Harvey generally trusted his instincts. It was part of the job when you were trying to get someone to admit to a crime in front of an audience when it was basically all on the spot. Sure, preparation was key, but in the end no attorney could account for all the possible angles that the defense would take.
For that reason, he was pretty sure he was right in his belief that Firo had been attacked by Grell last night. It wasn't something he had to feel responsible for or even have an involvement in, but it did prove one thing: Grell was a man (or woman, if he was going to be nice about it) of his word. Grell had said that he let loose at night, and that had at least been the case this time around.
The real question was whether this made Harvey more or less inclined to work with him. It would be good to have someone who had no morals (or at least very skewed ones) to rely on, but Grell was also unpredictable. Harvey could land himself in a lot of trouble if he was identified as someone who worked with Grell, though he always had the option of playing dumb.
That was something he could chew on for the moment, though. Grell wasn't anywhere to be seen for now, and Harvey was in the middle of being shuffled to the Sun Room. He made sure to find a seat toward the wall, not needing to be exposed to the beams of light coming through overhead.
A scan of the bulletin board would do him some good, but that could wait until after he'd digested his breakfast, at least.
Scott was fuming as he entered the Sun Room. Fuming. And it wasn't just because of the night he'd had. It wasn't just because Landel was back all of a sudden. And wasn't just because he couldn't find Ramona anywhere yet, though that was a pretty big frustration right now too. Oh no. He had been slighted - slighted - and in the most unforgivable way. With the return of Landel had been the return of waffles. Beautiful, warm, fluffy, golden, delicious, mouth-watering, heavenly-! But oh, what's that? You want some of these magnificent waffles, Scott? Ha ha, silly Pilgrim! Trix are for kids~! And waffles are for people who wake up on time~! And oh? What was that? There are still five minutes left in breakfast shift? Sorry hon', too late for more to be made! Kitchen's closed 'til lunch! See you later~!
Scott would have shaken his fist and called out "LANDEEEEEL!!!" to the heavens, but refrained. He figured it might offend Captain Kirk.
Thankfully, the promise of a decent lunch later was enough to assuage Scott's frustrations for now, at least to the point where he could walk without wanting to punch things. The cozy, oddly comforting feel of the grey patient ensemble helped that too. He hadn't realized just how sick and tired he had gotten of that stupid military uniform. There was something to be said for wandering the building in what essentially amounted to PJs, even if they did stand for everything bad and wrong with this universe. Compared to the whole military shindig, it was like the whole Institute was having a slumber party or something. Mildly fun. Kind of.
If anyone wasn't a fan of the grey PJs, though, Scott was pretty sure he'd found him. As he wandered through the room, he spotted Harvey hanging out by the wall. His stomach twinged for a moment; he hadn't spoken to the guy face to face since that night. Scott wondered how he had held up after that, and how the last night had gone for him. Did he even have to hold up? He had always seemed like the unflappable sort, especially compared to, say, Scott or Peter. He had to have felt something the past couple of days, though; villain or not, he was still human. The lot of them wouldn't hang around with him if he had no soul of human emotion. Or whatever.
Sidling up against the wall by Harvey's right, Scott gave the man a nod. "Hey," he started simply. He left a brief, awkward pause. "........'sup?"
Of all the people that he could be bothered by, Scott actually wasn't the worst option. Not even close, in fact. Harvey still thought he was more of an obnoxious kid than anything -- and that he didn't act his age -- but they had also been through a harrowing set of circumstances that meant he couldn't work up the same amount of annoyance as he might for some random kid circling around to talk.
He and Scott had been seated side-by-side that night. They had stared out from the same seats and watched from the same angle as Peter had beaten Jones to death. Scott had wrapped up the gunshot wound in his arm.
And yet they hadn't spoken since then, save for that one exchange in writing. Harvey imagined that Scott had been avoiding him for a time, and after that he'd apparently been busy getting into fistfights with Peter. Harvey didn't know the details of that, but even remembering what he'd heard about it from Jones was enough to make him shake his head.
"Guess we can't be surprised that Landel worked his way back in," he said, deciding that he might as well cut to the chase. He needed to talk to someone about all of this, after all, and while Scott was hardly his top choice for that, he would have to do. "You went out last night, right? Any idea what caused those halls to get soaked with blood like that?" He had a few theories, but it would be better if he could confirm it.
As for the whole issue of the coliseum, he really didn't see why they needed to discuss it. It was over and Jones was back, so who cared?
Scott was kind of relieved that the first thing Harvey brought up wasn't that night. Even if it was over and Indy was back, Scott suspected that the both of them cared way too much about what had happened to just... get over it like that. Maybe Harvey had more experience with that kind of violence than Scott did, but it wasn't every day they were forced to watch a close friend's ribcage collapse under the foot of another friend. That image, that sound... everything from that night was sticking with Scott for the rest of his life, more likely than not, and he'd be damned if that hadn't at least stirred Harvey a bit.
Still, he hadn't expected to be put on the spot with a question about the night right off the bat either. Especially not one to which he thought the answer would be obvious. Scott's brain stalled for a moment. "Uh, monsters? There were lots of them, dude. Monsters plus people with their powers back probably equals blood-soaked halls," he answered, wondering if this was some kind of trick question.
It wasn't until a few moments later when he realized what might have caused Harvey to ask a question like that. "Where did you go last night, even? Did you not see the crazy powers stuff going on or something?"
Scott's tone was just a little too far on the condescending side for Harvey's liking, but it wasn't something that he was going to bring up now. Actually, it seemed more like Scott was confused that Harvey hadn't figured it out on his own, but the question had mainly been meant for confirmation.
Even if he'd seen proof that people here had powers, it was still something that was hard to wrap his head around. He'd seen what Peter had been capable of, after all, but the corpses of the monsters that he'd found had been dismembered beyond recognition. What sort of ability would let someone do that?
"That's what I was guessing. I just didn't realize that there are people here who can turn monsters into soup when they have their powers back," he responded somewhat grimly. It wasn't that Harvey was a stranger to violence, but the fact that a person was capable of that was new to him. Maybe it was a good thing that some of the people here were limited.
He realized that Scott had asked another question, though, and figured there was no harm in answering it. "I was with Jones last night. We went to the medical wing." He hadn't seen the man around this morning, but there was no reason to assume he wasn't safe.
Clearly Harvey had never played Mortal Kombat, thought Scott. (Were there any Mortal Kombat characters running around? He wouldn't have been surprised.)
"So Indy's good enough to handle night stuff already? That's good. I guess?" Scott commented, catching himself when he realized that saying "night stuff" and "good" in the same breath wasn't exactly the best connection to make in Landel's, especially considering the last big thing that had happened to Indy at night. "Was it any less crazy in there? What's in there, even? Besides, like, medical things?"
Harvey didn't know how he had ended up being the one who was having to answer all the questions, but he figured that he'd get his chance to drill Scott soon enough. Not that he had too much to ask, but he at least wanted to know what was going on with him and Peter so he could be braced for teenage angst when they all met up as a group again.
"I wouldn't say good. He was limping and I had to take point, but we were lucky enough to not get too much trouble from the local wildlife." If that one monster that had tried to tail them had actually got to them, Harvey probably would have been sporting a few injures of his own this morning.
"And it has what you'd expect in a medical wing. There's a front desk, a file room, a medical library, exam rooms, an operating room..." And more than that, seeing how they hadn't explored it in its entirety. Harvey thought the last point on that list was the most noteworthy, but he'd see what Scott made of the information.
It was a relief to hear Indy hadn't had trouble with them, ahem, "wildlife". But even though it wasn't a surprise to hear, the description of limping and having to take point made Scott wince a bit. Here was hoping Landel felt extra generous with his regenerating health for patients now that he was back.
"Nothing much more than you'd expect, then? Why'd they make such a big deal about it, then?" he wondered. It had to be for more than just that one drug trial thing that they had all missed out on due to... things. Including but not limited blood and/or circuses.
In any case, it looked like Harvey was getting annoyed. Scott miraculously got the message implied by that and stopped asking questions. Instead he moved on to filling the guy in on his own breaking news update of the day. "But yeah, I didn't get into a huge thing of trouble last night either. 'Cause. Uh. ...My girlfriend showed up." Scott put a hand on the back of his head, still kind of unable to believe he could say that. "And stuff."
The question was a valid one, but Harvey just shrugged in response. "Maybe it was just a ploy to get people to fall for that offer." Harvey would have never walked into a trap like that, although he also realized that he'd walked into an even bigger one with the coliseum. If the six of them ended up checking out that other door down there, then he'd even be repeating his stupid decision.
When that was the only option available to them, though, what else was he supposed to do? Jones seemed set on it, and if the man who had suffered the most from their first try was still ready to get back on the horse, then Harvey wasn't going to be the coward who wasn't up for it.
Scott spoke up again soon after, with a strange sort of announcement. His girlfriend. He said it like it was some significant event, and for a normal twenty-year-old, maybe it was. Then again, just the fact that someone he knew from home was here stood out. "Is this the first time that someone from your past has showed up here?" Scott had never mentioned anyone else, but Harvey also hadn't spoken to him enough to really know for sure.
Scott shook his head. "Not exactly. My ex showed up once too, but she was around for, like, barely a day. I still don't know what happened to her," he admitted, chewing on his bottom lip as his thoughts turned to Knives. He actually hadn't thought about her much so far for all that his mind had been on Ramona. Was that bad of him? The time she'd been around Landel's had been short, but it had been some time, right? It still meant she might be out there brainwashed, or in the trenches, or wherever it was they took "failed" patients.
And it seemed he still didn't really want to think about those implications. It was easier to just move on to explaining himself. "I guess I'm just kinda worried that'll happen again. I haven't seen her yet this morning," he explained, looking around the Sun Room again just in case. Still nothing. "She's got blue hair like this right now," he said, putting his two index fingers around his face where Ramona's bangs were as of the previous night. "Let me know if you see her?"
So for some reason Scott ended up with romantic interests following him here. Harvey didn't know if that was better or worse than the mortal enemies and tentative partners he'd had to deal with. Granted, his situation was made even more confusing by the fact that most of the people who'd shown up in this place who'd claimed to know him had been complete strangers to him. That was still something that he hadn't quite accepted, even after he'd spent all that time working with Jason.
He tuned back in when Scott started to describe his girlfriend, noting with some detachment that the blue hair would at least make this girl easy to find. Except not necessarily, since strange hair colors seemed to be all the rage here. Still, it was a lot easier to go on compared to blond or brown-haired.
"Yeah, sure," he agreed, slightly delayed. "Though you might have better luck just asking after her on the board." If Scott had just been with her last night then chances were that he was worrying over nothing, but... Harvey couldn't completely blame him.
"Probably, yeah," said Scott with a nod. He figured the bulletin board would be his next stop after talking with Harvey, and he was right that it would be the best way to contact Ramona if he didn't see her around.
Speaking of the bulletin, though, that brought something else to mind: "Hey, while I'm there, what should I say about, you know..." Scott paused, trying to figure out how best to refer to everything to do with their group's exploration. Anything direct seemed to cut too close right now, especially out loud. Maybe the silence itself would give it away, he figured. Then he could sound all mysterious and stuff to boot, too. So, after the pause, he just continued on, assuming Harvey would at least get what he meant based on his next questions: "I mean, has Indy said anything about what he wants to do? We're not going back, are we?"
Harvey hadn't really meant to bring up that topic, but maybe it was for the best. They had to figure it out eventually and it wasn't like putting it off was going to do them any good. He frowned, glancing around for any sign of Jones, but he didn't spot him anywhere, wheelchair or not.
"He wants to," he explained, surprised that Jones hadn't shared that with Scott yet. Maybe the man had been trying to spare him. Still, this was something that all of them had to make their decision about eventually. "Not sure when he's going to be up to it. It depends on how fast this place lets him heal."
Harvey was usually the one who wanted to take charge, but in a case like this he was willing to wait until Jones gave the go-ahead. If Jones was ready to give it another shot, then Harvey figured he'd better be too. "Guess you can ask what everyone's stance is on it, see what they want to do." It wasn't like they necessarily needed six people to proceed, after all.
"Seriously?" Scott asked, eyebrows lifting in surprise. "Did he say why? You'd think he of all people would be like 'No seriously guys, I don't feel like getting tricked into dying again.'"
A look of apology crossed Scott's face when he realized that he had just blurted that out without thinking. Maybe he ought to just consider Indy's words for a second instead of just being surprised by them, he thought. He supposed maybe they made sense in a way. There was something mysterious open to them now that the previous (groan) "challenge" was complete. That was just a well of curiosity waiting for the group to fall in, and they all knew it. But even Scott, whose video game sensibilities nagged at him to push forward and explore all the things, was wary after where that kind of exploration had gotten them last time. Sure the damage hadn't lasted, but...
Well maybe that was just it. The damage hadn't lasted. Was that what Indy was banking on? That for whatever series of tests Landel or whoever had devised, they wouldn't actually kill the patients trying to complete them? Maybe, he thought. It was an idea he'd thought about, but mainly in passing; any thoughts having to do with the basement had been brushed aside without much consideration the past couple of days. Now that he gave the idea a little more thought, it made some weird sort of sense.
"I guess I'll do that, yeah," Scott answered with a shrug and an uncertain sigh. "Whatever we do, it's probably not gonna be tonight if Indy's still limping, though. Even if it's just having another manly slumber party or something."
Was it possible that Jones had only shared that feeling with him thus far? For some reason that surprised him, mainly because Scott had met up with the man first out of all of them. Then again, Jones may have needed some time to gather his thoughts and decide on what he had wanted to do, and they had talked toward the end of that day.
Or maybe the guy actually trusted him. Harvey wasn't sure what to feel about that, honestly.
"Yeah, I'm not sure how he's doing today. The in-between time might have done him some good." While Harvey had gotten some nasty injuries here, he was pretty sure none of it was anywhere near what Jones had dealt with. He couldn't really make a guess for how long it would take before the man was somewhere near functional for another risky night.
"But yeah, I'm pretty sure he wants to make sure that something comes out of him being dead for twenty-four hours or however long it was. If we stop now, then that means he died for nothing." It was all very logical, but Harvey wouldn't necessarily expect logic from someone who had been killed by a friend.
"Well he's not going to have died for nothing, then," Scott answered, a slight spark of conviction clambering up into his tone. "...Well, he won't have died for nothing after we wait another night, anyway, but still. I think I get you." Even with the misstep, the faint swell in determination in Scott was actually kind of respectable.
On that note, the intercom switched back on, as if to give Scott the go-ahead he needed to finish his trek over to the bulletin. He gave the older man a wave. "Thanks, Harvey. See you around," he said, for once not even thinking about the whole "I'm waving a friendly goodbye to a Batman villain" thing as he went.
For that reason, he was pretty sure he was right in his belief that Firo had been attacked by Grell last night. It wasn't something he had to feel responsible for or even have an involvement in, but it did prove one thing: Grell was a man (or woman, if he was going to be nice about it) of his word. Grell had said that he let loose at night, and that had at least been the case this time around.
The real question was whether this made Harvey more or less inclined to work with him. It would be good to have someone who had no morals (or at least very skewed ones) to rely on, but Grell was also unpredictable. Harvey could land himself in a lot of trouble if he was identified as someone who worked with Grell, though he always had the option of playing dumb.
That was something he could chew on for the moment, though. Grell wasn't anywhere to be seen for now, and Harvey was in the middle of being shuffled to the Sun Room. He made sure to find a seat toward the wall, not needing to be exposed to the beams of light coming through overhead.
A scan of the bulletin board would do him some good, but that could wait until after he'd digested his breakfast, at least.
[For Scott.]
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Scott would have shaken his fist and called out "LANDEEEEEL!!!" to the heavens, but refrained. He figured it might offend Captain Kirk.
Thankfully, the promise of a decent lunch later was enough to assuage Scott's frustrations for now, at least to the point where he could walk without wanting to punch things. The cozy, oddly comforting feel of the grey patient ensemble helped that too. He hadn't realized just how sick and tired he had gotten of that stupid military uniform. There was something to be said for wandering the building in what essentially amounted to PJs, even if they did stand for everything bad and wrong with this universe. Compared to the whole military shindig, it was like the whole Institute was having a slumber party or something. Mildly fun. Kind of.
If anyone wasn't a fan of the grey PJs, though, Scott was pretty sure he'd found him. As he wandered through the room, he spotted Harvey hanging out by the wall. His stomach twinged for a moment; he hadn't spoken to the guy face to face since that night. Scott wondered how he had held up after that, and how the last night had gone for him. Did he even have to hold up? He had always seemed like the unflappable sort, especially compared to, say, Scott or Peter. He had to have felt something the past couple of days, though; villain or not, he was still human. The lot of them wouldn't hang around with him if he had no soul of human emotion. Or whatever.
Sidling up against the wall by Harvey's right, Scott gave the man a nod. "Hey," he started simply. He left a brief, awkward pause. "........'sup?"
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He and Scott had been seated side-by-side that night. They had stared out from the same seats and watched from the same angle as Peter had beaten Jones to death. Scott had wrapped up the gunshot wound in his arm.
And yet they hadn't spoken since then, save for that one exchange in writing. Harvey imagined that Scott had been avoiding him for a time, and after that he'd apparently been busy getting into fistfights with Peter. Harvey didn't know the details of that, but even remembering what he'd heard about it from Jones was enough to make him shake his head.
"Guess we can't be surprised that Landel worked his way back in," he said, deciding that he might as well cut to the chase. He needed to talk to someone about all of this, after all, and while Scott was hardly his top choice for that, he would have to do. "You went out last night, right? Any idea what caused those halls to get soaked with blood like that?" He had a few theories, but it would be better if he could confirm it.
As for the whole issue of the coliseum, he really didn't see why they needed to discuss it. It was over and Jones was back, so who cared?
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Still, he hadn't expected to be put on the spot with a question about the night right off the bat either. Especially not one to which he thought the answer would be obvious. Scott's brain stalled for a moment. "Uh, monsters? There were lots of them, dude. Monsters plus people with their powers back probably equals blood-soaked halls," he answered, wondering if this was some kind of trick question.
It wasn't until a few moments later when he realized what might have caused Harvey to ask a question like that. "Where did you go last night, even? Did you not see the crazy powers stuff going on or something?"
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Even if he'd seen proof that people here had powers, it was still something that was hard to wrap his head around. He'd seen what Peter had been capable of, after all, but the corpses of the monsters that he'd found had been dismembered beyond recognition. What sort of ability would let someone do that?
"That's what I was guessing. I just didn't realize that there are people here who can turn monsters into soup when they have their powers back," he responded somewhat grimly. It wasn't that Harvey was a stranger to violence, but the fact that a person was capable of that was new to him. Maybe it was a good thing that some of the people here were limited.
He realized that Scott had asked another question, though, and figured there was no harm in answering it. "I was with Jones last night. We went to the medical wing." He hadn't seen the man around this morning, but there was no reason to assume he wasn't safe.
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"So Indy's good enough to handle night stuff already? That's good. I guess?" Scott commented, catching himself when he realized that saying "night stuff" and "good" in the same breath wasn't exactly the best connection to make in Landel's, especially considering the last big thing that had happened to Indy at night. "Was it any less crazy in there? What's in there, even? Besides, like, medical things?"
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"I wouldn't say good. He was limping and I had to take point, but we were lucky enough to not get too much trouble from the local wildlife." If that one monster that had tried to tail them had actually got to them, Harvey probably would have been sporting a few injures of his own this morning.
"And it has what you'd expect in a medical wing. There's a front desk, a file room, a medical library, exam rooms, an operating room..." And more than that, seeing how they hadn't explored it in its entirety. Harvey thought the last point on that list was the most noteworthy, but he'd see what Scott made of the information.
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"Nothing much more than you'd expect, then? Why'd they make such a big deal about it, then?" he wondered. It had to be for more than just that one drug trial thing that they had all missed out on due to... things. Including but not limited blood and/or circuses.
In any case, it looked like Harvey was getting annoyed. Scott miraculously got the message implied by that and stopped asking questions. Instead he moved on to filling the guy in on his own breaking news update of the day. "But yeah, I didn't get into a huge thing of trouble last night either. 'Cause. Uh. ...My girlfriend showed up." Scott put a hand on the back of his head, still kind of unable to believe he could say that. "And stuff."
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When that was the only option available to them, though, what else was he supposed to do? Jones seemed set on it, and if the man who had suffered the most from their first try was still ready to get back on the horse, then Harvey wasn't going to be the coward who wasn't up for it.
Scott spoke up again soon after, with a strange sort of announcement. His girlfriend. He said it like it was some significant event, and for a normal twenty-year-old, maybe it was. Then again, just the fact that someone he knew from home was here stood out. "Is this the first time that someone from your past has showed up here?" Scott had never mentioned anyone else, but Harvey also hadn't spoken to him enough to really know for sure.
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And it seemed he still didn't really want to think about those implications. It was easier to just move on to explaining himself. "I guess I'm just kinda worried that'll happen again. I haven't seen her yet this morning," he explained, looking around the Sun Room again just in case. Still nothing. "She's got blue hair like this right now," he said, putting his two index fingers around his face where Ramona's bangs were as of the previous night. "Let me know if you see her?"
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He tuned back in when Scott started to describe his girlfriend, noting with some detachment that the blue hair would at least make this girl easy to find. Except not necessarily, since strange hair colors seemed to be all the rage here. Still, it was a lot easier to go on compared to blond or brown-haired.
"Yeah, sure," he agreed, slightly delayed. "Though you might have better luck just asking after her on the board." If Scott had just been with her last night then chances were that he was worrying over nothing, but... Harvey couldn't completely blame him.
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Speaking of the bulletin, though, that brought something else to mind: "Hey, while I'm there, what should I say about, you know..." Scott paused, trying to figure out how best to refer to everything to do with their group's exploration. Anything direct seemed to cut too close right now, especially out loud. Maybe the silence itself would give it away, he figured. Then he could sound all mysterious and stuff to boot, too. So, after the pause, he just continued on, assuming Harvey would at least get what he meant based on his next questions: "I mean, has Indy said anything about what he wants to do? We're not going back, are we?"
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"He wants to," he explained, surprised that Jones hadn't shared that with Scott yet. Maybe the man had been trying to spare him. Still, this was something that all of them had to make their decision about eventually. "Not sure when he's going to be up to it. It depends on how fast this place lets him heal."
Harvey was usually the one who wanted to take charge, but in a case like this he was willing to wait until Jones gave the go-ahead. If Jones was ready to give it another shot, then Harvey figured he'd better be too. "Guess you can ask what everyone's stance is on it, see what they want to do." It wasn't like they necessarily needed six people to proceed, after all.
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A look of apology crossed Scott's face when he realized that he had just blurted that out without thinking. Maybe he ought to just consider Indy's words for a second instead of just being surprised by them, he thought. He supposed maybe they made sense in a way. There was something mysterious open to them now that the previous (groan) "challenge" was complete. That was just a well of curiosity waiting for the group to fall in, and they all knew it. But even Scott, whose video game sensibilities nagged at him to push forward and explore all the things, was wary after where that kind of exploration had gotten them last time. Sure the damage hadn't lasted, but...
Well maybe that was just it. The damage hadn't lasted. Was that what Indy was banking on? That for whatever series of tests Landel or whoever had devised, they wouldn't actually kill the patients trying to complete them? Maybe, he thought. It was an idea he'd thought about, but mainly in passing; any thoughts having to do with the basement had been brushed aside without much consideration the past couple of days. Now that he gave the idea a little more thought, it made some weird sort of sense.
"I guess I'll do that, yeah," Scott answered with a shrug and an uncertain sigh. "Whatever we do, it's probably not gonna be tonight if Indy's still limping, though. Even if it's just having another manly slumber party or something."
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Or maybe the guy actually trusted him. Harvey wasn't sure what to feel about that, honestly.
"Yeah, I'm not sure how he's doing today. The in-between time might have done him some good." While Harvey had gotten some nasty injuries here, he was pretty sure none of it was anywhere near what Jones had dealt with. He couldn't really make a guess for how long it would take before the man was somewhere near functional for another risky night.
"But yeah, I'm pretty sure he wants to make sure that something comes out of him being dead for twenty-four hours or however long it was. If we stop now, then that means he died for nothing." It was all very logical, but Harvey wouldn't necessarily expect logic from someone who had been killed by a friend.
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"Well he's not going to have died for nothing, then," Scott answered, a slight spark of conviction clambering up into his tone. "...Well, he won't have died for nothing after we wait another night, anyway, but still. I think I get you." Even with the misstep, the faint swell in determination in Scott was actually kind of respectable.
On that note, the intercom switched back on, as if to give Scott the go-ahead he needed to finish his trek over to the bulletin. He gave the older man a wave. "Thanks, Harvey. See you around," he said, for once not even thinking about the whole "I'm waving a friendly goodbye to a Batman villain" thing as he went.
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