Mask or Menace: IC Contact

[exceptfebruary]

Julian Day. [ Day, month, year. ]

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[exceptfebruary]

Are you certain?

The clouds or the sunset may hide the Sun from our eyes, but it will always rise again. One way or another. There can be no spring or summer without the Sun, after all.

[ There will always be a Batman. There has to be. ]

[restingstitchface]

The people erected a memorial.

[He says matter-of-factly, like he's giving expert testimony.

But underneath it he's regarding their conversation with a cold, detached interest.]

Yet they believed he murdered Harvey Dent. You can calculate the movements of the calendar, Julian, but not the madness of people.

[No guns. No killing. He inhales deeply.]

I am certain he is alive.

[Might even have seen the sun again, personally. But it's not the same.]

[exceptfebruary]

I believe you're right.

[ He pauses, something that Crane said just sinking in. What is this about Harvey Dent being murdered? Maybe Harvey wasn't really dead? That sounds about right for Gotham.

Still, it was unsettling. The implications. ]

He wouldn't have murdered Harvey Dent. Why would they think he did?

[restingstitchface]

[He presses his lips together. His tone is blank and emotionless. The disappointment.]

Conspiracy. The Batman took the blame for Harvey's appalling crimes so that Gordon could, to his shame, build a lie around his fallen idol. Both concealed Dent's madness from the public, and presented Dent as the shining example of justice.

They lied to the people of Gotham.

[A beat. His tone almost hides the fact he's full of glee. Almost.]

It wasn't accepted well.

[exceptfebruary]

So Harvey died. And no one knew him as Two-Face. [ A Gotham where Two-Face was kept secret. Begrudgingly, Julian can see how that can make the timeline skew off from how it was supposed to go. ]

But you knew the truth?

[restingstitchface]

Of course I did.

My perspective and experience told me that Batman was not guilty of the killing those ignorant fools accused him of.

[He sounds proud of his intellect, of course. He had instantly spotted those fakes in the parking lot. Batman didn't use guns like a thug.]

But truth is different from fact, Julian. The knowledge of Harvey's crimes were revealed when Bane stormed Blackgate. He broadcast Gordon's...resignation speech, shall we say, to the entire city. Gave its people a new political perspective. You should have seen it.

[exceptfebruary]

What happened was not forgotten. I see.

You enjoyed it.

[restingstitchface]

Yes. Though the oxymoron of controlled chaos we were able to control and shape events at will. Conditions became ripe for innovation. Naturally I placed the people under great scrutiny.

[He sounds proud of that, too.]