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Harvey gets released from the hospital when they finally listen to him and agree that he's fine; he scored three sprains, a mild case of whiplash, and a smattering of bruises all over his torso, arms, and legs. He's also told to go easy on his back, just in case. He tells them where to stick their just in case. They say okay, Harvey, we love you, too.
He gets through his first day back at the office with the help of some mild -- but still fun -- painkillers. It's a slow day, mostly giving statements about the fact that yes, none of the rookies were ever in danger from toxic gas and yes, Riddler is a dumb name. Still bitter that none of his sage advice was heard at the ceremony, he recrafts one or two lines to make sure they still get out there.
The evening is winding down, and so are the painkillers, when Lucius drops by.
"Hey, the hero!"
"Heard you bullied them into letting you come back," Lucius says, with a tight smile. His eyes are dull. There's a nasty bruise on his forehead where his face hit the steering wheel. "Thought it might be my duty as a medical examiner to check in."
Harvey opens his arms to let himself be drunken in. "Beautiful as ever."
"Outside and in?"
"Mostly." He looks at his watch. It's basically time to leave. "You calling it a night?"
Lucius nods. "Got a little tired of reciting bad riddles at reporters. Figured I've done my civic duty."
"Great." He stands up and feels himself wincing as he pulls his jacket on, so he makes sure to comically exaggerate it. "Time for you to honor tradition."
"Oh no," says Lucius, his hands raising a few inches.
"You don't even know what I'm talking about yet." Harvey moves in and clasps his shoulders, warmly. "You got your first arch-nemesis! Drinks on me!"
Lucius gives him a perfect, beleaguered smile, and says through his teeth, "Are there any GCPD traditions that don't involve heavy drinking?"
"I thought you were smart. Come on."
Harvey has mentally designated various dive bars for various traditions, but he picks one of the nicer ones that actually understands how to mix drinks, for Lucius's sake. It's a good move. The regular arch-nemesis celebration place would be more than a little lost at Lucius's order for something called a French 75. He still has to explain it a little, but at least this place has the stuff to make it.
"... What exactly is a Hangman's Blood?" Lucius asks, eyeing Harvey's glass.
"There's probably a real answer," Harvey replies, "but as far as I know, they just mix all of the leftover booze into a glass and stick some ice in it."
Lucius smiles a little. "Salud," he says, toasting with his own glass, which looks like it was shipped straight from Metropolis.
"Ditto." He tries to approximate Lucius's drinking speed. If Jim gives him shit for downing his liquor too quickly, he's pretty sure of what he can expect from the forensic examiner. "So, Ed had it bad for the Penguin and just couldn't deal with it, huh?"
Lucius quirks an eyebrow.
"What, you disagree?"
"Not at all," says Lucius. "I was just surprised you pieced that together so quickly."
Harvey snorts, swirling his glass with what he hopes is a debonair air. "Look, I might not know chess moves or chemical formulas or Greek, but if I know something, it's people. His little monologue was pretty damn obvious."
Harvey hadn't been quick or clever enough to piece together why Ed was careening into a downward spiral in the first place. In his defense, he'd been tied up and dangling over a few stories. But as soon as Lucius had asked, "What happened to Penguin?" it had all clicked together. He's still not quite sure what kind of genius mental leaps Lucius had taken to get there, but piggybacking off of that logic and reaching a conclusion was pretty simple. He'd seen the news clips of Mayor Cobblepot and his wonderboy chief of staff; he'd seen the Penguin giving Ed that weird, enigmatic smile of his, and seen Ed settle into his new life like it was an old armchair. Once he'd connected Penguin with the pain seeping out of Ed's skin, it all came together. Naming something he didn't want named. Panic. Anger. More panic. The satisfaction of ending something before you had to think about too much. The flooding thoughts that come after.
God, he hates it when he understands people who hold guns to his head.
"It gets even more complicated," says Lucius. "Seems Oswald killed a woman Ed cared about. He was trying to puzzle his way through what all of it meant."
"Nice choice of words."
"Hm? Oh." Lucius watches the barkeep mix some whiskey sodas. "Lee said something interesting earlier, about everyone working through the same questions, just in… Ways that aren't exactly ideal."
"Sure," says Harvey. "I've gotten cold feet plenty of times. Haven't dumped anyone's body in the river over it."
"Nor have I," said Lucius. "Which, sadly, seems to be something to celebrate around here."
Not that he hasn't done worse things for different reasons. Maybe Lucius has, too. This is why Jim is a good drinking companion; if he was here, he'd tell both of them to shut up, that he'd never killed anyone and dumped them in a river at all, that bad is bad and good is good, and that they can't dick around in moral relativism forever. The things he'd done were all necessary. Regret and speculation wouldn't do any good. Harvey doesn't think he's right, or even honest, exactly. But Jim does know how to get a brain to stop spinning its wheels over shit like this. He has handsome answers.
"Hey, Harvey?" Lucius swirls his glass a little. There's a lot left; he's someone who actually enjoys how his drinks taste. "You don't really think he'll keep coming after me, do you?" When Harvey doesn't say anything back, sensing that there's a little more coming, Lucius adds, "I don't think he will. Wouldn't make sense to. But you know criminals like this better than I do. I thought I'd ask."
"I think you're in the clear," says Harvey. Lucius blows out a long, slow breath that almost whistles between his lips. "But it's hard to say anything for sure, in a town like this."
Lucius nods, gently. "I guess there's nothing I can do about it either way. I just-" He chuckles. "I couldn't do what you do."
Harvey takes a second to try and figure out the veiled insult. "What?"
"Keep operating- keep living, knowing someone's watching your every step and using you to prove something to themselves. I couldn't do that, I'd lose it." There's a lull of quiet in the bar as someone changes the tune on the jukebox to something blusey. "Because you don't just have to watch your own back, do you? It's everyone. I don't have any family in Gotham, so there are no obvious targets, but…"
"Bruce? Alfred?"
Lucius looks up. "You do know people."
No quick comeback comes to mind, so Harvey just kind of fumbles with his glass. "I don't think Ed would have the guts to go after them," he says, "but even if he did, we'd get them back. If Alfred didn't break his neck first."
Lucius actually laughs, raising his glass in recognition before he takes another sip.
But it's a resigned kind of comfort. The comfort that the people you love might be crafty and strong enough to get out of a shitty situation. It's not the comfort that comes from knowing that the people you love will be safe. Harvey can't even remember what that feeling tastes like anymore. That's what cops should be doing, he thinks: trying to give that feeling to as many people as possible. That's what Jim wants to do, and look at all the shit it takes to get even that much done. Everything requires blood, too much blood.
"I lied," says Lucius, quietly. "I didn't even realize it, but I did."
"What do you mean?"
"I told him to get help. What kind of help can he get?" Lucius runs his hand over his head. "Not Arkham. They just break people into smaller pieces. No private practice with an ounce of common sense will take him on. What options does he have? He just has to keep existing like this."
Harvey raises his eyebrows, leaning back in his chair. "And they call Jim a radical. He wants to lock the bad guys up. You wanna fix them. You're like the Friedrich fuckin' Engels of Gotham."
"Wow."
"Yeah, I read Animal Farm."
Lucius furrows his brow, but smiles and shrugs. "As I recall, things don't turn out too well in that book. Might be time to set my sights a little lower."
"… Look," says Harvey. "A year or so ago I would've been with you. Hell, I still am, a little. But if I know one thing, it's that everything is going batshit, Gotham won't end up being what either of us think it is right now." He rubs at the bandage on his wrist, trying to summon up the courage you need to make promises. "If these lunatics still have me in charge in a while, you bet your ass I'll see if I can get anything done about Arkham. Maybe I can't fix it, but I can get a few of the really evil bastards out of there, if I grease the right wheels."
Lucius doesn't say anything. He downs the rest of his drink in what Harvey might call Harvey-style. He wipes his mouth on a paper napkin, which he then folds neatly in half and rests his fingertips on.
"I don't think I'll insult you by saying that working for the GCPD isn't exactly a dream job," he says. "But regardless, I'm going to look back and be honored to have worked with you, Captain Bullock."
He hopes he already has a pre-drunken flush on his face to help him out a little. "Plenty of people could say the same about you, Mr. Fox," says Harvey. "And I'm definitely one of them." Lucius smiles back at him.
"… Wait, are you saying you're quitting?"
"Not just yet."
"I'll take it."