"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire

•••

"There were no fatalities after a shocking and violent attack on a Wayne Enterprises charity event last evening. Several people were taken to Gotham General with minor injuries. Four of the gunman were stopped by Starling Wayne and former detective, James Gordon. All four were later apprehended by the GCPD. If you have any information that could be helpful in locating the rest of the suspects, please contact the police."

Bird let out a heavy sigh as she watched the news coverage of the silent action turned disaster she'd hosted the night before.

The news today was supposed to have led in with what a success the auction was; how much money was raised and would be used to improve the community and Gotham's least fortunate citizens.

There should have been talk of the incredible speech she'd given without getting tongue tied a single time.

This was the first big event she'd been in charge of since accepting the position within her family's company.

Hopefully the first of many highly successful functions that had her name on them.

Instead, the evening had been hijacked by a local gang and now the morning news reports were full of how the room had been taken over at gunpoint.

The Gotham Gazette was raising questions on if she was even qualified for the job to begin with and even going so far as trying to find a connection between the attack and her time spent working under Fish Mooney.

Local, less reputable gossip columns were far more concerned with which designers dress she'd worn and how she'd showed up to the event with Jim Gordon on her arm.

The local station she'd been watching on the new T.V. in her office had been the first mention of her help in stopping the attack before anyone had been killed.

"It's not fair." Charmaine softly said as she stood in the doorway of her boss's office with her arms crossed over her chest, head shaking from side to side, "This is far from the first Wayne Enterprises event that ended up going this route.

Picking the remote up from her desk, Bird muted the television set and looked over at her secretary.

"A few years ago, there was a charity luncheon that ended in nothing short of disaster. A disgruntled employee from WellZyn-"

"Released Viper through the air ducts." Bird nodded, "Yeah, I was there."

That had been the first Wayne Enterprises event she'd attended since moving out on her own years before. I

t was also the day she'd introduced her brother and Alfred to her then boyfriend, Harvey Dent.

"The point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't be beating yourself up over this. These events are always a beacon for someone thinking they can pull off an easy crime and come away with tons of money." Charmaine continued.

Any event where Gotham's elite were gathered to rub elbows and open their checkbooks was at risk of being a target.

"You saved the night." She added, "I was terrified. Honestly, I was hiding under a catering table in the back of the room when the guns came out. But not you. You stopped the criminals before anyone got seriously hurt."

"Well, you wouldn't know it from the news." Bird rubbed her forehead, "That's the part that everyone conveniently wants to leave out."

"But hey, good news..." Her voice trailed off as she fished through the scattered piles and papers and pulled out one of the gossip columns with a picture of her from the night before and pointed to the small print under the picture, "The dress I wore is totally in season."

"Whatever." Bird tried to push it out of her head as she gathered up all of the pages and dropped them into her trashcan.

"Um." Charmaine cleared her throat, "Would it be okay if I left a little early this afternoon?"

"Why?" Bird asked.

Her secretary stared back at her for a second, trying to determine how the question was supposed to have sounded.

During her time working with Bird, she'd learned that often times what Bird said wasn't meant nearly as rude or harsh as it came out.

For someone born and bred for this life; coming from one of Gotham's wealthiest families, she lacked a bit of the social grace one would expect her to have.

Her words were often sharp, tone short and usually one out of every ten statements could be interpreted as a threat.

Equally, just as alarming were the times Bird was the most charming person in the room.

Sometimes she felt like she was working for two separate people, depending on the day.

"My car is in the repair shop, so my husband will be picking me up when he gets off work." Charmaine explained.

"We have company cars." Bird reminded her, reaching for the phone as she said, "I can just have one brought over for you."

A smile spread over Charmaine's painted red lips.

For all Bird's abruptness and occasional lack of charm with raw honesty, she'd treated her secretary with nothing but respect.

Treated her as if they were on the same level within the company despite her holding a board chair and being her superior.

One of the first things Bird had done when she'd taken over the position was push for her secretary to get a rather large raise and now her she was offering up executive perks, such as company loaner cars to a secretary.

A position that was viewed as entirely replaceable by the company at large.

How silly she felt now for being so concerned about keeping her job when Garret Bryne had passed away and Bird took the office.

She was now making nearly twice what she did before and felt far more appreciated than all of her years working under Bryne.

"That's very kind, but-" Charmaine held her hand up to stop her boss, "I'd just feel a lot better with my husband picking me up. Truth be told, I've been a little rattled since this morning."

Noticing that she's cited that morning for cause of concern and not the events from the night before, Bird asked, "What happened this morning?"

"My husband went out to start my car and let it warm up before I left for work and he caught a glimpse of someone running from our driveway." She didn't want to worry her, but she also knew how important Bird considered honesty to be, "Luckily, I married a man with both good instincts and knowledge of cars... um, someone had tampered with my brakes."

"It's not the greatest neighborhood." Charmaine quickly added when she saw the color drain from Bird's face, "We're planning on moving in the next couple months. Thanks to you, with my raise, we'll be able to afford a better place."

"You can leave early, but I don't want you to go home." Bird said.

Opening the bottom drawer of her desk, Bird took her handbag out as she spoke, "Someone tried to break into my house early this morning."

Taking out a black credit card with gold embellished letters and numbering, Bird handed the company card to Charmaine and said, "I want you and your husband to get a hotel room until further notice. And not at some little roadside place either. Think five star. All the amenities."

"You think it's Fat Lenny's crew?" Charmaine realized, as she took the credit card and couldn't even begin to find the right words to thank her.

"I think I might have underestimated his reach." Bird sighed, "Yes."

•••

Much later in the day Bird was still in her office, leaned back in her desk chair while she stared up at the ceiling.

It had been an exceptionally long day and even though her every other thought had been about how much she wanted to go home, she was still sitting alone in her office hours after Charmaine had left.

After her talk with her secretary earlier that morning, she'd called Jim and asked him to go over to Wayne Manor.

If Lenny's crew was going to start individually targeting the people in her life, then she imaged it would only be a matter of time before her brother's life would be in danger.

That was the irony of it all.

Here she was; working a respectable job that had nothing to do with the city's criminal underworld and yet she was being dragged back into the shadows yet again.

Closing the folder in front of her, she reached out to the phone on the desk and started to dial the number for Wayne Manor, intending to tell whoever answered that she'd be leaving work and heading there within the next several minutes.

When her cellphone chimed with a message, she couldn't help but let out a small chuckle, assuming it was a message from Jim, checking on her and seeing when she was leaving work.

This wouldn't the first time they'd either messaged one another at the same time, or both tried to call at the exact same time.

Setting the receiver of the phone back down, she picked up her cellphone and flipped it open.

Only the text message wasn't from Jim -or from any number she recognized for that matter.

All that was sent to her was an address.

That was until the phone buzzed with a second text; a picture message this time.

Her eyes widened at the picture, heart started to race inside of her chest and she scrambled to stand up from the office chair.

"Okay..."

She breathed out loud to the otherwise empty room in an attempt to settle her now frazzled nerves.

Her eyes were glued to the phone screen as she waited for another message, but one never came through.

•••

"Bird!" Oswald greeted with a smile as he saw his oldest and truest friend rushing through the door of the mansion he'd inherited from his father, "I wasn't expecting you to drop by-"

The smile fell from his lips.

All it took was one glance at the expression on her face and he knew something was wrong; very wrong.

"What happened?" He questioned, moving closer to where she was standing.

"I need to talk to Butch. He's still here, right?" She questioned, a little airily from the mad dash she'd made from her car to the house.

Wordlessly, he turned and led her into one of the sitting rooms where Butch was sitting on a couch watching T.V.

At first he'd told himself that he'd help Oswald and Bird take down Galavan and then he was done. He didn't want to get wrapped back up in their harebrained schemes.

He'd already lost a hand and nearly his life.

But Tabitha's condition had yet to improve and truthfully he didn't have anywhere else to go.

He was lost.

He'd never done very well left on his own.

So he'd realigned himself with Penguin, agreeing to help him take back control of the crime game.

Then a few days ago Barbara had showed up too.

Apparently he wasn't the only one feeling left out in the rain with nowhere else to go while Tabitha was still hospitalized.

"Bird." Butch greeted, seeming just as surprised to see her as Oswald had been.

"Butch." She paused to return the greeting, before walking over to the set and switching the power off.

"Hey!" He complained, "I was watching that."

"I need to know everything you know about Fat Lenny." Bird ignored his protest.

"Why?" Oswald questioned.

Wondering why Bird would be concerning herself with such low level street gangs.

"Because apparently my intel is a little dated. Seeing as how I thought this was a crew with barely a handful of guys, but somehow now they have the power to hold a charity action at gun point and now have abducted someone." She continued.

Oswald's nose wrinkled, "That's who held up the Wayne Enterprises event?"

Butch looked between the friends, both of whom looked entirely confused.

"Lenny joined up with a few other street gangs a while back-" Butch started to explain, but didn't get very far when Oswald angrily stomped his foot down like a child and yelled, "Butch!"

"What?" He got to his feet and looked between them again.

"Keeping street crews with only a few members is how we prevent an uprising!" Oswald scolded him.

Rubbing a hand over his forehead at the realization that taking back his throne would be harder than he'd initially expected after the way Butch had run things.

"I didn't know what was I doing in the beginning." He tried to defend, but his forehead wrinkled and with a nod at Bird he asked, "Why are you asking about 'em anyways?"

Pulling her phone out of her pocket she opened up the text messages and handed her phone over.

Butch looked down at the screen, at first he only saw several texts from her number, all of which had gone unanswered.

But upon scrolling up further, he saw the only set of incoming texts.

With a cringe he commented, "Yikes."

As Oswald pulled the phone from his hands, Butch asked, "Who is that?"

"Harvey Dent." Oswald answered.

Even with a bloodied face, Oswald could easily recognize the face of the man he'd spent over a year enraged at for his taking Bird away from him.

The picture was of the district attorney with his arms and legs bound in the corner of a dirty looking room.

His face showed clear signs of a beating -including a very nasty looking black eye.

"Damn." Butch shook his head, "You think they'd have gone after Gordon."

"Yeah, me too." Bird agreed, "I knew it was a possibility and I was depending on Jim's abilities to defend himself. I didn't expect them to blitz attack my ex."

Turning her attention back to Butch she said, "So I need to know everything you know about them. I have to know what I'm walking into here."

Oswald read through the other other text messages that Bird had sent back to the number, but never got a response.

There was only the first message with the address and time to be there and the second, the picture of an injured Harvey to lure her there.

"You'd be walking into a trap." Oswald commented, laying her phone down on table nearby.

"I know." Bird agreed.

There wasn't any instructions included with the messages.

No amount of money they wanted.

No warning to come alone or against involving the police.

None of the normal demands that go along with a hostage situation.

"They'll kill you!" Oswald's voice raised, "Clearly, they are trying to get you there so they can finish you off."

"I know." Bird repeated, and when she saw him open his mouth again, she already knew what he'd say.

"And there is a chance that Harvey is already dead. I know." Bird nodded, "But on the chance that he's still alive, I can't just leave him there."

"I'm just..." Oswald let out an unhinged laugh, lips drawn tightly against his unbrushed teeth, "I'm just having a little trouble understanding this. You told me you're with Jim Gordon now. So, who cares if they've killed Harvey Dent?"

Bird slowly turned her head, giving him a blank expression with her admission, "I do, Oswald."

"Look..." She breathed walking over to him, "Just because we aren't together anymore doesn't mean I want him to die. His life still matters and the only reason he's in danger right now is because of me."

Turning back to where Butch was she repeated, "I need to know everything."

Butch didn't know too much about it himself.

Before joining forces with Tabitha, he'd hadn't paid much attention to the small gangs.

Logic said they'd be the last ones to pose a problem to his newly gained power.

Of course, after hearing the reasons why Oswald had made sure small crews stayed just that, he could now see the flaws in his reasoning.

But he told her everything he knew about Lenny's crew and which other gangs they'd joined up with.

Fat Lenny had grew more brutal with his growing power.

Often times making deals with other gangs, to go back on his word, kill their leader and then offer the lower members a spot on his side or face an ugly death.

Bird's phone started to ring, but she was too invested in the information Butch had to offer up, that was until she heard Barbara's voice, "Jim! Hi, how have you been? Miss me?"

Turning around the saw the blonde with a drink in one hand and Bird's cellphone in the other.

Giving a wink to Bird, she said into the phone, "Oh, calm down would you. Bird is fine. She's visiting with Ozzy and Butch."

"Barbara." Bird sighed, holding her hand out for her phone.

"Give her the phone?" Barbara repeated Jim's words back him, "Oh, I don't know... today seems to be more about exes. You know, Bird and Harvey... me and you..."

"Give me my phone or I will break every finger on your hand." Bird spoke calmly, but it was within that calmness that made her words even more chilling. Knowing that she'd do it without a second thought.

Without hesitation.

"Fine..." The blonde sighed, rolling her eyes as she spoke, "Nice chat, Jim. We should catch up soon, yeah? Maybe over dinner?"

Her eyes locked with Bird's as she slowly pulled the phone away from her ear and handed it over.

"Hey." Bird answered as she put the phone to her ear, "Listen, I can't talk right now, but I'll explain everything. I'll meet you at home soon."

Ending the call, she put her phone back into her pocket and glanced up at Oswald when he repeated back, "Home?"

"Yes." Barbara nodded, pausing to take a drink from her glass.

"He is unemployed after all. Where else is he going to go?" Looking at Bird she questioned, "Does he even still have his apartment or is he strictly living with you now?"

"Our living arrangements don't concern you." Bird made it clear that she wasn't going to pulled into Barbara's game of jealousy.

More than anything she knew the blonde wanted to get under her skin.

Get a rise out of her and she wasn't going to let that happen.

"Hmm." Barbara continued, "On the surface we might not all be same, but maybe Jim really does have a type..."

Smiling she said, "I had more money than him, Lee was a doctor so she made more and now he's moved onto you -the richest of them all."

"It's not gonna work, B." Bird simply answered, "You're not going to get in my head about this."

"I'm just stating the obvious." She innocently answered, laying a hand over her heart and feigning shock at the insinuation.

"Bird." Oswald drew her attention, "Are you sure Harvey Dent is worth risking your life over? Maybe this is a situation where you should just let fate take it's course. Let the pieces fall where they may."

"No." Barbara was quick to argue, "Let her play hero for that day. Maybe then she'll realize she's meant to be with Harvey and Jim is supposed to be with me."

"At the price of her own life?" Oswald's body shook from the volume his voice had reached, a near snarl on his lips.

"Shut up!" Bird yelled, "Both of you."

Her voice lowered and she shook her head, "I don't have time for this."

••• that night •••

"I don't like this, partner." Bullock spoke in a quite tone as he looked over to where Jim was sitting in the passenger seat of the car, "We should call for back up."

"No." Jim shook his head, "I promised Bird the only one I'd call in would be you."

"Yeah, well I didn't promise her a thing." Bullock said as he started to reach for the radio in the car to call for some back up.

Since Barnes' had been severely injured and remained hospitalized, Bullock had taken over duties as acting captain.

Which meant he had to be far more cognizant of his actions and this had disaster written all over it.

"Wait." Jim pulled the microphone from his hand, "My initial thought was the same thing. We needed GCPD, probably even the strike-force-"

"Good. Trust your gut." Bullock nodded, "First instinct all the way."

"But!" Jim loudly interrupted, "Bird's right about this. The more people we have on scene the more chaos it's going to cause."

He explained to his former partner how the texts Bird had gotten only gave a location, time and then a picture of Dent.

It hadn't occurred to him at first either, not until Bird pointed it out, but this wasn't your usual abductors making demands.

There wasn't even a mention of not calling the police.

Meaning this was without a doubt some kind of trap they were all about to walk into.

"Bringing in anyone else might just equal more bodies in the end." Jim reattached the microphone to the radio and nodded across the street to the building and said, "She's checking the perimeter. If we're severely out numbered then we'll radio for back up, okay?"

"I don't like this." Bullock repeated for about the fifth time since they'd parked there.

Both detectives were startled when one of the back doors of the car was opened and Bird got in; neither of them had seen her cross the street to get to the car.

"How many?" Jim turned in his seat to face her.

"None." Bird answered.

"Wait just a minute-" Bullock sucked in a sharp breath, "You're telling me these people sent you to an abandoned warehouse with no armed men guarding it."

"I didn't say it made sense." Bird sharply answered, "There's no one outside and from what I could see through the windows, I didn't see anyone inside either."

"This is great." Bullock exclaimed, "The place is probably booby trapped. One step inside and the entire place is going to blow."

"Yeah. Maybe." Bird said, as she reached over and opened the car door.

"Good idea." Bullock called after her, "You go and we'll stay here. Right, Jim?"

"Jim!" He yelled as he watched him get out of the car after her, "Come on." He muttered, as he followed suit.

"If we're all following each other into a burning building, who's going to call for help, huh?" He whisper-yelled at the back of their heads as they crowded around a side entrance and Jim used a crow bar to break into the building.

Bird and Jim were the first ones through the door, both with flashlights at the ready to survey the main room -which was entirely empty.

"We can cover more ground if we split up." Bird suggested.

Jim looked at her, his first impulse was to say no, that they needed to stick together.

But he knew Bird was more than capable of taking care of herself; even with limited use of one arm.

It wasn't an easy pill to swallow.

His instinct was to protect the things important to him, but Bird didn't need his protection.

"Okay." He agreed with a nod.

Looking between Bullock and Bird, Jim said, "We do a quick sweep and see if Dent is here. If we don't find anything we get out."

Bullock watched as they both walked off in separate directions.

This was precisely the point in horror movies where everyone's fate had been sealed; the very second they agreed to split up.

For well over a year he'd been sure Jim would be the death of him one day, now that he was with Bird and neither one of them seemed to have the correct response to danger, he figured that day was going to come even faster.

Maybe even tonight, he thought as he headed towards the opposite end of the first floor that Bird had gone, while Jim was already up on the second floor.

Bird kept the flashlight steady in one hand and a gun in the other.

She'd already cleared a few rooms and hadn't found anything or anyone.

After checking another room, she stepped out into a hallway and looked down when she both heard and felt something crunch under her feet.

She saw some broken pieces of glass in the beam of her flashlight, but what caught her attention was a little further over on the floor.

The dust and random debris was cleared from a section on the floor.

Shining her light down the hall, she noticed the clear spot went all the way to a door towards the end.

As if something had been dragged across the floor.

Carefully she followed the path, making sure to be extra aware of her surroundings so no one would get the chance to jump out at her.

She wasn't sure if this was a ploy to get her into the building and kill or, or sneak up and abduct her.

She had no idea what their plan was.

Once she was sure she was alone in the hallway, Bird stood a little ways back from the sliding metal door and shined her flashlight beam over the surface looking for an obvious signs of a trap, but aside from hand prints and smears breaking up the thick coating of dust and grime she didn't see anything else.

"Harvey?" She called out, moving in closer and trying to peek around the edge, but was unable to make anything out through the little opening around the door.

She could hear a muffled voice trying to yell something back to her, but couldn't make out any discernible words.

It was hard to even be entirely sure that it was even his voice.

"Jim!" She yelled over her shoulder, hoping he'd hear her from wherever it was he was currently looking.

Having no choice but to lay both her flashlight and gun down to begin prying the door open, she yelled out for both Jim and Bullock again.

Getting a heavy metal door that was older than her to move would be a tough enough task in general, but when she was still nursing a badly injured arm from the night she'd went up again Galavan -it was proving nearly impossible.

Finally, the door started to slide along it's track and she opened it enough to be able slip through.

With her flashlight now in hand, she squeeze through the opening and looked around with the help of the moonlight coming in through an old cracked window.

"Harvey!" She gasped when she finally spotted him in the corner, struggling to break free -arms and legs bound with thick rope.

"I've got him!" She screamed as loud as she could manage towards the door as she rushed to his side and dropped down.

Despite the fact that help had clearly arrived, he seemed utterly frantic.

Trying desperately to talk through the thick cloth he'd been gagged with.

"Hey, it's okay." Bird promised, laying her light down and pulling the switchblade from her pocket to cut him free, "I've got you."

Bird reached up and pulled the gag from his mouth, letting it fall to his neck.

"You shouldn't have."

He hoarsely choked out with his dryer than cotton mouth as he turned his head to try and get a better look at her through his eye that wasn't swollen shut.

Bird's eyebrows lowered, but before she could open her mouth to ask him what he was talking about, she heard beeping.

Picking her flashlight back up, Bird shined it in the direction of the sound.

Though she didn't really even need to see the rigged explosive to know the beeping timer counting down on a bomb.

It was all one big trap.

Just like she'd expected and just like Oswald had warned her.

Nothing about the way Lenny's crew was handling their hostage situation at all made any sense.

Which now made all the sense in the world, they were planning on blowing the building up with her and whoever she'd brought with her in it.

"Go." Harvey tried to choke out, but barely got a breath in before he broke out in a cough.

"No." Bird's vision squared up with his before she fiercely got to work on trying to cut through some of the thickest ropes she'd ever seen.

"That-" He ran his tongue over his lips, but it felt more sandpaper and did little to make the speaking easier, "It could go off. At any moment."

"Then I guess we'll literally go down in flames, huh?" Bird lamely tried to joke, despite the fact that her forehead was already beaded with sweat.

Letting out a breath, he leaned his head back up against the wall.

Even if she did manage to cut the ropes on his legs, it would be a miracle if he'd even be able to get up and run for safety.

The only other time he'd been in pain like this was the day Falcone's men had jumped him the year before.

It hadn't been about him, it was a warning to Bird.

Raising his head, he looked at her again through his good eye as he realized something similar had to be happening all over again.

None of the men who'd taken him had said a single word to him the entire time.

He'd been hit in the head hard enough that he'd been in and out of consciousness, so he'd only been able to grasp pieces of what they were saying to one another, but it wasn't until just now that he understood why he'd been taken in the first place.

"In there!" Jim yelled over his shoulder to Bullock as he rushed down the hallway where he could see light coming through between the door and wall.

"Bird?" Bullock called out, wanting to make sure the literal light at the end of a tunnel they were rushing to was really her and not some enemy waiting on them.

"Go!" She screamed, not looking up from where she was still sawing away at the ropes binding Harvey's legs, "There's a bomb!"

"Bomb?" Bullock huffed, slowing to a stop, he fought for a breath and asked, "Did she say bomb?"

But Jim didn't answer him, instead he pushed the door to the room open wider and ran in.

"I can't-" Bird's voice was muffled behind her clenched teeth, "It's like I'm trying to cut through steel."

"Move. Move." Jim was already pulling the knife from her hands before she realized how close he was, "I'll get him. Go."

"Not a chance." Bird argued about the running away from danger part, but she was more than willing to stand back and let him take over.

She'd lost all feeling in her injured arm; her hand was shaking uncontrollably.

Upon joining everyone else in the room, Bullock immediately heard the increasing frequency of the beeping, but it wasn't until he shined his flashlight across to wire that had been tripped from the door opening over to the corner of the room that he knew without a doubt he hadn't misheard Bird's warning.

"You gotta be kidding me..." He breathed.

"Jim!" He yelled to his former partner as he looked back and forth from where the trio was, back over to where the the bomb was.

It took another second, another breath before he was able to clear his head enough to focus on what was happening and not let the fear take over.

He already had his jacket off before he ever made it over to the window.

Wrapping it around his hand; he started breaking what jagged pieces of glass were still left.

They'd need a quick way out.

"We gotta go!" He yelled the obvious out in such a loud voice they could probably hear him across town.

He figured they'd have seconds at best.

And he was right.

Seconds was all they had.

A few handfuls of them -racing by at the speed of light.

The ropes gave way.

Jim and Bird pulled Harvey to his feet and the group scrambled across the room, out of the window and made a break for it.

Shoes pounding against the pavement, all of them sprinting as fast as they could across the street and further.

Seconds until all that was left of the decrepit building was ripped apart.

The sky set aglow with flames and clouded in smoke.

The force had thrown all four of them a distance from where their feet had last touched the ground.

Bird raised a hand up, reaching around the back of her head and neck, trembling fingers running through her hair with an internal sigh of relief.

The heat had felt so intense she'd been left wondering if her back was up in flames, hair melted.

But luckily, aside from the new bruises and scrapes and further injury of landing on her bad arm, she was okay.

Somehow she gathered the strength to get herself to her feet, only she couldn't walk in a straight line.

Disoriented, she stumbled and spun in a circle, the blur of her surroundings and ringing in her ears causing her stomach turn.

Any relief she'd felt was long gone as she tried to make sense of the scene around her, the burning debris littering the road and nearby ground was all she could see at first.

Once her eyes focused enough she could see movement off to the side, she turned that way but lost her footing and landed with a hard thud on her knees.

With a cry of pain that she couldn't even hear herself, Bird looked around, her terror widened eyes landing on Harvey Dent and Bullock, who were by each other the ground.

Bullock was struggling to sit up, but he was moving.

Harvey Dent's arms were still tied together with rope, but he was alive and moving.

Air violently rushed in and out of her lungs, her chest heaving up and down, breathing more of the smoke in than she should, Bird started to crawl around on the ground.

Completely unaware of the sharp bits of rock and glass cutting into her hands and shredding through the fabric of her pants over her knees.

Jim.

She had to find Jim.

She was alive and with any luck she'd be able to gain her hearing back, both Harveys' were moving, but she couldn't even find Jim.

Growing evermore frustrated at her inability to find him, Bird was unable to comprehend that all she was effectively managing to crawl in a misshapen circle, seeing the same sights over and over again.

The ringing in her ears seemed to only be growing louder, the pressure in her head increasing by the second.

Coming to a stop from the scrambled frantic crawl, she opened and shut her mouth repeatedly, trying desperately to get her ears to pop; find some kind of relief.

That was when she felt something on her hand.

Opening her eyes up again, she looked down to see a hand laying over the top of hers which she still had pressed onto the dirty ground.

It was Jim.

Letting out a breath that felt like it had been scorching the insides of her lungs, Bird gave up the search she'd been trying and failing at for the last minute.

Giving into her body's fatigue, she dropped from where she was kneeling onto the ground and stared up at the starless sky, still fighting to breathe until she scrounged up enough strength to roll over onto her side.

Where he'd also turned to face her.

Jim's blue eyes met Bird's and the both slowly nodded, letting the other one know they were okay.

That somehow, albeit, a little bloody, broken and bruised, they'd managed to survive

It was a close call, too close -but they'd won.

•••

Bird's eyes traveled over the brushed green hills on the canvas as she stared at the painting on the wall in the hospital waiting room.

There was still a prevalent buzzing in her head, the ringing in her ears had quieted some -but her ears felt clogged now. Like they'd been stuffed full of cotton.

Her arm was re-bandaged and now in a stronger sling to further decrease mobility.

The way she'd landed after being propelled from the explosion had damaged her shoulder, badly enough that the emergency room doctor told she needed to set up a consultation with an orthopedic surgeon.

Jim had a concussion and Bullock was now in a neck brace and had still had a great deal of hearing loss.

Harvey Dent was still back with the doctors.

"Bird?" Bullock yelled, though in his head he felt like he was speaking in a below average voice.

Letting her eyes drop from the painting she'd been focusing on, her sight traveled down the wall until she saw Bullock sitting in a chair across from her, but she didn't say anything.

"You hear me?" He yelled twice as loud as he'd said her name.

Silently, she raised her eyebrows with an expectant look pulling at her features.

"I said I'm gonna need your phone." He yelled and despite the hazardous and tumultuous turn their night had taken, she couldn't deny how comical it was when the other few scattered people seated in the room stared over at him.

Not understanding why he was yelling so loudly to speak to someone just feet away.

"Why?" Bird questioned, but when he didn't answer her, she cleared her throat and yelled back, "WHY?"

"Evidence!" He stated as if she should have already known the answer, "We need a statement and everything you know about the ones who tried to blow us up tonight."

Blankly, she stared back at him.

If there was one thing she wasn't -it was a snitch.

Seeing a couple uniformed officers stepping off the elevator, Bullock stood up and limped over to them.

"Bird."

Adjusting in her seat, she looked over to where Jim was seated beside her, holding an ice pack to the side of his head and staring at her with knowing eyes.

"You have to cooperate." He stated, "You know that, right?

"Jim-"

He let out a heavy sigh, silencing what she was about to say.

No matter how far she'd gotten from her days of working under Fish Mooney and Falcone, she still adhered to a criminal code of ethics that defied reason sometimes.

Top of that list being her complete and utter refusal to be a rat; apparently even in cases where someone tried to blow her into a hundred pieces.

"I know." He nodded, "I know exactly what you're going to say. But these people have to be stopped. They tried to kill you and Dent-"

"Yeah... I don't know." Bird's face scrunched up, the dirt and soot strains defining the lines the expression left across her forehead, "If they really wanted me dead why didn't they just use a remote detonator?"

Jim's mouth hung open, the pounding in his head was far too intense to try and follow her line of logic here.

Four people total were at the hospital with moderate injuries from being so close to a bomb and yet the main target of said explosion wasn't sure they were trying to kill her?

"How..." He started to ask, "Wait, what?"

"Think about it." Bird insisted, "If you really wanted someone dead. To blow them up... would you really just set a bomb up in a building with a trip wire that may or not be triggered at all? Not only that, but also a bomb that doesn't go off the very second the wire is tripped?"

"Bird-"

"I wouldn't." She continued as if she couldn't hear him, "I'd get the bomb in place, lure them there and be nearby with a remote detonator. And I'd set it off as soon as the person I wanted dead walked inside. Doing it the way they did makes no sense."

"Unless it was a move to try and scare me." Bird added, her head cocking to the side, "Or they're really stupid. Either way, this was a pretty ridiculous way to try and kill someone."

Her eyes cut over to the side when she saw movement, thinking it was Bullock coming back, but instead it was an elderly couple leaving the waiting room as fast as their legs would carry them -all while they kept looking back at her like she was crazy.

Jim glanced at the people leaving the room and then back to her.

She had a point -to an extent.

But even if this was an attempt to scare her, it was carried out by people who clearly didn't care one bit if she died in the process of it.

"What's going on?" Jim pushed, "Does this have anything to do with the bodies found at the construction site? The charity auction hijacking?"

He hadn't brought it up to her until now, but he also hadn't forgotten Barnes' remarks about the construction site not only being funded by Wayne Enterprises, but also that the buildings being erected were the future homeless shelters she'd presented her late parents' plans for.

It was getting increasingly clear that something was going on.

That she was being targeted and hadn't been open about it with him.

"Excuse me." A nurse said, looking at them as she came out of the double doors just off the small hallway leading to the waiting room, "Are either of you here for Mr. Dent?"

"Yes." Bird said, using her good arm and to help push herself up from the uncomfortable chair and started towards her, "Is he going to be okay?"

"We're going to have to talk about this." Jim called after her.

Giving him little more than a glance over her shoulder, she followed the nurse back through the doors and Jim watched her until the doors had closed and she was out of sight.

He adjusted the ice pack, moving it to the back of his head and using it as a barrier between his skull and the wall as he rested his head back and closed his eyes.

It only felt like mere seconds until the peace and quiet was interrupted.

"Where'd she go?" Bullock questioned, lowering himself back into one of the chairs and swearing from the pain under his breath as he did.

Not having it in him to yell loud enough for his former partner to hear him, Jim barely opened his eyes and just raised his arm and pointed towards the doors she'd left through.

Nodding in understanding, Bullock guessed, "Dent?"

Not waiting on an answer, he asked, "That don't bother you?"

Tilting his head further forward, Jim shot him a look before slowly closing his eyes and laying his head back against the ice pack.

•••

"Hey." Bird greeted, gently knocking on the open door while lingering in the doorway of the hospital room where Harvey was laying in the bed.

"Hey." He greeted back, his voice still a little hoarse, "How's everyone?"

"Alive." Bird walked into the room and surveyed the equipment he was hooked up to.

"Are they keeping you overnight?" She questioned.

"Yeah." Harvey nodded, struggling to raise up further in the bed to speak to her, "Just for monitoring. They said I should probably be able to go home in the next couple of days."

"I'm sure Bullock's going to keep some police stationed here." Bird awkwardly looked around the room as she spoke, "But when they do release you, it's probably not the best idea to go home. Not until this is all over."

"Over?" He repeated back to her.

He knew what she meant by that -that she was going to handle it herself.

See to it that the people responsible couldn't get close enough to hurt them ever again.

But in a much broader sense of the word he found himself questioning if this would ever truly be over.

This was the second time in about the same number of years that he'd ended up hospitalized due to injuries he'd received for matters that had to do with Bird.

"Starling-" His sentence was cut short when we was forced to pull in a sharp gasp of air between his clenched teeth when he tried to move again, "You have to cooperate with GCPD and the DA's office on this."

"We both know that's not going to happen." Her head cocked to the side while she stared back at him.

They still had a degree of openness and honesty between them.

One that had taken them far too long to develop in their relationship.

How naive they'd been in the beginning, thinking an agreement to not talk about Bird's life of crime would be enough to keep the danger at a distance.

That they'd be able to survive and withstand the tests of time with half-truths and non-disclosures.

"I'm not asking. I'm telling you what has to happen." Harvey argued with her.

His tone was somber and honest -despite the commanding words being spoken.

"I'm sorry." Bird apologized, finally looking back at him and trying to focus on the least damaged side of his face, "I never wanted this to happen. I -I didn't think you were in any danger."

Rubbing her forehead with her good hand and squinted shut, "I thought they'd come after me or try to get to my brother, maybe even go after Jim. But instead they tried to kill my secretary and used you against me."

The more she thought about Fat Lenny's actions the more she found herself realizing she was dealing with a gang of violent idiots who's wrath she'd underestimated.

"Why did they come after me?" Harvey questioned.

Bird, thinking he meant why'd they come after her ex instead of current boyfriend, openly answered, "Probably because you're an easier target."

A dumbfounded expression took over his face and he stared at her until he reiterated, "No. I meant why is anyone coming after me. What did you get mixed up in this time?"

Biting down on the side of her tongue, she fought the urge to snap at him for the remark.

What did she get mixed up in this time around?

Strangely enough this was a result of her working for Wayne Enterprises and didn't have a thing to do with her criminal ties.

"I didn't mean that the way it sounded." Harvey broke the silence his comments had pulled the room into, before adding with raw honestly, "Not entirely at least."

"This doesn't have a thing to do with Falcone or Oswald or any of them." She told him, "The position I took over in my family's company, the uh, the man who held the title before me got mixed up in some bad stuff. Owed money to the wrong people and even after his debts were paid they kept coming after him."

"And you didn't think about telling anyone?" He questioned, mouth hanging open to bring in another breath, "Before it got to this point?

"I thought I had it under control. I knew about Fat Lenny's crew and I thought once they saw I wasn't going to scare as easily as the person before me that they'd back off, but they didn't. I underestimated them and that's on me, okay? But I'm going to make it right." Bird promised.

She didn't say it out loud, but she'd also thought the crew might not be so willing to go after her considering who her biological father was; even if Falcone was retired.

"I believe you, okay?" Harvey began, "I know that you didn't mean for any of this happen, but Starling, it's gone too far. The only way you're going to make any of this right is by doing the right thing-"

"We have very different definitions of the doing the right thing, Harvey." She cut him off.

"True, but at this moment in time I'm talking about my definition of it-"

"You are laying in hospital bed right now. Yet again because of something I ended up involved in that had nothing to do with you-"

"Exactly!" He loudly spoke over her, "So my words should be carrying some degree of weight about this with you."

Closing his eyes, he pulled in a ragged breath and did his best to calm down once they both became aware of his hear rate rising from the machinery in the room with them to monitor his condition.

"Thank you." He finally spoke again, this time much calmer, "I might have been in danger because of you -but I also know I'm alive right now because you risked your own life to find me."

"You're welcome." Bird stated, her tone a little flat as she eyed him with an unsure expression.

"I just..." He shook his head, "I got targeted for this and could have died for something that didn't have anything to do with me -yet you're practically admitting to me that you're going to take off after the people who did this. Ready to spill blood and claim you did it for me, when that is the last thing I want, Starling."

Her brown eyes were dull when she titled her head back up and peered at him from under her lashes.

"What you want is for me to go against what I believe in." Bird pointed out.

This wasn't how she solved problems.

She didn't run to the police and rat her enemies out.

No matter how close to the so called 'right path' she walked, she still had rules.

Lines she didn't plan on crossing and one of those was that she'd never be a rat.

This went far beyond just giving the goods she had on Lenny's crew up to Bullock.

No, that would only be beginning and the ending would fall somewhere around her being called to the stand to testify.

That would ruin any credibility she'd earned in the streets.

Not to mention mark her as a target for others who might start to wonder what other secrets she'd start to spill.

She couldn't even imagine Falcone's reaction when he'd inevitably find out.

"You don't know what you're asking of me." Bird's voice was much softer now.

Beaten down and on the verge of total exhaustion.

"I do." Harvey answered in a voice nearly as quiet as her's had been.

Pulling her eyes away from his, she turned and slowly started to walk for the door with a feeling of deja vu setting in.

The last time they were in a situation like this, she'd taken her time leaving the room then as well, giving him all the time in the world to change his mind.

Back then she'd hoped he'd take back what he said when he told her to leave him alone; that every bad thing in his life had been because of her.

This time she wanted him to tell her that he knew what such a move would cost her and that after everything they'd been through, he wouldn't ask that of her.

But he didn't.

He didn't say a word as she left.

And Bird made her way towards the waiting room, left alone with her thoughts and wondering how the person she'd just risked her own life to save could be asking so much from her and seeming to not care about the personal cost she'd pay in the process.

As the automatic doors swung open she walked down the short hall and into the waiting room, Jim sat forward so fast the ice pack he'd been resting his head against fell the floor and Bullock didn't try to get up, but he called out, "He gonna make it?"

Bird nodded at him, took a few more steps into the waiting room before coming to a stop and looking around with a lost expression.

"What happened?" Jim questioned, getting to his feet a little too quick and finding the trauma he'd been though left him weaker than he'd thought and a tinge dizzy.

"Bird?" He questioned walking closer to her and growing alarmed by the emptiness that had taken over her eyes when she stared back at him and didn't say anything.

His eyes darted towards the doors of the hospital wing she'd came from, "What happened?" He repeated.

Bullock eyed them for a moment before he stood up with a groan and started their direction.

He didn't know what they were talking about, but he couldn't hear a damn thing from where he was sitting.

Bird turned to face him as he joined where she and Jim were standing.

Reaching into her pocket, she took her phone out and offered it to Bullock, "It won't do you any good. They used a burner, but..."

She closed her eyes, took another breath and finally said, "But I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

•••