Who: Eddie (with NPC Father Michael) When: Recentlyish Where: Saint Agnes church What: Eddie gets a couple hours in Gotham to visit his church. Father Michael tells him what's up. Warning: None
Eddie Nigma sat in the back of Saint Agnes church and breathed in air that smelt like varnished wood and flowered smoke. It was one of those small, narrow chapels with a straight row of brand new pews that replaced the old ones used to board up the windows back when the Bane riot hit. The walls were built of old stone like most places in Gotham, but the inside had been refurbished to bring a warm feeling that Eddie imagined suburban life must have echoed. Everything seemed so normal in the church except for the reinforcements that Eddie had built on the doors that no one in the church seemed willing to part with and the few bullet holes that served as a reminder of how tough the small community was. There was no forgetting that night that Batgirl took on those goons. Eddie remembered shaking a retired cop’s hand. He remembered teaching the kids how to use the emergency exit. He remembered putting up security cameras in the rain with Stephanie and the angry, messy kiss they shared before getting back to business.
This tiny chapel with its high ceiling, bell tower and high-tech security was one of the bubbles in Gotham where Eddie felt like he could see the future clearly. It wasn’t just spirituality (he was always a spiritual man in his own way) or even the community that had accepted him. It was more about finding a slice of Gotham that emanated hope almost as brightly as Stephanie did.
“Ed, those your boys in the lobby?” An old, gruff voice asked as a door to the church office opened. The green man turned and smiled brightly at Father Michael and stood up immediately. Michael was well into senior citizen territory with a wrinkly, red old Irish face and the most patient blue eyes Eddie had ever seen. He was used to ruffian types and while a majority of the congregation included old cops, Father Michael went out of his way to help men like Eddie and Frank who were actively trying to make themselves better.
“Yes,” Eddie took long, sweeping steps with his short legs over to the Father, holding his hand out for a handshake before the priest pulled him into a hug. Eddie’s eyes went wide in surprise, but he returned the hug happily. “Uh, yes.” Eddie repeated with a nod, his black hair flopping down in a spiral. “They’re Arkham guards. They wanted to come in here with me in case you needed protecting, but I made sure to detail the many different ways you could wrestle me into submission.”
Father Michael laughed loud enough for it to echo against the high ceiling. Eddie liked that a lot.
“Would you like to go into the office or sit out here?”
“Can we sit here? I missed it.” Eddie smiled pathetically and then returned to where he was sitting before, waiting for the old priest to join him. Eddie wasn’t really big on positive male role models (or any role models for that matter) and sometimes it made him uncomfortable how nice Father Michael was to him. The riddled man understood people getting fed up, people rolling their eyes and having zero faith in him whatsoever. He was comfortable with that. In fact, if the entire batfamily started trusting him implicitly, he’d probably think they were up to something. So, when someone was supportive of him even before he helped Batgirl save a room full of people, it made him nervous.
“You’re only here to see me and then back to the island?” Father Michael asked, taking a seat with a grumpy exhale as if all his bones were in constant betrayal of him and relaxed. Back a little slumped, eyes towards the altar, hands crossed loosely over his large stomach.
“Fraid so, father.” Eddie relaxed a little more, too. Stretching his legs under the pew in front of him and slumping his shoulders back. “Leland said it’d be good for me to see a part of Gotham that was important to me. And, I bet she wants your opinion on how I’m doing.”
“How are you doing?”
“Eeeh.” Eddie shrugged, stretching his arms out like he was reaching towards a goal and then slowly lowered them. “Spending all day talking about what’s wrong with my head makes me pissed and scared. I never took it seriously because I thought they were wrong and I didn’t want them to take anything away from me.”
“Now, it’s different.”
“Now it’s different.” Eddie confirmed. The green man looked over to Father Michael and smiled softly. “I’m glad to be here, though. I wanted to do some repairs on the security doors and cameras while-”
Father Michael turned to look at him, the sternness in his eyes reminding Eddie of Batman and for a split second he thought that Bruce had been pretending to be an old man for the sake of keeping Eddie in line. “You’ll do no such thing, Ed.” His expression softened. “You’re here to spend time with me whether you like it or not. Now, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
“Learning to play the harmonica so I can fully depress all the patients on my cellblock.” Eddie deadpanned.
“No, no. No, you’ll be out by then, son. You’ll be out by then.” Father Michael nodded as if God had just told him so and Eddie could have sworn he saw the Jesus statue wink at him from across the room.
“Then, I don’t know. Mope while Stephanie spends it with her family? I’m a very good mope machine.”
“You’ll come here and feed the homeless. We need a mind like yours keeping everything running smoothly.” Father Michael said with a decisive nod.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to volunteer here to feed a bunch of needy people with our congregation? The one with the cops and the do-gooders and what not?” Eddie offered a childish frown as if to say You’ve got to be fucking kidding me right now.
“You liked helping with the fish fry, didn’t you? You went to church every Sunday with the same people.”
“Yeah, but that was to appease the nice old ladies here. They said they’d keep pinching my butt if I didn’t do it!”
“You’ll volunteer on Thanksgiving. Bring Stephanie. You’ll both volunteer.” There was no arguing with the old man now. Eddie had never seen such conviction for Thanksgiving plans in all his life and though a part of him was screaming No, why can’t I stay home and play video games? his heart knew better. Thanksgiving hadn’t meant anything to him in all the years he had been alive. As a kid it was mostly just a depressing meal of canned turkey, green beans and that cranberry jello nonsense. As an adult it was just another holiday normal people did normal things. So, maybe. Maybe a small part of Eddie wanted it to mean something.
“Yeah, alright old man.” Eddie said finally and Father Michael laughed again. Jolly, like he was doing an Old Saint Nick impression. The priest clapped Eddie on the back (which made the green man oof) and took out the bible from the back of the pew in front of them.
“Would you like to read a couple passages and then talk about your time at Arkham with me?” Michael asked kindly, already flipping towards Eddie’s favorite passage about sins of scarlet turning white as snow.
The green man smiled, nodded and reached for a bible of his own.