Chapter Text
Someone was on the roof.
Edward supposed it was par for the course, a man couldn’t expect to have a moment to himself in Gotham these days, oh, no! everyone was racing around with their gang wars and their brutal serial killings.
Still, Edward was a little surprised. At first, as the distant sounds of feet scrabbled against the wet terracotta tiles of his, he had found himself bemused. It was obviously Batman struggling in the wet weather. Oh, what a sight Edward was missing. Then he’d been annoyed. Oh, back to Arkham so soon. Back to another irritating therapist and an irritating cell surrounded by the other rouges who couldn’t shut the hell up if their life depended on it. All because he probably overlooked some small rule in the draconian parole system.
Upstairs, a lockpick dropped to the ground with a light ping and Edward’s heart sunk, and Edward found himself glancing in every direction for an escape because Batman wasn’t the type of person to go around dropping lockpicks. The brownstone was minimalist, red brick painted off grey, with tasteful mint green carpeting. It didn’t have anywhere to hide. No convenient little nooks or crannies to tuck himself into like he would back when he was a child.
There were no weapons in the house, a condition of parole. And in an instant, it all came tumbling down. Edward was prey again, and he wanted, so badly, to run and disappear into the damp smoggy streets of Gotham, and the thought that he could vanish easily was so enticing. The idea of being no one again appealed so much that it was overwhelming, and it took every iota of hard-won control not to send himself running, directly into the eyeline of his intruder. It had taken so long to be someone, to become The Riddler, and he didn’t know if he could do it again. Who would he be if he vanished again? He couldn’t… and the midnight streets outside his door, which promised the warm allure of relative anonymity were strikingly distant… he couldn’t go back to being no one, his breath caught in his throat and for a moment he felt as though he was drowning.
The balcony door upstairs slid open with a faint scrape.
Edward took a deep breath and then another one, and then, because he was still sitting at his desk, with a soldering iron clutched so tightly his hand had gone white, he put the soldering iron down on its stand, and after a moment of thought he unplugged it because it was better if there wasn’t a sharp, hot tool in his home, this was Gotham after all, it was a city full of psychos.
He turned the light off in the study with a click and stumble into the kitchen. It was sparse, he hadn’t furnished anything since getting out of Arkham, it wasn’t like he was going to cook!
Upstairs someone approached the first step of his set of stairs. Edward’s heart pounded faster than was strictly healthy. He was going to die. He was going to die, and he didn’t have a weapon, not so much as a paring knife.
The figure moved down the stairs, they were quieter now, almost silent on the carpeted stairs. Edward ducked under the kitchen counter and held himself still.
As quietly as he could, hands shaking like he was some fucking noobie, Edward pulled a cutting board off of the bench. Barely a sound, but the intruder noticed. Footsteps echoed as they stood on the threshold of the kitchen door. The fluorescent light cast an intimidating shadow across the cheap linoleum flooring. The heavy wooden cutting board was a piss poor weapon, but the weight felt reassuring in his hands.
Edward gripped it as tight as he could, both hands on the side. The board over his shoulder. His heart pounded. This was terrible. He hated it. Why did this stuff keep happening to him? It was… well, it was statistically unlikely to begin with, and honestly just irritating beyond that, but he was a survivor. Edward Nygma-survivor that’s what they’d say… probably on his epitaph. Edward shifted his grip on the cutting board and stepped out from behind the counter.
Purple leather, dark red hair, that pointed nose, oh, and that sour expression like she just sucked lemons. “Barbara!?”
The figure silhouetted by the darkness blinked twice, and with alarming speed, punched him, square in the nose.
It was dark, everything was dark. Edward was on the carpet. The dull blue light of computer electronics shone in his face, and after blinking a few times Edward realized he was laying on his stomach in his living room. He tried to sit up and smashed his head on the bottom of his desk. “Hell!” He was bleeding, there was blood on his hands, on his head, on his face. So, much fucking blood.
“You’ve killed me. Look at it, all over my shirt. This was a new vest you know.” Edward said to the dark, his room felt completely foreign. The screens were laying all over the ground, smashed absolutely to bits. “Really Barbara!? You’ve come here and killed me!”
A shadow unfolded itself from the wall. “I know what you’re up to.” Barbara said and it didn’t sound like Barbara, too throaty. Was she doing the Batman thing? Because the ‘oh no, big menacing voice’ only really worked when you didn’t know who it was.
“Yes, I’d love to be told exactly what it is I’m doing, you can tell me while I finish bleeding out.” He said, his fingers were covered in thick sticky red blood. He wiped his hand on his pants and tried to push his hair back. It felt like it was solid with red dried flakes like someone had dumped a container of chili flakes in his hair, almost every strand of hair was glued together and crusty with blood. The pain… well the pain was indescribable. He’d been fucking shot and it had hurt less than this. what had she done to him?
“Calm down, and stop being melodramatic, Eddie,” Barbara said, “I only broke your nose.”
Edward clutched at his nose it was definitely the source of the blood, the whole front of his face felt like it was deluging, and the moment he applied pressure he could feel the shifted cartilage and malformed shape. He had a rather big nose, and it wasn’t the first time he had broken it, but all the same, it hurt like a bitch. “Ah! Only! You only broke my nose! Well, I guess I owe you a thank-you card.” He took a deep breath and tried to ignore the blurriness edging into his vision, “I’m on parole-”
“-The sewers,” Barbara said, a sharp edge had returned to her voice “I want to know your plans, what is your endga-”
“-and you know,” Edward continued, shuffling himself around on the floor until he was sitting upright. “I have hobbies now and everything no-”
Barbara blinked and looked down at him, “-Hobbies?”
“- yes, I go swimming, but that’s not what I’m getting at. You punched me! You broke into my house, walked up behind me, and punched me! I didn’t even get a hello.”
“Yes,” Babara said, a little uneasy, “I’m sure Bruce would disapprove but-“
“-You don’t even have an identity to hide! I literally know who you are,” Edward clutched his nose which was still leaking a steady dribble of blood, albeit at a slowed pace. “Why would you punch me?”
“Look, Edward, I know what you’re up to-” Barbara answered her tone dry and to the point.
“What I’m up to? Being punched apparently!” Edward said voice going a little shrill as he tilted his head forward, “God, I had to have my nose cauterized last time, Fuck, Fuck, uh, I didn’t want to go to the hospital tonight, seriously Barbara! You could’ve called, or texted, or- Fuck look! It’s soaked right into the carpet.” Edward scuffed the puddle with his foot, and gestured to it, “I call you, literally dozens of times over three months, and you think the best decision you can make, is to break into my house, walk into my kitchen and break my nose, good grief Barbara no wonder you managed to get a job with the G-C-P-D.”
“Cut the crap Nygma the repour you’re relying on is wearing real thin. You thought I’d let you slide because you got all buddy, buddy and helped me find Bruce Wayne? I know what you’re up to and I have proof; the purchases of all that shiny new computing equipment, the lab grade level panelling you’ve been buying in bulk, and the frankly massive amounts of chemicals. Tell me what you’ve been dumping into the sewer, and I’ll promise not to knock out any teeth when I hit you again.”
Edward scoffed, it sent a shock of agonising pain through his body and shifted something in his nose, he winced. With a shaking breath he leaned his face all the way forward, to let the new gush of blood run freely onto his lap. “Well, well Barbara Gordon! I can’t say I expected this from you. My, My. Gone from good cop to not-a-cop in a little under a year, and goodness it’s turned you savage.”
“I’m warning you.”
“Warn away, I haven’t done anything,” Edward said, he gave her a little bit of a smirk with too many teeth. “I’m fully rehabilitated.” He didn’t feel rehabilitated, but he wasn’t going to tell Barbara that. Something was wrong, why was he so drowsy? There was a taste in his mouth, blood and the unmistakable taste of nausea he tried to focus his eyes on a point in the room, but everything felt as though it was moving like they were on a boat.
“Well, I’d love to believe that, but a rather substantial amount of evidence suggests that you are responsible,” Barbara answered in a tone that bordered so close on righteous that it was halfway to teaching a self-help seminar.
Well… Edward didn’t really know how to respond, he sat on his carpet dumbfounded for a moment. His head hurt, like, it hurt, hurt, his teeth hurt, and he was light-headed, and everything was heavy, too heavy and it was already late at night, and he wanted to sleep, so badly, and oh god this was what a concussion and blood loss felt like wasn’t it?
Edward nodded forward and caught himself just in time, blue lights, a computer on the ground the green carpet, everything hurt, and Barbara was there, when did she get there? He shook his head and something in his skull rattled in a way that he could only articulate as unsettling.
“I…” he started and shook his head again, pain be damned “I..I’ve been trying to build a clean room.” Edward blinked and the world felt it was moving through molasses, something was wrong this wasn’t good, he thought as he nearly nodded forward again. Everything was too bright and too dim, and his words caught in his throat, but he continued because Barbara would help, she’d help when she understood, “I’m going… rehabilitated, properly.” He took another breath and tried to recapture his train of thought which had barrelled off and left him behind, “and well, I wanted to start a business, I have the experience you know, I’ve built robots before, Bruce’s seen them. And…and I figured, a few millionths of an inch, I could build a robotic arm accurate to a few millionths of an inch…that’s all industry-standard is these days… amateurs…..” A solid stream of blood dribbled down his chin and for a moment Edward found himself surprised that he was bleeding. What had happened again? He touched his nose gingerly and winced at the pain, blinking at Barbara.
“Edward? Eddie? Are you ok?” Barbara said, her lips pursed tightly together but her forehead was creased just so under her outfit, how strange, what a weird outfit. Blood… had he been shot again?
“I…I…Barbara!? When did you get here?” Edward said and he glanced away from the lights that were too bright, too bright, and in his face, and Barbara had pulled out a flashlight and she held his jaw in one hand and he wanted so badly to look away, but she had a grip, and all of Edwards limbs felt too limp to move away.
“Your eyes aren’t dilating,” Barbara said simply, she swallowed and put a hand behind his head “I think I’m going to need to get you to a hospital… I’m sorry Eddie,”
Edward blinked again. Trying to recall things was like trying to swim through honey and Barbara Gordon had her hands behind his head and she was cradling him like a child and wasn’t this a strange position? “You punched me…”
“Yes.” Barbara said simply. She’d moved a little, and she had a hand on his nose, two fingers in each nostril and fuck that hurt, she started pushing, and something cracked, loud. The bleeding stopped, but his nose felt like it was on fire.
“Hey Barbara…” Edward said, he was still a little dazed, but events were suddenly making more sense. Home, Invader, Barbara, Punched. It all fell into order.
“Yes, Nygma.” Barbara said it was perfunctory, but a little bit of concern made its way through, oh my Mrs Gordon was worried about him, how touching.
“I get wetter the more I dry, what am I?” Edward said, as he laid back down on the ground.
Barbara looked down on him, she looked worried, that was nice… “Edward,” Barbara said, brow furrowed, there was a warning tone to her voice, but Edward was too tired to care. “The answer is a towel. Do you need a towel, Edward?”
“For the carpet, the carpet needs a towel" He sniffled, "do you know how hard it is to buy mint green carpeting?"
“Don’t worry about the carpet… Are you ok?”
“I’ll… be fine.” Edward said after a moment of thought. It felt like a lie, was he fine? Mental health issues aside, ‘fine’ felt like a distant dream, he was tired, almost always. His body ached day and night before being hit in the head, he’d been shot too many times. “What did you need?”
Barbara paused, she looked around sheepishly teeth biting at her lip. Edward just stares up at her. “People in Gotham... well people who live in the sewers have been… well, they’ve been going feral.” Barbara said, as she slumped down into Edwards computer chair. Of course she took the only chair. Rude. Well. He did have the floor.
“Huh,” Edward said, he blinked a few times, blood in his eyelashes and all that, “you’d think they’d already be feral living in the sewers. I mean, I know people are poor but rent in Gotham is the lowest in the country. The only fucking reason why anyone lives here. If they are going to live in the sewer, they may as well get a bus ticket and live in a nicer safer sewer.”
Barbara blinked at that and opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I…I never took you as someone who would have an issue with the homeless…”
“Oh My God, I’m just saying, Barbara! That there is a crocodile man! In the sewers! Who eats people! Only a fucking crazy person is going to wade around in the sewers with the cannibalistic crocodile man, and as a formerly crazy person, I can’t see why you would be concerned with the people living down there…” Edward blinked “How did I get in this room, I was in the kitchen.” Edward forced himself back up even though the ground was comfortable and warm, this was a conversation that required eye contact and vigorous gesturing.
“I dragged you onto the carpet, I thought it would be more comfortable,” Barbara said as though it was completely irrelevant to the task at hand, which admittedly it was. “anyway, people have died, and others are probably going to die as well-“
“-If you don’t track down the culprit and beat them into next Tuesday, I get that bit, I’m just seriously asking, are you picking up all the cases Batman can’t be bothered with? Because that’s low.”
“- I…I do what I want, and anyway, Bruce is busy, Firefly and Mr Freeze have been trying to steal each other’s technology and they’ve been creating fire tornad-“
“So, that’s a yes, right. Brucies off sorting out the fire tornadoes” Edward scoffed, “and you, Mrs Barbara Gordon are out here beating on poor innocent ex-criminals trying to figure out who poisoned the idiots who live in the murder drains.”
Barbara's face flushed a little, but she was smiling and relaxed, “Someone has to look out for the little people Eddie,"
“Oh and it just has to be you.” Edward said, gesturing at her with a wave, “Stuck chasing after idiots in the sewers while everyone else gets to deal with real cases. Does it irk you? Does it hurt?" he grinned at her infuriated expression.
“Edward!” Barbara yelled at him “This might come as news to you, but some people do things for moral reasons.”
Edward rolled his eyes, “And what? You drive out here, hit me in the face, and what? No riddles, none of my modes of operation. Why did you think I did this? I rather think you only came by because you wanted to see me.” Edward wiggled his brows at her suggestively and Barbara rolled her eyes.
“I thought you were cured. No riddles from now on? That’s what your therapist told the police,” Barbara looked at him expectantly, an eyebrow raised, “Got something to tell me?”
“Come on, we both know I lied,” Edward said he cracked a smile. “I was depressed you know Barbara…”
“Oh I’m sure you were.” She waved a hand, “Arkham has a way of doing that to people, everyone is miserable.”
“No, I was miserable for months, because I figured it out. I knew who The Batman was… and I just kept thinking that… well, that I couldn’t beat him, how could I beat Bruce Wayne? Batman? Batman is easy, simple, but Bruce Wayne… All I could think was that I was a failure-“
“You aren’t a failure Edd-“Barbara said tone soft comforting she put a hand on his shoulder.
“-Quiet Barbara,” Edward said, giving her a look, his eyebrows knotted, “ so, I found myself thinking in Arkham, and then of course we met and I ended up in Egypt for a little bit” He gestured at the room “now I’m here, and I found myself.. raging, and it’s the only time I’ve ever solved a mystery and instead of ecstasy and joy at the solution found I could feel nothing but anger… and I was… I was a mess, and after months. Months! Of contemplation I came to a conclusion. Beating Batman is beneath me. I need to beat Bruce Wayne. I need,” Edward glanced up at Barbara, “I need to outdo him.”
Barbara frowned; eyes narrowed. Her jaw was clenched, “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know Barbara! I don’t know!” Edward slapped the carpet beside him, “I don’t know, but that’s what I need to find out, that’s the Riddle.”
“… Great” Babrara grimaced “I… I don’t know what to make of, “she gestured at Edward “this. If you haven’t done anything then I have work I need to be doing. Uh, Happy introspecting, I guess.” Barbara made a movement towards the front door.
“No, Barbara, don’t go!” Edward called to her as she strode to the front door. Thank God, she obviously hadn’t mastered the classy Batman disappearing trick yet. “Are you going to take me to the hospital!? You're supposed to keep me awake and entertain me? I have a concussion.”
“Call an ambulance Eddie,” Barbara called back as she awkwardly undid the locks on his front door and shuffled out.
“Well, Barbara, If I have a traumatic brain injury then I know who to sue don’t I? Edward shouted as Barbara slammed the frontdoor in his face.