eddie likes to (riddlethem) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-05-18 17:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: dc comics, riddler, stephanie brown |
Who: Eddie and Steph (Part One of Two)
Where: Saint Agnes Church
When: The night of Arkham explosion before Arkham explosion
What: Riddler crashed Batgirl's party and helps her protect some people. Warm fuzzies and awkward all around.
Warnings: Language maybe
With Blackgate filling up faster and faster every day, any kind of pushback against Bane’s goons was important. Eddie understood that. Saving Gotham wasn’t just about cutting off the head, but making the city believe that it belonged to them and if their neighbor got dragged away for something simple like gambling or stealing the Sunday paper, what was going to stop Bane’s thugs from coming for you next? And, the second someone stepped in and protected the city’s citizens, something would change in them. Yes, he understood that. That said, he didn’t agree for a second that Stephanie was in the condition to bring the kind of hope that only Batgirl could. Eddie also knew that it was only a matter of time she’d get stir crazy in whichever bunker she was nesting in. He thought giving her space would be a good thing, but it always ended with both them doing something really stupid. Sometimes heroic. But, stupid.
And, it had been days since he saw her. When they broke into the city with the Dark Knight, he let her go with only a swift kiss to the side of her neck and a muttered kind of I love you before going off to his own safehouse buried in Wonder City. It was a smart place to hole up, especially if he wanted to do tech support and it was close enough to Arkham that he could sneak through his tunnel system to help Crane resist Bane’s demands. He kept busy, Eddie loved being busy, except it didn’t keep him from drifting off into some long, riddled question as to where she was and what she was doing. He knew showing up to the hideaway without so much as a warning was bad form. He knew trying to talk it out over the comms might do them some good. But, he wanted to see her.
Picking a rainy night that made identification hard and goons a little less perceptive of noise, he headed over to her bunker with some flowers he made out of twisted, ancient metal and a blue thermos for a vase. He couldn’t get her real flowers or some fancy vase, not while the city was burning, but he knew the thought counted for something. It took a grand total of five minutes standing outside of the underground safehouse for him to gather any kind of courage. Pacing in the rain with the metal flowers under his coat as if the water would do more than possibly rust their little petals. He even gave himself a pep talk that was along the lines of If she at least has angry sex with you, that’s in the right direction and She’s probably just happy to see you that she’ll almost forget why you’re fighting in the first place. Finally, he punched in the code, climbed down to the one room bunker and found it empty.
Stephanie had, to no surprise, been following Bane’s movements and according to her computer activity, had zeroed in on a neighborhood of retired cops that had been dragged from their families one by one. As the toxin wore off, they got smart and stayed together in a nearby church with their families in a survival attempt to keep all of them safe and alive. This kind of cooperation was a natural enemy of Bane’s goons and tonight they were going to pay for it. Eddie thought about just buzzing Steph and helping her from her ear, but he knew better. Even if she could handle this on her own, he needed to be there for her. He grabbed his Riddler baseball cap, a backpack full of supplies and practically ran to Saint Agnes after her.
Closing in on the church, he saw a couple pack of goons loitering yards away, but there wasn’t any clear indication they were going to attack. Which made him worry they had already taken what they wanted. Giving a quick look around the corner, he scaled the back stone wall (slowly and sloppily) and landed with a oof in the ancient graveyard out back. “Batgirl.” He turned on the comm, crawling between wet thornbushes and gravestones towards the back entrance. “Riddle me this, did I get here too late?”
There was this disconcerting itch under Stephanie's skin. Of course, the anti-fear toxin Crane released two weeks prior could be blamed, the toxin that had her doped up and sky high for more than a week. The toxin that helped ripped the city apart without its citizens even raising an eyebrow or lifting a finger to halt the crumbling underneath them. It had been an accident, the exposure, but Steph ended up fully embracing it. It'd been so long since she felt so damn good, so damn calm. No images of her bloody father haunting every waking moment and snatched bits of slumber. No more fighting with the other birds. No worry about Eddie and all the complications of their relationship. No self-restraint. No pain. Not one goddamn care in the world. But, she had those moments of clarity, and those felt so stark and sharp comparatively. When she snapped out of it, even briefly, the reality scared her right back in until she couldn't burrow away in the drug anymore.
So, that was another part of the itch. The fear. Fear of Bane and his goons finding her. Fear of Batman's retribution for letting shit hit the fan so hard. And, mostly, the paranoia and fear after what happened with Muerte. Sometimes, she found herself checking her own pulse, fingers pressed hard against her throat where Eddie kissed her goodbye to make sure it was still working. She couldn't even wrap her mind around the panic and pure rage she felt toward the concept and toward her boyfriend, too. Their betrayal burned hot in her chest, and that? That was the biggest part of the itch. The anger, and she needed to find a constructive way of dealing with it that didn't boil down to beating a concept to a bloody pulp and punching Eddie in the face until he bled. Helping Gotham was just that. Her city was doomed if no one stepped in, and she knew she had to. Batman could only do so much, after all, and who knew where everyone's allegiances lied after Bane's threats scared the bejesus out of Gotham as a whole.
Coming down from something akin to a PCP, Steph could feel that she wasn't at her best. There wasn't just the itch, but the shakes, the nausea, the numbness. Her injuries that she was finally suffering from. But, she'd been more broken before, and she couldn't sit idly by in Eddie's bunker while Bane ripped her city to shreds. So, after days of tracking Bane and his me , when she caught wind of what was happening to those retired cops, she sprung to action. She had managed to swing by her own apartment to grab her costume before hiding away in the safe house, something far more decent than the tattered mess she'd worn the last time she patrolled. As she swung over to St. Agnes Church, careful to take her time and stick to the shadows, she wondered if she should contact Eddie or the Bat to tell them, but both men were busy, and she didn't really want to talk to either. Especially Eddie. If he really wanted, he could find her with such ease it was almost stupid.
With the altered comm that could zoom in on nearby conversation in her ear and her rebreather in her mouth (just in case), she loped herself over the stonewall of the church's yard and landed in the garden. Bane's men hardly whispered the plan of attack as they killed about, and oh god, she wanted to beat the shit out of them right then and there. But, no, she had to try to assess the situation, right? Gaggle of goons scouring the perimeter? Check. She swooped to a darkened corner, a little cubby hole with a stained glass window she could look through to see what was going on inside. Switching to heat vision, she began to count warm bodies, but before she could react to whatever was going on, her comm beeped to life, and she nearly jumped to high heaven.
"Riddler," she whispered sharply, because if they were going with alter egos she could do that too. She hesitated just a moment before continuing just as quiet. "No, I don't think so. I think we just made it. There's...twenty-five in there. A couple goons circling. Seven retired cops and their immediate families. I see a few bodies on the floor, but they're alive according to the readings. But I overheard them taking about taking them out one by one, so I don't know if they--," she cut herself off with a hard swallow. A brief pause that held a shaky sigh, Steph fought to keep her voice even. "How'd you find me?"
“I checked your browser history, duh doy.” He chimed brightly, clicking the side of his glasses and found an outline of her crouched up near the stained glass window and smiled. “I came to help. And, normally I’d ask because it’s the-” Eddie made a small grunting noise as he stood up and brushed mud and rain off his jacket. “Gentlemany thing to do, but tonight I’m not taking no for an answer. I know the guy who runs this joint. Catholics love a sinner trying to be good.” That much was true. Eddie didn’t feel bad for the kind of fun he had in this Gotham, but he understood it was wrong. He also knew it was wrong to not feel bad, which was a conundrum that was driving a wedge between them now. But, Father Michael was one of the first to see the good Eddie tried to do during the plague and invited him to talk as men of the cloth tended to do. Riddler would never be religious in the strong sense of the word, but he did enjoy talking to someone who was. He liked the stories. The soul of it.
And, maybe he liked knowing the faces of Gotham more than he liked to admit. If he could put a person behind the face, a story, then it lit something inside of him that wasn’t there before.
“But, first. A momentary distraction.” Eddie pulled out a metal, simple trigger from his backpack with a couple differently shaded green buttons across it. In seconds, alarms started screeching a couple blocks away as an entire street of shops and houses had their security systems triggered by little ol’ Riddler. The goons circling the church looked at each other in confusion and in a panic, loaded up their van and chased the noise down the street. Eddie wasn’t sure how long the alarms would keep the goons busy like a laser pen distracted a cat from a mouse, but he hoped it’d be enough to fortify the church and let Gotham see there was still hope. “I’m going in the back. Drop in when you’re ready.”
Eddie was on his feet and walking up the slippery, rain slick steps as Father Michael opened the door to see what the noise was. “GAH!” Eddie yelled in surprise, practically falling back and cracking his head open on the bottom step before Michael caught him and pulled him back. “Hey, Father. I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d give you a hand.” Eddie grinned his charming, bright grin and clapped the priest on the back. Father Michael was one of those sixty year old men who looked like they could take a twenty something that was getting too rowdy outside of a pub. Irish, sharp nosed and a little pudgy on the sides with a smile that was small but incredibly kind. Eddie liked that the best.
“Ed. Glad to see they haven’t taken you yet. Come in. You’re soaking.” Father Michael laughed and led him inside, shutting the big heavy door together. Eddie had, up to that point, completely forgot the church was filled with retired cops, but the way some of them looked at him was a striking, quick reminder.
“Aw crap.” Eddie slouched, taking off his coat to reveal a t-shirt with two narwhals battling with lightsabers for horns (Nar Wars, get it?) over a black long sleeved shirt, muddy jeans, green chucks and a belt with a brass question marked buckle. The older, bristly looking ones stepped closer like they’d happily break his bones if he did anything cute. “Listen, I’m here to help. I got a bag full of tricks and- okay I realize this sounds a lot like the Cat in the Hat what with the rain and, uh, but it’s a lot less sinister than that.” He put his hands up, whispering to the cops and then slowly lowered to open the backpack and reveal all kinds of tech and tools. “I set those alarms to give us time. I also have other supplies, please-” Eddie looked up to Father Michael with big, brown puppy eyes and the old man nodded sagely like Irish men do who had been through similar, bloody rebellions. It took a moment, but they backed off and Eddie tried not to smile. Luckily, he could hide a lot under that question marked baseball cap.
Steph let him babble on over the comm line as she tried her best to steady herself in her little hidden away corner. She could have searched for his heat signature with her goggles, too, but she didn’t particularly want to know where he was. Mostly, she wanted him to go away so she could continue burying away all her feelings toward him, and just that thought made her sick. When had it all fallen apart? When had they changed from those two people stupidly in love in December to whatever this was now? And, Stephanie knew that the honeymoon was finally over, if they ever had one to begin with, but that didn’t mean that this didn’t sting. It was easy to desperately love someone that had issues out of her scope when it didn’t affect her, but this all left her with a bigger heartache than when he dunked her with the Pit, left her hurting just as much, if not more than what happened with her father.
But, he was here, and she couldn’t exactly tell him to fuck off now, especially with the situation as cloudy as it was. She would team up with him, take care of these cops and their families, and then they could go back to their respective places on opposite sides of Gotham. Maybe she’d jump into another bunker so he wouldn’t think that things were suddenly repaired just because he stalked her out while she was out on a job, but she would push through this and try not beat her boyfriend into a bloody pulp. So, she let him babble as she crouched in her corner and watched the activity inside unfold. It was like she could feel the fear from there, from the pulsing forms inside that she could see. And, as she was trying to think of a way to come in, the alarms started to blare, and she bit back a yelp, mouth covered as she saw the heat signatures scramble and huddle together. As if preparing for the inevitable. “See you inside,” was all she offered him, a curt acknowledgement that she couldn’t shake him if she wanted to. And, oh, she wanted to. She really, really wanted to because she didn’t want to face the problem right then and there.
The cowl was built for rain, but that didn’t mean a chill didn’t shake to her bones, and she stretched up slowly before circling around the building to find a window to slip through. After a moment, she found a closed one to the rectory and wedged it open from the outside to slip in, feet first. There was a thump of her heavy boots hitting the floor that echoed through the quiet din of rainfall hammering the rooftop. Before walking out to where the refugees of Bane’s terror were, she took a moment to take a deep breath. Prep herself. Look around the room to see anything that could help them. One last sweep with the heat goggles told her Eddie managed to get in (and not get killed by the retired cops), and she opened the door slowly, sure that sudden movements would do more harm than good.
Standing tall and straight, she tried to look as brave as she could, as unwavered as she could in the presence of a warring lover. “He’s good at causing distractions,” she said brightly, arms on her hips as she stood in front of the rectory door. Just removed from the rest of them. Her cheerful voice bounced off the walls. One of the little girls looked awed, and Steph beamed down at her and offered a little wave before edging forward.
Eddie had already started moving over to a small cardtable they had set up with radios, an electric lantern and cellphones, eyes moving over supplies and people as if he were quickly taking in as much information as he could. Cops, especially old grizzled ones, knew the basics of urban survival in Gotham, but they didn’t have the technical know-how to build anything beyond boarded up windows. Eddie on the other hand, could build a castle out of scrap metal and generators if he wanted to. Any goon who saw the signatures of his work tended to think twice before braving the puzzles. After setting the pack down he started to wander around the church, hands behind his back and he looked up and down the walls, windows and different entryways mooks could use to get in.
By the time Batgirl had made her entrance, he was only a couple feet away and her voice made him almost jump over the pews and zig-zag into another direction. He was afraid of getting too close, to see a scornful crack in that bright Batgirl smile, but any obvious tension between them would come off as untrustworthy for the both of them. So, he wandered past her, dark eyes lifting up only momentarily to look at her before making his way back to Father Michael. “They’ve been picking people off one by one. So, you holed up here. But, the strongest have to make supply runs and unfortunately, that boils down to the very people they want to take. Correct? The trick is to make taking any more people a tedious endeavor and supply runs once or twice a week.”
He took a seat on one of the altar steps and rubbed the side of his face in thought. “I can set up an electric fence once the rain clears and I have a miniature helicopter to make deliveries with when you guys run short on food. Once we get some ideas going, I’ll put up cameras, too. But, we need to do something tonight to scare ‘em off.” Eddie pointed to his backpack on the table, fully allowing the cops to rummage through the whole thing, which was a bigger deal than anyone there except maybe Stephanie could understand. Inside were the kind of supplies someone in The Walking Dead would have died for. Surveillance equipment, pipe bombs, medical supplies, electronics and stuff most of them didn’t even recognize. He had to start working on the doors to make them automatic and sturdy, but a plan needed to be hatched beforehand. “Batgirl, do you think we should break up these pews and start boarding up the windows? And, I need ideas for where to keep the kids safe if these idiots do break in.” Eddie turned his baseball cap around, folding his hands together in his lap as he looked up at her, this time much longer than when she first dropped in. There was affection always in the back of his gaze when he looked at her, but it was overshadowed by something that looked like a strategist calling a general in for help.
As Eddie stalked around the edges of the church to try to look for weak points, she glanced up and around to do the same. Trying to spot loose rafters in the ceilings or little alcoves she could possibly grapple up to and use as hiding spots if those jackasses came back soon. There were a few spots she felt were fortified enough for her grapple, and she felt confident enough that there would be enough places for her to take advantage of that the goons wouldn’t even think of. Okay, she could do this. She could help these people out. There was no hope of them leaving, unless Eddie wanted to house twenty-five plus people in one of his underground bunkers, and they needed to make it safe for them until Bane could be taken care of. (He had to be taken care of, right?)
She ignored his first look as he scoped out the place, jaw turned up slightly in a moment of defiance that was far more teenage girl than caped crusader trying to instill some hope and faith into a group of people. Stephanie knew that was petty and probably wrong, but she couldn’t help it. Just being in the same room with him caused a stab in her chest that she couldn’t ignore. Instead, she retraced his steps, walking through the pews the way he came to avoid following him around like some puppy waiting for her master’s approval. She catalogued corners, observed the cops burrowing through Eddie’s backpack (which did, in fact, earn him a brief approving eyebrow raise), and counted off the number of kids. (Too many.) But, before she could go talking to the people, Eddie spoke again, and she stopped somewhere between the third and fourth row of pews, and looked up at him. “I--.” Steph afforded herself the brief shake in her voice and a sad look that was only for Eddie before clearing her throat. “Yeah, we should board these up as quickly as possible, especially since those guys will probably figure out soon that the alarms are just a stupid ruse.” She glanced over her shoulder to the kids huddled around each other, their frightened faces turning her lips down. “The rectory,” she said quickly. “I think that’s the only place that we can hide them away. I got through the window there, but we can rig it so that it’s a lot more secure, I think?”
Steph hesitated for a moment, and the look across her face let him know how not okay she was him still. That affectionate look made her stomach wretch, and she had to turn away to stop herself from saying anything stupid. Sure, Gotham knew about Batgirl and Riddler’s friendlier relationship, but they didn’t need to suffer the consequences of their spat. Instead, she bit down on her lip and looked down at one of the little girls approaching her. Steph immediately crouched down to be on her level and buried away all the sadness with a soft smile for the girl clutching a baby blanket as if it would save her from anything. In her soft lispy voice, the little girl asked if she and the green man would help them. “I promise,” Steph reassured her with a brighter smile. She reached a gloved hand to brush her hand over the girl’s messy hair, blonde like hers, and tugged lightly on that blanket. “Just hold onto that, and we’ll do the dirty work, sweetpea.”
One last brush of the hand over the girls head, and Batgirl pushed herself up to look back toward those cops. “Alright, boys, let’s see what you’ve got. Fastest person to break a pew down wins a prize.”
Eddie visibly zoned out as Steph reassured the girl, sharp and calculating eyes glazing over like he was struck by something he couldn’t explain. Father Michael had to ask him a question twice about one of the tiny laptops he brought with him, shaking his shoulder a little to snap him back. And, luckily it was just when Batgirl called for a pew breaking contest and his focus was up and away from her. The room quickly split off into people who could do manual labor and people who could plan and learn quickly. Eddie was suspiciously fluent in cop codes and terms, which raised a couple eyebrows, but these guys couldn’t be picky. Not when Batgirl just made one of their little girls smile for the first time in days and Eddie brought enough firepower to make any Blackgate mook pee his pants.
The Riddler simply buzzed with energy from teaching people how to use different pieces of equipment and talking strategy, but there were a couple too many wayward looks over to Batgirl when she was in the middle of boarding up a window or helping one of the teenagers pull a pew apart. He wasn’t very sad when he first showed up, just happy to be around, but it occurred to him that simply being near her wasn’t the same as being with her. In fact, helping her with all of this didn’t seem like a bad idea until now. And, he was afraid that she’d see him as some kind of phony or question his motivations for being there. Dwelling wasn’t helping, especially after missing a couple key questions from the people he was trying to train and eventually he quickly asked Father Michael to see the basement for supplies to get some peace.
So, if she ever turned to look for him, he was gone. Downstairs rummaging through broken nativity scenes and gardening supplies for something he could use and pace around the messy, cluttered place until he could get his head on straight again. Eventually, he cleared off a table, threw a pile of scrap metal and tools on it and began working on a winding, complicated locked layer of metal and wood that could reinforce the backdoor and make easy access for anyone that understood how it worked. The design was Riddler in every way. Complicated if you didn’t know anything about it, but oh so simple if you were given the answer. And, he was aware that he couldn’t just put the thing up and ask people to guess how it worked. He’d have to tell them. Something he never did with anyone but Steph. Something he wasn’t sure if he was really capable of, but he wanted to try.
The physical work was tiring, especially for someone recovering being high for the better part of two weeks. Her breath hitched every now and then as she lifted the heavy pieces of wood up to the windows, the fractured ribs shooting pain that she could let show could she? Still, when no one was looking, she took a moment to breathe out the pain, sharp sucks through her teeth before turning back to the teenage boy, Joey, who was helping her. And, that was how she distracted herself from the pain: learning names and stories. Joey was a high school junior with a knack for football and defying his dad. That little girl she comforted, Katie, was his three-year-old little sister who liked Disney Channel and Sesame Street. And, they both really liked the Bat and his family. (Joey thought that Wing guy was pretty cool, while Katie, of course, was a newfound Batgirl fan herself.) Steph could lose herself in that and try to forget the stabbing pain in her chest.
But, after a while, she found herself glancing over her shoulder to look for him. It hurt, it really, really hurt to be so close to him but so angry. She didn’t want to be angry with him. She really wanted to let the whole thing go. She wished she could forgive and forget, but she just wasn’t built that way. Stephanie couldn’t understand that sort of darkness, she would never really understand what drove a person to do something like that and not feel guilty. That was something she would never, ever understand. How Eddie couldn’t understand the concept of feeling bad for something. His best friend stopped her heart after she kissed him, and Stephanie thought any other boyfriend would be outraged and protective and just as pissed. That was what stung the most of all.
She couldn’t help looking for him though in the mix of all these people trying to create a place to feel safe within all the mess going on outside, but he wasn’t there, and she knitted her eyebrows together for a moment. A quick glance told her he wasn’t anywhere, and after a reassuring smile and couple of words of confidence, she left Joey to his own devices for a few minutes to track Eddie down. Father Michael pointed her in the right direction, and she slowly walked down the steps of the basement. “Hi,” she said finally as she wound down the last steps. It was the first time she was in the same place alone with him since their big fight, and the way her face turned down told him how much pain it caused her.
By the time she made it down to the basement, he had worked out a plan for the door reinforcement on the back of a large Fish Fry poster. Tucked away in his corner with a small lamp and his violet glasses glowing up the dark basement, Eddie looked as though he were alone in one of his workshops. Engrossed and maybe even a little in love with the puzzle complexity of it all. When it came down to it, being the Riddler had mutated past just a compulsion and into an art form. A tricky locked door wasn’t just a defense for him, but expression. That’s what made it so hard for him to share it with anyone.
Her voice was distant, but the second he heard it his body visibly perked up and snapped out of his engineering trance. Eddie fought back a smile at her and instead frowned deeply when he saw the pain for what it actually was. A moment passed and then he beckoned her over.
“Can I show you what I’m working on?” He asked quietly, taking his glasses off and turning the poster around so that she could see his plans. “I- well I got the idea from Wonder City, actually. What’s the problem with riddles? Well, once you solve them they aren’t really riddles anymore. Right? In Wonder City, there’s a couple doors that require certain buttons pressed at the same time, but I thought to rotate the buttons so that the combination can keep changing. That way it doesn’t matter if the goons up there see one of the scouts put in a combo, because the guys inside can change it the second the door closes.” Eddie beamed at her, but then remembered she was still upset and looked back down at the scrap metal and wood he was working on. “I need you to explain the details of it to them for me. I don’t think I can.”
He wasn’t looking at her now and there was something nervous in his voice. Eddie hadn’t been nervous around her in a long time, maybe even since they first started seeing each other. But, now he wasn’t sure how to make her love him again and everything he said seemed like a ticking time bomb between them. That desperation to make her happy was still there, alive and beating, but his success rate was so much lower than it had been before.
The way his body seemed to perk up when she walked in tugged the frown deeper because of that lurch in her stomach. Those stupid goddamn butterflies that enjoyed whenever he looked happy. She hated those things right now -- that jump of her heart or shiver down her spine or goosebumps raised over her arms. All the little physical ticks that gave away how Eddie still pulled her in, how he had her twisted around his thieving fingers, how he still had her heart in his mouth. Because, goddammit all, she was still in love with him. Of course she was. How else would she feel so wronged by it all? Stephanie had dropped men for stupider things, but she was always a sucker for Eddie Nigma. There was too much between them to just give up anyway, or so she thought. Really, she was too weak to give him up, or, perhaps, too strong to just let it go.
A tingle shot up her spine, and she could practically taste the nerves in his voice. Oh, she knew him too well, just like he knew her inside and out, too. Slowly, she dropped down the last step and edged towards the corner where he was working. There wasn’t much light, and the purple glow from his glasses didn’t illuminate her face enough for him to see the real damage the toxin and the proceeding weeks after had done. He could do a scan, of course, but she didn’t think about that. She leaned onto the desk, avoiding his eyes and instead studying the plan drawn there. “It’s genius,” she said after a few quiet moments of trying to understand what was laid before her. “You have to explain it to them, Eddie. I’ll mess it up. You can do it.” She looked up suddenly, blue eyes wide and honest and marred with purple bruises underneath. “I know you can.”
Eddie didn’t know how far and in what way Stephanie had made up her mind about him. In fact, he was afraid to ask and it showed. This was a new and uncomfortable phenomena for him as he naturally enjoyed asking about practically everything. “I don’t know, Stephanie. It’s different with strangers.” He smoothed his hands over the plans once, resting his palms face down on the table before looking up to her in honesty. It was very, very hard to slip too much past him and it only took a couple seconds for him to really see how much she was hurting. Those wounds from before hadn’t been properly treated and were only getting worse by the look of her posture. If she couldn’t survive fighting those mooks if and when they came back, he’d never forgive himself.
“One of those wives is a retired nurse.” He said simply, hand reaching to sit gingerly on top of her fingers. Eddie knew Steph well enough not to suggest anything further. They pushed each other, but learnt quickly that telling her what she should do was almost insulting to the blonde bat. Even if she knew he was right. And, he wasn’t interested in pushing her any farther than he already had over the past couple weeks. His fingers squeezed hers, tight enough that she could feel the pressure through her thick gloves and then retreated back to keep working on his plans. As one hand wrote and sketched the intricate door lock, the other started to tap out on the table in Morse Code a very simple I miss you.
“You seem to be friendly with that priest, though,” Stephanie countered, more suggestive than forceful and still looking at him with those wide eyes. She thought he was fully capable of relating to people in some way if he just tried. “All those people in Old Gotham, aren’t they technically strangers? But you still helped them out. At least try.” Her voice was soft, encouraging, and for one brief moment held none of that anger and hurt she held in her tense shoulders or sharp eyes. Just a hope and faith that he could do whatever he set his mind to if he just tried. She leaned a little further onto the table, too exhausted to resist her body’s immediate reaction to the brush of his fingers, and she closed her eyes.
“Oh,” she said, eyes snapping open. Yeah, she knew that she should see someone with a medical degree to actually look at whatever’d happen to her. Not just the fractured ribs or other bumps and bruises, but her heart, too. Death might think she was okay, but stuff like that wasn’t natural. “I’m fine,” she reassured him with a casual shrug despite herself. “I have them wrapped.” And she felt her heart thump when he squeezed her fingers, and she couldn’t help the whine that escaped her throat. “Please,” she started with barely a whisper, and she finally looked away from him. Up toward that dirty ceiling. Away toward anything but him. She made out nothing but the miss, but she could infer. “Don’t.” Her voice cracked, turning back to him and giving him the answer he seeked with just a tear-eyed look: I miss you, too.
Like many of the rogues and even some of the bat-heroes, Eddie felt removed from regular Gotham citizens. It used to be a feeling of being special and turned into simply being stranger, but this city was slowly changing some of that for him. Whether it was the way Stephanie could talk to a scared little girl without even an ounce of adult worry in her voice or the Cat’s love for all things broken, he was starting to see that this city was made up of gears and springs that knew the same tragedy, loss and pain that he did. So he nodded earnestly with a soft, “I’ll try.” With an unspoken for you laced thickly underneath it. That was the best he could do.
And, he almost expected her to yell at him (which he was sure he deserved another round of anyway) at the less than discreet tapping. Her watery plea for him to stop, though, threw him off. He looked up at her directly for the first time since they were upstairs, big brown eyes exhausted from trying to veil any feelings for her sake and he started to climb up on the worktable and crawl over to her. “Stephanie.” Eddie said gently, swinging his legs over the edge so that he was next to her and hands reaching to hold onto her. “Look, we can talk some more tonight. We can figu-” He started, but the little handheld radio on his belt crackled and Father Michael’s voice cut through. The mooks were back. And, they were looking for a good fight. Eddie gave a long sigh, smacking the radio against his leg a couple times in frustration before looking back up to her. “You ready?”
Continued here