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“Greetings, Jim. I’m terribly glad you could join me tonight.”
Jim Gordon, who had been brought here none too gently, thinks it best not to reply.
Instead, he looks around the dimly lit room, shivering.
There are no guards, only Oswald and him in what could very well be considered Oswald’s “throne room”.
Whether this is a good or bad sign, he does not know.
Considering the mask of ice Oswald’s face currently is, he’s starting to lean towards the latter.
“You’ve disappointed me, James. Greatly.”
Normally he’d respond with ”you’re gonna need to be more specific”, but regrettably, he knows exactly what has Oswald fuming this time.
The decision had seemed good at the time.
Breaking one promise to save the lives of many? Sure, makes sense.
It hadn’t mattered in that moment that it had been a promise he’d really been wanting to keep.
“You left me at Arkham, Jim. Do you know what they did to me there? It was hell. I begged you for help, and you left me.”
Of course he’d still be mad about that one too…
Jim can’t blame him.
“I do regret that one, if you have to know.”
Oswald keeps talking, as if he never had said anything at all.
“But I left you alone even after that. Only for you to go and betray me again.”
Truly, not one of Jim’s brightest decisions.
He’s never seen the Penguin this angry.
And he certainly had never seen that famously explosive anger aimed at him.
“You promised, Jim. Despite everything, you asked for my help. Despite everything, I allowed you to make a deal. Only for you to immediately turn around and stab me in the back.”
“I’m sorry. Really am.”
It’s not a lie. He hadn’t wanted to do it, had felt like shit about it even while doing it. But the wellbeing of many had weighed heavier than the wellbeing of Oswald. Or his own good conscience and happiness.
“Sorry does not even begin to cut it, Jim. You haven’t the faintest idea what I would do to you if you were literally anybody else.”
Jim would very much like to believe he is only shivering because the fireplace is doing nothing to keep the signs of an early fall away. But the chill settling over him has nothing to do with the weather, and everything to do with a face contorted in fury, sharp green eyes filled with the pain of betrayal.
“You think you know what I am capable of. Believe me when I say that you haven’t the faintest idea how cruel I can be.”
That’s true. He’s aware of being Oswald’s soft spot, and that it had saved him from a terrible fate quite a few times.
But he’s heard the whispers.
Saw the fear in the eyes of men thrice as big as the man they desperately refused to talk about.
There was only one way to get this kind of respect, especially in a city like Gotham.
And it involved incredible amounts of blood, gore, pain and death.
“I am a vicious man, James. And I don’t find it very easy to forgive.”
The look Oswald sends his way is scathing.
Then, even more terrifying, he twists his mouth into the cheap caricature of a smile.
“However, considering you are such an old friend of mine, I have decided to grant you another chance, even though you are entirely undeserving.”
Oswald pauses, as if to give Jim the opportunity to object.
He doesn’t. Oswald does have a point.
“However, it comes at one condition. I need to be sure that you know your place.”
Oswald stops again, stares at him, no doubt knowing Jim’s brain will use the silence to come up with various possibilities of what horrid things Oswald could ask him to do.
Knowing all too well that Jim will think of the last time Oswald forced him to do something to get back in his good graces, which had ended in the death of a man.
But Jim isn’t in the mood for mind games.
“What do you want?”
“I want you, dear Jim, to beg for my forgiveness.”
Oswald’s voice is sickly sweet, but it’s clear thick poison lurks just beneath the surface.
“You can’t be serious,” Jim stupidly blurts out before he can stop himself.
“Can’t I? This isn’t a play I’ve put on for your amusement, James. I’m afraid the only way for you to leave this room on your own two feet, as opposed to a body bag, is to grovel.”
No. Oswald simply couldn’t mean it.
Would he really kill him?
Could he?
He looks into Oswald’s eyes, searching for… something. But finding only anger, hurt, hatred.
It’s a terrifying sight. One that hurts him in a way he can’t explain.
It also makes him angry.
“No.”
“No? What do you mean ‘no’?” Oswald’s voice sounds incredulous and outraged.
“Just no. I won’t beg.”
“You can’t mean that!” Oswald hisses, mouth gaping like a fish.
“I do.”
He’s sick and tired of this shit. Sick of his thankless job, sick of trying and failing to save people, to make a difference. Sick of always making the wrong choices.
If Oswald truly wants to see him dead, he can go right ahead.
This city would probably be better off without him, Bruce especially.
The blow to his leg comes as a surprise.
It hurts like a bitch, and as had probably been the intention, he topples to the floor, crashing onto his knees no less painfully.
Damn his fucking cane! And damn his ridiculous stone floor.
Still. He only grits his teeth in response.
Oswald, looking down at him with open contempt, sneers: “Stubborn, aren’t you James? Too proud to debase yourself in front of me?”
Unsatisfied with his lack of an answer, or reaction really, Oswald reaches for him, yanking him closer by his tie.
Close enough so that Jim can spot the freckles, shining through make-up that started wearing off a while ago.
”Don’t make a mistake and think I won’t do it. That might have been true once, but it’s not anymore.”
Oswald is close enough for Jim to taste his breath on his tongue, close enough for Jim to smell the dizzying blend of perfumes Oswald likes to use.
He keeps his face neutral, says nothing.
Sure, he’s aware of the surprising amount of leeway Oswald grants him.
He’s equally aware that it won’t be enough to save him this time.
“Say something!” Oswald hisses at him, his normally beautiful face contorted in rage.
“I think it’s all been said. I’m sorry for treating you like shit. I still won’t beg. Do what you gotta do.”
Oswald’s mouth gapes open in silent disbelief, making him look like an unusually big and pale fish.
Jim watches as the mouth closes, as the cold mask slides back into place as if it had never been askew.
Burning anger hidden under a thin layer of indifference, boiling just under the surface all the same.
Oswald’s fingers are clammy on his chin, barely touching, featherlight.
“So you would choose death over giving up a small piece of your pride for me? After all that you’ve done?”
The silence weighs heavy on his chest, and he finds himself wishing Oswald would tighten his grip, pull him closer again.
“Truly, you are not sorry at all.”
The hit catches him by surprise.
One moment Oswald is staring at him, cold eyes full of contempt, the next he feels the soothing cold of the smooth stone floor against his ringing head and tastes sharp copper.
His nose is not broken, but is gushing all the same, staining the front of his shirt red.
He barely has time to understand what happened before Oswald is upon him, black-eyed and snarling, going for the throat.
Claw-like hands locked firmly around his neck, crushing his windpipe in a bruising grip.
It hurts.
His head hurts, and with the combination of Oswald’s rough hands around his neck and his weight on his chest, Jim’s body quickly panics, demanding oxygen.
He ignores it. Fights down the panic, tries to accept his fate.
He deserves this.
It is only so much conscious decisions can achieve in these situations, but by the time his hands act on their own accord, frantically clawing at Oswald’s, trying to force them off, he is already too weak to be successful.
His body twists in its panic, fighting for a survival that is not all that important to him.
But Oswald is vicious too, strong despite his deceptive looks, and his hands stay in place, unrelenting, steadily squeezing the life out of Jim’s body.
He’s probably done this before.
That’s when the realization sinks in, one Jim had thought to have understood, yet the weight of it only hits him now, when he is teetering on the edge of oblivion.
The Penguin wouldn’t stop.
The monster, narcissistic, violent and sadistic, had been wronged. Now it shrieks angrily, scratches at the walls, screams for blood, his blood, to be spilled across the perfectly pristine floor.
Oswald though, Oswald is desperately hoping for him to yield.
Because Oswald, despite everything, doesn’t want him dead.
It’s not satisfaction he sees in those wide green eyes. It’s terror, sadness, fear.
Ignoring his own mounting panic, and the black spots dancing in his fading vision, he uses up precious oxygen to wheeze out a single, pathetic word.
A gift to this prideful, terrified man.
“Mercy…”
The cruel fingers squeezing around his neck loosen immediately, as the realization flits across Oswald’s pale face, followed by immense relief.
A relief Jim shares, greedily sucking in precious breaths.
Allowing some air to return to his poor abused lungs, which wheeze in pain.
But Oswald is not done with him yet. It’s not enough, he knows.
His fingers are still wrapped around Jim’s neck, lingering, waiting for his next words.
“Something you’d like to say, Jim?”
The tone is haughty, mocking, but the hope in those eyes spurs him on.
He swallows his pride, pushes his bitterness far away.
Oswald doesn’t deserve to be used as a tool in some kind of fucked up suicide.
Jim sees it in pristine clarity, that potential future. The satisfaction of successfully enacted revenge fading, leaving Oswald with empty bitterness, regret, self-hatred.
Oswald deserves better.
Hell, there’s already a haunted look in Oswald’s eyes, and Jim isn’t even dead yet.
All the man seems to want is some sort of atonement for his many transgressions.
Is that truly more than he is willing to give?
He holds Oswald’s heavy gaze, letting genuine fear slip into his hoarse voice, as he whispers:
“Please Oswald, please don’t do this. Forgive me.”
Pleading at least.
Swallowing painfully, he adds: “Spare my life, please. I’m begging you.”
Oswald’s eyes widen.
It’s almost comical to see him so deep in shock. These had been his very own conditions after all.
Oswald’s hands loosen further, and Jim could swear that they are shaking.
If it is in anger, terror or relief, he could not say.
“I… I’m a man of my word.”
Those hands, surprisingly strong for their frail looks, leave his neck, instead settling on his hair, almost gentle, as Oswald leans down, leaving a featherlight kiss on his forehead.
“Very well Jim Gordon. I shall grant you mercy.”
Why does he feel so relieved if he hadn’t cared about dying only a moment before?
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
It seems like a silly thing to say, but he had never been good with words. Jim desperately hopes that Oswald will understand what he’s trying to say. That he hears the relief, the gratitude, the remorse in the simple platitude.
“You should,” Oswald replies, hard words a startling contrast to the hand lovingly stroking his still stinging face.
“You’re on thin ice, my friend. I must advise you to tread carefully.” There’s no mocking in his voice now, no sugar or poison. Only an earnest warning, solemnly delivered.
Unable to take the gentle caress anymore, Jim catches Oswald’s hand, whose mouth twists in displeasure at being stopped.
Perhaps the gesture hadn’t been subconscious after all.
He squeezes the hand carefully, relishing in the shared touch, unwilling to let go just yet.
Perhaps he’s trying to placate Oswald, the temporarily re-awakened fire in his eyes dimming considerably at the gesture.
Or perhaps, only perhaps, he needs the comfort the simple touch offers.
“I know,” he sighs, trying to cram all those things he cannot say, all those conflicting confusing emotions into those two small words.
“I know.”