2014.04.02 - Tenuous Allies

The Batwing swoops in low over Gotham. There are still several hours before the sun comes up and there is no time to rest. Batman ate en route from Genosha, floating as it is somewhere over Europe. Rations but nevertheless enough to keep him from having to return to base for a little while yet. A patrol always helps clear his head.

The canopy pops briefly, ejecting him above Gotham's perpetual cloud-cover and letting him drop deftly towards the rooftops below. He lands, his cape slowing his descent enough to make his landing little more than a slight jarring. His knee throbs momentarily with pain, a reminder of a lucky hit from several nights past.

He pauses. He remembers this rooftop. It happened near here.

It did. It happened just down this way. Edward had parked in a nicer part of town, and pulled on a dingy coat and ditched his derby and cane. The rain was easing up, but he was still wet and chill. At least crime was reduced in the rain-not in even muggers wanted to be out in this. Edward couldn't blame them. He was going trekking down this specific path because he didn't want his car stolen, and because he needed to be in one specific spot.

He turned a corner, and stopped. His breath misted on the air.

"So, Mr. and Mrs. Wayne, I don't believe we've met," he said to the open air. "I'm Edward Nygma, and I'm going to find whose stepping over your graves." He pulled a tape recorder out of his pocket. "March 31st, anniversary of the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne. McHeighs killed in same style, when they had tickets to revival show of "Mask of Zorro". Mabel, when you get into the office in the morning, request all casefiles from GCPD regarding the Wayne murder, and make sure you get the ballistics report as soon as possible. If that gun doesn't match the same type used to kill the Waynes, I'll eat my derby."

He always was a Chatty Cathy.

Batman didn’t come here looking for trouble. There’ll be trouble around, no doubt. Rain or no, there are always the few rats who will brave it for the sake of a quick buck. Tonight was the night. Thirty-five years ago his parents were killed and it’s been thirty-five years since he had any trace of the man who killed them. He remembers him but that is one of the few memories he has that he does not trust. Time and grief have disfigured the perpetrator, making him an amalgam of all the things he has come to hate. The personification of crime.

The voice in the alley draws his attention and he moves to the edge of the roof, crouching as the rain splashes harmlessly off his cape and cowl. His eyes narrow. He recognizes the voice and when he strolls into view he recognizes the face as well. Nygma. On the straight and narrow now but something about seeing a foe here, even a former foe, seems almost ... blasphemous. An unwanted intruder into his memory of his parents.

He clenches his fist, knuckles straightening into a line with a crack as he swoops down onto the fire escape and silently climbs down towards the alleyway.

Sadly, Edward was not a ninja, and his senses were not on after being roused in the middle of the night on a rough day. He continued to talk into his recorder.

"McHeighs possible members of supposedly mythical Court of Owls; ritualistic weapon and masks in long-hidden niche behind the really lovely Pollock that I hope goes up for auction once the estate is handled - look out for that for me, Mabel; look into McHeigh heirs? If it's a single son I'm going to have to make a really unpleasant call to the Wayne manor and the McHeigh family... Strike that going to have to do it anyway."

He paced the space, rain sluicing around his upturned collar, down over his shoulders. "But what does it mean? Why now? Thirty-five years -- cross-reference, number significance? Connection to Owls, families of Gotham? Consider mythological owls, natural owl behavior. Symbols of wisdom, actually dumb as posts. Snow owls are a very rare site this far south, but do occasionally winter here in Jersey. Hmmm. Owls are thieves. They steal other bird's nests."

He smirked, and added, "They hunt bats."

“Nygma.”

There is no shame is not hearing batman’s approach. He doesn’t make a sound, even in the rain. It is only when he wants to be noticed that he finally speaks. By this point he has positioned himself a scant few feet behind the man, close enough that his voice sounds as though it is rumbling menacingly right into his ear.

To his credit, Edward doesn't startle out of his skin-he only coughs once, and then clears his throat. He says, one more thing into the recorder. "Speak of the Devil, Mabel."

Then he emails himself and his secretary the file, and turns to face the shadowy form of the Batman. He pocketed his recorder, but didn't thumb it off. He looked up, wondering in the low-light vision that the Bat was sure to be using brought out the bruising on his throat from the ligature he'd nearly been strangled with half a day before. Doesn't matter. He knows. He's Batman. He always knows.

"Did you get the info on the McHeigh case or do I need to bring you up to speed? After all, you can't be hear about the clown." Ha ha. It's a joke. Have a laugh, Batman.

“The Joker,” Batman begins, stepping forward so that he might loom over Nygma more imposingly, “Everything he said. Everything he told you.”

The marks on the man’s throat do not go unnoticed. He commits a frame capture from his cowl cam to the Batcomputer for immediate analysis. Whatever information can be gleaned from that high resolution image will be his in a few hours.

“Now.”

He's not up to date on the hotel case. He's had some information come through but not enough. Even as he speaks what little information that has made the news is scrolling before his eyes, drawing his own conclusions. He'll examine the scene later ... provided Nygma hasn't trampled the evidence into the dust.

"Oh, come on. Right to the main event - do you show Catwoman this little foreplay, Batman?" Edward drawled; what it masked was that Batman treated him the same that he ever did, when all it would take to unlock the floodgates was the approach of an equal, instead of a school yard bully.

"It was the usual. 'Hi, how you doing Eddie, when are you going to let me in on the caper, what do you mean there's no caper?'" He did a Joker-esque mince to the side, the impression fairly on. "'Well, if there's no cape, it's time to get put down like a dog.' Little bit of a scuffle, you know. He killed one of his own men and I blinded the other, and I fended him off with a chair and a kitchen knife."

He's holding something back. Not even trying to hide that he is. It's for him to know and Batman to riddle out.

"Edward," Batman growls, drawing the man in close until they are practically nose to nose, "I don't have time to play with you. If you've changed. If you're a new, better man then prove it to me. Prove it to me or I will break you down into your component parts and make a puzzle that even you can't solve."

Anger. Misdirected anger. Deep inside the recesses of his mind. Tucked away behind the monolithic shadow of the Bat is a reasonable man. A sane man, some might say. He knows that Edward Nygma doesn't deserve this. He knows he deserves his chance. But Batman is angry. Angry at the nameless man who killed his parents and now, it seems, may have killed again.

"Earn your place, Nygma. Earn it!"

This close, Edward doesn't even have to speak up. It's a private thing, almost intimate, foe to foe, as he says five terrible words: "You don't scare me anymore."

He did once. He was the stuff of nightmares. Still, if Edward's honest, he sometimes is-- but he's more scared of himself; Batman is an echo of that, a symbol of years of madness, of lack of self control. Edward dimly remembers curling in on himself as a cocktail of antipsychotics married to anti-depressants and anxiety medications kept him docile and weak on the floor of a padded room, sobbing to himself, 'I'm not a riddle anymore...' Batman can't scare him. Not like he used to. Not when he can see glimpses of what he was, and know that men like the Joker can push him there faster than Batman ever will.

But he can read it; see theres something here that isn't him under the cowl; the irritant isn't Nygma himself, but something deeper. More primal. He's only adding to the weight on the stress fracture that's healed poorly. He doesn't know what, but he promises, he will fine out. Edward breathes in hard, tries to control his fear, master his own temper.

"Put me down. I'll tell you what you want to know."

Batman, to his credit, does not drop Nygma nor throw him. Instead he lets him down, placing him sternly upon his feet before releasing his collar and taking a step away. His mouth is a grim line and his eyes unreadable behind the opaque whiteness of his eyepieces.

He says nothing. Now is Edward's time to talk.

Smoothing his hands down his chest, Edward was somewhat mollified by the... relative gentility in which he was placed on his feet. Yes, good, this is how you treat an ally; brief tantrum aside.

"He took my refusal and declaration of law abiding citizenship as an affront. He..." Deep breath, Edward, "Pretty sure he's going to attempt to give us a race on seeing who can catch him first. Since I'm the new detective attention. Mystery, laser-shakes, cakes..." he shrugs. "I couldn't follow how he thought in Arkham, and I don't know that anyone can when he's really got a bee in his bonnet."

"You're not chasing him," Batman answers flatly, drawing his cape about himself, "He's a danger. You should know it better than anyone. You should know better than to go chasing him."

You don't understand the Joker. You endure him.

Though he's once again become stoic and nigh-unreadable, there is something about the Bat that seems on-edge and vaguely unsettled. Be it the place or the day or simply the weight on his mind. The digital clock on his HUD ticks past ten thirty and he permits himself a miniscule frown.

"What else?

"Do you really think you'll keep me uninvolved if he wants to play a game with both our lives? He walked into my /house/." There's more violation than he gives voice to; it's hardly the first time someone his past has crawled into his life and then left it a hurtful mess.

"He came looking for the long game. Trying to see what the caper really was. When there was none, it was all murder. "

The bruising is consistent with the pressure from a garotting; two fingers slipped up before it could close entirely, keeping his carotid artery unobstructed -- buying his time and saving his life.

"Scuffling went by, he got his ideas, he failed to kill me a couple of times, and left me with one dead accomplice and one blind one. Dealt with the cops all day."

"Hnh."

Batman nods his head as he listens to Nygma's explanation, added as an addendum to the footage taken of his wounds. Beyond that he says nothing more, letting every drop of information drain from the former Arkhamite and giving none of his own reasoning away.

"A stunning conversationalist, as ever," Edward said, as dry as this rain-wet alley was not.

"Handled the cops, saw a doctor, cleaned blood and cream pie off my kitchen walls, had a glass of wine and went to bed. Early morning phone call, McHeigh case, and...here we are."

He gestured, sketching out a half-bow. "Edward Nygma is a busy be, but then, so are you. What do you know about the Court of Owls, Batman? You're a native Gothamite-- under the grit and gravel there's a hint of the city's perculiar flavor of Jersey, but... it's not quite right, is it?" He smiled, always pleased to show off, to prove himself, again and again. He didn't expect confirmation, but oh, he wanted it. So badly. "Travel abroad, extensive education in language, but you never quite lose the mother tongue, do you? Just like the suburbs of Connecticut lurk around the Gotham Alleyways when I speak. But-- Owls. Before thhe city had Bats, it had Owls."

No confirmation is given. There are always clues as to who exactly the man behind the mask is but he will not make them easy to notice. The accent is there, yes. He’s scrubbed it almost completely out of his voice but nothing short of a lifetime spent in another place and time will change it.

“A fairy tale,” the Bat says dismissively of the Court of Owls, “Probably just some new psycho using it as a gimmick. Wouldn’t be the first time one used a children’s story for theatricality. You’ve met Jervis Tetch.”

"I have had that misfortune," Edward said, lips twisting. "But I don't think it's that. This was-- long term. Ritualistic. Masks and knives. The McHeighs weren't killers... but they were killed, and the were part of something."

He chewed the inside of his cheek-- his fingers flexed, and his eyes cut to the side. "And then there are the Waynes. The turning point for Gotham..." He frowned. "Not looking forward to the call Bruce Wayne, either. But if the ballistics come back with a match, there's no way to avoid it. A copy cat killing, thirty-five years later?"

There's something more to it. He's missing a piece. But he'll find it.

“I’ve investigated the Court of Owls,” Batman admits, finally letting Nygma in on his own investigation, “Multiple times. Nothing ever comes up. They’re purely myth. It’s all dust and superstition left so long that it’s seeped into the City.”

He takes a step back, a hand withdrawing from his cape grasping a small handheld device. It would almost look like a pistol to the uninitiated. But no, the unopened grapnel of blackened metal at the barrel would make its utility clear.

“I’ll pay a visit to Wayne.”

Glancing back over his shoulder, Edward frowned. That dismissed, so easily? For shame, Batman.

"You do that. At least have the courtesy to forward anything you get frmo him to me? If you don't want to be bothered with the Court of Owls killing, I'll happily take the publicity."

No answer finds Edward Nygma.

Where Batman once stood is now only the empty, rain-soaked alley. No flutter of a demon’s wings. No sound of the compressed air launching the grapnel. Just silence.

Only time will tell whether he truly considers this to be an alliance.