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Chapter Text

Ichabod stared at the strange human moving around the room, curious. The new female was curious herself, looking around in the room and poking at things that seemed interesting. Her gaze lighted on the cage and the bird within, suddenly fascinated, tilting her head like another bird would. Despite her lack of proper depth perception she could see that the human was interested in the absence of her right eye, as most humans were; this new thing approached the cage and she didn’t move, unintimidated.

Both the bird and the human turned when the bathroom door opened, releasing a billow of steam: fluttering her wings, she stared over at her boy, who had shed his former skin. That familiar face, light glinting off his glasses like stars, didn’t react in any tangible way, only looked from the bird to the human.

“You’re still here?”

The other human stepped away from the cage and stumbled over clumsy feet toward the door.

“Ah. Right,” she said, voice sounding suddenly angry and sucking the air out of the room. “Of course.”

Watching her boy carefully to make sure it was only him there, Ichabod hopped along her perch to get closer, temporary imprisonment notwithstanding. When the female human opened the door, her hand was still resting on the handle when he called her back.

“No, come back.”

“What?” she turned around, face twisted up and body stance spoiling for a fight.

“Forgot your purse.”

Without ceremony he tossed it over; she caught it one-handed and slammed the door behind her, in a desperate hurry to run or hide. The resumption of the quiet was welcome, the dramatic exit restoring the mood. Then he walked over and opened the door of the cage so she could fly out to land on his right shoulder, her good eye meeting his scarred one.

“Sorry 'bout that. Business, y’know.”

Lifting one finger, he caressed her chest feathers with more care than she had seen him treat any human, least of all himself.

"You and me, darlin’,” he said. “Just how we like it, right?”

Ichabod gargled out an affectionate reply, stroking his face with her beak. Immediately her boy smiled, proving it was still him: a reassurance that only she could take proper care of him.

Chapter Text

“I’ve got a question about this plan of yours to get into the Joker’s pantaloons.”

“Hmm?”

Harleen tapped her pencil against the page as she looked up, attention immediately roused by the mention of his name. The unflattering overhead light lit up the gold tones in his hair as Edward shook his head, tutting.

“Still like a lovestruck little teenager,” he scoffed. “Might I mention you’re supposed to be paying attention to me?”

“Won’t do you any harm,” she jabbed the pencil at him. “And you’ll find it’s lust-struck, Eddie, makin’ me a horny little teenager.”

“The difference being?”

“I’m not lookin’ for a soulmate, or some kinda… boyfriend.”

“Just a bed warmer, then?”

“The bed’s not mandatory, and I’m hopin’ it’ll be me who keeps him warm,” she giggled. “If ya get me.”

“I could get you if I were floating in outer space,” he said, leaning over the table. “Might as well tape a ‘Fuck Me’ sign onto your back.”

“Mmm, could be too subtle,” she said, pushing out her lips archly. “What was your question?”

“You’ve managed to get Jon out of his oubliette downstairs.”

“By dint of a lotta work, I might add,” she said, indulging in a private little smile.

“Oh, I don’t write it off - I know how stubborn he is. Has it gotten you any closer to your prize?”

“Arkham’s lookin’ into gettin’ me in there soon,” she said. “That nasty business with the Todd boy… they wanna forget him, but they have to be seen to be doin’ somethin’ about it.”

Enter our own little Anne Sullivan,” he said, raising an ironic eyebrow. “The Miracle Worker herself.”

“Let’s not go nuts,” she rolled her eyes; he gasped in mock indignation and clasped a clutching hand to his throat.

“Language, doctor. Someone nutty might hear you.”

“You ass,” she said, without rancor.

“So my real question is, how are you going to get him to want to have sex with you? He’s never shown interest in anyone before.”

“Oh Eddie,” she smiled and shook her head. “Still got so much to learn.”

“Meaning?” his face tightened.

“Gettin’ him to sleep with me - that’s the easy part.”

“And the hard part?”

“I can’t wait to see it for my…”

Unable to hold back a second longer, Harleen dissolved into giggles; Edward sighed.

“I suppose I walked right into that one. Foolish.”

Reaching across the table, she grabbed one of his hands; he tensed, but allowed it. After giving his hand a quick squeeze, she let him go.

“Never change, Eddie.”

“Naturally never,” he said, relaxing and preening his hair. “I’m just as I made me.”

Harleen sucked her teeth and gave him a look.

“You wanna talk about that solipsistic megalomania, sometime?”

“Nah,” he said, waving a hand. “I fear it might change me. And isn’t that something we prefer to avoid?”

“Yeah, you’re prob’ly right.”

“So,” he said, looking around the room, “how does one spend their therapy minutes these days, when they’re too compos mentis to drool and stare at the wall like your decent lunatic would?”

Seemingly waiting for him to ask, she lit him up with a conspiratorial grin and withdrew a small package out of her white coat pocket.

“I got some cards with me. Wanna play Gin, this time?”

“I most certainly do,” he cracked his knuckles. “On the proviso that the loser has to tell an awful, stomach-turning secret they would never tell anyone under normal circumstances.”

Harleen looked up at him, sly. “You so sure I got at least one to tell?”

Edward tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, smiling.

“To say yes would denigrate both of us.”

“Ooh,” she grinned as she shuffled the cards, “that’s what I like to see. You’re on, pretty boy.”

Chapter Text

Edward stared at the picturesque cupcake that sat in the middle of his desk, one single question mark candle resting within the perfectly swirled green frosting. The offering gleamed in the light, dusted with glittering sanded sugar like the green fairy herself had fluttered by. It was his birthday, sure, but he had no use for ill thought out gifts and had long since stopped telling people the true date when he grew weary of telling them his age. The few people who were blessed with the true knowledge he expected to at least acknowledge the event or risk incurring his wrath. Two of those in the know were Query and Echo, but they were on vacation out of the country which categorically ruled them out. Additionally, anyone other than those in his direct employ he didn’t trust to remember their own birthday, let alone his.

Warily he circled the desk, wondering if the thing were liable to explode. The flame flickered at his movement; the cake did nothing. With careful control he reached out to grab it, then flinched his hand back. Only one thing for it, then: he grabbed a nearby textbook on deadly poisons, raised it over his head, and -

"The fuck are you doin’?”

Edward slowly turned his head without moving the rest of his body; Jon was standing in the doorway, coffee in one hand and the requisite critical look on his face.

“Well, I -” Edward let his arm fall, then looked from the suspicious green confection to Jon and back again. “Wait. You did this?”

Jon’s face, as usual, didn’t shift.

“Did what, turn you into a fruitcake?”

“Like you could take the credit for that.”

Edward set the book back down and then, after a moment’s thought, straightened it; he stared down at the cupcake, peered over at Jon, then shrugged.

“A wink’s as good as a nod to a blind man, I suppose,” he said, tapping his nose. “Will it kill?”

“Me? No. You maybe,” Jon shrugged.

"Right now?”

“Damned if I know,” he shrugged again, getting irritated. “You comin’, or what?”

“Hm? Oh right, lunch. Sure.”

When Edward took a step toward the door Jon looked over his shoulder at the cupcake, seeming to notice it for the first time; he gestured at it with his head.

“You gonna eat that, or what?”

Suspicious, Edward squinted at him. Then he laughed.

“Only you would ask that. Let’s just go.”

Edward closed the door behind them, soon falling into step with Jon as they moved down the hallway.

“Hey, ain’t it your birthday ‘round now?”

“Could be, Jon,” Edward said, smiling. “Could be.”

At the opposite end of the corridor, popping her head around the corner to listen as their voices faded out of hearing, Harley licked a dab of frosting from her fingertips.

“Fascinatin’,” she said, her face breaking into a grin. “This requires further testin’.”

Chapter Text

“Here you go, Eddie,” Susie said, mouth wide, smiling, all stubby baby teeth.

In her thrusting hand was a clump of fluffy white dandelions, little balls of fluff wafting away in the late summer breeze. Eddie sat in the shade under the weeping tree and pushed his glasses upward; he glared at the end of his nose, annoyed at this new development. Huffing, he took them off and set them down in the dirt.

“Daddy says those cost lots of money.”

“So he tells me,” he said, shoulders slumping. “Again and again.”

“And Mama says you need them to see.”

“Eh,” he shrugged. “I don’t need to see right now.”

Feeling devious, Susie stuck out her tongue; Eddie laughed.

“Careful, a bee could land on your tongue. Then what would you do?”

“Hey, no fair. You can’t see me,” she protested; he smiled, blinking up at her.

“No, but I can hear the ‘nyer’ noise you always make when you do it.”

“Oh, pooh,” she pouted.

“Are all of those for me?” he asked, nodding in the general area of gift.

“If you want,” she shrugged.

Eddie reached out and she jabbed the bouquet at his hand but he felt around and withdrew only one singular bloom, leaving the rest behind. Susie plopped down beside him and blew on the bunch all at once, giggling as the little parachutes blew up and out in a spiralling whirl. Eddie listened to her glee, a small smile pulling up one side of his mouth. After several rasping puffs, she cleared the dandelions of their seeds and threw aside the stems. Sensing Eddie’s dark mood, she inched closer and laid her head on his shoulder. To her delight, he didn’t shrug her off.

“You okay?”

“Oh, sure,” he said, staring into space. “Sure, I can be okay.”

Since she didn’t understand she didn’t reply, and didn’t move away. In the silence, Eddie lifted the proffered dandelion up to his face. To that, she felt qualified to offer input.

“Make a wish.”

“I don’t believe in wishes, Zuzu. Kid’s stuff.”

“Since when?”

“Since always.”

“But that didn’t stop you before.”

“What about you, did you make a wish?”

“Nope. So now you have to.”

Eddie took a breath in, looking apprehensive; for a long time the only sound was the wind whipping through the trees and Susie rubbing the soles of her sandals in the dirt while she waited.

“I wish he was dead,” he finally said, quiet enough to convey his fear at releasing the secret into the world, loud enough to betray his longing; as pure a prayer as he could muster for such a ghoulish proposition.

Then Eddie blew on the dandelion as hard as he could, shifting its contents all at once. Susie said nothing as the seeds blew out into the world with his yearning in their hands, the sudden throb of her heart too strong to object to his choice of wish.

Chapter Text

“What kind of person do you find attractive… nope.”

Click. The message was gone, purged forever.

“What is your perfect date… what is this, a beauty pageant? Delete,” he set his chin down on his fist and made an exploding noise. “Oh joy, more riddles,” he muttered, scanning the text. “Teeth… the sun… great Caesar’s ghost, it’s Baby’s First Bumper Book of Riddles. Better mark that down as a maybe. They’ll never learn a damn thing if Father Superior doesn’t smack their fingers once in a while.”

Yawning, stretching, Edward leaned back in his chair.

“The Riddler speaks,” he said as he looked out of the window at the glowing skyline of Gotham beyond. “Whatever possessed me to start such a thing and open myself up to the unvetted questions of a gormless, fawning public? What could I have possibly been thinking?”

He managed to keep a straight face for roughly five seconds, then laughed.

“Vanity, my dear Edward,” he said, lifting his head and pushing his hair out of his face with his fingers. “Always vanity. Though why they want to know what I find attractive is beyond me. Is this so they can change themselves to fit what I like, or are they trying to sway my decision-making? They should find a miscreant of their own and stop trying to change people. Me included.”

Now itching to find a distraction, any distraction, he pushed out his chair and strode over to the window.

“What must everyone be getting up to tonight, I wonder?” he gazed out. “I don’t see the zigzagging of the blue and red for once… is the entire criminal class taking the night off so the Bat can go to one of his brat’s piano recitals? Surely not even we could get so old and soft as that.”

On cue, a siren wail rose up somewhere in the distance; Edward grinned and saluted the general direction.

“Kudos, whoever you may turn out to be, for that is always a sweet tune to hear - the sound of inevitability and the footfalls of impending whoopass raining down on someone who isn’t me.”

Turning around, he looked at the computer and sighed, smile fading.

“Better get back to wading through the dross - I should get something out there, at least.”

When he sat down, a word caught his eye and dragged it to the end of the question.

“Jo - Jobathan?” he started to laugh. “Ooh. Unacceptable, try again.”

There was a moment of uncertainty as his mouse hovered over the delete button; he read the question, and then read it again.

Your views on Jobathan Crane, Mr. E?

The siren faded out of earshot as Edward’s lips twitched. “Oh, why not.”

He hit reply, fingers already dancing out the melody of his rejoinder; he turned on his microphone.

“After all, my therapist is always telling me to loosen up more… ” he paused, then snickered. “Though I believe her exact word was ‘unclench’, but the spirit is what counts.”

Chapter Text

The sun pierced the curtains and spilled onto the kitchen table, finding Dick Grayson as he blearily ate one spoon of Corn Flakes after another, staring into eternity. Jason Todd scratched his head with both hands as he came into the kitchen, yawning, then caught sight of and laughed at his brother.

“Alright there, Dickens?”

“Hnh,” he grunted, chewing.

“Never were much for mornings,” he grinned.

“Hnh.”

Jason took a seat opposite and grabbed some of the sourdough toast, covering it with butter and peanut butter. When he looked up and saw Bruce lumber into the room like a grizzly bear coming out of hibernation, both cheeks were already smeared with crumbs.

“Don’t eat all my toast,” he ordered, voice rougher than usual in his waking moments; Jason rolled his eyes.

Before he sat down, Bruce staggered over to the sink for a glass of water. When he leaned over to rinse out his mouth under the tap, his boxer shorts rode up; for the second time, Jason laughed.

“How long’ve you had that?”

“Had what?”

“That tattoo,” he pointed.

“I don’t have a tattoo,” he said, turning around. “And it’s too early for your jokes.”

“As if. And yeah, you do,” he nodded, eyes lit up with malevolent glee.

“Probably just a bruise.”

“I know what I saw, and I saw a cat’s paw under your ass. No way did it just drop by to hang out."

Bruce’s face froze, his whole body turned to stone. Quite calmly, he set his empty glass down in the sink.

"I’ll kill her,” he muttered, coming to life and storming out of the room. “I’m going to kill her.”

Snickering, Jason scooped up the rest of the toast pile, opening his mouth wide like a snake to take one colossal bite, spraying bits everywhere.

“That was impressive,” Dick said across the table, dark hair still sticking up in all directions but blue eyes finally alert.

“I can fit my whole fist in my mouth too,” Jason mumbled out, crumbs flying. “Wanna see?”

“I meant Bruce,” Dick said, wincing and waving his hand against projectiles. “Lost your main competitor for the toast in about a minute.”

Jason shrugged, managing smug nonchalance with chipmunk cheeks.

“I’m awesome.”

From the confines of his pantry, Alfred allowed himself a private little laugh.

“Yes you are, young master Todd,” he said, rearranging his jars of preserves. “At last, someone had the sheer dearth of social grace to just tell him it was there. At last, at last.”

Chapter Text

“Edward.”

“Hmm?” he looked up from his book to see Oswald giving him a beady look from his seat by the fire.

“Tell me a story.”

Edward stared at him, suppressing an incredulous smirk.

“What, you want me to coo you to sleep? Rock you like a baby, perhaps?”

“Don’t be a twit, I’m bored.”

Edward closed his book and sighed, resigning himself.

“What kind of story do you want?”

“Something I don’t know yet.”

“There’s very little about me you don’t know or can’t find out. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Christ,” he waved a hand irritably, “I don’t know. Tell me about your first kiss.”

“Who remembers trifles such as that?”

“Everyone remembers that. Or are you really about to tell me that your perfect memory is failing you?”

Edward grimaced and fidgeted in his chair.

“Alright,” he shrugged. “There’s not much to tell, really.”

“Tell it anyway. Indulge your favourite friend and employer - start with their name, see where that leads you.”

“Hm,” he raised an eyebrow. “Candace Moses was her name.”

"She a looker?” Oswald waggled his eyebrows.

“For a teenager? Aesthetically pleasing enough, I suppose.”

“Oh, you flirt. Must I drag it out of you? How old were you?”

“Sixteen,” he looked off, staring into the past. “I was sitting on a park bench thinking about a puzzle I was working on that I was momentarily stuck on. She was beside me before I realised anyone else was around, and she kissed me before I could even say word one.”

“She knew you, then,” Oswald sniggered. “What happened after that?”

“Well, she was certainly… enthusiastic.”

“Something she had worked up some courage to do, I’d say. And you?”

“It was a natural enough action; simple to learn. But then -”

“Then?” Oswald leaned forward, interested.

“Then I finally realised what the answer to my puzzle was. I said, ‘that’s it’ and took off running back to my house and my notebook. God, what a relief that was: like pulling a thorn from my side. Amazing.”

Oswald stared at Edward for a solid half minute, his friend remaining quite oblivious to the scrutiny.

“What?” he finally asked, puzzled.

“You solved a problem in your head while you were having your first kiss with someone whoclearly had some kind of crush on you, and the solution was the good bit?”

“Yes,” he said, as if it were perfectly obvious; Oswald sat back, raising one eyebrow.

“Did you really run off like Archimedes from his bathtub?”

“Yes I did,” he nodded, still looking quite innocent. “What about it?”

“Poor girl must have been traumatised,” Oswald chortled. “What a good thing I wasn’t looking to go to sleep.”

“Why is that?”

“That would be impossible when you’re around, Edward. You quite defy belief - it’s enough to keep one up nights.”

Smirking, Edward spread his hands. “Thank you.”

Chapter Text

“Where is it?” demanded Harvey, throttling the Joker with both hands.

“Can’t - talk -” he wheezed, giggling. “Choking-”

“Fucking clown!” he roared, punching him in the face and across the room.

Before he was able to continue as he so wanted to, he was pounced upon by two orderlies who each grabbed hold of an arm; such was the strength of his rage he threw them both off and into the furniture, laying them out.

“The hell is going on?” Edward sidled up and asked Jervis, foregoing their usual froideur to press him for information.

“Joker took Harvey’s coin and hid it somewhere. Won’t say where,” he stuttered out, then realised who he was talking to. “You’re speaking to me.”

“Not for long,” Edward said, leaving him in the dust to take a look around the ransacked recreation room. “Doesn’t have it on him, or it would have fallen out. He’s hidden it somewhere, but good luck getting it from him now, since he’s out for the count. Right - let’s find it before he turns his wrath of Gods onto me.”

Sneaking around the human wrecking ball of Harvey Dent, Edward surveyed the room with the keen eye of the former detective.

“Where would he think it was funny to hide it…” he mused, gaze lighting on the meagre bookshelf that provided their entire literature selection. “Ah.”

There was a copy of The Sting of the Scorpion on the shelf alongside a copy of The Hidden Staircase - the former Hardy Boys, the latter Nancy Drew. Since Harvey read Nancy and Harv read Hardy, a choice would have to be made. It was a simple enough deduction: what they read was a fact known to absolutely everyone with working eyeballs. Edward pulled the two books from the shelf and the happy sound of a coin hitting the floor followed.

Dent was too preoccupied to notice the sound but Edward picked up the coin and looked over at Hurricane Harvey: there were now seven orderlies joining the Joker on the floor, and the latest two were losing the struggle. The coin was the only piece of contraband in the entire asylum that anyone was permitted, gimmicks be damned, since that was the whole point. Harvey's need was much different and thus far had done no harm to others.

“Harvey!” he called, holding the coin up to the light.

Immediately the fight went out of Harvey like an exhalation of breath and he sagged, exhausted.

“Give it,” he rasped. “Please.”

Since he was still restrained, Edward dropped it in one of Harvey's pants pockets.

“Thanks, Nygma,” he grunted; Edward nodded without reply, watching him get dragged off willingly to solitary confinement, docile and content with his punishment now that his coin had been returned.

Edward crouched down on the floor beside the Joker, who was blowing bubbles with his own spit and blood.

“You must've thought that would be pretty funny, you dumb motherfucker,” he said, looking at his injuries with great amusement. “Pleased with yourself?”

“Tickled black and blue,” Joker giggled, licking the blood off his lips.

“Well, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

“The best kind! Oooh,” he moaned, clutching his ribs, “but I’m not doing that again.”

Edward raised an eyebrow; Joker grinned.

“... For a bit. Hee hee!”

“There it is,” Edward said, giving him a brisk slap on the unbloodied part of his cheek. “What a world it would be if you actually made some kind of sense.”

Chapter Text

“Will you look at this?” Jon said, catching Harley’s attention; she looked up from her book.

“What?”

“This,” he said, nodding downward.

Harley frowned and scrutinised him for several seconds. Though his voice sounded bland enough, he was looking down at a spot under his desk that she couldn’t see.

“Y’know,” she said, lifting up her dog-eared copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel to cover her nose, “I ain’t gonna take ya up on a quiet place to read if ya just gonna sexually harass me.”

Jon finally looked up and scoffed. “Oh, is that what I’m doin’?”

“Sure looks that way, from where I’m sittin’.”

“I recall you once sayin’ it was impossible to sexually harass you.”

“People try, but they inevitably end up with the pointy end of the stick,” she said in a singsong voice.

“So what’s the problem?”

“Playin’ with fire, honey. It’s a sequence of events: ya ask me to look down, things happen, everybody dies.”

“That’s some leap. And you might be exaggeratin’ somewhat.”

“Not about the everybody dies bit,” she giggled, turning a page. “That bit I can guaran-damn-tee.”

“Will you just get over here and look, for fuck’s sake?”

Harley sighed.

"Fine. But on your own bloody stump be it…” she hauled herself up out of the soft armchair and walked over, book still in hand. “What’s this big thing ya want me to look at, then?”

“That,” Jon said, pointing.

“Oh!” Harley said, eyes widening. “That’s - what’s that about?”

Jon had the top drawer of his desk open; inside were piles of walnuts still in their shells. “They weren't here before. Ikky must’ve snuck them in when I wasn’t lookin’,” he said, smiling proudly.

“For herself?”

“Sorta,” he shrugged. “It’s a thing we share.”

“Ahhh,” she smiled. “Her way of gettin’ ya to remember to eat, Bone Man.”

Ichabod cawed in her cage, appearing to assent with this hypothesis; Harley gave her a knowing look.

“What a good girl she is.”

Then without a second thought, her back still to Jon, she lifted her shirt and flashed her breasts at the crow; she only tilted her head and didn’t react, in much the same manner as her master would have.

“What're you doin’ now?” Jon asked, mystified; Harley walked back to her chair and settled in.

“You put the thought in my head, so someone had to get sexually harassed. Might as well be the innocent one who's safe 'cause she can’t tell anybody.”

“Don’t you… dirty my birdie, you harlot,” Jon said, lips fighting a smirk.

“Jealous?” Harley glanced over top of her book and winked.

“Shut up and read your hero porn or I’ll kick your sassy ass right outta my office.”

“Yes sir,” she said, saluting from her forehead with just her middle finger; he chuckled and shook his head, returning to his notes.

Chapter Text

The front door slammed; Eddie must be back. Running out into the living room, Susie stopped in her tracks at the sight of her brother; he was breathing heavily, there a high flush in his cheeks, and his eyes were lit with some inner fire.

“Are you okay?”

Eddie turned to look at her, noting her presence for the first time. His expression softened, and he took several breaths to cool himself off.

“Where did you go?” Susie asked slowly, watching him stride past her to his bedroom.

“You’ve been gone for ages.”

“Church,” he called over his shoulder.

“Why?”

“Had to tell Muldoon something. Get it off my chest.”

Eyebrows furrowing with worry, Susie followed him to his room and leaned her shoulder against the door frame.

“But you haven’t been to confession for years.”

“No time like the present,” he said blithely, pulling a backpack from his closet and then dumping it on the floor by his immaculately made bed.

Susie stared at it.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Possibly,” he said, dropping down hard on his bed with a weary sigh; Susie’s heart started to pound.

“Are you leaving?” her voice was a hush, afraid of the answer.

“Not at this moment,” he said, leaning his back against the wall and patting the empty space beside him.

Susie acquiesced without hesitation and climbed up beside him.

"Is this about… you know?”

Eddie cast her a sidelong glance.

“That unfortunate boy who fell from a tree near here?”

“Yeah, him.”

“No,” he shook his head and closed his eyes, tilting his chin up toward the ceiling. “No.”

Susie stared at his face, tracking his features. While she could see he wasn’t lying, he also wasn’t telling her the whole truth. Something about the tight curve of his shoulders told her she shouldn’t press it, so she bit her lip and changed the subject to distract them both.

“Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Older,” he said with a hollow laugh.

“Come on,” she urged, beseeching him.

“Alright. I want,” he opened his eyes, “to take over the world.”

“You could,” she said, a smile creeping up her lips. “You’re smart enough to do anything you want.”

“Even if I had suggested global nuclear warfare you would support me,” he chuckled for real.

"Because, obviously, you'd take me in your fallout shelter with you," she said. "You wouldn't want me to turn into some kinda nuclear mutant."

“You’re right. What about you?”

“A doctor,” she said instantly. “That’s all I ever wanted to be.”

“Of course you want to help people,” he said, giving her a fond look. “Of course.”

“Though I guess I could settle for being a nurse, if I can’t get the money together for medical school.”

“You’d be a good doctor. Or a nurse. Whatever you set your mind to, you'll succeed at it.”

“Thanks, Eddie,” she said, sliding over to rest her head on his shoulder.

“Just don’t go giving up on your dreams for someone else, Zuzu,” Eddie murmured. “You’ve got a terrible habit of putting yourself second, so try living for yourself, okay?”

Susie’s heart pounded again, suddenly frightened; he sounded so final, like something was coming to an end. Despite knowing that nothing could stay the same, that someone as wilful and hungry as Eddie could never stay here, she felt herself teetering on the edge of a precipice and threw a desperate hand onto the most stable handhold she knew, clinging to it for dear life.

"Eddie?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

For a moment, he didn’t reply, then turned to kiss the crown of her head.

“I know you do,” he whispered.

Susie felt sure it was him responding in kind. Then they fell silent, so less significant words would have to wait.

Chapter Text

Joker deadbolted the door, then leaned against it and sighed.

“Y’alright, puddin’?” called Harley, peering over from her position in the living room, wearing a Dr. Quinn hoodie and a concerned expression.

“Is the doctor in today?” he asked, features drooping.

“Always,” she said brightly, sitting up. “Pull up a pew and take ya time.”

Joker slouched into the room and flopped down on their purple couch beside her, throwing his feet up to land in her lap. While she waited she untied his shiny black dress shoes and pulled them off, throwing them over the arm of the couch and onto the floor. Settling her face into a receptive expression, she massaged his feet as he stared at the ceiling.

“You ever wonder… if there’s more to it than this?”

Harley looked at him, staying quiet; she didn’t know what he meant yet, but interrupting him with questions would only derail the natural flow of his thought process. Instead, she focused on massaging his feet, resisting the urge to tickle.

“You have to wonder,” he went on, still staring upwards, “what it’s all about. That maybe there’s more to life than causing chaos and mayhem?”

Harley’s fingers froze, her eyes widened; this time, she was stunned into silence. Chaos, mayhem, and general social discord were his core: they were his very reason for existing. If he was doubting the point of his existence, then something was really wrong. Though a little cautious to see his face and find an expression she didn’t recognise, she steeled herself and looked over.

He was grinning.

“Joking, boo.”

Her lips pursed, she gave up on any urge to swallow her laugh and burst out in an hysterical, relieved scream instead, retaliating by tickling his feet and making him jerk away, still grinning.

"Ooh, you really got me goin’, that time. You dirty fink! I was... almost scared.”

Hopping up onto the couch like a big cat, he nosed at her face affectionately.

“But I made you laugh, didn’t I?”

“You did,” she said; he looked down at her hoodie.

“Ooh, I love making you laugh. Mm. Is the doctor… in today?” he asked again, raising his eyebrows.

“Always,” she grinned, getting excited. “I told ya so, didn’t I?”

Joker leapt off the couch and slung her over his shoulder, eliciting a squeak of delight.

“You better get your thermometer out,” he growled, carting her off to the bedroom. “I think I’m running a fever.”

“Like ya weren’t hot enough already,” she giggled, voice bouncing as they moved.

“And having a fever makes me sad,” he pouted, lowering her down onto their giant bed. “You know what helps me when I’m sad?”

“Is it…” she bit her lip and played innocent, “... some sugar?”

“It is,” he pounced on her and nuzzled her neck, making her squeal and wriggle. “So pour some sugar on me, sugar.”

Chapter Text

Dr. Pamela Isley stared at the cluster of plants positioned around the room, then feverishly returned to her work. Such beautiful creatures, but so defenceless and so trusting of humans, who didn’t deserve them. Not for much longer, if she had her way: since she had gotten this job at FloraTech in Gotham City, she had been working herself into the ground, pun notwithstanding.

After her coworkers had gotten all the Australian accent jokes out of their collective system by way of some backward casual racism she refused to so much as acknowledge, they had moved on to joking that she must sleep in the lab, being the first one there and the last one to leave.

They were half right.

Pamela never left the lab, and she barely slept. Her life’s work, to make the flora of the world human proof in order to properly flourish, had become her obsession. The beauty she saw in all of nature’s creations appeared lost on her colleagues, despite their alleged doctorates in botany; instead, most of them were irritatingly interested in the traditionally attractive human physical attributes that genetics saw fit to curse her with. She waved them off like so many buzzing mosquitoes seeking to taste her blood, and yet they persisted in trying to get close.

No one took her obsession seriously - like she cared what these amoebae thought - and would poke fun at the idea of improving the health and well-being of plants with her research, which she largely conducted in secret after performing her salaried tasks.

“You reckon I can’t militarise plants?” she muttered, lifting her latest concoction up to the Bunsen burner. “Watch me.”

Whether it was an error through sleep deprivation or a fault in the formula, Pamela never found out. Later, she would only recall the blackening of the test tube and a hissing sound, memory of the explosion wiped from her brain but preserving the pain of her burned hands and face. When she came to, she was surrounded by branches, fronds, and leaves. It was a few moment’s dazed confusion before she realised that she was encased within the laboratory plants.

Had she been blown across the room and into their cluster? No - when she emerged from her haven into the still smoking room, she saw that the explosion should have sent her in the opposite direction. Wherever she moved, the plants leaned her way like they were watching her.

They must have pulled her out of harm’s way. Pamela’s heart filled with a love so sudden and so pure it staggered her; tears welled in her eyes.

“They don’t deserve you,” she whispered. “But I’ll try to.”

Though there was no free flowing air in the room, the plants swayed her way, gesturing down at her hands; she followed their lead and held out her palms, then turned them over as she marvelled at the change. Her hands were green, splotched past the wrists like a burn, but green nevertheless.

“You improved me,” she breathed. “Whatever you did, you made me like you - you made me greater.”

The plants nodded; she returned the gesture.

“I’ll fight for you, sweet babies.”

Pamela lifted a hand to caress the leaves. Like they were caught in a rustling wind, the plants seemed to purr as she stroked them.

“And if I have to, I’ll kill them all.”

Chapter Text

“I bless the rains down in Africa,” the girls hollered in unison, the black convertible devouring the road, buzzkills like red lights and stop signs be damned; the honking and screeching of tires only added to the acoustics, anyway.

“Oh, I missed this,” yelled Harley, slinging her arms over the front seats to catch Pamela and Selena in headlocking hugs.

Caught off guard, Selena swerved the car and hit a mailbox, sending its contents flying around the street.

“Dammit,” Selena said, laughing.

“Ten points!” Harley clapped her hands. “If I’d known we’d be battin’ for boxes, I’d’ve brought my mighty weapon.”

“Better not have been anything in there for me,” Selena muttered, watching the letters fly in the rearview mirror.

“Like what?” Pamela asked, giving her a curious look; she shrugged.

“Checks. Love letters. That sort of thing.”

“Invitations to fancy galas showin’ off a big ol’ diamond?” Harley giggled.

“Yeah that,” Selena said, managing a straight face.

“If you were any more transparent you could walk through walls, kitty,” she said; Pamela agreed with a rare smile.

“Hey, that could be useful,” Selena protested, screeching the car to a stop behind an idling garbage truck and lurching them all forward.

Another car drove up alongside, one guy in the driver’s seat. When he caught sight of the three of them, he wolf-whistled. In a show of restraint, none of them turned around.

“That’s one,” they muttered in unison.

"Hey!” he hollered, annoyed at being ignored. “Just paying you a compliment. Rude bitches.”

“And that’s two.”

Pamela turned to look at him, her beauty catching him off-guard until he clocked the splash of green and her inhuman left eye; he flinched away. Harley sat up and leaned over the side of the car, lolling her head like a curious lioness; Selena smirked, adoring the spectacle.

“Well, ain’t ya a big, brave boy,” Harley purred.

“But not big on manners,” said Pamela; Selena leaned across and popped the trunk open.

“Rope’s in the back,” she said placidly, stretching in her seat.

“What?”

Harley vaulted out of the car and grabbed the rope from the trunk; realising he was in trouble, the guy tried to speed off but fumbled his feet on the pedals, only succeeding in jerking the car forward. Quickly fixing the rope into a lasso, Harley hooked him with it and dragged the guy from the car onto the asphalt in one irresistible heave, then looped the restraints up tight.

“Times like this a little bitta shibari knowledge never hurts,” she said, tossing Selena a flirty wink, who laughed.

“Hey, what the fuck are you doing?” her captive protested, struggling against the rope; the girls threw the other end of the rope over the neck of a nearby lamppost and hauled him upward, fixing a steady knot to let him hang in mid-air, still fighting his bonds.

“Just teaching you some manners,” Selena called; Pamela said nothing and stared up.

“Usually we’d take ya clothes, too,” Harley laughed, holding both hands around her mouth to shout. “Ain’t ya a lucky boy?”

“See, now this,” Pamela said softly, still looking up, now wearing a peaceful expression, “this is what I always get to missing - our short, sharp lessons that instill not so much the fear of God as… the fear of retribution from those you’re accustomed to walking all over.”

Selena and Harley looked at each other and exchanged a grin.

“Teaching is reaching,” they chorused, gleeful.

Chapter Text

Jonathan stared out of his bedroom window, unaccustomed to the quiet of the Crane home. His instincts told him he should be expecting some new tactic from his father designed to terrify him in some way, but so far it had been three days without anything of the kind.

Three days since an eleven year old boy finally cracked under the relentless experimentation and held his father’s life between his two hands.

Three days since Elijah sliced his subject’s face open to teach him to know his place.

Three days since Abigail took her only son to the hospital, her last motherly act before dissolving into the wind like dust.

Now Jonathan traced his fingers over the neat little stitches so close to his left eye, anger still simmering below the surface but finding a grim enjoyment in what they signified. The doctor had told him it would definitely leave a scar, and that he was lucky not to lose the eye.

“Be a real shame to lose an eye such a fine blue,” she said, trying to get a smile out of the lonely boy with no guardian to hold his hand; he gave no reply and didn’t flinch when she sewed him back up, insides turned too cold to shed any tears.

When he left the hospital and no one was there to pick him up, he shrugged and walked all the way back to the empty house. Elijah came back later, but Jonathan didn’t notice and neither father nor son called attention to either. When it was Abigail who didn’t return that night, or the next, Elijah plunged into a silent shock that looked nothing like culpability or shame.

Jonathan merely remained in his bedroom, finally left alone. There was no one to stop him now. No one to call the sheriff, no one to plead for a life that deserved no mercy. In her absence his mother was ripe for the weight of blame to land upon her, swung away from a child who could never logically be the first one suspected. With those thoughts in mind he was ready to go downstairs and finish off his incapacitated father when a thud against the window roused him from his reverie.

There was a smear of blood on the glass; curious, he threw open the window and looked down. He could see a black crow lying on the ground, twitching but not dead. Jonathan was usually fearful and unsure around birds but when he saw the stricken animal he climbed out the window without a second thought and collected it up as gently as he could, brought the bird inside via the front door, past his mute father staring into space, and back to his room.

While the bird was still dazed and amenable, he found the source of the bleeding - a missing right eye, best guess it was because of some stray buckshot - and cleaned it up as best he could. He stitched the eye closed the way he had felt the doctor do it, then sat with the bird and stroked its smooth feathers as it seemed to come around.

“That’ll hurt for a bit,” he said, the first words he had spoken aloud for three days.

The bird blinked at him, uncomprehending; he pointed at his own face.

“Believe me, I know.”

The bird hopped upright and perched on his knee, apparently trusting him not to hurt it. A prickling, unfamiliar emotion filled his chest as he remembered his most recent plans; he felt sure he didn’t deserve such trust from an innocent creature. Jonathan felt a jolt of alarm and scooped the bird into his hands as he stood up, carrying it over to the window.

“You better leave now,” he said, setting the bird down on the window sill.

He didn’t want his father to see there was something he liked and then take it from him, or worse: however, the bird was in no hurry to leave and watched him, instead.

“Hey. I know you don’t care ‘cause you’re just a bird, but my name’s Jonathan. Jonathan Crane,” he said, bowing his head forward like he’d been taught; a swift clip to the back of the head had quickly enforced that lesson.

“And I guess I could give you a name, since we’re acquainted,” he said, scanning his bookshelf for inspiration; his eyes lit on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a recent favourite. “How about Ichabod? You could be Ichabod Crane.”

The crow ruffled its wings, apparently finding this acceptable.

“I can’t tell if you’re a boy or a girl,” he said quietly, staring at the bird who stared right back. “But you look like an Ichabod, to me.”

The bird took a tiny hop closer; Jon threw a fearful glance over his shoulder and held out a hand to keep it from advancing any further.

“He can’t see you,” he pleaded; the bird stopped still. “But… you can come back and see me if - if you want,” he shoved his hands in his pockets in an effort to disguise his childish hopes. “Ichabod.”

Ichabod gurgled out a noise Jonathan assumed was avian gratitude, then to his relief took flight out the window. As he watched the little bird wheel out across the sky, mangled but determined, the sight touched a small place in his heart and made him smile; it hurt his face, but he didn’t feel sorry for doing it.

Chapter Text

“Two o’clock. Right.”

Edward disconnected his cell phone and set it down on the bathroom sink counter and glanced up at his shirtless form. As he admired his reflection, he tallied the requisite number of small scars around his ribs and chest, battle wounds if you like, unwillingly collected from his years as The Riddler. Obviously it was his vanity talking, but he thought the scars didn’t disfigure him at all; as he ran an assessing hand over the freckles at his shoulder, he found they only added to his objective attractiveness. He was still in excellent physical shape, maintained by his morning run around the city and weekly yoga sessions to aid his stiff knee and calm his raging mind.

“Perfect working order,” he murmured, tilting his head as he continued to scan himself. “To say nothing of the exterior.”

His gaze fell upon his pale pink nipples, stiffened with the brisk air of the bathroom but still visible against the rest of his skin, intact despite years of danger to their sanctity: nary a wayward dagger had managed to sever either of them.

Their untouched properties gave him cause for concern, but how hard could it be to get a nipple piercing? People got them all the time. Selena had both of hers done - he snickered and wondered if he should amend that to all six of them - and had never needed to say as much because her tight shirts had blabbed that out for her, the metal rods sticking out like Victor Frankenstein had banged in some bolts. How she managed not to snag them on everything in her line of trade was beyond him, but he vaguely recalled her saying something to similar effect about a navel piercing, the thought alone making him wince. Selena thought that nipple piercings were sexy and made no secret of it, though whether she applied that same opinion to the piercings of her boy toy’s two eldest sons was perhaps more of a mystery.

Edward shook his head at his reflection: just like everyone else, her opinion was neither here nor there in his decision-making process. Chances were exceedingly high that she would never get an opportunity to see a piercing on him anyway, and he wasn’t about to show such a thing off unprompted.

It wasn’t quite the same as getting a tattoo, an undertaking he had yet to personally take up due to no desire to mar physical perfection, but it still constituted a permanent mark. Waylon of course was a piercing and tattoo king, and if he heard that Edward was thinking of getting either of those he would be heartily supportive of the endeavour; however, Waylon’s marks were part of his whole persona, and no one heard the name Riddler and imagined someone studded from here to next week - at least, not in this reality.

A passing fancy it was, a curiousity sought out for his own amusement. Surely such an adornment would only enhance the natural beauty of his body, right? A form so fine couldn’t be so easily spoiled like a razor to the Mona Lisa.

But what if…

Edward grabbed his phone again and ran a quick search; he visibly blanched and called the parlour back within seconds.

“Hello, yes, I’m cancelling my appointment. Nygma, two o’clock. Yes. No, not interested, thank you.”

Again he disconnected the phone and put it down, feeling nothing but relief, assuring him that he made the right decision. Edward exhaled and ran a couple fingers over his left nipple, which had never aroused a feeling more exciting than the rudimentary contact of skin against skin.

“Possibility of piercing infection,” he said with a shudder. “Good Lord, what an awful thing.”

Edward admired his skin, smiling. No, he could never wilfully do such a thing to his body. What kind of gratitude would that be? Perfection should be treated like the finest temples: worshipped. Maintained. Preserved.

Chapter Text

Victor watched Nora as she typed, still using a typewriter instead of one of those ‘computing things’. She would get to know how to use them eventually, she said, but there was so much to catch up on that it felt best to walk one step at a time. Nora looked happy as she typed, thumping on the keys and occasionally trilling ‘ding!’ along with the typewriter. Conditioned to look for signs, he could see that her hands were steady and showed no trace of their former jerks and shakes: the hot rush of relief warmed his heart. Ironic, he thought, for the former frozen-hearted villain that the city had come to recognise.

“These notes, Victor!” she called out. “I swear you haven’t gone through them since 1969.”

A stabbing jolt of pain should have gone through his heart at the mention of that fateful, awful year, but to hear his darling Nora say it herself, cheeks flushed with merriment as she decoded his scribbles, there could only ever be joy.

Victor supposed he must owe Edward a debt for the successful thawing of his Nora, but he wasn’t sure how the other weighted the value of a life, if at all. It was by his reckoning an intellectual exercise for him, with affirmation of being the best as his prize. There was no way Edward could pose a favour equal in magnitude to the recovery of Nora, so Victor was not concerned about potential repayment.

As he stared at his lovely wife, reacquainting himself with the lines of her face, the crinkle between her eyebrows as she frowned, he thought of their first meeting. Their mutual friends Tom and Mae had dragged them to the 1944 Valentine’s Day Gala, apparently seeing something in potentia that Victor and Nora had yet to notice. Though they only danced together that night, a seed had been planted; a plausibility had been released into the universe, rendering it inevitable that they would meet again.

Tom and Mae.

They were gone, too: stolen before their time. Victor privately thought it better that neither had been obligated to know life without the other, but would never tell their son that. The boy was the Fries’ godson, though to this day he had no idea. By rights it should have been Victor to take him in when his parents were killed, but Victor had no time or interest in raising a grief-stricken orphan when his Nora had recently been put into stasis for her own preservation. His guardian cared for him instead, much better than Victor could have, and was the only person to know of his relation to the boy. A significant part of the reason for Victor’s weaning away from criminal activities was that he realised who the boy had become and felt nothing but sorrow for the man. Knowing how disappointed Nora would be in him if he did it intentionally, how disappointed he would be in himself, he could not bring himself to hurt him again.

“Where’d you go, Victor?” Nora asked, leaning over the typewriter to look at him with an intrigued, playful expression: he felt such a rush of love he launched out of his chair and kissed her all over her face, making her laugh.

“I got lost in the past,” he said, pressing another kiss to her forehead. “But I’m back now.”

“Me too,” she smiled, lifting her chin for a proper kiss; he stroked her cheeks.

“Your presence is everything to me,” he said, voice growing hoarse with emotion. “I never wanted anything else.”

“I love you,” she said, catching her arms about his middle to hug him without getting up.

“I love you, Nora. And I’m never letting you go again.”

Victor felt his wife chuckle against his torso. “Except when I need the bathroom.”

“I suppose that can be arranged, sometimes,” he conceded, holding her tighter as she halfheartedly struggled, laughing.

Chapter Text

“Alfred,” Tim began, watching the man who passed for his grandfather as he prepared the family dinner that would be eaten as early as mid-afternoon, and in some cases as late as breakfast time.

“What is it, Timothy?”

Alfred was currently peeling and chopping a bushel of carrots; Tim stared at them.

“Um. Well - the fact is -”

“Yes?” Alfred looked up, giving him a benign smile as he effortlessly divided his time between paying attention to Tim and ensuring nothing caught on the stove.

“I’m gay,” Tim finally blurted out.

There was a meditative pause, punctuated only by the bubbling of the stove.

“Yes, and?” Alfred asked, lifting the chopping board and sweeping the carrots into a pot using the knife.

Tim watched carefully, gauging him for signs of a reaction; his palms were sweating and his knee jogged in place.

“Well. What - what do you think?”

Alfred smiled again. “That’s fine, Timothy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your being gay doesn’t change my opinion of you whatsoever. Though it does add another adjective to your descriptors, adds another facet to the delightful pastiche that is you.”

“Facet?” Tim said, leaning forward over the kitchen island to nurse his hot chocolate between both hands; he wasn’t sure what he had been expecting to happen, but this calm acceptance made him feel wrong-footed.

“Now you can be Timothy Drake - Canadian, Red Robin, recently accepted into medical school, potentially the most intelligent young man I know, and now gay. It is a marvellous thing to get to know people fully, is it not?”

“Yes,” Tim agreed, nodding in a daze.

“Might I inquire as to whether you have told anyone else, yet? Your brothers, perhaps?”

“No. You were,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “kinda my test run.”

“Then it is my honour to be the first to be informed. I presume that to mean you haven’t yet told Master Bruce?”

“No, not yet,” Tim worried his bottom lip. “You think I should?”

“Hmm,” he tasted the soup off the wooden spoon and added a hefty pinch of kosher salt, “I think he would very much like to know. If I’m not mistaken your brothers would also, should you find yourself ready to tell them.”

“Do you think Bruce would be,” he swallowed, “disappointed?”

Alfred turned his head to look at Tim and raised an eyebrow.

“If I’m any indication, healthy and happy are the main concerns of any parent or guardian regarding their loved ones. It would take some very out of character behaviour on your part to make him even consider turning away from you, Timothy.”

“So,” Tim stared down into the milky surface of his drink, “none of this comes as a surprise, then?”

“One does rather come to have an inkling about the innermost workings of the ones they love, but it would have been frightfully rude to ask.”

Tim smiled, then chewed on his lip again. “What about Dick? Or Jason?”

“Would they be surprised, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re your brothers,” he said kindly. “Older brothers, at that. For all the times they love to slap you on the back in an affectionate gesture liable to fracture your spine, they’re equally as keen to,” he put down his spoon and made air quotes with his fingers, “‘have your back’, also. Even if they find themselves surprised, you are unlikely to find them unsupportive.”

Feeling a strange blend of relieved and overwhelmed, Tim sat back in his seat and stared at the ceiling. Alfred gave him a look of concern.

“Are you alright?”

“Oh yeah. Just - just give me a minute. Or an hour. This is a lot to process.”

Alfred took this opportunity to snatch his mug away and pour it straight down the drain; Tim jerked forward, shocked.

“Hey!”

“Don’t think I didn’t see how many of those energy blast things you dumped in there when my back was turned, young man,” he pointed the chef's knife in Tim's direction. “You can’t be a doctor if you keep having heart attacks.”

“Guess I should give you more credit for your observational skills, then,” Tim grinned; Alfred tapped his nose.

“World’s greatest detective had to learn the trade somewhere.”

Chapter Text

“Ed, wake up,” Jon said, slapping him on the back as he passed the desk; Edward reared up from his slumped position, hissing between his teeth.

“Mmm, I love waking with a migraine,” he griped, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose.

Jon landed heavily on Edward’s office couch and threw his long booted legs up onto the opposite arm, exhaling as he relaxed.

“I love wakin’ up with hot sex or cold pizza,” he said, sipping at his coffee and enjoying his friend’s discomfort.

“Ohh, you’ll get neither from me. Ow,” Edward said, wincing as he straightened up and cracked his back. “That was an ill-advised nap to take.”

“Amateur.”

“Alas, my hobo sleep-anywhere skills are not so finely tuned as yours.”

When Edward opened his eyes, he realised something was amiss and waggled one hand in front of his face.

“Hey, have you seen my glasses?”

Jon rolled his head over in his direction and smirked.

“No, have you?”

“Very funny.”

“Little out of it when you wake up, huh?”

“Who the hell isn’t? Help me find them.”

“Well, where was the last place you left them?”

Edward stood up, promptly banging his knee on the desk, and cursed.

“Son of a bitch, goddammit,” he reached down to rub at the injured spot, growing irate. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to ask, would I?”

“No need to get bitchy,” Jon said, grinning. “Just tryin’ to help.”

“Trying would be a fabulous start,” Edward hissed, leaning hard on the F; he took a deep breath. “Right. Since you’re the same negative amount of assistance as usual, I’ll do it myself. Mostly blind, I might add, I do sincerely hope you’re terribly amused.”

“View’s pretty good from over here, yeah,” Jon said, unrepentant.

“I mean you’re always wearing yours, but it’s not like you even need glasses. Expecting any kind of sympathy from you at the best of times would be the ultimate fool’s errand.”

“Mine’re for readin’. So happens… ”

“You never stop reading, yeah, I got it,” he interrupted, irritably waving a hand. “Now, I had them when I sat down, and before I dozed off, so they must be here somewhere…”

Using only his hands to feel his way around the desk, he knocked a set of pens, a pile of paper, and a fat file right onto the floor.

“You’re makin’ a mess,” Jon observed, pointing at the floor and making no attempt to get up. “You don’t see it?”

“I can’t see anything, you moron, I’m not wearing my glasses,” he snapped, dragging his hands down his face in frustration.

Jon hauled himself up off the couch with a sigh and approached the desk, inconvenienced from having to rouse himself from his settled position. Halfheartedly he made a motion of the middle finger in front of Edward’s face to see if he would notice it, then gave in.

“Really can’t find ‘em, huh?”

Edward started, not realising he had gotten so close.

“No,” he said, sagging his shoulders in defeat. “These goddamn eyes are my curse.”

“Tell you what. I got an idea.”

“What is it?” he asked, voice wary.

“Use mine,” Jon said, tapping the back of Edward’s head with one hand, dislodging the glasses perched atop to land on his nose.

There was a pause; Jon would have described it as embarrassed, Edward as contemplative. Flatly refusing to be embarrassed, Edward properly realigned his glasses and glared at his smirking rescuer, then took a slow breath.

“It is truly one of life’s great injustices that the first thing to come into focus is your face, grinning like a buck toothed jackass.”

“Oh you’re so welcome,” Jon said graciously, inclining his head.

“You abominable wretch,” he raged. “You took your sweet time in telling me.”

“Like I could pass that one up. Still, fun to watch you suffer, ain’t it?”

“I can only concede that it must be, Jon,” he sat back down and rubbed his face. “It must be.”

Jon pointed at the mess on the floor. “You gonna clean that up, or what?”

“Maybe once my migraine is gone,” Edward said, leaning forward and settling his head on his folded arms. “Wake me if you see Oswald coming back, will you?”

“Yup,” Jon chuckled and went back to the couch.

Chapter Text

Susan Hansen stared out of the living room window and out into space, folding laundry in robotic succession. Her two children, Carrie and Samuel, were due back from school at any moment. Beyond that her husband Dodd wasn’t set to return in the near future: he was a trucker and was away for days at a time.

“You can trust a man who does honest work with his hands,” her father had said once, slapping his future son-in-law on the back by way of endorsement; the irony occurred to Susan then, but she had kept it to herself.

Lately their children had started to worry Susan: shouldn’t they be happier? When their father was gone, they were absolutely fine. Lively, chatty, full of ideas and creativity like bubbling streams. However, whenever their father was home, they were meek and submissive. Carrie felt it worse, Susan knew. Her little girl, while perhaps not at the lofty heights her mysterious, oft-claimed deceased uncle had set, was certainly above average in intelligence. Though she was so proud to see it, while getting a portion of Eddie's brains Carrie had inherited Susan’s peacekeeping nature. The poor girl hid her achievements, downplaying herself so as not to make waves or make anyone feel bad.

Dodd was no help with the latter. Surly and impatient on the rare occasions that he was at home, he had become a shadow of the boy she loved as a teenager. He scoffed at the idea of ‘book smarts’ - another thing he had in common with his father-in-law - and dismissed any of Carrie’s academic successes out of hand.

When Susan eventually broached the subject with her own mother, she got the response that, really, she should have known already.

“Carrie’s a good girl, Susie - like you. Doesn’t rock the boat.”

But Susan didn’t want Carrie to be like her, any more than she wanted Samuel to be like Dodd: she wanted them to be their own people, make their own decisions. In a moment of realisation she sat down suddenly, knocking a pile of towels over.

“Oh God, I’ve become my mother and I married my father,” she clasped horrified hands to her face. “He’s going to make my Carrie suffer like Eddie did, and then she’ll hate me forever for not doing anything about it. Sammy will turn into Daddy, or into Dodd,” Susan moaned and dropped her head down into her hands. “And then Carrie will turn into me: someone who pretends to be happy and doesn’t want to upset anyone so never rocks the damn boat.”

Susan sniffled, then raised her head.

“I can’t do this anymore. How can they know what happy is when we’re not? I can’t remember the last time I was happy.”

Before she could talk herself out of it, she stood up and made a firm decision. It was time to go: time to start again. Time to resist the wave of inevitability that had carried her through life into the unsatisfactory wasteland it was now. She marched out into the children’s room and started packing their clothes into bags, planning as she moved. There was money put aside from her tips at the diner, and that would make her okay for a while. Wasn’t that old friend of Daddy’s selling his house so he could move out of state? Surely she could convince him to sell it to her below asking price, since it was for the daughter of a friend. She would collect things over time so they could be fully out before Dodd got back; she would leave him a note, and he would simply have to accept it.

Yes.

Yes, she could do this.

Passing the mirror in the hallway, Susan caught sight of her reflection; there was a flush in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eye long since lost. Since she barely recognised herself, she thought the new addition might be hope.

Chapter Text

George Harkness flopped down on the couch and jigged his foot back and forth, bored; he stared around the Arkham rec room, gaze flitting around the other inmates who were peacefully playing checkers or cards and not paying attention to him at all.

“God this is boring,” Digger said; there was no reply.

Looking for interaction he glanced across to the other end of the couch at Edward, who was reading a book. When he tried to get a look at the cover, Edward moved it out of sight and glared over top.

“Did you say something?” he asked, turning his gaze back to the book.

“I said this is boring.”

Again, there was no response. With a cheeky grin Digger reached out a jabbing finger toward Edward’s shoulder, but it was roughly grabbed by a free hand without turning around.

“No touchy,” he said, taking his hand back to turn the page.

“But I’m booooored, Eds,” he whined, shaking the pain out of his hand; Edward huffed a breath through his nose, annoyed.

“And I’m not,” he snapped. “Christ, it’s like babysitting a three year old that’s gotten into the candy supply. And for the hundredth time, don’t call me Eds.”

“Least ya don’t have to change my nappies,” he grinned; Edward nodded absently.

“A small mercy.”

“Bloody oath, this is dull. Where’s the damn library, here? Maybe I could get some skin mags.”

“Prisons have libraries, George,” Edward said, not looking up. “Asylums just have recreation rooms.”

"Never thought I’d hear a reason to get sent to Blackgate. Christ, if ya weren’t crazy already, ya would be after this.”

“Mm.”

Edward fell silent again and thus unattended, Digger grew restless once more.

“Hey Ed, I ever sing you my favourite song?”

“Mm,” he grunted, turning a page.

Digger waited; when no further response was forthcoming, he cleared his throat and launched into song.

“Redback, funnel web, blue-ringed octopus, taipan, tigersnake, and a box jellyfish, stonefish, and the poison thing that lives in a shell, and spikes you when you pick it up -”

“Geographer cone snail,” Edward interrupted, still immersed in his book. “Conus geographus.”

Digger screwed up his face, confused. “Wot?”

“That’s a 'poison thing that lives in a shell'.”

“But that wouldn’t fit in the song.”

“Nevertheless,” Edward said, voice trailing off into a soft hiss as he lost interest again; Digger shrugged and marched on to his favourite bit because it would have taken a gunshot to stop him.

“Come to Australia! You might accidentally get killed!”

A couple of inmates threw him bemused looks but offered nothing further. Digger turned to his companion, triumphant and grinning, waiting for what would have to be a great reaction; when there was none, he sighed and sagged down into the couch. Since he didn’t get a reply, he decided to pretend he heard the one he wanted to hear anyway.

“Yeah, it’s a tops song,” he said chattily, sitting up again. “But you know what, it should bloody well be the national anthem. Imagine singing that at the Summer Olympics, when we win all the swimming comps. Or, when the rugby’s on and we go up against the All-Blacks: that’d actually stand up to their bloody haka, instead of some knob with a beard wanderin’ out to play Waltzin’ Matilda on guitar for five bloody minutes,” he turned. “What do you think, Eds?”

“I think that’s a lovely story, George,” Edward said, setting his book down in his lap to turn around, eyes amused and mouth lit in a manic little smile. “Quick question, though.”

“Yeh?” Digger’s face lit up, thrilled.

“Did I ask?”

Before he could answer Edward lifted the book, coincidentally titled Deadly Nature, and bonked him over the head with it.

Chapter Text

Edward lifted his coffee mug to rest against his lips; he was part way through his morning ritual of coffee, breakfast, and the newspaper. It was a moment of peace that always set the day off on the right foot. If it happened to be disturbed in some way, it put a dampener on the whole day. After breakfast he worked through the whole paper from front to back as he drank his coffee, finishing on a pleasing note with the crossword: it had become a kind of meditation.

He had only just begun to read and was at the third page, where the slightly less sensational stories went when they weren’t grabby enough for the front page. This particular story detailed the recent downfall of a conglomerate that had had its CEO and COO arrested for fraud and embezzlement and the board of directors demolished; it looked certain that the whole company would be gutted and sold off.

Edward set down his mug with a shaking hand, a chuckle seizing hold of his body. Grabbing the kitchen scissors, he cut out the article and pressed it onto the refrigerator, aided by a magnet in the shape of a big green dollar sign. He walked slowly over to his floor to ceiling windows, stretching his arms over his head, and gazed out over the city he had conquered in no small way over the years.

When he first arrived in this city nearly twenty years previous, eighteen years old with little more than the clothes on his back and a few meagre possessions, he knew no one and had no friends to call upon. All his money in the world purchased a bus ticket to bring him here, his body propelled from his birthplace by the force of his will to succeed. When things got desperate - sooner rather than later, alas - the Gotham City Youth Shelter took him in without a word of recrimination or judgement, and set him back on his way rejuvenated and with several leads to gainful employment. Though Edward had to sacrifice a hefty slice of juvenile pride to break down and ask for help, he never forgot the kindness he received from people who didn’t even know his name.

It would be optimistic to say the experience changed his character for the better, though it would not be realistic: people lack the ability to meaningfully change at their core. Still, the act was not for nothing. The ultimate result of the experience was that the shelter gained an ally who would eventually become more powerful than they could have perceived at the time. And when said ally learned of a conglomerate’s bid to bully the shelter into bankruptcy for the sole purpose of redeveloping the land it occupied, well… perhaps said ally was theoretically able to step lightly among their lines of confidential company code and expose a few trifling things that were naïvely believed to be kept hidden.

In the mind of the strategist there exists nothing about the past considered worthy of regret, and an integral part of this nature is never forgetting a debt as it constitutes a loose end. Smiling, Edward walked back to the kitchen island to his coffee and his newspaper; he could be interrupted now by the most irritating person he knew and his good mood would remain intact. With that happy certainty in mind, he skipped right to the crossword and clicked open his pen.

“This,” he said, sipping from his coffee, “this is what makes it all worth it.”

Edward was not a kind man, not without having to force it. Neither was he charitable, and his generosity was severely limited. But what he did have, what he prided himself on, was a long memory. In the course of his life there had been but a few truly compassionate gestures thrown his way, and he would repay them all.

Chapter Text

Dick and Jason sat together at 3am eating donuts; the all-night donut shop usually only frequented by police officers and insomniacs was only too happy to cater to the handsome young Nightwing and Red Hood. They would have gotten the half-dozen for free, but Dick had insisted on paying, plus tip, much to the cashier’s delight and Jason’s chagrin.

“Such a Boy Scout,” he said, pushing his red helmet to the other side of the table and stuffing a custard donut in his face; Dick shook his head, smiling.

“I’d never feel right about getting it for free.”

“Oh I know why,” he mumbled, mouth full. “I don’t get it, but I know.”

Dick shrugged. “As hard as you try to corrupt what you call my sissy morals, it’s too late. They’re set in stone, and I’m too old to change now.”

“It’s ‘cause of that friend of yours,” he said, raising his eyebrows so high they almost disappeared into the front white lock of hair he had recently dyed pink. “Mr. Killer Crocodile Man.”

“His name is Waylon,” Dick said, usual affability underlined by a hard edge. “A fact you also know.”

Jason grinned as he chewed, giving him the look of a good-looking cement mixer.

“Can’t say I’d mind having a big guy like that at my back. How strong is he, anyway?”

“Hard to say,” Dick shrugged again with one shoulder, but his face had softened. “He used to wrestle crocodiles, back when we were in the circus. So as strong as he wants to be, I guess.”

“Ever arm-wrestled him?”

“Heck no,” he said, looking mildly horrified.

“Why not?”

"Few reasons. If he didn’t try I’d know he was letting me win, and if he did try he could’ve broken my arm. And then he’d never forgive himself for it.”

“Big guy is even more of a Boy Scout than you.”

“I know you don’t mean it as a compliment, but it’s true.”

Jason reached for the plain glazed; Dick frowned and smacked his hand.

“Hey!”

“Hey yourself. That one’s mine.”

“Arm wrestle you for it?” Jason said with a deceptively innocent expression, resting his right elbow on the table to establish the contest.

“You’re on,” Dick said, mirroring him and grasping his hand.

With some effort, they struggled against each other without much gain on either side; they were too evenly matched.

“Your trouble is… you’re too nice,” Jason grunted; Dick laughed.

“Your trouble is you think that’s my trouble.”

“Do you trust me?”

“What?” he frowned. “You know I do.”

Jason wheezed out a laugh. “Oh, Dicky Dickardo, I know you do. But truth is, I don’t even trust me…” he snatched up the donut with his other hand and stuffed it in his mouth, words coming out muffled. “And neither should you.”

In his affronted shock Dick eased his grip for a second; Jason slammed his arm down on the table and snapped his fingers, raising both arms in the air in victory. Dick scowled and flexed out his fingers.

“You cheated.”

“What was that?” Jason lifted a hand to his ear, swallowing his prize.

“I said you cheated, you arse,” he leaned forward and shouted in his ear; Jason winced, still smirking.

“Looks more like I won. Sure tastes like I won,” he licked his fingers.

Dick shook his head, trying and failing to keep down his affectionate grin.

“You’re hopeless.”

“And you’re nut-less,” he said, spreading his hands. “Donut-less.”

"And soon you’ll be Dick-less,” he said, motioning one thumb to the door; Jason gave him a proud look.

“Hey, nice one. That’s my boy.”

“Oi,” he pointed, “who’s the older brother here?”

“It’s an energy,” Jason said piously, resting the fingers of one hand on his chest. “Big Bro Energy. Not my fault you’re such a Boy Scout it gives you Baby Bro Energy.”

Dick stared down at the last remaining filled donut on the plate then slammed one fist right down on top of it, spraying Jason with jelly.

“Would a Boy Scout do that?” Dick said, tilting his head and smirking; his brother looked down in shock, then up, then burst out laughing.

“I stand corrected,” he snorted, wiping jelly off his mask. “Damn.”

Chapter Text

Harley rested her hand on her fist, slumping down in the chair in her boredom. Across the table from her, Jon shook a card at her, growing impatient.

“Come on, kid, what do you see?”

“You come on. It’s Rorschach now?” her tone was scoffing, lip curling a sneer.

“Ain’t my favourite,” he conceded, “but you’re due for a psychiatric evaluation so we’ll do somethin’ you haven’t before.”

“Do we have to?” she whined, blowing a stay tress out of her face; Jon shrugged.

“We can go back to Freudian analysis, if you want.”

“Wash ya mouth out with soap, ya disgustin’ man,” she snorted; he allowed her a wan smile.

“Get with the lookin' then, doctor.”

“Hmm,” she pouted and pushed out her lips. “Looks like…”

“What?”

“Looks like…” she furrowed her brow intently, “an inkblot.”

“Try harder,” he said, swatting her over the head with the card.

“Hey,” she giggled, snatching the card and throwing it over her shoulder and onto the floor. “No abusin’ the patient.”

“True, shouldn’t go encouragin’ you. How about this one?”

Harley bit her bottom lip as she stared, smiling. “Fallopian tubes.”

“What?” Jon turned the card around to look at it closer. “Looks nothin’ like fallopian tubes.”

"Oh, ya got some handy so I can check?”

“We all got the same diagram in the anatomy book,” he shook his head, “and this ain’t it. You're not even trying.”

Harley lifted her shoulders in a prim little shrug.

“Ya don’t know that, and besides, ya can’t tell me what I see. There’s no right or wrong answers in a psych eval.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “Fine. This one?”

“I see… a man. A tall man.”

“Huh,” Jon said, taking a note.

“A really really tall man,” she went on, grabbing the card and holding it up to her face. “With dark hair and…” she giggled, “big feet. Mmm… and he’s goin’ on a journey. A journey of… self-discovery…”

“Right. I get it,” he rolled his eyes and lifted a hand; Harley went on, unperturbed.

“Hm, he’s goin’ to come into some money…”

“Oh yeah?” Jon smirked, interested; she frowned.

“Wait. Nah, that’s just a splotch of ink. He’s gonna be broke as ever,” she tossed the card through the air, making it wheel through the air. “Broker, even. But there’s at least a rich friend he can sponge off. A proud man with pretty red hair…”

Shaking his head, Jon took his notes.

“Think I’ve got all I need.”

“What’s the verdict, doc?”

“Manipulative, anti-authoritarian, and unable to take anythin’ seriously.”

“Same as usual, then?” she grinned; he peered at her over his glasses.

“If anythin’, you’re gettin’ worse.”

“Go team!” she said, holding out a hand. “High five?”

“No,” he said, refusing to so much as budge; she sighed.

“No funski,” she pouted, then beamed. “Oh well, can’t leave me hangin’. Yay me!” she said brightly, high-fiving herself.

Jon sat silent for a moment then started to laugh, unable to keep it in any longer.

Chapter Text

Harley woke to the sound of cursing in the other room; pulling on her scarlet silk kimono, she hauled herself out of bed and ventured out to investigate.

“Are you kidding me?!”

When she reached the doorway of the living room a mirror shattered at her feet and she stared down at it without expression, then sighed.

“Oh Puddin’, that’s seven years bad luck.”

“I’m already cursed,” he moaned, sitting hunched on the couch with his head in his hands.

Sweet little face tilting in sympathy, Harley stepped around the pieces of mirror and took a seat beside him.

“Now why would you say that?” she asked, prying his hands from his face.

Keeping his gaze glaring down at his shoes, she was able to see that his makeup was streaked across his face, eyes like bleeding black rivers.

“All this time,” he said bleakly, mouth drooping, “all the practice. And I still can’t get this damn makeup right.”

“You’re just always in such a hurry,” she cooed, stroking his hair. “Art takes time.”

“Don’t touch my hair,” he shuddered. “It’s horrible.”

“Mm, ya roots are comin’ back. Such a pretty white,” she said.

“Bleh,” he stuck out his tongue.

“Okay, I know ya usually do this yaself, but how ‘bout ya give me a chance at doin’ ya face?”

“Would you?” he pleaded, grabbing her hands. “Your face is always…” he let go to stroke her face, “perfect.”

"Not as pretty as you,” she giggled, “such a gorgeous greenhead.”

“Better save those compliments for when I’m pretty again,” he grumbled; she pinched his cheek.

“Always gorgeous to me. Stay here while I get my kit.”

In no time at all Harley had fresh dye colouring his roots while she removed his ravaged makeup with gentle hands. As his naturally white skin, white lips, and white eyebrows were revealed, she couldn’t resist a fond smile and quick kiss on his nose.

“My beautiful man.”

“Dirty flattery,” he growled, raising an amorous eyebrow as she painted those green, too.

“Dirty truthery,” she giggled, keeping her hand steady.

Once she had rinsed out all the dye, he was almost back to his old self.

“How do I look?” he preened, stroking his hair.

“Fabulous, puddin’. Now, ya want me to put ya face on?” she asked. “Only my makeup’s in the bathroom.”

Joker looked over at the mirror shards on the floor and then down at her bare feet, suddenly horrified.

“You didn’t step on those, did you?”

“No, no,” she waved him off. “Wait here, I’ll just get my makeup.”

“Oh no, no you don’t,” he said, scooping up in his arms. “Can’t have you slicing up your little toesies because of my hissy fit.”

“Ooh, what service,” Harley grinned, snuggling up against his shirt. “I could get used to this.”

“Good, ‘cause I only serve one.”

“You better,” she giggled. “Or the mirror ain’t the only thing gettin’ smashed into a million bits.”

“Sounds fair to me, boo.”

Chapter Text

Pamela sat on the roof of the asylum, kicking her bare feet over the side of the guttering. The night was clear and crisp, and cool enough that anyone slightly more human would have aspirated puffs of steam when they breathed. The height she was at would have killed her if she fell or jumped, but she had no intention of doing anything of the kind; she had slipped the yoke of imprisonment to enjoy an illicit moment of fresh air, as far away from people as she could manage, for as long as she could negotiate.

When the door behind her creaked open, she didn’t turn around since she expected the intruder to be several guards set to drag her back to her cell. A scent of book pages, feathers, and a wisp of smoke penetrated her preternaturally keen nose, and she chuckled; it was a pretty sound.

“Dr. Crane,” she announced in a mocking tone, knowing full well she was right.

“Impressive,” he said, stopping still a few feet behind her.

“Have you come to take in the view, too?”

“Not quite.”

“Ah,” she smiled. “I take it you’re here to take me back downstairs?”

“Somethin’ like that, yeah.”

“Why you?” her lovely brow crinkled. “We’re not friends. Barely colleagues.”

“I got somethin’ the others ain’t got.”

“What might that be?”

“Not scared of you.”

“You’re not scared of anything, if I remember correctly.”

“End result is the same.”

"Fascinating that you managed to erase that very human line between bravery and stupidity I’ve yet to decide if it makes you less human or the most human…” he didn’t reply, but she could feel the sudden chill behind her and smiled, crossing her feet at the ankles. “Why didn’t they just send guards to get me?”

“They’re hopin’ to avoid violence, this time.”

“On me, or them?”

“You know that answer.”

Pamela laughed, then raised her face to look up at the sky. “At least you’re honest.”

Jon didn’t reply; she could feel him watching the back of her head, assessing her.

“It can be beautiful out here, on a night like this,” her voice was a whisper, knowing he had excellent hearing when he cared to listen. “Sometimes you can even see all the stars in the sky, when the power goes out.”

Again, Jon didn’t reply; she sighed and slid back over the ledge to safety. Pamela unfolded her graceful body to its full height, shorter than his considerable one only by a few inches; her long red hair blew in the breeze, lifting through the air with goals of its own.

“That’s the sadness of it, Dr. Crane,” she said softly, taking a step toward him; he remained in place. “It could all be beautiful.”

“What could be?”

“Everything. But when people decide you’re dangerous, insane, or just some kind of…” her expression twisted like a rip across her face, “crazy bitch… it’s a whole lot easier to dismiss what you have to say, even when it makes sense. I don’t expect you to understand.”

For a moment they regarded each other; her expression was hard, daring him to fight back.

“While my aims are not as virtuous as yours, I get your point,” he said calmly, holding out one hand. “Care to come down, Dr. Isley?”

“See?” Pamela relaxed, the serene goddess once more. “They were right to send you.”

“Why d’you say that?”

“With more respect and less violence, matters don’t always have to end in blood. Do they, Dr. Crane?”

Pamela’s smile was like the drowning of a thousand men; knowing he was being baited, Jon looked at her and didn’t reply, nor did he drop his hand. Eventually she acquiesced to trace a green finger up his palm but didn’t take it.

"Fine. I’ll let you put me back in my cage.”

“After you,” he gestured to the door; she nodded.

“Yes. You are,” she said, walking away without waiting for his reply.

Chapter Text

Edward watched his monitor screen, headset on his head, purple pen turning over his fingers as he watched. On the screen, Selena was creeping up a side wall leading to a corridor.

“Stop,” he said; she obeyed. “Guard around the corner. Fifteen feet.”

Selena touched her ear.

“Say when,” she hissed. “Count me down.”

Edward watched as the guard walked down the length of the corridor, adjacent to where Selena was standing; she flattened herself against the wall and relied on her black clothes and mask to keep her hidden in the gloom. After a tense pause, the guard sneezed, then continued his walk down the corridor and around the next corner.

“Three. Two. One. Go,” Edward commanded, snapping his fingers on the go signal; silent on her feet, Selena ran down the corridor to the main exhibition room where the diamond was being housed.

As he watched, she scooped up the jewel and secreted it in the pouch she kept on her back.

As for Edward, he continued to watch the cameras for signs of notice or alarm. Selena got out of sight before she could be spotted by the next guard, but unfortunately the absence of the diamond was quickly noted and the alarm promptly raised. Selena ran down a hallway to hide, without realising she had run into a dead end.

“Edward,” she hissed, touching her ear.

“Why did you go down that way?” he demanded, “we went over the floor plans in intricate detail, how could you forget that that way was a blind alley?”

“You’re not the one with security on your ass,” she said, having to yell over the wailing of internal sirens to make herself heard. “They were too fast.”

“The diamond is the biggest since the Cullinan, I’m not surprised.”

“Not the time for this!” she said, enraged. “They’re going to find me here, you asshole!”

“No they won’t,” he said dismissively. “I’m working on it.”

“Oh, you’re working on it? I’m so relieved. Seems to me I should have just done this myself instead of being stupid enough to rely on you. I knew I never should have asked for your help, I knew you’d let me down. Why did I ever -”

“Shut up and look up,” Edward said, tone clipped; she did so, and saw a maintenance shaft above.

In the background, she could hear the brisk tapping of keyboard keys.

“Open sesame,” he said and on cue, it flopped open.

Without stopping to think about it, she hoisted herself up and into the shaft, then closed it behind her retreating feet.

“Follow that tunnel,” he went on. “It will take you to the roof.”

Selena did as told, sulking without reply, and as predicted she emerged on the roof. Edward, to his miniscule credit, said nothing until she was out and able to make her proper exit via the fire escape and down the street at a light jog.

“I mean would it kill you?” he griped, the sound of his furiously clicking pen audible over the earpiece. “Once? Just once.”

“What are you bitching about?” she snapped, still annoyed. “Payment will be in your account by morning, you know that.”

Now that she was more secure, she felt able to take out the diamond and inspect it: it really was something, and absolutely worth all that risk.

“That, yes, that I know. But how about - here’s a crazy notion - how about you trust me for once. Just for once!”

“I’ll give it some thought,” she said, smirking as she put away the diamond again.

“You do that, Puss in Boots, you do that. Or you can pull off your next impossible robbery all on your lonesome and damn the consequences.”

The earpiece went dead; he was gone. Selena shrugged and took off into the night. He’d get over it: he just had to be dramatic about it, first.

Chapter Text

Edward fell backward, feet tripping over each other as he landed on the pavement with a thud and expulsion of breath, staring up at the sky. He blinked up at the stars, then found his view blocked by a young man leaning over to peer down at him. Edward lifted one finger, clocking the black mask, complimentary red regalia and puff of dark hair, then tried to laugh: it hurt.

“Ow,” he wheezed, still staring up. “Hello, Tim.”

“Good evening, Mr. Nygma,” he replied, nodding.

“Such manners,” Edward marvelled, signing the name of his welcome visitor with his right hand before resting both on his chest. “Your older brothers would have had me hogtied or some such degrading thing by now, irrespective of what I may or may not have done.”

“Well… Dick would have at least told you what he was about to do, first.”

“True, true,” he tried to nod. “He’s terribly upright and moral like that.”

“Um - quick question. Would you like me to help you up?”

“No, no,” Edward waved him off. “I’m apt to just lie here and… take it all in.”

“What happened?”

“Simply a little scuffle over a piffling game of cards.”

Tim gave him a sceptical look. “You mean you cheated?”

“Hey,” he pointed up. “You of all people should know that being the smartest doesn’t imply that winning all the time renders you a cheat.”

“Or that one is somehow above cheating.”

“Oh, touché, my boy,” a pleased smile spread slowly across his face. “But I wouldn’t call this particular instance cheating.”

“Oh no?”

"No. Though…” he lifted his eyebrows and shrugged, “a few major casinos might.”

“Ah. I see.”

“So how are you, Tim?” he asked cosily, resting his hands on his chest again. “Medical school going well?”

“Futile to ask how you know that.”

“Completely. Answer?”

“Fine thanks, Dad,” he rolled his eyes.

“Good, good,” he pointedly ignored the sarcasm. “Glad to hear it. You were always the best of them, you know.”

Tim threw up his hands. “I can’t believe I’m conducting a conversation with someone lying supine on the pavement.”

“Pff. While I appreciate your use of the uncommon supine, that’s got to be the least you’ve seen. Your damn patron squats on rooftops, sulking like an inconvenienced gargoyle.”

“Yeah, alright, you can have that one,” he held out a hand. “Sure I can’t help you up?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” he acquiesced, gripping his hand to get hauled up, more or less smoothly, then nodded his thanks. “Much obliged.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Oh, be a sport and give me that, won’t you?” he said, nodding toward a jagged piece of concrete on the ground; Tim turned his head to look at it, then looked back.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr. Nygma,” Tim shook his head; Edward sighed.

“Fine. Then it appears I’ll have to settle the score unarmed.”

“What score?”

“I have a poker round to re-win,” he said, smoothing back his hair and straightening up.

“Then I’ll just wait here, shall I?” Tim said ruefully, stretching. “To clean you up after your next spectacular exit.”

“If you feel so compelled. Son.”

With an affectionate smile he reached out and ruffled the boy's hair; Tim grimaced at the vague indignity, but didn't fight him off.

“Please shut up.”

“I'm afraid I can't do that, Tim," he laughed, striding back toward the bar and shoving open the doors like he was entering a saloon.

"Yeah, I thought not," Tim said, sitting on a nearby hydrant to wait.

Chapter Text

Alfred woke Master Dick first: he was the most polite first thing in the morning, if unable to form coherent thoughts for the first hour or so. When he pulled the curtains aside, the boy winced and pulled a pillow over his face, making a soft little groan into it. With light filling the room Alfred was able to take the state of it in properly: Dick’s costume was slung over a chair, but otherwise the room was still neat. On Alfred’s way out, he could hear his voice, though only faint.

“Thanks, Alfred,” he said, muffled by the pillow; Alfred threw the eldest a fond smile and went on to Master Jason, if indeed he had come home last night.

Knowing it was better to knock first, he snuck open the door and took a look into the room the boy was in residence, but his blankets were tossed every which way over the bed and across the floor, along with anything else that wasn’t nailed down; as usual, he slept like he had fallen forward, his backside pointing in the air and his face planted in the pillow. On the noise of the curtains whooshing open, Jason pulled the gun he kept under his pillow and aimed it in Alfred’s direction without looking.

“Shoot me if you want, Master Jason,” he said, unfazed. “You still have to wake up.”

“Mrph,” Jason mumbled into the pillow, putting the gun back; Alfred picked his way over the mess and continued on his way.

Master Damian, thankfully, was still in boarding school. If he had been here, Alfred would need to mentally prepare himself for the possibility of the boy hanging suspended from his bedroom ceiling or lurking somewhere in the rafters, poised to pounce upon and assassinate any intruder. While his absence negated this, it was not necessarily a positive because despite Damian’s tempestuous nature he had a kind heart, and Alfred missed him when he was away.

As Alfred approached Master Tim’s room, his heart sank when he saw the light under the door. Clearly he didn’t need a wake-up call, since he hadn’t slept; Alfred poked his head around the door to tut disapprovingly and shake his head. Tim’s eyes were wide and ringed with darkness in the light of his computer monitor, looking almost guilty as he guzzled from a mug containing some foreign substance that appeared radioactive, from this distance.

“Please, ten minutes. I just need ten more minutes,” Tim said, twitching.

"You will be in the kitchen for breakfast in one minute,” he pointed, “or else.”

“Alright,” he sighed, getting up as Alfred closed the door.

Master Bruce was last, and still the prickliest to rouse after all these years. His massive bedroom was pitch black, and Alfred tripped and stumbled over discarded costume pieces on his way to the drapes, almost breaking his neck; he fought the urge to curse, knowing he’d never hear the end of it. The room flooded with violent light as he pulled back the heavy blackout curtains, and his dear, precious, adopted son snarled from beneath his nest of covers like a lion with laryngitis.

Thankfully he appeared to be decent, this time - Ms. Kyle never stayed the night, but she certainly left enough chaos in her wake for several along with a wide open window that let in the bugs. Alfred collected up the detritus of Bruce’s most recent disrobing and worked on setting it all neatly aside as he watched him slowly rouse from slumber.

Finally Bruce struggled upright, silvering black hair a mess and stubble darkening his jaw, which he scratched at. He looked around, squinting in the light like a newborn.

“Boys up?”

“They are in the process, yes. Unfortunately Master Tim has yet to achieve slumber, though I believe a full breakfast should have him out like a light over the table.”

“Right,” he agreed absently, then took on a grumpier expression. “Where’s my coffee?”

“In the kitchen, in the coffee pot, where it was made,” Alfred replied primly. “If you’d like some, you’d better go get some before the boys drink it all.”

“Get it myself? Christ, do I have to do everything here?”

Frowning, Alfred gave Bruce a short, corrective tap to the back of his head; it woke him up almost instantaneously and it was the passing of a reflective pause before he spoke again.

“Hm. Did I deserve that?” he asked, turning with a faint smile.

“Oh yes,” Alfred said, nodding as he carried some dirty laundry from the room. “Most certainly.”

Bruce shrugged and scrubbed two hands over his face.

“Fair enough.”

Chapter Text

Susie Nashton, sixteen years old and a junior in high school, stared into space instead of studying. Was that what study hall was supposed to be for? She usually spent it thinking, wondering what Eddie did during his study halls. Probably the same thing he did in class: endless puzzles and whichever massive textbook from the library he was reading that week.

It had been two years since her brother had up and left without a word or return address.

Two long, sad years.

At least, they were sad for her: Daddy was still angry all the time, but the focus of his anger wasn’t around to focus upon. Mama had gone cold, though she pretended to be happy. The atmosphere at home was almost too much for her to take. Daddy said to everyone who did and didn’t ask that Eddie was dead, which worked for Mama because she never talked about Eddie at all. One day the photos of him were there, the next they were gone and ignorance feigned when Susie asked about them. Susie herself was utterly alone, knowing he was alive in her heart and at a loss as to why he left; why he didn’t tell her where he was going. Despite her parent’s way of coping with things she refused to forget him. As if her brother could ever be forgotten! Boys like him could never be forgotten. Was it something she said, or something she did? Maybe something she didn’t do?

“Hey!”

A hand was waving in front of her face; she blinked and finally focused. It was some boy she didn’t know from her grade; his face was familiar, but there was no name in her memory when she looked at it.

“What?” she snapped, annoyed at being interrupted.

“You’re Susie Nashton, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Is it true your brother’s dead?”

Susie went cold and didn’t reply, stunned; she hadn’t previously heard anyone but her father say those words.

“Must be great for your dad,” he went on. “‘Cos my dad says he was a queer. And a freak.”

In a matter of seconds the temperature of her blood shot straight up to boiling point and she was on her feet, landing one furious blow after another on whatever part of this… mutant she could reach. The other students in the study hall gathered around and started chanting, and the boy struggled and yelped with pain and surprise under her fists; it felt like only seconds had passed before the teacher dragged Susie off and away.

“Alright, enough. Back up, I said that’s enough. Miss Nashton, Principal’s office. Now.”

Susie righted herself and stared down at the boy; his nose was bleeding. A flash of memory changed his face but not the blood on it, stabbing a hole in her heart in a fit of misplaced remorse but doing nothing to stifle her rage. Susie took several deep inhales, out of breath.

“My brother is not dead so don’t ever talk about him like that,” she snarled, then turned on her heel and stormed off to the Principal’s office, the other students separating to make way for her like the Red Sea.

Chapter Text

“You said Nygma left to go get Crane this morning, right?” Harvey asked, pacing the length of Oswald’s impressively spacious office; Oswald looked up from scrutinising the stock market figures to give him a curious look.

“Indeed. I foresee no problems.”

“Hm.”

“Something on your mind?”

“How can you tell?”

“You’re pacing like you’re drafting your closing statement for a murder trial.”

Harvey stopped pacing and sighed.

“We miss those days.”

As he was facing the window, Oswald could only see the unscarred right side of his face: Harvey Dent as he used to be, so he didn’t doubt the words.

“Weren’t you threatened with some kind of creative execution on a near-weekly basis?” Oswald chortled; Harvey swelled with pride.

“Practically daily. Like we said, we miss those days.”

“As I said, there’s something on your mind and you’re dithering about getting to your point much like a hand-wringing housewife would, so just say it.”

Harvey made a few thoughtful gestures with his hands before he selected the words he wanted.

“Do you trust Nygma?”

“As much as I mind to,” Oswald said carefully, setting aside his newspaper. “Why?”

“How can we be sure he’s not gonna just turn tail on us and stab us both in the back?”

“In what way?”

“By planning some kind of… counter-coup with Crane and wrecking all the work we’ve put in.”

“And all the money I’ve spent?” Oswald said archly, raising an eyebrow.

“That too.”

“Let me tell you a little something,” he said, leaning across the desk and clasping his hands. “You don’t have to trust Edward.”

“That’s lucky, since we don’t.”

“Indeed. But I don’t need to trust Edward, like I don’t need to trust anyone else.”

Harvey affected a wounded expression - at least on one side of his face.

“Even us?”

“Let’s not get touchy-feely,” he shook his head, dismissing that line of inquiry; Harvey smirked. “What’s important here is that I know Edward.”

“What’s the difference, to you?” Harvey said, genuinely interested.

“Trust is based in faith, even hope, if you like. It’s a form of gambling.”

“We get that.”

“Knowing someone is predictive: when you are in full possession of the cut of someone’s jib, you know which way they will turn when you poke them this way, or that way. No room for surprises.”

“You don’t think Nygma could surprise you?”

“I’m sure he thinks he could. And when he does, I’ll be sure to act surprised for his sake,” Oswald snickered, amused by his own joke; Harvey gave him a sceptical look.

“We’re not so sure he hasn’t got a few tricks up his sleeve.”

“Bottom line is,” Oswald spread his hands, “I credit Edward with knowing a good thing when he sees it.”

Harvey huffed out a breath and took a seat, still looking unconvinced.

“We hope you’re right.”

“My dear boy, I’m always right.”

Harvey didn’t reply as Oswald happily went back to his newspaper, and looked out the window. There was something stuck in his mind, refusing to budge. It was the memory of that night on the asylum roof, after the Kyle woman had stolen his bullets and Quinn had punched him: there was no issue there, as both acts were on brand for those two and easy to accept. But after justice had been cheated and Nygma had ordered him to leave, he ran right over to Crane, after all he had done. Petty grudges aside, something didn’t sit right with him about that.

Chapter Text

“Who the hell thought a team-building exercise was a good idea for a group of convicted felons just on the wrong side of sanity?” Edward bitched, crossing his arms tight and glaring across at Jon, who was looking bored with his hands in his pockets.

In some Machiavellian act of sadism, they had been shepherded into the Arkham courtyard with guards in residence to make sure no one did anything too stupid.

“New doc,” Jon said, nodding toward an earnest-looking young doctor so wet behind the ears he squished when he walked.

“Oh, that kid will be eaten alive in no time,” Edward said, chuckling and turning to his companion with sinister glee. “Shall we give him the old one-two, see if we can make him cry?”

“Bet your ass,” Jon smirked, attention caught by the new doc clapping his hands together to get their attention.

It was only a relatively small group of patients: those in levels one and two were there, the least medicated ones most likely to follow a lead without random acts of violence. Like Edward, Harley was wilfully misdiagnosed and able to roam unfettered in level two, unlike her infamous partner who would never get higher than level three; she was nearby, grinding her heels into the dirt. Even Jervis was present: after a recent spate of lucid behaviour he had been bumped up from the contained level three to the surveilled but trusted level two. Like Jon, two was the highest he was liable to ever get. Now he was lurking at the edge of the group like a rabid bunny, occasionally twitching and looking furtive.

“Could I get some volunteers for the exercise I’d like to do?”

No one volunteered; some looked down at the ground, Harley picked at her cuticles, Jon gazed over at the crows watching them from the trees, and Edward stared right at the doctor to savour every second of his failure. Alas, the wretched man took this for some kind of willing and pointed in his direction.

“You three, there! Three is what I’ll need.”

“Just like goddamn high school all over again,” Edward sighed, rolling his eyes. “Except this time I have the rotten luck to get picked first, instead.”

“Three…?” Jon wondered, turning around; to their combined annoyance they realised at the same time that he was referring to them and Jervis, who was behind them.

“You three look like you go together,” he said, overcompensating in his nerves; Edward scoffed.

“Oh, does that logic lend itself to some kind of… nerd thing?”

“Dorks, maybe,” Harley said, grinning.

“And why didn’t you volunteer?” Edward demanded, turning to her. “This is right up your alley, since you probably spent your high school life as a cheerleader, bouncing your pom poms in people’s faces.”

“Yeah, but I spent more time under the bleachers than in front of ‘em,” she said, winking.

“I’m shocked,” Jon said, throwing her a smirk; she shrugged innocently.

“Anyways, I’m feelin’ sadistic today,” she pointed, enjoying herself far too much not to abrade Edward’s patience levels. “So get to the sufferin’, boys, mama wants a show.”

Throughout all this Jervis hadn’t said a word; he had gotten closer however since he seemed resigned to the course of events. Edward threw up his hands and gave in.

“Fine,” he muttered, grabbing Jon roughly by the shoulder to get them both closer. “So what’s the thing we can get done and over with as soon as humanly possible so we can get back to our usual stupid existence?”

“It’s a trust exercise,” the doc trilled, so ecstatic to have his ‘volunteers’ he didn’t notice the attitude. “We’ll put your friend here,” he pointed to Jervis, making Edward scoff again, “up on this podium. He will drop backwards, trusting in you to catch him when he falls.”

There was a pause.

“Why me?” Jervis said, finally.

“Their heights are closer to each other’s than yours,” he said. “Merely a practical concern. Everyone understand?”

Edward and Jon shared a meaningful glance, then nodded their assent.

“You got it,” Jon said, wearing his most vaguely co-operative expression; Edward lit up his selling-ice-to-Inuits smile.

“Absolutely.”

Jervis twitched, unsure. “But I don’t - I don’t trust them.”

When Edward recoiled, touched his fingertips to his chest and made a wounded noise, the doctor hastened to reassure.

“Of course you can!” he said cheerfully, about to pat Jervis on the back in a comforting way and then thinking better of it. “You can trust them.”

“Because you trust us, yeah?” Jon asked the doctor, a little smile tilting up his mouth.

“Yes!” he pounced on this reasoning. “Because I trust you, he can trust you. Right?”

“Oh yes,” Edward purred. “Yes you can.”

“There you go! Now up you get.”

With some reluctance Jervis got up on the assembled podium and turned his back to them, as commanded. Faces carefully constructed into benign submission, Edward and Jon held out their arms in a catching position. The doctor clapped his hands again.

“Now go!”

“But -”

“Go, I said!” he snapped, losing patience.

Sighing, Jervis toppled backward as told; as one, his trusty net dropped their arms and took a step back. In a move that everyone saw coming but the new guy, Jervis crashed to the ground. Jon snorted, Edward laughed, Harley shrieked with mirth, even the guards fought to hide their amusement. The doc helped a battered but unsurprised Jervis to his feet and turned to them, shocked.

“What happened?”

“Beg pardon, I tripped,” Jon said, deadpan, making Edward laugh again; the doc gestured wildly at them and then at Jervis, momentarily lost for words. “But - you said he could trust you. That I could trust you.”

“Indeed I did,” Edward said, still laughing. “You are absolutely able to place your trust in me, in him, or in us. But I never said that you should. That would simply be foolishness, on your part.”

“You’ve - you’ve ruined the whole thing!” he wailed, frustrated tears gathering in his eyes.

Glancing at each other with a modicum of smug satisfaction, Edward and Jon bumped fists.

“Two morons, one stone.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

"Now,” admonished Harley, waving a finger at the new guy. “What’ve we learned about trust today, honey?”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” the new guy said, already looking like he’d lost ten years off his lifespan. “Trust no one.”

“I tried to tell you,” Jervis said, dusting himself off. “They’re complete bastards, and they all hate me.”

“You see?” Edward said, gesturing his hands out in a not-quite-accidental fashion and smacking Jervis in the nose with the back of his hand; he yelped, making Jon laugh. “It’s so simple that even the dork gets it.”