eddie likes to (riddlethem) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2014-01-27 21:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, door: dc comics, riddler |
Who: Eddie and Bruce
When: recentlyish
Where: Wayne Manor
What: Eddie checks on the Dark Knight
Warnings: Talk of death
Eddie pulled up to Wayne Manor in his bright green, vintage car that strangely enough didn’t look too out of place in front of ancient wealth. He looked up at the weathered stone, the dreary windows and skeleton trees, and inhaled some courage. This wasn’t exactly friendly territory. The last time he had been there, he failed to keep the bat kids from causing drug-filled problems and the time before that he had stolen Grayson’s body and the batmobile. “Why don’t I get invited to fundraising galas? I’m a delight at galas.” He leaned forward, wringing the steering wheel with both hands as he tried to come up with a solid game plan. Comforting Stephanie didn’t go well, he didn’t do much to help Selina and frankly Eddie was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone who wanted to see his face when they were dealing with a dead son related issue.
But, Bruce was his friend. God, Eddie really believed that. Even if they didn’t always see eye to eye or completely trust each other, Eddie’s respect for the Bat turned into friendship. Which meant he had to be there if Bruce’s son died. Especially if Bruce had to watch. Rubbing his face with gloved hands, he got out of his car and rounded the mansion to find a more subtle entrance than the front door. He knew the mansion pretty well and getting in was as simple as scrambling the security long enough for him to get through a service entryway. Simple as pie he thought, creeping through the underused mansion.
Each room could have been featuring in a museum. Chairs as old as the civil war, paintings worth millions, crystal chandeliers glittering like heaven. The thief in Eddie saw a billion different things he could steal in a billion different ways and yet he didn’t want any of it. Well, unless he saw a nice green lamp to replace one that Stephanie had broken. He smiled at the thought, remembering the question mark he stole off the bat computer practically a year ago and continued up the stairs to see if Bruce was home. What was he going to do if he found the big, bad Bat? What was he even going to say?
Finding the master bedroom, Eddie stopped in front of the closed door and crossed his arms. He could go home now. No one would have even known he was here. And, even if they did, there was always an advantage in people thinking he was cowardly.
Unfortunately, Eddie was no coward. No matter how hard he tried to act like one.
He knocked on the door.
“Dark Knight?” Eddie asked and knocked again one, two, three. “Dar- er. Bruce. Bruce, it’s me. Eddie? I thought you could use some company.”
Normally, Bruce would have prided himself on knowing the moment anyone, friend or foe, set foot in the Manor. But nothing was normal, not anymore, and the alarms could have been blaring for all he cared; someone else could deal with it. He was finding it increasingly difficult to care with each passing day, and even knowing he should wasn’t enough. It was a slippery slope downward and, in striving to isolate himself, he was doing a pretty good job of ensuring his chances of losing his footing were high. For now, though, save for the nights when he grew tired of four walls and needed an outlet, he remained hidden behind doors or beneath the Manor itself and grieved privately. Lost in silence and his own guilt, self-hatred and loss, and while it would harden eventually, a protective outer armor, it hadn’t yet.
A visitor was the last thing he was expecting. No one came knocking at his door; he gave them space, and in return they did the same. Their paths never crossed. As for the others, beyond the family who came in and out of the Manor, he couldn’t bring himself to reach out and he didn’t expect them to be the ones who tried. And so the knock, at first, was dismissed. Either he’d imagined it or someone really was there and neither option particularly mattered. But the voice from the other side of the door, that made him pay attention simply because it was so unexpected. He stared, and he thought that maybe he was becoming delusional. Maybe he was hearing things. Yet if he was, if this really was madness, why would he hallucinate Nigma? Why not Damian, or even his parents? Some spectre to haunt him, as he felt he deserved, not someone still living. A friend, even, if he was capable of such.
He got up. He crossed the room on bare feet, unlocked the door, and opened it. The room was mostly in shadow, curtains pulled across the windows so only slivers of daylight peeked through, which was a fitting atmosphere.The Dark Knight looked more man and less Bat, a few days worth of stubble along his jaw and the shadows under his eyes accentuated by the dark t-shirt and sweatpants he wore. He looked at Eddie and blinked a few times, just to make sure he was really there. It was clear that he was surprised to see him, and he’d really only opened the door to ensure he wasn’t losing his mind.
“Company?” As his surprise melted away his expression became more guarded, and he took a step back. “I don’t need company.”
For some strange reason, Eddie expected Bruce to answer his bedroom door in a suit. Business suit, Batman suit. Some kind of suit because that’s all Eddie had ever seen from the man. The t-shirt and sweat pants threw the riddled man off and the two men exchanged confused and surprised looks for completely different reasons. Eddie felt overdressed in his typical tailored suit. The fine, outer space blues and silver tie that indicated his Hogwarts house affiliation to no one in particular. A dark question mark fashioned from the junk below Gotham pinned his silver scaled tie. He was a man of parts, interchangeable parts that all had great meaning and symbolism to him.
“Come on, Bruce.” Eddie said as the bat started to put his guard back up. “Just talk to me for a little while. Alright?” He gestured out into the hallway. “Get some fresh air with me. I’ll tell you how Steph and the others are faring. Humor me.” The riddled man wasn’t good at understanding pain. He hoped that persistence and caring would be enough to get through.
He failed to realize why his own confusion and surprise were mirrored back at him, since he hadn’t given his appearance much thought in days. Such trivial things had ceased to matter. What did register was the strangeness of Eddie being in his house, of calling him Bruce and asking him to talk. Had he been less certain of his own sanity he would have doubted that this was even happening. Talking, like getting fresh air, didn’t particularly appeal to him just then, and his hand was on the door in preparation to close it when he mentioned Stephanie and the others. His guilt was strong enough to make him pause; they both knew he had no idea how the rest of the family was faring. He stared for another few long moments and then, with a sigh, he relented and let his hand drop before, albeit reluctantly, stepping through the doorway.
“Fine.” Bruce could tell himself that he’d only agreed so Eddie would leave him alone, but deep, deep down he knew it was a combination of his family and the fact that Eddie had come of his own accord, without obligation. At the very least, he needed to get better at pretending to be fine. This would be good practice; he was rustier than he’d thought.
Eddie gave a thin smile at that forced fine. The riddled man had ran the gauntlet of people pushing him away and taking their anger out on him since Damian died. Some of them tried to get him to go take care of other people, some of them hissed, some of them looked at him like they couldn’t remember who he was. The Dark Knight took the cake in brooding, though. “Stephanie’s managing. Since Kara destroyed the GPD building, she’s been putting in an extra effort to bring the bats and birds together to help the police.” Eddie put his hands in his pockets and strolled down the hall. “She’s angry half the time. Distant. Sometimes she looks at me like she doesn’t know who I am. She needs the other bats to help pick her back up.”
He sighed and looked at Bruce with a shrug that said he was trying and failing when it came to the blonde bat. That Stephanie frustrated him and yet there wasn’t anything he could do but hope there was a person out there who understood what she was going through better than he did. The suit and clean shaven face did nothing to hide the dark circles under Eddie’s eyes or that worrying crease in his forehead that seemed to appear and vanish randomly.
Bruce might have agreed to this walk and a talk, but that didn’t mean he was going to make it easy for the other man. Having things to say had never been his problem; actually saying them was. Internalizing was easier. Safer. Unfortunately it was a trait he shared with most of his family, which made them all difficult to deal with. He’d been aware of the damage Kara had caused in her tantrum, and maybe he should have been out there alongside the other heroes to help repair the damage but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. He didn’t feel very heroic these days. And, truthfully, had he possessed Kara’s powers he likely would have done the same. It didn’t surprise him, that Stephanie had taken initiative. She’d done it before, during Ra’s virus, but he knew it wasn’t fair. He should have been taking the lead, and that familiar guilt rose like bile in his throat. As much as he wanted to hear about what they’d been up to, he didn’t at the same time, and he began to regret agreeing in the first place.
But then Eddie sighed, and he looked up without thinking. He saw the other man’s frustration, his helplessness, and though he tried so hard to not see it was difficult to ignore what was right in front of him. “Your support means a great deal, I’m sure,” he said quietly, pointedly not thinking of Selina and how he’d treated her. “How… are the others doing?” Ashamed as he was to admit it to himself, he had no idea. Jason could have slaughtered half of Gotham and he wouldn’t know.
Eddie cocked his head to the side to see the reaction to what was surely the Batman’s bread and butter. Helping the police was something Batman did even when they didn’t want him to. In face, wasn’t there an urban legend about Batman jumping off a bridge to save Jim Gordon’s son? The riddled man decided that the Dark Knight, no matter which incarnation, couldn’t stay away from crime fighting for very long. None of the bats could. He looked forward and then up at the mansion, imagining how it was different from the one in his Gotham. “Stephanie needs her family.” Eddie said again and it was clear how the line was drawn in the sand. It was no surprise to either men that while Eddie’s alliance with the Bat family was solid, he would never have that same connection bats did with birds.
Once downstairs, Eddie wandered towards the grand garden doors. It was still frozen outside and Eddie was counting on the bitter sting of winter to help get Bruce thinking sharply again. He walked to one of the windows and cracked it open, hand on the glass as Bruce asked about the other family members. “Most of them have taken to patrolling. Cassandra, the other birds-” Eddie pressed his fingers on the window, letting the freezing air smack him across the face. He turned. “Jason slit Death’s throat out of frustration. I sewed her neck back together. Honestly, I’m glad he went for her and not someone who would actually die from a wound like that.”
He knew Eddie was right. He knew, as much as they all might pretend otherwise, they couldn’t get through this alone. Bruce needed them as much as they needed him. But knowing something and accepting it were two very different things, and even after over a year in this Gotham he still found it difficult to let people in. He’d spent his entire life learning how to be alone, to rely only on himself, and that wasn’t so easy to forget. Especially now. He didn’t say anything, didn’t agree or disagree, just pressed his lips together and stared forward. For once, he didn’t take the lead, instead falling into step beside Eddie and going where he went. It didn’t matter, really; he’d been wandering for days. There was nowhere to go because what he’d lost couldn’t be found.
Despite his attire, he didn’t move away from the window and the cold it let in. His gaze shifted to the outdoors, staring without seeing, the mention of his bats patrolling registering as little more than white noise. But Jason, what he’d done, that made him pay attention. Jason had always been so angry, so impulsive. Of course he wasn’t coping well. Bruce closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the glass, the cold seeping into his skin with bite. Unlike Jason, he wasn’t angry at Death. No, flesh and blood people, that was who his anger was directed at, himself included. “Yes,” he agreed quietly. “It’s a good thing she can’t die. Jason wasn’t thinking clearly.” Understandable, he thought, but no less dangerous. After a long, long moment he straightened, opened his eyes, and pushed the window open further. He didn’t mind the cold. Four walls and curtains became stifling after a time. “I need to reach out to them,” he said, more to himself than to Eddie. He had to pretend to be whole. He had to pretend to be fine, for their sake. He’d buried things deep before, cut off emotion and become effective. He could do it again.
Eddie liked the cold. It reminded him of how a Gotham night could stretch longer than it ever could in a city like Metropolis. He liked how it shook his bones alive and freezing. He smiled into the iced air, a thin, unseen smile that was for the bad weather alone. He nodded, silent and unwilling to rehash what happened with Muerte because what did it matter? She was alive and causing more problems between himself with Stephanie. He turned to look at Bruce and nodded again. “They’re all just as terrible at communication as you are, no offense.” Eddie said warmly and then leaned against a window frame, looking out at Gotham. “Bring them together as a family. Don’t let them leave. Have a ceremony.” His voice was soft, saying things that Bruce already knew, though the curious thing was that Eddie seemed to have only just figured it out. He was racking his brain looking for a way to help Stephanie, when the answer was right there in front of him. “I know you never asked to be the patriarch. But, they’ll always see you that way.”
A moment passed and then Eddie pulled out a flash drive from his coat. “I’ve been using new tech to spy on Luthor. Alien tech. Once I have a better handle on it, I’ll show you what it can do.” Eddie promised and then he handed over the Watchtower information. “Destroying it is no longer an option. It’s much larger than we thought and it’s practically ready for launch.” There was a look in the riddled man’s eyes like he wasn’t going to patronize Batman by assuming he wasn’t ready to get back to work. No matter what universe the Dark Knight was from, he’d always be the first to stop chaos whether he was ready to or not. “I think I can buy us some extra time by creating random engineering problems.”
Though Bruce didn’t smile, his expression became a little less stoic, and he made an acknowledging sort of sound in his throat. None of them were known for their excellent communication skills; he was a terrible role model in that regard. He continued to stare outside as he listened, and he knew Eddie’s suggestions were things he should have already done. Things, now, he had to do. “Damian would want that,” he said, very, very quietly. His son had always worried that the family wouldn’t stay together, and he wished, again, for things it was too late to wish for-- but he didn’t have to let the past repeat itself. Like not Pitting Damian, there were ways to honor the boy’s memory. He recalled what Selina had said when he’d insisted that Damian was nothing, that it wasn’t true, and she was right. No one would let him become nothing, no one would allow his life to be rendered meaningless. And Eddie was right in that he’d never asked to lead this family; in fact, he’d never asked for a family at all. He’d certainly never expected one. “I know,” he admitted. They’d all come a long way from thinking he was the wrong Bruce, and he didn’t actually want to lose that hard-earned position.
The sudden change in topic took him a few seconds to register, but when it did Bruce was all business. This was easy. “Alien tech? How did you get your hands on that?” Admittedly, he was a little out of his league when it came to the technology Lex was using, but he refused to let himself be left at a disadvantage and was (or, had been) doing everything in his power to educate himself properly. He took the flash drive, feeling a little ashamed that he’d ignored the Watchtower problem for as long as he had; turning a blind eye and losing himself in his grief would only cause more deaths, and he had a duty to prevent that. And, too, it was a good distraction. “Extra time will be helpful. If we can’t destroy it, can we… render it inoperable? Corrupt the technology beyond repair?”
Eddie knew he was one of the only people who could bring the Dark Knight back. Bruce’s well being was something for his family to help along, but the Dark Knight was someone Eddie knew very well. “I found it and stole it from some bad seeds that call themselves the Syndicate. In my world, that stands for people I wouldn’t tango with on my worst riddled days.” A half truth was the best way to pull one over a mark. Eddie did find it, didn’t he? Stealing it himself wasn’t that important anyway. “I’m still trying to figure out the extent of its powers and frankly I’ve been distracted. But, I think it might be useful.”
He ran his hand over his tie, fingers touching the question marked pin as he tilted his head and tried to come up with a plan. “I believe we could take it over. If we say it’s the Justice League’s Watchtower from the beginning, the government can’t stomp their feet and demand we give back their giant surveillance tool. Luthor will come after you and the rest as hard as he can, but I’m not afraid of him.” Eddie inhaled, dark eyes a little brighter. He always pretended he hated work, but he needed it as a distraction from how terribly things were going in his personal life. Work was what kept him sharp and kept that riddled hunger satisfied. “That’s the bold plan. Otherwise, I believe I could corrupt the technology, but I’m not sure that’ll be enough and I want Blackgate City out of my fucking neighborhood.” The swearing was a habit he picked up from Stephanie, naturally.
There was really no reason for Bruce to doubt Eddie’s story, since procuring a dangerous object from dangerous people certainly didn’t seem beyond the realm of the believable. Had the circumstances been different he might have suspected Selina’s involvement, but aside from their encounter on the rooftop (which he didn’t exactly recall with glaring clarity) he hadn’t seen her in Gotham and so assumed that it had been a one-time thing, and she still spent most of her time in Marvel. “This Syndicate, are they the same here as they are in your world?” He considered mentioning Clark, or even Hal, both of whom had experience with aliens, but he trusted Eddie’s intelligence enough to be fairly confident that he could discover its powers. “Let me know what you find,” he said, and it felt good to have purpose again. Bruce and his grief could be left behind for the Bat and his endeavors.
Under no circumstances would he permit the government to have possession of something like Watchtower. Any option they chose, destruction or otherwise, would have the same end result. And Bruce didn’t want half measures. He didn’t want not sure or maybe. He wanted definites, surety, as much as possible. “Luthor doesn’t frighten me either, and I’m sure the others will agree,” he said without hesitation. “What we do needs to be enough. This needs to be taken care of.” He thought of Kara and her Watchtower, but that made him think of Damian, and he immediately pushed it from his mind. “If we take it over, we’ll need to wipe the hard drive, as you said, and we’ll need a way to remove it, yes?”
Eddie saw that spark he was hoping for. That glimmer of the Dark Knight with purpose. “I don’t know for certain. I’m crossing my fingers its not them. The Syndicate in my world were every bit as powerful as the Justice League and a thousand times more evil than anything I had ever encountered.” And, yes. That included the Joker. The clown was a laughing, bouncing ball of evil, but he had moments of rest. The Syndicate? Not so much. “I’m banking on the hope they don’t like to hide and this Syndicate is just a mob with a love for flair.”
He rubbed his hands together and paced away from the window. “I can wipe and shut it down, but it’ll take me a week or so to get it functioning for our use. If you coordinate the Justice League to get it into space, I can make it operational.” Eddie looked up to Bruce. “It’s a matter of clearing out Blackgate first and then destroying the super power defenses. It’ll take everything the Justice League has to pull it off.”
A threat like the Syndicate should have worried him, and in a sense it did. But it was also a distraction, something else to focus on, and he’d never backed down in the face of danger before; he wasn’t about to start now. A small part of him was full of doubt - he hadn’t been able to save Damian, how could he protect anyone from the government - but a larger, stronger part was determined. They would seize Watchtower and they would stop Luthor, no matter what he threw their way. “They sound unpleasant,” he remarked with his usual dryness, which hadn’t made an appearance in a while. It was surprisingly easy to fall back on. “Let’s hope you’re right.” If not, then he and the others would deal with the problem accordingly. There was nothing else to do. He’d remained withdrawn and isolated for long enough; the Bat needed to come back.
His main priority had become removing Watchtower from Blackgate, and afterward he decided they could focus on things like getting it functioning and into space. One step at a time. “I’ll speak to the League,” he said with a nod. That didn’t include Oliver Queen, but he didn’t think that needed to be said. “They’ll be willing, of course. We’ll need another location if Blackgate is to be cleared. Or, at the very least, some form of containment.”
Eddie nodded, sticking his gloved fingers out the window to touch fresh snow off a nearby branch. The snow was so nice here. So clean. He didn’t know how anyone could stand it. “Blackgate has a simple solution.” He turned to look at Bruce, rubbing the snow between his fingertips and walking away from the window. “The only reason why criminals are in Blackgate City is because the federal government wants them there. They could be divvied out to other prisons in a snap. Therefore, I say we handle that problem with a little diplomacy.” Eddie pulled out a second flash drive, this one bright green. “This contains a list of rich and powerful people who can pull the right strings to get the entire country hopping mad about a giant super prison in the middle of one of America’s most prosperous cities. It also contains files after files of not-so-nice things they would not want released to the public.”
He set the flash drive down on a nearby table. “I know blackmail isn’t your favorite way to bring justice to the world, but I know for a fact that a little Bat intimidation does wonders. The federal government can reach far, but if it’s widely unpopular in the polls, all the people in power want to shut it down and it’s destroying half of a beloved city, I think we can get them to back down.” Eddie tapped his fingers on the flash drive. It was a super villain tactic and they both knew it, but time didn’t offer a lot of easy and heroic choices. “I’ll leave the decision up to you. We have time. A couple months.”
A long, thoughtful moment passed and Eddie looked up to Bruce. “Thank you for giving me a chance. I know I’m the last horse anyone would bet on.” The riddled man had a conversation with Selina which made it very clear to him that she didn’t believe how important she was to him. He could have screamed it at her and the kitty cat would have thought he was irritated about something else. This, mixed with the morbid realisation that he could die at any second thanks to Damian’s abrupt death made him feel the need to show gratitude simply because he’d likely never get the chance again. Maybe the Dark Knight let Firefly fall to his death, but he saved Eddie more times than the green man could count.
“And, I’m sorry about your son. Gotham is cruel.” Eddie rubbed his hands together and took a step back. “I have to go. Let me know if you need anything, Dark Knight.”
Bruce didn’t respond right away, instead choosing to listen as Eddie explained the purpose of his second flash drive. Blackmail wasn’t very heroic but he’d never claimed to be a hero, had he? And he was tired. It went beyond physical exhaustion to something much deeper, where something inside him had frayed and worn to the point of snapping entirely. He loathed Blackgate City, and he knew those capable of having it shut down would never do so without incentive; doing the right thing wasn’t in their repertoire. He would give them a chance. Maybe. If he was feeling particularly generous. But if he had to use the information provided, he knew he would. It wasn’t something he needed to discuss with anyone else first. “It won’t take that long,” he said, reaching for the flash drive with a nod, indicating mutual understanding. While it was somewhat reassuring to have that kind of time window, he didn’t intend to leave this until the last minute.
Gratitude wasn’t something he was accustomed to, likely because he didn’t often think he deserved it. Guilt, hostility, blame; these were things he was comfortable with simply because they were familiar. He blinked at the other man, surprised for a moment before he tucked his reaction away, as he did most things. “You’ve changed,” he said simply. “It hasn’t been easy and I’m sure it requires daily effort, but… you’ve come a long way. It’s difficult, sometimes, to believe that people are capable of change.” He paused. “You’re proof that they are.”
He gave a brief, short nod when he said he was sorry about Damian, because there was no response. Only acknowledgement. Surviving in Gotham meant just that-- surviving. Something like death couldn’t cripple him, no matter how much it hurt. “I’ll be in touch, once I’ve spoken to the others. Thank you,” pause, “Eddie.” There was nothing else. He was sure Eddie could see himself out.
Eddie nodded, rubbing his hands together a little like a child who didn’t know how to take positive feedback after being a bad student for so long. Part of him expected something similar to the old Dark Knight, a threat laced under words of encouragement to stay on the straight and narrow. His Batman didn’t see him as anything but a rat in a cage, right? This Dark Knight was different, though and Eddie was relieved he could be proven wrong once and a while.
“Thank you.” He took a step back, lifting the collar of his coat up and then turned to walk out of the mansion. Back to Gotham. Back to a city that couldn’t understand what was happening inside of Wayne Manor if it tried.