Chapter Text
“When you are born, they put you in a little box, and slapped a label on it so they could keep things organized, and not have to think about what’s inside. Over time, you learn to make yourself comfortable, packaging your identity in different combinations until you feel like you belong and can wear your labels proudly. But there’s a part of you that never found a home rattling around in categories that never really did you justice…You have to wonder if these boxes are falling apart. If we should be writing our identities by hand, and speak only for ourselves, in our own words…”
Edward Nygma collected titles at work like merit badges—Forensic Pathologist, Toxicologist, Chemist, Serologist, Criminalist, and Ballistics Expert. He’d also earned the labels of Freak, Nuisance, and Pest. He preferred his own label of Puzzle Solver.
Ed fondled the pearls through the plastic evidence bag and noted their weight, pristine shape, and the sound each bead made as they clinked together. He glanced up at the clock and saw that it was well after midnight. All of the other forensic technicians had gone home for the night, leaving only the overnight shift in the bullpen and Edward blissfully alone in the lab. After securing himself a cup of fresh coffee from the break room, he locked himself inside the forensics lab so he could work on solving his favorite kind of riddle.
Edward pulled on a pair of fresh gloves and extracted the strand of iridescent white pearls from the bag with forceps. He affixed a jeweler's visor over his glasses and spent a few moments poking at the beads with the end of the metal utensil. He tapped at them, scratched at them, and notated his observations in his black book (his only reliable companion in life).
Between each pearl was a standard overhand knot stained a rusty red from dried blood. When the pearl necklace was first brought into evidence and examined at the lab by some of his co-workers, they’d already extracted DNA from the fibers and confirmed it belonged to Martha Wayne. Edward conducted his own tests, of course, and mostly validated their findings.
What was curious, however, was how the droplets of blood looked like they’d been placed there deliberately. Each dot was evenly spaced along the strand and none of it seeped under the pearls themselves or into the gold-plated clasp. There was no ballistic evidence either. Which, if Mario Pepper had scooped up the necklace during the robbery, would have been present somewhere along the strand. An equally curious detail was the fact that the string was unbroken. Nothing about what Ed was looking at was consistent with the crime scene.
He’d also been tasked with running the toxicology tests on the cocaine present in the fibers. Not that those details really mattered given the fact that Mario Pepper was shot and killed while he was pursued by Detective Bullock and his partner, Detective Gordon. There was no point in a prosecution, but the documentation needed to be thorough.
The liquid chromatography tests showed that the cocaine in the bag where the pearls had been hidden away was exceptionally pure. Something about that detail had itched at the back of Ed’s mind since he looked at the toxicology reports. What was someone like Mario Pepper doing with such a high-end luxury drug? None of the pieces fit together. Evidently, there were also rumors that detectives at the Major Crimes Unit suspected that the pearls were planted. If Edward could solve this, not only would he receive praise from his own precinct, but he’d have recognition at a Federal level.
That following morning, after a long night of tests and personal musings, Edward stood outside the Records Annex bouncing on the balls of his feet. Kristen Kringle, the precinct’s record keeper, gave him a polite smile as she unlocked the door.
She cleared her throat, and the bridge of her nose wrinkled. “Good morning, Mr. Nygma. You’re here awfully early.”
“I made some promising observations and couldn’t wait to compile my report. I need access to the evidence locker,” Ed explained as he followed her into the annex.
He didn’t bother disguising how he smelled her perfume. It was bright and citrusy, like sunshine wafting from her skin. She hurried her steps so that she could put her desk between them and pulled out a ledger from her desk drawer.
Edward made his way to the metal closet. His eyes roamed over the rudimentary alphabetical organization and ignored his impulse to suggest a more thoughtful and rhizomatic system. He pulled out the box labeled WAYNE. Beside the name was a bright red stamp declaring the case closed.
Edward opened the box and rummaged through the files and evidence bags. He frowned. “Where are the pearls?”
“It says here that you have them.” Kristen tapped at his name on the ledger with a single French tip. The peachy-pink polish glittered. Ms. Kringle always looked so pretty and perfectly accessorized. Ed bashfully looked away before he could get too distracted by her.
“I mean the other pearls,” he corrected.
Kristen paused and audibly swallowed. “Other pearls?”
Edward inhaled sharply through his nose and exhaled on a steady count of five. “Yes, Ms. Kringle. The other pearls. The loose pearls that were collected around Martha Wayne’s body? I listed them in my evidence report…” Edward opened the file and read over it. His face fell as he reached the bottom of the page.
“Is there something the matter?” Ms. Kringle asked.
He held it out for her to see and pointed at the signature. His fingernails, by contrast, were blunted and chapped around the edges. “This isn’t my report.”
“That’s your signature.”
“No.” Edward shook his head and then placed it side by side with the evidence ledger. “See? The loops here on the E aren’t the same! A-And the ink is all wrong. I always sign with the same fountain pen and this ink pools at the end of each letter like the forger is consciously having to think about the next mark to make.”
Edward quietly added “Document Examiner” to his list of labels.
“Maybe you’re just mistaken?” Kristen innocently suggested. “You don’t look like you’ve slept.”
Edward’s glasses slid down the bridge of his nose, and he could feel himself glaring at her. Ms. Kringle cleared her throat and looked away from him.
“I know this isn’t my signature,” he insisted, “and I took photographs of the crime scene. Those aren’t here either!”
“Mr. Nygma, I’m just the record keeper. I’m not a detective. I don’t know what to tell you.”
You didn’t have to be a detective to see that the signatures were nothing alike! How could she not be the least bit curious about the missing evidence? Edward walked back to the locker and clicked the button on a penlight. He searched all around the metal shelving, in between boxes, and got down on his hands and knees to search under the bottom shelf. There, tucked against the wall, was an unmarked manila envelope.
Inside were several Polaroid photographs and an evidence bag full of bloodied pearls. Ed held them up to the light, and Ms. Kringle frowned.
“How did those get under there?” She asked. Her eyes flickered toward the door to the annex, and she chewed at the inside of her lip.
Edward leaned in and whispered, “You don’t suppose that someone was trying to dispose of evidence, do you?”
“It’s possible that the bag and photos just slipped out of the box.”
“Not likely. Especially with a forged report.” Edward shook the piece of paper for emphasis.
Kristen hovered by her desk with her arms crossed as Edward filed an incident report over the missing evidence. Ed tried not to let the heaviness of her stare deter him from his goal that day, but the thought of her worry ate at him.
“Ms. Kringle? Are you okay?”
“Hm?” She looked up at him with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. They glistened in a way that made Edward’s chest tight. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
He awkwardly held her gaze as the riddle rolled off his tongue. “Hidden from sight, I quietly lie. Guarded by hearts and sometimes a sigh. What am I?”
Kristen’s tone was flat and resigned as she replied, “Ed, you know I’m not good with riddles.”
“A secret,” he said. “I won’t mention you in the report. In fact, I’ll lie. For you. I’ll say that the evidence wasn’t properly returned, and it was my fault.”
“No, Mr. Nygma—”
“I insist,” he said with a genuine smile. “I’d hate to see you get in trouble for a simple error. Let’s just make sure nothing falls out of the boxes again, hm?”
She stared at him with parted lips. His eyes flickered between them and her eyes. He wondered if he could finally add the label of “Boyfriend” or “Successful Heteronormative Male” to his own ledger by finding the courage to lean forward and kiss her. Knowing his luck, he’d end up adding “Creep” to his list instead.
He signed his name with his green fountain pen and handed it to her. Reluctantly and without eye contact, she accepted the report and placed it in the hanging file rack to await approval from Captain Essen.
Edward quickly made his way out into the bullpen, clutching the file containing the pearls and photographs to his chest. His eyes scanned over the room until he spotted his least favorite detective at the precinct.
“Detective Bullock!”
The man in the fedora groaned and rolled his eyes as Edward approached his desk. Detective James Gordon sat across from him. “What do you want, Nygma?”
“What do flattery and Meegeren have in common?”
“Spare me,” Bullock grumbled.
Edward held up the evidence bag containing the string of pearls and Bullock’s face fell. “They’re imitations.”
“No.” Detective Bullock thrust an accusatory finger between Edward and Detective Gordon. “No no no. That was an open shut case—”
Gordon hopped to his feet, his eyes sparkling with eagerness. “Elaborate.”
“These are made of Majorca glass,” Ed explained. “They’re high-quality fakes coated in a thin polymer shell of guanine crystals, but they lack the imperfections and reflectivity of genuine pearls.”
Detective Bullock leaned back in his chair. “Ok, so Thomas Wayne bought his wife expensive imitations. So what?”
“What billionaire is buying fake pearls?” Gordon spat.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Bullock bit back. “I don’t concern myself with how a rich guy pinches his pennies. Those pearls being fake don’t prove anything.”
“No, but the fact that these pearls don’t match the ones at the crime scene does,” Ed told them. He pulled out the other evidence bag containing four singular saltwater pearls. They were almost perfectly round, but contained a few divots and blemishes. They also had a warmer sheen to them unlike the silvery white of Mario Pepper’s strand. He jiggled the bag, causing the pearls inside to bounce. “The fake is an intact strand, yet these were found beside Martha Wayne’s body. And they’re genuine.”
Detective Bullock stood and yanked the evidence bag out of Edward’s hand. He lunged forward and Edward yelped. Detective Gordon threw out an arm between the two of them.
Bullock huffed, “You just couldn’t leave this one puzzle alone, could you?”
“It’s literally in my job description.”
“Good work, Nygma.” Detective Gordon clapped a hand on Edward’s shoulder and squeezed. Before his partner could stop him, Gordon was on his way to Captain Essen’s office.
Harvey shook his head as he watched the office door close. His gaze snapped back to Ed and he growled, “Aren’t you with the program?”
“What program?”
“God dammit, Ed.” Detective Bullock rubbed at his eyes. He opened and closed his mouth around what Edward assumed was a barrage of insults. Harvey resigned himself to an exhausted groan instead. “I sure hope you don’t regret sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. That kind of thing can get you killed around here.”
Edward sulked in the lab the rest of his shift. Worst of all, everywhere he looked in the precinct, there were eyes on him. He wasn’t the type of person to have the room’s attention, even when he wanted it. Ed had been momentarily elated by Detective Gordon’s approval earlier that day, but Harvey Bullock’s threat lingered and the feeling of being watched ignited his paranoia.
Even Kristen Kringle seemed skittish. During her break, she’d nearly leapt out of her skin when her boyfriend, Arnold Flass, had come up behind her in the breakroom and draped his arm over her shoulder. He’d cracked an insensitive joke about women and hysterics that Kristen had chuckled at out of politeness, but it made Edward gag.
Kristen had been right that he was exhausted. Staying in the lab all night was routine, whether it was 24 hours or even 48. However, he wasn’t immune to the effects of long-term wakefulness. He yawned as he punched his time card and made his way toward the parking garage. All he needed was a little bit of sleep, and the dread would all fade away.
A familiar Plymouth Gran Fury pulled up beside him and blocked his path to his green Nova. The driver, Detective Bullock, leaned across the seat and opened the passenger side door. He looked at Edward, eyes dark and swollen. “Get in.”
“I have my own car—”
“I said get in,” Bullock snapped. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
Edward slid into the passenger’s seat. They drove in silence. When they passed the turn that led to Grundy Street, Edward’s head whipped around for whatever alternative route Detective Bullock was taking them. The man continued to drive straight ahead.
“We’re taking a detour,” Bullock explained. Edward couldn’t find the will to protest.
They arrived at the southern pier at Gotham Bay. Piles of damp wooden pallets were stacked on either side of the vehicle, blocking the view of the ship docked nearby. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and seagulls cried overhead. Harvey stopped the engine and slumped in the driver’s seat.
“I’ll be honest with you, Nygma, I don’t like you, but even I think this is cruel.”
Edward trembled. Fear coiled in his stomach and his extremities curled as his anxiety made him numb. Clearly, this was karma coming back for him. He couldn’t help the whimper that escaped him when he finally asked, “Are you going to kill me?”
“If you cooperate, I won’t have to,” Harvey admitted.
Detective Bullock opened the driver’s side door and marched his way toward the truck. Edward reluctantly followed. As the detective worked open the lock, Edward heard something banging from the inside.
He gasped when the truck opened and inside was a small man. He was pale with dark hair and blood staining his face and clothes. Ed recognized him from his mugshot as Oswald Cobblepot—Umbrella Boy to Fish Mooney. Soldato of the Falcone Crime Family. Not so affectionately referred to as “Penguin” among his associates.
“No, please! Please, I beg of you,” Mr. Cobblepot cried.
“Shut up!” Bullock screamed. Edward and Cobblepot both recoiled. “This is the fool who snitched to the MCU about the pearls. Don Falcone wants you to walk him to the end of that pier and put a bullet in his head. Then everybody knows you’re with the program.”
Edward added “Ignorant” and “Fool” to his lengthy resumé.
“What? Wh-Why me? I’m sure there’s some misunderstanding. If I can just talk to Mr. Falcone, I’m sure we can come up with something more reasonable.”
“You’re the one snooping. You filed that report today about the missing evidence and you signed your name on the log book. It’s your own damn fault for painting a target on your back.”
Edward pressed his fingers to his eyes and tried to control his breathing. He was only doing his job! How was he supposed to know? The rules had changed and he hadn’t been informed. Now he was in trouble simply for being ignorant of how deep the mob connections went at the precinct.
“You’re not getting an audience with Don Falcone and, trust me, you don’t want to.” Harvey looked sad. “If you don’t do this one bad thing, I’m supposed to take you out and him, too.”
Ed looked down at the man with seafoam eyes trembling in the trunk of the car. He looked pitiful.
Detective Bullock’s tone was apologetic. “Ed, I know you probably don’t have the stomach for it, but I do. I won’t hesitate, but at least I’ll make it quick. I can’t say the same for the other person who finds you if I don’t. They’ll get to you, then they’ll get to me, and probably Kristen as well.”
“What does Ms. Kringle have to do with this?”
“She’s the one who stashed the evidence and you messed everything up today,” Bullock explained. A sound crawled from Ed’s throat, but the detective continued before he could cry. “Everyone at the precinct knows you've got a thing for Kristen Kringle and Victor Zsasz loves toying with people like her. He’ll make you watch every agonizing second of it and who knows how long he’ll keep you alive before he gets bored.”
Ignorant. Fool. Moron. Dead Man.
“I know you’ve never killed anyone before, but sometimes you’ve got to do a bad thing in order to do good. This guy is a scumbag. So, do you do this bad thing or do you die and maybe your girl dies? I might be bad at solving riddles, but this seems like a no-brainer to me.”
Detective Bullock held out a bright red piece of cloth. Edward took it from him and gasped at the weight. The fabric fell to the cold ground and all that he was left with was a pistol—Standard police issue with the serial number filed off. He stepped backward and pointed the gun towards the man inside the trunk without hesitation.
“G-Get out,” Edward whimpered. His aim wobbled and he had to grab it with both hands to steady himself. When Mr. Cobblepot didn’t move, Detective Bullock yanked him upright and shoved him towards the end of the pier. The man stumbled and gripped his leg. Edward didn’t have time to change his mind and certainly didn’t want to give Mr. Cobblepot the opportunity to run.
Mr. Cobblepot spoke uneasily through his fear and pain. Determined, he turned and walked backwards so he could speak to Ed directly. His eyes sparkled with tears. “Ed, was it? Please, just let me live. I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll be your slave for life! Listen to me, there is a war coming. A-a terrible war and you and Ms. Kringle will get hurt in the crossfire unless you do something about it.”
“I’ll keep her safe,” Ed spoke through gritted teeth.
Mr. Cobblepot shook his head. “Killing me will not guarantee safety, I assure you. Falcone is losing his grip, and his rivals are hungry. Th-There will be chaos. Rivers of blood in the streets. I-I know it! I can see it coming! See, I’m clever that way.”
“Not as clever as me,” Edward interjected and clicked back the hammer on the gun.
Despite his circumstances, he wanted to maintain those labels. Clever. Genius. Survivor. He’d find a way to flee the city with Ms. Kringle. It wouldn’t be the first time he ran away from home and changed his identity. Mr. Cobblepot looked at him, momentarily confused, but then his eyes narrowed.
“Then let us be clever together,” he spoke in a hushed tone. “Make a show out of killing me and permit me to escape—”
Edward reached forward and grabbed the man by his lapels. He screamed in the sniveling man’s face, “Shut up!” His voice reminded him of memories he’d vowed long ago to forget. The violence behind his teeth startled him and he hated how much he sounded like his father, but he liked the power behind it and the scared look in the man’s eyes. “Turn around.”
He forcefully turned the man by his shoulder. The tips of Mr. Cobblepot’s shiny shoes dangled over the edge of the pier. Edward pressed the barrel of the gun against the back of the man’s head.
“For God’s sake, have mercy,” Mr. Cobblepot pleaded and the sound of it made Edward sick to his stomach.
Edward tried to will himself to pull the trigger, but his nerves were too rattled. He’d excavated plenty of bullets from the skulls of cadavers, but he still didn’t want to see the initial injury up close. Dead bodies he could tolerate, fresh ones, on the other hand, made him gag for reasons he didn’t have time to dwell on. He clenched his eyes shut and felt his body sway. He reoriented his aim with his eyes closed, hoping for a clean enough shot, and pulled the trigger. He didn’t open them again until he heard the splash.
Edward was shocked by how easy it had been. His ears rang. The end of the barrel was smoking and the stink of hot metal and gunpowder singed his nose hairs. Curiously, he didn’t smell blood. He paused and looked around. There wasn’t so much as a speck on his clothes or the ground. It didn’t even look like there was any staining the water.
He turned back toward Detective Bullock who nodded in approval. “You work forensics, kid. You know what you’ve gotta do now.”
Edward hurled the gun out into the water. He imagined it would settle down into the silt alongside other discarded murder weapons. He didn’t look up from the ground as he made his way back to Harvey’s car.
They sat there for a moment, neither one exchanging a word or a glance. Edward looked down at his fingers and made a mental note to thoroughly wash his hands and remove any gunshot residue from the fabric of his clothes. It would be a shame to have to destroy his favorite jacket.
Edward flinched when he felt something nudge his arm. He looked up to see that Harvey was offering him his flask, probably as a gesture of goodwill. Perhaps even as an apology. Edward didn’t drink often. He despised the burn of alcohol and hated the smell even more so.
He recalled the exhilaration when he screamed moments earlier. When he removed the shame he felt at having to commit such an act, he found that he actually quite liked having that much power in his hands. Maybe he and his late father weren’t so dissimilar.
Edward accepted the flask, held his breath, and gulped down the cheap whiskey like he’d been drinking it all his life.
“...I’m sorry you’re not feeling well today, Ed. Take all of the time you need.” Captain Essen’s voice was tinny over the phone. Nausea hit Edward square in the face when he heard the unspoken remorse hidden behind the police captain’s words.
She knew. Of course she knew.
The mob connections of his co-workers had been his blind spot. Now, with all its ugliness in the open, the corruption was obvious. It’s why detectives like James Gordon stood out. Edward knew even someone as righteous as Detective Gordon would inevitably “get with the program” or die in the process. He’d be given the same ultimatum that Ed was given. Maybe they could even bond over it later if Jim managed to survive it.
Ed honestly couldn’t care less about the precinct's criminal affiliations, especially in Gotham City. Ed wasn’t so delusional as to believe that he was a good person no matter how good at pretending he was. He wasn’t above the occasional deception to preserve his path forward, and he would normally be content with minding his own business by keeping his nose to the ground. Ed was far more concerned with having been wrong in the first place and how that ignorance potentially endangered Kristen Kringle.
The thought of Kristen facing a similar fate as Oswald Cobblepot shook Edward to his core. Who would do the deed? Would it be Detective Bullock? Gordon? Perhaps shooting Mr. Cobblepot wasn’t enough to satiate Don Falcone, and Edward would be forced to do it. He could almost picture the smug look on the face of Victor Zsasz as he handed Edward a gun wrapped in red cloth and detailed all of the ways he’d carve ribbons out of Ms. Kringle if Ed refused.
Escape was their only option. Edward kept a bug-out bag packed and ready to go for just such an occasion. He pulled the old backpack from his closet and frowned at the Waterbury High School patch on the front pocket. Inside were the bare essentials alongside a multitool, a handcrank radio, spare prescriptions and a blank set of pharmacist memos he’d swiped from the clinic, and various forged IDs.
Ms. Kringle would need her own fresh identity. Lucky for her, Edward knew how to bypass the security measures on the badge printer in the back office at the precinct. Printing her one, applying the proper holograms and laminates, and encoding the magnetic strip were simple tasks for someone like Ed (he proudly added “Forger” to his répertoire). The difficult part would be getting her to agree to leave with him.
The allure of changing her name to something like Eileen Nygma wouldn’t be enough, especially with her boyfriend loafing about. Arnold Flass was a detective within the Narcotics Department who, now that Ed could see with clearer eyes, likely had deep connections linking him to Gotham’s Underground.
Based on criminal case files, it was Don Maroni who ran Gotham’s drug trade, meaning Detective Flass was in his pocket. That would certainly explain the shiny Scarosso shoes and Italian suits he flaunted around the precinct. If Mr. Cobblepot’s warning had any merit, Ms. Kringle really was trapped between the soon-to-be warring crime families, and Edward needed to rescue her before it was too late.
Months prior, Edward had found the smallest amount of bravery within himself to ask Ms. Kringle on a date. He planned the menu and bought an expensive bottle of champagne for the occasion, only to discover that Detective Flass had already swooped in and claimed her for his own. The lonely bottle of vintage Dom Pérignon sat unopened ever since.
Ed reached into the back of his cupboard to retrieve it, wiped away the thin layer of dust, and set it down on the kitchen island. He stared at it, and the gold label wordlessly stared back. Edward paced around his apartment while rubbing at his temples, occasionally turning his attention back to the bottle as if imagining it was a person sitting across from him.
“Ms. Kringle—no. Kristen, you’ve perhaps felt my affections from afar… ‘Afar?’ Really? Oh, God.”
Edward groaned and pressed his fingers to his eyes until he saw sparkles. It would be so much simpler if Detective Flass would just drop dead somewhere. He wished it had been Flass with a bullet in his brain sinking to the bottom of Gotham Bay instead of a raven-haired stranger. Pulling a trigger was so much easier than strangling the life out of someone.
With his eyes closed, Ed imagined his fingers curling around someone’s throat. The bulky body of his victim thrashed beneath him as the hyoid bone crunched and the man’s eyes bulged. He wheezed out a putrid puff of air that smelled like stale beer and cheap whiskey, but Edward’s hands didn’t tremble. Not once. Blood dribbled from Ed’s broken nose and split upper lip. It soaked into the white cotton of his Waterbury Botball team shirt. It was one of the things he had to burn on his way out of town—
A knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts.
Edward paused as his brain processed the sound that echoed through his loft apartment. The knocking came again as three slow, deliberate raps against the steel that brokered no misinterpretation.
When Edward finally willed himself to open it, he felt all of the blood drain from his face. Standing in front of him, skull unfortunately intact, was Oswald Cobblepot.
“Hello, Edward, old friend.”
“Mr. Cobblepot?”
The man stepped through the threshold and into the apartment despite no formal invitation. Ed scanned the hall for anyone who may have followed before quickly sliding the door closed and securing the latch.
Mr. Cobblepot’s hair was disheveled. He wore slacks and a yellow sweater with speckles of blood along the left sleeve. There was grime under his fingernails and dark purple bags beneath his eyes.
“I admit, when you said you were clever, my offer was a gamble. Good job thinking on your feet.” Oswald Cobblepot spotted the bottle of champagne on the counter and took it upon himself to open it and pour two glasses. Edward didn’t have the sense to protest. “I take it Harvey Bullock was fooled?”
Edward stood there gawking at the man that should be dead and floating in Gotham Bay. Any day now, he would be called out to the riverbank to examine a John Doe who washed up on the rocks. Edward would extract the bullet from the man’s skull and keep it as a trophy.
Ed chose his words carefully. “Detective Bullock has no reason not to believe you’re dead.”
“I propose a toast to our new partnership.” Mr. Cobblepot handed him a flute of champagne.
“Partnership?”
Mr. Cobblepot’s eye twitched. His smile was sharp and yellow from what Ed assumed was a smoking habit. “Yes. I offered an alliance if you spared me. You missed on purpose, and now here I am.”
Missed on purpose? The pieces slid into place and Edward chuckled nervously. “Yes! Yes, of course.” He clinked their glasses together. “To our partnership.”
Edward was grateful to be back at the lab later that week. He’d taken three days off—one for himself and two to acclimate to Mr. Cobblepot’s nagging presence. Ed couldn’t stand to spend another insufferable moment cooped up in the apartment with the gangster.
Mr. Cobblepot disrupted all of Ed’s routines. He used all the hot water, used Ed’s expensive castile soap, and snored loudly. He was weird and unpredictable in conversation. One moment, he was an annoying sycophant and the next, he was vicious and threatening. Even sitting beside him in silence gave Edward anxiety.
Edward doctored the man’s leg, but nothing he did seemed to satisfy him. No amount of painkillers or liquor comforted him. Edward assumed much of it was psychological. He’d never walk right again, and Mr. Cobblepot knew that. The injuries to his knee, shin, and ankle were permanent and left him with a pronounced limp. Edward made the mistake of comparing it to a penguin’s waddle. Mr. Cobblepot responded by holding a knife to his throat and demanding he never say anything of the sort ever again.
“I didn’t know how you liked it, so I left it black.” Harvey Bullock set a mug of coffee down on Ed’s desk. Ed looked up at him, confused. Harvey pulled a small steel flask from his breast pocket. He shook it and Ed could hear the liquid sloshing around inside. “You can always add a little spice to it, though.”
“Why did you bring me coffee?” Ed asked.
“Well, excuse me for being nice for a change.” When Ed continued to eye him suspiciously, Harvey glanced around for anyone who might overhear them. He leaned in and whispered, “To be honest, I feel bad. Nothing about the other day felt good.”
“You don’t say.”
“I’m being serious, Ed. There isn’t anything about this situation that doesn’t suck.” Harvey pulled up a chair and plopped down beside him. “If it had been any other case, I would have appreciated your due diligence in finding the truth. No one else here has your instincts. It’s unfortunate that things don’t work out the way they should on paper.”
Edward knew that better than anyone. When he’d left home the first time, he’d contacted the police and requested a PPO against his drunken father. None of that mattered. His father was also good at solving puzzles and always managed to hunt Edward down no matter where he hid. No matter if he changed schools, got a new car, moved, or even changed his name, Richard Nashton would corner him in an alleyway. The man moved like a sinister shadow that loomed in the young Edward’s peripheral.
Nothing ever worked out the way he’d been told it would. Parents shouldn’t hit their kids, but so many do anyway. People should follow the laws as written, but Ed had worked in forensics long enough to know that wasn’t the truth, and he wasn’t quite so naive as to believe that all laws were just.
“You’re good at your job, Ed. You just have to keep your head down, do what you're told from the folks in charge, and collect your paycheck. Hell, you might even be good enough to collect something on the side.” Before Edward could ask what Detective Bullock meant, Kristen Kringle came into view over Bullock’s shoulder. She was wearing a seafoam green dress that day with polka dot stockings that matched the bow in her hair. Looking at her now, Ed had to admit that she often resembled a little girl dolled up for Sunday morning. Harvey nudged him. “Kid, if this week taught you anything, it’s that things can change for the worse in an instant. Blink, and you could end up with a bullet between your eyes. Go talk to her.”
“You think so?” Ed’s eyes danced between Ms. Kringle and Harvey.
“You’re still young, Ed. Live a little. Otherwise, you’ll get to be my age and the only ass you're gonna be able to find is on a street corner.”
Ed pondered and sipped at the proffered black coffee. He wrinkled his nose at the bitterness. He preferred it with two heaping spoonfuls of sugar, but the surge of caffeine made him bold. He stood to walk towards her, but the moment he met her gaze, he spun on his heels and bolted toward the bathroom.
Edward splashed water on his face and stared at his reflection. He had a hooded brow that was normally hidden by the rim of his glasses. Without them, his eyes were dark. (Disquieting, just like his father’s). He’d been in such a rush to get away from his apartment that morning that he didn’t have any product in his hair. It was fluffier than he liked it and curled around his ears and the nape of his neck.
He was conventionally attractive, he thought, but his features weren’t unique. Nothing about him really stood out among the crowd of other conventionally attractive men on the streets of Gotham. He had talents, he had aspirations, but none of that got you very far. He shook his doubt from his mind and sighed.
“Kristen…” He cleared his throat and then pitched his voice lower, “You don’t have plans this evening, because I know you spend your Thursdays alone—Really? Are we stalking her now?… Kristen. Dinner. Chez moi. Eight o’clock.”
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked the screen and sent it straight to voicemail when he saw it was an unknown number. A few moments went by, and his phone rang again.
“Hello?”
The familiar nasally voice of Mr. Cobblepot answered. “Where is the spicy mustard?”
Ed quickly turned to look around the bathroom. He was alone, but he felt the need to whisper. “Why are you calling me at work?”
“I swear if you—Oh, here it is.” Edward heard the sound of condiment bottles rattling and the fridge closing.
“I thought you were only going to contact me if it was an emergency.”
Mr. Cobblepot scoffed, “I’m hungry. That’s emergency enough.”
Edward groaned and leaned against the sink. “I’ll feed you when I get home.”
“...I’m not a dog, Ed.”
“No, you’re more like a feral cat,” Ed grumbled.
“What was that?”
“Nothing…” Ed looked at his watch. “I only have three more hours left of my shift. I’ll cook when I get home. Can you try not to burn the kitchen down before I get there?”
“I make no promises.” Oswald’s tone sounded like he was smiling in spite of the casual insult, but Ed chose not to comment on it. “What are you cooking?”
“Do you have a preference?” Ed asked.
“...I could go for some Italian.”
“Italian it is then.” Ed smiled before adding, “I’ll pick us up a nice bottle of wine. Chez moi. Eight o’clock?”
Mr. Cobblepot chuckled and the sound of it made Ed’s cheeks warm. “I’ll see you at eight.”
Oswald Cobblepot sat atop the kitchen counter with his feet dangling over the edge as Edward chopped shallots and added them to a pan with olive oil. He claimed it was meant to relieve the weight on his injured leg, but Edward couldn’t help but find his earlier comparison of the feral cat accurate. He was like a rehomed stray purposefully taking up space beside his new favorite person. The gangster’s presence was oddly comforting. It was a welcome reprieve from the attitude of the previous days.
Mr. Cobblepot may have indulged in Edward’s bath products in a way that was irritating, but at least he smelled nice. His hair, much like Edward’s, was devoid of product and resembled downy feathers. His bangs naturally covered his eyes, causing him to shake his head to force the tendrils aside. When he did so, there was a pleasant fragrance of juniper and bergamot in the air.
He borrowed Ed’s clothes even though they were much too big for the petite man. The sleeves of the burgundy sweater bunched up at his elbows. He tucked it into a pair of black slacks and secured it with a belt that Mr. Cobblepot found hidden at the back of Ed’s closet.
Edward bought fresh peppercorns and a locally made pecorino for their Orzotto Alla Carbonara. Ed opted for a more Gotham-style pasta instead of authentic Italian by incorporating heartier ingredients and an artery-clogging amount of cheese, hoping to appeal to the mobster’s tastes. Although Ed suspected he could’ve made spaghetti with a store-bought sauce and minimal fresh ingredients and Mr. Cobblepot would’ve been just as satisfied.
He also brought home a modestly priced bottle of Pinot Grigio that he hoped would pair well with their meal. He stood in front of the racks of wine for nearly half an hour, mentally piecing together the perfect, casual dinner date—though, this was obviously no date. It was simply practice for when he eventually gathered the nerve to ask Kristen.
Edward nearly dropped the bowl of egg yolks and pecorino he was whisking when he heard the cork pop.
“You weren’t supposed to open that until dinner.”
Mr. Cobblepot scrunched his face and started to pour himself a glass anyway. “Why?”
“Because I paired it with our meal.” Edward snatched the bottle away, but he topped off Mr. Cobblepot’s glass before he recorked it and placed it on the other side of the counter out of the man’s reach.
“Is it special?” Mr. Cobblepot sniffed at the glass before sipping. He smacked his lips together and then shrugged.
“No, I just hadn’t planned for it being opened before we ate. That’s all.”
Edward held out his arm for Mr. Cobblepot to hold onto as he helped him down from the counter. The man stumbled, but Edward caught him and got a noseful of juniper berries. Mr. Cobblepot’s hand rested against Ed’s chest. His fingers twitched.
“So you need things to go exactly as you plan, then?” Mr. Cobblepot asked. Ed held him out at arm's length, making sure he was stable on his feet, before turning his attention back to the stove.
“Ideally,” Ed replied. He turned the burners off and retrieved a set of green ceramic bowls for their meal.
“That doesn’t leave much room for improvisation.”
“I don’t have to rely on improvisation if I plan accordingly.”
“In my experience, nothing ever quite goes as planned,” Mr. Cobblepot explained. Edward placed the bottle of Pinot just within reach and the gangster was quick to refill his glass. “Like how I had asked Don Falcone to give the task of killing me to Jim Gordon.”
Edward set the bowls of carbonara down much too forcefully. It caused the rest of their dishes and silverware to clatter. “Why him?”
“Because I felt like he was the only detective there with a conscience. Lucky for me, you have one as well.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Ed said. He felt something intense at his side and knew that Mr. Cobblepot was staring a hole right through his temple. He swallowed and tried to keep his hands busy with serving their meal so they wouldn’t shake.
“What was your plan?” Mr. Cobblepot asked with a flat affect. When Edward finally looked at him, he held his breath. Mr. Cobblepot’s blue-green eyes were intense and wide. Unblinking. “If everything is meant to go according to your plans, then what were your intentions in allowing me to live?”
Edward fumbled. “Um…I—”
“You’re improvising right now.” Mr. Cobblepot’s words stung like acid. “And not very well, I might add.”
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ed lied and feigned a smile.
“Really?” Mr. Cobblepot quirked an eyebrow.
“Nope.” Ed shrugged. He sat down in his chair across from the perfumed gangster and crossed his arms.
Mr. Cobblepot glared at him over the rim of his wine glass. Slowly, his face broke out into a smile that felt too wide for his face. He was all sharp, yellow teeth and pinpoint pupils. Edward’s stomach dropped at the sound of Mr. Cobblepot’s loud laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Ed asked, throat tight.
“You really thought you killed me, didn’t you?” Ed felt all of the warmth drain from his face and bile collect at the back of his throat. Mr. Cobblepot responded before he could form any words. “You were at point-blank range, and you missed?!”
Date night was going swell.
“I panicked!” Edward confessed. Even he was laughing now. Whether it was from anxiety or simply because Mr. Cobblepot’s laughter was contagious, he didn’t know. “I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.”
“Wow,” Mr. Cobblepot continued his giggling as he sputtered and drank the wine in his glass.
“Are you mad?”
Mr. Cobblepot pursed his lips in thought before responding. “No. If I recall, you were trying to protect someone important.”
“Ms. Kringle,” Ed told him with a grin. “She’s…the love of my life.”
Mr. Cobblepot snorted, “Oh? What makes her so special?”
“She’s the record keeper at the precinct.” Edward beamed as he conjured the image of her in his mind. “She’s beautiful. And her laughter is pleasant. She dresses nice.”
“...And?”
“And I love her.”
Mr. Cobblepot frowned. He poked at his pasta with his fork. “What exactly do you love about her?”
Edward cocked his head to one side. “I just told you. She’s amazing. When I look at her, I can just imagine how perfect everything would be.”
“Uh-huh.” Mr. Cobblepot clicked his tongue. He took a large piece of pork into his mouth and chewed slowly, making embarrassing noises as he did. Ed’s face flushed as he dug into his own bowl. “Have you ever even talked to this girl? Outside of work, that is?”
“Well, no. Not yet.”
“How much do you really know about her? What’s her favorite record or book?” Ed opened his mouth, but Mr. Cobblepot continued, “What are her fears? Her anxieties? What motivates her to get up every morning to walk into a job where she’s probably underappreciated and harassed?”
“I don’t know,” Ed admitted, defensively. “But I care about her and I’m willing to learn if she ever gave me the chance.”
“You, my friend, are in love with the idea of her. That’s it.”
“Mr. Cobblepot—”
“Oswald,” the man insisted. “We’re friends.”
“Oswald… Since when does a gangster know so much about love?” Ed grumbled.
“When you know what a man loves, you know how to destroy him. I make it my business to know these things,” Oswald explained. He sighed. “If letting me live wasn’t your intention, then what was your plan? With your Ms. Kringle, that is.”
“I’d hoped that I could forge us new identities and run away. Just leave Gotham for good.”
“And if she said no?”
“I hadn’t made it that far.”
Oswald scoffed, “Did you really think that just because you saved her that she would fall madly in love with you?”
“No,” Ed lied.
“Did you think she owed it to you?”
“No! I-I don’t know what I would have done.”
“Let me ask you this, friend,” Oswald leaned in. His breath smelled like wine and garlic. “Would you really have just fallen in line now knowing the truth? Would you be content keeping your head down knowing that the opportunity for more finally presented itself?”
“Opportunity?”
“The key to improvisation is not to act without a plan, that’s much too chaotic. The key is to have a plan and then twist every avenue in your favor to see it through. You don’t leave any room for failure because you’ve already seized every moment.” Oswald stood and limped toward the window that overlooked Grundy Street. The elevated train rumbled below. “For example, I proposed a plan to Don Falcone and offered to spy on the Maroni family for him.”
“But he wanted you killed.”
“He did. I was a snitch and we don’t tend to live very long, but I offered to snitch for him if he would only grant me a favor. If he gave the task of killing me to Jm Gordon, but he didn’t follow through with that favor. Instead, he gave me you.”
“How does me killing you or not killing you factor into your plans?”
“I did some digging and found that Don Falcone already had other things in place for James Gordon. He knew his late father and had his own spies keeping tabs on him. He gave me what I wanted, just not in the way I intended. He knew about you and your legacy.”
“Legacy? I don’t follow.”
Ed collected their dishes and set them in the sink. When he turned, he saw that Oswald’s jaw had nearly dropped to the floor. His eyes danced around Edward’s face. The scrutiny made Edward uncomfortable.
Oswald finally broke the awkward silence. “Does the moniker of The Mink mean anything to you?”
Ed quickly scanned his mental catalogue and found nothing. “No. Who is that?”
“Mickey ‘The Mink’ Sullivan.” Oswald declared the name and let it linger in the air. When Ed didn’t react, Oswald walked to the table to pour Ed his own glass of wine before gesturing for Ed to join him on the ledge by the window. He continued, “He was the leader of a gang of Irish assassins who worked as Don Falcone’s enforcers. The Mink had a right-hand man who was quite the bogeyman back in the day. The Brass Nash, they called him. He was the Mink’s fixer and closest advisor. He earned his name by being the enforcer of the enforcers. He called the shots when the Mink wasn’t around. Word has it he was a genius. He had a photographic memory and could memorize their books, faces, addresses, you name it. His problem-solving was unparalleled. No one could hide from him or keep secrets.”
“Where is he now?” Ed asked.
Oswald’s frown deepened. He shook his head and drank his glass of wine in one impolite pull. “Nash got into some trouble and went into hiding. He ended up having a kid and living on the outskirts for a while. In Waterbury. The Mink was taken out, leadership changed hands. By the time Don Falcone reached out to Nash, he’d lost his edge. He was a drunk living in a slum and he was a liability.”
Edward’s ears rang and the edges of his vision blurred. As Oswald spoke, he saw flashes of his childhood. He glimpsed his father’s office that was usually kept locked and once saw cases of ammunition and loose wiring attached to explosive devices. He remembered strange men in suits coming to visit his father in the middle of the night. He remembered the death of his mother and how his father blamed the sins of his past. How he took drink after drink until the drink took him.
When Edward finally escaped that wretched neighborhood around Waterbury, he thought he’d never have to see his father’s face again, but he was always there. Ed would glance out his classroom window, and there was his father sitting in the parking lot. Ed packed up his apartment and stayed at a motel across town, but his father was in the lobby, lighting a cigar. Ed ran until his legs gave out and Richard Nashton would be stumbling drunk but somehow always outpace him. He really was the bogeyman.
“Your name came up a few times,” Oswald explained. “Don Falcone assumed you knew what your father was, and that was why you never left Gotham. You had every chance to leave, and yet you stayed.”
Ed’s eyes were wet. “I had no idea.”
“You’re even working forensics at a precinct that used to be The Mink’s old territory and you got yourself close to Arnold Flass.”
“What does Detective Flass have to do with anything?”
There was the briefest flash of an unreadable emotion across Oswald’s face. This time, the gangster looked away, almost like he was ashamed of something. “That, my friend, is a story for later.”
“My father really worked for the mob?”
“He did. I’d heard stories about Nash from Falcone’s older capos. Sometimes they’d reminisce at Mooney’s. He was obviously gone long before I joined.”
“And my mother?” Ed asked. He could barely remember her face, but he knew everything about her was full of sunshine.
“A civilian, as far as I can tell,” Oswald told him.
“Do you believe in Fate?” Ed asked.
“After meeting you? I certainly do.”
“Clearly, Don Falcone put us in each other’s path for a reason.”
Oswald smirked. “How did it feel when you thought you killed me?”
“Guilty,” Ed admitted without hesitation. “I didn’t know you. I had no reason to kill you.”
“And if you did have a reason, would that have made you feel less guilty?”
Ed opened his mouth to answer, but he just sat there, hovering with his mouth open like a fish.
“You have a tell when you’re lying, by the way,” Oswald told him as he nonchalantly held his wine glass upside down to capture the last few drops.
“I do?”
“You get defensive. You cross your arms, put your hands in your pockets, struggle to make eye contact—Well, you struggle more than you usually do. You also smile to mask your thoughts, but it never reaches your eyes.” Oswald read him like a book. Edward swallowed the lump in his throat as Oswald continued. “You have killed someone. I can tell.”
Edward crossed his arms out of habit. “I-I haven’t—”
Oswald quickly held up a hand. The gesture was so abrupt that Edward thought he had planned on hitting him and yelped. “Don’t be modest.”
Edward stared at him. His chest and throat burned. He gripped his wine glass too tightly and some of it sloshed on his hands.
“Of all the people you could finally confess your misdeeds to, I’d be the one. I’m your friend and who am I going to tell, hm? That would be a bit hypocritical of me, don’t you think?”
“It was my dad,” Ed confessed as he stared at his reflection in the wine.
Oswald’s laughter burst from him like fireworks. “You killed Richard ‘The Brass Nash’ Nashton?”
Again with the infectious laughter. “I guess I did.”
“How did you do it?”
“With my hands.”
“And how did killing him make you feel?”
“Free,” Ed said. He finally looked up and stared into Oswald’s eyes. “...And powerful. Like myself.”
Oswald smiled. “Do you want to feel that again?”