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Arkham Asylum is rotten.
Bruce can feel it, he could feel it since the first time he stepped within its cursed walls. He was eight, maybe nine. The walls were streaked with dried blood, grime caked in every crevice, cries echoed in its halls.
He still shudders, now, whenever he takes his first step inside. Even behind the mask.
(He wonders, sometimes, if it can truly help. If the people inside the Asylum know they can never truly get out once they’re locked in.)
(He wonders if he should feel worse about it than he does.)
But the rot spreads, starts deep within the core of Gotham itself. The city never stops decaying, constantly living through a mad dash to crumbling in on itself. He wishes he could say he’s delaying it. Perhaps he is.
(Bruce is not bold enough to say he’s stopping it. He can’t. Not alone, not now.)
But he can do this. If there’s anything he always does, is keep trying.
And so he does.
The loud, deafening buzzer that announces the door’s opening and closing finally ceases, echoing in Bruce’s ears long after its end. He’s been conditioned to it, at this point: it makes him stand taller, more alert, ready for whatever is now in the little room with him. He wonders how the patients have been changed by it, as well. Maybe they resent it, maybe they are intrigued, maybe—and Bruce is inclined to the option, sees it in their tired, overwhelmed eyes—they simply do not care.
Edward Nashton always looks frail. Maybe he could never grow beyond the little boy who got his toes bitten by rats, starving in his filthy bed. He hunches his shoulders forward, curling up in his metal chair, and his hair covers his little glasses. Bruce supposes that was another strength of the Riddler’s—Edward Nashton was no one, so he could become anyone.
“You look tired,” is the first thing Edward says, after over three minutes of sitting in silence. “Long night, beating up all the crazies?”
He says it with a small upward tilt of his lips. Everything he says is meant to bite, to maim. That was the only way he could survive, since young.
His voice never tries to go above a soft, reserved tone—not when he’s like this, not when he doesn’t have the security of a dark green overcoat and mask to transform him into someone else and make him forget his real name. The only time his voice had raised had been that first visit, when Edward’s entire world had crumbled under the force of Bruce’s harsh wake-up call, all beliefs turning to dust with a single pointed push.
Bruce doesn’t answer.
“Granted, I can’t tell much beneath the whole…” Edward brings his shackled hands up, and gestures around his eyes. “…raccoon thing you have there.”
Bruce parts his lips, speaks for the first time. His voice is rough, at this point all but a natural instinct. He doesn’t know if he’s able to soften it. “They tell me you’re not eating much.”
Edward raises an eyebrow in a mockery of curiosity. “They?”
“The wardens,” Bruce clarifies with a grunt. He had specifically requested for no-one to be around during his talks with the patients, something Gordon had to fight tooth and nail for. There’s no looming shadow dressed in uniform behind the other man.
“Ah.” Edward raises his chin in acknowledgment. He inhales, and…
And Bruce can see it, the moment the shift happens: he unfolds his shoulders, his back straightens, his eyes become almost clearer behind his glasses.
(He wonders, briefly, if he could blame it on a medical reason. Call it dissociative identity disorder, or whatever else he can come up with. Not a lonely, angry, bitter man that did it for a reason.)
(A reason that, deep down, makes sense.)
“So you’ve come to be the hero, once more?” Edward raises his wrists again, shows the cuffs—closed too tight. They’re leaving little red imprints on his pale skin, and Bruce wonders how similar they are to rat bites. “I can’t even defend myself. It’d be easy.”
Bruce only shakes his head, bitterness filling his throat.
“Those wardens tell you the best spots to hit as well? The ones that don’t show the bruises?”
“Stop.” Bruce’s tone is still rough. He can’t soften it.
Edward has an edge to his voice, now. He still sounds mocking, each word carefully crafted to cut through ligaments and tendons and muscles with dizzying precision—but his slight smile is tearing at the edges, frayed like the ends of his filthy jumpsuit.
Bruce’s eyes stray towards the clothing, over those secret places one could hide blows. He knows them by heart, after all.
Edward notices, because of course he does. “Ah-ah,” he tuts, “It’s more fun if you don’t know. Schrödinger’s scars.”
Arkham Asylum is rotten.
“Why haven’t you been eating?”
The other immediately drops the subjects when he senses Bruce has stopped responding to it. Edward shrugs, leans back in his chair. “I don’t know. Why haven’t I?”
Bruce tightens his jaw, feels his patience start to bleed out. It always runs worriedly thin. “I don’t have time for this, Nashton.”
The man in front of him breaks into a bitter smile. His eyes twinkle—he is somehow getting what he wants. Even here, even chained up. Bruce doesn’t know exactly what that is, and it puts him on the back foot in a way that makes him stumble. “You don’t, of course.” Edward raises an eyebrow, his voice becomes inquisitive. “Do you have time for much of anything, in this crusade of yours? Or is it all devoted to fruitlessly bashing your fists against Gotham’s underbelly?”
Bruce doesn’t reply. His jaw ticks, that’s all the answer Edward needs. He hums. “Tell me, has it worked? Has it done a single thing, in the two years you’ve been doing it?”
“It’s stopped you.” His answer is cutting. Maybe Gotham’s rot has infected him, as well. Maybe he’s patient zero.
A demented giggle escapes the man in front of him. “Ha! You mean that it stopped the only man who had been doing something concrete for this dead city?” Edward is starting to rant, all the faux politeness and composure crumbling around him. His eyes glisten, a manic edge peeking behind them.
“I was curing it. I was taking out all the infested, sick parts. It was working! We were working—”
“I never worked with you. It was all in your head.” You know this, Bruce wants to say, because he knows the therapists at Arkham had immediately tried to tackle Edward’s obsession with the Batman.
Edward seems to freeze—he stops mid-sentence, inhales sharply, and Bruce sees the composure attempt to slip on again, like an ill-fitting mask. It’s all wrong, Bruce spots the edges of the disgustingly real person beneath peeking through.
“I realized you’re just like them. No—no, you’re worse. You think you’re helping by keeping the cycle alive, when you’re just feeding the rot.”
Bruce almost jolts at the word. He doesn’t like that he and Edward still think the same. He doesn’t want it.
He reminds himself that he is different. Gotham may be infected, but he wants to help it thrive. He doesn’t want to chop off the sick and hack at it until it changes. That’s not what he is. It’s not what Batman is.
Silence hangs between them in the dead air, filling every nook and crevice. It drips down his throat like molasses.
“They tell me you’ve been making friends, too,” is what he replies instead of all that.
Edward raises his eyebrow again at the question, tilts his head at Bruce. Weights how he should reply. “Some. I wouldn’t call them that.”
“The clown? Would you call him that?” His answer is immediate, his words almost hasty.
He feels his spine tingle merely mentioning the clown. He’s one he still hasn’t been able to crack—but there is something off-putting about him, as if Gotham itself resides inside his scarred skin. The poison, the rot, the grime, seem to have found a home beneath the crimson smile.
(He doesn’t like the clown talking to anybody that isn’t him, not when Bruce still has not figured out what exactly lies beyond it all. If maybe there isn’t a beyond, if by pulling the curtain aside he’ll reveal a gaping maw of his own making.)
(But then again, the clown himself never seems truly interested in speaking to anybody but Bruce, so. He knows how to count his blessings, however skin-deep they may be.)
Edward hums, considering the question. He draws it out, his penchant for theatrics making an appearance. He almost wilts like a flower whenever he goes long enough without incorporating thespian influences in his words. “Mh. He’s interesting.”
The “and not many things hold my interest” goes unspoken. Batman was one of those things, once. Perhaps he still is.
“Some of what he says makes sense. Some doesn’t. Most of it is shitty jokes.”
Bruce nods. Edward doesn’t look like he cares about the clown at all; he looks fed-up. Done. He looks—
“That’s why you’re not eating,” Bruce murmurs suddenly. His eyes raise to Edward’s. The man perks up, as if all the previous conversation did not matter at all. In his mind, it probably didn’t.
“Pray tell?” he prompts, straightening up.
“You’re bored. You wanted to see me.”
Edward gives a little smile, a hint of white teeth peeking through. He looks content. He looks predatory. “I hate you. I think you’re what is wrong with Gotham. But you’re interesting.” He leans back in his chair. “You’re the only interesting one.”
And then there’s moments like these, where Bruce thinks he can see it, a reality where Edward will get better, where he’ll walk out of Arkham, the first one to do so in a just way. Where Bruce will be able to help, will keep on getting actual progress by showing up for fifteen minute talks every week that will miraculously do more than they actually can.
Bruce blinks and slowly tilts his head. He’s aiming for accommodating, and hopes it lands true. “I’m here. You got what you wanted.”
Edward hums again. “I did.” Then he looks at the batsuit. “It’s such a shame. We could have been the cure. I can still see it, sometimes.” He sounds almost wistful, and all of Bruce’s hackles raise.
He growls. “I can’t.”
Edward shakes his head. “You’re still blind, like all those others. That’s okay. When the fog lifts from your eyes, I’ll be here.”
This time, the bitterness, the hatred, can’t be kept from Bruce’s voice. He hates Edward, hates what he’s done, hates that he’s afraid he’ll come to understand him someday. “That won’t happen.” He declares decidedly, and it echoes in the room, in the dead air, in his bones.
Edward blinks, taken aback. His throat trembles, but the mask fights not to slip off—it’s all such meaningless performance. “Mh.”
Bruce thinks he can’t save this.
(And maybe, he doesn’t have to.)
But he can try. He can extend a hand.
So he parts his lips. Makes his voice sandpaper-soft, a halfway point that he can manage. “If given one, you’ll have either two or none. What is it?”
Edward’s eyes widen, Bruce sees the spark brighten behind them. He seems to tremble at the riddle presented, at the opportunity for what truly defines him—his mind—to be utilized once more.
Somewhere a million miles away, yet right next door to them, screams echo through the Asylum’s corridors. They’re prayers, hollers, jeers, cries that all blend until they become one, a cacophony of the forgotten and belittled. Bruce always listens to every single word, never allows himself to forget what it sounds like.
Then, after merely a moment, Bruce sees Edward get the answer. A smile is shared between them, and for a small, infinite second, the rot spreads a little slower.