Sep 23, 2024
love this guy
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love this guy
@saltyjoy after your recent fic (that I will never forget about, everyone please go check it out rn) I finally feel inspired to start the Arkham trilogy
Also peep my grown out Robin nails LMAO
𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘮…
Trying to talk about the Arkham games as a woman on Twitter is absolute hell on earth you’ll have 35 year old men being so condescending to you and u ask them to explain and they’re proud over the fact that they know Batman… is stoic… until he absolutely can’t anymore…. THATS NOT EVEN AN INTERPRETATION!!! THATS LITERALLY THE MOST BASIC SURFACE LEVEL, BATMAN 101 OBSERVATION EVER!!! “You’re sooo close to getting it” ARE YOU SERIOUS!!
Jason Todd, Batman: Arkham Knight, 2015
My boyfriend got me the Arkham trilogy for my Switch 🥺
Playing it on handheld feels so weird but also kinda like I'm playing it for the first time again. And it's so CRISP like I can't stop zooming in on random stuff just to check it out. Like imagine the PS4 remake but not as janky looking.
𝓢𝓸𝓶𝓮 𝓼𝓲𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓭𝓸𝓸𝓭𝓵𝓮𝓼 𝓸𝓯 𝓶𝔂 𝓰𝓾𝔂 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓯𝓾𝓷 (𝓫𝓮𝓬𝓪𝓾𝓼𝓮 𝓱𝓮 𝓲𝓼 𝓶𝔂 𝓯𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓬𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓪𝓯𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓪𝓵𝓵)
𝓕𝓻𝓸𝓶 𝓽𝓸𝓹 𝓽𝓸 𝓫𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓸𝓶:
𝓑𝓪𝓽𝓶𝓪𝓷 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓐𝓷𝓲𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓢𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓼
𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓓𝓪𝓻𝓴 𝓚𝓷𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽 𝓣𝓻𝓲𝓵𝓸𝓰𝔂
𝓐𝓻𝓴𝓱𝓪𝓶 𝓢𝓱𝓪𝓭𝓸𝔀
𝓐𝓻𝓴𝓱𝓪𝓶 𝓚𝓷𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽 (𝓕𝓻𝓸𝓶 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓐𝓻𝓴𝓱𝓪𝓶 𝓣𝓻𝓲𝓵𝓸𝓰𝔂)
𝓐𝓵𝓼𝓸 𝓘’𝓶 𝓼𝓸 𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓹𝔂 𝓘’𝓶 𝓰𝓮𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓼𝓸 𝓶𝓾𝓬𝓱 𝓼𝓾𝓹𝓹𝓸𝓻𝓽, 𝓲𝓽 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓱𝓮𝓵𝓹𝓼 𝓶𝓮 𝓴𝓮𝓮𝓹 𝓶𝓮 𝓶𝓸𝓽𝓲𝓿𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓸 𝓭𝓻𝓪𝔀 𝓼𝓲𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓼𝓽𝓾𝓯𝓯, 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓽𝓻𝓪𝓭𝓲𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓭𝓲𝓰𝓲𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂!
I played Arkham City again and obviously you know what that means my friends. Riddler content. So take this Riddler x Reader.
Obvious warnings that come with any Batman villain: kidnapping and electrocution specifically in this one.
_____________________________________________________
You'd figure living in Gotham your whole life would have left you prepared for this. Although you were unsure one could ever be fully ready to be kidnapped by anyone let alone one of the many fearsome supervillains parading the city. You'd never actually seen one of them in person, sure the henchmen were always about and easy to make out, but there was something even more bone chilling about seeing the killers themselves.
There you dangled, a few inches from the plated floor, the feeling in your arms long gone from how ever many hours you'd been stuck in the dingy room. A dirty fluorescent light flickered and buzzed above you, somewhere in the corner rainwater dripped against the metal plates and sizzled from the heat of electricity. Your tears had stopped a while ago around the same time your voice went shot.
After so long there wasn't much left to give.
“How about another-”
Whatever ounce of fight you still had seemed to react at the simple sound of his voice once again invading your thoughts. You thrashed, kicking your legs and twisting your body so hard you heard bones crack, the chains holding you up rattled together and dug into your wrists painfully.
“Enough of your stupid riddles already!” your yelling might have had some kind of bite to it if it wasn't for the voice cracks and labored breathing, “just let me go!”
The tantrum hardly lasted long enough to carry any weight. And when you finally fell still and let your body hang limply you saw that maybe your shouting wasn't the thing he wanted to hear. Leaning back on the edge of his desk that was tucked against the wall his head cocked to the side and his widened blue eyes bore into your skull. He wasn’t dressed the way you’d seen in the news, in fact, he looked dressed down to a comfortable level. He was clad in green pants and a white button down with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a loose tie but lacked his long green coat, cane, and bowler hat. He was seething. Cleary enraged by your interruption and rudeness. He was silent for a second merely running through every possible way to make you suffer in his mind. He could let you be torn apart by spinning blades or watch as acid burns through your skin.
Decisions, decisions.
“Now, now,” The Riddler reached back to the desk and swiped for something; it was some kind of controller with a flip switch and a tuning knob. He eyed you menacingly and you could feel the darkness radiating from him, “is that any way to act when you’re the one strung up?”
Your body swayed slightly as you looked around the room trying to decipher what that controller could be for. Was it for some kind of weapon? Would it control how high you hung? Whatever it was, you were watching closely as his fingers, hands bare of his usual purple gloves, toyed with it. Each time he grazed the buttons you held your breath just hoping with all your racing heart that he wouldn’t use it. He, in turn, watched your eyes and smiled at the way you jolted slightly at each passing movement. You looked terrified at the prospect of just what might happen. Sweat and grime caked your body and scrubs and tears stained your cheeks. He could tell you’d just about tired yourself completely with that last fit. No doubt you were growing lethargic.
“It’s rude not to answer when someone asks you a question,” he said when the feeling of being ignored ate away at him just a bite too much. For show, he let his thumb rest on the switch.
You snapped to look him in the face in an instant, “What do you want from me?”
His smile never faltered as he answered in the most natural tone of voice, “I want you to answer my riddles Doctor,” like it was the simplest request ever.
Giving the weakest of kicks in his direction you whined, falling into a blubbering mess, “Please, just let me go. M-my roommate- he’s gonna notice I’m missing soon and- please- please I won’t say a word.” That was a lie of course. He wouldn’t notice because he wouldn’t wake up for another few hours to rush to work. This is what you get for taking a graveyard shift at the hospital.
“All of you stupid little ants say the same thing,” he stood up straight and put his free hand on his hip before speaking in a poor imitation of your voice, “‘Oh I won’t tell a soul I promise’ you think I care if you tell anyone? Promising to be quiet isn’t going to make me any more likely to let you live. In fact, the whining makes me want to end your miserable life even faster.”
If you weren’t so tired from crying your eyes might have welled up again. You didn’t want to die and you knew the kinds of things he did to his victims given the fact that you’d cared for a few of them in the emergency room before. Even if they weren’t dead, they were messed up for life physically or emotionally. You felt yourself heaving a bit at the thought.
The Riddler seemed to notice your shaking form and he laughed, “I suppose if you don’t want to answer them then I have no use for you. I’ll just snatch up another doctor to lure in Batman.”
You watched in terror as he flipped the switch with his thumb. At first, nothing happened. The only sounds reaching your ears was your own pounding heart that hurt so bad you started to struggle to breathe. And then all at once you heard a buzzing, different from the lights, coming from under you. The sizzling from the dripping water suddenly made a lot more sense as electricity cackled across the metal plates. There was such an abundance of it that you would literally see the blue and white. The area around your feet became hot as the intensity was turned up by a bored looking Riddler.
As the electricity got stronger you noticed the way it almost seemed to reach out at you. Or maybe that was your delirium. Regardless, you reacted in panic and gripped at the chain holding you before trying to lift yourself up and away with a cry of fear. You had no strength in your arms and resorted to trying to tuck your knees up as high as possible, legs flailing wildly as your muscles screamed for you to stop.
“No! St-stop! Please don’t!” your voice carried over the pops and cracks and The Riddler hummed in confusion and gave you a very obviously fake look of concern, “Stop!”
“I thought you didn’t want to? Didn’t you say ‘enough with your stupid riddles’ Doctor? Isn’t that what came out of your mouth?” he taunted as he twisted the knob and the electricity cracked stronger. If even a part of you touched it you’d probably fry alive then and there. He was safe of course as the black plates only covered from the middle of the room to the back wall and not the area where his desk and the door resided. There was just one strip of floor untouched by danger. If you had to guess, the room was some kind of torture chamber where he could safely watch as his victims suffered.
A new layer of sweat formed over the old ones as you fought to keep yourself up. You were either going to puke or faint or both. Or some other third option. You didn’t even know at this point, you were so hysterical you couldn’t focus on anything. Not the ache in your arms from lack of blood flow, not your tearing muscles, not any of it. Your foot brushed close enough to the floor that a bolt of electricity shot up your leg and you yelped.
“Okay! Okay! I’ll answer you! Give me-” you started to cough and hack from improper breathing, “give me a riddle! I’ll try!”
Within a split second of your words reaching him the plates shut off and you heard a clatter then a loud clap of hands before he shouted, “Wonderful! See, I knew you’d listen to me. Sooner or later.”
You held yourself up as long as you could, scared that maybe he was tricking you and the second you let yourself hang there he would turn it back up full blast and you’d die, but you were just so tired that it was impossible to stay that way for another second. Your legs dropped aggressively and you felt a pop in your wrist that definitely wasn’t good. The most you could muster was a whimper.
“Oh no… does it hurt?” if that wasn’t the fakest thing you’d ever heard, “Are you in pain? If you just listened you wouldn’t have to thrash around like a wild animal.”
Your head hung low as you tried to regain some sense of breath before you glanced up at him through mussed hair. He wasn’t holding the remote anymore, it laid on its side on the desk, and he was watching you in a similar manner to a predator. He propped himself back against the corner and crossed his arms, an eyebrow lifting in your direction. Your lips parted and you huffed, “Are you gonna-”
His hand popped up to quiet you, “I’m the scariest thing you’ll ever write, direct, and produce all by yourself. What am I?”
“What?”
Your voice was small, weak, and dripping with complete confusion.
The Riddler sighed deeply. So deep that you could almost feel the disappointment wash over you despite your distance.
“I said,” he enunciated the last letter harshly, “I’m the scariest thing you’ll ever write, direct, and produce all by yourself. What. am. I.”
“I don’t…” you trailed into uncomfortable silence as you started repeating his riddle in your mind.
You’d never been the best at them. Sure, you could answer the basics but once they started getting complicated you always got confused. ‘Scariest thing’ he’d said ‘you’ll ever write’. You tried to break it down, section it off and think about it as pieces but all that did was hurt your brain more. The struggle frustrated you beyond belief, creating a hot feeling across your face. He couldn’t actually expect you to know the answer under so much stress, right?
If you didn’t come up with something soon, you were going to die.
He surveyed you. Monitoring the way your face contorted with rage and confusion and fear was enjoyable to him. He could see when you were deep in thought trying to decipher his words. He could pinpoint the exact moment you started to think about your death rather than your survival. He saw your lips moving, ghosting the words over and over, like saying it would give you some kind of advantage. This was the part he loved. The part where the little vermin of Gotham tried to pretend they were smart. How he loved the tortured expression that crossed their faces when they were wrong.
“I-” you said, “I don’t- something you write, direct, and produce…”
Oh how stupid you were. Just like all the rest. Maybe a little push would help. Before he even got the chance to grasp the remote control you started to shout at him.
“No! Give me more time! Please! I- I can get it!”
“Tick tock Doctor,” his blue eyes shone malice, “You’re starting to bore me.”
You couldn’t begin to imagine how he’d entertain himself if you didn’t. You squeezed your eyes shut and curled in on yourself as you yelled out an answer. The only thing that could possibly make sense to you. What’s something your mind comes up with all by itself that is typically frightening?
“A nightmare!”
Everything went silent.
Edward hummed in the back of his throat and let his eyes roam your tense form. If he was honest, he hadn’t expected you to get it. Of course it was an easy riddle but most couldn’t even answer those correctly. When he’d snatched you from outside of the hospital you worked at he’d been drawn in by your appearance. You looked like someone living without a care in the world.
Those were the ones that he typically had the most fun with.
And yet here you were giving him a cognizant response. He hadn’t had that happen in… ever. Not with a victim at least. Batman was an entirely different story but of course that man always cheated. You hadn’t cheated. There was no way you could have. Perhaps there was more to you than he’d given credit for.
You hung there, curled up and as still as a statue, waiting for pain.
But instead of pain, you heard quiet footsteps. Slow and steady. Coming in your direction. Edward wasn’t quite sure what had come over him but before he knew it he was standing directly in front of you and looking up at your face. You looked cute with your nose scrunched like that. Maybe…
“Pretty and smart,” Edward spoke, making you jump at the sudden proximity.
Your eyes shot open and you met his gaze. He had a smile playing on his lips that made you shiver. Why was he so close all of a sudden? Was he getting ready to kill you? Did he say pre-
His arms raised and being too weak to fight anymore you were forced to let him do his thing. His hand came up to your face and he gripped along your jaw and neck. His hands were freezing against your burning skin. You assumed he was going to stop there but he yanked you toward him, ignoring how you cried out in pain at the pull in your arms.
“I like you, Doctor. You’re different,” he whispered, nose brushing yours, “maybe I’ll keep you a bit longer.”
You shuddered, a choked sob wracking your body at the thought, at what that might mean for you. Unfortunately for you, the infamous Riddler had latched onto you within seconds. He was attached. And he wasn’t going to let you go for anything. When he wanted something, when he liked something, it was his.
“I’ll have to make sure Batman can’t take you away from me.”