eddie likes to (riddlethem) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-08-12 02:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: dc comics, riddler, stephanie brown |
Who: Stephanie and Eddie
When: BACKDATED before Eddie had an alter switch right after he riddled at Batman
Where: Stephanie's apartment
What: talking about stuff. hugging and kissing.
Warnings: a leetle swearing probably ty steph.
Summer in Gotham was always an interesting and lively time of the year. Open fire hydrants pumped water through the Old Gotham and Crime Alley streets, ice cream trucks blared their theme songs, street fairs offered different foods and crafts for people to admire. Young adults stumbling out of bars, children celebrating the escape from school. Stephanie Brown should have been one of those people laying in the park with her friends and maybe sneaking swigs of a flask as they baked in the sun. Just enjoying the last few weeks of vacation before school started up, before the responsibility a girl her age should have kicked back into gear. (Granted, Steph always had more responsibility than a girl her age should have, but she didn’t mind. Vacation, shamacation.) But, after a couple of long, sleepless nights of patrols and self-doubt, she decided to hide away in the central air of her apartment and pretend that she wasn’t started back school in a month where she had deadlines looming. Pretend she wasn’t still angry with Eddie for forgiving Muerte. Pretend she wasn’t still weighed down by the overwhelming guilt and doubt about the cowl. She would curl on her couch, eat her Eggos, and watch some silly reality television as Bandit paced back and forth on the back of her couch. Maybe call Eddie later before her patrol to grab some ice cream.
But, his text alerted her that something was off, and her planned day of soloness was paused for the sake of his sanity. She didn’t know the context of the riddling to Batman, but she just knew it wasn’t any good. Eddie riddling like that was never good these days. Maybe it was vestiges of the party sneaking back to him, maybe something bigger was going on. Whatever the case, when Eddie arrived at her apartment looking world weary and exhausted with Matilda in tow, Steph immediately wrapped her arms around him and smothered him with every bit of affection she could muster. Forgotten was that leftover bitterness over Muerte; only a need to make sure that the man she loved was mentally, physically and emotionally okay took over her. After letting Matilda run off somewhere into the apartment, she lead Eddie to the couch and immediately needled him into laying in her lap.
Hours past of them sitting in mostly silence with her hands threaded in his hair as they watched Gordon Ramsey yell nonsense at his competitors. And, Steph just let the silence hang, let Eddie do whatever he needed to in order to calm down, to pull himself out of the freak-out. She’d press a quick kiss to his temple, or twist her hand around his shirt, or describe how disgusting a dish looked to him. Eventually, she began tracing her fingers around his face. Featherlight touches across his cheekbone, down the slope of his nose, over the crinkles around the corners of his eyes. Skating around his jawline before tracing the curve of his mouth. All as if she was teaching the tips of her fingers how to memorize every inch of him. And, she repeated the process over and over, sometimes with one hand, sometimes with both, once with just the tip of her pinky. Trying to memorize the map of his face as if she didn’t already know how to navigate every piece of her riddled man by heart. It soothed her, the repetition, and to have him in the safety of her arms. She didn’t know the problem, but she already knew she would help him find a solution.
Curving herself down, she nudged his nose with hers. “You didn’t get to see how badly the messed up the bass.” It was a tease, mostly, but she had given him enough time. She would push him to talk even if it pissed him off to all hell. Sitting back up, she resumed grazing her fingers over his face, now venturing down his neck, across his pronounced collarbone, underneath his shirt.
Eddie normally felt a surge of energy when he was working on a project with the Cat, the Bat or anyone in between. He liked the complexity of a situation, the different wrenches that could be thrown in and the blooming resolutions to a problem. This time was a little different. This time Crane extended his friendship, as he always did to Eddie regardless of their different sides of the fence and a small, angry part of the riddled man said No. It was odd, it was so very odd to Eddie since he was the chief apologizer for every and any rogue to hit Gotham. The crazies in this town were storms he would tell Stephanie. Unstoppable forces destined to knock over houseplants, sacrifice a couple lives and scare the citizens of Gotham until they prayed for their Bat-God.
But, Crane had crossed too many lines. He almost ruined Eddie’s life with Stephanie, facilitated the death of his best friend and had the nerve to go experiment on the poor just so he could plunge the whole city in chaos. Crane had hurt too many people, people Eddie cared about and the charade of holding up a friendship with a man like that cracked like a smashed funhouse mirror. But, betraying the trust of a rogue had unexpected results and soon Eddie found that he couldn’t backstab a sadist without riddling out clues first. It made him sick, weak and all he wanted to do was curl around Stephanie until this strange feeling that he did the wrong thing subsided.
Luckily, Stephanie knew him well enough to understand what kind of bad shape he had to be in to let his obsessive compulsions act up and she was there for him. Open arms, kisses across his face, soft fingertips through his hair. That mixed with Gordon Ramsey shouting and banging plates on metal tables were enough to keep his mind from spinning out of control. And, part of him wanted to keep watching tv until they were too tired to talk and hope to god he could sleep this whole thing off. Eddie knew better though.
“Did she drop the bass?” Eddie asked, flashing a dramatic look up at her like he just thought of the best pun in the whole damn world. He pushed his face farther into her stomach, biting at fabric until he slowly sat up, hair standing on end in a curly mess and eyes a little heavy from the tv coma he had just experienced. “We watched all of them?” He asked, voice a little high and almost child-like as if he had just sleepwalked through Disneyland and the park closed before he knew it. A pause and then a glance down at his stomach. “I’m hungry I haven’t eaten all day.” He turned to look at her, grabbing her hand and pressing a couple kisses into the palm of it. “If I make us dinner you can’t start shouting obscenities at me. Don’t let the television be a bad influence on your young, troubled mind.”
Stephanie had considered just letting it fall to the wayside for the time being, whatever was going on with him, but they never did well when they ignored problems. It festered and boiled and blew in their faces worse than they could have possibly imagined. No, the reason why they worked so well was because they worked through their problems. And, if she simply ignored what happened earlier that day, then how was she going to help him? How was that being a partner to him? A life boat? A compass? Other people might let him get away with simply pushing it away and sleeping it off, or letting him suppress it. But, she couldn’t just let him off the hook that easily. No matter how much he might wish and pray for it.
“Har, har, har,” she said with a roll of her eyes, even as her mouth curved into a twitching smile at his frankly terrible pun. She squirmed as he nibbled at the fabric of her shirt, giggling and trying so very hard to stay in place at the same time. “We watched all of them, baby.” She smiled softly at him and wonder how badly he could have lost track in the last few hours. Pretty badly, it seemed, but that just meant he felt safe in her place. Which meant more than anything else. And, she looked at him with soft eyes as he pressed his lips to the palm of her hand. “Well, it better be good then. I can’t make any promises. I have delicate sensibilities that’ve been tainted this afternoon.” She reached her free hand to smooth down some of the more errant curls, then stood up. “C’mon,” she said, grabbing his hand and tugging. “While we make dinner, we’ll talk. Okay?”
“You’re the one who could live off Spaghetti-O’s for a month.” He made a face at we’ll talk and let her pull him off the couch. Stephanie’s kitchen was cramped and filled with cheap college kid foods that honestly wasn’t that different from the kind of stuff that could be found in his cupboards. Eddie wasn’t one of those 30-somethings who made extravagant meals off the Food Network to impress lady types. He made Cheeto-Sandwiches, waffles, a mean omelet and ordered Chinese food. Sometimes there was a call for a healthy binge on the fear he might give himself cancer again, but those usually didn’t last very long.
Eddie rummaged through her fridge without asking or worry that he was stepping on her toes in her space, crouching down as he searched through expired leftovers. “Meat sauce with pasta?” He asked, leaning back a little to look at her as he waved a packet of ground beef. That was as close to a fancy dinner as they were going to get. Tossing the meat on her counter, grabbing the tomato sauce and pausing for a quick kiss before rummaging for a packet of pasta, Eddie silently started to put his thoughts together. There was a lot to talk about and the trick was to address it all in the right way so Stephanie didn’t feel the urge to snap at him right away.
Still, he liked the element of surprise.
“Well.” Eddie snapped the bag of pasta open and crunched down on an uncooked straw of spaghetti. “I’ve been purposely giving Crane the impression that we are still friends. He’s a lonely, bored man and needs a friendly me to talk to.” He chewed thoughtfully, placing the pasta down next to the other ingredients. “I actually enjoy talking to him, to be honest. He’s the only one who still thinks in the old rogue ways and agreed that I didn’t deserve the guilt trip Harley gave me.” Eddie continued, pressing past her even though there was plenty of room in the kitchen to pass by without touching. “He understands. I acknowledged this, said nice things about how not crazy he was and then he invited me to the Marvel door for playtime. I accepted and decided to send the Bat instead.” Eddie grabbed a pot for the pasta and skillet for the meat. “The only problem is that my brain decided that it needed to riddle the information to Batman. Which, you know, it only does that when I’m doing something wrong. So, I’m starting to wonder if selling Crane out was a mistake.”
Steph just pulled a mocking face, which consisted of a big roll of her eyes and a mouthed blah, blah, blah. In a conversation about whose diet was worse? Eddie would lose every single time, no doubt about it. No amount of waffles and their toppings would cancel out years and years of damage Cheetos sandwiches and Mountain Dew wracked on his body. Though they both needed to be in some sort of shape given their livelihoods, neither of them would ever be known for healthy habits. That was boring, anyway, and despite how much they wanted normality, Eddie and Steph could never do boring. The Gotham blood that boiled under their skin would never let them.
As he roamed around her kitchen, she watched him with a warm smile. Yeah, normality was okay. This was probably the most domestic they’d been in a long time, and something felt right about it. It didn’t scare her the way it had before. The way anything this committed would scare a little blonde bat just really learning how to spread her wings. Oh, on any other day, she might feel a twinge of the caged bird syndrome, but today she was just happy that after everything he was still functioning enough to even be off the couch at the moment. Cooking dinner for her was a plus, too. As he busied himself with preparations, she rummaged through the fridge, pulled out a cold bottle of Coke, and placed it on the counter. “Do you need help from your favorite sous chef?” she asked over her shoulder as he passed inexcusably close to her, smile curling up the side of her mouth. She took two glasses from her cupboard, one that had Ariel and Flounder on it, and the other that declared Keep Calm and Kill Zombies. Everything about her apartment was like that: surprisingly geeky. Well, surprising if you just knew her from sight.
After pouring them each a glass, she placed them both on the counter near the stove before pushing herself up to sit. Legs swinging back and forth. “Hey, hey, hey,” she started, waving her hand. “I said she shouldn’t be so harsh on you either, Eddie.” But, she never got rogue politics. After everything Crane had done, how could Eddie still even want anything to do with him? She raised her glass to take a sip, but the rim hovered by her lips. “I get that he understands, but--.” Steph stopped cold as Eddie continued, lowering the glass dramatically slowly and observing him with wide eyes. “You what?” It wasn’t anger, more shock, especially given Crane’s status in the rogue gallery. They always seemed to have a code that meant no selling out. She spread her arms out, palm of her free hand out as if Eddie was freaking out. Which, he wasn’t; she was. “Woah, woah. What the hell is he doing over there? Start from the beginning.”
“I just need you to sit there and keep looking pretty.” He said, pushing the faucet on and filling the pot up with water. With his back turned, he afforded himself a smile. Eddie liked how this felt in the same way he liked taking her out for ice cream or making her breakfast in the morning before she woke up. And, he knew it freaked her out. He knew if he said he liked it, she’d fluster and give him one of those looks to tell him that he better not think about pinning her wings to the ground. So, he kept it from her. He thought up a billion different riddled ways he could deal with her eventually leaving him to go be completely free. Maybe the worst thing was that he probably could deal with her leaving him now. Eddie would be heartbroken for a long time, but he wouldn’t go back to robbing banks and making death traps. He was developing this life in the grey area, a life he really loved that would keep stable whether or not she was there with him. Eddie wouldn’t tell that to her, either. Happiness was like a door that only opened when he wasn’t looking right at it.
Back to business. He turned to look at her, smile gone and eyebrows up at her surprised expression. He loved that look on her face. “Apparently, he tested the euphoria drug on the homeless population through the Marvel door. Then, he used it on teenagers there before releasing a larger batch in Gotham.” He turned the burner on, put the pot down and then poured himself some soda. “We all easily figured out that he developed the drug, but the Marvel door has no idea who he is. So, he’s been hiding there until Arkham City is fully built. Tactically, a sound move.” Eddie leaned on the counter across from her, arms crossed with the glass in his hand. “He invited me to join him over there, probably thinking that I secretly want to be in the super villain club when no one is watching. So, I accepted the offer and sent the Dark Knight instead.”
She smiled at his instruction and wiggled happily in place. “Aye, aye. You’re the chef,” she teased with a salute. Stephanie knew he loved the bizarre (for Gotham) domesticity they fell into, and she also knew he was aware of how much it scared her. He didn’t bring it up very often, not after he’d heard the cadence in her voice or the flash of anger or panic in her eyes, and she was grateful for that. Everyone knew how committed they were to one another. She knew how committed they were to each other, and they did fall into funny little patterns of acting like a couple that had been together for seven years instead of seven months. But, there was a difference, in her mind, between acting with whatever happened naturally, and talking about the future. A big difference. That didn’t mean she didn’t like the day-by-day normalcy. Quite the opposite.
She dropped her hands down eventually, Ariel glass settling between her legs as she swung them back and forth. Heel hitting the cabinets underneath in quiet little thunk, thunk, thunks as she tapped a clashing rhythm on her bare thighs with her hands. She was angry, so very angry to hear what Crane had done, especially in a Door that wasn’t their own. “He’s a disgusting piece of trash.” She could have said worse, much worse, but she tried to keep it to herself. She wanted to rant about how he was an absolute piece of shit, but she didn’t. She just stared at Eddie as he stood across from her, mouth screwed up fighting off the slew of curses in Crane’s name threatening to explode.
After a moment, she stopped the swinging and the patting as she stretched out a toe to press against his leg. “You did the right thing, baby. I promise.” A reassuring smile, something soft and loving, as she tried to stave off another one of his panics. “You didn’t want to actually go to him, right? There’s nothing to feel guilty about. I’m sorry, he deserves it.”
Eddie’s eyes wandered down to watch her legs, the cold glass of soda between her thighs and the way she curved her foot out to baarreelly touch him with the tip of her big toe. He looked up at her in time to catch a reassuring smile and he returned a feeble one of his own. “He hurt my friends. He hurt you. But, any of the rogues are capable of that. And, who am I to drag in someone from the gallery? When did that turn into my fight?” His smile faltered into a frown and he took a sip of his soda. Eddie didn’t have a need for justice and his sense of revenge was weak at best. He wasn’t built to fight crime or bring in wrongdoers. He didn’t burn the way Stephanie did to do right. No. Eddie was only concerned about doing good. About taking care of people that were important to him. So, why pounce on Scarecrow?
“It’s that doubt. That doubt in the back of my brain that set off my-” Eddie waved his hand in the air. Riddles, madness, illness, compulsions. All words that made people from the bat family nervous. “A part of me said, no. You can’t tell Batman. That’s too easy. He has to work for it. If Scarecrow is going to burn, then the Dark Knight has to work for it.” His thumb tapped on the glass, then his pinky and then his middle finger. “And, what’s worse? I kept telling myself. No, Nigma. You can do better. These riddles are too easy. You have to make it a trick, make it a lie. Fool him.” A darkness swept over his features, brow furrowed and thinking. Voice not like Eddie at all. It was almost like he managed to erase every part that made him more than a dangerous question mark.
His leg moved up slightly so his shin pressed against the inside of her foot, body moving down so that his elbows were against the counter. Eddie didn’t look up at her, he focused on touching as much as her foot with his leg as he could. Invading as much personal space without leaving his side of the kitchen. Like a cartoon bunny defying a line drawn in the sand. “He got each riddle. It’s supposed to be driving me crazy. I’m supposed to be pulling out my hair thinking of ways to outsmart the Batman. But, I’m here, making pasta for my lady love. Hoping Crane gets grounded for a couple months so Arkham City won’t be a total disaster.” Eddie’s voice unraveled into something less super villainy again, but he still wouldn’t look at her. “What if my mind is trying to tell me I’m doing something wrong?”
Stephanie was quiet the entire time he spoke, staring at him while he refused to look back at her, tilting her head to the side as her smile faltered a little. She wished more than anything that she could take all that doubt and pain away from him. That she could pick out the pieces of his brain that tormented him like this, but how far was too far? How much could you take away before taking away the man completely? Was Eddie even remotely Eddie without the riddles? Without the compulsions, the word games, the genius. Steph couldn’t decipher that puzzle, couldn’t navigate the tricky maze that was Eddie’s mind to find the bits of brick wall to chip away. It wasn’t possible to nitpick things and keep the man she fell in love with. She knew that, at least, and she knew that Eddie probably couldn’t pick them out either.
Tracing thoughtful tracks through the dampness on her glass, she just sat there for a moment in silence, finally looking away from him and down into her lap. What was she supposed to say? She was fucking glad that Eddie had thrown Crane to the dogs. (Or, rather, the bats.) After what he’d done to her, what he’d done to everyone during the toxin, Steph wanted to spit on the strawman’s grave. Raging betrayal and anger pulsing through her veins. But, she looked up when she felt his shin press into her foot with the ghost of a smile and began to run her foot up and down his leg. “It’s a part of who you are,” she said softly of the riddles and the compulsions. “You know I don’t think you did anything wrong, but you have to be okay with what you did.” She paused. “Are you okay with it?” She reached up to run a hand through her messy hair, then drummed her fingers on her bare legs again. “And, as for Batman. Well, you’ve got a better relationship now. You trust him. You wanted him to figure it out.”
Eddie was grateful that Stephanie never lectured him about getting help for his madness or forced pills down his throat. It was one of the reasons why he trusted her so much, why he felt comfortable telling her about the parts of the dark side that he was always going to be attached to. He was getting better, every day he was visibly getting better to the ones around him. But, he still didn’t feel anything when he thought about all the innocent people he hurt in his days of Riddling. He still had a deep desire to be the smartest man in the room. In every room. Those parts were never erased. They were just less important than her. Than building a new life for himself. “A couple months ago I told Scarecrow to burn his mask. Did I tell you about this? I took him out to Slaughter Swamp and I made him burn his own mask. I told him he needed to stop. And, if there was something I could find for him to make him stop, I would. I believe there is an answer to even the most complicated riddle. I believe that most of the rogues could change.”
He looked up at her, finally, and a gentle whine sounded from his throat. “He’s not like this because he’s crazy. He does this because he likes it and he doesn’t want to leave the theme park. Hurting people gets him off in a way that I wasn’t built to understand. They rewrote Joker to be a bloodthirsty clown and Scarecrow to be a sadist. But, they never rewrote me. They never made me that kind of dangerous. They made me an unsuccessful king killer. A sword sharpener.” He set his glass on the counter, slouching down enough to grab her ankle and crawl up her leg in a slow fluid movement like it was almost part of a tango. “Do you think they’re like me? That they can change? Should I make a list for reference?” He took the glass out from her thighs, pulled her knees apart and pressed between her legs. “Are you proud of me?” Eddie asked, hands flat on the counter as he wiggled his way into her comfort zone and looked up at her with wide, dark eyes.
The raise of her eyebrows indicated that Eddie never told her, or if he did, she didn’t remember it among the litany of other things that rained down on them over the past few months. Threatening Scarecrow into submission, in light of other things, probably fell to the wayside in her mind if he had. She wasn’t angry with Eddie for thinking his old rogue buddy redeemable or for trying to help the man out by forcing him to burn the symbol that haunted so many people’s worst nightmares. She couldn’t be angry about that at all. She did, however, purse her lips to stop herself from saying anything that might seem disparaging or disheartening. Instead, Stephanie watched with bright blue eyes as he slid his hand up her leg, his delicate thieving touch sending goosebumps across her bare skin, and she didn’t even move as he slipped into her personal space. The heels of her hands braced herself on the counter, fingers curled into the cheap wood at the edge, as she looked down at him with a soft expression. Meeting his big, puppy dog browns with her sky blues. Spluttering a laugh at the idea of some sort of redemption list, she looked over his shoulder for a second, staring at that still incomplete mural on the kitchen wall. The sun in the corner, the sky a rainbow of different dark blues and purples and oranges, clouds just barely scraping the edges. A sunrise untainted by the darkness of the night before.
After a beat, she looked down at him again. “Of course I’m proud of you. Edward Nashton, I am always proud of you,” she said with such conviction it almost sounded like a vow of commitment or a swear given to a cult. All of herself into it, her body and soul, even when it shouldn’t have been. She wrapped her legs around his middle to pull him even further into her space, and her arms mimicked that slow tango-like slide he did minus the innate grace that Eddie held in every movement. “I’m not gonna say that they can change or they can’t. It wouldn’t be fair of me to say, you know that.” Her arms finally settled around his neck, and the tips of her fingers brushed in his hair. “They have to want to change, Eddie. And that’s their problem. None of them want to change. They’re all sick, all of them, in different ways. We’re all sick.” And, she believed that to be true of everyone top to bottom. Rogue to bat to bird. All of them had baggage and something wrong. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be fighting the fight they were.
“We’re all finding ways to cope with it.” She caught his eyes with a look of earnestness that said she didn’t want to upset him. Just let him know how she felt about all of this. “They aren’t good, and maybe some of them won’t ever be good, but the point is that they have to want to try. You wanted to try, right? You had to be pulled apart, but then you wanted to try.” Stephanie tugged his hair lightly. “Damian and Kara are trying to start up Teen Titans here. But, with a better name of course. That’s them coping with whatever’s going on with them.”
He gave her that familiar, easy smile as she pulled him closer and leaned in for a quick kiss on the side of her mouth and then under her jaw. Stephanie was right. They were all sick in their own ways and it was impossible to tell what tragedy could lead to the gallery or the bat family. Batman could have ended up like the people he put in Arkham and everyone in Gotham knew it. Eddie looked up to catch the earnestness in her pretty blues and returned something similar. Something that showed he was grateful she was trying to be so careful on this particular subject. Talking about the Batgirl mantle was hard for her and discussing how the rogue gallery fit into his life was difficult for him. They both knew each other’s limits and for that he was thankful.
“Do you think I’m good?” Eddie asked, pressing another kiss to her neck as the water started to boil. “I don’t know if I am. I think I do good sometimes. That’s a different thing, isn’t?” He looked at her and it was clear (even if he didn’t realize it) that he desperately wanted someone to notice that he was doing good. Somewhere, somehow. That he was trying to do good when all he was used to doing the wrong thing over and over and over. Eddie tilted his chin up, asking her for a real kiss silently in the way he did hundred and hundreds of times before pulling away to pour the pasta in the pot.
“Teen Titans.” He repeated after her, eyebrows waggling and tone teasing. “Aren’t they a little old for that? I thought the Teen Titans was just code for day care?” Eddie reached for a wooden spoon, smacked her bare leg with it playfully and then stirred the pasta as it started to cook.
A soft, affectionate noise rumbled in the little blonde bat’s throat as she felt his lips sear their marks on her mouth, her jaw, her neck, and she ran a set of fingers through his mop of dark curls before he curved away. She looked down with heavy-lidded eyes and a small smile. Full of that casual, easy sort of loving that he probably caught when she didn’t realize it. Like when they would take Matilda for walks and she’d glance over at him, when he convinced her to play games other than Kingdom Hearts and she looked at him with loving frustration, when they were simply them, Stephanie and Eddie, and she loved him most. “I think you’re good in your own way, baby, and I don’t think there’s much of a difference between the two for you anymore. Really, none of us are one hundred percent by the book good. We all do it in our own way.” She obliged him the kiss, and a couple more at that, before he pulled away. “You’re doing good things, baby. Every day.” Even on days where he was still struggling with himself and his identity, there was still that good underneath.
She rolled her eyes hard, pulled a face, and wailed quietly as he whacked her leg with the spoon. “Domestic abuse!” she shouted, falling off the counter in a messy, clumsy sort of squirm that had her losing her balance. “Yes, Teen Titans. Well,” she continued, rounding around him to slap him on the ass lightly before reaching into the cabinet near him for a can of food each for Matilda and Bandit. “Obviously not that name. Because that’s lame. And no uniforms. Not that they wore uniforms but whatever, you know what I mean.” She rolled one of the cans between her hands thoughtfully. “Just like, a team of us just in case it’s ever needed. Y’know? There’s only you’re JLA, and you know how I feel about them.” She pulled out a can opener, then started to open one can, then the other. “It’ll be really good for us to be working together, I think. Give us all something to work on that isn’t, well, the usual bull.”
Eddie laughed brightly at her awkward fall off the counter and leaned closer to her as she moved around the kitchen to feed the pets. He reminded himself to tell her later that he appreciated what she said about trying to do good and that no one in Gotham had the benefit of being always good all the time. The more he thought about it, the more it meant to him and in a way it was proof that Stephanie was a lot wiser than he normally gave her credit for. It’d be easy to simply chalk it up to life experiences and a difficult adolescence, but they all had that and no one got out of it stronger like Stephanie did. No, he’d tell her later when they were laying in the dark and she didn’t have to roll her eyes to deflect. Right before they fell asleep when all he could see from the blinking lights outside of her bedroom window was the curve of her hip under his hand.
Matilda trotted into the kitchen at the sound of a can opening, happily carrying her green tennis ball and dropping it at Stephanie’s feet with an excited wag of her tail. “Good dog.” Eddie reminded her which was both a command to be good and a reminder that in fact, she was a very, very good dog. He finished stirring the pasta in and stepped back to help grab some food and water bowls for the animals. “Wait,” Eddie looked at Stephanie with a single quirked eyebrow. He turned the faucet on, putting Matilda’s bowl into the stream of water. “You just said us. A team of-” He gave her an incredulous smile, the water getting mostly on his hand and wrist than the bowl out of distraction. “Are you going to join this Teen Titans team? With the other little birds? Aren’t you a little old for that?” His eyes went comically wide, smile turning to a frown like he just smelt something bad. “Oh my god I’m dating a Teen Titan. Oh my god.” He teased her dramatically.
Steph stuck her tongue out playfully as his laughter bounced around her tiny, cramped kitchen, and she nudged him with her elbow hard in his side. Not enough to bruise, just enough to remind him she could have totally broken her neck, okay. Further beratement ended abruptly when Matilda jogged into the room. “Hi, gorgeous,” she cooed, stooping down to brush a hand over her copper fur, then scratch behind her ear. She wanted to bring up how Matilda came into his life to get her point across about things being good. That Ra’s, who was always decidedly not good, brought something good into their lives. That, yeah, it was hard to be good all the time, but god did some beautiful things come out of all the muck and darkness at the end of the day. “Yes, you are a good dog, aren’t you?” She smiled softly, in that way that Stephanie looked at animals almost exclusively. With affectionate eyes and baby voices and an unadulterated affection. Something Eddie experience from time to time, too. (Minus, of course, the baby voice.) It was easier to show Matilda how much she loved her though both she and Eddie knew Stephanie’s feelings were more than on par. But, she’d rather roll her eyes or poke him in the side than really talk about it.
She pressed a quick kiss to the top of Matilda’s head and afforded a glance to find Bandit (who was just curling around the corner to investigate all of the noise) before continuing to prepare the food. Dumping the food into two separate bowls, crushing it down with a small fork. She paused halfway, though, and turned to see Eddie’s raised eyebrow. “It’s not going to be named Teen Titans!” she exclaimed loudly, flapping her arms and spraying bits of cat food across the counter. “That’s just the idea, and no, I’m not too old. Jason will be there too, according to Kara, okay?” And she knew in the back of her mind that he was teasing, but that didn’t stop the downturn of her lips and the roll of her eyes and her tongue sticking out a little less playfully than before. “It’s just--it’s good to give us all something else to focus on, okay?” She went back to busying herself with the food so she wouldn’t have to look at him directly. “Something else for me to think about besides like, Batgirl stuff, y’know.” With a shrug, she looked up at him as if daring him to say something disparaging.
Eddie smiled softly as Stephanie showered Matilda with affection, which the dog wagged and whined happily to as if she had never heard a nice thing said to her before. Stephanie was right, Ra’s was a good example of a horrible person turning around to give something truly good and it was a reason why Eddie was less than interested in fighting crime and dispensing justice. He saw too much good in the bad. He liked those slivers of brilliance in the darkest hearts. And, he wondered if there was any way to really help Crane. The man had been given an entire asylum on a silver platter and it wasn’t enough. Then again, would it have been enough for Eddie in his riddling prime? Even now? No. He needed Stephanie, he needed a real purpose. He needed responsibilities that went above and beyond the norm.
Crane, though, would never be charmed by a sweet dog like Matilda. He’d never fall in love with someone like Stephanie. So, there was a line in the sand.
Stephanie’s outburst that was lined with real anger startled Eddie visibly. He knew his teasing was going to piss her off and really that was the intention in a playful kind of way, but his smile faltered when he heard the hurt in her voice. “Whoa, look I’m not against you joining a team.” Eddie turned the faucet off, putting the bowls of water down before turning to look at her with his hand balled up into a fist on his hip and elbow out in a sharp edge. It was one of the more old fashioned stances he took when he got serious about something. Like an old black and white movie when the lead actress was throwing a fit and Cary Grant was finally coming around to taking her seriously. “It’s just- trust me when I say that you don’t want to make any big waves with this team of yours. Alright? No Watchtowers. Not even a Teen Tower.” Because oh wouldn’t that be awkward if Eddie had to hack her little friendship clubhouse to keep them from doing something the JLA didn’t approve of?
After her initial snapping, she took a long and shaky, but steadying breath. Okay, maybe she had freaked out a little too much, and maybe, just for a second she just lost a little bit of control. But, lately she didn’t feel like she had much control of anything at all. Not of her friendships, not of her title or cowl, not of her relationship with Eddie. They were all these moving pieces, all these birds flapping away, and her fingers were fumbling to catch them as they flitted just out of her reach. She looked down to the linoleum floor, which was chipped and scuffed from years of neglect from the landlord, because she couldn’t meet his eyes then. It wasn’t just the playful needling that went awry or the tense air underneath it. As the water turned off, she sighed then, long and sharp. Eyes squeezing and mouth screwing up. Stephanie didn’t interrupt him as he spoke, and she let a few beats of silence fill the room as Bandit circled around her ankles then stalked towards Eddie.
“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly, but her hand went up defensively. She looked up at him finally, rubbing at the bags underneath her eyes, rubbing away the sting of stress and upset. The princess of hope, the Batgirl who wanted to spread faith instead of fear, found it kind of hard lately to actually practice what she preached. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t know--it’s just so--it’s hard lately, baby. It’s really hard, and I know you’re going to say I’m being stupid about the Batgirl stuff, but I’m not. And, maybe Teen Titans gives me some kind of way to prove to myself that I can do this.” The little blonde bat looked at her riddled green man, and there was a kind of wariness that he’d surely seen there lately whenever she thought about the mantle and her cowl. “They keep telling me to talk to Barbara, but I can’t pluck up the courage.” A laugh, a kind of harsh, weird laugh that sounded foreign coming out of her lungs. “Funny, right? Me not have the balls to do something?” She groaned, she pressed her fingers into her eyes, and then she rocked a little closer to him. “I don’t want her to prove me right, to prove everyone else wrong, and be better than me. It’s going to happen, by the way, but I just--ah, fuck.” She couldn’t articulate her fear, but they both knew what she really meant: Barbara was going to fulfill the potential that Joker took away with that bullet to her back. And, Stephanie felt she had to step aside to let her do that.
After a second, she rocked a little closer, but stopped. Eddie’s warning had finally caught up with her. “You think JLA will shoot us down?” Literally, figuratively, whatever. That wasn’t good. “There’s always going to be waves, Eddie. What do you think a team of crime fighting young adults will do?” Leaning against the counter, Stephanie seemed to shrink away from him. “What if they did make you go after us? What if one day they say “screw it!” and make you come after me? Hack into my stuff and take me down?” And, part of her didn’t want to know the answer. She was scared he’d say the wrong thing.
Eddie made a move towards, her, reaching his hand out a little and then grasping nothing but air as she moved away from him again. He knew things were tough for her, he knew there wasn’t anything he could say about the cowl to convince her it was hers and he knew the JLA was scary. It was difficult for him, too. Sometimes when he was alone working on his computers or building something useful, he’d stop halfway through with his tools in his hands and just sit there and think about all the bad stuff that could happen. He’d go through every scenario almost obsessively and start outlining different ways to survive. He thought about failure, he thought about the Bat losing trust in him, he thought about Stephanie finally having enough and leaving him for good. And, he planned. He told himself that he could make it through okay. He told himself he’d come out the otherside a better person.
See, Kara was right. He was Shahrrehth. The kind of optimism that only an engineer could have. He saw the problems, he believed in the solutions. Maybe it made him kind of nuts, but he was the Riddler after all. “I’m not going to lie to you.” Eddie said after a moment sighing as he pulled the plastic off the ground beef. “They very well might ask me to take you guys down. And, to you it might look like I’m going to do it.” The plastic stuck to his fingers, curled as he tore it off. “Maybe something bad will happen to me. Or look like it’s bad. Maybe I’ll vanish for a little bit until I can figure things out. Maybe you’ll have to be Matilda’s mom while I’m hiding from the government.” There was something about the way Eddie spoke that made being on the run from the law just an average day for Edward Nigma. And, really it was.
He balled the plastic up and put it on the counter and finally looked over to her. “If things go bad, they go bad. Big deal. It’s going to be really scary and messy and chaotic. But, I’m not going to hurt you. And, I’m going to make it out okay. I always make it out okay.” It wasn’t a promise that a superhero would give. No, if Eddie were a bat or a bird he’d be making some declaration about doing the right thing and fighting for justice and blah blah blah. Eddie was too smart for that. He was too selfish about the people he cared about, too happy being happy to give up his life like that.
A sigh ripped through her throat when she saw his reaction to her almost recoil, and she kneaded her eyes with the tips of her fingers. Her body swayed a little, as if debating whether or not to just give this all up and just wrap her arms around his or keep the distance, but that was exactly what she did. Keep the distance. Just for a moment longer. It wasn’t his fault, of that she was wholly aware. How could it be? This was the government threatening their lives. It wasn’t just some storm ready to rip Gotham apart and leave she and Eddie behind in the wake amidst the debris and destruction, one that they could prepare for and batten the hatches and beat. No, this was the government with its prison or death threats and its lording over their lives like it was okay for them to do so. Like it was acceptable and natural. Stephanie didn’t like the fact that they forced him into all of this by threatening she and him. It left an awful taste in her mouth, like the coppery burn of blood on her tongue but worse. She had a distrust for any sort of group that the government cooked up of criminals with rap sheets as far as Eddie’s. That was how her father “died” and she would never forget that it was the Suicide Squad that caused that. Or that the government practically sent him like a lamb to the slaughter. (Nevermind misplaced good intentions by Arthur or the fact that he was still a bastard after the fact.)
No, she didn’t like it one bit, and she especially didn’t like that now, inevitably, Eddie was going to be forced to make a decision between this life and hurting her in some way.
“Don’t say--don’t make it sound so normal,” she mumbled eventually, eyes pressed shut by her fingers as she listened to the plastic crinkle between his fingers. Blindly, she stepped forward, following the noise until she bumped right into him. Burying her face in her chest and wrapping her arms around his waist, she said, “It’s not fair.” And, then: “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t fair that he would have to one day even pretend to take she and her friends down. She knew what all of this was about. To bring down supers and bats one by one. Pluck them out of the sky until the feds decided everyone was at a level playing field. She nipped at his shirt, a little hard so he could feel the pressure against his skin, and then she breathed in the smell of his cologne. “I know it’s completely out of our control, but still. If things go bad--Eddie, I don’t want to have to live without you. Even just on the run for a little while.” Her words were muffled by the cotton, but they resonated all the same. She knew it was going to be bad either way, and she also knew that Eddie wasn’t the same to fight against the man unless it was pretty much for his own benefit. But, she loved him. Oh, god, did she love him.
After a second, she curved her neck back to rest her chin on his chest to look up at him, a small smile on her face. “At least we’re going to have to make a show for them if you do, baby.” Her fingers, sneaky little things, slipped underneath the hem of his shirt and slithered up his bare back. “Something super cinematic and over the top. Romeo and Juliet minus the suicide pact and tweens going all starry-eyed.” There was a thoughtful pause as she grazed her nails down his back. “Well, actually. I wouldn’t mind tweens going starry-eyed for us. Just for the right reasons.” She smiled again, something a little more mischievous and hopeful and Stephanie.
Eddie, despite himself, didn’t see all of this ending in a glorious explosion of smoke and forbidden love. He saw himself weaseling out, letting some people down and then crawling back to beg for forgiveness. He saw himself becoming less important to the feds, more important to Gotham and stabler than he had ever been. There was going to be plenty of struggle in between now and then, but he didn’t mind. “I’m just their IT guy.” Eddie murmured into her blonde hair and wrapped his arms around her in a tight, almost protective hug. “There’s a long list of people who’ll get messed up before I do. Long list.” He assured her and for the first time in his life he could breathe easy knowing that he wasn’t the most important person in the whole damned world.
He made a satisfying, rumbling oowww when she nipped at him and then leaned back a little to look down at her as she gazed up. “I don’t think I’m teen heartthrob material.” Eddie tried a smile, but it flimsied back down into a frown. He brushed her short, messy hair out of her eyes and then lightly grabbed her face with both of his hands. A moment passed and he finally managed a real smile. “I didn’t even tell you anything important and you figured it out. You figured it all out and no one else has a clue.” His voice was proud and then he leaned in for a quick kiss, tone dropping to something more dangerous and playful. “You’re a lot smarter than you look, Stephanie Brown.”
Steph simply pulled a face at just their IT guy. She didn’t believe that Eddie could ever be just anything; he was always more extraordinary than that. And besides, when you worked with the federal government, they could turn a just into something far, far more important. She had a bit of a distrust of them, to say the least, and she didn’t like that they thought they held the fate of her relationship with Eddie in their hands. They didn’t, of course, and Eddie and Steph were always much stronger than anyone else’s meddlings. Meddlings that might rock the boat, but not shatter the wood holding the entire structure together.
“Oh, but baby, I think that you’re compleeeeeetely mistaken. The nerd thing is totally in.” She lightly flicked the spot on his chest where she had just nipped him. “You’re my heartthrob, Eddie Nashton.” After a second, as he reached up to hold her face, she looked up and caught his dark browns with her blues. There were still storms behind her eyes, but something about being in his arms and having him be proud of her quelled the hurricanes and tornadoes underneath it all. “It’s the short hair, honestly. It makes me seem a little smarter, apparently.”
He grinned at the idea of being anyone’s heartthrob and leaned in to kiss her as those stormy blues cooled. “I read that comic.” Eddie whispered against her lips, pulling Stephanie so close that there wasn’t any space between them. It was a familiar embrace, a clinging, wanting one that made him feel safe. Safer than all the locks and security lasers in the whole damned world. Eddie deepened the kiss without that silent ask, pushing to taste her coca cola sweet mouth. He started to feel the world buzz quiet around them just as the boiling water on the stove bubbled over and hissed for attention. “Oh,” He turned away from her, shaking his head a little to get back in making food mode.
With a quick, almost biting kiss to her neck he went to work stirring the pasta, preparing the ground beef and turning the heat down a little. Eddie was kind of funny in the way he put his technical prowess into everything he did. Exactly this amount of salt. Exactly this doneness of pasta. Exactly this color of sauce. It was precise, but fluid. Genius, but self taught. Like a racecar driver executing a perfect, graceful turn around the track.
She easily slipped her body against the familiar shape of his. The hard edges melding with her soft curves, like pieces of a puzzle snapping together. With Eddie, Stephanie didn’t mind having no personal space between the two of them. That was always the case with Gotham’s sweethearts though: even when they were absolutely livid with each other, they couldn’t stay away for too long. They were always needling their way into each other’s space, always not allowing too long to go by without touching one another, always ready to violate any sort of barriers. That was who Eddie and Stephanie were together. Walls collapsed, shared breaths, no secrets.
A surprised noise slipped out of her throat as he caught her lips, then deepened the kiss, and she obliged him readily. Fingers dragging down his back to clutch the hem of his shirt before he broke away to finish the food. Right, dinner. She was so easily distracted by Eddie, and she loved to say how stupid brained he made her at times just by being close. While he prepped the different components, Steph placed the food and water bowls down for Bandit and Matilda, and then grabbed two plates and two forks that ended up somewhere on the counter nearby the stove. Because Steph found herself really distracted by the precision in which he cooked. The beauty of his measured movements and decisions.
“I should always make you cook for me,” she said, stepping behind him and slipping her arms around his waist. She pressed a quick kiss to his neck, a lot more innocent than his biting kiss moments earlier. “It’s really goddamn sexy,” she murmured into his skin.
“I never actually knew how to cook before I met you. Instant food is the nourishment of computer nerds, you see.” He admitted, holding her arms that were wrapped around his stomach for a moment before going back to cooking. Draining the pasta, stirring the beef, stealing a couple kisses to her cheek in between. “It started with waffles, obviously. I could see the look of disappointment in your eye when I only had Eggo and heaven forbid I get storebrand.” Eddie wiggled his eyebrows at her and then turned to lean on the counter, eyes on the cooking food before looking up at her.
“So, I bought one of those very expensive waffle irons, named her Betty and got to work.” He explained proudly. “The rest,” Eddie waved his hand dismissively and then returned to making food. “Is purely intended to impress you. And, health or whatever.”
Her fingers squeezed into what little bit of his arms she could grab through the embrace, making sure to press kisses on his neck before he slipped away to finish up their food. “Well, you can’t ever say I’m not a good influence on you,” she teased warmly, touched that he learned something to impress her. When she could only recall the clamoring need to impress him most of the time. He was the genius, the one so sure of himself, her safety net. Her support. “You don’t have to try to impress me, Eddie,” she continued frankly. “You impress me every single day. After all, who can eat that many Cheetos sandwiches and tacos but still live to talk about it?” Underneath all of that amusement and needling was the complete devotion and admiration and love she had for him. No, he didn’t have to impress her like that. Just continue to devote himself to her like she did to him.
She looked at his progress and kissed him somewhere between his jaw and his neck. “Ramsay would pretty proud. At least it’s not raw,” she mimicked the celebrity chef in her worst British accent. “There’s hope for you yet.”