The Jury Trap
Once upon a time, deep in the heart of Gotham City, there stood an old courthouse that nobody used anymore. Its windows were dusty, its halls were quiet, and its clock tower still ticked away the hours, faithfully, even though hardly anyone came to listen.
One rainy week, Two-Face remembered something he had never quite let go of: the twelve jurors who once sat and listened at the trial of a dangerous man named Sal Maroni. That was the very same trial where the terrible accident happened — the one that had split Harvey Dent's life, and his face, right down the middle.
Two-Face decided it was time for what he called "a little justice of his own." He found two of those old jurors and brought them, gently and without any rough stuff, to the old courthouse. He tied soft ropes around their wrists — nothing more — and placed them safely in two matching rooms. One room glowed gold, lit by a single warm lamp. The other glowed black, lit by nothing but the moonlight through a cracked window. Twin rooms, for a man who loved everything in twos — two suit colors, two sides to his coin, and now two rooms holding two frightened but perfectly safe jurors.
Then he sent a message to Commissioner Gordon. It read: "Two rooms, two people, one door that opens both. Find it before the clock strikes twelve."
Gordon read the note twice, his brow furrowed, and then hurried straight to Batman at Gotham City police headquarters. Batman studied every word carefully. And slowly, a small, thoughtful smile crossed his face.
"I know how his mind works," Batman said. "Two-Face loves symmetry. Everything he builds has a matching twin. If there's one door for two rooms... it has to be hidden exactly between them."
He raced out into the rainy night, swinging silently from rooftop to rooftop across Gotham City, past streetlights and steam vents and sleeping skyscrapers, until he reached the old courthouse standing dark against the sky. Through a skylight he went, dropping down soft and quiet, just as the great clock tower outside began, slowly, to chime. One. Two. Three.
Inside, Two-Face stood exactly between the two glowing rooms, balancing his scarred coin on the tip of one thumb.
"Right on schedule," he said. "Guess you solved my little riddle."
"You didn't want to hurt them," Batman said gently, walking toward the wall the two rooms shared. "You wanted someone smart enough to find a way to stop you before midnight."
For just a moment, Two-Face's hand trembled around the coin. Just the smallest, quietest tremble.
Batman reached the center of the wall and found exactly what he expected — a hidden door, right where the two rooms met. He pulled it open, and there they were: both jurors, a little frightened but completely unharmed, blinking in the sudden light. The final chime of the clock tower rang out across the courthouse. Bong.
Two-Face lunged for his coin, but Batman was quicker. He caught Harvey's wrist gently and pressed the coin flat against the table before it could ever land.
Moments later, Commissioner Gordon arrived with a team of officers, and Two-Face went with them quietly. Almost relieved, like something heavy had finally been set down. On the long ride back to Arkham Asylum, he stared out the window at the glittering lights of Gotham City.
"Everybody thinks the coin decides everything," he murmured, almost to himself. "Maybe I just wanted somebody to decide for me."
Out on the courthouse steps, the two jurors thanked Commissioner Gordon, shaken but safe, and told the reporters gathered there something that Batman had already guessed. Two-Face had never once raised a hand against them. He had built a puzzle, not a punishment — as if some small, quiet part of him had wanted, all along, for someone to come and find him.
And high above the rooftops, as the rain finally slowed to a gentle drizzle, Batman looked out over the city he loved and thought about his old friend Harvey Dent — still in there, somewhere, still hoping to be found.
Commissioner Gordon walked back to his car, tucking the note from Two-Face into an evidence folder. It was the strangest kind of crime, he thought — one built entirely out of a puzzle, with nobody hurt at the end of it. He glanced up at the old clock tower, silent again now that midnight had come and gone, and wondered, not for the first time, whether Harvey Dent might someday find his own way home.