Something vibrated against Carla's neck and she leapt back, pulling herself away from Bruce's soft lips and his tongue, a taunt moan coming from his lungs at the lack of her touch all of a sudden.

She grabbed his wrist and looked down at the watch, peering up at him when she felt it vibrate again against her fingers, brow raised.

His face turned red and eyes guilty, chest sinking when his attention was pulled away from the taste of her lips and the way her waist felt inside his palms, not even noticing the watch vibrating at all before she stopped.

She stared at him, dark eyes waiting for him to do something, say something.

Bruce knew he had to go, the notification telling him that Alfred must have something urgent to tell him, something that couldn't wait. Batman had never been a chore or a burden to Bruce regardless of how many times he had to stitch himself up or take another kick to the teeth, but that evening, he cursed himself for his allegiance to that dark suit and the city it flew over.

"I'm sorry," he breathed out, a hint of nervousness in his tight jaw.

Carla kissed her teeth and pushed him away from her, both hands shoving against his chest before she stormed towards the door. Bruce was quick to catch up to her and grab her wrist, pulling her back to him only for her to glare down at his hand around her arm and yank it free, eyes like wildfire.

That time, he could tell that Carla wasn't pretending that she hated him and couldn't stand to breathe the same air, she was being truthful.

"It'll be Wayne Enterprises, something's happened downtown-"

"I don't care."

She looked him up and down once, not giving him any more of her time than that break of a second. Bruce stood motionless with parted lips as she walked away from him, and God she looked so beautiful strutting through the Manor with his shirt hanging from her shoulders and nothing underneath, but something told Bruce he'd never relish in that sight ever again.

"Fuck." He whispered beneath his breath, clenching his fists and pursing his lips for a long moment before heading off to find Alfred.

Carla locked herself in the room she'd been shown to earlier that night, throwing herself down onto the huge bed with a frustrated sigh and an anger that made it impossible for her to catch her breath.

Foolish was the way she thought about herself right then, on the verge of giving herself to a man she barely knew up against a window, only for him to leave for work.

It was embarrassing, and while Carla prided herself on not caring what anybody else thought about her, the humiliation started to eat her alive in that room, suffocating her from the inside out.

What only poured salt into her open wound was the way she still wanted him, perhaps riled up more because of how angry she was at him, desperate to feel him grab her again and kiss her neck, her jaw, her lips like it was sacred to him. He made her feel so good, and Carla wanted all of him, even if she did want to spin his jaw with a swing of a golf club in the same breath.

She grabbed her phone and called Harvey, shaking her head in regret at her decisions while pacing back and forth across the window that looked out over the back of the house.

"What's up?"

"Are you alright? I heard something was going on downtown."

Harvey smiled. He was absolutely fine, sat comfortable on his couch in sweatpants and a hoodie with a bag of Doritos and a bottle of beer on the table in front of him, hardly the same version of the District Attorney that he usually presented.

He never thought that he'd have Carla reach out to him to check on his safety, and while the moment of sweetness was deliciously satisfactory to him, something told him that there had to be something wrong for her to ask at all.

"There's always something going on downtown," he chuckled lowly, "Why do you ask?"

He heard her sigh heavily down the line, "Bruce...he said something happened. He had to leave to-"

"Oh," he dragged out the realisation, "I see what happened. He's had to come back into the city and left you there all alone. Probably bad timing, right?"

"I'm not answering your questions Harvey, I just called to ask what was going on."

"Actually you called to see if I was OK, which I am. Are you?"

His smug tone only irritated Carla even more, making her bite her tongue with her phone by her ear, silence echoing down the line. She was fine really, but she was still burning with a combination of resentment and embarrassment that made it difficult for her to say anything at all.

Harvey clicked his tongue and rose to his feet, "You want me to come and get you?"

"Are you serious?" Carla was shocked at the offer but quickly felt her spirits lift at the thought of just going home.

"Yeah," Harvey replied, "I drove past your place about an hour ago and the press have left, you're good to go back. Plus, I owe you one. Well, I owe you several, actually."

Carla chewed on her lip, "How long will it take you to get here?"

"Forty minutes or so."

"Make it thirty."

Thirty five minutes later, Carla saw the headlights of Harvey's familiar Mercedes creep up the long driveway and pull around to the front of the house. She'd been waiting in the hallway after getting changed, leaving Bruce's shirt discarded on the floor of the bedroom.

Unable to find Alfred anywhere to let him know she was leaving, Carla slipped quietly out of the front door and down the steps, Harvey pushing the door open for her from inside the car.

Usually feeling the polar opposite, Carla was happy to see Harvey Dent right then. She'd taken the thirty five minutes to process the indecency that Bruce had showed her earlier that night and while she'd calmed down a little, understanding that for a man like him, work was important, she still selfishly hated him for walking away.

The car was warm and Carla got comfortable in the heated seat Harvey had turned on for her, sitting with one arm leaning on the door with her head resting on her palm, her purse by her feet.

"What happened?" He eventually asked, stealing glances at her as he drove back towards the lights of the city, "Were you not gentle with him like I told you to be?"

Carla scoffed and looked down at her nails, "Didn't even get the chance."

Harvey drew in a long breath and nodded, lips pursed in judgement. He wasn't particularly close friends with Bruce, only even knowing him at all through Rachel, and while he liked the billionaire on a personal level, it almost didn't surprise him to hear about his actions towards Carla that evening.

"Don't take it personally, Carla. Although he is a better candidate than Jonathan Crane, you're better than Bruce Wayne."

They talked about other things for the rest of the journey, Harvey sparing no politeness when he shared how irritating he also thought Jonathan's replacement at Arkham was. That put a smile on Carla's face if nothing else had done that night.

Harvey would've loved to relish in poking fun at Carla for what had happened with Bruce, finally having something to hold over her that had managed to get under her skin after living like nothing could touch her ever since setting foot in Gotham.

When the opportunity finally arose however, Harvey felt no desire to laugh at all. In fact, he felt sorry for Carla for the exact same reason he thought he'd grin. He knew how difficult it was to develop thick skin and an insensitivity to the world, and to imagine having that fractured by a sleazy billionaire was something that even made him shiver.

"Home sweet home," Harvey said when he swung the car into the garage beneath Carla's building, not wanting to let her step out onto the street level just in case.

"Thank you, Harvey," she said quietly and unbuckled her seatbelt, picking up her purse, "I appreciate it, genuinely."

He'd never seen such sincerity or kindness in Carla's face before, the sudden change being almost unnerving. It suited her in a way, softened her hard features and strong demeanour, but Harvey's friendship had been with the cool, heart-of-steel version of Carla, and he wanted that friend back.

"You look like you could use a hug."

He wasn't wrong. Carla's dark eyes were wide like the moon and her skin paler than usual, her usual radiance being nowhere in sight.

"I don't need a hug," Carla turned up her nose at the offer and opened the car door.

Harvey was quick to jump out too and race around the bonnet, stopping her in her tracks with sarcastically raised brows and a smile, arms open.

Carla stared at him for a long moment, face frozen with distaste at the offer, eyes willing him to get out of her way before she shoved him the same way she'd shoved Bruce earlier on.

"It'll make you feel better, come on."

She didn't move as Harvey embraced her, her arms staying by her side for a few seconds while his muscles contracted around her shoulders and the scent of his aftershave hit her, warmth of his body burning out the anger she'd felt and leaving her feeling cool, feeling better.

Harvey smiled when he felt her arms lightly, incredibly lightly, return the embrace, sitting gently across his lower back with her head reaching his shoulders. He rubbed comforting circles on her back and stayed put, not moving his arms away until he felt her start to shuffle back.

"Better? Am I right?" He looked down at her with a grin that made Carla want to slap him, only she found herself reluctantly smiling back.

"If you tell anyone about that, I'll kill you."

He held his hands up in surrender, "Wouldn't dream of it. You sure you're alright?"

Her shoulders relaxed and she nodded slowly, letting out a deep breath, "Yeah, I'm good. Thank you, Harvey."

Bruce had been a slither away from having the Joker by the neck on the fifty-second floor of an unfinished skyscraper by the Gotham River. His fists were clean beneath the gloves but his knuckles throbbed in pain, his head pounding after being thrown against scaffolding repeatedly, an onslaught of bites from the jaws of rabid dogs gnashing at his shoulders left marks in the suit, though luckily not to his skin.

He'd fought off the Joker's men with ease, practically knocking them all over with one swift punch or kick that kept them barely conscious or worse. The Joker, however, taunted him in a way no man had ever done before. There was no end goal for him, no rhyme or reason, no logical modus operandi for him to put his life at stake the way he so freely did. It made no sense to Bruce, unleashing chaos for nothing more than entertainment.

It wasn't the fact that he was so close to catching the green and purple freak that ground Bruce's gears on his drive back to Wayne Manor, it was the fact that he'd dragged him away from Carla. The clown had very nearly killed the girl after pushing her from his terrace and now, Bruce was forced to swallow a bitter pill and abandon her to spend an evening with him instead.

His feet were heavy when he eventually walked back into the house after Alfred patched him up in the cave, eyes tired and vision blurry, breath barely filling his lungs the way it should have been. Still, he would try and apologise to Carla, think of something to tell her to explain his quick departure and hope, pray that she'd not walk away from him again.

"Master Wayne, sir," Alfred called after Bruce after he was halfway up the stairs, an apologetic look shrouding his eyes and pulling his lips into a frown, "Doctor Fiori, she...well, I'm afraid she's gone, Sir."

"What?" Bruce raised a brow, a sense of urgency suddenly pinging him awake like a slap around the face would.

"I went to check on her but she was gone. I looked at the cameras and she left in a Mercedes but I didn't catch the reg or the driver."

Bruce sighed and rubbed a hand across his forehead, screwing his eyes closed and clenching his jaw.

"Should I telephone her, Sir?"

"No, no it's alright," Bruce waved a hand and carried on up the stairs, "Goodnight, Alfred."

He didn't hang around to hear his butler wish him a fitful rest, instead heading straight to his bedroom and closing the door behind him, grabbing his phone and holding it to his ear as he stared out of the window.

The line rang. And it rang, and it rang, and it rang until the voicemail chimed in and Bruce slammed it down onto a dresser, cursing beneath his breath.

He did what he had to do, Bruce knew that, but he still felt foolish for it anyway, the hollowness of her eyes and the disappointment in her face burning vividly in his mind, the same way the force of her hands pushing him away hurt more than anything else he'd endured that night.

He didn't want to leave a voicemail, Bruce not being sure if he'd ever left one in his life, deciding to text her instead.

'I'm so sorry, the city was a madhouse tonight. Please let me know that you're safe. I'm sorry, Carla."

When he woke up the following morning and checked his phone, Bruce threw the device across the room in a fit of rage when he'd seen that Carla had simply read his message and not replied.

an;;
I'm so here for the Carla and Harvey besties arc icl they're so wholesome I love it lol
p.s I read the comments to my last an and trust me they have been noted!!! stay tuned angels, tysm for reading <3