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The sound of a muted sob woke her up.
Groaning a little, Echo rolled over to look at the time on her phone: 4:30.
It was a hot July night in Gotham and the late hour did nothing to keep the heat from rolling into their rented out one bedroom apartment. She could feel sweat pooling onto the sheets beneath her. Next to her Query shifted slightly in her sleep.
Taking care not to wake her partner, she lifted herself from the foldout couch and her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The air in the room was stagnant and still and heavy, the gently spinning ceiling fan offering no help in circulation.
When the three of them rented this apartment they knew it would be only temporary. Query and Echo had been out of Blackgate for a while and the boss got out of Arkham only last month. They were already starting on some sort of scheme and they needed a place to crash while they planned it out. While they weren’t necessarily the most recognizable guy around--no signature smile or notably unusual height, just an averagely heighted redhead with a penchant for green attire--they were still one of the big leaguers and were currently missing from prison. Their stay couldn’t last too long or people might start wondering who this guy with two gorgeous roommates was and why they barely left the apartment. They might start asking questions.
They had insisted on getting their own room. Query and Echo knew their quirks well enough to know that would be for the best. For one thing they worked better in solitude; for another they knew that things got overwhelming for them sometimes. When that happened it was best to let them work things out by themself.
It helped that the two women were already… comfortable with one another, to say the least. They didn’t mind sleeping together. In fact they prefered it.
However on this particular night the boss was not in their room. Echo could see their room was open and the lights were off. Instead the bathroom door was closed and light filtered through its cracks. The sound of movement, as well as some kind of metallic clinking, were just barely audible from inside.
She knew that the boss was in there. Moreover she knew that they hated being disturbed from anything, let alone a bathroom run at 4:30 in the morning. Deciding that she probably imagined the sound from earlier, she groggily sat down on the bed to join her girlfriend once more.
Then she heard the noise again.
That sound definitely came from her boss. Crying. What happened? Should she check on them? Would that be breaching their professional relationship? She gulped down the growing lump in her throat and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Maybe just a small knock on the door would be fine.
Once more she rose from the bed. She tiptoed cautiously around the couch and to the door to the bathroom, the old floorboards creaking beneath her. Once she reached the door she lifted her hand to knock, but hesitated a little. She could tell that this was going to be awkward. Praying that she had once again somehow just imagined the noises from before, she rapped her knuckle gently against the wooden door.
“Boss?” she called just barely above a whisper. “Is that you in there? You okay?” There was a quietly startled sound and something metallic clattered to the bathroom floor.
“Uh,” her boss replied hurriedly, sounding a little too much like a whimper, “Yes. I’m fine. Just a moment.” More movement continued for a few moments and then the door was yanked open.
Echo had never seen the Riddler in their pajamas before. They were always the first to wake up in the morning and the last to go to sleep, perhaps so that no one would see what they looked like when they weren’t put together. They were wearing nothing but green boxers (covered in question marks! she had learned at this point not to question where they got this stuff) and a white undershirt. Their fiery hair, usually gelled in the most pretentious way possible, was disheveled and messy. They were scrambling still to get their glasses on. Their face was redder than usual and their eyes looked… puffy? And a little wet?
They brought up their free hand to clear their throat. “Uh,” they repeated. “How can I help you, Echo?”
Echo blinked. “Well, boss,” she began, “I thought I heard something and it woke me up. I just wanted to make sure everything was alright with you.” She leaned to the right just a bit to peer into the bathroom. The Riddler leaned against the edge of the door to block her vision.
“I’m… perfectly fine,” they asserted, sounding anything but perfectly fine. Their voice was quivering and Echo could now see that they were visibly shaking. They ran a hand through their hair. “Yes. Everything is fine, Echo.”
“Are you sure?” the black haired women continued. This time she leaned to the left to catch a peek past the the Riddler’s torso. There were wads of toilet paper lying all over: the floor, the sink, the toilet seat. A pair of scissors rested on the counter.
And then she saw the blood.
Feeling her heart stop Echo took a sharp breath. There were drops surrounding the toilet and the tissues closest to it were flecked with the red fluid. The Riddler followed her gaze to the bloody scene.
They snapped back to face her, eyes wide. “I’m FINE!” they yelled. They slammed the door and the very floor seemed to shake.
Echo heard Query groan. “Whazzat?” she muttered, lifting herself up to lean on her arms. She blinked sleepily. “What’s going on?”
Echo dashed to the couch and flicked on the lamp that was sitting beside it. She sat down on the edge of the foldout bed. “The boss… needs our help.” She turned to her partner, brows turned upward and frowning.
“What’s wrong?” Query asked, pulling her long hair into a ponytail. “What happened?”
Echo’s lips quivered slightly. “They… they hurt themself. Cut themself.” Her voice was shaking. “I think they were crying. I heard them in my sleep and it woke me up. They’re in the bathroom and I checked to see what was going on and…” She lowered her gaze. “There’s a lot of blood, Query.”
Query’s mouth hung open and her arms dropped to her side. She didn’t know what to say. They both knew that their boss had a lot of problems. They were pretty open about a lot of them, having given the duo a laundry list of their many mental illnesses when they were hired. Depression, anxiety, several personality disorders. But somehow the two women never thought to question the deeper effects of their employer’s mental health. Somehow self-harm seemed completely out of left field.
“Well.” Query stammered, wiping her eyes. She had started crying without realizing it. “Well.” She looked to the door of the bathroom, still closed. “We need to help them. Come on.” She grabbed Echo’s hand and guided her to the middle of the room. “What should we do? We can’t leave them in there.”
Echo, feeling overwhelmed and wet-eyed herself, smoothed her night shirt. “Let’s try to talk to them again,” she started, “together. Let them know we’re here for them.” Query smiled solemnly and nodded. They traveled to the door once more.
“Riddler? Boss?” Echo began, gently knocking on the door. “It’s me again. Query is up, too.” Muffled movement and a sigh from Query. “Can we come in?”
“No.”
“Please? We just want to help, boss.”
“I don’t NEED help from anyone!” It sounded like they kicked the toilet for emphasis. “I don’t NEED your help! I don’t NEED anything!” More kicking followed each sentence and then Echo heard the sound from before. Muffled sobs. Echo turned to Query, who squeezed her hand tighter. Echo reached for the doorknob despite her boss’s protests.
“Is the door locked, boss?” she asked. When no answer came she turned it anyways. It wasn’t. “Okay, boss, I know you told us not to, but we’re going to come in anyways. Is that okay?”
After a few tense moments the two of them heard a sniffle and finally: “Y… yes.”
They pushed the door open slowly and were greeted to the sight of their boss, the Riddler, curled up on the ground beside the tub. The scissors had moved to the ground with them. More wads of toilet paper covered the tiled floor than before, some red and some clearly used as tissues. A pack of bandaids sat next to them along with the Riddler’s glasses.
The Riddler was covering their face with their hands, which were wet from tears and flecked with a little bit of blood. They were shaking and obviously still crying, their shoulders heaving with the effort of breathing through the sobs. Their bare knees were pulled up to their chest, hiding the rest of their body from the two women.
The Riddler was by no means a big person, and definitely not a powerful one, but for the first time since Query and Echo had met them, they seemed very, very small, and very, very weak.
Echo sat on the edge of the tub, still holding onto Query’s hand. She gently began to run the fingers of her free hand through the Riddler’s hair. Query sat down in front of her boss and placed her free hand on their knee. They sat in silence for a little bit, only broken by the occasional labored breath from the Riddler, who was still crying. As time went on they began to slowly unfold. Their knees relaxed a little and their shoulders were no longer so tense. The sobs became less frequent.
Eventually Query broke the silence. “Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked gingerly, her tone more gentle than either Echo or the Riddler had ever heard it. The Riddler slowly shook their head, still covering their face. Echo and Query locked eyes for a brief moment. “That’s okay,” Query continued. “You don’t have to. But can we take a look at you?”
For the first time since they had entered the bathroom the Riddler removed their hands. Their face was bright red and puffy and wet from tears and spit and snot and sweat. They matched Query’s gaze. “Yes,” they said weakly, lowering their eyes once more.
Query moved to the side to let them unfold their legs completely. They lifted the left cuff of their boxers just high enough to show the two women a cluster of bandaids haphazardly plastered in a line up their thigh. Some of the bandaids were already soaked red from the fresh cuts. They correctly assumed that the injuries were mirrored on their right leg.
Hidden under their boxers, Echo thought, smiling grimly. They were always good at making sure we only saw what they wanted us to see.
Query and Echo spent the next half hour taking turns between taking care of their boss’s wounds and letting them rest their head on the other’s shoulder. Soon the Riddler’s face was no longer wet and puffy, they were no longer shaking, and most of all they were no longer silent.
“Riddle me this,” they croaked once they were cleaned up, startling Echo and Query. It had been a while since they heard them speak. “Who is hot and tired and could really use a drink?” The Riddler chuckled darkly and coughed a little, retrieving their glasses from the floor. Echo and Query smiled at one another, happy that their boss was starting to get back to normal.
The three of them exited the bathroom and raided their fairly empty fridge. They didn’t have any stiff drinks but they did have some orange juice. They silently snacked on some crackers they had in the cupboard.
The three of them sat curled up on the foldout together, all incredibly close to one another with the Riddler in the middle. Query and Echo had their hands wrapped around their employer’s shoulders. Echo was absentmindedly catching up on her news feed on her phone and Query was holding the Riddler’s hand. The Riddler kept looking down at their legs.
Eventually all of them nodded off, still curled up together on the foldout bed.
The next morning Echo woke up and the Riddler was no longer with them. Query was still asleep (as usual). She checked her phone. 10:30. They were sleeping in late. The boss wouldn’t be too happy about that. She lifted herself into a seated position.
The door to the Riddler’s room (which Echo hadn’t noticed had been closed) opened and Echo’s employer walked out, as put together as ever in a black shirt and green dress pants. They paused in their tracks once they noticed that Echo was awake and the two of them met eyes. For the first time in a while the Riddler gave a genuine smile, without any hint of haughtiness or pride.
“I don’t like to say this often,” they began, chuckling a little. Echo knew that. “But… Thank you. Thank you, both of you.”
Echo smiled and nodded. “You’re welcome.”
The three of them never mentioned that night again to one another, but the Riddler never spent another night like that alone.