Chapter Text
You watched as the GCPD searched your apartment, pulling drawers out and tossing things on the ground to search for any more clues. Obviously, they weren’t going to find anything here. In this apartment. All of Edward’s Riddler business was dealt with in his other apartment, the one you didn’t know existed until minutes ago when your door was kicked down.
Jim Gordon stood next to you and observed his officers as they continued their search. He couldn’t believe that the Riddler had enough time to maintain a life and plan the destruction of the entire city. Your baby clung to your sweater with her small hand and switched between being awake and asleep, it was late after all. He turned to you, “He didn’t tell you about anything? Did you at least get suspicious about him being gone?”
He was curious, mostly. After he began spending more hours at the precinct to deal with this Riddler case, his wife had been asking around to make sure that he was truly doing his job as he told her. He promised that they would go on a nice vacation when it was all over, but it seems now like it was going to be a while until Gotham was safe enough to leave with all of the floodings.
You shook your head, “He told me that he was working extra hours and training new employees at the firm. More money came into the bank account, so I assumed that he was telling the truth.” Now that you thought about it, that money most likely was coming from donations during his live streams. The money came from other people that wanted the city to drown. It was dirty.
He gave you a weak smile out of pity, “I have a little girl, too. Barbara. She’s eight now.” He watched as the baby’s eyes got heavy and she couldn’t look at the scene in front of her with awe and curiosity. “She and my wife are stuck up in a hotel now. She thinks it’s a vacation,” he sighed, shaking his head.
You couldn’t help but feel guilty. Although you didn’t even know what your husband was doing, he still caused so much damage. Not only did he leave the city in shambles, but he also left his own daughter without a father. “I’m sorry,” You admitted.
Jim pursed his lips and you felt the way he pitied you once again, “What’s her name?”
“Eloise. She’s six months,” You looked down at her, now fully asleep on your chest. You were lucky to have been holding her when the police came in or they might have not let you into her room to get her, fearing of you having a weapon or something. The officers seemed to reach the end of their search, coming up with nothing other than small items like the ID he used for work.
The place was a mess and you knew that you were going to have to spend all night putting things back where they belonged. It was what you deserved, you thought. It was your bad choice in men. “He was a really good father. He’d tell her stories until she fell asleep and most mornings, I’d find him passed out in the chair with her on his chest.”
It sounded like you were trying to convince yourself rather than Gordon. There wasn’t a crack in his identity with you that would lead you to believe he was the Riddler. The only similarities that you picked up on were their shared love for riddles and puzzles, but you thought that it was a strange coincidence. Gordon couldn’t imagine the man that he saw in the diner with the baby, doing the same things that he had done when his daughter was that age. How could someone do such heinous things when he had a family?
~~
The first few weeks would be the worst. That’s what the Joker told Edward when they first began to talk through the bars of their cells. He was right, as he was about so many things. He missed cooking for himself or even a little ounce of freedom. He missed you and his daughter, whom he had no contact with ever since he got here.
As he always did when his meal was brought to him, he asked if he was sent any mail. Every day, he hoped that you would have written to him and every day, he received nothing. He was completely cut off from you, it seemed. You were supposed to be there for him, that’s what he planned. The only person to visit him was Batman and he turned out to be against him as well.
Maybe they were holding you back from him, the GCPD didn’t want you to see him and weren’t allowing you to have contact. Of course, that was the reason.
He did have some luck. It took a month, but Edward was taken from his cell to one of the visitation rooms right after he was served dinner. He knew that the hours for visitation were closed by this time, but he was sure that you were clever enough to convince them to bend the rules for you.
His face dropped when he finally entered the room. You sat in one of the chairs provided, and Eloise sat on your lap. Standing behind the two of you was the menacing and dark figure Edward knew all too well. The Batman. He carefully studied the scene in front of him. “They thought it would be in our best interest that he supervised,” You broke the silence to explain.
“The only people I’m a danger to are the money-hungry leeches that seem to rule this city. I thought he, of all people, would understand that,” He grumbled, sitting down in the chair across from you. You tried to pry your eyes away from the jumpsuit that he wore, the dull orange and white reminding you of who he really was. Where he was . Absentmindedly, you held Eloise tighter, but she kept her eyes on Edward and reached out for him.
All of it was hard to take in. It felt real in that moment and not some crazy story that everyone was trying to tell you. “Despite everything that happened,” You didn’t want to say the name he called himself or anything that he had done, “I didn’t want to keep her from you, at least for now.”
The baby still held her hands out for Edward to hold her. “Am I allowed to hold her?” He wasn’t looking at you when he asked the question, but at Batman behind you. His head barely moved, but he did nod. You handed her over to Ed and she wrapped her small arms around his neck, resting her head on his shoulder.
This was the strangest way you could have imagined your life to turn out. You thought about the night he was caught once the police left. You had to explain everything to your worried parents about why the news was talking about the city flooding and your husband was the reason for it.
“You want to know why I did it, don’t you?” He asked. You didn’t answer, only staring back at him. “When she was born, it reminded me of my childhood. How babies would die because it was too cold in the orphanage and we all had to fight for our lives to survive because the politicians of Gotham forgot about us. I couldn’t let my daughter live in the same Gotham that I had to grow up in. Things needed to change.”
“And so you decided to get locked up for the rest of your life? What part of that makes sense?” You kept your composure as best as you possibly could. He planned on getting caught, you knew that much. The endgame was always to leave you to raise her alone, no matter how much he could possibly talk around it.
“I did what I had to,” He didn’t offer any more of an explanation. There was a long silence. You wondered what Batman might’ve thought of you. Did he look down at your decision to marry him? To have children? Was he only here to make sure that you weren’t lying about not being involved?
Edward shifted in his seat and adjusted his hold on the baby, “What did you mean by at least for now ?” He was looking at you, accusingly. Your stomach dropped, you should have chosen your words more carefully. Somehow, you forgot that he was a literal genius and now crazy, apparently.
You inhaled deeply, “Um, my parents said that we can stay with them until we find a place there. It’ll be hard to-”
“Metropolis? You’re taking her to Metropolis?” He was surprisingly calm.
“Gotham isn’t safe anymore and I don’t want her to be constantly reminded that the entire city was destroyed by her father,” A part of you knew that any bold words would lead to bad consequences, but you did have the protector of the city with you. Edward couldn’t do anything too drastic.
You were already facing the repercussions of what he did. Neighbors gave you dirty looks and newscasters spoke about how you were probably covering for him all along. You couldn’t imagine the bullying Eloise might face when she gets old enough for school. In another city, she would blend in with every other kid.
“I won’t let you do that,” He whispered under his breath. He stood up, the chair getting pushed back due to the sudden movement, “You can’t take her away from me! I did this for her!” He backed himself up until his back met the wall.
You stood up gently, extending a hand towards him, “Eddie, please. You’re making this worse.” Any of his behavior here might make a visit like this completely off the table in the future. The only way you would see him was through a few inches of glass.
He shook his head and held the baby closer to his chest, “No!”
You’ve never felt fear when dealing with Edward, but the feeling began to build up in your stomach. He’s never acted like this. What medications were they giving him? Or, this was his real personality and he had you fooled. The Batman stepped forward, now alert.
“Please, just give her back and we can talk about this,” You pleaded. The last thing you needed was the baby to be in the middle of everything.
Edward knew what position he put himself in, you were aware of that. Nobody would hurt him as long as it could be a danger to the baby, “You can’t leave! Not after everything! If I can’t see her, what makes you deserving of her?” The baby began to cry.
You paused, “You wouldn’t.” Your words were overtaken by the wails of the baby. The sight before your eyes was nothing that you could have imagined. The Batman stepped in, physically prying the baby from Edward’s arms and pressing him against the wall until the Arkham guards took over.
The two of you watched as the guards took Edward from the room, presumably back to his cell. He was yelling, yet his words were incoherent due to your shock. Whoever was in front of you was not the man you married, certainly not the person you knew all these years.
Eloise was handed back to you and she calmed down as the room got quiet. “Sorry, for everything. If I knew, I-”
He interrupted, “There’s nothing you could have done. Don’t blame yourself.”
You knew forgiving yourself would take a while. In the meantime, you needed to pack.