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“The Riddler” is released from Arkham Asylum.
It doesn’t make the headlines, why would it? He didn’t escape. He barely even knows how long he was in for, much less how he got out. Somehow declared sane by the same doctor who hyped him up on sedatives and other drugs that certainly weren’t made to treat whatever he had and then pushed him out of their doors.
The clothes they give him are supposedly the ones he showed up in, but they hang so loosely on him he isn’t sure they were ever his at all. And then he’s just…let go. The nurse informs him on his way out that he can return to his apartment - an anonymous donor has been paying his rent, despite almost everything in it having to be cleared for evidence - but that’s about it. He’s back on the street.
No longer the famed “Riddler.”
Just Edward Nashton with nothing to his name but an apartment he doesn’t know who paid for and a wallet with a couple dollars and only one ID. His real one. Expired.
He’ll need groceries, first and foremost, and despite the late hour he can vaguely remember there being at least one store that’s always open, so he starts off there. Arkham isn’t funded enough to get him a car or even just a ride home, he guesses. His mind is still foggy from what the Arkham doctors lovingly referred to as unintended side effects, which supposedly have been occurring continuously for several years. No matter the cause for his deliriousness, his pace is slow as he desperately tries not to trip over himself.
The first time he’d gone there he was younger. Much younger. Nearing nineteen with only a beaten up car he really only used for delivering food and a Rubik’s Cube he got when he was younger and couldn’t seem to let go of.
Absent-mindedly, he wonders if that was taken away as evidence, too.
Either way, he’d arrived at just the right time for the sleep-deprived employee not to care that he was filling up far too many gasoline tanks just to use for his car.
The fire at the orphanage barely made the news. He’d pulled the fire alarm to make sure everyone got out safely, of course, and watched from empty rooms as they all filed along, one by one. Some angry at being risen from - what he could only assume to be - their poor attempts at sleep, others simply curious as to what was going on. The fire escape route was the exact same as when he was there. Convenient.
Emptying the gasoline had been thrilling. He remembers the rush it gave him, pulling out his lighter, knowing that the orphanage he once was left to die in would finally be gone. He could have cared less what happened to the current residents, just so long as he didn’t have to look at the horrid outer stained glass windows anymore, with their promises of a place so much better than the Hell they adorned.
He was never charged for it, never even suspected. Natural causes, the police determined. Part of him was glad for it. He could keep it all to himself.
Another part of him, inevitably, wishes he got caught way back when. Maybe then he wouldn’t be trudging down the sidewalk, sweat beading on his face as the drugs started to wear off. He was due for dosages every few hours. Well, in Arkham he was, at least. They hadn’t provided him with a prescription, had they?
Or a name. Whatever it was they were giving him, he doesn’t even know if it was legal. He doubts anything in that godforsaken asylum is.
He makes it to the gas station eventually. He can’t be sure how long it took, but his legs are certainly tired and his hands are beginning to shake. It’s open, thank God, yet part of him still dreads going in.
A chill crawls up his spine, and he knows for a fact it isn’t from the drugs. There's something in the shadows, following him, but he chalks it up to paranoia as he quickly enters the store, hands tucked nervously into his pockets. Maybe they released him too early, he thinks, because the feeling remains as he glances out the front windows to find there's nothing there.
The cashier barely even glances up at him, eyes fixated on the magazine they’re reading. He feels eighteen again, wrapped up head to toe in what he could only describe as the most incriminating outfit ever, despite it actually being a poor attempt at hiding his identity. The cashier hadn’t even bat an eye. Now, he knows he must look strange, especially since the tremors are beginning to set in.
He quickly grabs what he can afford - namely milk that might be spoiled, bread that probably has mold, and a bag of jerky - and heads to the front. The cashier watches tiredly as he fumbles through his wallet, trembling hands struggling to so much as grab the cash in front of him. “Sorry,” He murmurs, finally getting a grip on it to hand it over.
The employee takes it but doesn’t move to check him out. “Are you on Drops?”
Edward pulls back, blinking in disbelief. “Um…no…?”
“Yeah, right,” They scoff and begin gathering his change. He’s spent about all he has now, and the thought that he’ll definitely have to get a job sooner or later hits him.
“Are you, uh, hiring?”
A heavy sigh. “What are you man, fifty? Can’t make enough to feed your addiction, is that it?”
“...Fifty?”
The cashier makes a face. A mixture of confusion and something else he can’t pinpoint. Either way, it makes him sweat even more. “Don’t ask me, I don’t know! Don’t you know what year it is?” Edward shakes his head. “...What year were you born?”
“Um…” He nervously begins fiddling with his hands, intertwining his fingers together and pulling them apart as he thinks. He should remember this, shouldn’t he? “1984.”
This earns a slight laugh from the employee, who shoves the change into his bag of pitiful groceries and pushes it across the counter. “Yeah, I was close enough. Have a nice night, Drophead.”
Edward takes the bag and leaves as quickly as he can. God, how old is he? How long had he even been in Arkham for? The nausea is kicking in, and that’s enough to make him stop asking questions he can’t answer and to focus on getting home - if he can even call it that. For whatever reason, someone was still paying for it. In his current state, he could care less who would do something like that for a serial killer of all people.
Something is still following him. He can almost see it in his periphery as it leaps from shadow to shadow, ducking into alleyways and crouching near streetlamps. He quickens his pace, bag clenched tightly in his hands as he feels its presence grow nearer, following him all the way up to the road his apartment’s on.
There aren’t any cars. All is silent.
He slows down from his previous jog, not that he’s any more relaxed. His heart beats in his chest as he walks, shoes clicking against the sidewalk, eyes nervously glancing behind him. He can’t see it - whatever it is - but he can feel it still. Lingering. Watching. Its eyes pierce his skin and he nearly wonders if it’s some kind of cop coming to drag him back to the asylum the minute he takes a wrong step.
At this point, he wouldn’t even mind that. He’d already gotten so used to letting the incessant screams and cries and laughter of the other patients lull him to sleep that he can’t possibly imagine returning to the silence of his apartment.
Vaguely, if only in the darkest corner of his mind, he wonders if it’s him.
He makes it to his apartment, but only after stumbling up several flights of stairs and fighting just to get his key in the door. Inside it’s expectedly barren. Empty shelves, torn carpeting, cages without animals. The only things left are his mattress (still covered in messy sheets and laid directly on the floor), the map of Gotham he’d drawn on his floor that apparently couldn’t be cleaned off, and the mini-fridge he was using as a bedside table.
Putting his poor excuse for groceries away, he sits on his bed, slowly taking off his boots. It was uncomfortable, being in a place so familiar and yet so foreign. They’d taken his blackout curtains, letting streetlamps flood his room with light despite the darkness of outside. His walls were stripped clean of all of his pictures. They hadn’t even bothered to fix the ripped wallpaper the removal left. Typical.
Edward stands slowly, although trying not to succumb to the nausea overtaking him proves useless as he collapses to the ground anyway, head pounding. Through the ringing, he swears he can hear something akin to a window opening followed by heavy footsteps, but again, it’s hard to tell given that his face is plastered to the floor.
He manages to lift his head, even if it takes him a decent amount of effort just to sit up. He’s sweating even harder now.
“Nashton.”
If only he could get up to change. Maybe they left him some clothes that actually fit.
“Nashton.”
In his state, he’ll even settle for clothes that don’t. So long as they’re clean-
“Edward!”
A large gloved hand grasps the front of his shirt to jerk him forward and Edward’s breath catches in his throat, blinking rapidly as he readjusts to his situation. His glasses are crooked on his nose, but even so it isn’t hard to distinguish the silhouette in front of him. “...Batman?” The hand drops him and he lands on the ground once again with a pitiful gasp.
His mind continues to swirl, and fixing his glasses doesn’t prove to be any help. Batman - who may or may not be a hallucination, Edward hasn’t decided yet - stands still, staring down at him with piercing eyes.
This wouldn’t be the first time he’s been visited by a Batman of his own imagination.
Arkham records would say he “seemed to exhibit delusions, brought on presumably by a parasocial relationship formed over a long period of time and strengthened by a deteriorating mental state following their meeting.”
Edward would argue they fed him hallucinogens with his morning slop and sent him into solitary for something he didn’t do just to see what would happen.
Either way, he’s fairly used to being joined by his bat-costumed friend, so the sight of him isn’t enough to send him spiraling. Not anymore than he already is, at least.
Picking himself up, Edward moves to take off his jacket, throwing it halfheartedly on his bed as he begins to sift through his closet. “Nashton,” He can hear “Batman” saying behind him, voice as monotone and gravelly as he remembers. “What are you doing?”
The lack of response seems to irritate him. “Listen,” He continues with a sigh. “Ever since we first met, something has always stuck with me. I don’t know how or why but…the things you said. Us, partners,” No answer. “You’re upset. That I left you there.”
Edward pulls out a T-shirt and holds it up to himself. Still too big, huh.
Behind him, Batman grunts, and he can hear the shifting of armor plating as he begins to walk closer. “I’m not…sorry, Nashton. You’re a psychopath. Or, you were. But now…”
Mindlessly, Edward begins humming to himself as he tosses the shirt to the side and picks out a fresh pair of boxers. His hallucinations must be getting worse if Batman’s actually-not-quite apologizing to him.
“I got you out of there. So we can work together.”
He pauses. A giggle falls out of him, twisting into a laugh that forces out of his chest and claws at his throat, making him double over and stumble sideways. “You? You got me out of there? Batman freed The Riddler from Arkham Asylum so they could be partners?” He coughs harshly, only to fall back into laughter once more. “I really am hallucinating, aren’t I?” Through tears in his eyes, he can nearly see Batman’s face twist into something like confusion, eyes narrowed and head ever-so-slightly tilted. This makes Edward cackle even harder.
And just like that, he heaves, coughs, splutters, and passes out against the cold hard floor.
When Edward wakes up, he’s no longer accompanied by Batman.
Instead, possibly even unfortunately, Bruce Wayne is the one knocking against the bath faucet as he tries to get it to run.
“You have to…turn the handles at the same time,” Edward mutters. He’s seated in the opposite corner of his bathroom, tucked up against the wall and wrapped in a towel. Nausea rushes through him the moment he speaks, but he forces it down anyway. Bruce’s appearance fails to affect him, and if he weren’t a figment of his imagination Edward’s sure he would be glad for that fact. Otherwise, he might find himself dead, and Edward would be happily taken off to Arkham for another sentence.
“Thanks,” is all the billionaire boy says before the gushing of water is all Edward can hear. He sits on the toilet seat and watches the water fill the tub, barely even sparing the other a glance.
“You aren’t real, are you?”
“You’re facing symptoms of withdrawal, but I’m sure you already know that,” He tactfully dodges the question, still refusing to turn around. “Best plan is to get clean and sleep before the chills set in. I brought some medicine, if you want it.”
Edward hums, bringing the towel up to his face. God, since when did he own such soft towels?
The water stops and Bruce stands, finally looking down at Edward. “I’ll, uh…be right outside if you need me. Unless you want me to leave, but in your state…” He sighs. Opening the door, he begins to leave, only to be stopped by a tentative hand pulling on his sweatpants leg.
“I…can’t move,” Edward admits. He curses himself for asking for help, especially from Bruce Wayne, as imaginary as he may be.
Bruce practically shrinks back into himself, hands awkwardly tugging at the bottom of his shirt. “Are you sure you want me to help?” Edward nods. He allows himself to be more or less picked up and placed on the toilet seat with his legs resting on the side of the tub and his back to Bruce, handing the towel to him. The chills must be starting sooner than expected, because the moment Bruce begins pulling off his shirt he shivers. “Sorry,” Bruce mumbles.
The hardest part seems to be his binder, which takes Edward a considerable amount of time to unzip due to both the age and poor quality of the thing. Bruce waits patiently, but Edward can practically hear the questions bubbling up inside of him. He doesn’t ask any, though, simply taking the binder off and folding it to the side as Edward slips off his pants and slides into the tub, letting the warm water overtake him.
When he looks up, Bruce is facing the door. Considerate, even for a hallucination.
“I’ll go get the medicine,” He says, and off he goes.
Carefully placing his glasses on the side of the bath, Edward dips his hands in the water and runs them through his hair, down his neck, before once again returning to cover his eyes. The warmth is close to comforting. It splashes against his skin and washes away years worth of dirt and grime. The water laps at his knees when he shifts to grab the sad bar of soap across from him and clean himself further, dead skin coming off in heaps. It’s gross. It’s relieving. He finishes, only to recline back and let the water cover him up once more. For just a moment, his sickness lessens.
A small crash echoes throughout the apartment and Edward shoots up, frantically grabbing for his glasses and shoving them onto his face.
Right, Bruce Wayne is outside of his bathroom door.
Supposedly.
He’s still struggling to grapple with the fact that his mind would choose to hallucinate the person he so hated. So vividly, at that. Bruce Wayne, clad in nothing but a loose shirt and sweatpants, running him an all too realistic bath he’s certain he wouldn’t have been able to start on his own, not in this state - much less pass it off as the doing of someone not even there.
On the other hand, his doctor once gave him a drug so strong he thought he was Bruce Wayne and lived an entire week in Wayne Tower, so this could be considered underwhelming.
Reaching for the drain, his head begins to spin once more, black darkening his vision.. In spite of his temporary unconsciousness, he realizes he must have thrown up over the side of the tub, evidenced by Bruce’s reappearance next to him as he discards his plastic gloves into the trash can. Reaching in to drain the water, he catches Edward’s stare and quickly puts a hand over his eyes. “Sorry. Again.”
Sickness coursing through every inch of his body, Edward simply wraps his arms around Bruce, who startles at the touch. He feels himself being lifted hesitantly, guided back to the toilet seat and handed a towel. “Cover yourself,” Bruce orders, more forcefully than he intends. “Please,” He adds softly, and Edward obliges. His eyes are squeezed shut, sensitive to the bright, buzzing lights above him, but he still feels Bruce quickly dry him off before being handed his clothes. “There’s medicine and water on the counter. Can I…do anything else?” Edward shakes his head, and Bruce leaves once more.
His clothes slip on easily, but the pills slide painfully down his throat, even with the water to help them. They’re supposed to make him feel better, he reminds himself. He doubts his own hallucination would try to poison him, anyway.
Speaking of, he’d imagined Batman earlier, hadn’t he? Why couldn’t he be the one taking care of him in his delusion?
Taking the towel to give his hair another pointless tousle as he glares into the mirror, Edward places it on the counter and leaves, only to find Bruce hasn’t left. He’s seated on one of his chairs, a takeout menu delicately balanced in one hand with his phone in the other. Edward scoffs. “What, Wayne can’t afford anything but cheap delivery?” It hurts just to talk, voice ringing in his ears and pounding in his head, and yet he continues. “No, I got it. I can’t afford anything but cheap delivery. Glad I made the trip then, huh?”
He plops down on his bed and reaches into his mini-fridge. Screwing open the cap of the milk, he feels it being torn from his hands before he can even take a sip. “That’ll only make you feel worse,” Bruce scolds and holds out his hand for the cap, which Edward begrudgingly gives to him. “I’ll pay for your food. I’d get you something better, but this is the only place that’s open. What do you want?”
Edward falls onto his back, placing an arm over his eyes. “I want to sleep!”
“The medicine won’t work if you don’t eat.”
He grumbles. “Chicken…”
“Teriyaki?”
Edward nods. He hears Bruce dial the number but shoots up his hand before he can call. “Nothing with it!” A sigh, followed by ringing is enough to make Edward grin. Bruce Wayne - fake as he may be - is ordering him food. If only he weren’t half dead, then he’d really be able to enjoy the moment.
Bruce orders and hangs up, returning to his chair in silence.
The two don’t speak for several minutes before it finally becomes all too much for Edward to bear and he sits up. “You aren’t real, right?”
“You already asked that.”
“Yeah, and you didn’t answer.”
Bruce huffs, eyes trained on the floor. “That’s what you think, then. That I’m a hallucination.”
“What other explanation is there?”
He looks up with his mouth agape, almost as if he has something to say, but quickly shuts it and shrugs.
Edward sighs, laying back down and turning away. Figures. Even newscasters couldn’t get a straight answer out of the man, why would he? “Wouldn’t be the first time it happened, at least.”
“In Arkham?”
“I think they’d give us hallucinogens just to see what would happen. Test subjects more than patients, he always used to say.”
“Who?”
“Oh, you know.”
No response.
Another minute passes.
“Is that why,” Bruce swallows, “this is happening?”
Edward hums. “Yeah. I was on something for a while. A supposed cure for whatever I had. Well- have. It didn’t work.”
“What else did they do to you?”
“Shock therapy…real therapy…can’t remember…” He mumbles, yanking up his sheets and tucking them around himself. Since when was it this cold in here? Actually, if he remembers correctly, his apartment’s HVAC system was completely broken, which - at the time - had made getting into his get-up even more unbearable. It was probably fixed by now, though. Curse the passage of time.
And curse Bruce Wayne’s soft, comforting hands, too, as he places one on Edward’s forehead to check his temperature.
He feels like a kid again, locked up in the orphanage infirmary with the one person who was ever nice to him in that godforsaken place; a nurse, always the one who had to tend to his wounds. She had been the one to give him the Rubik’s Cube he always kept with him, all the way back when he broke his leg one time.
There’s a knock at the door, and as soon as Bruce appeared he was gone, retrieving the food as quickly as possible. Edward sits up just in time to catch a brief “Hey, aren’t you-?” right before the door slams in the delivery person’s face. Edward giggles.
“Can’t escape it, can you?”
Bruce doesn’t respond, instead simply presenting the bag to Edward, who takes it eagerly. The food is surprisingly good for delivery. That, or he’s either so tired and sick he doesn’t care anymore or he’d gotten so used to what Arkham passed off as edible that even the moldy bread he had initially planned to eat would have been a huge improvement.
He finishes just as quickly as he started, even with trembling hands. Bruce looks almost impressed as he reaches to take the empty bag, only to be stopped when Edward grabs his wrist. “Wait,” He orders, taking the bag from him. He pulls out two fortune cookies. “A man says that every time he has gotten a fortune cookie his lucky numbers have always been the same,” He says, before he can stop himself. “How?”
Bruce exhales deeply. “He’s only ever gotten one.”
Edward smiles, tossing him one while he cracks open his own, delicately holding the fortune between two fingers. “You will know it when you see it. It will know you when it sees you,” He reads.
Seating himself at the edge of the bed, Bruce opens his. “You will become more and more wealthy.”
“Oh, yeah, uh-huh,” Edward chuckles. “I can’t believe it…Bruce Wayne? Wealthy?” He pops the cookie into his mouth, grimacing at the stale taste. Still better than Arkham.
Bruce smiles at this, just slightly, before eating his own and standing up, retrieving the trash once more. ‘I’ll leave the medicine with you,” He explains as Edward tucks himself back into bed. “Take it regularly. Sleep often. And don’t forget to eat.”
Edward sticks his hand out from under the covers and waves it. “Yeah, yeah, got it. Whatever you say…”
Another sigh. “Do you need anything else?”
He grips the blankets tightly, sinking into the small amount of warmth they provide as best as he can. His head is pounding again. “Cold…” He mumbles.
“It’s the fever. Just try your best to sleep.”
Edward flips around to face Bruce, brow furrowed. He’s faced with two facts. One, he’s freezing. Two, despite being a hallucination, Bruce is incredibly realistic. Therefore… “Body heat.”
Ever so slightly, Bruce’s expression twitches into something akin to confusion, followed by shock. “Right,” Edward can hear him mutter as he goes to throw away the trash. The blankets lift, and even with his eyes clamped shut Edward can feel Bruce slide in next to him awkwardly. “I don’t see how this is going to help.”
Arms wrap around him almost immediately, Edward clinging to him as chills run down his spine. He’s shaking again, now all the more violently. His teeth chatter as he speaks. “You’re warm,” He says simply. “Imaginary, but warm.”
Bruce nervously adjusts himself to fit Edward more comfortably against his side. He’s still shivering, but his breathing slows as they lay there in silence.
“You know Batman was here before you were?”
“...Oh?”
“Mhm. Then I blacked out and you were here. Unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately…”
“You think there’s some sort of deep…psychological reasoning for it?”
Bruce wraps a hand uncertainly around Edward’s back in lieu of a response.
“The Arkham doctors would think so…” He trails off, sleep nagging at his eyes.
Just before he succumbs to it, he can hear Bruce whisper to himself. “I’m Batman, Nashton. I got you out of there, paid for your apartment, so we can be partners.”
A chuckle escapes his tired lips. Right, Bruce Wayne, Batman. Even for a hallucination the thought was absurd. How could a billionaire orphan be the same vigilante Gotham had come to idolize? He barely goes outside in the day time, why would he when he doesn't have to? It doesn't make sense.
Not that any part of his situation does.
Finally, the exertion of the day floods through him, making his bones ache and ears ring as sweat coats his skin.
When Edward wakes up, Bruce Wayne is gone, leaving only a bottle of pills and a note on his nightstand.