"What the hell was that?"

Carla felt her bones ice over when Harvey's voice echoed down the hallway after her. She'd been quick to leave the courtroom after their last hearing of the day had ended, swiftly gathering her belongings and not hanging around any longer than she needed to.

As instructed by Carmine, Carla had taken to the stand in court and told the judge that Beni Russo should be sent to Arkham due to a fragile mental state and that he was not fit for Gotham County Jail.

There had to be something wrong with all of the men that wound up working for Carmine Falcone and the Mob, but whether Carla believed what she was saying in a court of law or not was a different question entirely.

"Hey!" Harvey shouted when Carla didn't turn around, "Carla, I'm talking to you."

She headed towards the side door of the courthouse leading to the car park, pushing it open and letting it fall to close behind her, only Harvey had been quick to grab it, and her.

Carla looked down at his fingers around her wrist and yanked her arm away with a scowl, face cold and eyes narrowed. Harvey sighed and glanced over his shoulders to make sure they were alone before speaking.

"What are you doing? Why are you sending these men to Arkham? You know they don't belong there."

"Are you a Doctor?" She asked, brow cocked.

Harvey swallowed and scoffed, "No, but-"

"Then don't question me."

His shoulders slumped and he stood with his hands in his pockets, head tilted and eyes filled with concern and question.

"Are you in trouble? Does Falcone have something over you to make you do this? Because if he does, let me help. You're my friend, Carla, I don't want anything bad to happen to you."

She believed him, feeling the warmth of his words and trusting the friendship that they'd somehow forged out of snow and ice. Carla cared about Harvey too, but as Carmine's words of warning echoed around inside of her head, she knew she didn't have a choice.

"Then stay out of this, Harvey. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh really? So you're nothing like Jonathan Crane, huh?"

Carla swallowed and held his gaze without moving, "Let me do my job."

She left without saying anything more, furious as she walked over to her car and growing more livid by the second on her drive home.

It was a Friday evening and after an exhausting week, Carla was supposed to be having dinner with Bruce for their official third date. She couldn't think of anything she wanted to do less that night, drained mentally and physically from a taxing few days jumping from Arkham to the courthouse and dealing with everything in between.

Her anger was reflected by the scalding hot shower she took, wishing she could crawl into bed and just sleep instead stepping foot back outside again. Nevertheless, Carla pulled on a stone mini dress and heels, fixed her makeup and pulled the straighteners through her hair before catching a taxi downtown.

The bar Bruce had suggested they have drinks at before dinner was situated inside an upscale hotel with a rich history. The floors were marble and ceilings high, gold chandeliers set ambient lighting throughout the establishment and a running theme of sea green, deep blue and shimmering gold made the place feel as rich as the people that stayed there.

The bar was intimate with a brass countertop and small tables scattered around the room. Men in tailored suits shared post-work beers and couples sat with knees touching and hands intertwined, bottles of wine in ice buckets between them.

Carla spotted Bruce straight away, standing with his weight leant on the bar and a foot crossed over at the ankle, one hand in his pocket. He was wearing a dark grey suit with a white shirt and no tie, casually unbuttoned twice down with a brown leather belt and matching shoes, hair perfectly swept back and smile wide, though it wasn't her he was smiling at.

She scoffed to herself as she watched him entertain a conversation with a beautiful blonde woman who was nodding eagerly with bright eyes at everything he was saying. Carla didn't get hit with a surge of jealousy at all, though perhaps that was because the length of her day had drained any capacity for emotion from her body entirely.

In fact, she was so void of her feelings that night that not even a shred of her cared as she strode straight over to where they were standing, no hint of a friendly smile, though that wasn't out of the ordinary.

"You didn't tell me we could invite friends tonight, Bruce?"

Carla stood with a hand on her hip, staring at him with a vacant expression as she watched his face fall and a helpless smile pull on his lips, laughing awkwardly as he switched his gaze between her and the other woman.

"I was just keeping him company for you," the girl smiled at Carla, though didn't get one in return.

"He's a big boy, he can stand by himself for a little while."

"Right," she nodded nervously and glanced at Bruce once more, "Goodbye."

She walked away and Carla perched on the edge of a velvet barstool, sitting her purse down on the counter and pulling a leather-bound drinks menu towards her.

"I, I was just-" Bruce began to stutter.

Carla looked up at him blankly, "I don't care. Have you ordered?"

"Champagne."

"Good."

Bruce observed her for a moment, scanning her face as she read over a menu he knew she had no interest in before ultimately closing it and sliding it away from her, manicured nails drumming against the brass beneath her arm as she waited for her drink, gazing across the stack of liquors on glass shelves.

"You seem even more pissed off than usual, what's wrong?"

The waiter placed down two glasses of champagne and Carla flashed him her first smile of the day, though one that faded as soon as she turned to look at Bruce.

"I'd rather not talk about it."

He pursed his lips and nodded, pulling up another bar stool and sitting down intimately close to her, his knees either side of her crossed legs, one hand brushing gently over the bare skin of her lower thigh.

"Alright," he said simply, knowing better than to press her, "You look beautiful."

Carla's lips curved slightly, "Did you tell the other girl that too?"

"Are you jealous?" Bruce laughed in shock, leaving his hand on her thigh after she didn't push it away like he'd half expected her to.

Carla didn't seem like the jealous type and she hadn't exactly acted like it when she walked over to him while he was talking to another woman, but Bruce couldn't hide the enjoyment he got out of Carla dismissing her with such confidence and ease, attracted to her power and the regard she held to herself.

"No," she replied, "Would you have been if you walked over and found me with another man?"

Bruce grinned, "You mean like I did on our first date?"

Carla's face froze and her memory raced back to pull up the time she had indeed done that exact thing, forcing a hesitant smile onto her lips that she held back as much as she could, rolling her eyes once and tipping her champagne flute in his direction.

"Touché, Mr Wayne."

She drank her champagne not only to let the alcohol soothe her pent up stress from work, but also to cool her insides as she felt her skin heat up beneath the soft caress of Bruce's hand on her leg. He was absentmindedly dragging his thumb back and forth above her knee, eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at her and a content smile edging on his lips.

"I was jealous, for the record. I was jealous on our first date and I'd be even more jealous now. So I'm sorry."

Carla shrugged, "I told you that you don't owe me a thing. You're free to do whatever you want, with whoever you want."

Her words were heavy and although it was a slight kick in the teeth to hear Carla continue on like she truly didn't care where his feelings lay, Bruce knew it was a front. There had been no mistaking the way she kissed him and the way she touched him, how she tried to disguise her smiles and hide the fact that with him, she was happier than she was alone.

Bruce had picked up on the fact it wasn't easy for Carla to make herself vulnerable and recognise what her feelings really meant, he struggled with the same things sometimes, but he couldn't ignore the way he made her heart race and he knew by the way she let him touch her in public that somewhere inside of her, she felt the same thing.

"Whatever I want?" He asked, sipping his champagne with a gold signet ring on his little finger chiming against the flute.

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

"It is," he affirmed with a nod, leaning forward with his right foot moving from the ledge of the barstool onto the floor, one hand staying on her thigh and the other brushing against her cheek, smirking into her dark eyes, "And this is what I want."

He kissed her softly and quickly, just a gentle show of affection that didn't last any more than three seconds, but was enough to release a shade of light pink into her cheeks when he pulled away and sat back down.

Carla wasn't sure what to say, but she found herself unable to look away from his captivating honey eyes that seemed to look at her like he knew something that she didn't, provoking her in a way that didn't coax a physical reaction, but flooded her mind with plenty of thoughts.

Bruce was suave, he was smooth and charming and charismatic in a way that most men tried to be, but very few were. Carla was persistent in not letting his attempts at sweet talking her work - and they hadn't - but the way he'd shown her that he was more than expensive suits and fast cars had worked, or at least it was starting to.

"Are you blushing?" He teased her with a smirk.

Carla's happiness disappeared and her smile was replaced with a glare, something that relaxed Bruce more than her lifted cheeks did in some ways.

"Like you could make me blush, Bruce. Get over yourself."

He shrugged and lifted his glass to his lips, fingers crawling higher up her skin to where her mini dress cut off at her mid-thigh.

"Looked like it to me."

She sighed dramatically and was about to hit him back with another witty comment, but her phone ringing inside her purse grabbed her attention instead. Carla pulled it out and looked down at the screen, holding it out of sight of Bruce when she saw who was calling.

"I have to take this," she said, slipping off the barstool with a frown, "I'm sorry, I'll only be a second."

She disappeared with her phone in her hand, strutting out of the bar and into a quiet room off the side of the lobby in the hotel. Carmine Falcone rarely ever called her, especially out of the blue, so seeing his name light up her phone snapped her hazy mind out of neutral and into first gear in an instant.

"What is it?" She answered in a hushed tone, eyes wandering around the space to make sure nobody could catch wind of their conversation.

"You're alive," he breathed down the phone heavily.

"Of course I'm alive, what are you talking about?"

"Have you seen the news? The Joker has Dent, he submitted a video to the Gotham Evening News and they're airing it right now, snatched him when he was walking to his car. He's got him chained up somewhere and, God you know how that fucker is, he's taunting him and he's-"

"Enough," Carla swallowed, her stomach sinking and sickness gutting her with a dizziness filling her head.

"Are you home?"

"No."

"Then get your boyfriend to take you home. The city isn't safe tonight, not even for Bruce Wayne. And for once, that's not a threat from me."

The line went dead and Carla stared at her shoes, almost unable to retain the information she'd just been told without wanting to wretch. The thought of any harm coming to Harvey shattered the cold heart that she had, stuck a knife in her back and twisted it repeatedly.

He was her friend, and one that she valued more than she'd realised. The idea that their last conversation had been a petty argument made the regret in her soul ladened with guilt and it made her legs ache as she hurried back into the bar, trying to keep her cool and hold her complacent gaze as best as she could.

Carla very rarely panicked, she didn't particularly care enough about anyone or anything to ever have to panic, but coming back to Gotham had changed her; Harvey had changed her.

"Harvey's-"

"I know," Bruce said calmly, standing up when he saw Carla coming back, "Rachel just called me, she'd in hysterics. We have to go."

Carla didn't say anything to dispute him, simply grabbing her purse and letting Bruce practically drag her by the hand out of the hotel and into the familiar passenger seat of his car.

He sped through the streets like his tyres were on fire, slinging the Lamborghini up against the curb outside her apartment building. He offered her a hand to help her out of the car and walked her inside over to the elevators.

"Carla listen to me," he said quietly, holding her by the shoulders and letting his hands fall down her arms, stroking her skin delicately with eyes narrowed, a whisper of a gap between them, "Stay inside. Don't watch the news. I'm going to pick Rachel up and take her home and once I know she's alright, I'll come back."

Carla swallowed and shook her head. She knew that Bruce was trying to rectify his mistake in not coming to check on her earlier on that week, but now was most certainly not the time for him to prove himself.

As much as she liked the way he so willing to be with her, Carla knew that Rachel would be in no position to be left alone and Bruce was perhaps the only person that knew her as well as Harvey did. She couldn't deprive Rachel of a friend, regardless of how comforting the thought of lying in silence in the dark with Bruce's body against hers might've been.

"She needs you, Bruce," Carla said softly, "Stay with her. I'll be fine."

He inhaled a deep breath and nodded once, eyes crawling across her face longingly, admiring her with a subtle smile that glowed behind his panicked eyes. Carla could tell he was stressed by his tight shoulders and clenched jaw, a hollowness to him that she'd never seen before, and that she didn't particularly want to see again.

He took hold of one of her hands and slipped the other across the side of her neck, fingers pushing into the roots of her hair as he pulled her closer to meet his lips. His kiss was desperate and hot, hard like he didn't want it to end but forced himself to pull away anyway, resting their foreheads together for a long second.

"Stay home," he said, kissing her brow before turning to leave without giving himself a chance to change his mind.

Carla did as she was told, at least for fifteen minutes. Then, she went out into the nightmare fuel that was Gotham City to try and find her friend.