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It wasn't supposed to have gotten this serious.
It had started with a kiss.
They had been staking out a bank they planned to hit together, watching from an overly bougie apartment across the street and keeping track of the different guards, when the armored trucks left, the busiest times of day.
Or at least Harv was.
Edward was otherwise occupied.
"How many words are in a dictionary?" he asked, popping up his toast to check on it. Still not ready. He pushed it down again.
"Eddie, if you tell me another damn riddle, I am going to rip your head off," Harv growled.
"You can just tell me if they're too hard," Eddie teased, leaning across the kitchen pass-through. Harv lowered his binoculars to glower at him.
"It's a trick question. The number of words in a dictionary will depend on the brand, as their names will count-"
"It's two."
Harv stared at him. "Are you fucking joking? What did I say about interrupting?"
"I thought you would like it. Two. "
Harv closed his eyes for a long second before removing his coin from his pocket. Eddie yelped and ducked back into the kitchen, wondering if the walk-in pantry had a lock and if he could reach it before Harv reached him. Or the bullets, depending on how pissed off Harv was.
He did not have time. Harv loomed in the kitchen doorway. Eddie raised his hands in what he hoped Dent would see as a pacifying gesture. "Now Harv, I know my riddles can grate at times, but there's really no need-"
Eddie was cut off by Harv's lips. For once in his life, he acted without thinking and wrapped his arms around Harv's neck, pulling him closer and ignoring the pain in his back as Harv crowded him against the kitchen counter, Eddie bending over backwards as the other man tried to get closer to him than physically possible.
After that they kept kissing, and more. It wasn't supposed to be anything too serious. Just something to do. A way to kill time or have fun.
And then feelings had gotten involved. Edward hadn't expected them to, but then he'd electrocuted Sionis for talking to Harvey. After that they'd had to have a frank discussion about what they were doing.
It had been one of the worst conversations of Eddie’s life. He hated admitting vulnerability, especially to somebody whom, until just a few weeks earlier, he’d considered to be a rival. But the conversation had ended with Harvey taking Eddie’s face in his large hands and kissing him softer than he’d ever been kissed before. The acid made Harvey’s lips curl outwards and upwards, causing Edward to always kiss Harv’s teeth at least a little bit, the bone ragged and split. But he didn’t care. Kissing Harvey was one of the best feelings in the world. And now he could do it as much as he wanted.
At least that’s what he’d thought.
Everyone knew Harvey had been married before. He hadn’t exactly been a low profile citizen before becoming a rogue. Eddie had never met Gilda before though.
He really should have seen it coming.
Eddie had been casing the Gotham Art Gallery, trying to get a sense of the best way to steal an absolutely gorgeous piece that just spoke to him (something about it just… reminded him of Harvey). He was dressed down, just a button down shirt and a hat pulled low over his eyes. Not a question mark in sight. There was no way he should have been recognized. But this tiny woman who only came up to his shoulder stopped next to him and, without so much as looking at him, said, “Do you like it, Edward?”
Edward tried to seem casual as he frantically looked around for the fastest route to flee. “How do you know my-”
“I like to keep abreast of what my ex-husband is up to,” she said. Eddie’s head whipped around at that and the woman smirked. “What? Did you really think a hat would disguise you? And Harvey always said you were smart…”
“I am smart,” Eddie snapped.
Gilda raised an eyebrow. “Not smart enough to choose a better mark. I mean, really Edward? Stealing my artwork? Isn’t that a little bit petty, even for you?”
“I wasn’t going to- Wait, this is yours ?”
Gilda tapped the metal sign in front of the statue. “Says so right here.”
Gilda Gold. Of course. She must have changed her name back. Eddie hadn’t even thought about that. He’d thought the name seemed familiar, but couldn’t place it.
A sudden burst of anger coiled in his stomach. This was Gilda’s piece. The best work in the entire gallery. The piece that made Edward feel above any other. Of course. Of course it was hers. Of course he would be like her but just not as good. Not the creator, but the stealing admirer.
Gilda was still smirking at him. “Don’t tell me you really didn’t know.”
“I forgot you changed your name…” Eddie muttered.
She rolled her eyes. “Of course. I must still be Dent, right? Still clinging to the memory of my ex-husband?” There was bitterness in her voice, but her eyes softened abruptly. “How is he?”
Eddie shrugged, annoyed. “Fine.”
“I try not to follow the news too closely, but… I worry. I can’t help it. Can you promise me something, Edward?”
“What?”
“Look out for him. Harvey… He’s broken. I love him. I loved every broken piece of him. But I can’t be what he needs. Can you just… Just make sure he’s okay?”
Eddie’s mouth twisted involuntarily. “Fine.”
He left the statue.
How could this woman who just… just left Harvey ask that of him? She still loved him. Did that mean she wanted him back? Would Harvey go back to her if he had the chance? Did he still love her? He was with Edward now, wasn’t he? But Edward wasn’t Gilda. He could never be Gilda . He wasn’t… innocent. All the things that Harvey had seen in Gilda, they weren’t there in Eddie.
What could Eddie offer Harvey that he hadn’t had already? Harvey and Gilda had broken up because of Harvey’s new criminal ways. What if he got bored of that? What if he wanted to be good again? Was Eddie just a temporary thing, a consolation prize because Harvey had been scarred and lost his old life?
Eddie was still puzzling over these questions when Harvey got home that night. “It’s so hard to find good help these days,” he complained as he walked into the kitchen and kissed Eddie’s forehead. “The Lum twins are more trouble than they’re worth, I swear.”
Eddie made a vaguely interested sound and Harvey frowned. “You okay? Your tea looks cold.”
“Hm?” Eddie glanced down at his mug still full of green tea, indeed now cold. “Oh. Yeah. Just… thinking.”
“What about?”
“I met Gilda today.”
Harvey froze. “You did?”
“Yeah.” Eddie stood up and poured his cold tea down the drain. He could feel Harvey watching him as he moved.
“What… What did you two talk about?”
“You.” Eddie let Harvey anguish over that as he made himself a fresh cup of tea. Eddie had spent the whole afternoon anguishing over the future of their relationship - a future that he had, until earlier, been relatively confident in. Let Harvey feel self-conscious and insecure for a change.
A stab of guilt hit him as soon as he thought that. Harvey was insecure and self-conscious every day of his life. It led him down this path to crime. Harv might be able to mask that insecurity, project enough self-confidence that Eddie regularly forgot that others saw his face as something to shy away from. But Eddie knew that was just one part of the complex being that was Harvey Dent. And he shouldn’t poke at that insecurity just because he was feeling insecure about himself.
Eddie turned back to Harvey. His lover was beautiful. Soft brown eyes, the left one jaundiced from acid damage. His dark hair curled across his forehead, the unnaturally bright pink of his scars contrasting it beautifully. Eddie reached out a hand to him and Harvey took it, allowing himself to be pulled close, Eddie to bury his face in his chest to inhale the woody scent of his body wash.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered.
“Eddie.” He felt Harvey tilt his head to look at him, nudge his temple with his nose. “Eddie, baby, look at me.”
Eddie whined into Harvey’s chest and his partner sighed.
“Okay. Okay, you don’t have to look at me. Just… Baby, why do you think you’re going to lose me?”
Eddie sniffed. “I’m… I’m not like Gilda. She’s… good. She’s a good person and you would still be with her if you hadn’t been scarred. I’m just a consolation prize. And one day you’ll-”
“Eddie.” Harv cut him off, voice firm. “Do you really think you’re a consolation prize?”
“I can never live up to her!” Harv laughed sharply and Eddie glared up at him. “Jackass.”
Harv kissed Eddie firmly, his mouth tasting like cigarettes. Eddie wrinkled his nose and pushed his chest gently. “Don’t cut me off when I’m mad at you.”
Harvey’s hands moved from Eddie’s waist to hold his hands loosely between them. “Look. I… I know you probably don’t want to look at me when you’re upset because my face is anything but comforting, but I want you to know-”
Eddie stopped avoiding Harvey’s gaze, taken aback. “I don’t- Harvey, I love your face. I love every part of you.”
Harvey huffed a laugh. “You don’t have to lie to me, Eddie. I know my face looks like roadkill.”
“I’m not lying.” Eddie cupped his scarred cheek gently. “I love every single part of you with all my heart.”
"And I love you with all my heart. You are not some… consolation prize because I can't have Gilda anymore. I loved her. But we're not the same as when we first met her. This isn't some temporary fling, Eddie. I love you. We're in it for the long haul."
"What if you change your mind?"
"Will you?"
Eddie considered that. He had been in love with Harvey for years: far longer than he liked to admit to himself. He had watched Harvey date other crime bosses, hook up with his henches. He had watched Harvey kiss other people and wondered what that would feel like. And now he knew. He knew what it felt like to have Harvey's uneven lips meet his own. He knew how warm Harv felt when they slept curled around each other. He knew when Harvey liked to hold hands, and the spot on his palm that Eddie could press for a reflexive squeeze. He knew what Harvey's nightmares were, and how to tell which he was having based solely off of the noises he was making in his sleep.
The thought of giving that up of his own free will? It was baffling to him. Who would he be without this man by his side? Eddie had known who he was before he met Harvey, had been so confident and independent, but now his life was all wrapped up in the other man. It was as though he had been giving a second heartbeat, one more wild and frantic than his own. How could he live without it now that he had it?
"I'm in this for life," Eddie said, never more certain of anything he'd said before. Harvey's responding smile, broken teeth visible through the hole in his cheek, was the most beautiful thing Eddie had ever seen.
"Then I suppose it's my turn to be mad at you, because what kind of a man proposes without a ring, darling?"
"A very lovesick one," Eddie murmured as he kissed Harvey, already imagining the rings he would steal and meld together to create a split ring beautiful enough to be worthy of his partner.