entire night was the set up for the punch line.

Batwoman's enemies were going to be watching over Brooklyn Wayne like twisted centuries. She was seated in a cafe with three of her oldest enemies and they were, of all things, trying to help her. Batwoman was sitting in a dilapidated cafe with her enemies sipping hot chocolate like it was the most normal thing in the world. How was that not absolutely funny? She was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe.

"Hey, maybe you should try drinking your cocoa?" Harley patted her arm, pushing the cup closer to her, leaning in like a worried mother hen.

"Maybe sugar isn't the best idea for her at the moment." Joker countered, pulling the cup back a fraction.

"Maybe we should take her home? She's had a hard night," Ivy wavey them both away.

The women took to rubbing her arms and back while Joker soothed his socked feet over her legs. It did not help over much because once the laughter began it was hard to stop. Years had gone by without such an outburst of laughter. When she was small, she remembered laughing that way. Her father was a quiet man but he had a wicked wit about him and he loved to make his wife and child laugh. It was a private thing they shared but it was precious.

It was absurd, probably terrible, and part of it was doubtlessly more to do with her fraying mental state than anything, but she was honestly amused by the sheer irony of the entire thing. She could not even argue against their point. As Brooklyn Wayne, she was more or less just one of them, one of the nut house crew that got away. Pam let a date pass them by with what she guessed was a rich man. She could only guess what the other two had been about but she guessed they had been up to something. Who on earth but a dear friend would drop everything and rush to save some poor sucker they thought to be helpless and then take them for cocoa and comfort? That wasn't just a casual friend, that was a best friend. Her best friends; other than her butler, mastermind technician co-worker, and police associate; were super criminals! If that wasn't irony she did not know what was!

Brooke opted to drink and only just managed on to spit it all over the table, calming her laughter just enough to swallow. She drained the cup and fanned the hysterics to simple giggles, insisting to all three sets of worried glances that she was perfectly fine. Though, honestly, her cheeks hurt from the smiling and her stomach muscles ached more than they did if she did five hundred sit-ups, which made no sense.

"I haven't laughed that much since I was eight." She blurted out, shockingly honest in her euphoric moment.

That seemed to disturb them, particularly Joker, for some reason. He looked like someone had stolen Christmas right out from under him.

"We really need to fix that..." Harley mumbled, "That's just a sad comment on life if I ever heard it. But what are friends for? If not to help ya see the funny side of life?"

"For a social butterfly, you really need more of a life, honey." Ivy pet her fingers through Brooke's dark hair.

Brooke found herself grinning again, not sure why or what had come over her and not left, "You guys are better friends than I deserve... you're so nice to me... I don't really understand it."

"You think us not wantin' ta let you die so we can collect a reward is being 'so nice'? What crowds do you run with anyway?" Harley's big eyes narrowed in that way she usually had if she thought someone was looking at Brooke too long in Arkham.

"Little too used to swimming with sharks, eh Brookie?" Joker grinned at her.

It made her think of a mostly blurry memory of Croc grumbling at her to just leave him alone and stop bouncing on his toes, and she could not help giggling again, "Or maybe just crocodiles?"

Joker looked at his cup and swirled the contents, "Did they put something in this? Did they spike these?"

What a strange world! A strange, strange world. Unbelievable, really.

It really only took her a maximum of five seconds to resize her office had been broken into. It was quiet as always but far from vacant. The shadows in the room were long and stark, with the draperies still drawn, but that did not hide the disturbance to the room. Years spent in paranoia had a tendency to make a person very alert, besides, she was pretty used to staying alert to her environment.

She shut the door behind her softly, mentally storing the fresh scratch on the key slot away and refocusing on the sense of presence prevailing the normal feeling of the room. The person entering had been careful, very skillful avoiding all the usual things in place to alert her to entry. This person was familiar with some of her tactics and some of her usual paranoia. Nothing she did in the office was anything near what she used o protect the Batcave save for the very careful and intense guards on the computer, but she still had her low-level tricks she used over the years. People close to her knew about them, she even gave a few friends pointers to help them stay a little safer.

When her eyes spotted the shape of a man seated in one of the chairs she knew who her uninvited guest , she did not speak, pretending to be oblivious while she made her way to her desk. She was not terribly good at faking a startled response but she kept her posture relaxed several moments longer until she felt it normal enough for ordinary people to notice him, at which point she forced her body to tense.

Neither of them spoke for a moment but he finally broke his end of the silence, "Hello, Brooke."

She studied his relaxed shoulders and steepled hands, "Trying to give a girl heart trouble, Harvey?"

"I doubt anything scares you anymore, hard-headed as they come." He huffed back.

"Is that a compliment or a rebuff?" She made her way back to the front of the desk, leaning there in front of him.

"Both in equal turn." He rumbled in that deeper voice, bordering on that thin line between the two halves of himself.

Brooke could only assume Harvey sneaking into her office the morning after the others foiled an attempt on her life was no coincidence. She reached over and dialed a few keys and waited for her secretary to pick up. With intentional blandness, she ordered the front desk to hold all her calls and instructed that no one be let up. By the sound of Susan's voice it was clear she thought the order meant Brooke would be napping but that was just fine. It was a temptation to turn on the light as well but she refrained, knowing he preferred it this way. She could see well in the dark anyway.

He looked imposing wrapped in shadows with those wide shoulders and thick arms. She knew from experience how difficult he was to take down if he was of a mind to fight, which was always. He was a big, hard-hitting ball of rage and injured mental state to match the physical. Two-Face might also have been one of the only men she battled that did not take her lightly initially because she was a woman. He faced her the way he did any threat; a flip of a coin and a lot of force, though he took her seriously even before his accident.

"How did you get in?" There was no heat or accusation to her question, just curiosity.

"I have my ways." He answered cryptically, not moving from his place in the partial shadows. He did things like that often, hiding part of himself when he could. His flaws were on display for all the world now, she could not fault him for hiding it when possible. "I heard you had a run in with Dagget's thugs."

A few memories flashed unbidden through her mind and she pushed them away, "News travels in this town." She let go a winning smile she used at parties, "But clearly you can't pin a Wayne down that easily, right?"

Harvey leaned forward just a little closer to the light so he could be sure she saw his glare, "You can't take this seriously for a minute?"

"Seriously?" She shrugged and smiled even brighter since she did not know how to deal with the situation without some sort of protective mask to hide the twisted churn of emotion inside she could not sort through fast enough, "Of course I take it seriously but like I told Gordon, you can't very well catch a fish without bait, now can you? The only way to fix the problem is to catch him at it and I'm pretty confident I can avoid him long enough to do that. He hasn't gotten me yet."

"'Yet' is the key, Brooke!" His voice got louder but not deeper, meaning it was more Harvey than not. "If Ivy and Harley hadn't stepped in, you'd be..." He hesitated like he almost stopped himself from bringing it up, but to drive the point home he finished anyway, "like your parents. On ice!"

She expected that comparison just like she expected the sun to rise and expected him to visit her after the attempt on her. Moreover, she knew where Harvey spent his time that night and she had a feeling he had been the one to tip off Harley, Ivy, and probably by proxy, Joker. He had been robbing the bank Dagget owned during the attack on her. No wonder the calls for backup went unheeded. They were busy trying to hold onto all that dirty money they had inside a nice big vault.

Expecting it did not mean it did not hurt. Some wounds would never heal even in thousands of years. The guilt had never once gone away, it hummed constantly in her veins like a marching band that could never sleep. It devoured her as a Wayne or as a Bat and it always would be that gaping open would she tried to ignore even though it let in more and more infection to poison her blood. She had a lot of wounds like those, infection was something she learned to live with since she was eight years old.

She got up and strolled to her little corner bar to get them both a drink. When she handed the tumbler over he took it without hesitation. No doubt he needed it as much as she did, though hers had more than the allotted ice to water it down, unlike his. She doubted he would notice that detail with any significance.

Harvey swirled the glass in irritation, probably stressing the crystal with his grip, still glaring, "You think you don't keep to a schedule? You are easy to track and any first-time thug could follow you home from work! You're predictable! How do you think that night would have gone if I hadn't been able to reach Harley? Do you know how easy it would be to just sneak up behind you some night and slit your throat? Steal your car for good measure and dump you into a ditch?"

Harder than he might expect, she would say, but he did not know that.

And did he actually know Joker tagged along on the rescue mission? Would it both him? How angry would it make him if he found out Joker helped on one of his many crazy whims? Best not to find out.

"You watching me, Harv?" She smirked, lifting her glass in salute.

He frowned at her just a bit harder, "Someone has to when you set yourself up to get killed! You turned down police protection, meager as that might be."

She arched a brow, leaning back on the desk to regard him, "You really were keeping track, huh?" then she leaned forward again, letting her expression drift away from her usual masks, letting something more real shine free of the face everyone knew to expect from her, "You mad at me?"

That anger drained a little in a shoulder slumping sigh, "Not mad, just worried. I don't wanna see you get hurt."

Brooke decided to venture a little farther onto thin ice, "I heard you are partly to thank for my continued survival. I heard that if those men hadn't been very busy when the guys in the garage called for backup, I might be greasepaint."

Harvey took a deep drink, "News does travel fast, but I guess that's no surprise seeing as how even the Bat let my people have free reign on Dagget."

Yeah, there was that.

Brooke did frown then, hunching her shoulders farther in, "So you were doing it for me?" She did not absolutely know how to feel about that, not when faced head-on with it. Suspecting it was one thing but to hear it confirmed made her feel a wide mix of grateful and guilty.

He shrugged without much energy, like he was tired, "Got more than just money out of it like I planned. I got some nice fat evidence, stuff that could even hold up in court, illegally obtained or not."

Brooke stared him in the eyes, trying to see down as far as she could to the man she knew was still in there, her friend, "You did that for me?" She did not know how to feel about it but she was feeling something, definitely something.

He reached up and nudged her jaw gently with his knuckles in a playful punch that resulted in no pain, "Why wouldn't I?"

Why wouldn't he, a criminal most people thought was beyond saving? Why wouldn't he help a rich, stuck up, do-gooder rather than let her burn? If he was so far gone why not do more than let her drown in her own choices, why not hold her under and collect the money? If there was no hope for him, for any of them really, why not hand her over and steal her material possessions before anyone else could grab them? Because... no one was a lost cause, that's why. This proved what she always believed even if she had come close to forgetting it at times. They were sick but they weren't monsters, not yet. Gordon told her once that she couldn't save everyone, and she knew he was right, understood what he meant, but she could never accept it.

For some moderately unknown reason, her eyes began to sting and blur over. "Have you always been playing my guardian angel in the shadows, Harvey? Have you been holding my hand all these years and I never noticed?"

He stared at her, emotions running wild and fast behind his eyes until he finally looked away, "I don't really know." And it sounds like the truth.

Brooke moved, nearly throwing herself forward, wedging herself in the chair with him, arms wound tight around his neck while she hid her face under his ear. "Maybe you don't... but I think I might."

He was stiff in her hold for around five minutes but he thawed one tense muscle at a time until he awkwardly pats her back with one hand. Eventually, he ended up hugging her back, hesitantly rubbing her scalp with his fingertips as he cradled her head in his enormous palm. He was warm and solid-soft just like she remembered him, a piece of the memories just as good in the now as in the then. She felt dwarfed by him most of the time, even dwarfed by his lost potential. He was better than she ever had been, with a bigger heart and better moral compass. He talked big and acted tough but she always had known the goodness under the lawyer. She knew why he went into law in the first place, remembered how he once told her he wanted to make a place children could walk the streets without fear, where no one else lost everything in Crime Alley. Once upon a time, he was Gotham's white knight in shining armor. She still wanted to believe in her old friend, that lost light buried under ash and destruction.

She could not offer him words to express how keen his loss was or how much she wanted him back. Actions had always been more her way of expression. She had lots of words but she could never get them onto her tongue, not for him or anyone else. Words, real ones that meant something, were her greatest failing as far as expression. Considering how many times she lost someone, she should be wise enough to know she should tell the ones she could reach how much they meant to her while she had the opportunity, but it never worked that way. She could do very little without one of her masks and real emotions did not fall under either mask.

Harvey was one of those wounds she accumulated, one of those infected bleeding parts of her that she learned to live with. He was alive but no less a loss, almost as much as if he had been stripped away by death. It was a different sort of death but it took him from her all the same, parading him around just out of her reach.

She would never be without the guilt, it was part of her and she would not know what to do if it vanished. She did not want it to go away because it helped her, grounded her, held her accountable. If she never forgot her failures she might be less likely to make the same mistakes. Perhaps the guilt would ensure she saved more and that would be worth it in some way.

Guilt makes her suffer and Batwoman needs Brooke to suffer because Batwoman punishes those that do wrong. Batwoman and Brooke have both done wrong, failed, made mistakes, and guilt is its own prison, one they both locked themselves within to sever time for all wrongs. Failing Harvey was one of her wrongs, a wound as deep as her parent's death.

They told her it was not her fault when she was eight but she believed it no more then than she does over anything that has happened since.

"You're still my best friend, Harv. I miss you!"

He hugged her just a little tighter, edging toward crushing her, but she did not mind. When he decided it was time to leave she held onto him as long as he let her. Harvey kissed her forehead, squeezing her shoulders once before he opened the office door. He promised he would see her around, and that was too true, more than he would probably ever know. It made it sting that much more when he walked out of Brooke's office where Batwoman would now have to face him in a very different capacity to an old friend.

Some days later, when one of Dagget's guns singled in on Harvey, Batwoman took four bullets to the chest plate without even thinking about her unprotected back while she shielded Two-Face. The dents and scratches in the bat emblem in the armor might have been symbolic to something but she could not dwell too much, not when she was too busy letting a batarang crash into the shooter's temple. He didn't try to kill her, to stab her in the back, close and up through the weaknesses of the armor he probably knew of after so many years. The look that passed between them was indistinguishable in meaning, but it meant too many things, things neither were ready to examine. She let him go. He raced away without a parting shot and she glided off to her supply of painkillers.

After the case was wrapped up nicely with Dagget and his people behind bars for however long it lasted, Brooke was sipping coffee calmly in the Commissioner's musty office. Her fine pantsuit looked out of place among so many cheat relics of GCPD glory days long gone. The chair creaked from too much use and failing wood glue. Still, she sat as primly as a queen in the chair while Gordon and a few of his people explained their findings, not realizing, of course, that she knew every detail already. She nodded along demurely and utterly unaffected by the ordeal because she was far too much of a golden child to be brought down by silly things like contract hits gone wrong. She was too rich and beautiful to die.

After the others left and it was only Jim left in the room she allowed herself to thaw considerably into something of a decidedly more real nature.

He stared at her like he wanted dearly to peal her apart just to find the real girl under it all. He was too smart to believe the girl they had been staring at the last hour had been the same person he once pulled out of a bloody scene. "I know you know more than you let on." He told her simply, and her answer was a raised brow, "I know Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Two-face, and even Joker and Riddler were helping you stay alive."

She set the coffee cup down on his desk carefully, a steely resigned wariness in her posture, "I never asked them to."

"I know." He said it almost sadly, defeated and world-weary. He knew deep under his skin that she would no more ask for help than Batwoman would. His eyes wrinkled more at the edges with the way his mouth thinned to accentuate the laugh lines; probably not from laughter; to showcase his age. He knew a death wish when he saw it, watched it fester in her over the years in her reckless displays most people simply called wild irresponsibility. People called her entitled and foolish, he called it an expression of anguish that still had not healed from a kid he always knew wished she died the same night her parents did. "Can you answer me one question?"

She only hesitated a moment, though she did stand as if that would prepare her to bolt if needed, "Sure, Jim, what is it?"

His shoulders rose in a deep sigh, his hands shoved into his pockets, "How on earth did you do it? If you wanted to, I bet you could even get the Joker to listen to you. They are more human when they are around you than I've ever seen any of them. How did you win them all over?"

She regarded him for a long moment, considering, before she smiled sheepishly and shrugged, "It was easy, really." Her eyes darted to the floor a moment before she turned to give him her profile, ready to walk out the door, "I just went insane." He expected her to leave with that less than comforting imparting of wisdom, but she lingered, teetering on the doorstep like she does not want to say something, "I think... it was because I went insane with them. When I was out of my mind I stopped seeing monsters or criminals, all I could see was the people."

That time she did leave but he felt no less disquieted. Maybe he never should have asked. Or maybe he needed to go a little crazy for some perspective too. Maybe everyone in Gotham saw monsters so often they forgot to see people. Spend long enough looking for monsters and that would be what you found. Look for people and you would find those too. Just maybe, if they could all take anything away from the whole thing, it was that. Or maybe he was just getting old.

Note: I think I'm ending this round here. Honestly, I'll probably pick it up again at some point, in some way or other. I've enjoyed it too much not to probably play with again.

What started as me writing because I couldn't sleep kind of turned into an exploration of these characters and their humanity. For the villains, their human side of the monsters. For Brooke, kind of the human side of her hero, and all the tie-in stuff that goes into that big bundle of issues.