Work Text:
Inside an office that had two lamps sat a man. Well, actually he was two men in one body, a body that was half-scarred.
Two-Face reached over and turned on both of the two lamps that rested on the desk to see his paperwork better. He was looking over his criminal work files, mostly at people that could be his goons.
Two-Face groaned.
"It's impossible to find good help these days," Two-Face complained to himself but a different voice replied.
"What happened to that weird guy, Willis?"
Still looking down at the paperwork Two-Face replied. "Jail. The moron was caught."
"Didn't he have a family?"
Two-Face thought about this. "Probably. I heard something about his wife OD and maybe something about a kid."
Harvey gasped, making Two-Face jump and drop his pen.
"What the fuck was that about?" Two-Face asked, through gritted teeth.
"He did have a kid. A kid that is all alone now."
"So?"
"So, we have to find him. You know how bad orphanages treat kids."
Two-Face sighed.
"We don't have time for this, Harvey."
"Please, why don't you flip our coin?"
Two-Face grumbled as he grabbed out his special coin and flipped it. Landing on the unmarred side, he growled knowing that Harvey won.
Harvey was fronting as they pulled up to ‘Crime Alley’. They’d had a slight argument, but came to the conclusion that if they did find the kid, Harvey would be less likely to scare him.
"Do we even know what this brat looks like?"
"Well, no but I'm guessing he looks like Willis," Harvey said.
"No shit, Sherlock."
Harvey rarely went to Crime Alley just wasn't his or Two-Face’s typical place, it was a lawless land when it came to the mobsters, and no one seemed able to hold the territory for very long.
The place was depressing, to say the least. It seemed darker somehow.
They didn't see anyone around which wasn't strange, based on the name who would want to live here.
"This place is creepy," Harvey commented.
"Still Gotham."
Harvey kept his eyes peeled for Willis's boy when he caught a reflection from the street light onto a moving object. Harvey quickly jumped back.
"This ain't your place, keep walking," a voice spoke.
Right away Harvey knew it was a kid. Probably trying to protect something.
"We don't want any trouble. We are just trying to find someone," Harvey told the kid.
The kid walked forward with a tire iron in his hand. Looking like he wanted to hit Harvey with it.
It was clear he didn't know it was Two-Face standing in front of him from a shadow covering that side of his face.
Not leaving the area pissed off the kid more as he lifted the tire iron and swung it again. This time Harvey didn't move and took it straight to the stomach. He let out a grunt as he fell to his knees.
"Take that you Big Boob!" the kid shouted at him.
"That's Willis's kid."
Harvey wanted to reply but if he did that could show who he really was and scare the kid into running.
"Willis loved his tire iron weapon. Look at the kid, he looks the same with it."
Harvey wanted to point out that's a stupid reason to think this is who they were looking for but stopped himself.
Two-Face was right. Harvey only saw Willis a few times but the boy in front of him looked just like him.
"Are you Willis Todd's boy?" Harvey asked.
The kid's eyes widened before replying, "don't know what you mean."
"Oh, I think you do." Harvey walked forward, causing the kid to back away.
He acted fast, clearly scared to see what Harvey would do to him. The kid turned with impossible speed, trying to run.
He didn't get far. From his shoes being way too big for his feet he tripped. Slamming hard on the ground, he whimpered as he rolled on his side.
"Haha. Dumb kid."
Ignoring Two-Face's comment Harvey walked closer to check that the kid didn't hurt himself too much.
"You okay?" Harvey asked.
The kid looked at him, and at that moment Harvey could tell that he worked out who he was. His eyes widened in fear.
"Sorry, Mister Two-Face, uh, Dent, wait, sorry, sir. Momma taught me manners and-" The kid flinched. "I'm not trying to be rude, sir."
Harvey kicked the tire iron at his feet. "Uh huh, sure kid, 'manners'."
"I really do,"
"Kid, I know you were trying to protect yourself," Harvey told him, "what's your name?"
"J-Jason," he stuttered out.
"Are you Willis's kid?" Harvey asked.
Jason nodded.
Harvey clapped his hands together making Jason flinch.
"Perfect. You know we knew your mom and dad. They wanted us to take good care of you," Harvey lied.
"Oh, they did?"
"Yeah, they said that you were a good boy."
Harvey swore he could see Jason's face pale but brushed it off thinking maybe his sugar levels were lower and needed something to eat.
"He thinks you want him to pleasure you."
Harvey's mind skidded to a stop.
That couldn't be it. Jason was only new to the streets and he was so young. He shouldn't know what that kind of stuff was.
"Let's get you somewhere safe. Do you need help?" Harvey asked.
Jason shook his head and stood on shaking legs. They were covered in grime and little scabs, the shorts he was wearing had done nothing to protect him. Harvey spotted the blood on the kid's knees and made a mental note to get that patched up when they got home.
Harvey turned around and walked away, expecting Jason to follow him, and follow he did.
The car ride back to Harvey and Two-Face's home was silent but soon broken by Jason.
"I know I probably hafta do stuff for ya but I never done anything like that before. You'll have to teach me. But I swear I'll get better," Jason explained.
It took a second for Harvey to get what he meant but when he did Harvey slammed on the breaks. The seat belt clicked into place.
"What?" Harvey asked in shock.
"Told you."
"Well, I was sold to you. You can have me do whatever you want to you," Jason explained.
Harvey slammed his hand on the steering wheel coursing Jason to flinch.
"No. You will not think like that again. I did not pay to have you. I'm looking after you because it was my choice. Do you understand?"
Frozen from Harvey's outburst Jason took a while to nod.
That seemed to be the right answer because with that nod Harvey began to drive.
Jason was silent as they entered the house, eyes darting around the room. Harvey quickly started to give a house tour, before Jason could start panicking. He pointed to his own bedroom and a small spare bedroom next to it and told Jason that was the room he would be sleeping in. Harvey also showed him around the living room, bathroom, and office. As he showed Jason the door to the office, he warned him never to go in there as it had a lot of Two-Face's work in there.
Jason winced in pain as they walked, but he didn't say anything, stubbornly pushing himself on even as he stumbled slightly. Harvey kept his mouth shut, watching the kid pale with a slight misstep.
Harvey made to get the kid to stop moving, maybe get him to sit on the couch, when he looked down and saw the blood that was dripping from Jason's knees and staining the carpet.
Two-Face blinked in shock as he was thrown to the front, Harvey disappearing quickly and leaving Two-Face heavy in the body. He looked down at the blood on the floor, the slightly shivering child in their living room, and then at the state of the brats' knees.
“Jesus, brat, you’re getting blood everywhere,” he growled, grabbing Jason’s shoulder and dragging him through to the bathroom. Jason yelped, resisting being pulled.
“Be more careful with him.”
Two-Face mentally forced Harvey away, if the coward was going to run away at the sight of blood on the carpet, he didn’t get to have a damn opinion on how Two-Face treated the brat. Boo-hoo, blood was messy and gross, and scary. He had no damn sympathy for the weakling.
“What are you doing?” Jason asked, his voice scared as Two-Face reached down and put his hands under his armpits, pulling him up and putting him on the edge of the bathroom sink.
Two-Face glared at the kid. “You’re bleeding,” he said, “need to clean it up.”
Jason looked down at his knees and bit his lip, he reached down to poke at his knees and Two-Face lightly slapped his hands away. Jason pulled his hands back up and clutched them to his chest, breath stuttering.
“Nicer.”
Harvey could take his scolding and shove it up-
Two-Face sighed aloud, clenching his fists. He bent over and opened the under-sink cabinet to pull out the first aid kit. Jason was tense, body held entirely still, barely breathing where he sat. If Two-Face were a better man, maybe he would have cared about the fear in the brat’s eyes, as it was, instead he pulled out antibacterial wipes and ripped open the packet.
The gasp the kid let out when the wipe touched his knee was loud enough to make Two-Face frown. “That hurt?” he asked. He knew from experience that it should only ‘sting’, however, he’d long since had a poor connection to what did and didn’t hurt the body, so sting may have felt more like a punch.
Jason shook his head, a jerky movement, and Two-Face shrugged.
“Let me know if it’s too much, I guess. I won’t stop, but I can try to care.”
Two-Face could feel Harvey’s disappointment, but he didn’t say anything, which was probably for the best.
The kid didn't make any more noise when he went back in with the wipe, but he was holding the edge of the sink in a death grip. Two-Face rolled his eyes and kept dabbing at the grazes.
After successfully wiping away the surface blood, Two-Face could assess the damage. Little bits of gravel were stuck in the skin, but it was an otherwise surface-level graze, bleed and weep a lot but fairly harmless. Two-Face used the end of one of his nails to pick the bits of rock, ignoring the little whimpers Jason let out.
He ran a fresh wipe over the knees and nodded satisfied. He pulled the pack of plasters out of the first aid kit and then did a double take at the packet.
God, Two-Face wished he could kill Harvey.
He pulled the biggest ones from the pack and held them out in front of Jason. “Right, brat, red or purple.”
Jason blinked, bewildered, and Two-Face noticed there were tears collected in the corners of his eyes. Jason’s mouth opened and closed and Two-Face growled.
“Don’t got all day, brat, pick a damn color.”
“Stop scaring him.”
“Red,” Jason said quickly, Two-Face ignored the breathlessness and the shake in Jason’s hands in favor of putting the rest of the plasters away.
He ripped the paper off of the plaster, it had little red flowers on a lighter pink background, absolutely juvenile. Two-Face didn’t wait for Jason’s okay, instead rolling the plaster over the knees and then rubbing his hand up and down to make sure it stuck.
Two-Face put his hands up under Jason’s armpits, hefting him down to the ground. Jason stumbled as he dropped him, leaning back against the cabinet to stabilize himself. It was a little pathetic, but that was kids he supposed, pathetic and weak.
Two-Face cursed the mess Harvey had gotten them into, he wasn’t well-versed in life tasks and didn’t care much for kids. Harvey should be grateful he’d even done this much.
Jason sniffled down at his side, the sound was grating, despite the brats' attempt to stifle the noises by biting his lip.
“You made him cry.”
Two-Face bit down the automatic ‘I’ll make you cry’ and instead stared at the brat. His eyes were puffy and the tears were falling down freely over his cheeks and his nose was runny. Honestly, kids needed to be made of sterner stuff, he’d patched up his legs, what more did the brat want?
On instinct, Two-Face reached down and ruffled the kid's hair, ignoring Harvey’s attempt to drag the hand back. Jason froze, his little whimpers cut off mid-breath. Brow furrowing, Jason stared up through his bangs, trying to see the hand on his head through the hair. Two-Face chuckled at the look of confusion on the brat’s face.
“Alright, tough stuff, anything else I need to worry about?”
Jason shook his head, still looking up at Two-Face’s hand like it was a dangerous weapon. Considering some of the stuff he got up to, maybe it was.
Two-Face dropped his hand, leaving the kid looking slightly stunned.
"That was nice."
Two-Face could be nice, he was a downright pleasant person, he did nice things all the time. Like, when he didn't murder that one drug dealer for skimming off the top, or that time he let the owner of the bodega go even though they'd bumped into him. See, nice things.
Leaving the bathroom, Two-Face saw what had got him on first-aid duty in the first place. The small stain on the carpet pulled his attention and Two-Face felt his hands shake. Right, he'd have to deal with that before they could do anything.
Two-Face waved Jason over, the brat stumbling behind him. He was so slow, Two-Face considered grabbing him to drag him quicker, but the shaking in his hands stopped him.
"Coward," Two-Face hissed under his breath.
Harvey wasn't close enough to hear it, but it made Two-Face happy to insult him.
“Sit here,” Two-Face grunted, pushing Jason down onto a chair in the kitchen. “Harvey will sort you out later, I’ve just gotta clean up all the blood you’ve so graciously gifted to our carpet.”
Two-Face went to the closet and pulled out cleaning spray and supplies. He could feel Jason watching him as he moved across the apartment, pointedly ignoring the brat as he went about spraying, soaking, then wiping up the blood.
"Happy now?" Two-Face asked, staring at the now clean carpet, the smell of citrus zest floating through the air.
A shudder ran through the body as Harvey adjusted, the carpet spotless and the cleaning supplies sitting next to the wet patch. Two-Face tended to leave domestic tasks half finished as if to say 'screw you' to Harvey.
"Much better," Harvey muttered, putting the supplies away.
It wasn't so much the blood he had an issue with, it was the kid, the drip, the-
Well, maybe it was the blood, but it didn't bear much thinking about it.
For now, Harvey had other more important things to focus on. Like the kid sitting at his kitchen table looking like he was waiting for judgment.
Harvey wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with Jason now, but he could feel Two-Face knocking about in the back of his head reminding him about responsibilities like ‘food’ and ‘care’.
“You wanted to look after the kid.”
Thanks, Two-Face, real helpful.
Harvey groaned, running a hand down his face. “Right, kid, you want something to eat?”
Jason was kicking his feet back and forth on his chair, shuffling at the table, probably scratching his chair along the linoleum and damaging it, stupid- Harvey took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. Jason froze. “Uh, it’s okay mister Harvey, sir. I can make my own food.”
“Let him go for it, burn the house down.”
Harvey furrowed his brow, looking between the kid and his kitchen, ignoring Two-Face’s very unhelpful commentary. “No can do, kiddo. Now, I’m amazing at cooking pasta, noodles, might even have some leftover chicken and can shove it on the stove to fry.”
Jason bit his lip and Harvey watched as the kid wrung out his hands on the table, pulling and twisting on one of his fingers. Jason’s eyes were wide, darting between Harvey, the table, the door, and the kitchen counters like they would offer all the answers.
“Don’t you fuckin’ dare.”
Harvey ignored Two-Face and pulled out a quarter. “We’re gonna flip this, tails, we’ll have pasta. Heads, we’ll have chicken. How does that sound?”
Jason didn’t look convinced. “Don’t you normally do that to kill the bad guys?”
“Yeah, Harvey, don’t you do it to kill bad guys.”
Harvey grit his teeth and held the coin out for Jason to take. “No, I use this one to make small decisions. Should I have tea or coffee? An extra slice of cake or not? Little decisions that I know won’t hurt me regardless of the outcome to make it easier for me.”
Jason took the coin and ran his fingers over the faces. “So, if I get tails, we’ll have pasta. Heads, fried chicken?”
Harvey nodded.
Jason ran the coin over the tops of his fingers with an ease that honestly shocked Harvey a little. With a flick of his thumb, the coin went into the air.
“Heads.”
Harvey watched it roll before Jason snatched it midair and slapped it on the back of his hand. “Tails,” Jason said, as he pulled his hand off to show Harvey.
“Pasta it is,” Harvey said, walking through to his kitchen. He could feel Jason’s eyes on him as he walked but ignored them to lean down and pull the pasta and sauce out of a cupboard. His hands drifted as he filled the pan with water, added salt, and put it on the stove. “Stop it,” Harvey whispered, listening to Two-Face cackle in the back of his head.
“Stop what?”
Harvey almost jumped at the voice by his elbow, looking down to see Jason standing on tiptoes next to him at the oven. He was looking into the pot with assessing eyes, fingers twitching at his side like he wanted to grab something.
“I was asking my hands to listen to me, they were drifting.”
Jason looked up at him dubiously, before reaching to grab the jar of sauce. “I don’t really like white sauce,” he muttered.
“Not even had him for a day and he’s already fussy.”
Harvey didn’t even dignify that with a response, instead pointing to the cupboard. “Okay, kid, pick out the sauce you want. We’re adding chicken to it though, I do need to use it even if we’re not having fried.”
Jason hesitated, looking into the pot again, before bending down in the cupboard. Harvey watched as he rifled through the sauces, pulling out different ones, reading the words slowly, and then putting them back. Eventually, Jason stood up, a simple tomato sauce jar in hand. He situated himself at the edge of the oven again. Harvey ignored him, instead opting to add the pasta to the water and then pull out a deeper pan.
Jason was a shadow, barely a step behind him, as Harvey pulled the pre-diced chicken and onion out of the fridge. Harvey almost tripped over the kid as he turned to make it back to the pan, instead, he stepped around and got in front of the pan.
“Need oil.”
Harvey rolled his eyes, pulling out oil from the cupboard next to the oven and putting some in the pan. Jason’s eyes followed his movements, never blinking as he watched Harvey cook.
“You can sit down, kid,” Harvey said after the third accidental brush of his elbow against Jason’s head.
Jason shook his head. “I gotta watch ya,” he muttered, still staring at Harvey’s hands.
“You can watch from the table.”
Jason’s eyebrows furrowed and he frowned but still didn’t blink. “I need to make sure that you cook it right, so I don’t get sick.”
Harvey froze. Did Jason have allergies? That was probably something he should have asked before he started cooking.
“Idiot.”
“What do you mean by that?” Harvey asked, a cold feeling running down his spine. Something told him there was no good answer to this, but the kid didn’t look upset, just contemplative, maybe a little confused.
Jason looked up at Harvey, eyes wide and his lip jutted out in thought. "Mom used to add these 'special spices' that she mashed up with a fork. They made it taste funny and made me feel sick, and I don't want them anymore, so I have to make sure you don't put them in."
Harvey looked down at the kid with narrowed eyes. "Special spices?"
"Yeah, it made my tummy hurt and I got really tired and it made it hard to think."
"She crushed them herself, kid?"
Jason nodded, shuffling on the spot. "She'd get them out of this little bag she got at the market, and they were always wrapped in foil like the ve-ge-table stock." Then he crossed his arms, defiance in his stance. "I don't want them no more, so you're not allowed to put them in my food."
That hit a little bit close to home, Harvey’s mind started ringing with his mother's calm words, putting pills into his hand and promising they’d help. Two-Face’s growl in the back of his mind was enough to confirm it. The grip on the pan tightened and he forcibly unlatched his fingers.
“Let me at ‘em. I’ll kill ‘em.”
Harvey took a deep breath, refrained from letting Two-Face know that Jason’s mom was already dead, and stirred the chicken and onions in the pan. Jason watched every movement with bated breath.
“I don’t have any special spices, okay, kid?” Harvey assured the kid, focusing on making the sauce, and stirring the pasta, the monotony keeping him grounded and present. “You’re welcome to watch me cook anytime if it’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t trust you yet,” Jason said, all childlike innocence, and Harvey’s heart clenched. “So I gotta watch ya for now. You sure it’s okay?”
Harvey nodded, feeling his fingers start to respond properly again. “Sure, anytime, get underfoot whenever you want.”
Jason’s face brightened a little, a small smile tugging at the edge of his lips,
Harvey finished cooking, with Jason watching like a hawk at his elbow. He drained the pasta and divided it into two bowls. Jason started reaching for the bowl before he’d had a chance to put sauce on so he pulled it out of reach. Jason pouted.
“Kid, what’s up?” Harvey asked.
Jason kicked his foot on the floor, letting out a little hum. “Can I have the sauce not mixed in?”
Harvey stared at the kid. “What do you mean?”
Jason reached over for his bowl of pasta again. Harvey watched as the kid pushed all the shells out to the edge so it made a little well in the middle, and put his hand out for the spoon. Harvey gave it to him and Jason set about ladling a spoonful of sauce into the middle of the bowl.
“This means I get the perfect amount of sauce with each bit of pasta, it doesn’t hide in the shell,” Jason explained, moving away and going to sit at the table.
“Heathen.”
Harvey didn’t want to agree with Two-Face, but the man had a point. However, children could be fussy, he’d seen them have tantrums on the TV, and there wasn’t room for him to comment when he wouldn’t let his food touch when plated up.
Harvey added his own sauce and sat down at the table across from Jason. He took a quick bite, even sauce coverage and a bit of chicken. Perfectly fine, even all mixed. He watched as Jason stabbed pasta shells with the fork and swirled them in the sauce, before lifting it to his mouth.
It only took three stabs before the kid looked a little green.
“Everything alright, Jason?”
Jason nodded, stabbing his pasta again but he was chewing slower. Harvey kept an eye on him, shoveling a couple of bites of food himself.
It was starting to look more and more like the kid would hurl with each mouthful he had.
Harvey blinked, feeling floaty watching the kid try and force himself to eat. He tried to speak, tell the kid to leave it, he was eating on a days-old empty stomach for goodness sake, but he couldn’t get his mouth to cooperate. His tongue felt dry, somewhere distantly he could hear his father's voice and-
Two-Face hated waste, but looking at the brat desperately trying to shovel more pasta and sauce into his mouth. Jason was obviously full and his hands were shaking even as he coated each shell in the sauce.
“Alright, brat, you don’t have to finish it.”
Jason paused, eyes flickering up to Two-Face, then back down to his bowl. There was a slight change, a tension to his shoulders. His fingers clenched around his spoon as he asked, “Are you sure?”
Two-Face reached over the table and pulled the bowl away from him. “I don’t say things I ain’t sure about.”
He grabbed the brat's fork and ate the mouthful. Jason looked vaguely disgusted, turning his eyes away as Two-Face mixed all the pasta and sauce together and started eating the rest of the food.
“What? Were you going to eat it later?” Two-Face asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jason shook his head. “It’s just gross,” he mumbled.
Two-Face stuck out a tongue, knowing it was gross from the sauce and pasta, and Jason’s face scrunched up and he shook his head to avert his gaze.
“Get used to it,” Two-Face teased, finishing off the entire bowl easily in three big mouthfuls. Jason watched him in awe. Two-Face fixed him with a glare. “What you looking at?” Jason quickly looked away but didn’t answer, his face bright red.
Two-Face stood, stretching as he did so. The brat eyed him carefully as he moved. He almost wanted to say ‘boo’ and scare the kid.
“Clean yourself up,” he told Jason, stacking the bowls in the sink for Harvey to wash up later.
Jason moved to the sink, struggling to reach his hands up. Two-Face sighed. He grabbed the soap, squirted two pumps onto the brat's hands and then turned on the water for the kid to clean them.
It wasn't normal for Two-Face and he swallowed around the unusual feelings in his chest.
There was a soft buzz at the back of his head, a slight afterimage of someone else's panic overlapping with his own. It made keeping calm hard, something that was intangible. Regardless of Two-Face’s own feelings, Harvey’s kept surging to overwhelm him.
Two-Face ran a hand down his face, tried to count breaths, and resisted what he knew would help. He’d just finished two bowls worth of pasta, and he didn’t want to have dessert.
Harvey’s response was almost a whine.
“You’ve gotta have sweets after dinner.”
With a sigh, Two-Face looked down at the brat at his elbow. “You want a hot chocolate?”
Two-Face, reluctantly, had become very good at making hot chocolate over the years. Harvey had the sweet tooth of a toddler, and early on, Two-Face had learned that the quickest way to calm both him and the body down was to make a nice sugary drink. Warm them up from the inside, fend off the adrenaline shakes with the sweetness, and ground themselves with something they didn’t indulge in too often.
As such, that meant they always had the ingredients for hot chocolate in the apartment. The monotony of the task was something Two-Face loved. Put the saucepan on the stove, add milk, snap in a bar of chocolate, mix until it melted and-
“Is that real chocolate?”
Two-Face did not jump at the sound of the brat's voice, because no, he had not forgotten he was there.
“Hot chocolate is shit if you don’t use real chocolate,” Two-Face grumbled, focusing back on the stirring. “Watch that.”
Jason nodded, eyes looking down into the saucepan as Two-Face fumbled with the fridge door to pull out squirty cream. He nudged the brat to the side with his hip, to pull the saucepan off the heat and immediately poured it into the mug.
“Cream?” He asked, shaking the can.
Jason stared at it, before nodding. Two-Face swirled it onto the drink. Jason moved to grab it, but Two-Face slapped his hands away.
“Wait a second.” Two-Face leaned down to rummage through the cupboard. He knew he'd seen them in there, Harvey had definitely picked them up in his last shop. Behind the honey, pasta, ah-ha. "Marshmallows, yay or nay?"
Jason stared at the mug of hot chocolate on the side in front of him, gnawing on his lip.
"This isn't a life or death question, brat, you want the mini-mallows or not?"
Jason nodded stiffly and Two-Face let out a sigh. He ripped open the bag and pulled out a handful to sprinkle over the top of the sugary monstrosity. He also added some to his own, because Harvey would kick up a fuss if he didn't.
"What do you say?"
Jason looked up, eyes wide. "Thank you?"
"You're welcome. We'll teach you manners yet."
Jason eyed the drink a little suspiciously and Two-Face almost wanted to say ‘It won’t bite you’, but stranger things had happened in less suspicious circumstances, so he didn’t blame the brat. After assessing it for a moment, Jason smiled, grabbing the mug in both hands and licking lightly at the cream on top.
It reminded Two-Face vaguely of a cat, suspicious, skittish, ready to run if it was rotten.
Jason gulped greedily at his hot chocolate, smacking his lips as he pulled the mug away. He had a squirty cream mustache on his top lip and chocolate running down the side of his lips. It was a mess.
Two-Face resisted Harvey’s attempt to move and wipe the kid's face, instead, picking up a kitchen towel and throwing it at Jason. It landed over the top of Jason’s head and he pulled it down to blink at Two-Face in confusion.
“You’ve made a mess of your face, wipe up before it drips everywhere and I’ve gotta clean again.”
Jason’s tongue licked out at the cream over the top of his lip and Two-Face cringed.
Two-face cringed, turning away to enjoy his own drink in peace. He didn't know why Harvey picked up this kid, kids were gross. The drink was warm and soothing as he sipped it, feeling something settle inside of him. His emotions stopped blurring, and his chest felt a little looser.
"Right, brat, you keep drinking that monstrosity. I'm gonna grab you some clothes because no-way I'm letting you sully the linen in those greasy rags you call clothes."
Two-Face placed his mug on the side, still half-drunk just to annoy Harvey and left the brat standing in the kitchen.
Two-Face paused when he entered their room, closing the door behind him.
“What are we doing?”
“We’re looking for clothes for Jason to sleep in.”
Two-Face growled. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
There was silence and Two-Face was sure he wasn’t going to get a response. That he was going to be left with the brat for the evening and no answers.
“Can we talk about this in the morning? Let’s just get him into bed, get a good night's sleep, and then we can make an action plan, okay?”
Two-Face almost argued, almost made it into a blow-up that would no doubt have ended with him tearing out of the house and setting fire to a few buildings, but a little voice from the living room stopped him.
“Uh, Mister Two-Face? Can I use the bathroom please?”
Two-Face took a deep breath, leaning his head down on the chest of drawers in front of him. “You don’t gotta ask, brat, just go.”
A few continuing breaths later, Two-Face heard the bathroom door click shut down the hallway and pulled open the drawer.
“Which shirt should we give ‘im?” Two-Face looked down into the drawer of soft pajama shirts. He ghosted his hand over them, feeling the soft material.
His hand gripped one without his permission and he pulled it out. It was half pink and half red and rolled his eyes.
“Pink, really?”
“It’ll match his plasters.”
Two-Face scoffed. “Right, because that’s what the kid needs, his shirt to match his knees.” He took the shirt anyway, tucking it over one arm and then opening the pajama pant drawer to find a bottom half. He didn’t linger here, grabbing a pair of shorts that could be tightened with a drawstring and therefore wouldn’t swamp the brat.
“I don’t got any spare toothbrushes, brat, so you’ll get away with not brushing your teeth tonight,” Two-Face said as he left his bedroom.
He threw the clothes over where Jason was standing at the bathroom door. Jason flailed, reaching to catch them. Jason ran his fingers lightly over the shirt, his face easing slightly as he did. Two-Face knew it was probably the softest thing the brat had touched in weeks, poor thing. He paused at the entrance to the spare bedroom, mind catching up with what he’d said.
“But, this is a one-time deal, okay?” He clarified. “Dentists are a scam, trust me on that, so you’ll learn to take care of your teeth real quick if you don’t want me to let Toothless Toni handle your dental care.”
Two-Face pushed the door open, and it swung slowly, coming to a stop with a soft thunk as it hit the cardboard boxes piled up behind the door. He put his hand on Jason's back, ignoring the little flinch from him. He pushed him through the door. Jason stumbled as he walked forward, letting out a little ‘oof’ as he hit the edge of the bed.
“Make yourself comfy, brat.”
Jason lay in the strange bed that felt too soft for him to be in, staring at the door. Even though it was closed Jason still didn't feel safe. He was scared that Two-face was going to walk in and hurt him just like his father did. Okay, he wasn't going to lie Harvey scared him a little too.
Jason chewed on his fingernails as he stared at the door. Knowing that Two-face could just walk in at any time was making Jason anxious.
Deciding that he had to do something to make himself feel safer, Jason got out of bed and carefully walked over to the boxes that were strewn about the room. It was clear that they used this room as a storage area more than anything else.
Grabbing the first box he could, Jason dragged it across the room, not having the strength to lift it. He pushed it in front of the door making sure that it was against where it opened. Jason stood back and looked at his work but he knew it wouldn't be enough. Going back to get more boxes, Jason dragged it over until he felt sure that it wouldn't be able to open from the other side.
Jason sat back on the bed and knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep on it. It was too soft, almost uncomfortably soft.
Grabbing the red and white stripe blanket off the bed, he pulled it to a corner of the room and placed it down on the floor. Laying down on it Jason had his back to the wall so he was facing the door just in case the blockade didn't work. If it didn't, at least he was ready to face them and not have his back turned to them.
Jason pulled the blanket over his small frame and snaked a hand into the pink shirt Harvey let him borrow. He fisted the shirt and could easily smell the strong smell of cologne that tried to cover up the gunpowder smell but failed to do so.
Moving around a little bit, Jason got into a spot that felt comfortable for him and closed his eyes, falling into an uneasy sleep.