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There was a pattern. As much as Edward was loath to admit it, there was a pattern.
And he was even more steadfastly unwilling to admit that it was a simple, predictable, astoundingly and disappointingly common pattern.
He fell in love with men who treated him the way his father had.
And wasn’t that just the oldest song in the book?
Pathetic.
Horribly pathetic.
There was a world full of people who wouldn’t hesitate to treat him with basic human decency, probably hundreds who would be willing to give him the attention he so desperately craved, who would compliment his intellect, and truly care about him.
And what did Edward do instead?
Well, he made things harder for himself, of course. He’d made his living out of trying to be seen, begging for scraps of attention from men who would like to see him rotting in a prison cell for the rest of his life.
So was it really a surprise that he found himself on the other side of a locked door, barely two feet away from the Batman, almost wishing to be found, giving him hints, making it easier, waiting for him?
He should’ve seen this coming.
Gotham was a place for the depraved, the insane, the twisted and the hurt, and Edward was nothing if not those things. Most would say he was nothing but those things.
He was staring at the door, the headset he’d been using to taunt the Batman forgotten in favor of counting his breaths, slowly, breathe Edward, just breathe, you’ll be fine, just breathe. He continued counting his breaths, the minutes ticked on in silence, save for his erratic heartbeat.
Maybe he’d notice Edward’s sudden silence, maybe he’d comment on it—no. He preferred Edward this way, silent, still. Everyone did. They all said as much.
“I have the key.” The Batman’s distorted voice echoed through the sound system, making Edward jump.
“Where are they?”
Edward cleared his throat, composing himself before answering. “Always so straight to the point, aren’t you? You never want to pause and enjoy the game, always rushing ahead.”
“Because your games are simple,” the Batman said, and the words left a bitter taste in Edward’s mouth. He swallowed it down.
“Now where are they?”
Edward didn’t answer. His mouth felt dry. He couldn’t remember what he was supposed to say. How many times had they done this? How many times had Edward practiced?
He’d calculated down to the minute how long it would take the Batman to work his way through the maze, find the useless key, and give Penguin and Scarecrow the exact amount of time they would need to stage a kidnapping of the mayor. There were no hostages, the Riddler was nothing but a minor gear in the machine that was a larger plan, and he excelled at it. He was brilliant at being a minor distraction.
He was supposed to announce this had all been a ruse, that he’d been fooled, and the Batman was now free to leave, no hostages hidden anywhere.
He turned his headset back on to speak.
“Behind the bookshelf to your right, there’s a latch on the wall. Flip it open, you’ll see a keyhole. It’ll open a door,” he said instead. He hadn’t failed. He hadn’t, he’d done exactly what the plan was, and yet… it didn’t feel that way. Maybe that was why he did it. He could never be sure. He heard the bookshelf being moved, the latch being pulled open, the key clicking into the keyhole, saw the door open in slow motion, and there he was.
If he couldn’t get called brilliant, told he was amazing and genius, he might as well get the next best thing.
He was pushed against the wall almost immediately, his head smacking into concrete and sending a spike of adrenaline through his body along with the typical wave of pain. Maybe this was all he deserved, anyway. Why else would he be like this, why else would he seek out to be hurt, if it wasn’t what he deserved?
He was struck (both by the Batman’s fist and a sudden realization) with the fact that this was the closest he’d been to another human since… well, since their last encounter.
He was saying something, and Edward was finding it hard to focus on his words, his vision was swimming, he tasted blood in his mouth. He smelled it, too, tangy metallic, like the rusty nails left outside the barn when it started to storm. Like when he had run out of the house during a tornado warning because he hadn’t been able to abide with the thought of being trapped in the basement with his father for the foreseeable future, and he’d stepped on one of those rusted nails while running through the pasture. He’d sat in the barn all night, a bloody gash in the bottom of his foot. And the smell of hay, blood, and rust mixing together until he fell asleep to the sounds of the storm. Blood bubbled out of Edward’s mouth as he opened it to speak.
“Have you gotten your tetanus shot?” He asked the Batman, feeling loopy and out of focus, staring into his dark, steely gaze.
“Is this another riddle?”
“Hmm… I don’t think so. Just very important to get your tetanus shot. Last thing you want...” his head drooped down, he watched as his blood dripped onto the Batman’s boots, and he found himself laughing. “I got tetanus, and…” His eyes were closing of their own accord. He was losing consciousness rapidly, too quickly to even finish the sentence. Edward remembered, when he’d been a kid and he’d come to his father with the bloodied nail and a hole in his foot, saying he was dizzy and his limbs weren’t working properly. His father hadn’t taken him seriously until Edward had a full-body seizure at school and the ambulance had been called. He’d been in the hospital for weeks. He didn’t remember much of it aside from that, couldn’t even remember why he was thinking of it at the moment.
His eyes slid shut again.
“Where are the hostages?” The Batman demanded, shaking him.
Edward breathed in heavily, and the only thing he could ascertain was the smell of his blood and a dark outline of a cruel face. If he squinted, it was his father.
“Oh... There aren’t any. I was... the distraction,” he murmured, and then that dark outline faded out of existence and he was left with nothing.
********
“About time ya came around,” said a voice that Edward recognized but couldn’t quite place at the moment.
“What…” he began, and his mouth still tasted like blood. His stomach churned, and he sat up far too quickly, only making his insides squirm more. He was not going to throw up. He was not. He wasn’t going to.
And then he did. Luckily, the mysterious voice seemed to have prepared for this, holding out a trash bin and giving him a damp cloth.
He gave an almost indiscernible thanks and finally managed to adjust his eyes to the light and recognize the person in front of him.
“Miss Quinn,” he mumbled, glancing down at his hands and clenching and unclenching his fists, just to be sure he still had control over his body.
“Glad your brain still works, Eddie.” She paused, watching as Ed moved the trash bin away, leaving the cloth on the floor as he put his hand on the wall to make a halfhearted attempt at pulling himself up. It failed immediately, as apparently his leg was either broken or some other manner of fucked up.
“Ow,” he said, because it seemed like the right thing to do.
Harley was staring at him, squinting more like it, which Edward usually found did not bode well, as it made him remember she was, in fact, a highly qualified psychiatrist specializing in criminals.
He often felt like an ant under a microscope with her, like she could see everything that was kicking around in his brain and was wholeheartedly judging him for it.
She probably had him categorized.
Attention whore? Check. And check it off in a bright color, so everyone sees it.
Daddy issues? Check.
Obsessive compulsive? Double check, and then outline the check a third time just to make sure it had been checked off properly.
She probably even knew why he was so stupidly obsessed with the Batman. Perhaps that was in the hopeless romantic category, or something else just as pathetic.
“Y’know, Eddie,” Harley said, interrupting his train of thought, “if ya ever wanna talk about anything, I’m-“ she paused to gesture vaguely, “-around. Promise I won’t tell a soul. Doctor/patient confidentiality an’ all that.”
“Hasn’t your license been revoked?” Was all Edward could manage to say in response.
“I still got my principles!”
“Right.” Edward really didn’t want to know what her principles were.
“But I’m bein’ serious. If you ever wanna talk...”
Edward waved his hand, nodding and then immediately regretted nodding because it made his head spin.
“Did, uh… did everything work out?”
Harley nodded. “It all went perfect. Except for your part, I thought ya said he wouldn’t even get close. You had it all planned out, what the hell happened? I noticed you hadn’t come back, I get in here and see ya lyin’ facedown in a pool of your own blood.”
Oh. That must be why his face felt so crusty. Dried blood. He rubbed his cheek and some of it flaked off. He frowned, waiting for his brain to catch up and remember what had happened.
It took a second, and then it all rushed back at once and Edward cringed. He sighed, cursing his past self for its stupid decision-making.
“I let him in,” he said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Edward responded bitterly, with the cadence of someone who absolutely knew.
“Ya sure about that?”
Harley really had a way of getting under his skin. He rubbed his face and then immediately regretted it, the entire left half of his face protesting in a throbbing pain.
“If I can’t get what I want, I may as well get what I deserve,” he finally said, clenching his teeth as he pulled himself up off the floor, leaning against the wall.
“But what is it ya want?”
Edward looked at her with tired eyes and more than a sliver of self hatred in his expression, and knew she knew. Sometimes Edward wondered if he only ever wanted things he couldn’t possibly ever have on purpose. It wouldn’t surprise him, if it was some motive buried deep in his subconscious, yet another one of his typical ways to make himself suffer.
Harley either had nothing to say in response to that unspoken confession, or she didn’t know what to say, because she stayed quiet as she stood and helped Edward out the door and into the car, telling the driver to head back to the hideout, one of the many that the rogues tended to use, but what was most often used as their unofficial headquarters and meeting place.
In fact, it was so often used that Victor (Fries, not Zsasz) had made it his official duty to establish a set of rules for the place several years ago. Edward had put the rules in an ostentatiously gold frame and hung them on the wall, which caused an extra rule to be written (Rule Eleven: No decorations shall be added to the hideout without a majority vote of approval). The gold had later been replaced with a--hideous, in Edward’s opinion--dark olive green wood frame. Most of the other rules dealt with not allowing certain people in (The Joker had a permanent ban, as well as everyone’s family members and unaffiliated friends), and what weapons were and were not allowed. Explosive devices and bullets were banned, but empty guns were allowed (to be used as empty threats and clubs in a pinch, Edward supposed), and all other weapons (whether it be knives, plants, needles, baseball bats, mallets, or umbrellas) were fair game.
Harley didn’t say anything until she was helping him out of the car and taking him through the back entrance.
“Y’know, ya shouldn’t feel bad over it. I think we’ve all had a moment or two of… well, ya know.” Edward glanced over at her quickly and then looked away again.
“Probably not for the same reasons I do,” he said.
“My daddy used to hit me, too,” Harley said, as if she was commenting on the weather. A little cloudy out, huh? Typical Gotham. “Why’d ya think I stayed with mistah J so long?” Heard it might rain, well, it’ll clean the streets off at least.
“I can’t say I’ve ever given it much thought.”
“But if there’s one thing I learned, I can do a hell of a lot better than that scumbag, so you can do better than Bats.”
Edward scoffed, not bothering to dignify that with a response.
“I’m bein’ serious, Eddie. I know in a couple hours you’ll be back to normal, all arrogant and thinking you’re on top a’the world, but I also know it’s all an act. Have ya ever considered that maybe ya really are smart? Ya just don’t have to prove it to everyone who doesn’t give a shit.”
Edward was about to argue that if he really was smart, he wouldn’t have ever moved to Gotham to begin with. No smart person had ever moved to Gotham, but he was interrupted by Ivy, who’d pulled the curtain back that separated the main room from the back entrance Edward and Harley were in.
“I thought I heard your voice,” she said, clearly not referring to Edward, as she hadn’t even looked at him. “Guess you found him in one piece.” Her tone made it clear she wasn’t ecstatic about Edward’s return, and in fact she’d probably prefer it if one of these days, he came back in several pieces.
Harley dropped Edward’s arm, which she’d been holding to help him balance (so of course, he stumbled, pressing his hand against the wall to stay upright), and skipped up to Ivy, kissing her cheek.
“Eddie’s havin’ a bit of trouble. He’s got a bad case of his daddy wasn’t around much disease,” Harley explained, as Ivy wrinkled her nose (thankfully, not at Edward this time). So much for doctor/patient confidentiality.
“Don’t we all.”
“Hey,” Edward grumbled, crossing his arms as he limped past them and flopped onto the couch and lounged there like an ailing Victorian maiden. “Rule nine. No unprompted psychoanalysis.” This had been the only rule Edward had added, and both Jonathan and Harley had petitioned for its removal, as it apparently unfairly targeted them. They hadn’t succeeded in getting it removed, and as a result, Edward was usually blessed with a refreshing absence of prodding psychiatry and (vaguely threatening) speculations about his deepest fears and traumas, which was exactly how he liked it.
Perhaps if Edward could just learn how to break patterns, he spent all this time forming them after all, he wouldn’t be in the position he was in right then. Perhaps if he’d listened to what Harley had been telling him for the past several years, he would’ve learned how to break the pattern that was going to get him killed one of these days.