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Edward had never been in love, of fallen in it, or any other varied possibility of the word. He didn't have time for it, in all honesty. Given the environment he grew up in, love could be just as cruel as hatred.
Sure, there were moments of butterflies or whatever cliche feelings he was told to have in all of the books and movies, but he pushed those feelings deep down while they were soft and malleable. As a kid, he soon found that it was easier to drain himself of emotion than to fill up with poison.
There's a new feeling now, though, as he lays with Bruce at his side, the sheets haphazardly strewn about them. He almost thought he was physically ill a few days earlier, only being able to equate the heaviness in his gut being similar to the same stone of nausea.
But the thermometer always read at 98.6 degrees no matter what he did, a fever sweat never breaking on his forehead. His throat remained clear instead of scratchy and his bones remained sure instead of heavy and achy. He was completely fine save for the heavy feeling in his stomach.
It didn't feel like a black hole the way that the pain of his past often felt when it took up his chest, it really didn't, but more like vines growing in time lapse. An ache which seized his heart, filled the spaces between his ribs and organs for extra cushioning, clogged the back of his throat. The feeling was infuriating, one he couldn't escape with antibiotics or an excess of work or even a good meal.
It's just one of the few things Bruce had brought into his life after they started regularly sleeping together. They had fallen into a sort of routine, a haphazard one where Edward showed up time and time again and Bruce always left the door open. A routine where they talked meekly in Bruce's vast bed, about how he was trying to do better, about how he was having to hop through all of these contracts and useless conditions to do any good with his money, how Edward worked tirelessly at his jobs, about anything to feel less alone and more together.
He had dropped prostitution, Bruce had made sure of that as if it wasn't already Edward's plan. The other man seemed at ease with the fact that it wasn't a permanent job of his, relieved that he was his only client. He didn't need to know about the shit he had to do when he was younger; it wouldn't help or change anything.
Bruce pretended to act surprised and shocked when he told him of his only other recent client, the one who robbed him of his breath and tried to squish his life out like a stubborn balloon. He remembers the way Bruce's eyes widened when he saw his bruised face and how he had half a mind to ask what happened to him. Edward understood, he needed to keep disguises up and all that.
What perplexed him is that Bruce didn't ask any questions about Batman when the story came up. If he was a masked vigilante, he'd want to know what a saved victim thought of his services even if it was indirect; he'd want some feedback to know if he was doing any good in this world.
But no, Bruce seemed elusive when it came to any word of Batman. It was almost like he was scared of what others had to say. Maybe Edward was the weird one for assuming he'd want to know every possible opinion on the situation, maybe he was fucked up from being fucked over so consistently as a kid that he now craved approval. But that was neither here nor there.
The heaviness in Edward's gut pangs when he sees the way the morning light stretches across Bruce's bare calf. It'd been two months since this whole arrangement started and Edward was practically itching to ask the multi-millionaire what they were; if he was just a warm body to him or truly a companion in any sort of way.
But the vines taking up Edward's chest, the ones seizing his heart, leap up to the back of his throat every time the thought so much as crosses his mind. So he remains silent after their mornings together, talking in circles and walking on eggshells whenever they wake up.
Edward doesn't believe in god; he wanted to so badly as a kid, too. He wanted to believe there was a supernatural entity that would view the injustices inflicted upon him and then promptly save him. He wanted to believe that escape was possible, that someone out there would kiss his eyelids and tell him it wasn't his fault the same way his mother used to before her untimely death.
But Edward was just a scared kid wanting to be saved, not a believer in Christ. He had found growing up that Catholic churches were often the most cruel despite their divine claims. So through repeated pain and injustice without any sign of being saved any time soon, the idea of god was pried from his desperate fingers which tried to hold so desperately onto the idea.
So no, Edward doesn't believe in god. But when he sees the way the morning light grazes Bruce's angular yet peaceful face as he sleeps as if it was made to fit against it, he sees divinity. He sees a savior, someone who can pull him from all of the shit he's up to his waist in and incite justice on his behalf.
But Bruce Wayne was not a savior; he was barely more than a boy scared shitless on what to do next at all times. Sitting up abruptly with that realization, Edward feels the way the heaviness in his stomach aches just at the sight of Bruce, the vines growing in time lapse again and filling his chest so tightly it feels as if it'll burst.
Believing for a savior as a kid only got him fucked over, so he couldn't start doing it now. He had to be his own god, in a way. Slipping out of Bruce's bed, he slinks off to the bathroom. Anything to put distance between him and Bruce without actually leaving.
Bruce was never more tired than he was after a shower. Once all of the black grease was scrubbed from his eyes and the suds were hosed from his body, all he could do was breathe haphazardly as he stared at the mixture flow down the drain, water forming rivets and pathways on his face to still get in his eyes even with it downturned to avoid the spray.
Life was easier when he was both simultaneously Batman and Bruce Wayne, a Venn diagram intersection of the two. He could attend important meetings and easily slink off to fight crime; both were like breathing to him. But now his breathing was ragged and disconnected.
With Edward now being a somewhat constant fixture in his life, being Bruce and being Batman had become polarizing. Before, he could lounge in the batcave after a full night of fighting crime to journal and recount what all had happened.
But now, he was revving back into his cave just to storm through it to his bathroom, scrubbing the blood and grime away from his night of fighting to return to Edward. He had become nocturnal in his years of being Batman; he had forgotten the need for the daytime. But Edward, the light he managed to be despite the circumstances, reminded Bruce of why most people live in the day, and drew him out of his cave time and time again no matter how tired he was or what logic ruled against it.
With his concerning growing affinity for the man, he couldn't help but feel stricken and torn when he went yet another day with washing away the night before, accepting Edward into his room only then. He wanted to tell the other man about his identity, he truly did, but he couldn't just expose his biggest secret to his first true companion, to his fuck buddy, to his first relationship, whatever you wanted to call it. Bruce wasn't sure what to call it which left uncertainty crawling up his spine more often than not.
All he knew was that Edward was in his room waiting for him at the same time every morning, that he had stopped ordering escorts since their first night together a few months ago, and that the two of them fell into bed together no matter how much they talked or pretended that it wasn't what they were leading to.
And that was enough for Bruce, all he wanted really. But then again, that would be lying.
In reality, Bruce had foolish dreams of having someone he could be completely himself in front of. He felt like he was hiding himself from the world for his whole life, even a section of himself away from Alfred, and he supposed he was desperate for someone to see all of him; he was desperate for someone to understand him and maybe even love him despite it all.
He had resolved that he would just have to die with some thoughts hidden to himself. But dumbly and foolishly, Edward had begun to make him wonder if that resolve wasn't hardened but rather soft and finite.
But then there are moments like now where Bruce is done with a shower, standing alone in the tiled space and just breathing as the water drips off of him, where he realizes that Edward would have to see him like this too if he truly wanted to be seen. He'd have to let the other man see him naked, wet, alone, and tired. He'd have to let him see him beaten to the bone, have to let him see him when his tears and the spray of the shower meld together, have to let him see him in his mask.
And just the thought of that vulnerability hardens Bruce's heart once again. Barriers are there to protect him, not limit him. And he reassured himself of that as he shook the water out of his hair, toweling himself off before heading into his room where he's sure to find the other man waiting for him.
Edward saw it all.
Ever since he stumbled upon the thin files slipped between one another and the encrypted files he was told to stow away in his job as a forensic accountant, he hasn't been able to not see it. It was funny, really, how easy it was to see the big picture if you weren't too scared to. But that's the way the rest of Gotham seemed to be: content to keep their eyes down to avoid seeing the bigger picture. He wasn't surprised, though; he wouldn't want to see all of this shit or confront it if he didn't have to, if anyone else would do something.
He used to reassure himself that at least Batman was doing something, that at least Batman saw all of the shit happening in Gotham and decided that something could be done in the midst of all of this corruption which sagged the ceiling of the city like a waterlogged roof. But now that he knew that the vigilante was just the scared and hurt Bruce Wayne, the man who was too blinded by his riches and self righteousness to recognize the corruption in Gotham, his hope was lost.
Despite their new relationship, Edward felt utterly alone to see how each and every cop was a pawn to some mobster. It didn't really matter whether it was Falcone or Oswald or some outside source; they all commanded and controlled the city the same. He saw how the rich elitists only worked in their own favor, covering up their countless scandals with false news stories and drowning out the lower population's suffering by erecting yet another building to conduct business and oppress them even more.
Along with all of the corrupt things he saw in solitaire from his cramped apartment, he also saw how tired Batman was becoming. Edward had always kept tabs on him; Batman was his dream come true, after all. And knowing what he knows now, he found keeping tabs on Batman served to tell him more about Bruce since the secretive man kept many things hidden behind his scorned eyes.
Even if Bruce was technically the richest man in Gotham, he was just one man, just one vigilante. Edward saw how hard he worked in the day to fix the shit his parents started, and he saw at night how hard he fought to keep the streets of Gotham safe.
But even then with that constant work, he couldn't be everywhere. And even though he was cautiously watching from afar, Edward saw how each and every day weighed him down; how his punches landed heftier as he took more impact from the blows thrown on him. He knows it's been about two years of non-stop fighting for Bruce, and Gotham only seemed to be getting worse.
Like he said, Edward saw it all.
Or at least that's what he thought before he found out Batman's true identity, before he truly saw it all. All of the sudden, the ever-allusive and hermit Bruce Wayne became no longer a mystery or blemish on his schemes because he was in bed with him.
It had been easy to figure all of the other giants of Gotham out; Oz, or the Penguin, was transparent, and even Falcone was easy to figure out once he found out how he was connected to the Waynes before their untimely — or timely, depending on who you asked — death. Although the Waynes died before he could wrap his head around the deep corruption of Gotham, even their paper trail was pretty easy to follow with how they were wrapped up with the Arkhams.
But now he was in a relationship with the man he oh-so detested for the better part of his life; he had an unlimited well of information about Bruce now, the only thing holding him back was if he was willing to dredge up yet another bucket of what was in the multi-millionaire's well of a mind.
Even with their intimacies and secret-sharing, he still felt miles apart from the man he was becoming rapidly acquainted with. Edward so badly wanted to see Bruce, too; he didn't want to be alluded by him no matter what the news was.
Just like when he first explored his room months ago, Bruce still seemed blank, as if he was chipping himself away to build up a fence between them to keep Edward out. It hadn't been long, but he found himself wanting to scale that barrier, to get in Bruce's face and yell, "What's wrong with you? Why won't you let me help you?" But Edward remained silent, observing both Batman and Bruce as separate entities which interwove to become the man in front of him. If Bruce was going to keep secrets, so was he.
As the weeks passed, Edward waited with a growing impatience for Bruce to fix Gotham. Yes, he knew he couldn't fix it all, but Edward found his resentment growing day after day as Bruce seemed to sit on his pile of money up in his tower, perfectly content to let the lower lives run around like rats on the floor.
Obviously he knew that Bruce was trying his hardest to help Gotham with his money, sat with him as he stressed over the various intricate contracts and agreements he had to work though in order to actually access his fortune. Part of what's taking so long is that Bruce is trying to ensure what happened to the Renewal Fund will never happen to the money he's soon to put forth to the community.
But even with Edward somehow changing the mind of the most affluent man in the city, it still didn't feel like enough. There was a void in his chest, one that ran deep and couldn't be satiated by anything after years of abuse, years of starving, years of believing that him being equivalent to trash in everyone else's eyes was his own fault.
But it wasn't his fault, and it wasn't a situation where he could just reassure himself that the universe sucks, that everyone is handed different shitty cards which can't be helped. Because his situation could have been helped; his childhood was robbed from him and ruined by the greedy few who took from the Renewal Project, the ones that kept the city scattering to appease them in hopes of survival.
Helping those to come of what he couldn't have been saved from helped, yes, but stomping out those which robbed Edward of his own life was the only thing which could satiate the black hole in him swallowing everything up in hopes that something will cancel it out, in hopes that some justice will be served.
If he was younger, he would probably naively hope that the police would do the right thing; that they would lock away corrupt moguls like Falcone and the mayor. That justice was a thing which could be carried out lawfully.
But he was older now, and he could see how dumb and foolish those hopes truly were. All of the cops worked for the ones with the money, the ones with connections, the ones puppeteering the city's elite.
Edward knew that Bruce would never understand even with all of the changes he's made recently; he works with Officer Gordon after all. From what he could tell, Gordon wasn't corrupt, not yet at least. He hadn't ever seemed to attend the infamous club or be tied to the sticky web of Gotham in any way. He was still a pig though, so Edward didn't buy his story for a second. Batman's — Bruce's — blind trust in the cop told Edward all he needed to know about whether Bruce would understand his need for justice, true justice.
In some ways, Edward wished that he didn't see it all. If not the complete corruption of Gotham, then at least Bruce's terror or Batman's cluelessness. He remembers the wonder and amazement he was first filled with when Batman became a figure, remembers laughing in astonishment when the signal was first erected and could make out the bat symbol illuminated in the sky. Batman was accepted as a hero in at least some sense by the city. He knew the criminals were scared shitless of him by now. It's what gave him hope; maybe when he finally debuted what he'd been collecting knowledge of for so long, people would be on his side too.
But that hope had died in his throat the night he was in that alleyway and slowed his steps with the weight of the realization that Bruce Wayne was Batman. Maybe it'd be better if he was blissfully ignorant, if he didn't ever put sickening dots together. But he did, so now he's alone to salvage some vengeance in the midst of all of this shit.
The plan he had before all of the recent insane events, the plan which spurred him to book Bruce in the first place, was now complete. The only hole in his plot had been Bruce Wayne with how elusive and ambiguous he was in his plans, but now since he could fill that part in with elites he actually understood, it was complete. He knew what he had to do to make Gotham right again, to fill the void in his chest with something as equally awful and justified to cancel it out.
He was going to kill the mayor.
Bruce usually didn't happen upon crime scenes as Batman; although he's somewhat ashamed to admit it, he's usually the one who causes them, albeit to deserving criminals. But ever since Officer Gordon took interest in him, he's gained more and more leeway into Gotham's police system. He can ignore the snide remarks and incredulous looks as he steps into the scene: it's a given part of being a masked vigilante.
Out of all of the crime scenes he expected his signal to summon him to, he didn't expect it to be the murder of the mayor. Not just any murder, but a horrific assassination complete with bludgeoning, missing apparatuses, and lots of duct tape. Cryptic messages are littered along the walls and over the mayor's own body, along with a letter addressed to him as well.
Bruce is pretty immune to brutal scenes given his background and the fact that he's been Batman for two years now, can stomach some pretty gruesome scenes and all that. But seeing the small bloody footprint on the scene and making eye contact with the mayor's young son on his way out almost causes him to lose his lunch.
Despite the scene having relatively no similarities to when his parents were murdered, looking at the victim's son takes him straight back to how terrified he was that night in the alleyway, splattered with his parents' own blood and cowering in the corner. He wants to reach out, to give a word or two of comfort, to give the boy anything that would have helped him way back then, but people are staring.
And then he remembers: he's not the scared little boy he was then, he's not even Bruce Wayne right now; he's Batman. The same Batman that apparently has an actual letter addressed to him from the killer.
So he pulls away and resigns to himself yet again, getting a good look at the note so he could analyze the encryptions later. The boy still had his mother; he already was a leg up from where Bruce was. And with that, he pushes all thoughts of the boy out of his mind and back onto the case.
All he could do now was be vengeance to get justice on whoever continued the evils in the world. It's all he could ever do. Bruce wondered for one weak moment on his way home, his own personal letter from the killer and a small bloody footprint imprinted on the backs of his eyelids, if it'd ever be enough.
"Have you seen the news?" Edward manages to make himself ask as the two of them lay in silence. He knows he should let Bruce rest; he just had a long night of fighting off crime after all. But he wanted to know.
"Seen what? I've been busy all night," Bruce supplies to the air. Great, so he doesn't know what happened. He knows that he addressed a message to Batman, but he assumed that it'd take a day or two for it to reach him since the police aren't too keen on working with a nameless vigilante.
Regardless, now he'll be able to gage Bruce's reaction to the news. He props himself up on his elbows and turns to the other man.
"The mayor's dead," Edward says almost like it's a fun piece of hot gossip, as if he wasn't the one beating his head in hours ago.
Bruce's eyebrows go up, but not comically so. "Is he? Did he have a medical condition?" Bruce asks with a puzzled look. Edward finds it oddly endearing that the man still doesn't assume the worst of the world given his past.
"No, he was murdered," Edward says with a sigh, falling back onto the bed since he's already gotten Bruce's initial reaction.
"Do they know who did it?" he asks quickly after, causing Edward to pause his actions for a moment. The question seemed like an odd one to lead with, as if he already knew the killer wasn't caught.
"No, the news has just barely aired but it's everywhere. From what I've seen, they're already calling the killer different names, but none seem to be sticking." Edward has half a mind to act sorrowed by all of the news he's retailing to Bruce although he knows that the mayor got what he deserved. The sorry fucking bastard didn't even get time to plead for forgiveness.
"How old is his son?" Bruce breaks the silence by suddenly asking. Edward feels his blood freeze a bit.
"I'm not sure, around 8 or 10?" he guesses.
"God, poor kid," Bruce says with something behind his voice.
Of course Bruce would be thinking of the child left behind in the mess of all of this: he was in his same shoes years ago. Edward felt dumb for not putting that together sooner. Although his perspective softens Edward's heart for a moment, he can't help but wonder if the multi-millionaire only ever felt compassion for the affluent.
Edward never stayed past 12 in the afternoon for long, if even at all. Every afternoon Bruce would beg for him to stay, not outright but with his clenched jaw and unwavering stare and lingering touches. Despite his lack of words, he always wanted Edward to stay.
Although there wasn't a resounding answer as to why he felt this way, he supposed that it was to fill an aching absence of permanence which has followed him into his adulthood on his heels. Sure, when he was back from the night Edward was just as he always was in his room, pleasantly waiting for him no matter what conversations he planned on unfolding later on. He could even pretend sometimes that Edward had never left, that he was always waiting and doting on him like an actual partner, that what they were wasn't left to second guess or question.
But Edward had to leave every afternoon for one job or another. He had rejected all of the money Bruce had tried to offer him to keep him from overworking himself, which made no sense to him since he seemed so angry when Bruce would hoard his wealth. Regardless, he seemed resigned to leaving day after day, reminding Bruce with every shut door that what they had wasn't permanent; an arrangement if anything.
The emptiness seemed to follow him. The only time he didn't feel his loneliness thick in his throat, making it hard to breathe, was when he was with Edward.
So when the other man eventually left him day after day and Bruce couldn't fall back into sleep anymore, he busied himself in his study with Gotham city maps, floor plans of important structures, following the news and what possible crimes could be happening. And that's where Alfred finds him, pouring over his footage of the mayor's crime scene through his contact lenses and going through newspaper archives as if it'll save him from loneliness.
Because Bruce could already tell that a killer this undetected, this motivated and particular, would kill again. It was almost like a promise with the encryptions and the "thumb drive" he and Gordon had found later on. He was just hoping that this hadn't been the killer's first, that there was at least traces of his crime in the past so there could be more to root them out, but his research was having no luck of finding anything.
"Master Wayne, could we speak for a moment?" Alfred asks suddenly, breaking Bruce's train of thought and startling him minutely from pouring over the video. Looking at it from an outsider's perspective, the scene of him hunched over the footage of a dead man seemed pretty gruesome.
"We're speaking right now," Bruce placates with an admitted snark, shutting his journal closed with a sharp snap.
"Very well, sir," Alfred adheres hesitantly. "It's about your... friend."
"What about him?" Bruce asks probably too hastily, defense edging the lines of his voice.
"Well, the staff and I were wondering how permanent of a fixture he's going to be," Alfred adjourns almost delicately. Bruce hated how it sounded like the other man was walking on eggshells around him, although it's probably his fault as to why he treated him like a child given his easy outbursts.
Without turning to Alfred, Bruce jerkily slides his journal into a shelf where he keeps them, his back taut as he feels his butler's eyes on him.
"Why does that concern you?" his voice creaks out evenly, his back still hunched as he remains turned away from Alfred.
"For starters, Master Wayne, it'd let us know what accommodations to make for him. If he ever needs his laundry done, if extra towels should be kept in your bathroom, how regularly we should change the sheets, if we should start cooking an extra meal for dinner. Matters in that vein," Alfred explains systematically, his hand landing in the other for emphasis being audible.
Bruce turns around once he's done talking, leaning back onto the counter behind him and squinting at Alfred.
"You're going to... accommodate him?" Bruce asks skeptically. He had been expecting a slap on the wrist for having a man over constantly, a stern lecture, or at least some repercussions for being so reckless.
Alfred sighs at his response, rubbing at his eyes before grabbing a nearby chair and sitting in it to level with him.
"What were you expecting, Master Wayne? A good talking to? A proper scolding?" he asks hypothetically, his eyebrows shooting up. "You're an adult; you can choose to do whatever you please. After all, I'm more pleased with this arrangement than the previous one."
"You're not-" Bruce cuts himself off abruptly, uneasy from the heat in his voice and wanting to refrain. "You're not mad at me?" he asks more gently.
Alfred scoffs. "I've been mad at you many times, Master Wayne, believe me. I don't know if you remember your mischievous phase as a child, but I definitely do. I would get mad then, yes, but that is not how I feel now," he reassures with a smile in his voice. He creases his brow as he thinks for a moment before continuing. "From what I can make of it, sir, it sounds like you're mad at yourself," he admits with an ease in his shoulders.
"Mad at myself? That doesn't make any sense," Bruce quickly shrugs off with a chuckle, shaking his head and pushing away from the counter to get back to work.
"You were expecting a scolding for one reason or another, yes? But I'm not the one who's delivering it. Whatever you expected me to address is what you're most likely upset about," Alfred reasons despite Bruce trying to put distance between them. He feels his fists clench, his digging fingernails reminding him of where he was.
"Don't just- don’t play dumb, Alfred," Bruce grits out, still not turning to face the other man.
"Play dumb about what?" he asks back innocently, but Bruce knows he's holding back, knows from the way he always looks at him when he thinks he doesn’t notice.
"I can see right through you. I know you're mad at me no matter how much you pretend you aren't. I mean, aren't you mad at me for tainting the Wayne family name?" Bruce practically yells across the space between them, quickly turning around and gesturing his hands towards himself.
Alfred's eyebrows furrow. "What do you possibly mean by that, Master Wayne?"
"I mean that I see the way you look at me! With so much- so much, just, apprehension and- and disdain. You think I'm a horrible kid, just the absolute worst offspring imaginable. You see me waste my money on whores and expensive equipment so I can go play hero while you- what? Wait around for me to cast you off when you try to do your job?" Bruce stumbles to say, breathing raggedly. His face feels wet although he doesn't remember when he started crying.
"When you look at me," Bruce continues in lieu of Alfred's silence, "you see the worst possible outcome of my parents and wonder how the hell such amazing people made such an awful kid. You wonder why you dedicated the better part of your life raising such an awful fucking person."
Alfred has tears tracking down his face now too as he keeps his eyes trained on Bruce throughout his whole monologue. Once he finishes, Alfred merely shakes his head weakly.
"Only one of us have ever had such thoughts, Master Wayne, and it isn't me," is all he supplies, wiping a tear from his face as he talks.
Tears had been flowing down Bruce's face at one point or another, and with those words, the room becomes hard to see as his eyes fill with more. Trying to keep his mouth shut, Bruce let's out a choked sob.
By the time he blinks the tears out of his eyes, Alfred is in front of him, apprehensive and dismayed. He most likely was upset to see what a shell Bruce had become of who he was as a kid.
But Bruce is tired of his mind constantly screaming at him how he could be doing better, how his parents could have solved this by now, how he should be spending every waking moment trying to solve this murder, how he should talk to Edward — truly talk to him. And he just wanted a rest from that.
He wraps his arms around Alfred and tucks his face into his neck, craning his head down into the crook as the other man readily accepts him into his hold. As he began to cry, he realized that he should have talked to Alfred long before he ever broke down in front of Edward all those months ago.
"Why do you still wear this?" Bruce mused quietly as he slotted his fingers to hold onto the edge of a worn-down jacket on Edward, practically tattered and useless as it hung from his slumped shoulders. "You know I'll buy you anything you want."
And that was the thing: everything he was saying was true. Ever since Edward and Bruce had started their tentative and albeit clumsy-at-times relationship, Bruce had made it abundantly clear that Edward's every need and want could be met as long as he uttered the command.
It really didn't matter; Edward knew Bruce's words now were just precursors to taking his jacket off, but he couldn't stop from spiraling. That kind of power was terrifying in of itself, the power of having everything he could ever want at his fingertips, but the terror it caused in such a poorly raised orphan like Edward was nearly fatal.
So there was that life-altering terror that gripped him whenever he imagined having his hunger satiated by someone else; he was so sure there was a condition — a terms of service fine print he had just barely missed — which would leave him eternally indebted. But along with that, Edward had a philosophy.
When a criminal can get away with either hijacking or robbing a nice car, one that has an appealing color sparkling beneath a fresh wax along with an impressive engine and low milage, versus a junk car, the criminal is most likely to go for the nice car.
Humans are made up of greed from their first moments on earth, making grabby hands which proclaim mine, mine, mine to everything in sight; the shinier the better. And nothing is more compelling than something you can't have, something you couldn't get access to in your own power. So sure, the junk car might be a safer bet, but there's nothing in it worth the hassle if it's a car the criminal can probably already purchase.
So why dress up, why wear nice jewelry and watches, why set himself up just to be knocked down like a meticulously set up line of dominoes? Present yourself as junk, as something not worthwhile, and you avoid the trouble of the world. That was Edward's philosophy, and it was proven when he was never robbed or harassed until he made something of himself, until he actually had things to take.
So he just shakes his head and lets out a small chuckle at Bruce's inquisition. He would never understand. On top of being unfathomably rich and always hidden away in his tower, Bruce was also strong and well trained to protect himself in case a mugging ever did occur. Nothing would ever have to be pried from his hands, so he didn't need to change himself for his safety; he already had so much of it.
"Comfort clothes, I suppose," Edward answers simply with a small smile. He wanted to tell Bruce more, to explain everything he just thought, but it's just like he said: Bruce would never understand. It would be like explaining the color red to a blind man.
Edward wants to make others understand, though. He wants to pry the good things from the elite's hands that are soft and accustomed to leisure, that have profited off of his and everyone else’s misery. He had already killed the mayor and was garnering support from the corners of the Gotham from what he could tell of the databases he was keeping watch of.
Next, he needed to kill the police commissioner. Slowly, he will pry the feeling of comfort finger by finger from the elite. Soon, they'll all be scared shitless, and for good reason. Those with secrets will know what he's up to, will know that they're next. Soon, Edward will have this town on his knees the same way it'd had him on his knees for his entire life. He knew that'd be the only thing to fill the persistent void in his gut.
Bruce would never know what having something pried from him felt like, but Edward was okay with that. He was good, which was more than what he could say about most of the rich. He feels his chest ache once again just looking at him.
Bruce lets out a thoughtful "hmm" at his response before pulling Edward into him for a kiss and inversely into the bed. Yeah, explaining the way the evils of Gotham had infected and affected every decision Edward made and the way he'd make them all pay didn't seem like good foreplay anyway.
Bruce felt like he was going to be sick. For some reason, he had convinced himself that another murder wouldn't happen despite the clear signs pointing to how motivated the killer was. He thought that the more encryptions he solved, the more leads he followed, that he'd be able to solve it before another victim died.
But Commissioner Savage is dead now, all thanks to his slow pursuit of the case. He knew he could have been doing more, could have slipped out of the bed from Edward and investigated the mystery girl the mayor was spotted with, could have interrogated the notorious mobster Oswald and figured out what politicians were patrons at his club, but no.
He nudged away those urgent matters to rather savor the moments he spent with Edward in bed, clinging onto him and hoping that the facade of their relationship would ward away all of his troubles. So yes, he feels sick coming home from investigating the commissioner's corpse and receiving yet another message from the killer who had likened himself as the Riddler.
The letters were probably the worst part of showing up to the crime scenes. The killer almost seemed to know him, seemed to have drawn a familiar camaraderie between them out of thin air. And Bruce didn't want any part of it.
The Riddler had released a video to the news as well, one where he exhibited erratic behavior and strange speaking patterns while he showcased how he had Commissioner Savage in his captivity. This murder was similar to the other, with Savage bludgeoned to death, but there were mazes littered about his room. Bruce couldn't make any sense of it, but he knows he should study them until he could. He needed to in order to get some sort of lead from this murder.
And with all of this calamity, his bed where he's sure to find Edward between the sheets calls to him.
He spends a bit more time decompressing in his cave than usual, writing down about his night and his feelings while surveying the clues, running the new encryptions through his databases. He'll return to Edward, but he needed to feel like he had some sort of leg up in the midst of all of this death first.
"You've been busy," Edward comments when Bruce finally walks into his own room, the other man having his back turned to him to look out the window.
Bruce makes a noise of confirmation but nothing more, not having the energy to explain himself or come up with some excuse. Maybe things would be easier if he just told Edward about what he really did in the night, but there was so much to lose in comparison of what he'd gain. He could never come back from his identity spilled from an escort he had taken in repeatedly and stopped paying in hopes of establishing trust. It was the worst possible outcome, but it was still one.
"Thought you were leaving me high and dry," Edward muses with a small smile, turning to meet his face. Bruce tries to match it.
"Never," he answers resolutely before drawing closer, both of them losing their clothes seemingly with every passing step.
Their relationship almost felt instinctual at times, at least when they were sleeping with one another. Very few words or dialogue preceded falling into bed, both desperate to get what they wanted from the other, to share intimate time somehow in a chaotic city like Gotham that demanded for both of their constant attention.
The trouble of their relationship came after the sex, when they were both shallowly breathing and staring at the ceiling, knowing surely thousands of things to say yet returning to the same safe conversations. How both Bruce and Edward needed to stop overworking themselves, what Bruce could be doing at the moment to improve Gotham, how they both ended up the way they did.
Bruce had difficulty expressing just how much he enjoyed these moments with Edward no matter the trouble it brought, maybe even more so than the sex. He thought that isolating himself was the easiest option his whole life, but talking with the other man revealed to him just how much he was hurting himself by remaining behind the steel doors of Wayne Enterprises.
He knew Edward still kept some things to himself, and maybe he understood it more than anyone else could. Despite that, they still found time to talk about their pasts, how dumb they were as kids, how tragic their childhoods had been in their own ways, what they could have possibly learned from such hard lessons.
Bruce could hardly stomach to hear some of the things Edward had to go through at the orphanage. He already planned to have a new one resurrected close to Wayne Enterprises, one that would have many rules and precautions to avoid every possible thing that happened to Edward. He wasn't sure if it was the right thing to think from his place of privilege, but he's glad that the old orphanage burned down years ago.
"Seen the news?" is all Edward supplies to the hazy air around them after they’re done. Bruce closes his eyes for a moment, seeing Savage's corpse behind his lids before opening them again.
"Hard not to," he answers, turning his body a bit to get more comfortable.
"A lot of higher-ups are dropping like flies. I used to always think they were untouchable," Edward seems to think aloud, his hands tracing the sheets and pulling at them to straighten them out.
"They probably thought the same," Bruce replies, almost shuddering to think of how at ease most of the politicians he meets with are, how at ease the people of power often are. This was a cruel wake-up call to them, to him, that a rich man can be tortured and killed just like any other man.
"There seems to be some support for the Riddler," Edward offers as another conversation piece.
"He's a unique and determined killer. Bold to send a video of himself with his latest victim to the news. People love rallying behind bold and determined leaders," Bruce says as he tries to assess the situation logically. He'd lose his lunch if he thought about people rallying behind a murderer for the sake of murder alone, especially how murder has effected his life so much.
"Helps that it was the mayor and Savage, too," Edward tacks on.
"What do you mean by that?" Bruce asks, perplexed from what Edward was inferencing.
"He had a lot of enemies along with the mayor. Maybe they had it coming," Edward says almost passingly, throwing his hand up as he talked, both of them facing the ceiling rather than one another.
"They were good men. Men with families," Bruce counters with grit, frustrated by Edward's frivolousness.
"Good men?" Edward asks suddenly, sitting up and facing Bruce with a questioning look on his face. "The same mayor that was seen with that mystery woman?"
"Murder is not the answer to a cheating man," Bruce replies, refusing to back down as he leverages himself up a bit on his elbows in the bed to face Edward.
"Not the answer to a corrupt cop?" Edward inquired as if he already knows the answer.
"No," Bruce answers resolutely. He doesn't like how this conversation has turned; he always knew that his and Edward's opinions would differ over divisive topics such as this one. But nonetheless, he knew he needed to stand his ground.
"What if they liked hurting little boys, huh?" Edward asks with a new heat in his voice, taking Bruce completely off guard with the sudden shift in the conversation.
"What does that have to do with-"
"What if they liked sleeping with young boys? Ones they knew were too young to be sleeping with but doing it anyway because they're offering, right? So what's the harm in that?" Edward continues, digging in with every line as his eyes begin to shine with wetness.
"Edward, I don't understand what-"
"Do they still not deserve death then, Bruce? Even if they hurt me? What then?" Edward practically yells, his eyes fierce and full of tears. Bruce is too stunned to speak, his tongue feeling swollen and his stomach dropping at what Edward's implying. With a reddening face, Edward turns away as he sits up fully.
"I didn't have to sleep with many elite when I was younger, just enough to be able to escape that fucking orphanage. And I guess it was my fault, you know, for registering my name on the list when I knew I was too young for it. But how else could I have gotten out of that hellhole?" Edward asks solemnly, his voice seeming thick as if he was holding back tears. Bruce felt like his own skin was clawing at him as he stared at the other man's back.
"H-How young were you?" Bruce hears himself asking, horrified to know but determined to find out.
"I had just turned 16," he admits with a slump to his shoulders.
"God, Ed," Bruce hears slip out of his own lips, completely crushed by this new information. "I-I know there's nothing I can say to help anything. I know that, but I'm sorry Edward. I'm so sorry," Bruce manages to say, his voice sounding thick now as he tries to keep it together. He doesn't even want to imagine what Edward looked like then, how he must have felt.
"In my few weeks of working as an escort then, I learned that many of the respected people in this town are not what they seem. You should take the same sentiment from me, or else you'll have to learn it the hard way," Edward replies standoffishly, turning his head a bit to Bruce as he talked but still keeping his back to him. Bruce's heart ached as he realized how closed-in on himself the man seemed.
He wanted to reach out, wanted to say more than he knows how to articulate, but instead he lets Edward slink off to the shower. The other man needed his space, and frankly, Bruce did too. He was given a lot to think about.
Bruce has weakened Edward; he had always known this would happen. But Edward had convinced himself that working from the inside wouldn't do such a thing. All he needed to do was convince Bruce to be a better person with his money in order to spare him, and if sleeping with him regularly helped establish that, then fine.
The first sign of weakness was when he went back on his plans for Commissioner Savage. He still killed the man, of course, he wasn't completely forfeiting his careful plan. But he didn't have hungry rats eat away at his face, didn't livestream his death, didn't torture or mangle any part of his body. He merely bludgeoned him, left the message he had always meant to send, and left. Despite the years of torture he went through as a kid almost directly at the hands of these men, Edward couldn't even manage to torture them a few moments before death.
It was because of the fucking aching in his chest, he just knew it. The gap in his chest aches all of the time now, but his guilt increases tenfold because of it now when he does anything he knows Bruce wouldn't approve of. It's dumb, he knows, but maybe he should consider it fair since he's caused so many changes in Bruce's personal life.
Besides, it was a tactical plan all-in-all. His merciful deaths would only incline Bruce to join his forces once he revealed himself as the Riddler to him. He had been planning on working with Batman for his deaths the whole time, yes, but now that he knew both Bruce and Batman, he could orchestrate things more carefully with a bit more caution.
He had taken extra precautions to make sure Bruce wouldn't recognize him, such as changing into his old wire-rimmed glasses when in his Riddler gear or editing his voice an unnecessary amount so no similarities could be drawn between them. He was still radicalizing Bruce, and depending on how long that would take, he couldn't risk him figuring out the surprise beforehand.
But he feels as if all of those precautions were unnecessary now that he knows how Bruce feels about the Riddler: he admires him. Not only that, but it sounds as if he admired him the same way Edward used to admire Batman. He called him bold and determined, said how he understood the following he garnered.
It felt like he was on top of the world when he said that, getting confirmation that the man who made his chest ache felt the same for him. Despite their few arguments and misunderstandings, Bruce understood. He had to understand him.
The approval has caused him to spur his plans a bit faster than he had scheduled, sitting in the back of the DA's car now as he waited for him. Bruce would admire him even more, see just how merciful he was when he didn't immediately kill this man. Not only that, but he'd give him a chance to save himself.
The mayor's funeral is tomorrow, and Edward is planning on making a grand entrance, at least by association since he can't be there in person. Depending on how he plays his cards, he might get to see the way Bruce's face reacts to him without his mask covering the better part of his face, without his mouth set in a determined line.
Edward felt his obsessive tendencies creeping on in moments like this, ones where he's sat in the back of someone else's car and fantasizing about how Bruce will react to his grand plan. He could blame it on the aching in his chest of course, the one that swelled with the mention of his name and pulsed when he spoke to him.
But in all honestly, he knew it was because he saw Bruce himself as a puzzle to crack. The man was an enigma to him, stubborn yet willing to change his ways in a matter of weeks after one conversation. He perplexed him, had a complexity to him that many people didn't have, much less the boring elite.
He wanted to know why Bruce's room was so bare, why his penthouse was so sparsely staffed, why he felt compassion for seemingly everyone, how the idea of Batman ever even occurred to him, how he even dealt with being a vigilante. There's so many questions he has for the man, so many inquiries brimming his problem-solving brain, yet he speculates in silence, gaining more and more to this logic problem as things slot into place. It was exhilarating.
So despite his unhealthy obsession beginning to form for his former hirer, Edward remained enraptured by him, waiting for each and every word or reaction to figure him out, to spur him on, to open up new questions or provide answers.
The only thing that breaks his train of thought is the DA finally getting into his car, sighing and adjusting his seat as if he was afraid. Channeling his giddiness, Edward proceeds with his plans. He couldn't wait for what Bruce would think.
Before he can psych himself out of it, Bruce walks into his room without removing his camera contact lenses. He's not sure why he's keeping them on if he's being entirely honest, but he can't help but feel like something is off with Edward. Maybe he wanted to watch and analyze him to see if he could figure out what's wrong; solve him like a riddle.
It's dumb, but Bruce needed to busy himself with something other than the Riddler case. He couldn't stop thinking about the screams of the people at the mayor's funeral as a car rapidly drove through the crowds, couldn't forget the fearful expression on the mayor's son's face when he should have been mourning peacefully, couldn't forget how small the boy felt in his arms as he protected him from the speeding car.
So yeah, maybe being able to analyze Edward's behavior after their interaction this morning would help him from overthinking the Riddler case.
His mind still looped back to it, however, for a reason he's begrudging to admit. During what was easily the worst FaceTime call of his life, Bruce got to speak directly to the killer for once. He was as awful as he was in his videos, yes, but there was something about the interaction that made it ring with an eerie familiarity. Bruce couldn't put his finger on it, so here he was now, gathering footage of Edward and hoping to god that he didn't notice the contacts.
"Are you okay?" Edward asks from across the room, concern coating his face from the perch he always took on the edge of the bed. This was odd; usually they slept together first and talked afterwards.
"What do you mean?" Bruce counter-asks almost reflexively, blinking a bit more than usual as he tries to study Edward's face for any recognition of his plan.
"I mean exactly what I said. You were just almost murdered at a funeral, yeah? I'm guessing that might have shaken even you up a little bit," Edward says with a crease in his brow, his voice sounding sympathetic to Bruce now. He's too on edge for this, scared he’s gonna get found out every other second.
"Oh- oh yeah. I'm fine. Just glad I could save the mayor's son and all," Bruce admits while shaking his head as if the near-death experience was an afterthought.
"You always have to be heroic, huh?" Edward teases with a smile, sitting on his hands as he leans back.
"I feel like that's the first heroic thing I've ever done," Bruce fails to match his playful energy as his eyes become downcast, feeling unworthy of praise after getting the DA killed.
"Come sit beside me," Edward says after a moment, patting the space next to him with a thoughtful look on his face. Bruce feels hesitation weigh him down to a stop, uneasy from this turn of events rather than their regular schedule of sleeping with one another.
"What? Do I look like I bite?" Edward asks in lieu of his lack of response. Without another word, Bruce walks over and sits beside him.
Edward slings a tentative arm around him as he leans in a bit. "I know that you feel like some evil corporate mogul locked away in your tower, I know; that's even how I used to feel about you. But Bruce, you're doing good in this world whether Gotham knows about it or not. And that's heroic," Edward says with a surprisingly earnest quality to his voice, as if he'd been thinking this for a while. "I don't think you give yourself enough credit with all that you've done in the past few months."
"Feels like I've done nothing but laze around," he admits quietly, thinking of all of the time he spent with Edward rather than going out there to try to find the killer, to try to solve the case.
Edward let's out a small laugh at his response. "Why? Because you've spent time with me? You just can't spend all of your time in some stuffy office and expect that to suddenly fix everything, Bruce."
"I could be doing more," Bruce mutters, keeping his eyes down. He can't tell if he'd unable match Edward's gaze because he's afraid of him seeing his contacts or if he's afraid of being seen all the way through.
"See? There's that heroic part of you talking again," Edward says almost fondly. "Sure, everyone could be doing more, but there becomes a point to where doing more does less for the world, you know what I mean? Like with burnout and all of that stuff," he explains as he takes Bruce's hand into his gently. Bruce feels doubly guilty for having a form of surveillance on him now, documenting such a tender moment.
"Yeah, okay, you're right," Bruce admits after a moment, blinking rapidly before finally meeting Edward's gaze.
Edward smiles in turn. "I'm right?" he asks teasingly, the serious demeanor of the interaction falling away easily.
"Yeah, yeah, you always seem to be," Bruce says as a small smile breaks over his face, finally matching Edward's lighthearted energy. He can push away all of the shit of today away for a moment with Edward.
"That's what I like to hear," Edward jokes back, both of them now taking their clothes off and getting into bed like they’re used to.
Usually Bruce goes to sleep after having sex with Edward, the exhaustion from that and being Batman giving him a restful sleep, but tonight he's stuck staring at the ceiling. Edward's gentle breaths are landing on his right shoulder rhythmically which is usually enough to put him to sleep, but Bruce is too wracked with guilt to even be allured by that.
Edward checked in on him, reassured him, supported him, and what did Bruce do? He recorded their interaction without the other man's knowledge for no fucking reason.
The guilt is enough to cause him to slink out of bed no matter how comfortable it was and pad off back into his cave only in a pair of black shorts. Although Edward had seen him without his clothes a great deal of times now, he'd never asked about his scars, a question Bruce was almost sure to come someday. He rubs the crook of his neck, the lightning pattern of a shallow scar grazing his fingers when he does so.
Immediately upon entering, Bruce pinches the contacts out of his eyes, setting them up on their stands where he usually views the feedback. The footage from earlier tonight immediately starts playing, and Bruce makes haste to skip to where his interaction Edward starts, working to wipe the footage from the memory card quickly.
It takes a bit of navigating to figure out how to isolate the interaction in order to only wipe that portion, but Bruce has got it sorted out quickly enough. Right as his hand is hovering over the "delete" button, however, an uncanny sound stops him. It's the sound of Edward laughing from their conversation before.
Bruce had tried to keep the volume down to keep his guilt at a low as he worked to redeem himself, but Edward's laugh was so recognizable to him even if almost muted. It was so... familiar.
Before Bruce even knows what he's doing, he isolates the clip of Edward laughing and copies it, saving it to the side before deleting the rest of the interaction. Rewinding the memory card of the contact lenses in the fastest setting, Bruce waits until he's greeted with the image of the mayor's funeral.
He lets the feed play no matter how hard it is to see the DA terrified and attached to a bomb, needing to see something. In the video, he picks up the call and talks to the Riddler.
The killer's voice is heavily distorted, but Bruce isolates a sound clip of him and starts putting it through multiple correctional sound deciphers he has, reducing the bass and raising the pitch decibel by decibel.
He remains hunched over this desk as he works meticulously over evening out the audio, all until he has a human-sounding laugh clip. Hesitating only a moment due to dread, Bruce finally plays the clip he just corrected and the one he isolated from Edward at the same time.
He nearly falls over, only staggers back a bit, when the laughs sound almost identical. Was this why he felt compelled to keep his contacts on tonight? Because he thought the Riddler sounded like Edward?
It didn't make any sense. Surely Bruce didn't correct the audio the right way, just pitched it to sound like Edward because that's what he was seeking to do subconsciously. Edward wasn't a cruel murderer, was just a scared and scorned man.
Then again, that's all Bruce was, and he brutally beat and sought out criminals in the night without anyone else's knowledge. But still, it didn't make any sense.
But then again, it did. The Riddler's erratic behavior reminded Bruce of the way Edward acted when Batman had saved his life that one night, the other man smiling through the blood and crowding him giddily. Riddler needed glasses like Edward, laughed like him. And Edward had more than enough motivation to kill these people, which he had also just found out. Bruce wasn't with him when these murders occurred either, only talked about them afterwards with him. Edward constantly bringing up the killings to him seemed odd as well now that he thought back on it.
Despite it all, none of those coincidences were concrete evidence. And for that, Bruce would try to suspend disbelief as much as he could. How could Edward, the sweet and kind Edward he had become acquainted with and slept with over these past few months, be a murderer? It wasn't possible, not to Bruce.
He quickly saved the audio clips into a folder before closing the computer, not being able to take the situation unfolding before him anymore. He needed to actually work on the case, not theorize that his partner was the killer all along. It was something as silly as a plot point from a crappy horror movie.
After a few frustrating minutes of reviewing the evidence he had, however, Bruce realized that Edward was his only lead besides storming the club and apprehending Falcone after a devastating voicemail was released from an anonymous source of the mystery woman dying, the one who was spotted with the mayor. And he already knew the police had that covered, Gordon had told him so.
So after a few moments of deliberating, Bruce decided that there wouldn't be any harm in keeping tabs on Edward, following him to make sure he was going to his jobs like he said just to clear his name. The sooner he could rid his conscious of Edward possibly being a murderer, the sooner he could actually continue with his investigation of the Riddler.
Even with his doubts, Bruce knew that he had to be at peace with the fact that Edward might be a murderer, knew that he had to react accordingly if everything went to shit. It was just a part of his job, after all. In the off chance that his suspicions were true, he promised himself that he'd turn off his feelings and do what would be needed to put an end to Riddler's crimes. Even with that thought, he shook his head at himself almost incredulously.
Following Edward would be a major waste of time admittedly, but Bruce failed to think of anything more productive to do in the meantime. Even if it was creepy, he disillusioned himself to think of it as a sort of protective service for Edward. This way he could make sure he was safe and also not involved at all.
So, he set up a plan to keep track of Edward for the time being, begrudgingly hoping that it would all be for nothing, not knowing what he'd do if it wasn't.
Factoring Bruce Wayne out of his plan left a gap in his plans, one that Edward was happy to fill. There were many elite that he wanted to take down with him, but he only had so much time for isolated attacks until Falcone was going to be brought into the light, only so much time before the rigged bombs would detonate the sea walls of the city.
So now Edward had time to serve justice to the original owners of the decrepit orphanage he was raised in. Sure, they had retired a while ago when the building burnt down and made off with all of the money they could manage. But that didn't matter Edward: they still needed to pay.
The entire plan was falling into place. At the crime scene, he would place his last message to Batman before camping out in his motel room to snipe Falcone, who was going to be arrested tomorrow once the police got the right warrants. At least, that's what he could garner from tapping into the police radio stations. Then he'd be arrested as planned and put into the safe custody of Arkham Asylum while the city flooded and smashed to smithereens, Bruce following him there of course because Batman was on his side, his partner in crime even.
He can't help but think about how perfect his plans were as he packs a small bag filled with his jacket, gloves, mask, carpet scraper, cling wrap, his old glasses, and all else that was needed. The void in his chest, the one that's been there ever since he's been dealt with shit his whole life, was finally going to be fulfilled soon. Soon, everyone would pay for what happened to him; he'd become vengeance.
Edward opens his door while zipping up his backpack since he's ready to be on his way, which is why he nearly falls in shock when he sees Bruce in the doorway after opening the door. He drops his bag to the ground involuntarily as his stomach drops down to his feet as well, his mouth going dry as the other man just stands there.
"B-Bruce! What are you doing here?" Edward says after a moment despite his shock, springing into action and attempting to narrow his door opening since his room is littered with his plans of his future and previous murders. He knew Bruce was on his side, but he hadn't planned for the reveal happen this way.
"Thought I'd come and visit your place for once, see how you were doing," he answers casually enough while leaning on the doorframe, keeping Edward from inching the door closed.
"Give a guy a warning," Edward attempts to joke as he leans on the door with him. "You know, I wish I had time, but I was just about to go to work," he explains, trying to sound saddened by the news as he grabbed his bag from the ground. As good as it was that Bruce was on his side, he still needed to complete this murder on his own. The reveal could happen later.
"Oh, have you picked up a fourth job?" Bruce asks with a tilt to his head, his face inquisitive yet unsettlingly unreadable to Edward.
"...No? Why do you ask that?" he responds uneasily, completely bewildered by this situation. How did Bruce even find his apartment? Sure, he probably had all of the information of the entire town, but it was still unsettling for him to just show up without so much of a word or a warning. That wasn’t like Bruce; Batman maybe, but not Bruce.
"Because I know for a fact that you've already been to your three jobs today," Bruce answers, his face blank as he stares down Edward. He feels like he's going to be sick, like this is some kind of prank. Why would Bruce be keeping tabs on him?
"Wh-what? You've been stalking me?" Edward asks in disbelief. In his moment of shock, Bruce pushes open the door, his eyes widening at what he's met with. Edward stumbles back, his bag swinging in his hands before Bruce rips it out of them.
He empties it, seeing all of the materials he packed fall to the ground as well as the murder weapon. Bruce remains hard to read aside from his glistening eyes as he quietly shuts the door behind him. Edward's eyes scramble to take in everything about the scene, not being able to tell what exactly is happening. Despite the untimely reveal, he still felt giddy for Bruce to put together that the vigilante he admired and his lover were the same person.
"So- so that's it then? You're the Riddler? You've been murdering people between seeing me and, what? You thought that was alright?" Bruce asks, his booming voice thick with tears suddenly. Edward is so confused from the whiplash of expecting a positive response, feels as if he was just ejected from a car during a crash and left to have his face scraped away onto the asphalt road.
"You- wait, you don't love it?" Edward asks after a moment as he gestures to his room, shattered at this response. "You don't love me?" He was so sure that Bruce saw all of him in one way or another and still loved all of him. How could that not be?
"What are you even asking?" Bruce counters, confused and enraged all the same. Edward feels an anger take over him as well at this response, not being able to understand anything right now. How could Bruce not understand him after everything he's done for them? Was he dumb?
"You! You adored the Riddler! You said he was bold and determined, you understood why people rallied behind him. And you cared for me. I thought that was clear," Edward explains to the other man, not understanding this turn of events at all. Bruce had loved both parts of him even if he didn't know how they intersected, surely he had. Why was he changing all of the sudden? Was this what betrayal felt like, true, cold-blooded betrayal?
"Adored the Riddler? How sick in the head do you have to be to see my disgust and see it as adoration?" Bruce starts crowding in on him, causing Edward to cower back. "How fucking sick do you have to be to murder people and still think I love you?"
Still. That means Bruce loved him at one point, he must have. Edward knows that's not what he should be thinking about right now, but he can’t think straight.
"I spared you! I could have had you and Alfred and whoever else works in your sad, giant penthouse blown to bits, but no! I saved you from the inside because I knew you were good, because I knew you supported my cause, because I cared for you," Edward explains to Bruce, seeing now that he doesn't understand how idiotic he is. Can't he see that he had his life in his hands this whole time and still spared him? The only way to stop believing for god was to become one, and that's what Edward did. Why couldn’t Bruce see that?
"Well, maybe you should have killed me. Maybe my money would have been put to better use," Bruce admits with a quiet heat in his voice, his face darkening with the shadows across it.
"Maybe I should have," is all Edward can manage to say, tears flowing down his face although he doesn't remember when that started. He aches so badly, the vines which take up his chest wrapping around all of his bones and rendering him frozen.
"The police will be arriving here soon. I alerted them when I found out what was going on with you. It wasn't hard to put it together after..." Bruce trails off, leaving Edward looking at him frantically.
"After what?" he implores.
"After comparing evidence," is all he supplies.
"Comparing evidence? What, did you have surveillance on me or some shit like that?" he asks incredulously, expecting Bruce to deny this. His stomach drops once again when Bruce doesn't answer him.
"Was this all a game to you? Sleep with the poor person until you found out what was wrong with him? Stalked and manipulated me until I fell into your trap?" Edward persists, trying not to lose his confidence as he feels more tears fall down his face.
"I could say the same thing. Sleep with the rich guy and suck him dry of his money to use for your evil schemes? Have a look on the inside for all of your fucked up murder plans?" Bruce counters, tears still not falling out of his eyes yet.
"You know that I didn't take any money from you besides those medical bill payments," Edward says darkly, not being able to withstand being accused of such awful things wrongfully.
"And why didn't you?" Bruce asks loudly all of the sudden, his arms flying with his exasperation.
"Why didn't I what?" Edward can't follow this messy argument.
"Why didn't you take me all for what I was worth? That’s what everyone else does. You swear that you're so stuck in poverty, and then when I offer a hand to help you out of it, you slap it away and insist on working three jobs, insist on killing people rather than just doing better on your own," Bruce lists off to him angrily, almost pacing as he points this all out to Edward.
"Because it's bullshit!" he yells back. "Sure, you'll give me money now, but that just makes me reliant on you. Money just makes me worth stealing from in this world because I'm weak and can't protect it. And even if that didn't happen, what would I do when you got bored of me? When you casted me off to take in another escort to spend your money on and shower in your attention?"
"Our relationship wasn't like that to me," Bruce counters. "And money and human lives are completely different."
”And what was our relationship to you?” Edward counters, his jaw setting at Bruce’s lack of response. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
"You don't get it," Edward continues on in the silence, pressing an accusatory finger into Bruce's chest. "I thought out of everyone, you would understand with your parents and all, but no. There's a- I don't know what it is, but just an emptiness in my chest after all of those years of being abused and tossed aside and forgotten, and it takes up my whole fucking chest. And sure, I can throw money and sex and love on top of it as if it'll cover it up, but I'm still so empty after all of that falls away. And the only thing that can get that void out of me is vengeance," Edward reasons the best he can through his tears, feeling his mind unravel as his obsession around Bruce shatters into fragments.
"There's gotta be a better way, Ed. You know that," Bruce says solemnly, not knowing how to combat the shit Edward's said.
”Oh yeah?” Edward asks almost with a laugh in his voice. “I’d be happy to hear one.” He’s not surprised at the silence that follows his statement no matter how much he wishes he was.
"The police are gonna be here any minute now,” Bruce says quietly after a lengthy pause between them.
"And you're gonna let me go," Edward says after taking a deep breath, his voice changing all of the sudden as he lets his panicked demeanor fall away. He had to be strong now, had to be smarter than the rich man that’s still making his chest hurt so fucking much.
"No, I won't," Bruce answers back almost regretfully, his head shaking seemingly involuntarily as he regards Edward with horror and resignation. Fine, so that's how it'll be.
"You have to. Unless, of course, you want your little secret to be spilled, which would be quite unfortunate. Right, Batman?" Edward grits out through his tears, taking in Bruce's white-shocked face and taking it as the upper hand.
"Wh-what are you talking about?" Bruce asks, trying to seem confused and nonchalant despite his visibly shaky hands.
"Please, I had figured it out months ago. Maybe I wouldn't have been able to put it together if you and Batman both didn't treat prostitutes so horribly," Edward explains, leaning against his table and away from Bruce's lax grasp.
"I don't-"
"You know what's funny?" Edward cuts him off with a rhetorical question, a faint smile tracing his face as he looks off in the distance. "Batman's why I did this all in the first place."
"What do you mean?" Bruce asks after a second, seeming too intrigued to keep up his charade.
"I mean I used to be resigned to my fate of being the casted-aside orphan until a masked vigilante started showing up and showed me that anyone could demand for justice, could be vengeance. Because we both knew that the police would do fuck-all about the actual crime within Gotham. Because they're all corrupt one way or another," Edward explains.
"Batman helps people. You kill them," is all Bruce supplies to the empty air between them, his voice sounding bitter.
"I think you mean Batman beats the shit out of petty criminals while I carry out the justice the elite would otherwise never have faced because this city's fucked," Edward corrects after a moment.
Bruce walks up to him and tries to start apprehending him, pinning his arms behind his back. "You have to be locked up. You’re a murderer," he says almost to himself, tears clear in his eyes.
"Bruce, I know you're terrified of letting anyone know you," Edward implores, swinging from left field in hopes of taking the other man off-guard. "I mean, it's clear by your room. But I've seen you with and without the mask; I understand you. And I'm not afraid to say that I loved you even then," he lets his words sink in to the other man, his lip wobbling and tears starting to fall down his face.
"If you ever loved me, if even at all, you'll let me go,” he continues in Bruce’s moment of weakness. “I won't tell people about the months we spent together, I won't tell them about how you're Batman, I won't do shit, but you have to let me go, Bruce. If you love me, you won't send me to rot in Arkham Asylum," Edward pleads, going slack in Bruce's hold to leave the choice up to him.
Bruce's hold tightens for a moment as he hears sniffling behind him, and then finally his hands are being released. Edward stares down at his hands for a moment, clenching and unclenching them.
"Go now, the police are here," Bruce says solemnly. Edward could practically hear his walls going back up. "Don’t ever talk to me again. And don't make me regret this."
Before Edward knows what he's doing, he leans in and presses a kiss to Bruce's lips which surprisingly accept him and return the gesture. It only lasts for a moment, but Edward knows he's going to be thinking about it for eternity as the empty space in his chest fills with an ache so sure that it almost feels as if he'll burns.
And then it made sense to him suddenly, the heaviness in his gut. The constant aching which swelled and quelled with Bruce's presence was love, and it was always that no matter how much he wanted deny it. Although the feeling wasn't akin to the movies’ version of love, it was clear even in the way the aching vines seized his heart and clogged his throat when talking to Bruce. He only knows it now because kissing him felt like the vines snapping his heart in half rather than just squeezing the organ. Funny how things worked like that, figuring shit out right when it's over.
"Regret that instead," Edward almost whispers before pausing for a moment, taking in Bruce's tear-tracked face or the soft way the light hit the right side of his body. Grabbing his bag, Edward somehow breaks away from the magnetic space next to Bruce and slips out of his window without another thought or glance back at the other man.
He can hear glass breaking and doors smashing open once he's a block or two down, and the sound makes him cringe. He knew from the beginning that he shouldn't have seen a savior in Bruce; no one could save him from the pit that was Gotham.
Yet it was Gotham that accepted him with open arms as he slinked into its darkness seeking refuge, already plotting his revenge and Bruce's ultimate demise for a later date. For now, though, he needed to drown out the ache and void in his chest, both which have teamed up to make Edward feel the worst he ever has.