Fandom: Batman (Arkham Knight)
Pairing: Edward Nigma x F!Original Character
Rating: +18 Explicit
Tags: Verbal violence, slight gross stuff, mention of childhood abuse
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⊠Read on AO3
While Edwardâs paranoia and obsession consume his sleepless nights, he does everything he can to ignore the decay, ignore whatâs left of his humanity.
Meanwhile, he digs deeper into his new hireâs life. But tension festers, mistakes are made, and her incompetence forces him to reconsider everything.
The computer screen casts a cold glow over Edwardâs face, sharpening his focused expression. His eyes, tense and rimmed with exhaustion, study the myriad of folders and windows on display meticulously. One hand absentmindedly massages his chin while the other navigates through photo galleries, bank statements, address logs, harvesting passwords and locations.
Her name is Amelia. Former Gotham University student. Degree in art history. Currently residing on December Avenue; not bad, not great. One cat, recently deceased. A mother, living on Greywoods Street. Five thousand photos, not one worth keeping. Five lovers, none memorable. Three regular contacts; two local, one abroad. And a nearly empty bank account.
Edward leans back in his chair, and exhales deeply. She is perfectly ordinary, unremarkable in every way that counts. Sheâs not even a suitable profile for an assistant, really. Despite her petty burglary attempt, and her basic knowledge of tools and problem-solving, nothing in her past or present suggests any real engineering skills, or any meaningful ties to the criminal underworld.
A doubt creeps in; he doesnât believe sheâs competent, not really. Or familiar enough with crime. Burglary, it seems, was a necessity, not a vocation, judging by the state of her laughable finances. Her bank account is nearly drained, and reminders of overdue payments are stacked in her inbox.
Perhaps solving the Puzzle Room was a fluke. Luck.
Then, he sees a blank icon, hidden into a folder labeled âUtilitariesâ. Itâs disguised as a calendar app, something innocent and innocuous. Clever. With a tap, he opens it, the screen immediately shifting to black. White text flickers like a bad omen, blinking into the void. A hidden browser. Encrypted and private, a network buried deeply beneath the surface of the web,a portal to her alternate life.
Edward smirks.
âOh, little mouse,â he whispers, delighted. âYour secret world, hidden neatly in your pocket, not even encrypted properly. How adorable.â
The browser opens to an interface he recognizes, a notorious, repulsive website. An illegal marketplace buried so deep in the web it pulses like a rotting corpse. Weapons, narcotics, counterfeit documents. Technology, components, circuitry torn from labs and God knows where else. But also far worse. Putrid tokens harvested from cadavers. Organ listings written in coded euphemisms. Snuff, torture, gore videos that claim to be fake, but arenât.
Edward rarely lingers in this particular Hell, but he knows the place all too well, having found his stolen parts and circuitry here before. Though, he never thought to look for her.
Perhaps he should have.
He studies the account linked to her alias, an active seller profile. Thereâs a series of sold-out listings. Electronic lockboxes, thermal sensors, motion detectors. He recognizes most of the items. Some are his, others are not; the compact incendiary bomb that reeks of Garfield Lynns, a cryogenic tube probably stolen from one of Friesâ ruined labs, and even a glowing vial, Jervis Tetchâs signature hallucinogen, if his memory serves.
The corner of his mouth twitches in amusement, laced with intrigue. And possibly a faint whisper of something worse. He may have underestimated her.
One final listing, not yet active, freezes his blood.Â
Coming soon: Riddler Trophy, authentic.
His smile falters, dissolving into something frigid and corrosive. His hand twitches over his desk, his jaw clenches, and his mood sours nearly instantly. So arrogant, this little mouse. He closes the tab with a sharp, final click. He has seen enough.
Edward walks through the rotting halls of the orphanage, shaking his head as if to dispel the lingering, unnecessary thoughts. Already, his glasses come off, his protective goggles sitting on his forehead in their place. Then, he slips the stained, worn gloves over his hands with the practiced motion that borders on ritualistic. Each movement is precise, known by heart. Heâs done this a thousand times before, and will do it a thousand times more.
With an encrypted key, he unlocks a hidden door, more occulted than the others, more precious as well. It opens to a narrow staircase sinking in the depths of the orphanage, a place buried and forgotten years ago. Dim lightbulbs buzz overhead like dying stars, casting weak, sickly glows against the decaying walls. Each step echoes like whispers in the dark, until he reaches a steel, stained door.
It reveals a massive hangar that is part laboratory, part garage, part nightmare. Everywhere are workbenches cluttered with tools and torn components waiting to be fixed and completed. Thick electric cables lay inert on the ground like ill snakes, giant blueprints are pinned on tall boards, painted over, commented with obsessive precision. The air tastes like oil, metal dust, and neurosis.
And, in the center of the iron clad arena, waits a mechanical titan.
A Golgoth of iron, held in place with strong cables and scaffolding, inert like a dormant beast. It has two piston-powered legs thick like metal pipes, and two arms taller than his entire body, threatening like two wrecking cranes. The hands are more like claws, built with the sole purpose of destruction.
The entire frame adorns the Riddlerâs brand in toxic green painted streaks and engraved question marks, with thick cables slithering underneath the metal like monstrous veins, glowing emerald under the ceiling lights.
And in its heart, embedded in the armored chest, is a fortified place protected by a translucent green dome, the pilot seat. From here, Edward will control it, speak through it. Conquer with it.
This is not simply a machine. This is the answer to what has been haunting him since Arkham City. His final exam, built from rage, brilliance, and obsession. His masterpiece.
His eyes grow wide, pupils blown with anticipation, his heartbeat drumming in his chest. This is where it will all end, he thinks to himself. This is where he will defeat the Bat, crush him into nothingness. In his head, he already pictures his victory. Something grand and glorious, just like everything he does.
For hours, Edward works in isolation, buried in the hangarâs stale air, underneath layers of grime and dust. Hunger fades, thirst is a distant memory, and exhaustion sinks its sharp teeth into his mind, but he shrugs it off, ignoring its whispers. He traces new lines over geometrical blueprints, welds complex circuitry into the machineâs armored spine, reconfigures the control boardâs calibration with neurotic precision.
His throat is parched, bone-dry. Raw. His breath rasps slightly, his eyes are rimmed with sleepless tension. Thereâs a tremor in his fingers now, faint but persistent, as if his nerves were trying to bargain with him. Even his pulse beats unevenly in his chest, a wordless plea from his heart to please slow down. But he does not. Will not. He ignores the signs, his biological needs, ignores what makes him human.
With stiff, trembling fingers, he opens his shirt, sweat pooling in the hollow of his back. A weak grunt, then he swipes his forehead with his torn, filthy tank top, caked in oil and grime, spreading more dark streaks over his fatigued skin. His whole body feels heavy, feels wrong. As if his work was devouring him slowly.
His breathing is labored, not just from exhaustion, but from the deep, heavy pressure in his chest. Not quite panic, of course not, but something quieter, slower. Something creeping, gnawing at his spine, crawling in his heart.
Excitement, he tells himself. Anticipation, perhaps. Or stage fright, something like that. But he knows better. Deep down, where even he wonât look, there is a feeling he wonât name out loud, wonât identify.
There is a cruel truth buried deeply behind his design. He is not young anymore. Heâs closer to fifty than forty, now, with a nervous system eroded by decades of stress, obsession, and self-medication. His body is slowly breaking, his mind gradually collapsing, and even his brilliant intellect cannot outsmart decay.
Of course, he would never admit it. So he ignores the pain. Ignores the palpitations. Ignores the biological clock ticking inexorably in his bones, like a countdown to his own doom.
But sometimes, when the anxiety grows too big, when the tremors turn to shivers, and the world tilts just a little bit too much, he hears the small voice whispering to him. This might be your last chance.
And that thought, final, absolute, like the blade of a guillotine, hits him with catastrophic intensity, steals the breath from his lungs, dims the light in his mind. He knows it. Failure, this time, is not an option. Not now, and not ever again.
Hours have passed, or perhaps days. Time has dissolved into a thick blur.Â
His limbs tremble too violently to go on, every muscle burning with a stubborn ache. Frustration boils low in his gut, hot and sour, as he stares at his shaking hands as if they betrayed him. When did he become so weak? He refuses to answer. Doesnât want to know.
The gloves come off, almost painfully so. His fingers are blackened with soot, his knuckles are split, nails cracked and purpled with bruising. A smear of dried blood marks where a hammer hit a knuckles. Sloppy work. He didnât even notice it, didnât even register the pain. He runs a hand through his greasy, disheveled hair, and exhales a long, broken breath.
Then, slowly, he lifts his eyes to his Titan. It towers quietly, still unfinished but already magnificent. It reminds him of a monument, perhaps to his genius. His brow furrows, his eyes beam with fragile emotions; weariness, pride, and even fear.
He stares a moment longer, then turns off the lights, sinking the hangar into a pit of darkness as he leaves.
Edward yawns, the weight of exhaustion finally pressing heavily against his chest, each step dragging through the orphanage's dim corridors. The walls throb slightly around him, or perhaps itâs just him.
In the distance, a sound breaks the stillness of the place. Booted feet pounding fast, erratic and urgent, someone running toward him. His name echoes in the walls of the main entrance, barked in a loud, smokey voice.
He exhales through his nose, already annoyed, already fatigued. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, before turning his gaze to the monstrous silhouette of Adrian, one of his henchmen, waving frantically in the distance.
The man slows his cadence as he approaches, stopping in front of Edward, only leaving a polite distance. The kind of distance one keeps from a wild animal, unpredictable and rabid.
Heâs larger than Edward by a wide margin. All meat and steel, his shoulders broad like a bull, thick muscles rolling beneath the taut fabric of a black sweater. His face is tattooed; a thorned rose snaking up from his temple, curling around his brow. His heavy, angular traits are enhanced by his perfectly shaved head and square jaw. Heâs a Golgoth, made of muscle and leather.
And yet, in his dark, sunken eyes, fear and apprehension beam faintly, though, not faintly enough that Edward doesnât catch it.
Edward cocks a brow, unimpressed, the faint throb of a headache already flaring in his skull.
âWell?â he asks, voice dry.
âBoss, itâsâ The Puzzle Room, the one near the docks, itâs beenââ
âBroken into? Yes, Adrian. Iâve known for days. But I do admire your efficiency.â Edwardâs tone is pure venom and sarcasm, like poisonous silk.
Adrianâs jaw clenches, tendons bulging in his throat. He says nothing, but Edward sees the light in his eyes turning into something dull and colder. Angrier. A restrained rage brushes his features like a menacing shadow. But it doesnât phase Edward.
âIt shouldnât have happened. And it makes me question, not for the first time I fear, why I bother surrounding myself with you all,â Edward continues, standing still in front of him. His voice is surgical, dripping with bitter disdain.
Still, Adrian doesnât reply. Simply stands there, teeth clenched, muscles pulled taut, fury barely restrained. He knows better than to talk back, knows that punishment doesnât always come immediately. And Edward sees in his eyes the wrath, the desire to hurt him.Â
But knows he wonât.
With a dismissive flick of his wrist, Edward turns his back.
âGo, now. Stop wasting my time. I have this under control. And do try not to disappoint me again. Iâm running low on patience, and I do not have time for your incompetence.â
He walks away, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the corridor. Right now, all he really wants is ten minutes of silence and a warm meal. But just before he reaches the next hallway, he hears a scoff. Then something petty muttered under breath. Something low, filthy and undignifying.
Edward stops, stone still. His eyes twitch. His blood boils. His lips tighten, the muscle in his jaw tensing with rage. He works his tongue inside his mouth, slowly, like testing the edge of a blade.
Then, he turns. Walks back to Adrian. Closes the distance with slow, precise steps, until heâs standing directly in front of him, squaring his shoulders. Edwardâs emerald eyes drill into the manâs face as if dissecting him.
In his mind, he remembers everything. Where Adrian lives. The name of his pregnant girlfriend. His exact nightly schedule. Thinks of all the ways he could make him suffer a slow, painful torture. Tearing him apart, piece by trembling piece.
At first, Adrian meets his stare with a look of pure rage. His chest rises with something feral, fists clenched at his sides, his body language a perfect threat. But then, something shifts in him, as if he could read Edwardâs mind. As if, suddenly, he remembered who he is exactly. What heâs capable of. What heâs already done.
A veil of fear brushes over his features like a shadow, the colors drain from his face. Then, his jaw loosens, the fire in his eyes dims.
Edward gives a single, sharp nod.
âI think you should go now, Adrian. Before I regret my misericordia.â Edward whispers in a low, surgical voice. The words are fragile, unstable. Like the blade of a guillotine, barely hanging in the air.
Adrian nods, backs away, mumbling a hollow apology. Then, he vanishes through the entrance without glancing back. Edward stares at him, daggers in his eyes.
Disrespectful. All of them.
With a final huff, Edward makes his way to the orphanageâs cramped kitchen. Once, this place was perhaps reserved for the caregivers. A private space, calm and quiet. But now, itâs just another distant memory, a forgotten vestige of the rotting building.
The tiles are caked in layers of grease and dust, the grout stained in a brown film. The badly ventilated air is thick with the scent of cooked meat and organic waste, the kind of smell that clings to the room, never truly leaving. The decrepit stovetop has one burner permanently broken. The countertop is dented, the wood split and swollen from the humidity. The dying fridge hums ominously, the door yellowed and stained with unidentified spills. The sink is rusty, streaked with various deposits.
Itâs grotesque, but it works.
Once, a lifetime ago, Edward used to enjoy cooking. He remembers the quiet nights in his old apartment, back when he still worked at the Gotham City Police Department. When he was still somewhat part of the world. He used to make elaborate dinners, experimenting with herbs, spices, plating techniques. He enjoyed being creative, this comforting pause in his erratic days. It all felt human.
Now, cooking is purely methodical. Functional. It answers to one purpose only; to keep his body alive, to fulfil his biological needs. He aims for efficiency. Everything is simple, assembled easily and without any curiosity. There is barely any variety or novelty, it is simply sustenance. And thatâs enough.
But sometimes, when exhaustion tugs at his nerves and his mind wanders, he remembers that one particular Italian restaurant on 5th Avenue. He thinks of their melanzane alla parmigiana, baked perfectly with its golden crust. Their cacio e pepe, creamy and flavorful. He could almost taste it on his tongue, the memory still strong and vivid.
One of these days, he tells himself, he will go back, under a false name, dressed in civilian clothes. Once he will make enough progress in his work, of course. Then, maybe heâll sit by the window, and order wine. But not today.
In the dying fridge, he retrieves ingredients like he picks components for his machines; even they serve a purpose, not picked for their taste, but for their properties. Fats, proteins, made to last him, give him the energy he needs, because if the body fails, then the mind will collapse. And this would be unacceptable.Â
Four eggs, potatoes, half a sausage. In an oily cast-iron pan, his meal bubbles and crackles, singing in tune with a buzzing lightbulb. He leans against the counter, staring at the wall as it cooks slowly, gathering the remnants of his scattered thoughts.
In one fluid motion, he retrieves his phone from his pocket. His stained gloves and protective goggles lie discarded on the small kitchen table, replaced now by his round, slightly askew glasses. The screen blinks with a blinding light. Thursday, 9:36 PM. He has been working for over two and a half days without interruption.
Edward exhales, a slow and weary thing. Perhaps itâs time to call it a night. But first, thereâs one last thing he needs to do.
His fingers tap the string of coordinates of the hidden underground entrance of the orphanage, followed by a time, 11:00 PM sharp. No further message or explanation, but instead the singular letter E for a signature.
Finally, he presses send, the command clear and unambiguous. The mouse has been summoned.
Placing the phone down on the table, Edward picks up his fork, and sinks it into a golden slice of potato, still hot in his mouth. He hums, satisfied.
âŠ
Edward puts the cracked plate in the sink after giving it a quick rinse, then dries the old cutlery with a stained towel. Only the soft purring of the dying fridge breaks the quiet of the room. For a fleeting moment, the cold silence feels like a truce. A short-lived one, however.
His phone chimes. A single, blinking notification glows green on his screen. One of his men is requesting access to the encrypted communication channel.
With a swipe on the screen, he authorizes the connection. Then, a hiss of static crackles through the air before he hears the low and rough voice of Adrian.
âBoss, Iâm at the underground entrance. Got an intruder here. Says youâre expecting her?â
Edward smirks. He glances at the time; 11:13 PM. Sheâs late. How impolite.
Each step brings Edward closer to his destination. In the distance, he hears faint grunts, breathless protests, and the sharp yelping of a cornered animal. The sounds curl his mouth into a satisfied smile.
Down the stairwell, sprawled in the center of the main hallway, the little mouse is pinned to the hard, cold concrete. Face down, body twisted, she flails her limbs as violently as she can, while Adrian straddles her thighs. One massive hand presses against the back of her neck, pushing her face into the dusty floor. She thrashes underneath him, snarling, cursing, her body contorting against his weight. Exquisite.
She doesnât hear Edward approach, not with all the noise she makes. Not until Adrian lifts his gaze.
âFeisty one, this one. Been fighting like a wild cat since I caught her. Want me to put her down?â Adrian grunts, his hand now fisting her hair viciously, dragging a harsh hiss through her clenched teeth.
Her head snaps toward Edward, her face flushed with effort and streaked with dust, rage burning in her eyes like two sharp daggers.
âTell your fucking dog to get off me!â she spits, voice breaking.Â
Her lip is split, probably from the impact, and blood trickles down her chin in a thin, dark smear. Her bag lies discarded a few meters away, its content almost entirely scattered from the fall. Her hair is wild and disheveled, her breathing ragged. And still, she fights with her eyes, a fire that does not die.
Edward grins, cruel and burning with delight. He doesnât crouch, merely tilts his head, a vicious light in his eyes that only aggravates her.
âAh, there she isâ my remarkably incompetent new hire,â he states flatly with a cold smile. He then glances at Adrian.
âThis is the one you failed to catch near the docks. But weâll pretend that didnât happen. Off of her, if you please, I have plans for that one. Now go.â His tone is frigid, surgical. He catches the corner of Adrianâs mouth twitch in contempt, his grip tightening over her neck, eliciting a weak yelp from her mouth.Â
Then, he releases her. Without a word, he rises, statuesque and massive, like an old tree, and walks past Edward, disappearing down the corridor. As soon as his footsteps fade, Edwardâs smile falters.
Amelia sits up, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand, the other swiping the blood on her lip. Her breathing is uneven, laced with rage and humiliation. There are unshed tears glistening in her eyes, and when she looks up at him, her gaze is dark, furious.
âYouâre late,â Edward says, jaw tight, voice cold.
She lets out a shaky breath, slowly pushing herself to her feet, brushing the dust from her pants.
âYou canât just message me out of nowhere and expect me to drop everything and come running,â she snaps. âI was on the other side of the city. Youâre lucky I showed up at allâŠâ
âLucky?â Edward roars, so violently the word echoes like thunder in the room. She flinches, takes a step back, choking on a gasp.
He walks forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat. He stops just short of her, so close her body heat brushes his skin. His eyes are wild, unblinking. His smile is entirely gone, replaced by a raw and burning snarl.
âNo,â he spits. âNo, no, no, my dear. You are lucky I didnât pulverize your pitiful existence the moment you trespassed my domain. Lucky I didnât paint the walls of the room with your atrophied, ridiculous brain.â
His voice breaks, more beast than human, feral and spiralling.
âYouâre lucky I even entertained the thought of letting you fix the situation. But make no mistake, you are not irreplaceable. You're just whatâs available.â
The words pour out of him like an acid torrent of hatred, uninterrupted and cataclysmic. She says nothing, doesnât dare to.
âIâve seen your little black market profile,â he growls, voice dropping to a dangerous hush. âFilth. Thatâs what you sell. Filth and obscenity. You were selling my trophy, my design, my precious work like it was a vulgar accessory. How dare you?â
His eyes lock onto hers, drilling in, his gaze hateful and devastating in its intensity.
âSo let me make this crystal clear, little mouse with your little brain: when I say come, you come. When I say crawl, you crawl. And if I say begâŠâ
He leans in. His voice drops to a whisper burning with poison.
âYou beg. Like your miserable life depends on it.â
Silence hangs in the air, thick and heavy. His breath is hot against her face, huffing like an enraged bull. But she doesnât speak, doesnât even move. Her eyes shimmer, glassy and wide. Her body is frozen in place, not daring to move a single muscle.
Her gaze drops to her feet, shrinking on herself, nodding sheepishly. Her voice is a weak little thing, barely above a whisper.
âI⊠Iâm sorry, Mr. Nigma. Living in Gotham⊠itâs rough. Iâm just trying to survive.â
Edward scoffs, unmoved and dismissive. But the fire behind his eyes dims, his breath calming down. A dull headache begins to throb at the base of his skull, exhaustion gnawing at his bones.
âYouâll go back to the docks and clean up your⊠mess,â he says flatly. âThen, youâll repair the keypad you burnt. It should be simple enough, even for you. Iâve seen the components youâve dismantled and sold.â
He gestures vaguely toward the far end of the room.
âGather what you need from the workbench. And when itâs done, report to me immediately.â
His tone is composed, but final, not leaving any room for discussion or protest. She nods quietly, turning away.
From the corner of his eye, he watches her rummage through the tools, cautiously and focused. Her hands hover over the options, hesitating, adjusting her choice. Sheâs already thinking of what she will be doing next, picturing the steps in her head. Sheâs slow, though. Hesitant. Sheâll have to learn. And quickly.
After long minutes, she closes her bag and glances back at Edward. He cocks a brow, tilting his head ever so slightly, like a man giving a dog permission to leave. She presses her mouth into a thin line, mutters something low. A faint âIâll be on my way,â he thinks. He isnât sure. All his brain registers is the lingering pulse of his anger, still simmering, still pressing tight in his chest.
A moment later, he hears the motorcycle engine rumbling in the distance, probably hers. Only when the room falls into silence again does he finally move, his body suddenly heavy with the weight of sleeplessness.
As he walks through the hallway, his bare hand grazes the ancient abandoned walls, fingertips dragging through a fine layer of dust. Beneath the grime are faded lines, remnants of childrenâs drawings. Ghosts made of crayons and dulled with time. Stick figures, sceneries, and perhaps even a house, here in the corner. Cheerful scribbles of lives long gone from this place. Edward yawns slowly, loudly, exhaustion seeping in his bones like rot.
He passes in front of one of the old dormitories. It was once lined with bunk beds, but is now transformed into another workspace. The walls are eroded, the smell of mildew gnaws at the edges of the doorframe.
A few skeletal iron frames remain, consumed by rust. Torn sheets pool inert over eviscerated mattresses. There is even a broken nightstand, lying on its side, one drawer missing, the other still open. Itâs filled with what mightâve been paper dolls, or candy wrappers. Edward stares silently.
He tries, just for a moment, to picture the place as it once was. Children crying from nightmares, and whispering under the covers. Coughing into pillows, or lining up in the common room for grey, tasteless meals.Â
He imagines all of it, but feels nothing. Neither discomfort, nor guilt; neither sadness, nor grief. Simply emptiness, a hollowness so complete it seems abnormal.
For half a second, he wonders why nothing comes to him, why his heart, or his mind, is incapable of conjuring any emotion. Why the memory of childhood, even borrowed, feels like watching dust floating in the air.
And then, he thinks of one particular little boy.
Sitting on the edge of a narrow bed, back straight, hands on his knees. Silent, like he promised his mother he would be. His limbs are covered in bruises. Fresh blooms of deep red and violet, and older ones fading to sickly shades of green and yellow. A constellation of pain and neglect, spread over pale skin.
He doesnât look at them, doesnât cry. He just waits for the noise to stop. From the next room, he hears the shouting voice, soaked in alcohol and rage, of a man tearing through the drywall. A womanâs voice, pleading and frightened, barely audible in contrast.
The screams fade, collapsing into a fog of nothingness, his motherâs voice dissolving before it becomes a clear memory. Only the boy remains, still and listening.
The thought lingers, but Edward chooses not to follow it. He lets it slip, lets it rot, like some bruised, shameful fruit left to spoil in a decaying garden that he refuses to harvest.Â
Only the ghost of broken emotions remains, pale and frigid, lodged in the back of his mind like something sour, something that shouldnât exist. Emotions he doesnât know what to do with.
The child isnât here. The dormitory around him is dead quiet. So are his thoughts.
A faint orb of pale light punctures through the night, casting a frigid glow on the dormitory floor. Edward turns his head to the dusty window, covered in spiderwebs so thick they resemble torn gauze, shrouding the frame like old bandages.
He steps closer, his chest tightening when he sees the shape looming over Gotham like a bad omen. A blurry bat, projected high above the skyline, like a symbol of wrath and misery, a threat and a promise all at once, glowing in the clouds like a disease.Â
His jaw tenses, his eyes twitch with fury and disgust. The taste of bile rises in his throat, bitter and metallic. He glares at it, the shape dripping in the sky like a plague.
His fist clenches at his sides, his breath shortens. Memories flood his mind with vicious cruelty, sensations coming to him with the taste of vengeance. The phantom pain of a knee driven into his spine, the whisper of the sharp concrete against his ribs, the never forgotten pressure of leather fingers closing around his throat.Â
The dark cowl, the iron fists, the shame, the humiliation; he remembers it all, it never leaves his brain, like a cancer spreading, metastasing.
He slowly backs away, until the signal disappears behind the fogged glass. His legs feel unsteady, his fingers tremble despite himself. He leans against a rusted workbench and falls heavily on an old chair, one hand pressed against his sternum, searching, steadying, reassuring.
Just breathe.
His phone chimes.Â
Edward doesnât look up at the screen at first. Instead, he exhales a long, weary sigh. When will it end? The incessant demands, the constant interruptions? When can he finally, just once, rest?
His throat constricts, frustration claws at his chest viciously, throbbing behind his eyes like a migraine.
Another chime follows. Then, another, each one shriller than the last, bursting like screaming bubbles. By the fifth alert, something in him snaps. The tiredness instantly evaporates, triggering a cold spike of disbelief. His brow furrows as he angrily snatches the phone from his pocket.
His eyes turn wide and owlish, a constellation of red notifications blinking on the screen. The broken alarm system is going erratic, the keypad encryption was crudely bypassed, triggering the electric tiles trap⊠of the Puzzle Room 12R, near the docks.
Of course, the docks. A sound tears from his ragged throat, half a scream, half a snarl. He curses something vile, something nasty. Incompetent, braindead, filthy rat.
The phone trembles in his vicious grip, his pulse growing frantic, his mind already racing with practical thoughts. He thinks of the layout of the room, the voltage losing its calibration, how close it is getting to setting itself on fire. He canât afford this, not right now.
Immediately, Edward begins typing a string of commands into his phone as he storms down the corridor, boots thudding against the floor. A burst of static fills in the room as he opens a communication line to the Puzzle Roomâs speaker system.
âWhat have you done?!â he roars, his voice trembling with rage.
âI'mâ I don't know! I justâ I opened the main panel to fix the burnt keys, but I mustâve touched a live wire, or connected the wrong terminals, orââ
Her voice is shaking with panic, the broken alarm shrieking in the background.
Edward snarls loudly and runs faster, nearly slipping on the final turn before descending the stairwell. He slams a magnetic key against the door of a secured operating room.Â
Inside, the space is small; one computer on a cluttered desk, and a chair he doesnât even bother using, already typing furious lines of code in the console system.
âYou insufferable, fumbling creature!â he snaps into the phone. âDo you have any idea what youâre doing? You could have burnt the entire place down!â
Behind the screen, he reroutes the power, kills the current and silences the alarm. Then, he launches a diagnostic sweep of the entire room system. Information scrolls down the screen in a cascade of flickering green code; motion sensors, temperature indicators, voltage amounts, but thankfully no critical damage. It should be an easy fix for him.
Edward exhales sharply through his nose, a hiss more than a breath. His temples throb, his hands still shaking with adrenaline. A new notification flickers across the screen, the keypad terminal is finally connected and operational. Seconds later, a voice crackles through the phone, far too pleased with itself.
âI did it! I fixed the keypad!âÂ
He closes his eyes, rolling them so hard into the back of his skull it feels like they might stick there permanently.
âAh! Bravo!â, he barks, voice dripping with sarcasm. âCongratulations on completing one singular, elementary task, and in the process, corrupting the alarm system, triggering the death trap, and very nearly reducing my Puzzle Room to a pile of ashes! Truly, truly, you did a remarkable job!â
He slams a hand down on the desk, the metal frame clanging beneath his fist.
A heavy silence hangs between them. Edward sits hunched in the chair, his forehead pressed into his palm, his breath sharp and labored.Â
âIâm sorry, Mr. NigmaâŠâ
Her apology, weak, useless and miserable, ignites something feral in him. The urge to scream burns like poison in his throat. He wants to throw, destroy something, preferably her bones, wants to shatter the screen, break her skull open and paint the room with her incompetence.
Heâs furious, no, enraged. But more than that, heâs tired. Properly, utterly exhausted.
He massages his temples, drawing slow, tight circles against the burning skin. Hiring her was a complete mistake. Sheâs careless, clumsy and dangerous, and thereâs no point in keeping her. She should be replaced, perhaps tonight. PerhapsâŠ
A chime. In the Puzzle Room, the lights activate, but it isnât the main pattern, not the usual alert. He narrows his eyes, types a quick command and opens a feed. The camera blinks.
There, he sees the little mouse, curled on the floor with her knees pressed to her chest, her face twisted in quiet anguish. But Edward barely registers her, doesnât care for her. What does catch his eye is the light.
Soft green pulses through the room in a symmetrical, geometric pattern, elegant even. The light cascades in a delicate gradient across the walls and the floor, carving shadows over the cages, bathing the room in a low, reverent glow. It moves, as if the room was breathing, like a silent worship.
His eyes narrow.
âYou changed the lights. Why?â His voice is calm, collected, but curious. She hesitates for a second.
âI thought⊠it would elevate the room. Sublime your work. I wanted to⊠fix my mistake.â
Edward cocks a brow. A slow warmth blooms in his chest, with a swelling pride he doesnât bother to suppress or restrain.
Yes. Yes, his work deserves it. And the accents, he notices now, are careful, tasteful and measured. She understood the logic of the room, the geometry of the architecture. She respected its shape, its meaning. Respected him.
He leans back in the chair, chin lifted.
âCome back tomorrow. Same time,â he says at last. His voice returns to that flat, dismissive tone, but the venom is drained. âIâm not done with you. And try not to destroy anything on your way out.â
Then, he cuts the line. But the camera stays turned on.
He watches her rise slowly, dust herself off, gather her things. But, right before she leaves, she pauses. Looks at the keypad, tilts her head. Then wipes a faint smudge from its surface with her sleeve.
He squints, the corner of his mouth twitching, then leans back deeper into the chair.
The Puzzle Room, now intact, glows on the monitor. The new lights bask the floor in a gentle hue, throwing soft shadows over steel and glass like a caress, like something sacred. His work is framed in an emerald veil, like candles in a cathedral.
I was rereading some of your works and its just a dumb little thing I noticed. But I love how when you write a story about Arkham Edward and hes got to interact with Two face. I love those 2 and it brings me joy, even if all they do is antagonize one another
Thank you very much!! This means a lot to me :)
You will be delighted to know that they will interact again in my story Breaking the Code :â)
(Between you and me, I have a soft spot for the Twiddler pairing, and might be writing a special Arkham Twiddler in the futureâŠ)
Fandom: Batman (Arkham Knight)
Pairing: Edward Nigma x F!Original Character
Rating: +18 Explicit
Tags: Verbal violence, slight gross stuff
⊠All Chapters
⊠Read on AO3
A thief, a little mouse, breaks into one of Edward's Puzzle Rooms.
Beneath the outrage and wounded pride, a misplaced curiosity burgeons.
And maybe, just maybe, an opportunity.
Edward seethes.
His jaw is clenched so tightly his molars grind against each other, nearly to the point of dust. Tendons bulge underneath taut skin, his eyes twitching with barely contained fury.Â
Parked in a shadowed alley, he glares at the alert on his screen, as if sheer hatred might burn a hole through the glass.
Someone broke into the Puzzle Room 12R, the one near the docks. An intruder. Undesired. Unwelcome. A rat that, somehow, found a way to bypass his airtight security. Solved the encrypted code, picked the reinforced lock. How very dare they.
Although incomplete and unpolished, this room is still part of his sanctuary. Each and every one of his rooms, every chamber, hidden panel, circuit and trophy belong to him. They are all an extension of him. His mind. His will. His design. They are not meant for lesser minds, and certainly not for the uninvited ones.
With a sharp huff, Edward unclasps his seatbelt and leans down, retrieving a sleek laptop from under the seat. He props it on his lap, fingers already dancing over the keys, like a musician having perfected his piece. Lines of green code shimmer and blink to life on the black screen, the faint glow reflecting in his round glasses, basking his face in a toxic hue. One final keystroke, and the camera feeds flicker on.
A dozen angles appear on the screen. Cold, clinical eyes looming over the puzzle room, like the gaze of God cast upon every tile, every corridor. Because this is his cathedral. There are no blind spots, no occulted corners, no forgotten turn. He sees everything.
Edward scrolls through the feeds, his emerald eyes darting everywhere on the screen, brow furrowed in focus, hunting the rat.
And thenâ there it is.
A black silhouette. An abject shadow that shouldnât exist.Â
His blood boils. His heart kicks into a frenzied rhythm, every beat as violent as thunder in his ribs. He freezes, just for a second, as his mind seizes on the shape.
Clad in black, head hidden beneath a hooded sweater, the Rat crouches on the floor, rummaging through a backpack. Edward zooms in, observes the tools scattered across the tiles. He recognizes them easily.
Thereâs a signal jammer, likely used to disconnect the external alarm feed. Thereâs a large array of lock picks; crude, but functional, especially on the smaller locks. There's even a thermal lance pen, the kind of tool that gives Edward a very bad feeling about what sort of damage this filthy little trespasser is planning. Or worse; whatâs already been done.
He barks a curse under his breath, biting his bottom lip near the point of breaking skin, knuckles whitening where they grip the laptop.
The shadow retrieves a flashlight, then packs the tools away with practiced care; the fluid, precise movements of someone long accustomed to the task. Every motion is quick, controlled, automatic, like muscle memory.
Gloved fingers reach up, pulling back the hood. Dark hair pools like a curtain, catching briefly in the fabric.
The woman brushes it away from her face with quiet focus, then ties it back in one silent, secure motion. She lowers the thermal goggles sitting on her forehead, twin dark lenses settling over her eyes. Then she picks up her bag from the dusty floor, glancing quietly at the modestly sized puzzle room.
She moves cautiously through the unfinished installations, briefly studying their mechanisms from a safe distance. She never touches anything, only observes. Her eyes follow the wires unfolding like the veins of some dormant entity, analyse the way the pivoting joints would open, inspect the exposed circuitry sitting between iron frames. Every now and then, she sketches small gestures in the air, mentally mapping connections, piecing the different systems together.
She isnât simply looking; sheâs understanding, reading the room like itâs a book sheâs already read before. As if sheâs done this a hundred times before.
And perhaps she has. Edward knows this song and dance very well; itâs not the first time an intruder has wormed their way into one of his Puzzle Rooms to dismantle an installation, ruin a circuit, or vandalize his machines. His mechanisms, his technology, his handcrafted components are worth a small fortune on the black market, heâs well aware of that.
But what truly attracts them are his trophies. Now, those can sell for unbelievable sums, far more than anything else he creates. They are rare, branded, and personal.
And thatâs what they love, the collectors. Owning a piece of the Riddler himself.Â
Thereâs a very particular kind of vermin that thrives on this filth. The kind that hoards tokens from monsters. Memorabilia from the darkest, most festering corners of mankind. They buy murder weapons off crooked cops straight out of the evidence lockers. They scrape dried blood off padded walls, peel hair from rusted drain covers, steal teeth from Arkhamâs crematoriums.Â
Psychos and profiteers, swelling with perverse pride at the idea of claiming a piece of something rare, something vile. Something dangerous. Not because they understand it, but because it lets them flirt with the danger, the madness, the obscenity. As if touching the relic could make them feel brave. Or special. Or close to it.
Hell, Edwardâs seen it before, back in Arkham. Sweaty orderlies, fumbling to collect the locks of his hair after he trimmed it in the communal showers. Trembling doctors sliding vials of his blood into coat pockets instead of dropping them into the medical tray.
Heâs pretty sure some inmates sold their own DNA as well. Hair, spit, blood, all with the help of corrupted guards. Some of the so-called Monster Brides, those deranged women who write love letters in lipstick and send obscene photographs in cheap lingerie, even bought it.
Not the hair, not the spit. But the kind of sample you could freeze. Implant. Carry. As if birthing a criminalâs spawn might make them feel closer, or make them queens of some imagined, wretched bloodline.
Whenever he thinks about it, Edward shivers.
And they call him insane, when heâs fairly certain there are at least a dozen of Cobblepot and Zsasz spawns running around Gotham.
Edward wrinkles his nose, nausea churning low in his gut. He swallows thickly, silently vowing never to return to that wretched place. Never to be treated that way ever again.
Itâs as if this little rat has torn open an old wound.
Intrusions had grown rare these past few months. Edward has tightened his security system, creating more elaborate defense protocols to punish and repel the unwanted pest that dared to get too close to what belongs to him.
And yet, somehow, she still managed to enter the place.Â
Edward watches the screen with murderous intent, eyes tracking her as she moves through the room like itâs her personal place, hers to violate as she pleases. He huffs, like an enraged bull, fists clenched, already considering whether to lock the room manually or drive to the docks and eviscerate her himself.
Now that would be a most pleasant conclusion to his most disastrous night.
The main puzzle draws her attention. At the back of the decrepit warehouse, three large cells stand; just wide enough to stand in, not quite enough to lie down. Worse than a prison cell. Each cell is wired into a central system, cables snaking from their bases to a control panel embedded in the wall.
On the floor, a luminous green platform adorned with a carved question mark pulses gently, like the heart of the cold, inhuman room. Above, on the ceiling, thick iron bars, built in a geometrical pattern; they look ominous and grime, as though carrying a bad omen on their own. The architecture itself is bone-chilling, frigid and calculated. Into the roof are small, rectangular vents. She doesnât need to get closer to know that something will drop, or happen, if the puzzle is failed. These cells are meant to punish someone, possibly fatally.
She circles the three cells, eyes scanning the perimeter until they land on the control panel fixed on the decrepit wall. She examines the installation with quiet focus. Her fingertips graze the switches, testing their resistance, without pressing. Not yet. Her finger follows a painted mark, tracing the neon green line until it drips on the stained, cracked concrete floor.
Then she crouches. Her hand ghosts over the engraved riddle, murmuring the words aloud, slowly, carefully, as if testing them, weighing their meaning in her mouth. For a moment, she doesnât look like a thief; she looks absorbed.
Edward sits back in his seat, uncomfortable and curious. This shouldnât be happening; he should be locking the room, snarling threats and mockery through the speakers, like an enraged God surveying his iron-clad Eden.Â
Instead, he tilts his head, one hand massaging his sore, throbbing temple, and simply watches, his brow furrowed, lips pressed into a thin line.
She crawls toward the first cell, scanning the bars, the floor, the surrounding wall. Until she spots an equation, scribbled just behind the cell, partially hidden by the outer wall.
From her angle, only half of the numbers are visible. The rest disappears behind the cell, just out of sight, beyond the line of vision. A simple trap, really; something for the lazy, a test for one who can observe.
And, without hesitation, she pulls a pocket mirror from her bag, angles it past the bars, and catches the reflection. There it is; she can see the full equation, reversed in the mirror. She reads it slowly, carefully, repeating the numbers one after the other.
Edwardâs mouth twitches. She knows what sheâs doing. Sheâs not simply guessing, sheâs familiar with puzzles. Even worse, she might be familiar with his puzzles. It dawns on him with a vicious medley of horror and fury that this is not her first Puzzle Room. She knows them. Knows their logic, their rhythm, even their structure. Sheâs seen them before, one way or another, worked through them. And Edward never noticed her before.
He exhales a warm, low breath through clenched teeth, like an enraged bull. His jaw aches, shuts so tightly his molars grind against each other. His mind is a furnace, already overflowing with thoughts and wrath.
How many trophies has she already stolen? How many precious components, circuit boards, signal relays, control modules, did she tear apart from his Rooms, to sell on the black market? How many pieces of him are out there, stripped for parts, in someone elseâs filthy hands?
Another question worms its way inside his brain, insidious, corrosive and bitter. Who did she sell them to?
Heâs noticed some of his tech missing before. Of course he has; that sort of thing comes with the territory. But until now, he never really thought about it, never wondered who owned his stolen parts, what they were being used for. And now the thought makes his stomach twist.
None of the Crime Lords heâs worked with, even at armâs length, have ever mentioned his systems showing up in Gothamâs black market. Not even a whisper, a passing rumor. Did they lie? What do they know? And whatâs already out there?
Thereâs always been an unspoken rule in the Underworld; donât mess with someone elseâs business. Sure, sometimes designs overlap. A trap here, a bot there. Paths, intents, plans accidentally crossing in the dark. But direct interference is not the norm.
So what if someoneâs been hoarding his tech? What if theyâve been using it, growing stronger, while his own systems degrade from the inside, torn apart piece by piece?
His headache flares, sharp and sudden. He winces, shuts his eyes, hissing through his teeth.
He canât let her go. Sheâs a bad omen. A contaminant. Feeding his design, his art, his creation to the unworthy, filthy mouths of the Underworld. That ends now.
Through the camera feed, he watches her slip into the second cell, crouching beside the iron box welded directly into the interior bars; one of three. Each cell has one, but only one holds the real prize. The Riddlerâs trophy. With gloved hands, sheâs guessing, testing the sturdiness of the box, trying to unlock it.
At the back of each cell sits a console; a checkerboard of numbered tiles, mathematical glyphs engraved in the cold steel. She traces the faces without pushing any touch. Even she can guess that the interface wonât respond well to impatience and mistakes.
The game is simple, she must solve the equation inscribed on the wall, then use that result to find the correct cell. Somewhere in the Room hides a riddle that will give her a combination when solved. Each console accepts a combination, but only one will trigger the true mechanism.
The others hold something else entirely. A punishment, tailored for the most armored nuisance. At least, if she fails, it will be one more problem scratched off Edwardâs increasingly growing to-do list.
The woman paces the room, eyes scanning every surface, every corner for the checkerboardâs missing riddle. Edward leans back in his seat, the faint ghost of a smirk curling his lips as her once organized, focused movements degrade into something frantic and panicked.
She did well enough, at first. But now, sheâs hitting a plateau. She is simply not good enough. Not clever enough to spot the riddle painted in fragmented green letters across the stairs. Something so obvious, so elementary, really. But sheâs missing it.
It was supposed to be a simple test, merely a warm-up, designed for the Bat. But a Bat she is not. Not even close. A poisonous warmth blooms in his chest, an abject glee filling his heart to see the too proud little thief struggle with something so easy.
Edward crosses his arms over his chest and yawns loudly. Five full minutes pass. Five long, desperately boring minutes, as she grows increasingly agitated, her composure melting like snow under the sun. Still, he watches, unimpressed, and cannot help but make mental comments on her progress.
Sheâs growing more impatient, even losing her temper at times. He huffs. Uncontained emotions are the death of logic. And in her emotional storm, he doubts she will ever find what sheâs looking for. Oh, wellâŠ
As the minutes stretch painfully slowly, Edward grows increasingly bored in his seat. He isnât sure why he keeps wasting precious time watching this harrowing display of idiocy, only that he canât seem to tear his fatigued eyes away from the camera feed.
His headache rings like broken glass, the throbbing pain relentless and sharp. His heartbeat is slow, like something too heavy for his own chest. His eyelids dip, begging to shut. His spine slumps slightly against the warm leather of his seat.
Surely, he can rest. Just for a minute. She isnât anywhere near solving the puzzle anyway.
Eventually, a loud groan of frustration rips from her throat. The sound startles him, jerks him upright. When did he fall asleep?
He blinks hard, struggling to emerge from his near comatose state, shakes his head, and exhales. A dry chuckle vibrates low in his throat when he spots the little thiefâs silhouette, now crouched on the floor, head in her hands. Another long yawn follows.
He debates, lazily, whether he should simply put the little thief out of her misery. It would be easy; a single command, and the floor will light up with a deathly electric current. The tiles would burn her from the soles to her head, nerve by nerve, until there would be nothing left but smoke and ashes.
And then it would be over. The pest would be eradicated. He could return to the orphanage, deal with infinitely more important matters. Or perhaps even sleep. For real this time. Yes, this all sounds exquisitely appealing to him right now.
He rolls his shoulders, stretches his jaw with a quiet pop, then reaches for his laptop. Fingers press the keyboard with an exact cadence, like a perfect muscle memory, opening the command console. Code flickers to life, green characters blinking on the black screen ominously. He hovers over the keys, entering the final line of code.
One last command, and the electrified tiles will pulse to life, right beneath her feet.
But then, a scream. Bursting through the speakers, bright, victorious, triumphant, echoing in the entire room. Edward freezes.Â
The little thief has just found the final riddle.
His expression shifts; a small twitch of the mouth, crooked into a cruel grin, almost gleeful. Ah, now things are getting interesting. Because she is getting dangerously close to a very particular situation. One fatal mistake, one wrong calculation, and the floor becomes her very own electrified Hell.
But if she enters the correct code, in the correct cell, sheâll trigger the mechanism, and the trophy box will openâŠ
âŠExcept itâs empty. Edward never placed the trophy inside. The room wasnât finished. But she doesnât know that. Sheâs still chasing victory.Â
Edward leans back, savoring the thought. Aching to see the moment her satisfaction slips right through her fingers, when all that petty, cute little triumph turns to confusion, disappointment, then complete collapse. All of her mediocre efforts, her precious little deductions, turned meaningless in an instant, vanishing the second the mechanism unlocks.
And he canât wait to see the shattering disappointment contorting on her face if she finds out.
Edward looks at his watch, thinking to himself that heâs giving her five, no, ten more minutes to figure it out. Letâs be generous. And if she doesnât solve the riddle, he will take the matter into his own hands.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she pulls a notebook from her bag and clicks a pen. Without hesitation, she begins rewriting the riddle, copying the symbols beside it, murmuring the words aloud as she works.
She scribbles hypotheses and deductions. Strikes off false leads and ideas that donât sound right. Her handwriting is fast and messy, but calculated, focused.
Edward tilts his head. Sheâs not entirely hopeless. Thereâs a glimmer of method in her incompetence, a faint understanding of structure and puzzle logic. She has, at the very least, an idea of what sheâs doing.
He hums, low and thoughtful, then glances at his watch. Still eight minutes left.
She stares at the cells, then back at her notebook, fingertips drumming absentmindedly against her lips, deep in thought. She does this a few more times in quiet focus, the cogs of her mind visibly turning.
Then, slowly, she rises on her feet. She moves toward the first cell, her steps cautious and hesitant. Wrong one.
Slipping inside, she then scans the checkerboard, comparing it briefly with her notes. She shakes her head, before stepping out again. Edward grins.
She enters the second cell now. This time, she lingers, her eyes flicking between the numbers engraved in the iron tiles and her scribbled notes. Edward leans forward slightly, holding his breath without noticing. His smirk stretches wider, sharper, almost dangerously.
And when she finally exits the cell, he exhales, a quiet, low chuckle escaping his throat.
The third cell is a formality. She checks the board, giving it a quick, simple glance. A confirmation of what she already knew. Sheâs already turning back before she fully crosses the threshold, returning to the second cell.Â
Yes, this is the one.
Edward folds his arms across his chest, pleased, patient. Three minutes left.
Then, she inhales a deep breath. She knows what sheâs doing, knows how dangerous this game is. Itâs lethal, and still, she stays, her form almost trembling now. Her fingertips hover the cold tiles of the checkerboard, grazing them with quiet uncertainty.Â
She holds her hand there, frozen. Then, her eyes shift, scanning the room, suddenly uncertain, suddenly doubting. Or perhaps sheâs scared. She should be scared.
One minute left.
Edwardâs pulse thrums louder, his heartbeat grows stronger. His nerves spark with cruel anticipation, his grin curling sharper. Hungrier. Almost feline. He bites down on his bottom lip, hard enough to feel the teeth in his flesh.
And then, she sits down. Slumps on the floor, head in her hands, breathing deeply. Sheâs nervous. Perhaps even terrified. And, somehow, Edward feels disappointed.
âCome on, little mouse,â he mutters under his breath.
Finally, she rises, then walks towards the cell at a slow, determined pace. She made her decision. She reaches the checkerboard, then presses the keys one by one, her hand trembling with each input.
Edward glances at his watch. Sheâs out of time. He pretends not to notice.
The code is correct.
The floor beneath her lights up, bright green. A series of lights turn on in rapid succession, illuminating the entire room. The glowing question mark at the center platform flares to life, basking the cell in a vibrant emerald glow.
She yelps, flinching back when the sudden illumination startles her.
Then, she hears the mechanical click of the iron box unlocking. She lunges for it, throws the latch and opens the lidâŠ
Empty.
Edward cackles. Not a smirk, not a chuckle. A full, manic cackle, erupting in his car like something obscene. He leans back in his seat, gripping his sides, overcome by the sheer absurd joy of it.
On the screen, the thief flips the box over, checks the inside, turns it in her hands, confused. Her face begins to distort, anguish, disappointment and panic twisting her features.Â
She mutters something under her breath, something nearly inaudible, too faint to properly catch, followed by a string of whispered âno, no, noâŠâ
Edward wipes the corner of his eye, still grinning. Then, in one swift motion, he types a line of code.
A mechanical clunk echoes through the speakers, and suddenly, iron bars drop from the ceiling vents, crashing down around the cell. The thief screams, startled, barely registering what happened before itâs done.
She bolts to the bars, grabs them, pulls, pushes, rattles the cage, but itâs useless.
Static noise tears in the room, then his voice echoes.
âCongratulations! You solved the puzzle⊠and earned absolutely nothing! I should be furious. But really, Iâm just embarrassed for you.â
Her voice cuts through the speakers, loud and furious.
âLet me out, you psycho!â
The word hits him like a slap, crude and undeserved. A newfound rage blooms in his chest, burning and all consuming.Â
âOh, no, no, no, little thief,â he growls, voice dropping cold, âYou donât get to break into my domain, waste my time, disgrace my work, and then make demands.â
Her tone shifts into something sweet and desperate.
âAlright, yesâ Iâm sorry⊠I wonât bother you again⊠Please, let me out?â
Edward doesnât even blink, perfectly unbothered and unmoved by her fabricated plea.
âAbsolutely not. In fact⊠I havenât yet decided what Iâm going to do with you. Maybe Iâll let you rot here. See how clever you feel in a week!âÂ
Behind her renewed pleas, Edward exhales, slow and strained, as he massages his throbbing temples. His body aches terribly, his thoughts flicker like a burning lightbulb. The adrenaline is gone, and his splitting headache flares back again.
Heâs exhausted. The kind of exhaustion where even anger consumes too much effort. His brain doesnât even function properly anymore.
He activates the mic again, his voice flat and final.
âFor now, youâll spend a lovely night here, alone with your thoughts and your poor decisions. Goodnight!â
Before he shuts down the feed, she screams something vile. Something involving him and his mother. Edward freezes, eyes wide. He scrunches his nose in disgust, and closes the laptop.
Tasteless.
Edward turns on the ignition of his car, the engine purring to life as he pulls away from the alley. His blood is still pumping from the recent events, running hot on adrenaline, rage, and even some sort of curiosity, all of it pulsing wild in his veins.
But right now, heâs just feeling exhausted.
His body slumps weakly against the seat. His eyes sting; he blinks, slow and hard, forcing his vision to stay in focus. Twice, he nearly misses a red light. Once, he forgets what street heâs on.
By the time he parks his car in the hidden underground part of the orphanage, his legs are weaker than cotton, his thoughts melt into one grey shapeless fog.
He gets out of the car like a disarticulated puppet, barely managing to lock it properly, and makes his way inside. Heâs stumbling past broken tiles, entering decrepit hallways under the low buzz of dusty lightbulbs hanging down the ceilings.
Once in his cold, sterile bedroom, he kicks the door shut behind him, trips on his own foot while removing his boots in the dark, catching himself on the wall with a grunt. His gloves come off, his hat lands somewhere in the room, and then he collapses on the mattress. He doesnât even undress, he doesnât even think anymore.
Heâs out in seconds.
âŠ
Edward wakes to the soft purr of some distant machine, the sound gentle and familiar, something unthreatening that echoes through the walls. His eyes are heavy, his skull sore and tender, though the pain has quieted into a manageable throb.
With a long groan, he stretches like an old cat, limbs numb and sluggish, his body struggling to wake up with his brain. Everything feels slow, his mind still cradled in a sleepy fog.
After a few more indulgent minutes, he fishes his phone from his suit pocket, checking the time. Itâs the middle of the afternoon. Heâs slept nearly fourteen hours. Edward jolts upright, propped on his elbows.
Immediately, the mountain of unfinished work floods his mind like an ocean of anxiety. He nearly jumps out of the cot, peeling off his wrinkled emerald suit, cursing under his breath, while his brain spins chaotically, already mentally picturing his task list, like an infernal Rolodex.Â
The sewer race circuit still isnât finished. Three Riddlebots need their maintenance done. Blueprints pile up on his desk, untouched. The Puzzle Room near the docks still needs its trophyâ
He stops, freezes mid-step.
Oh. Right. The woman. The little thief. Sheâs still in the cage.
Edward exhales sharply through his nose, already annoyed. He runs a hand over his face, thinking of his impossible schedule, the endless list of work piling up, and how, on top of everything else, he now has to deal with this.
He should have killed her. It would have been much simpler.
Edward drops on the cot with an exasperated groan, running both hands through his hair. Now, with a clearer mind and a rested brain, he rewinds the nightâs events. The catastrophic evening, the intruder. He still doesnât understand how she managed it. His security should have been infallible, impossible to breach.
And yet, she broke into the room, solved the puzzle. Not effortlessly, but competently, well enough. With precise intent, with experience. And that last part makes his eye twitch.
It wasnât her first time solving puzzles, understanding machinery, decoding encrypted security. And most probably, it wasnât her first time with one of his Puzzle Rooms.
He exhales, already exhausted by the implications. Heâll have to verify his other installations now, all of them, checking for damage, missing parts, compromised systems⊠The thought makes his stomach knots with anguish and stress.
Even more work. More time wasted. Meanwhile, what really matters stalls, buried under an eternal pile of unfinished, constant tasks. And now, with Dennis goneâŠ
Edward pauses, the seed of an idea burgeoning in his mind.Â
She could replace Dennis. Not permanently, of course. Just for now. A temporary replacement until he finds someone else, someone more befitting of the position, more respectful of his design.
She has some skill. Not enough to impress him, certainly not. But a basic grasp of mechanics, a passable logic for puzzle-solving, and, most importantly, she has a pulse and two hands.
Of course, she might resist. She might protest, sabotage his work, do a poor job on purpose; maybe even try to run. But this time, things will be different. Heâll have leverage. Heâll keep her obedient, until sheâs no longer useful and he can safely dispose of her.
A smile curls at the corner of his mouth. Yes. This might actually work.
Edward buttons up his filthy, stained green work shirt, slips on his dust-covered cargo pants, laces his heavy leather boots. His chest swells with misplaced glee.
He has a plan now. His sense of control has returned, bringing with it a new calming clarity. He came up with a perfect solution, crafted from his brilliant mind, as all worthwhile things are. And that alone, this sheer feeling of power and certainty, fills him with pride.Â
Of course, things will improve. His plans never fail. Once again, his intellect did not betray him. All is good.
When he arrives at the docks, parking in a secluded alley, he finds the Puzzle Room hidden inside an old warehouse, tucked between two rotting, forgotten buildings, away from prying eyes.
He finds the keypad for the entrance lock burnt, the wires exposed, frame warped from heat. Forced open. Edward wrinkles his nose, blood already boiling with rage.
The nerve.
The large iron door groans open with a loud shriek, the metallic sound echoing through the warehouse like a dying animal. Inside, the room is dim, glowing lightbulbs buzzing ominously, basking the entire space in a toxic green glow. In the distance, the three cages stand proud and immobile like sinister gargoyles of steel.Â
And there, slumped in the middle one, is the thief, asleep. The thermal goggle glasses are now sitting on the ground, next to her backpack. Sheâs curled against the bars, knees pressed against her chest, head resting uncomfortably; the cell is too narrow to lie down, she must have spent the entire night in this position. Edwardâs mouth curls into a cruel and satisfied smile. Good.
The door slams shut behind him with a heavy noise, jolting her awake. Her head snaps up, eyes wild and confused. It takes her half a second to recognize him, and when she does, her entire face twists into a snarl, sheer fury darkening her gaze.
He sees the hatred blooming on her features, and finds it absolutely delicious. His smirk sharpens, his own rage pulsing raw and violent in his emerald eyes. They stare at each other, like two feral beasts ready to tear each otherâs throat.
âWakey wakey, little mouse!â he sing-songs, his voice unbearably sweet and mocking. She doesnât answer, simply glares, arms wrapped tighter around her knees. Edward opens his mouth to continueâ then freezes.
Thereâs a smell. Faint, but very present, acrid and sharp. His nose wrinkles, his brow furrows, analyzing the scent for half a second. Ammonia.
His gaze flickers to her, then to the corner of the cell, and there it is; a small puddle, faintly reflecting the green light. His face contorts in horror. She snorts.
âYou left me in here for almost fifteen fucking hours. Whatâd you expect?â She snarls, voice hoarse and dry. Her smile is acidic, sarcastic, as she slowly stands in the cell, leaning against the bars like sheâs already tired of him.
Edward blinks, then clenches his jaw, eyes burning holes in her skull with a renewed fury. He glares, this time truly observing her for the first time.Â
Sheâs shorter than him, but of perfectly average height. Dark shoulder-length hair snags in the hood of her sweater. Tired brown eyes, narrowed with defiance, already darkened with anger.
She looks remarkably ordinary. Perfectly insignificant. Entirely forgettable.
âYou⊠filthy, crude, petty little creature,â he spits through clenched teeth, jaw so tight the tendons bulge in his neck.
She takes a step back, her anger faltering in an instant, her gaze dripping to the floor. Fear, submission. As it should be. She seems to have forgotten who he is. And that is perfectly unacceptable.
His voice explodes through the chamber like a thunder of wrath and indignation.
âDo you have any idea who youâre speaking to? What domain youâve desecrated with your mere worthless presence?â
His tone is a storm of rage, echoing against iron and steel with righteous fury, as if, at last, the thread of his last nerves snapped.
âYou are nothing. An accidental stain on my blueprint. A rat scavenging for a few coins and lost dignity. I should bury you alive for disgracing my work, for breathing in this very room.â
In her eyes swirl a dangerous medley of terror, disbelief and anger. But, more peculiarly, underneath it all, there is a fire. All consuming and violent, volatile and unpredictable, the kind that makes him itch to extinguish with methodical cruelty, as painfully as humanly possible.
âThis is the problem with the intellectually mediocre,â he snarls, fishing his phone from his cargo pants pocket without once breaking eye contact. âYou think you're invincible, right up until the moment the cold boot of consequences crushes your throat.â
One touch, and the bars retract with a sinister shriek of grinding metal, hiding in the vents where they came from.
Edward steps inside, with the slow pace of a predator. And with every step forward, she takes one back, until sheâs out of space, her spine pressing against the bars. Her breath catches, the fire in her gaze dulls for a heartbeat, the colors of her face drips like a bad rain.
He stops just centimeters from her, towering over her like a menacing statue. Like a green nightmare. His voice drops, low and cold. A bad omen, a threat, something that isnât even human anymore.
âI am Edward Nigma. The Riddler. I do not offer mercy to failure. I do not forgive disrespect. And I do not let vermin trespass without consequences.â
His glare could split her in half. She trembles, just slightly, her form seeming to shrink on itself, her back pressed tightly against the bars. Her eyes turn glassy, shining with unshed tears and quiet terror.
âSo riddle me this, little mouseâŠâ he leans forward, eyes burning, his voice barely above a whisper.
âWill you correct your mistakes, atone for your insult and prove yourself useful? Or will you leave this place in a zippered bag?â
A single tear rolls down her cheek as she bites her lip and sniffles quietly, head bowed. Broken, finally. She nods, quick and small, eyes refusing to meet his.
âIâm sorry⊠Iâll do what you wantâŠâ she murmurs, barely audible.Â
ââEdward exhales through his nose, finally relaxing his jaw. His shoulders drop slightly, the tension in his body easing. He hums, satisfied. Heâs reclaimed control, and reminded her exactly who holds the reins. At last, heâs being treated with the respect he deserves.
He studies her silently for a few seconds, already drained and exasperated. But victorious nonetheless.
âGive me your phoneâ, he orders, voice calm but severe, authoritative and clinical.Â
She hesitates, looks up in confusion and frowns, but when his expression doesnât budge, she obeys, fumbling in her pocket and handing it over.
Edward takes it swiftly, without thanks. From the pocket of his cargo pants, he retrieves a small black device, no larger than a matchbox. A thin cable connects it to her phone, and with a soft electronic chime, the data transfer begins. She watches, confused and anxious.
After a few painful seconds, itâs done. He unplugs the device and drops the phone back into her open palm. She glances at it with a quizzical gaze, then back at him.
âI now own you. Every password, contact, location. Your photographs, your bank logins, your little secrets. Your entire pathetic life.â He leans slightly forward. She flinches. âTry to run. Try to sabotage me. And Iâll make sure there will be no trace of you left. Not even a memory. Do you understand?â
She nods quickly, sniffles again.
âGo now, little mouse. I will be in touch,â he says, voice flat, with the finality of a guillotine.
He steps aside, and immediately she scrambles to her feet, grabs her bag and belongings, and bolts past him without a glance. Edward watches her vanish into the dark hallway, his eyes narrowing.
Then, he turns to the empty cell, the puddle still glinting on the floor like an insult. Sheâll clean that. Sheâll clean everything.
Fandom: Batman (Arkham Knight)
Pairing: Edward Nigma x F!Original Character
Rating: +18 Explicit
Tags: Paranoia, delusion, anxiety & panic attack
⊠All Chapters
⊠Read on AO3
A rumor spreads through the shadows of Gotham, the Underworld quietly bracing for a storm no one can yet define.
But Edward Nigma doesnât have time for speculations. He has an empire to build, and a reputation to uphold.
And that alone is exhausting; especially when he canât rely on anyone, and his peers mistake his brilliance for insanity.
Heâs one thread away from having a very bad night. And tonight, it starts to snap.
Something is in the air.
A tension; faint, but palpable to those who know where to look. It lingers everywhere, nearly invisible, like a creature crawling through the bowels of Gotham, surfacing only in the deepest hours of the night. It lives in the whispers of alleys drenched in shadow, breathes through the lungs of places never meant to be found. Forbidden, secretive. Silent.
Fragments of rumors linger like phantoms, barely formed and already fading. Lips that carry them tremble with uncertainty, as if the words were too unbelievable. A question mark hangs heavily above the city like a malignant fog, a suffocating veil no one can name, but everyone can feel. It clings to the skin, presses against the lungs. An unseen presence gnawing at a city uncharacteristically still.
Gotham is too quiet.
Crime feels like itâs been put on hold; a truce that might seem merciful to the blissfully ignorant, but to the monsters lurking in the shadows, it has the taste of a bad omen, reeks of a coming storm.
No one knows exactly whatâs coming, but the underworld swarms with whispers. And beneath the doubts and hypotheses that hang thick in the air, one singular truth reunites the minds; something is happening. A terrifying machine has begun to move, progressing with an implacable finality. And all anyone can do now is wait.
Well, almost anyone.
A metallic clang reverberates through steel and titanium. But then again, thereâs always a deafening noise in Edward Nigmaâs lair. Hissing machinery spitting hellish steam, computers speaking in a shrill, binary cadence, toxic-green lights blinking and licking the walls. The iron-clad, emerald inferno hums like a living thing. A cathedral, forged from wires and cold metal.
This is the Riddlerâs domain; built with his own hands, guided by the incomparable will of a superior intellect. Edward Nigma is the smartest man in Gotham, and in his mind, thereâs never been a close second. His thoughts move like lightning, brilliance galloping wild across the endless fields of his mind.Â
For nearly a year, the bowels of Gotham have been part of his sanctuary; a filthy temple of steel, carved from spite and patience, where he now resides more often than not. A fertile ground, the perfect breeding place for abominable creations birthed from metal, circuits, and nightmare.
Sunken, green eyes scan every mechanism, every circuit; no allowance for chance, no tolerance for error or imprecision. His hands, calloused and twitching with ill excitement, build and create with the finesse of a surgeon and the fury of a man possessed, assembling delicate automatisms and monstrous machines alike. His face, pale, fatigued and sun-deprived, bears an expression that rarely softens; a near-permanent scowl etched deep by constant frustration and all-consuming obsession.
This place that cruelly resembles a self-made maze of madness is more than a lair. It is a living testament to his brilliance. A mausoleum designed to obey him, reflect him. A shrine to his pulsating, cold, perfect vengeance.Â
Every trap, every challenge, every line of code has been brought with the cruel, singular purpose to dismantle and ruin a man who once dared to doubt him, bring him to his knees in front of the city he failed to protect.
What already feels like a lifetime ago, Batman had left him behind. Broken, humiliated, discarded like he was nothing, like none of this even mattered to him. The fire of that defeat still burns hot in his throat; every blow, every condescending word, every failure plays on an endless loop behind his eyelids, viciously etched into his skull.
The memory of Batman gnaws on his brain like a parasite; buried deep, feeding on his pride, clawing tightly at his thoughts. It wakes him from his dreamless nights, haunts the spaces between his breath. A silent scream with no end, one that blackens his heart, sharpens his purpose, fractures his sanity.
It is the only thing that matters, now.
Edward has had little contact with the other crime lords, ever since. Something in him fractured irreparably the day Arkham City collapsed, and whatever it was, it never truly healed. His mind was profoundly and irremediably changed in ways even he couldnât explain. Not that he realized it in the first place. He became more hostile, more withdrawn from the world.Â
Heâs always been socially unfit, but now he was unbearable, entirely appalling, even to the few who once tolerated him. Repulsive in his arrogance. Paranoid. Rabid.
His sanity was slowly decaying, like a thread pulled taut until it snapped; muttering to himself constantly, argumenting with ghosts no one else could see, scribbling his thoughts on every surface, frantically, obsessively. As if begging some unseen phantom to witness him. Not because heâs afraid no one will listen, but because heâs convinced no one else is worthy to.
Wherever heâs hiding, from Gothamâs sewers to the orphanage, his thoughts are always scattered in neon green, as if heâs vomiting his rotting mind against the walls. Formulas. Riddles. Spiteful taunts. Fragmented schematics. Words not meant for the world but for himself. A mausoleum of thoughts he canât escape.
Each location becomes a testament to a collapsing mind, the paint dripping like bile, the words twisting like illness. As if his thoughts have begun to rot in a skull too full, too fractured to contain them. So they spill from his brain, covering the walls like putrid mold.
Some joked that the Riddler was dying. Not physically, but something deeper. That whatever human part remaining in him was slowly withering, metamorphosing into a breathing equation, an unsolvable riddle. Not quite a man anymore, but the idea of a man.
It was Victor Fries who said it first, in passing. A quiet observation before he seemingly vanished from the surface of the Earth. A neutral comment, devoid of malice or warmth, neither threat nor care, yet it ignited something feral in Edward all the same.
I hope you solve yourself, Edward. Before you disappear completely.
Edward had snarled at him. Wounded, somehow. He always is, though he'd never admit it. Like his soul never stops suffering, his mind perpetually soaked in agony. Because none of them ever understands him. None of them could see him.Â
Not the Bat, that brutal imbecile with his judgmental scowl. Not the frostbitten romantic, obsessed with love and loss and all the irrational filth that drags the world into entropy.
So Edward removed himself from the equation. Retreated into the hidden corners of Gotham, avoiding everyone. He stayed alone with his thoughts, because they could never betray him. The robots he built were assistants, not companions. He talked to computers, never people.
And when exhaustion gnawed at his bones, when his body trembled from sleepless nights and obsessive fury, he would look around at the world he built. The wires, the lights, the endless calculations. And think of Danteâs Inferno.
But this Hell was not a punishment. It was a monument. And he had built it, all alone. Circuit by circuit, out of rage, and logic, and the parts of himself no longer fitting for the outside world.
Yet, as his empire grew and expanded, even he had to admit that such an important design required compromises. For all their annoying inefficiency and flawed biology, henchmen became a necessary inclusion in his plan.
Calibrating Riddlerbots to execute the more simple tasks such as wiring, construction, logistics, would have taken time, and time was one of the few currencies he could not afford to waste. Employing people was faster, easier, but infinitely more aggravating.
Skilled engineers helped construct his traps and puzzles, each one handpicked for their technical competence. They were tolerated only as long as they followed his rigorous instructions to the letter. Others were assigned to the maintenance of his Riddlerbots, managing their complex systems, making sure they were constantly operational and functioning properly.Â
A rotating flock of armed guards patrolled the puzzle chambers and territories, ensuring no one gained access to them. No one, that is, but the Bat, and never before the challenges were ready. Timing was everything, and interference intolerable.
Perhaps most crucially, he kept a personal assistant, a man named Dennis, who operated within Edwardâs tight radius. Dennis handled time-sensitive errands, physical tasks Edward couldnât be bothered with, or duties requiring a human touch too dull or degrading for a mind like his to waste time on.
Edward was never physically threatening to his employees, perceiving brute force as beneath him, a tool for the unimaginative. He recalled once witnessing a shouting match between Harvey Dent and one of his drivers. Something about lateness, or improper preparation; the details eluded him. Dent, faithful to his past built on rigor and rules, had a rigid sense of procedure. But Two-Face, by contrast, had none.
In the end, a coin toss sealed the manâs fate. A death sentence that the crueler, fractured half of Dent found particularly satisfying. An example for the others, or so he said.
Edward found the whole performance predictable and utterly tasteless. He didnât need to make examples. He quickly learned that most of his men feared him without any overt threat, and that suited him perfectly. Fear implied respect, and respect implied obedience.
His abuse, however, was constant; not physical, but verbal. Perpetual reminders of their idiocy, their suboptimal intellect, their gross and repeated incompetence. Intense and scathing loghorrheas delivered with ugly spite when they failed even in the more insignificant and simple tasks. Words designed to eviscerate, to humiliate, to reduce even the strongest minds to a pulp.
There was something particularly unnerving about working for the smartest man in Gotham; the lingering uncertainty of what he was truly capable of, or what information he held. And the Riddler knew everything. Which includes everything about his men. Their weaknesses, their pasts, their little secrets. Enough to break and ruin them properly, if necessary.
Despite his generous pay, far more than what the other crime lords offered, it wasnât entirely rare for one of them to vanish overnight, fleeing his harsh and relentless treatment.
This was always met with the same disdain and quiet contempt. But, then again, he had long since stopped expecting anything from people. A part of him was already perpetually disappointed in the human race as a whole, so this outcome was hardly a surprise.Â
He never placed real trust or faith in any of them. Never once believed any of them were worthy of his vision in the first place.
So that is why, when Edward glances at one of his many monitors and sees Dennis, his assistant and most tolerable liability, quietly scrambling to gather his belongings before leaving the underground race circuit, he doesnât scream. Doesnât leap to his feet, or slam his fist into the desk. He merely wrinkles his nose.
But his jaw clenches so tightly that his molars grind against each other, tendons bulging beneath pale, fatigued skin, pulled so taut they threaten to snap. His eye twitches nervously, while a silence, dense and absolute, fills the operating chamber with the weight of a funeral.
His breath is deep, slow, but nearly trembling with rage. With disgust. His heartbeat echoes in the cavity of his chest with the shattering force of a cathedral bell. And his gloved fingers, tightening around his tool until the joints ache, tense so viciously his knuckles turn white.Â
The wrath is quiet, but entire. Corrosive, devastating, gnawing at his every thought like acid. And in that frigid moment, his mind collapses, spirales into a pit of paranoia and ugly contempt.
His emerald eyes dart across the room, glancing at the metal walls, the humming machinery, the scattered blueprints. And all he can feel in his glorious, fractured mind of his, are parasitic thoughts. Mockery.Â
Another traitorous slug who turned out to be spectacularly incompetent. Another slow, stupid, meat-brained insect incapable of grasping the beauty of his design.
He doesnât need him. In fact, he doesnât need anyone; the Riddler never needed help with anything. Thatâs what he tells himself, again and again, a cruel mantra spinning into an ugly, agonising loop in his bitter mind.
With trembling fingers, he peels off his gloves and tosses them carelessly onto the workbench. He does the same with the protective goggles that leave dark rims of grime around his eyes, replacing them by a pair of round glasses that he retrieves from a pocket of his stained cargo pants.
Then, he exhales a long, furious breath, like steam from a cracked pipe, his lips pressed in a tight, bloodless line.
Bracing both hands on the table, Edward shakes his head once, and closes his eyes. He just needs to gather his thoughts.Â
It had been a stressful few days. Or weeks. Or months. His perception of time had eroded completely, now a shapeless haze that bears little to no meaning to him.
Pull yourself together, Nigma.
Edward feels the blood pounding in his temples, the slight tremor in his breath, the sharp, painful tension puncturing his chest, lingering heavily.Â
Then, he hears the purr of the central processor, the rhythmic beat of the power stabilizer, the gentle ratting of robot legs pacing across the metal floor. The familiar lullaby of his world. A system designed by him, for him. Predictable. Ordered. Obedient.
Slowly, the frigid cloak of emotions too heavy for him to name slips away, replaced by the mechanical warmth of symmetry and control. The machines did not abandon him. The calculations did not fail him.
At last, in this safe, comforting cradle of steel, the storm of his thoughts begins to quiet. The anxiety, vicious and malignant, gently stutters to a halt, the knot in his chest beginning to untie.
Just breathe.
Edward opens his eyes, as though peeling back a veil off of his fogged mind. Rebooted. Recalibrated. Thereâs no time for lingering thoughts, no room for burdensome emotions.
The time on the monitor gently pulls him back into the present. He exhales a tired, quiet breath, one hand rubbing his temple absentmindedly. Thereâs still enough time to shower and prepare for the evening.
The corridors of the orphanage feel suffocating as he walks, so unwilling he almost needs to drag himself through the decrepit building, the walls echoing with his steps. He heads toward a small utilitarian bathroom he uses only when absolutely necessary.
Truthfully, he canât recall the last time he showered. The last time he peeled away the grime, the sweat, the hours of metal dust and neglect. Thereâs always another line of code to write. Another device to program. Another riddle clawing at the edge of his mind.
Thereâs never time for frivolities.
But tonight is an exception. Not a pleasant one, really, but a necessary one.
Thereâs a gathering, a meeting of Gothamâs most important Crime Lords, hosted at the Iceberg Lounge. Or, rather, in a private room of the club, shielded from the gaze of curious civilians and the eyes of the law.
He hates these meetings, these festivities. Theyâre a complete waste of his time. Loud, annoying, neither interesting nor productive. They hold no intellectual merit, no value.
And yet, his absence would be noticed. In a place where only the best of the worst is expected, his relevance would be questioned. A reputation is much easier to destroy than it is to build, and right now, the last thing Edward needs is for his name to be omitted from conversations where it should be the central point of the room.Â
Not coming, being discredited, cannot be allowed. Not now. So he will attend. Not for company. Not for alliance. But because power is a theatre, a delicate play of perception, dominance and presence.
Edward groans as the cold water hits him, sharp and cold, enough to soothe his raw nerves, mercifully quieting the static noise of his thoughts. His clothes, caked in grime and filth of questionable origin, lie on the bench beside the door, folded with mechanical habit. He always leaves them there, so he can slip right back into work the moment he returns.
A sliver of him, faint, treacherous and fragile, begs for rest. For sleep. But thatâs not reasonable; not now. Not when thereâs no assistant to absorb the meat of his lesser tasks.
The water rains over his skin, each drop a cold caress of clarity. As it pools and runs down his exhausted body, he ponders, weighs his options. Promoting one of the engineers to fill Dennisâ role, or assuming the duties himself.
Yes, delegation would save him the time, but it also demands trust; and Edward knows how fragile this balance can be. Doing it himself might slow things down. But at least it would be done correctly.
Then, almost without meaning to, he closes his eyes. And for one disorienting, blissful moment, the world seems far away.
His heartbeat steadies, now a soft, hollow drum beneath his ribs. His breath hums, no longer tight, no longer heavy with worry. The water becomes something else. Not just cleansing, but soothing. It trails down his spine, presses gently against his joints, caresses the sore muscles of his back.
It strips away the grime, the soot and his problems, like a cloak softly rolling off his shoulders, until grey and brown water swirl down the drain like spilled anxiety.
His skin lightens gradually, the filth melting from his pores. His hair returns to something closer to its original chocolate color, no longer dusted with oil and exhaustion. Even his fingers, once darkened with grease and blood, begin to resemble hands again. Human hands.
He stands there for a while, longer than he means to, beneath the gentle, almost merciful cascade. Only when the water runs clear does he reach for the knob and shuts it off.
Wrapping a robe around himself, Edward then steps into a more secluded, hidden room. There isnât much here, in this sterile, decrepit chamber. A narrow, simple cot, as utilitarian as the bathroom he rarely uses; a tall, dented locker once belonging to the orphanage; and an old desk, buried under a mess of notes, blueprints, scrawled formulas, and a collection of empty coffee mugs.
This place was once an office, back when the building still had a purpose, before Edward turned it into his bedroom. A rather generous term, considering how little time he actually spends here; only when strictly necessary, when his body gives out under exhaustion, or his brain, overloaded and fracturing, pleads for mercy.
He opens the locker, the contents there minimal, like everything in his life. Functional, practical. Efficient. He retrieves his suit, custom-tailored and branded in the same manner as everything he owns. Dark green fabric, sleek and tasteful, patterned with subtle question marks. A tie that flatters his silhouette, held in place with a question mark pin. Fingerless leather gloves that hide the cuts and marks peppering his hands. And, finally, his bowler hat; a signature, a crown, finishing his outfit.
He rarely dresses like this anymore. Not even for most of his private strategic meetings, which he usually attends in his workshop clothes, under the thinly-veiled disgust and dismay of his other peers. A calculated insult, a signal that their gatherings arenât worth his time, nor his presentation; he has much more important things to do.
But tonight, his presence must be perfect. Sharp. Unignorable. He is not simply attending, he is reminding them of who the Riddler is.
And when he looks at his silhouette in the stained, cracked mirror, clad in emerald and fine silk like a second skin, even he remembers the brilliance behind the face, the genius behind the myth.
The man is gone, what stands now is the Riddler. And he allows himself, just for once, to smile.
âŠ
The ride to the club is a very uneventful affair. He cuts the engine of his sleek, anonymous black car, the one he uses when he wants to avoid any unsolicited attention. Before stepping out, he draws in one last breath and catches his reflection in the rearview mirror, ensuring that what he sees is exactly as it should be. Composed. Controlled. Radiating brilliance.
But his mind is already somewhere else. The unfinished circuit in the East sector that needs more tests. The hidden puzzle chamber near the docks, still lacking its final trophy. The calibration errors in the new blueprint that wonât leave him alone.Â
Each thought presses heavily over his chest. Minor tasks, perhaps, but collectively suffocating. Frustration simmers right beneath his skin like a thread pulled too tight. But the worst thing is the throbbing headache that screams in his skull, nearly blinding him with pain.
He doesnât want to be here. He shouldnât have to waste time like this. There is work to do. Real work. The kind that matters. And yet, here he is, dragging his feet toward the guarded, unmarked door of the club, annoyed as ever.Â
The Iceberg Lounge is an impressive, sculptural space. A monument to opulence, indulgence, and luxury.
Despite its arctic theme, made of shimmering ice-blue glints, crystalized pillars, and frozen sculptures, the atmosphere feels anything but cold. Thereâs a curated warmth to the place. The golden lighting, the velvet seatings and intimate booths, the constant, gentle purr of low jazz embracing the clubâŠÂ
The place is theatrical and polished. A freezing opera of glass and ice, created for people who confuse wealth with substance. It reflects Oswald Cobblepotâs taste for excess, for shiny, beautiful things that mean absolutely nothing.Â
Edward stares at the gaudy decoration, feels something hot and ugly twisting viciously in his stomach. Such a performance. Oswald built himself a snow globe and called it a kingdom.Â
And, sure, Edwardâs own work is branded. His lair glows green, his machines are adorned with his signature, and he builds intricate puzzles tinted with his own cruelty. Even his voice echoes through the speakers like a God in his deranged cathedral.
But thatâs different. His empire has purpose. A function. It challenges, it teaches, it tests the limits of the deepest minds. Cobblepotâs Lounge is simply indulgence, decadence. Gluttony. Disgusting comfort to soothe his inferiority complex.
At least, thatâs what Edward tells himself. That he despises it. But his stomach turns. The taste of bile fills his mouth.
What gnaws at him, what truly makes his blood throb behind his eyeballs, is the way they all gather here. Gothamâs elite. The Underworld. Even the most important Crime Lords. They come, and they drink, and they admire; they marvel at the gilded nothingness, praise Cobblepotâs taste.
And they overlook him. His work, his art, his genius, left to rot in the shadows while they toast Cobblepot in his refrigerated palace. Instead, they call him delusional, or deranged, or sick. When he deserves the awe, the reverence. When he deserves to be seen.
But of course, Gotham never understands whatâs truly brilliant. Not yet. They will, though. Very soon. When the Bat finally falls, crushed under the weight of his spectacular intellect, theyâll see. Theyâll understand.Â
And theyâll give him the respect he deserves.
Edward climbs up the stairs that lead him to the Loungeâs private wing. Behind him, the swarming hum of the patrons fades, swallowed by the thick, soundproof door as it shuts. In front of him, a hallway opens in the same polished brass and frigid tones, just as gaudy and expensive as the main floor, just quieter, colder. More elegant, somehow.
He already knows the way, walking through a hidden, secluded corridor, past useless decorations and mirrored walls, until he reaches a tall, gilded door anchored in the Loungeâs labyrinthine architecture.Â
When he pushes it open, he feels a faint nausea churning low in his stomach, a tight but short-lived tension in his chest. Not quite nerves, but something akin to dissonance.
Theyâre all here already. Familiar faces; Crime Lords, mercenaries, traffickers, monsters in tailored suits. Gothamâs criminal aristocracy, sipping rare liquors and nibbling delicate hors dâĆuvres, as if that made them civil. As if that made them clever.
He lingers just inside the threshold for a moment, saying nothing, eyes scanning the room like a man reading an equation too complex to solve at a glance. Thereâs nothing for him here. Neither interest, nor stimulation. Only necessity.
With a disinterested, weary gaze, he surveys the vast, suffocatingly opulent room. His eyes lay on the grotesque silhouette of Oswald Cobblepot, squawking at a group of arms dealers whose faces he vaguely recognises. Nearby, Roman Sionis leans in close to a giggling woman, whispering something no doubt superficial and obscene, his gloved hand brushing a strand of golden hair. Then, he catches the sight of Lazlo Valentin, swaying his ruined face to the tempo of the Loungeâs soft jazz with the perverse rigidity of a cadaver.
The lights in the room are dim and soft, soothing and comfortable. A far cry from the brutal, harsh green glow of his workshop. It doesnât ease his nerves, but it does calm his splitting headache. Well, barely.
His skull feels full, overcrowded, having reached its entire capacity and perhaps even more, overflowing with thoughts and plans. Each idea, each task collide inside his mind like sharp objects in a glass jar too tight, each one demanding attention. Stress and tension piles up, stacked like dead weight between his eyes, his brain swollen beyond its limits.
He thinks of the damn room by the docks, still lacking its trophy. Of the unfinished blueprints rotting on his desk, waiting impatiently for him. Of every menial task his assistant (well, ex assistant) once handled, now his burden, again, for the foreseeable future.
Then, a presence. A touch. Fingers squeeze his shoulder. Warm, human, foreign. The contact jolts him sharply back into the present, an ice cold feeling claiming his spine in an instant. Edward turns his head with a mean, furious glare, already imagining elaborate devices to break the unwelcome handâs bones, only to meet the broad, grinning silhouette of Harvey Dent.
With a low chuckle, he peels his hand away while the other one, charred and ruined, clutches two glasses of amber colored liquor.Â
Edward doesnât mistake Dentâs touch for friendliness, not even familiarity. He doesnât have any friends; certainly not in this room, and certainly not in this life. Emotional attachments are liabilities, and he has no patience for the mess of the human heart. This is all inefficient, grotesque, improper. Useless.
And yet, something about the unsolicited contact puts him on the edge. Harvey Dent is a dangerous man, split down in the middle. An attorney who built his identity on charm and persuasion, sharing the skin of a wretched man made of cruelty and impulse. Even now, the warm silk of his voice feels rehearsed, his smile a thinly-veiled threat.
Edward feels it in his bones, even a handshake is a potential trap. A touch on the shoulder feels like a warning. Thatâs why he doesnât get close to anyone, why he doesnât trust anyone but himself.
âDidnât think youâd show, Nigma,â Dent says, his voice smooth as velvet, the sentence ending on a coarse note, as if pulled from two different throats.Â
Edward frowns, jaw tightening, his body tensing from a stress he doesnât have the energy to analyse right now. He stares at the drink Dent offers him for a moment too long, thinking how the only thing he really wants right now is a painkiller. Or silence. Eventually, he takes it, politely nodding. Frigid, distant. Nothing more.
âI didnât think I would either. This glorified gathering of intellectual mediocrity is an utter waste of my time,â Edward mutters, voice sharp and burning as venom.Â
He takes a sip, too generous, too quickly. The liquor burns his throat; he wrinkles his nose, swallowing with barely concealed disdain, while Dent chuckles lowly. He wonders how the man still has a liver if this is what he normally drinks.
Harvey smirks, a vicious, mocking thing that grates on Edwardâs nerves.
âCome on, Eddie. Even you have to crawl out of your hole once in a while. Otherwise, people might start thinking that youâve finally lost it. Though, Iâm not sure youâd notice the difference.â
He clinks his glass against Edwardâs with a soft chime.
âTo your cognitive decline. May it come slowly, but not quietly.â
Edwardâs eyes turn into daggers, his gaze dark and cruel. His brain is already crafting a heinous logorrhea of hate and venom, like a machine running on spite and fury. Thereâs simply so much he wants to say, starting with that ugly, wretched face and his smug, insufferable smirk.
But his skull rings from the migraine. His stomach burns from the liquor. And his pulse is racing under the weight of all the unfinished work clawing at the back of his mind. And suddenly, he struggles to breathe. Like all of this is too much, even for him, and heâs gasping for air.
He opens his mouth.
âSpeaking of rotâŠâ Dent says, voice lowering, as if testing his own rumour, too serious for the situation. âDid you hear? Crane might not be dead after all.â
The words hit him like a cold shower, anger slipping through him in an instant, replaced by a bone-chilling feeling of confusion.
Jonathan Crane. A name long buried, not heard in years. Not since the official declaration of his death. His body was never recovered, but that, too, made sense, as he was believed to be swallowed whole by the reptilian aberration known as Waylon Jones, or Killer Croc.
âReally? Not to our amphibian friendâs taste, then?â
Edward jests, but his tone lacks his usual venom, dulled by disbelief and the harsh splitting headache screaming behind his eyes. He struggles to swallow the initial shock, the absurdity of what Dent is implying itching his nerves.
Dent hums, glancing in the distance as if he too didnât particularly believe his own words.
âItâs been, what? Six years? What do you think heâs been doing all this time?â
Edward doesnât answer right away. He blanks, not from shock, but fatigue. From the migraine pulsing through his skull, from the hundred unfinished thoughts colliding against one another. And now, this. This pointless speculation.
He grits his teeth.
He doesnât care what Craneâs been doing.
Brewing fear gas in a graveyard or selling pumpkins at a farmerâs market; it makes no difference. As long as he doesnât interfere with his work, he could dress as a fairy and host a cooking show for all he cares.
âI donât know, I donâtâ I donât care,â Edward snarls, each word throbbing behind his eyes. He feels like he could explode right this instant. His hands tremble, his skull aches, and his chest tightens with the weight of everything he should be doing. He regrets this entire evening. Regrets coming to this place, regrets not telling Dent to rot, regrets not strangling Dennis with an electric wire.
Dent lifts his one good brow, as if he sees something Edward doesnât, or maybe just enjoys watching him lose his temper.
âYou keep shutting the world out like this, Eddie,â he murmurs, almost sympathetically. âOne day, youâre going to wake up, and there wonât be a world left to come back to,âÂ
This, again. Heâs heard this before. Victor Fries had said something similar, in that cold, neutral tone of his. Now Dent, with his smug half-smile, dares to wonder and jest at Edwardâs sanity, clearly misunderstanding him. Clearing not getting him.
They donât understand. None of them do. Why is it so difficult for everyone to see? His work is not a game, not something stupid and meaningless. It is the culmination of intellect, the proof that something grand and remarkable can still exist in this rotting world.Â
What is the point of superficial camaraderie, of sharing toasts and expensive poison when he is building his design, something that will change the world, something so perfect people will talk about it, about him, long before he is gone, but never forgotten; never forgotten?
His chest tightens. He cannot breathe. The bitter taste of bile claws back at his throat, but this time it isnât simply annoyance; itâs fury, burning and devastating, spilling through his veins like acid. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes, not even air. Simply silence, deafening and final.Â
He doesnât even hear the room anymore, only static noise remains. Only the vicious drum of his heartbeat in his throbbing temples, pounding like fists against a locked, cracked door.
Thereâs pressure in his chest. Sharp, suffocating, and impossible to ignore. A stabbing sensation he canât quite name, or doesnât want to. Either way, it doesnât matter, because there is a knot in his throat. And in a single, silent moment, the entire world feels utterly pointless.
Without a single word, Edward shoves his half empty glass into Dentâs hand, under his curious gaze. He raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.Â
Edward turns his heels and walks out. He faintly hears a voice, rough and familiar, calling his name, a voice resembling Cobblepotâs. But he doesnât stop, doesnât answer.
Somewhere behind him, in the distance, thereâs laughter. He wonders, for a second, if they are laughing at him. Then, he tells himself he doesnât care. But the thought sticks, burns, chars something in his chest he refuses to acknowledge.
Just breathe.
The car door slams shut like thunder. Edward drops heavily into the driverâs seat, breath ragged, vision almost blurry. The cold leather presses mercifully against his overheated body. Almost soothing. He sits there, immobile and quiet, in the shadowed alley, trying to steady his breath.
But his mind wonât still. It never will. His heartbeat thrums violently in his chest like something cruel and ugly, thereâs a deafening, buzzing sound piercing his eardrums, and all his thoughts collide and shatter against each other like broken glass.
In his skull, Dentâs words echo in an eternal, vicious loop. But then, his voice distorts abominably, until it takes the shape of the Bat, and all Edward hears now is his voice, his sneer, the brutal silence that insulted him without words.
Edward feels steel fingers wrapped around his throat. Remembers the dark scowl. The disgust in his eyes. The raw humiliation of his failure. Him. Him. Him.
The scream tears his chest open, raw and primal. Edward howls in the hollowness of his car like an animal, every nerve in his body burning with rage. He slams a fist into the steering wheel, again, and again, and again, until the sound of the impact blurs into his own scream, torn from his throat, birthed from fury and pain.
It lasts less than a minute, but it feels like he emptied out years of frustration. And he knows, with a deep, devastating certainty, that this will come back. It always does. Like rot, like a plague that wonât heal, like a hydra that always grows another head. No matter how many blueprints he creates, no matter how many traps he builds.
As if a part of him did not belong to him anymore.
His hands return to the steering wheel, fingers wrapped tightly around the leather. He exhales, a low and bitter sigh, until the storm in his brain mercifully fades, finally. Just a little. Then, without a word, he starts the engine and leaves the damn place.
For a while, he drives without purpose, letting the streetlights guide him through the dark veins of Gotham. The wind from the open window cools his flushed skin. His breath begins to steady, his mind growing a new sense of clarity. There's even a calm, fleeting illusion of blissful peace.
But when he reaches the corner of Black Hill Street and December Avenue, his phone pings, the sound shrill like a bad omen.
At the red light, he glances at the screen, and his pulse stutters, nearly to a halt. His blood runs cold, then burns hot again.
Someone has broken into Puzzle Room 12R. The one hidden near the docks, closed to the world, where no one should be, where no one should ever have access.
Someone bypassed his encrypted, obsessively reinforced security. A system designed to be impenetrable. It shouldnât be possible. But it happened.
Someone entered his room. A space meant for no one else but him.
Fandom: Batman (Arkham Knight)
Pairing: Edward Nigma x F!Original Character
Rating: +18 Explicit
Tags: Edward POV, slow burn, enemies to lovers
General warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, death, sexuality, gross stuff
Chapters: 3/?
⊠Read on AO3
After the collapse of Arkham City, Gotham becomes eerily silent. A quiet that, to those who know how to listen, carries the taste of a bad omen.
Deep beneath the surface, Edward Nigma crafts his vengeance against the Bat with an ill obsession. But as his empire grows, he finds himself bracing for the coming storm, while facing his own fractured mind.
And things might have remained under his control, had it not been for a wretched little thief who brings him nothing but disruption, and forces him to solve the puzzle of his own humanity.
but iâd had a kinda weird short story request, i would LOVE something about reader who always finds riddler trophies and him loving it but not admiting it.
( i spent wayy too much time finding the arkham trophies and this would be the perfect way to justify it )
Hello, I hope you're doing well too!
Thank you for the lovely request, here's my take on it :)
For science!
Fandom: Batman (Arkhamverse)
Pairing: Edward Nigma x GN Detective Reader
Rating: General Audiences
Tags: Light hearted, no romance, Edward is an idiot
A final piece slips into place, a panel slides open with a soft hiss, and there it is. Another glowing question mark, made of steel and ego.
Number twenty-seven. Or was it twenty-eight? Youâre really starting to lose countâŠ
⊠Read on AO3
Somewhere in the shadows of Gotham, hidden from the rest of the world, a soft click echoes through an abandoned warehouse. A final piece slips into place, a panel slides open with a soft hiss, and there it is. Another glowing question mark, made of steel and ego.
You exhale slowly, walking toward it with a quiet but tired satisfaction. Number twenty-seven. Or was it twenty-eight? Youâre really starting to lose countâŠ
âWell, finally,â the unmistakable voice of Edward Nigma hisses through the speaker, hidden somewhere in the decrepit room. âI was beginning to suspect your brain had melted under the effort. Though frankly, it wouldnât be a great loss to science.â
You tilt your head, absentmindedly studying the little green trophy in your hand, while the Riddler keeps talking. As he always does; he simply cannot help himself.
âThese trials are art, Detective. Each mechanism is a metaphor. And each puzzle, a test. But youâ you just keep breaking into my sanctuaries with all the grace and elegance of an elephant in a porcelain store! Itâs embarrassing!â
His tone is smug and corrosive, but you donât respond. Not at first, anyway. You learnt that nothing drives him angrier than silence. And it has become somewhat of a routine, now. One youâd never admit you enjoy.Â
Youâve been hunting the Riddler for weeks now, trying desperately to find his lair, following his mocking clues like breadcrumbs, without anys success. He laid traps, and you, against better judgment, stepped right inside them.
And every single time, he watched you struggle, decipher his puzzles, bang your fist against a panel in sheer frustration. You knew it. You felt it. And, most peculiarly, you could hear the quiet admiration behind his sneer every time you succeeded.
At first, it was aggravating. The smugness, the riddles, the death traps. God, the death traps. Since this little game of cat and mouse, youâve nearly been crushed, electrocuted, burnt, impaledâŠÂ
And the worst part is that he always acted so disappointed when you won. Not quite angry, or defeated; simply let down. Like a magician whose grand reveal got spoiled too soon. And thatâs what made you keep going; not the challenges, but him.Â
It was almost endearing, the way heâd fluster and fumble on the microphone, sputtering insults and taunts, every time you solved another one of his puzzles. But it took you a while to notice what was beneath his mockery. In fact, it took a letter.
At some point, you stopped trying to find him. The chase had grown exhausting and draining, and there was simply too much work waiting for you back at the GCPD. He didnât want to be found anyway, that much was clear.
Then, one day, you found an emerald green envelope sitting in your mailbox, without any address or stamp; someone had personally brought it to your workplace. You frowned, opened it, then chuckled.
One sentence. Two words.
Already tired?
He was waiting. So you picked up your coat, and played his game again.
You delicately slip the trophy into your coat pocket, and glance toward the security camera in the corner of the room. A tiny green light blinkss back at you. He was still there.
âYou know,â you say out loud, in a detached voice, putting your gloves on, âif I didnât know any better, Iâd think you wanted me to find these.â
You hear nothing for a moment, only a dangerous, thoughtful silence that halts your movement. Then, through the speaker, you hear a scoff. Indignant, offended.Â
âOh, pleaseâ donât flatter yourself, Detective. If I wanted you to win, I wouldnât have spent so much time on my precious rooms, and would have simply mailed you baby toys. No, noâ this is a study, Detective. A scientific experiment; you are merely a test subject. Nothing more.â
âUh-huh.â You purse your lips in an amused smirk, silently chuckling when another pause follows.Â
âYou enjoy this,â you say, almost teasingly. âAdmit it.â
âI enjoy watching your brilliant incompetence? Please. I could do that everyday, the GCPD surveillance feeds are poorly encrypted.â
You smile softly, walking towards the door of the warehouse, the elegant mechanism opening in front of you.
âI think Iâm done for today,â you say, almost innocently, stretching your arms. âWouldnât want to waste any more of your precious time.â
A loud crackle comes through the speaker, followed by a messy, stuttering plea, his voice nearly breaking at the edges.
âWaitâ wait! Perhaps⊠perhaps just one more. A tiny test. Something simple, barely a riddle at all, even a child could solve it! I justâ I need to see if your memory still functions. I need to gather more data. Honestly, it would be scientifically negligent not to test you!â
You raise a brow, biting your lip to contain your laughter.
âGetting lonely, Nigma?â
âHardly!â he snaps, his voice echoing in the entire room, his bruised ego spilling through the static noise. âI simply cannot allow a rushed experiment. The scientific credibility of my project would be ruined!â
You smile, then exhale dramatically.
âFine. One more. But only because I like hearing you squirm when I solve it.â
A choked, indignant sound pierces the speaker.
âI do not squirm! I do not squirm, you presumptuous, delusionalâ! UGH!â
The speaker crackles with static, then falls silent. You hum thoughtfully, the smile never leaving your lips. You count the seconds, like a rhythm you already know by heart.
Finally, you hear the soft chime of a notification; coordinates uploaded to your phone. You retrieve it from your pocket, heart already racing with anticipation. Another puzzle, another dance. This is your life, now.Â
Not that youâre complaining. Not quite, anyway.
And he may never admit it, but youâre certain he feels the same.
Fandom: Batman (All Media)
Pairing: Jonathan Crane (The Scarecrow) x Vigilante F!Reader
Rating: Explicit +18
Tags: Non/Dub Con, Enemies to uh⊠something, Fear toxin use, Vaginal fingering, Humiliation & Degradation, Mind break
His voice is a low murmur, a dry whisper crawling from an ancient place, somewhere not of this world; his words sound like the faint wind drifting through an empty mausoleum, like a tomb closing over you.
âYou forgot who created you. You buried your fear. Iâm here to exhume it.â
Or: You're a vigilante and former patient of Dr. Jonathan Crane. You hunt him to end what he started, but he remembers you. And heâs not done studying you yet.
This is the result of the poll created to celebrate 100 followers!!
Thank you everyone who participated in the poll, and thank you all for your support!
⊠Read on AO3
âDo you have a visual?â
Batmanâs low voice rumbles in your earpiece. You barely hum in response, eyes locked on the decaying building nestled tightly between two equally crumbling structures, buried deep within the bowels of Gotham. You lower your binoculars slowly, gloved hands twitching with tension. The cowl occulting your identity feels tighter tonight; more suffocating than usual, as though, for some reason, it grew into a second skin that now feels wrong.
For weeks now, with Batmanâs allyship and precious support, youâve been searching every corner of Gotham, every alley, every tunnel, every locked or rusted door, for the Scarecrowâs hideout. Or, perhaps more accurately, for the man he once was, the man you knew as Doctor Jonathan Crane.
Nearly a decade ago, Doctor Crane was your therapist. In a time when life felt overwhelming and nearly unbearable, when grief and anxiety colored your every thought, he had offered structure; an anchor in the storm. His demeanor wasnât like the other therapists youâve had; cold, clinical, and even distant at times, that perpetual detachment felt grounding. Where others offered warmth, he gave clarity. And though you never grew close to him, not like with other therapists who smiled and reassured, you respected him. Trusted him.Â
He helped. That was enough.
In this other life, with his quiet voice and sharp observations, he seemed incapable of anything other than methodical professionalism. At first, you even perceived his frigidity as cruelty; but in time, your sessions with him made your life less trembling, peeling the heavy mantle of anxiety off of your mind, making your secret life as a vigilante more manageable. Suddenly, the mask you wore each night wasnât entirely crushing your identity.Â
And, for a while, you believed that, as long as you could unburden yourself in the wooden and leather clad office, you could keep going. Keep living. Not only as a vigilante.
Then one day, he vanished. There was no explanation, not a goodbye. He simply disappeared, stopped taking your calls. Something that felt like a rupture, a fracture in your heart, even though you didnât really want to admit it.
Until one day, he reappeared, but he wasnât the man you remembered, but was instead a threat feeding on fear and dread. A nightmare wrapped in burlap. He was a Scarecrow.
The first time you had seen his picture on the news, the wound of abandonment opened all over again. As though the image of the reserved, composed doctor who helped you with your sleepless nights shattered into that of a cruel, ugly monster. Something deep broke; something that had the taste of betrayal.Â
You looked up to him, confided in him. You had no idea who he really was, and not knowing felt like the press of a dagger against your heart.Â
Thereâs a cruel irony in it all. Youâd spent years hiding parts of yourself too. The costume, the nightly patrols, the bruises and secrets. You knew what it meant to lead a double life. But somehow, his secrecy cuts deeper. Maybe because he didnât need you.
You needed him.
Your jaw clenches so tightly you can almost feel your molars grinding into dust. Then, another burst of static crackles in your earpiece.
âHow do you want to proceed?â Batman asks.
You know the question isnât innocent. It carries weight, because he knows your history with Crane. Knows how deeply personal this has become. Stopping Scarecrow isnât simply a mission anymore. Itâs an exorcism.Â
You swallow hard, letting silence hang heavy in the air as you think of your next words. Eventually, you clear your throat.
âIâll go in alone. You go look for the others,â you say evenly, though there is a thin, subtle crack in your voice, like a fingerprint on glass, the words feeling wrong on your tongue.
âWill you be alright?â He replies after a pause that is uncharacteristic of him.Â
A question that should be simple, yet feels like a blade pressed to your chest. You nod, though no one sees it, then hum softly in acknowledgment. Itâs all you can offer; the only sound that wouldnât completely taste like a lie . He doesnât press.
âIf I donât hear from you, Iâll come back.â His finale words feel like a balm on your heart before the communication ends, leaving you alone with your thoughts once once more, the silence heavier than ever.
You cast one last glance at the decrepit building before stepping off the edge and dropping into the void. Your wings deploy with a snap of worn leather and reinforced fabric, catching the air. You glide silently through the cold night of Gotham, the wind slipping across your tense jaw, your chapped lips, like a balm on your raw nerves. You hadnât realized how much you needed that brief, numbing caress that takes you out of your screaming mind.
Your boots touch down lightly on the rooftop. Then, you crouch, listening.Â
Thereâs nothing. No flickering lights, no faint hum of machinery, no water circulating in the pipes. No footsteps, no voices, no creaking floorboards. The building is eerily still, as if abandoned for some time already. Deprived of all warmth and life. A hollow shell.
You prefer it that way; if heâs not here now, heâll come back eventually. And when he does, youâll be waiting, in the dark. To arrest him, or to confront him. Youâre not entirely sure yet.
Briefly, your eyes scan the rooftop until they land on a large ventilation grate. You approach, fingers working quickly and quietly to pry it open. Metal groans softly in protest. Then, with one last breath, you slip inside and descend into the dark.
You penetrate a room drowned in darkness and caked in decay. The air is old and rancid, as though no windows had been opened in weeks, a faint scent of something fungal attacking your nostrils. Shattered debris, suspicious liquids, and scattered scraps coat the floor, turning every step uncertain. You move cautiously through the ruined space, your boots brushing through a miasma of filth, your eyes scanning the clusters of strange materials piled on top of mold-blackened tables and rotting surfaces.
A bizarre, sickly green glow tints the dimness, while the moonlight punctures against a chaotic arrangement of glassware; filthy beakers, flasks, retorts, crucibles. They crowd every surface like a sinful shrine to some deranged experiment. Each one contains a different, unidentifiable substance; some thick and bubbling ominously, others emitting faint, unnatural heat that seems to pulse like a heartbeat. The air itself hums with quiet life, organic and malevolent. The containers look less like instruments of study and more like vessels for something long dead. Death, captured and distilled. Horror in liquid form.
But the worst part is the smell. It assaults your senses without mercy or warning; a rancid, acrid wave of alcohol, bleach, and something far worse, something rotting. Something that died but was never buried. It claws at the back of your throat, your stomach twisting violently in protest. Your vision blurs, the edges of the room bending as if warped by heat, the floor moving like a sea of nightmares.
Your legs falter. Brittle, unreliable things that no longer seem capable of holding you upright. You stumble backward, reaching out blindly, your gloved hand finding a metal table for balance.Â
But then, you knock over one of the cursed, disgusting containers. It shatters on the tile with a sound too sharp, too high, like glass screaming. Your eardrums ring, your temples throb in rhythm with your heartbeat. But nothing is worse than the smell âGod, the smellâ as the foaming contents ooze on the filthy floor, hissing and rotting in the air.
You canât breathe. Thereâs no air. Only poison. Decay. Dread.
Your knees hit the ground. Your body surrenders. Your mind fades before it can even understand whatâs happening.
The thoughts cease. There is no pain, only the silence.
Only nightmares.
⊠⊠âŠ
You wake to the acrid stench of humidity, mildew, and rot. The air is thick and glacial, a damp frigidity that seeps into your bones and gnaws at your muscles with cruel, invisible teeth. A nausea that doesnât calm churns abominably in your stomach, the taste of bile perpetually sticking to the back of your throat. And your mind, engulfed in an opaque fog, spins in endless, malignant loops, as if you were lost at sea in the middle of a storm.
A groan bubbles from your throat as you gain consciousness and clarity, but when you try to rub your eyes, you're met with resistance. It takes a moment, half a heartbeat, for your mind to comprehend the situation; youâre restrained.
Lying flat on a ruined, mold-ridden bed, wrists bound tightly together above your head, the rough bite of rope burning into your skin. Your ankles are tied to the bedposts, splayed apart, your body limited to the tremble of your muscles. Panic stirs in your chest, slow and crawling, but the horror only escalates.
A vicious, burning dread knots your insides when you realize that youâre undressed, save for a bra and underwear. Your bare skin pressed against the filthy mattress already feels sticky and ugly; and with each movement of your head, you can practically feel your hair absorbing the grime. But the worst part is that your cowl is gone.
He knows who you are.
The realization slices like a cold blade, lifting the fog of your mind in a second; the disorientation melts quasi instantly, replaced by cold, bracing panic. Your thoughts collide and shatter against each other, but you fight to keep them contained, to hold back the rising flood. You canât lose control. Not now.
Your thighs tremble despite your will, your breath stuttering, shallow and ragged, as you try to gather yourself, and remember.
Scarecrow. You were looking for him. The building. The lab. The smell. Then you fainted.You must still be in the same building. Somewhere underground. Batman. He said he would come for you if he didnât hear anything. He promised.
Heâll come. He has to.
Your eyes scan and analyze the room, frantic and panicked. Youâre in a small, windowless chamber; concrete walls, aged, stained, crumbling in places, surround you like a crypt. The floor is littered with dust, old paint chips, and debris. Thereâs only one door, across the room. No light beneath it, but a faint current of cold air rolls underneath the gap. You canât be too far from the surface. Probably a basement.
Beside the bed stands a rusted metal cart, corroded and dented. The shelves are empty, but you suppose with a cold dread they wonât be for long. You swallow hard, not wanting to be here long enough to find out what might eventually sit on them.
You strain your head, twisting your body as much as your restraints will allow, desperate to locate your armor and gears. But thereâs nothing; no sign of your armor, your weapons, your cowl⊠Nothing but cracked, filthy walls and dusty, heavy air.
You dig through your mind for a plan, or really the beginning of an idea, forcing yourself to think, to remember your training, your instincts. You peel the layers of your brain with urgency, while fighting the constant nausea swirling in your stomach like a vicious wave.
Then, the metallic click of a key sliding into the lock jolts you.Â
You freeze instantly. Your mind blanks entirely. Every muscle tenses as if on alert. Your heart thunders in your chest like it might break free of your ribs. Your breath suspends, choked out of your lungs.
This isnât about escape anymore, but about surviving, getting ready for the certainty of what is about to come next.
You inspire a shaky breath. You think of the years of combat training, the reflexes honed by countless nights in Gothamâs darkest streets. You donât know whatâs behind that door, or perhaps you do, and itâs even worse. But if itâs Jonathanâ the Scarecrow, and heâs come to finish what he started⊠Youâre going to fight. You have to.
When the door opens, your mind stops screaming and your blood turns to ice.
Thereâs barely enough light to make out the tall, wiry silhouette standing in the doorway. He enters slowly, his steps unnervingly quiet, gliding across the floor with an eerie grace. In his hands, he carries a metal tray; the only sound in the room is the faint, metallic rattle of its contents as they shift with each step.
You hold your breath. You cannot feel the bite of the rope into your limbs anymore, cannot feel the strain of your muscles; the only remaining sensation is your blood thrumming in your temples, each heartbeat a cry for help, a silent plea. Warmth drains from your face like rain drips on glass, dread twisting tight in your gut, coiling like a living thing.
Doctor Jonathan Crane.
No, no. The Scarecrow.
He approaches with the cold indifference of a surgeon readying himself for a procedure. He doesnât look at you. Doesnât speak. There is not even a flicker of acknowledgement in his movements; and, when he reaches the rusted cart beside the bed, he sets the tray down with frigid, clinical precision.
You dare to glance, and immediately regret it; on the train, a vial of thick, tar-colored liquid; a few sterile compresses; a plastic tube filled with a viscous, clear substance; and a syringe. The needle too long, too sharp, almost gleaming in the faint light, as though something sacred.Â
Your heart hammers in your chest, when you catch a glimpse of his profile in the dimness of the room. Those familiar, hollowed features bring you painful memories, tugging at your heart as if his mere presence reopened your wounds all over again. But when you remind yourself that the Doctor Jonathan Crane is not the man standing next to you, terror surges through you in a single, cruel wave.
âSo it is you,â he says finally, voice low and dry, like silk dragged across sand. âThe nocturnal detective disturbing my work.â
His voice hasnât changed. That same grainy velvet, quiet and unsettling, that doesnât soothe; it suffocates. Like being embraced by something old, withered, and already half in the grave, the caress of something dying and malignant.
You say nothing. You canât.
Itâs as if, in stripping away your armor, he also took your voice. Your strength. Your defiance. Or maybe itâs the shock, the reality of seeing him again, while you remain the shadow of your former self, that reduces you to that small, trembling thing you once were in his office chair. Back to the corners of your mind he once dissected.
He slips on a pair of thin latex gloves, each movement careful, methodical. His bony fingers take the vial with a kind of perverse elegance, tendons rolling beneath pale skin as he uncaps it. A sharp, acrid scent stings your nostrils. Bitter. Chemical. Wrong. You nearly gag, but he doesnât pause. He dips the syringe into the vial, pulling back the plunger. The black liquid coils up the tube like something alive, something meant to hurt.
The more the syringe fills, the harder it becomes to breathe.
Your stomach clenches. Your limbs twitch against their restraints, but thereâs no give. The sense of helplessness seeps deeper in your bones with every second. The room feels smaller. The air feels thinner. Your heartbeat thuds in your ears, in your throat, in the space between your thoughts. You try to still your trembling legs, to control your breathing; but your body betrays you. A soft sob escapes before you can catch it, and you instantly bite back a trembling whimper.
Crane doesnât even glance your way.
âIâve witnessed your anxiety before,â he says calmly, flicking the syringe to remove the air bubbles. Each tap precise. Merciless. Like a dying heartbeat. âSome things, it seems, do not change.â
Another sob slips from your throat, the sound weak and fragile.
âWhat will you do to me?â you whisper, the words barely yours. They tremble out of you like fragile things, afraid of their own sound. âWhat⊠is that?â
Thereâs a long pause. A silence laced with something suffocating and heavy.
âYouâre misusing what I gave you,â he says, almost dispassionately, examining the liquid in the syringe as if it was more important than you. âYouâre not what I hoped for.â
He pauses, tilting the syringe into the light.Â
âBut thatâs irrelevant. I donât regret the work.â
Thereâs a tension in your chest, tight, bitter, and cruel. Itâs almost laughable, in a gut-sickening way, to hear those words from him. As if he was the one disappointed. As if you had failed him.
The absurdity gnaws at you. Thereâs something ugly and strangely tender in his tone, something that reeks of ownership, of a twisted fondness for the broken patient you once were. The weak, desperate creature he helped rebuild.
Without sparing you even a glance, he turns fully toward you. One cold, skeletal hand wraps around the soft flesh of your thigh. His touch ignites complicated, contradictory feelings; as though some part of you yearned to find the Doctor who helped you, years ago.Â
His grip is clinical, indifferent; the other hand holds the syringe, now gleaming with thick obsidian fluid, its tip hovering ominously near your skin.
âPlease donâtâ Doctorââ
But your plea is useless. Too soft. Too late.
The pain is instant. Brutal. Abominable. A white-hot, tearing shock that makes you scream.
The needle plunges deep, and the moment he pushes the plunger, it feels like liquid nightmare is being poured directly into your veins. The substance burns âburnsâ like molten iron, coursing up your leg, radiating through your limbs with searing intensity. You thrash as much as your restraints allow, sobs ripping from your throat, tears spilling over your cheeks.
It feels like your bones are dissolving. Like your blood is turning to ash. Like you're coming undone from the inside. Like your organs are boiling inside you.
Crane withdraws the syringe with steady, unshaken hands, placing it back on the tray without comment.
âYou survived without me,â he says evenly, in this cold, monotonous tone that does not soothe your nerves one bit, peeling off his gloves one finger at a time. âFor a while. But you will remember what stops your heart at night. And you will trace it back to me.â
He discards the syringe without ceremony. As though it were nothing. As though you were nothing more than a subject. An experiment. You look at him through tears-drowned eyes, eyebrows knitted in a singular, quiet plea, your lips quivering, burning for answers you know will never come.
But then the real effects begin.
It starts as a dagger of warmth in your gut, sharp and sickeningly sweet. It spreads; first to your chest, then to your limbs, like oil seeping through cloth, thick and inescapable. Your heart races, hammering a frantic rhythm in your ribs. Your breath stutters. The air grows heavy, harder to process. The dread hits next, so sudden and so overwhelming it crashes through your nervous system like a tsunami.
Every synapse in your brain seizes with fear, with panic, with a raw, primal anxiety. Your mind fractures under the weight of it. The world narrows. Your body trembles violently. Youâre drowning in anxiety so thick and all-consuming that it occults everything else. It is terror not of pain, or death, or suffering; but of being alone. Of being forgotten.Â
Of being without him.
You sob. You stutter. You reach, if only in your mind, toward the one figure still standing still in the madness. There is a scream inside you, a piece of you long forgotten but never truly buried clawing its way back to life as every single cell of your being cries for help, needs him. Needs him.
Crane watches. Silent. Cold. His face a porcelain mask, void of emotion; but his eyes, those pale, glacial eyes, scan your every twitch. Every flicker of emotion. He studies you like a creature under glass, searching for signs of something you donât know. Reaction. Submission. Recognition.
And still, you beg. Not with words, but with your eyes. With the collapse of your expression, the tremble of your lips, the desperation etched into every feature.
He hums. Once. A low, thoughtful sound. And then you see it. A faint shimmer. A soft glow. A halo of light clinging to the edges of his silhouette. Something warm, something safe. He stands at the center of your dread like a lighthouse in the storm. And suddenly, every cell in your body reaches for him.
Your fear doesnât want to escape him. It wants to be near him. Because without him, the darkness is endless. And you know, somehow, deeply, sickly, that if he leaves, you will lose your mind.
Crane slowly extends his arm, fingers briefly hovering in the air before brushing the plush and tender skin of your thigh. The contact is barely there, ghostlike, but it builds a storm inside you. A sob breaks from your lips, cracked and trembling. Heat floods your body, crawling up your stomach like something shameful and raw. Need pulses through you; something ugly, all-consuming, and essential.
He tilts his head, watching you as though you were some fragile specimen in glass. As if he could read your pulse by the flicker in your eyes. As if he had written the tempo of your heartbeat himself.
He leans in, his pale, sunken gaze sinking into yours; his eyes have the taste of a curse, devastatingly magnetic and familiar. You canât look away; but really, you donât want to either.
His voice is a low murmur, a dry whisper crawling from an ancient place, somewhere not of this world; his words sound like the faint wind drifting through an empty mausoleum, like a tomb closing over you.
âYou forgot who created you. You buried your fear. Iâm here to exhume it.â
His fingertips glide upward, deliberate, featherlight over your trembling skin. You canât tell whether itâs him or your own body that feels cold to the touch; like youâve already died and are just now realizing it.
You know itâs wrong, somewhere in what is left of your soul. You should resist. But your mind has become a haze, burning and melting. All thatâs left is this overwhelming ache; this ravenous, hollow yearning to be near him. Closer. Beneath his gaze. Beneath his touch. Your heart doesnât feel like it belongs to you anymore. It beats for him, like heâs rebuilt its rhythm, rewritten its tempo.
A strangled whimper, weak and helpless, escapes your parched throat as his fingers reach your underwear, tracing sinuous patterns with clinical slowness. Each movement sets your nerves alight, awakening something raw. Something desperate. Your chest rises and falls with shallow, unsteady breaths. Your face contorts with a mess of emotions. Shame, longing, surrender. And still, you search his face, hoping for an answer that wonât come. Hoping for permission.
Your body betrays you, pulsing with need and heat, slick saturating the soft fabric that clings to your cunt, your clit already throbbing and swelling in interest. When he hums in approval, the sound a low rattling sound reminiscent of a snake, it shudders through you like a tremor, each vibration caressing nerves you never knew you possessed.
âYou were always going to return,â he murmurs. âYouâre nothing without me.â
Fingers slip beneath the fabric, and instinct makes you try to close your legs. Futile, bound as you are. A sudden slap lands on your inner thigh, sharp and instructive. Not harsh. But enough to make you yelp, to make you understand.
His fingers move with terrifying intimacy, running over your swollen slit, parting your soft, engorged folds, circling your slick pearl. Your body responds instinctively, helplessly. Like itâs been waiting for this, craving it long before your mind could fabricate the need. Soft whimpers bubble in your throat, weak and fragile, your eyes fluttering closed. Perhaps in protest. Or denial. Or surrender. Youâre not entirely sure which.
All you know is that your body reacts, welcomes, craves him. Every fiber of your being sings his name, your mind bringing you back to the comfort of his office, the balm of his words, his healing, his presence.
But his voice cuts through the dark like a scalpel.
âDonât close your eyes. I want you to watch what you become.â
The command is velvet wrapped around glacial, cruel steel. And when a single finger slowly breaches your tender, welcoming hole, like a flower blooming only for him, a cursed moan breaks free. It isnât pain, it isnât even pleasure. It is belonging, yearning. As if Crane was responding to your very soul calling for him. As if your body had been built for this moment. For him.
You meet his eyes, exposed, wide with longing. And he sees it; of course he does. He sees everything. The hunger. The helplessness. The need. You wonder if he always knew it would end like this. Did you?
Crane doesnât say anything at first; he simply watches you, observes the tension in your thighs, the quivering in your lip, the flush tinting your cheeks. He curls his finger inside you with clinical rhythm, stroking and exploring your walls, thrusting his hand slowly, dispassionately. Every touch feels deeper, more insistent, your muscles melting gradually, resistance yielding with each roll of his wrist.
A second finger nudges alongside the first, entering you unannounced, and your body arches helplessly against the restraints.
You gasp, a pitiful, broken sound, and his head tilts slightly. A flicker of interest. Of analysis. His expression remains cold, but you can feel his focus tighten around you like a vice.
âIâm not doing this to punish you,â he says softly, almost kindly. âIâm doing this because itâs the only way youâll remember who owns you.â
Your breath shudders in your chest, your walls spasming with each low, grainy word. The curl of his fingers become more precise, caressing your soft, spongy spot. Warm slick drools from your tender hole, weak wet noises echoing with each thrust, barely occulted by your now heated moans.
But then, a third finger slides in. It isnât gentle, it isnât delicate. He presses deeper, forcing them inside your hole, and your body reacts with a sudden, shivering spasm. The heat, the fullness, the ache; they all come together in something nearly unbearable. And yet, it feels necessary. A pain that reassures you. You sob without sound, tears leaking from the corners of your eyes, mouth open in a silent, begging gasp.
Crane thrusts his fingers inside you, the low pace replaced by something meaner, more cruel, his knuckles hitting your cunt each time he bottoms out. And each time he does, a raw cry spills from your lips, your body thrashing against the filthy mattress, as much as your restraints allow you to.Â
Your gaze never leaves him, silently pleading, begging; for what, youâre not sure. And in turn, his gaze does not leave you; his face is nearly expressionless, but now his mouth is slightly agape, his breath slightly more labored from the effort. The ghost of a smirk graces his features, barely there, but you see it before itâs gone.
âYou were supposed to be above this,â he murmurs, his tone laced with dry amusement. âLook at you.â
With a mean, cruel press of the hand, Crane curls his fingers inside you, painfully dragging against every trembling wall. You feel the tender flesh throb in a way that shouldnât feel good, that shouldnât feel merely pleasurable, but right now this is everything you need, and crave. Each movement feels like it peels away a layer of you; your dignity, your identity. Until all thatâs left is this. Reduced to a quivering, spasming mess.
Suddenly, with a rough, swift motion that tears a ragged sob from your throat, Crane withdraws his hand entirely, leaving you empty in an instant, nerves flaring from the loss. The void lasts barely a breath before he presses back inside, deeper this time, his intrusion more insistent, more demanding. You feel it all; the unmistakable stretch, the burn of fullness, as a fourth finger joins the others. The sensation crashes through you, your body jolting in its bonds, a cry escaping you as your mind struggles to process the vicious rush of pain, pressure, and unbearable need.
In your mind, everything fractures; thought, shame, resistance, melting into a haze of raw sensations. Your body yields to him without question, taking everything he gives like itâs something essential. Each harsh, relentless thrust feels like heâs carving a path inside your walls, an abominable stretch that blurs the line between pain and euphoria.
You feel your walls open for him, welcoming his hand, feel the slick drooling from your stuffed hole, your body no longer your own but something made for him. And through the dizzying fog, you meet his gaze; and what you see there makes your breath stutter.
Thereâs something in his eyes. Not quite pity. Not exactly detachment. But a glint, sharp, cruel, possessive, as if heâs watching a successful experiment. As if heâs pleased.
âYou should see yourself,â he breathes. âJust a quivering mess. Thatâs all you are now.â He twists his hand, dragging a shriek from your mouth.Â
âYouâre not a threat. Youâre barely coherent.â You sob again, but thereâs no fight left. Only deep, carnal, intoxicated want. Only the fire only he can provide.Â
âYou look like something I created. Something that belongs to me. Donât you?â
You nod. Barely, but you nod, through the tears, through the pleasurable pain, and his breath hitches with a filthy excitement, as though his theory proved correct, his experiment proved successful. And perhaps it did.
He fucks your cunt open faster now. Rougher. The obscene squelching sound of your ruined hole fills the room, your moans become animal, uncontrolled, your hips trying to meet his movements, bound legs twitching with helpless rhythm. The pressure, the pain, the stretch, the burn coil inside you, blinding and terrible, until your whole body is nothing but a live wire stretched to breaking.
And then you fall apart.
The orgasm is wrenched, forced, teared from you like a confession under duress. It rips through your entire being, merciless and devastating, like a blade slicing you from the inside. You scream, and itâs not even a word, not even a sound with a shape. Just air, ruin and agony.Â
He watches you with sharp, studying eyes as you shatter, as your muscles seize, as your restrained body convulses beneath his touch. And when your orgasm crests and breaks, when your body is nothing but spasming nerves and torn-down resistance, his pace finally falters, slowing to a halt.
And when he withdraws his hand, the sound is obscene, a wet and cruel squelch, leaving behind your tender, reddened gaping hole. Your body flinches from the absence, raw and open, nerves ringing from the violence of need and fulfillment. The emptiness he leaves behind aches. Not just in your flesh, but in your soul.
You lie there, slack in your restraints, pulse thunderous and lost. You donât know where you are. You donât know who you are. And just before the darkness drags you under, you hear him, low and final.
âI will make you never forget me. Not until you come back to me.â
And you will come back. Because what heâs taken from you, what heâs planted inside you, was always his to claim. Because you are his.Â
You fall into the dark, and this time, you do not fight it. You collapse into silence.
⊠⊠âŠ
You wake with a sharp breath, the ceiling above you unfamiliar for a heartbeat, until you realize itâs your own. Your bed. Your room. But your body doesn't believe it yet. Your skin is cold, your muscles aching, your nerves still echoing his touch.
Your heart wonât calm. It beats like itâs still in rhythm with him. You shift under the sheets, expecting restraints, remembering the pull of rope. You should feel anger. Shame. But instead, what curls inside your chest is something far worse.
You miss him.
The thought is repulsive. And devastatingly true. You ache, not just in your body, but in the space he left behind. The silence is too sterile. Too hollow. You feel unoccupied.
When you turn your head, you see a glass of water on your nightstand, and beside it a card. Familiar. Old. An appointment reminder. His.
Tuesday. 8:00 PM.
Nothing else. But you donât need more. Your hand hovers over it, trembling. You tell yourself you wonât go. That youâll throw it away. But your body, your mind, your soul already know the truth.
Thank you for your message and sorry for the delayâ my brain is fried.
Here are more of my headcanons for AK Riddler, because I will never stop talking about him.
âż - Sex headcanon
Because I already proposed one headcanon where he is sexually active, I will propose another interpretation (and next time, I will propose another sexually active one).
Edward struggles to feel desire; not in the way most people seem to, anyway. He doesnât quite relate or connect with people enough to be interested in them, romantically or physically. Romantic attraction probably baffles him, strikes him as something ridiculous; sexual interest seems like a burdensome distraction at best. Itâs not quite repulsion; more like irrelevance. Profound disinterest.
He might have âdatedâ someone once, in adolescence. A short-lived, awkward simulacra of a relationship he entered purely because it felt socially appropriate. He didnât quite understand the appeal, didnât invest much time and energy into it, and when it eventually ended, he didnât particularly mourn the loss. He simply made a mental note and moved on. Something he could finally strike out of his journal; heâs done it, now can we please talk about something else.
Of course, the relationship didnât involve any touch, which he found particularly grotesque in essence. And let us not even talk about intimacy; something sloppy, messy, unpredictable, and impossible to intellectualise. It lacks logic, reasoning, elegance. He avoids it entirely.
Periodically, once every blue moon, he might feel a sudden flicker of biological desire; an intrusion, a nuisance. He handles it clinically, ârecalibratingâ with as little ceremony as possible. It is quick, private, and thoroughly uninteresting. Then, he can get back to more important things. Always more important things.
⟠- sleep headcanon
Edward loathes sleeping. To him, it is a pure waste of his most precious time, a thief stealing hours he could spend working ardently on his design. There is always something immensely more important, more urgent than sleeping; an equation to solve, a thousand more lines of code to write, a blueprint to revise. So, he pushes the limits of his body past what is reasonable, fuelled by inhuman amounts of caffeine, burning ego and pure spite, sometimes staying awake for days at a time.
But inevitably, biology betrays him.
It can happen in the middle of a task, while hunched over a mechanism, or standing up to examine his work. His body gives out, his brain collapses, without any warning or ceremony. The lights simply shut off mid-thought.
When he wakes, the consequences are always humiliating; the imprint of a wrench on his cheek, a bump forming on his forehead from hitting the desk, a blooming pain in his shoulder from the crooked way he collapsed.
Heâs irritated at the delay in his so important projects, furious at his own weakness, upset at the painful, physical consequences of a simple, momentary lapse of attention.
But, what he will never say, will never admit, is that he feels better. His mind feels more clear, his body more rested.
I never really noticed the these vs those grammar mistake ngl. And also, to me, outside of very specific circumstances, the words are practically interchangeable. Like, yeah, they reference to objects at different distances, but to me it feels less like some super bad screw up and more like âoh the word choice is a little clunky here. Huh.â Before moving on.
So yeah, I wouldnât sweat it that much. (Although, if you do want to hear a really weird method to remember the difference, I could share it. Only if you want though - no pressure, just thought Iâd offer a hand since Iâve had issues like this when trying to learn another language)
Thank you for your words of wisdom!
You can share your method, perhaps yours will finally work for me (but donât feel offended if I still cannot manage to use the words properly!)
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