Chapter Text
He must be going insane.
It’s the only explanation Ed can come up with for why he accepted Oswald’s offer of an alliance as he mulls it over in the backseat of the car. Which Oswald seems to be driving through every single pothole on the streets of Gotham, and then some.
Or maybe Oswald is.
Going insane, that is.
Which would explain a lot, now that Ed thinks about it, least of all why he’s suddenly a team player again.
He spares a glance to the back of Oswald’s head, watches the passing glow of the streetlights catch in the strands of purple that would be barely visible otherwise; a new addition, then, and one he begrudgingly has to admit is not a bad one.
And its half uncertainty for the distant future and half nervousness for the immediate future making him turn his hat over and over in his hands, if only as a distraction, an action Ed thinks unobtrusive enough, right up until Oswald snaps at him.
“Will you stop getting glitter all over my new car,” Oswald says sharply when they’ve been on the road for ten minutes and half the backseat seems to be covered in flecks of glitter.
Ed starts, nearly dropping the hat and depositing more glitter in the process.
Oh, crud.
Oswald does that thing where he inhales sharply through his nose and closes his eyes for a moment as if in prayer. Or in imagining the specific way he’s going to kill someone.
In this case, said someone is probably Ed.
“Just… put the hat on your head if you must, so long as you stop fidgeting with it,” Oswald says, kinder this time, but it’s still an order.
And an unreasonable one, really.
“The car is too small, it’s going to hit the… the–” Ed knows there’s a specific word for it, but it doesn’t come, so he pauses and starts over– “It’s going to hit the ceiling every time you hit a pothole. Which you do a lot, by the way,” he says, leaning into the space between the front seats.
“I can’t avoid potholes if the whole street is one big pothole. And in a car the ceiling is called a headliner. And…” Oswald pauses for a moment. “You know what? I’ll have to have the car cleaned anyway, so knock yourself out for all I care.”
Knock yourself…
Ed feels the indignation settling into his very bones. “I will not! I do not trust you, Oswald, so why would I knock myself out in your presence? Not to mention that–”
Oswald stops him with a raised hand, a quick motion before it moves back to grip the steering wheel. “It’s a figure of speech, Ed. As you should know, since you’re supposed to be good at those. Knock yourself out, as in be my guest.”
“Not very helpful.”
With a sigh of exasperation, Oswald adds: “In this case, knock yourself out as in do whatever you want with your stupid hat.”
“My hat isn’t stupid,” Ed replies before placing the decidedly not-stupid hat on his head.
The car jostles ever so slightly and, just as he’d predicted, the hat bumps against the… what was it? A headliner? Against the headliner.
Glitter rains down.
“I told you,” Ed says triumphantly.
Oswald looks like he’s seriously contemplating steering them into a wall.
Steering them at a wall? Towards?
It doesn’t matter.
The point is, the air in the car seems heavy with tension – is tension something that can have mass? not really, Ed guesses, but it certainly seems to at the moment – and still, despite everything, it’s as if this is just another Thursday night and everything is fine when everything is decidedly not fine.
It’s… it’s safe, somehow, is what it is. Comfortable, even.
Which is nothing short of terrifying.
Even the silence stops being so tense another few minutes in. And if Ed hums under his breath ever so quietly, and if Oswald hears it, neither says anything about it.
***
Cut to: thirty minutes later.
Ed is stuck in Oswald’s office at the Iceberg Lounge, doing his best to eavesdrop on the conversation happening just outside the door: there’s Oswald’s voice (obviously), joined by what sounds like two people, one being Victor Zsasz and the other someone whose voice Ed doesn’t recognize.
“So… you aren’t going to kill him?” Zsasz asks, not for the first time, voice slow and drawling. “Or put him back on ice?”
“No,” Oswald says, sharp and commanding. Wait, no, not commanding… it’s shrill, is what it is. That’s the word for it. He says something else, something quieter that Ed doesn’t quite manage to catch, before continuing. “Mr. Penn, if you would be so kind as to notify Mr. Fries and Ms. Pike…”
A quiet, meek mumble of something Ed can’t quite make out.
Absolutely frustrating how some people just can’t speak loudly and clearly, Ed thinks before he remembers having been one of those people. The keyword being ‘having been’. Those days are long gone. Maybe.
Ed’s not completely sure right now, and in any case, the conversation seems to be continuing, so this isn’t exactly the time to ponder over his identity. So, he strains his ears and manages to catch the words of what he assumes to be the afore-addressed (is that a word? if it isn’t it frankly should be), irritatingly thin-voiced Mr. Penn: “Sir, but Martin’s visit tomorrow… Do you want me to cancel? With Mr. Nygma’s presence I fear–”
Silence for a moment.
There’s a flash of something somewhere deep in the pit of Ed’s stomach.
Then, Oswald’s voice again. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll deal with it myself. And not a word to Ms. Falcone, is that clear?”
Then nothing for a while except shuffling footsteps, meaning they’re moving out of earshot.
Curses.
Ed retreats to the desk, leaning against it as nonchalantly as he can even though he knows his clothes look frumpy and half the glitter is gone from his hat, dispersed in the backseat of the black sedan he’d arrived in.
It takes a few minutes more before Oswald finally enters the room, looking more tired in the room’s cold, bluish light than he had back at Cherry’s – looking downright exhausted, really.
“You know it’s rude to eavesdrop on conversations that do not concern you,” he says before narrowing his eyes. “And to wear a hat indoors, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there. Honestly, I don’t know if that thing can even be called a hat.”
“You know it’s rude to… to… to… oh, forget it,” Ed retorts, voice low and threatening before the mental stutter gets the better of him, the words flickering out as he crosses his arms.
He’s upset, he realizes, without knowing exactly why.
Without knowing why, exactly?
Anyway.
The point is this: Ed is upset, and Oswald is looking far too amused.
“I will forget it,” Oswald says gleefully, as if he can’t just resist the opportunity to rub salt in the wound.
(Which is… an idiom.)
(That’s what those are called.)
Still, after a little moment of just quietly staring while Ed tries to think of something clever to say, Oswald sighs before moving to the ridiculously large and tufted chair at the desk. He settles into it with another sigh, his hand already reaching for the crystal decanter filled to the brim with port.
“Fine,” he says once he’s poured a hearty amount of it into a glass and taken a long sip. “What is it, then?”
“What is what,” Ed replies flatly, feigning ignorance because, of course, there’s the thing – the thing that shall not be named for he has no idea how to name it.
Oswald closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Whatever it is you’re so upset about. Spit it out,” he says, pausing for a beat before adding, “not literally. As in whatever it is, just say it.”
“I know what it means,” Ed replies, crossing his arms and feeling the tips of his ears reddening. “You don’t need to be so condescending.”
“See, we’re making progress already,” Oswald says with a tight smile. “But you’re not all that subtle right now: if I have to ask what the problem is one more time, I’m calling Victor back in and we can have his input – which I’m hoping it won’t have to come to. So, out with it.”
Before he even realizes he’s saying them, the words leave Ed’s mouth, sounding smaller and weaker than they have any right to. “Who is Martin?”
Oswald blinks for a little while, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
Ed hates Oswald more than ever.
“Is… is that what this is about?” Oswald asks eventually, huffs of laughter peppered between the words. “I’ll tell you what – you can meet him tomorrow, if you want. Although I have no idea why you would care about who he is in the first place.”
Ed does his best not to howl with frustration. “I don’t need to meet him to find out who he is,” he says, that irritating feeling of lostness gone and replaced by an indignant conviction that’s comfortable in its familiarity.
“Then do a little bit of detective work if you can’t wait another… what, sixteen hours, more or less? Find out who he is, if you must,” Oswald says, smiling in a particularly cryptic way that is irritating Ed to a frankly embarrassing degree.
“Maybe I will,” Ed replies before remembering the shred of dignity he’s still got left. “It’s not like I care, though.”
“Okay,” Oswald says simply with a weird look in his eyes, and it’s as if he knows a secret that Ed doesn’t.
Which, to be fair, he does (e.g. the whole Martin thing), but it doesn’t seem like that’s all it is, and all said look does is fuel Ed’s irritation.
***
Cut to: sixteen hours later, more or less.
Part of Ed thinks this is some sort of hallucination, which… honestly, would support the insanity hypothesis.
Or maybe it’s just some sort of folie à deux, although who he shares it with he can’t really say.
Or maybe it’s just a lingering after-effect of his time spent frozen in a block of ice.
See, the thing is…
Well, the dread Martin is…
He’s a surprisingly adorable probably-nine-year-old, is what he is, with wide eyes, curly hair, and a little notepad on a string around his neck. He even has a little bowtie and a little vest; color-coordinated, of course.
And, combined with the smug looks Oswald keeps shooting at Ed over the kid’s shoulder, the whole picture is hovering somewhere between charming and annoying, eventually landing closer to annoying.
“Martin,” Oswald says, resting one hand on the boy’s shoulder and waving the other towards Ed, the smugness on his face bleeding into his voice. “This is Ed. I’ve told you about him.”
The kid frowns at Ed, far more menacing than such a small child should be capable of, but then again, he does have the Penguin as an influence in his life.
Some part of Ed remembers that one should be nice to children unless incited otherwise, so he forces a smile and says, “Hello, Martin. It’s nice to meet you.”
The kid frowns some more.
“Not a man of many words, is he?” Ed says, directing the words at – towards? isn’t it the same thing…? – at / towards Oswald. “I suppose the notepad makes sense, if that’s the case.”
Oswald shrugs. “He talks in his own way – sometimes with words, sometimes with pictures. Not inherently worse or better than most of us, I think.”
In the time Ed’s eyes have been off the kid, Martin has grabbed said notepad and is furiously scribbling something on it before turning towards Oswald and showing it, pointedly keeping it – whatever it may be – from Ed.
Look at you, a part of Ed’s mind whispers. The big bad Riddler, driven to petulant jealousy by a child. Is this what things have come to? Then again, you’re not the Riddler anymore… so maybe this is perfectly fitting after all.
“Well, yes,” Oswald is saying in response to whatever is on the notepad. “But we have an… agreement now. He helps me, and I help him in return.”
The kid’s brow furrows for a moment before he rips the first page off the pad, crumples – crumbles? No, it should be crumples, right? – it and tucks it in his pocket. He scribbles something on the fresh sheet, something short by the looks of it because he holds it up again soon enough.
And Ed still can’t see what it is.
It is, however, something that makes Oswald smile. “I suppose you could call it that,” he says, looking at the kid like he’s proud. “I’m glad to see you remember our first lesson.”
The kid beams back – almost disgustingly heartwarming – before looking back to Ed. He nods, once, a signal of hesitant approval.
Approval for what, exactly, Ed doesn’t know.
“What did you say?” he asks, realizing for the first time that he’s an awful lot taller than the kid, speaking down to him.
The kid seems to realize it, too, and makes a beeline for Oswald’s ridiculously high-backed desk chair. Before anyone can react, Martin is sitting at the desk, scribbling his reply.
Ed looks to Oswald.
Oswald shrugs.
And he’s… surprisingly nonchalant, is the thing. Relaxed, even, with this little person that is a virtual – virtually a? – stranger to Ed and yet someone Oswald seems to treat far better than any of his actual friends.
Despite the fact he can’t have known the kid for longer than a few weeks at best.
It’s strange.
Almost domestic, even, in a way Ed’s never imagined Oswald was capable of; yet another facet of an impossible puzzle revealed. Part of Ed wonders if he’ll live long enough to manage to get a glimpse at the whole picture, but the thought is vanquished quickly enough when the kid holds up the notepad for Ed to see.
Except he’s a bit too far away, so Ed will have to step closer to get a good look.
Maybe he should’ve gotten Lee to take a look at his glasses when there was time. Maybe he needs a new prescription. Can Lee give out prescriptions for glasses? She isn’t an opt… opto… an eye doctor.
A pointed cough from Oswald’s direction brings him back to the present.
Taking a few steps closer, Ed can see the kid’s drawn a picture of two stick figures shaking hands, the lines steady and sure. One looks a bit like him, taller than the other and wearing glasses, and the other looks a bit like Oswald, shorter and holding a cane in its free hand.
It’s a surprisingly good drawing for a probably-nine-year-old – at least Ed assumes as much, given he’s not exactly a connoisseur of children’s artwork. For all its potential artistic merit, though, the drawing’s meaning eludes him.
“It means we’re conspirators,” Oswald supplies when it’s clear Ed doesn’t know what to make of the picture. Martin nods, taking the notebook back and pulling the sheet of paper off. Then, his small hands crossed on the desk, he watches them silently.
“Okay,” Ed says, unsure how else he’s supposed to respond.
The whole thing seems like a private joke between Oswald and Martin, one that Ed is decidedly excluded from – and it’s not a good feeling.
He refuses to be excluded any longer, and that need to know is achingly familiar, even if it’s not nearly as all-consuming as it’s been before.
However, Oswald seems to notice Ed’s disappointment. “It’s one of the first things I taught him after we dealt with some bullies,” he says, smiling proudly at the kid before turning back to Ed. “I’d say life is easier that way, wouldn’t you?”
He does have a point.
***
Cut to: another sixteen hours later, more or less.
Ed wakes up in a bed that is not his own.
A few seconds later, he remembers where he is; while it wasn’t his bed two days ago, it was his yesterday and it’s his today.
Tomorrow, too, probably, if Oswald doesn’t suddenly change his mind and decide to kill him. But that seems unlikely at best, given that yesterday’s dinner for three at the city’s second most expensive and exclusive restaurant went better than expected.
A lesson in table manners and public behavior, Oswald had said in explanation, but as much as Ed could see, it was just an excuse to spoil the kid a little bit.
So far it seems like he’s raising himself an heir, but… what does Ed know? This strangely friendly side of Oswald is one he doesn’t easily recognize.
Perhaps there’s an ulterior motive he can only guess at.
In any case, it seems Ed himself is a part of it now, for better or worse.
So, he gets up and gets ready for the day, whatever it may entail.
He should really bring up the make-Ed-smart-again part of deal with Oswald, now that he thinks about it – because wasn’t the whole reason he agreed to this the thought that Oswald has funds and resources that Ed himself doesn’t and can thus hasten his return to full health?
He mulls it over while brushing his teeth in the en suite, figures out what he thinks is a pretty good way to word it, and decides to bring it up over breakfast. After he’s done with finding out where his hat is gone, though, because he’d put it on the currently-empty dresser last night but now it’s nowhere to be found.
If he’s being honest, the hat might be the more immediate concern of the two.
So, Ed makes his way to the dining room, intent on addressing the mystery of the missing hat, and finds Oswald and a man he doesn’t recognize already waiting. Oswald looks… he’s not sure, exactly, what that particular expression is, but the other man is trembling with – from? either works, right? – with and from worry.
Whatever their problem is can wait, though – first things first.
“Where’s my hat?” Ed asks the moment he lays eyes on Oswald.
Oswald looks surprised for a split second before smugly raising an eyebrow. “I threw it out.”
If he…
There’s a flash of anger somewhere behind Ed’s ribs. “Excuse me?” he says, crossing his arms. Surely, Oswald didn’t…
“It was an eyesore,” Oswald replies simply. “If you ask me, I did the world a favor.”
“I didn’t ask,” Ed hisses back, feeling the old murderous impulses rising to the surface once more, just like old times. “You had no right to throw it away.”
Oswald smiles sweetly. “Oh, I didn’t throw it away. I threw it in the fireplace.”
Ed holds back a scream.
As it stands right now, there are two courses of action he can take.
Option one: Ed strangles Oswald. Mysterious Man has time to run for help. Either Oswald’s cronies kill Ed or the police will arrest him and take him to prison. Or worse, to Arkham.
Option two: Ed doesn’t do anything. His head explodes from the sheer pressure of suppressed rage.
Neither seems like a good option.
In his anger, he almost doesn’t notice the mysterious man step the slightest bit forward and clear his throat.
“I don’t belong to you,” Ed says, the third man in the room all but forgotten, moving closer to the table Oswald’s sitting at with that insufferably smug expression firmly in place. “And neither do my things. You don’t get to decide–”
Oswald laughs. “And what, pray tell, are you going to do about it, Ed?” he replies, standing up, chin defiantly set, and, somehow, it’s not about the hat anymore.
The mysterious man clears his throat again, getting their attention at last. It’s as if a trance is broken – Ed notices for the first time how close Oswald’s face is to his own and takes a step back, feeling blood rush to the tips of his ears.
“What is it, Mr. Penn?” Oswald asks pointedly, turning to the third man, his voice harsh and cold; somehow, he looks almost disappointed.
“Mr. Cobblepot, sir, the… the newspaper. What do you intend to do about it?” the mysterious man now revealed as the elusive Mr. Penn says, hands shaky as he holds the paper up. It’s The Gotham Enquirer, one of the city’s many tabloid newspapers – one of the bigger ones.
At first, Ed doesn’t even register what’s on the front page.
Then, he sees it.
It’s a semi-blurry photograph of them at dinner, Martin nowhere in sight. And they’re looking at each other with small smiles, as if…
As if…
Oh, crud.
Ed knows what the headline is going to be even before he reads it.
PENGUIN OUT ON ROMANTIC DATE WITH MYSTERY MAN, the headline boasts, a smaller but equally worrisome – worrying? worthy of worry? does it even matter at this point? – MORE ON PAGE 5 tacked to the bottom of the image.
“That’s not my name,” Ed manages to croak out once he’s figured out how to breathe again.
“Is that really your takeaway from this,” Oswald asks, the words flat. “Mr. Penn, if you would…”
The man hands the paper over to Ed and leaves the room quickly and quietly. “I’ll be outside,” he says before closing the door behind him. There’s an audible sigh of relief before the man’s footsteps fade away.
“Did you do this?” Ed asks once the lackey is gone, voice quieter than he would like it to be.
Oswald looks insulted by the very notion. “I’m not one for cheap tricks. As you should know by now.”
“Fair enough,” Ed replies, narrowing his eyes before opening the newspaper to the PAGE 5 that promises the puzzling MORE.
It takes him a few minutes to get through the text – and it’s nothing unusual for a tabloid, mainly wild speculation and stabs in the dark, things he knows are blatant lies. So, that by itself isn’t particularly interesting.
If anything, he’s infuriated by the article (if it can be called that) because none of the buffoons at the tabloid seem to have recognized him, referring to him mainly as mystery man or Penguin’s new beau. Not even a hint in the text that anyone noticed he could be, oh, perhaps the Riddler?
“How did no one recognize me?” Ed mutters to himself, running his eyes over the wall of text again to see if he’s missed something, but there’s not a scrap.
“Never mind that,” Oswald says, grabbing the newspaper out of his hands. “The real question is how we’re going to deal with this,” he continues, holding the newspaper up and away from his body as if the very thing offends him. The Ed and Oswald on the photograph continue their smiling, unaware of what they’ve done.
“It’s just the Enquirer, it’ll blow over in a couple of days as long as we keep a low profile,” Ed says, feeling the thrumming of his heart in his chest quicken. “Right?”
It’s just one ridiculous tabloid paper.
How bad could it get?
The moment Ed thinks that, Oswald’s phone rings.