Who: The Riddler When: Recently Where: His apartment What: Some moron is baiting Riddler Warnings: None!
After the plague, Gotham City was starting to crawl back to life. Outside of his apartment, he could hear the drag queens shout relieved greetings to one another before whispering condolences for friends that had not made it. His phone buzz, buzz, buzzed with emails, texts and phone calls asking for the green man and all the wonderful little things that he did for Old Gotham. He spun webs, constructed organizations and hid his favorites in airtight bunkers. None of it was remarkably legal or without a tiny bit of self service, but no one trusted a saint. Saints died. They rotted to corruption. They didn't know how to fairly price anything. The Riddler's methods were trusted like an old five dollar bill or a wooden baseball bat. His eccentrics kept people from getting too close, his talents made them ask for more. So, now that everyone wasn't dropping dead, he was expected to finally give up his hermit tendencies and be a business man.
Maybe in another suit, a different shade of green, he'd be out there informing and hacking his way towards one big messy ball of strings that could get him whatever he wanted. If everyone in this Gotham had been looking for a place to fit, that would have been the right pattern for the Riddler. The perfect little cubbyhole that he could roll around inside with his obsessions. If he cared about his brand, if he wanted to be taken seriously by the Bat brood and the rest of Gotham, he shouldn't have lost his jumping phone under some misplaced couch cushions that were thrown around the room in a tiny fit of loss + rage = failure. Heartbreak or something like it was a brand new concept to the (second) oldest soul in Gotham and the only way he knew how to deal with it was to treat his apartment like an Arkham cell. It had been days since Stephanie left the door and there hadn't been any clear sign on the journals or around Gotham that she had returned, so he expected the worst and retreated back into his cave for good.
Dramatics were fun for a little while. Trashing the apartment, cleaning it back up and then laying on the kitchen floor until he could think of names for the roaches under his sink were all great ways to avoid slipping back into his riddles and death traps. The baby bottles filled with scotch did a fine job of numbing his mind so that it didn't go rapidly flying off any cliffs. But, by the end of the week he was starting to feel restless. And, that was one of the most dangerous things a recovering mastermind criminal could feel. By Friday, the riddle of the day was if giving up his criminal tendencies was worth it if Stephanie wasn't around to give him a gold star for being so good. Robbing a bank or every bank ever in a sweep across Gotham would ease this broken mechanical man for a little while, but he knew it wasn't enough to change him back to the simplistic, cackling super villain that was easier to be.
No, he needed a project. A puzzle. A case. And, with a knock, knock, knock on the door that's exactly what he got. Not that Eddie knew it right away. No, he was getting very good at avoiding any visitors. His neighbors had nearly called him in for dead if he hadn't slipped a couple notes to them in bright green marker explaining that he was just trying to get some sleep. Yes sleep until he died from it seemed like a romantic thing to do. But, he saw a package left on his welcome mat through the slit of light under his door and after staring at it curiously for what seemed like hours he finally picked himself off the warmed kitchen tiles and opened the door.
Dressed in his blinking light-up smoking jacket, question marked boxer shorts and fuzzy slippers with enough patchy facial hair to make him look like a failed writer, he blinked away the afternoon light and tried to focus on the box at his feet. Purple with a green question mark printed on top. Calling to him like an echo through a long tunnel. Eddie stood there a long time, eyes narrowed and face fixed into a frown as he thought about kicking the damned thing down the stairs before he could get sucked up into whatever this was. Who would send him something like this? Who in their right mind would trigger a mad man with his own calling card? Eddie had to know. Like someone had just thrown a bucket of cold water all over his thin, tiny frame, his skin crawled and screamed with curiosity. And, if someone was unfortunate enough to see him standing there in the hallway, they would have seen a funny little smirk crawl up his face like someone was pulling the edge of his lips with a string.
Scooping the present up and slamming the door behind him, he dug into the paper and cardboard like it was Christmas. Inside was a radio from the mid nineties, grey and chipped from sitting in a thrift store for too long. "Card. I should have read the card first." He mumbled to himself, searching for any sort of indication of who this piece of junk was from. But, all he found were a series of numbers inside of the wrapping paper. "Radio numbers. Simplistic." Riddler didn't notice his fingers tremble when he pushed the dial to the right station and flicked the old thing on.
"Find all the hints. Put the pieces together. Prove you aren't the impostor." A text-to-speech voice. The recording started over. Congratulations, Riddler. You opened the door. This is your first step towards a scavenger hunt. Find all the hints. Put the pieces together." Eddie gasped and recited along with the recording, "Prove you aren't the impostor."
Someone. Some poor, sweet soul out there in Gotham wanted to play a game.