While Vernon and Maroni talked in Blackgate Prison, Harvey Dent sat in his basement, phone pressed to his ear, listening in perfect silence.
The basement wasn't much—unfinished concrete, exposed pipes, a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Gilda had wanted to renovate it years ago, turn it into something useful. A home office, maybe. A wine cellar. Anything other than this cold, empty space that smelled like mildew and old cardboard.
Harvey had always said no. Too expensive. Not a priority. They'd get to it eventually.
The truth was simpler: he'd wanted a space that was completely his. Somewhere private. Somewhere he could work without anyone asking questions.
Somewhere he could do things the old Harvey Dent would never have done.
The voice came through the phone speaker with crystalline clarity:
"Even the people around him are mine. What can he use to fight me?"
Maroni. Smug. Triumphant. Completely convinced of his own superiority.
Harvey smiled.
It wasn't a pleasant smile. There was no warmth in it, no humor. Just cold satisfaction, the expression of a man watching his trap snap shut exactly as planned.
When he'd heard Maroni ask Vernon to check the surveillance cameras, he'd known. The bait had been taken. Hook, line, and sinker. Maroni genuinely believed what Harvey had told him—that the camera in the corner was the only monitoring device in the room.
Who could have imagined that Prosecutor Harvey Dent, champion of law and order, would engage in this kind of double-dealing? Overt surveillance as a distraction, covert eavesdropping as the real weapon. It was completely unlike Harvey's public persona, his carefully cultivated image of transparent justice.
Which made it devastatingly effective.
Harvey Dent, the White Knight of Gotham, didn't do underhanded tricks.
Except now he did.
And that was precisely why it worked.
He saved the recording, labeled it with date and time stamps, and added it to an encrypted folder that would never see the inside of a courtroom. This evidence was too valuable to waste on something as unreliable as the legal system.
No, this was insurance. Leverage. A weapon to be deployed when the time was right.
Harvey leaned back in his chair, the scarred coin in his other hand catching the light as he turned it over, over, over.
Corrupt officials need to be smart. Honest officials need to be smarter.
He was learning.
Across town, in the children's shelter in Burnley, Jude stood at the stove cooking dinner while wearing headphones.
The kitchen was cramped but functional—two burners that worked most of the time, a sink that only leaked on Tuesdays, and a collection of mismatched pots that Jude had scavenged from Dave's Dimensional Kitchen Garden. The kids were in the main room watching TV, their laughter drifting through the thin walls.
In Jude's ears, Maroni and Vernon's voices played with perfect clarity.
"I think the supervisors will be able to become friends with me, just like you and I are friends."
Jude stirred the pot of stew, adding salt by feel. The monitoring setup was running on autopilot now—audio recording to encrypted storage, video feed cycling through timestamps, everything backed up to three separate locations.
Of course he'd kept his own copies.
Harvey might be doing the surveillance, but this mission affected Jude's ability to continue his career as a professional salary thief. No way was he trusting anyone else with that kind of critical intelligence.
Besides, having dirt on both Maroni and Vernon could come in handy.
"Even the people around him are mine. What can he use to fight me?"
Jude tasted the stew. Needed pepper.
"I always feel like Harvey seems a little different," he murmured to himself, reaching for the spice rack.
It was true. Something had shifted in the prosecutor. Harvey still used the positive legal system to prosecute criminals—still filed motions, called witnesses, delivered impassioned closing arguments about truth and justice.
But now he also used special black methods to fight the gangsters who manipulated that same judiciary. Surveillance without warrants. Blackmail. Evidence obtained through means that would make any defense attorney scream about constitutional violations.
The Harvey Dent from six months ago would have been horrified.
The Harvey Dent from today just called it "adaptation."
Jude added pepper to the stew, considering.
"I wonder," he said quietly, "did I succeed in preventing the birth of Two-Face?"
The thought made him feel cautiously optimistic. Harvey was using morally gray tactics, sure—but he was still Harvey. Still fighting for justice, even if his methods had gotten more flexible. That was different from becoming Two-Face, right? That was just... pragmatism.
Strategic evolution.
Completely different from a psychotic break that split his personality in half.
Right?
Jude checked the mission status in his peripheral vision.
[MISSION: The Local Procuratorate with Leaks on All Sides - In Progress (1/2)]
One target successfully monitored without detection. One to go.
"Dinner's ready!" he called toward the main room.
The thunder of small feet approaching drowned out Maroni's voice in his headphones.
Everyone was busy tonight.
And the other two members of Gotham's golden triangle weren't idle either.
High above the city, mounted on the roof of GCPD headquarters, an unusually bright, high-power searchlight blazed into the night sky.
The beam was massive—industrial strength, the kind of light that could illuminate a football field from half a mile away. It cut through Gotham's perpetual cloud cover like a spear, painting the underside of the clouds with harsh white brilliance.
But what made it distinctive, what turned it from mere searchlight into urban legend, was the shadow pattern mounted in front of the beam.
A bat.
Wings spread wide, silhouetted against the light, projected into the sky above Gotham City in a symbol that had become as iconic as the Wayne Tower or the Gotham Bridge.
The Bat-Signal.
In almost every block of the city, people could see it—the huge bat logo composed of light and shadow, hanging in the sky like a summoning glyph. After so many years, it had almost become part of Gotham's architecture. Everyone was accustomed to it. Everyone knew what it meant.
Batman was being called.
The procedure was simple: stand next to the signal and wait. In just a few minutes—sometimes seconds—the Bat would appear behind you.
Most people had no interest in testing this.
The violent vigilante who liked to break bones and dislocate shoulders probably wouldn't have a friendly attitude toward random citizens playing with his signal. The first few idiots who'd tried to use it as a prank had met Batman, certainly.
They'd also needed therapy afterward.
So in practice, only two people used the Bat-Signal regularly: Prosecutor Harvey Dent and Commissioner James Gordon.
Tonight, it was Gordon's turn.
He stood beside the massive light apparatus, coat collar turned up against the wind, smoking a cigarette and staring out at the city. Gotham sprawled below like a infected wound—lights glittering, sirens wailing, the constant background noise of a city that never quite managed to be civilized.
"We've been searching continuously for a while now," Gordon said, not turning around. He knew Batman was already there, somewhere in the shadows behind him. "All the available police resources at the Gotham Police Department have been used to look for Scarecrow and Riddler."
He took a long drag from his cigarette, the ember flaring bright.
"But there's absolutely no clue about those two," he continued. "Not even a shadow. It's like they vanished into thin air."
From the darkness near the stairwell, Batman's voice emerged—low, gravelly, mechanical.
"The Riddler has been frightened by the Holiday Killer. Until we announce Alberto's arrest publicly, Edward will remain carefully hidden. He won't dare do anything that might draw attention."
Gordon nodded slowly. That tracked with Nygma's psychology—brilliant but cowardly, always running when the stakes got too high.
"But the Scarecrow," Batman continued, and there was something darker in his tone now, "someone gave him a lifeline. Helped him escape Arkham. So either someone wanted to use him for something, or he wanted to do something himself and asked for help."
"Either way," Gordon said flatly, "it's a big problem for us."
He waved his cigarette hand in frustrated resignation. "I hope they don't follow Alberto's example and do something weird on the upcoming Independence Day. I swear, if we get another Holiday Killer situation—"
He paused. Turned around.
The rooftop was empty.
"I have nothing else to say. Do you, Batman?" Gordon asked the vacant air. "Are you listening to me?"
Silence.
Gordon waited exactly five seconds—long enough to confirm what he already knew—then extinguished the cigarette under his heel, turned off the Bat-Signal, and headed for the stairs.
Wait for a response? There was no need.
After spending so much time with Batman, Gordon had learned his nature: when he ran out of things to say, he simply disappeared. No goodbye. No acknowledgment. Just gone, like he'd never been there at all.
It should have been annoying.
Somehow, Gordon found it comforting. At least Batman was consistent.
Sofia Falcone had been confused since Father's Day.
Her father had become mysterious recently. No one in the family knew what the Roman was planning. As his daughter Sofia felt this absence most acutely.
On Father's Day, she'd given him a tie. Expensive silk. Perfectly tailored. Chosen carefully.
He'd said thank you, taken the tie, and hurried away.
That was it. No conversation. No acknowledgment of the thought behind the gift. Just a brief "I appreciate your kindness" and then he was gone, door closing behind him, leaving her standing alone in the apartment with a wrapped gift box and the familiar ache of not being quite enough.
Was it Alberto's death? Had losing his youngest son—his favorite son, the one who'd been too gentle for the family business until he'd suddenly become a serial killer—broken something in Carmine Falcone?
Sofia didn't know.
What she did know was that her father hadn't been staying at home much lately. He was often running out, taking the inconspicuous car, the one with tinted windows and no family markings. The one he used when he didn't want to attract attention.
Tonight, she watched from her window as that same nondescript sedan pulled away from the apartment building. Watched it disappear around the corner, heading deeper into Gotham's industrial district.
Where was he going?
What was he planning?
And why—as always—was she not trusted enough to be told?
Sofia stood at the window long after the car disappeared, staring at the empty street.
Then she turned away and poured herself a drink.
The car carrying Carmine Falcone twisted through Gotham's streets for thirty minutes—doubling back, taking side roads, ensuring no one followed.
Finally, the driver spoke: "Mr. Falcone, it's confirmed. No tail."
"Good." Falcone looked through the dark one-way glass at the changing scenery. "Take us to the location."
The car wound through increasingly desolate neighborhoods until they reached Gotham Central Park—or rather, the abandoned facilities area on the park's eastern edge. The section the city had built in the eighties and then forgotten about when budget cuts hit. Now it was just rusting playground equipment and graffiti-covered buildings, a monument to Gotham's perpetual decay.
No one came here. Which made it perfect.
Falcone stepped out of the car and walked toward the largest abandoned building—an old maintenance facility, windows shattered, door hanging off its hinges.
From inside, he heard singing.
"Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man~"
The voice was tuneless, discordant, echoing through the empty facility like something from a nightmare. A children's nursery rhyme rendered horrifying by context and delivery.
"Bake me a cake as fast as you can~"
Falcone's expression didn't change. He'd dealt with Gotham's rogues gallery long enough to be unimpressed by theatrical villainy.
He walked deeper into the building, following the sound. The singing grew clearer as he approached what had once been the facility's central workshop. Now it was just empty space, broken equipment, and—
A stove.
Someone had dragged an old cast-iron stove into the center of the room. It was burning hot, red coals visible through the grate, heat radiating outward in waves.
Beside it stood a scarecrow.
Not a decorative scarecrow. Not some Halloween prop. Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, in full costume—burlap mask, ragged suit, the whole ensemble designed to trigger primal fear responses in anyone who looked at him too long.
He was still singing.
"Pat it, and prick it, and mark it with 'B'~"
Falcone cleared his throat.
The singing stopped abruptly.
Crane turned, the empty eye holes of his mask fixing on Falcone with unsettling intensity.
"Mr. Falcone," Crane said, voice muffled by the mask but still recognizable. "Punctual as always."
"I don't like wasting time," Falcone replied. "You said you had something to show me."
"Put it in the oven, for the Bats and—"
A new voice interrupted. Higher-pitched. Slightly manic.
Crane turned to see a short figure standing behind him, holding a tray with a complete tea service—teapot, cups, saucers, all perfectly arranged despite the abandoned building's complete lack of appropriate furniture.
The most eye-catching feature was the hat.
It was enormous. Comically oversized. A top hat that rose at least eighteen inches above the wearer's head, covered in green fabric and decorated with a price tag reading 10/6—ten shillings and sixpence, the calling card of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.
The man wearing it was a dwarf, barely four feet tall, dressed in an immaculate green suit that looked like it had been tailored for a child's tea party. His face was round, cherubic, and completely at odds with the manic energy radiating from his movements.
Jervis Tetch. The Mad Hatter. Mind-control specialist and Lewis Carroll obsessive.
He didn't seem remotely concerned by Crane's unfriendly look. Instead, he scurried forward on short legs, teacup extended with exaggerated courtesy.
"Would you like some tea?" Tetch asked brightly, as though they were in a parlor instead of an abandoned factory.
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