Archive of Our Own ^beta

Barbara straightens her necklace in the mirror and sighs.

She had been hesitant to ask Edward about this, really. It’s not like they haven’t been working together already, in their own way; but sitting around analyzing case files and making phone calls in her living room is one thing. This is something entirely different.

The thing is:

She’d thought about this for a while, and put it aside, and then had to pick it up again or she was going to miss her only chance for a lead. She’d thought about going alone, but it was too stupid a risk. She’d thought about asking Bruce to come with her, but - well, one, Bruce Wayne is way too high-profile to be able to go somewhere like this without the mask, and two - she knows how he works, and he means well, but really it just would have been him on the case, and then she’d have done nothing.

Maybe it’s petty, maybe it’s unreasonable, but she wants to do this on her own terms. Maybe just to prove that she can.

So she had asked Edward. Figuring, well, best case scenario, he’d say no; worst case scenario, he’d rat her out to the guy she was trying to investigate, and she’d be twenty steps back but just maybe with something she could really prove this time.

It hadn’t prepared her for the actual worst-case scenario, which was that he had said yes. Very enthusiastically. He seemed to think it would be great fun, which where the Riddler was concerned only ever meant bad things for Barbara Gordon.

But she couldn’t exactly take it back - and anyway, she trusts him just enough by now to know that it is safer than going alone.

Probably.

The doorbell rings. Barbara is only partially surprised by this - half the time Edward just forgoes the stairs and comes up the fire escape, knocking on her window to be let in (until she had just given up and started leaving it unlocked; which logically she knew was a god-awful idea, but Edward could be nothing if not annoying when he wanted to be); but given the particular outing they’re headed for, she has to assume he wouldn’t want to risk the state of his outfit.

She glances in the mirror one final time at her own clothing - just gold jewelry and a plain purple dress, aimed at as much practicality as possible: it has a slit in the side high enough to allow freedom of movement but low enough to hide the bike shorts she has on under it, and her heels, while not optimal, are the lowest ones she could reasonably get away with - and then goes to the door and presses the downstairs buzzer to let Edward in.

She waits until he’s in front of the door to open it, more out of latent paranoia than any real caution; but even the glance she took through the peephole couldn’t really have prepared her for what he’s wearing.

It’s not like she hasn’t seen the outfit before. In fact, most people in Gotham have, if they’ve ever looked at the news any time over the past six years or so. But seeing it in person is really... something else. It spikes a sense of vague surreality in Barbara that only intensifies when he steps over the threshold into her ordinary cramped apartment.

She’s not entirely sure what Edward’s suit is made out of. Satin, maybe, or something similar, garishly lime green and shimmering slightly in the overhead lights. His hat is of a matching color, though it’s not the same style as the one he used to have. She still remembers his pictures in the case files as if they were her own: the first one was hardened and round, darker green, a bowler hat; this one is wider, lighter, and the brim is much less stiff. It has a tendency to flop over and obscure one or the other of his eyes at times when he tilts his head in the right way, which she thinks he probably enjoys. His golden question-mark cane is the same as ever, though god knows where he got it back from, as she doubts it could be replicated easily; and the whole thing is set off unnervingly well with a purple button-up (covered in pale little question marks, because of course it is) and a strange little yellow bowtie.

To add even more insult to injury the whole thing is styled like something straight out of the seventies, complete with flared legs and sleeves that puff out at the wrists. Barbara is honestly kind of impressed at his dedication to the sheer gaudiness of it - there’s even a little question-mark-shaped pin offset in the band of his hat.

She sighs. “You do know the meaning of the word undercover, Eddie?”

“Oh, ye of little faith, Detective.” Edward grins. “Where we’re going? They’ll recognize me with or without this little number. I’m just making things more interesting. Besides - if they all suspect I’m planning something…”

“...They’ll pay less attention to me. Right.” Barbara squints. “And you’re not.” It’s not a question.

“Barbara,” Edward replies, in a tone that she thinks might pass as placating if not for the layer of cat-who-got-the-cream he can never quite get out of his voice, “You don’t think I know better by now than to step on your toes? You do hold the metaphorical keys to my freedom, remember?”

Barbara’s brow furrows. It’s not like he’s wrong, but the notion of her holding that over him sits uneasily with her. “Come on, Eddie. I wouldn’t rat you out to Arkham unless you started seriously hurting people. That was what we agreed on.”

There’s not very much credence to it, anyway. She’s half-sure he has the resources to get away whenever he likes. She doesn’t pretend to know exactly why he keeps in contact with her, but it lets her keep a well-intentioned eye on him, so she’s not exactly complaining. (Besides, as much as she hates to admit it, he is, well, engaging, in his own way. She really doesn’t mind his company nearly as much as she used to.)

Edward shrugs casually. “So you say.”

Barbara decides to let that one go for now. “So,” she says instead, gesturing to her outfit, “What do you think? Do I look the part?”

Edward squints at her appraisingly. “You look… like a socialite. Which is not a compliment, but is exactly how you need to look for this to work. So good job.”

“Thanks,” Barbara says dryly.

She grabs her things - stuffed into a clutch purse, so she won’t have to leave them at the door - and together they go back down the stairs and get in her car. Edward wedges his cane between his knee and the car door as Barbara pulls out of the parking spot.

“So,” Edward says, almost as soon as they’re on the road (and really she should be commending him for waiting that long), “Give me the rundown one last time. I want to hear it from the top - who are we looking for?”

“I,” Barbara replies, “am looking for a guy named Roland Fox. He used to be an assistant to the old mayor - Wilson Klass? If I can prove beyond a doubt that he’s a business contact - or a contact at all - of pretty much anyone at this place, it’ll open up a whole can of worms for a few very important people. This party isn’t his, but it’s being hosted in the same building he works in, so I’m thinking there might be some kind of dirt on him I can get to. And you are my backup,” she adds pointedly.

“Hm, Got it, got it,” Edward says absently. “Roland Fox… the name does ring a bell, now that I think about it. Sooo. What kind of proof, then? Files? Forms? Footage?” He gives her a sideways look. “You got a camera in that purse?”

Barbara sighs, tapping the steering wheel. “Only the one on my phone. I couldn’t find one discreet enough - and besides, I needed the extra space.”

“For?”

“The tazer.”

Edward grins. “You think it’s gonna be that kind of party?”

“Pays to be prepared, Eddie.”

Edward shrugs, conceding the point.

The rest of the ride passes easily. Barbara finds a place to park about a block away and they walk towards the building together - an office space, really, but with ample room for events, and ornate enough architecture to pass as somewhere much fancier.

“Barbara, wait, before we go in,” Edward says. “You do have a cover story, right? Please tell me you have a cover story.”

“Yes, I have a cover story, Eddie.” Barbara says long-sufferingly. “Believe it or not, I’m not actually new at this. I - “

Before she can go on, her eyes drift to the entrance they’re approaching, where a tall woman with dark hair is ascending the steps up to the door. Barbara stops walking abruptly.

“What?” Edward says, and follows her gaze to the door and back. “Who is that? Someone you know? But not someone you want to see - oh, Barbara, not an ex of yours?”

“What? No,” Barbara snaps, momentarily distracted from the cold sinking feeling in her chest by the sheer absurdity of his guess. “That - uh.” She clears her throat. “That was… my cover.”

“Really? Who is she?” Edward asks curiously.

“Her name’s Anna Burnham. I don’t know her personally, but she’s a lawyer - used to be in with the GCPD. I had a source on her being absent tonight, so I was going to tell them I was her niece, who she had invited as a favor because I was interested in local politics.”

Edward laughs suddenly, and Barbara has to repress the immature urge to punch him in the arm. “That was your entire plan?”

“Listen, if she hadn’t - “ Barbara starts, her face heating. She didn’t think it had really been that faulty of a plan on paper - honestly, between Edward’s experience in the field, his ever-increasingly, esoterically convoluted ideas of what is considered a ‘good plan’, and his blatant affinity for getting under her skin, she’s inclined to believe he’s saying it in part just to work her up.

“No, no, really, I understand,” Edward says, waving her off, which is somehow more insulting than if he had continued to let her justify herself. “So you were posing as the absentee’s relative, but if she’s here after all - “

“ - She’ll call me out in a second,” Barbara finishes for him. “So I’m back at square one. ...Shit.”

“Hm,” Edward says lightly, tapping his chin, “Well, that is a conundrum, isn’t it.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Barbara turns to squint at him.

“You’ve got something, don’t you.”

“Maybe I do, Detective,” he replies with a mischievous grin, and nudges her shoulder with his cane to prompt her into walking again.

He moves a step or two ahead of her on the stairs, a silent indication to let him do the talking first. Somewhat warily, she complies.

“Hey, look who it is,” the man at the door, broad-shouldered and tuxedoed, says as they reach the top of the steps. “What is it they’re callin’ you these days, anyway? The puzzle prince?” The man laughs a bit unkindly. “Shouldn’t you be busy putting Batman in a hamster wheel or something?”

“I really think I’d come up with something more inventive than that, don’t you? A hamster wheel would be such a boring trap for our dear Dark Knight - of course he’d punch his way out of an empty box, but where’s the mystery! The intrigue! You know, I think I’d do much better with that old decrepit fun-maze down by the docks - “

“Alright, alright, enough, I get it,” says the door-man irritatedly. “So what brings you here? Wasn’t exactly on the guest list. I didn’t know you were in with some of these folks.”

“‘In’ is purely a matter of circumstance, I find,” Edward says lightly, “I’m in with everyone. Some of them just don’t know it yet. And I’m just popping in tonight for the sake of some… business connections. Well, mostly. I’m sure you won’t mind if me and - “ he puts a hand on Barbara’s shoulder, drawing the door-man’s attention to her, and after the barest hesitation - “ - my lovely companion join you for the evening.”

The man gives Barbara a passing once-over and whistles. “Brought a date, huh? Didn’t think you were into girls.”

“Well, we all have our surprises,” Edward says mildly. “May we come in, then?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Go on,” The door-man shrugs. “Someone gets fed up with the word games and kicks you back out, though, I ain’t lettin’ you in a second time.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll behave,” Edward tells him, and they step towards the doorway -

“Hang on a minute,” the door-man says abruptly. Barbara nearly walks into Edward’s back before she remembers to stop, her heart pounding in her chest, and she looks back at him as casually as she can.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before? On… on TV or something. You ain’t a reporter, are you?

“Oh, no,” Barbara says in a sweet voice, trying to channel as much harmless-ditz into her expression as possible (which is not that much - she’s never had a talent for playing dumb), “I - I just have one of those faces, y’know? I get stuff like that all the time.”

“Really? Well, my bad, sweetheart,” the door-man says, laughing slightly. “You have a nice night, though.”

“You too,” Barbara responds, forcing a giggle, and tries not to hurry after Edward as they finally (finally) step inside.

The warm inside air is a stark contrast from the prior chill. As soon as they’re through the entranceway, Barbara grabs Edward by the arm, pulling him down to her level.

“Ow - hey!” Edward protests.

“Lovely companion?” Barbara hisses at him indignantly. Out of all of the possible covers he could have come up with, and he chose - that? “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about getting us inside, Barbara,” Edward says back. "Come on, don’t tell me it wasn’t a clever idea. You’ve got the perfect cover! All you have to do now,” a note of amusement creeps into his voice, “is let me take over the spotlight, and pretend I’ve hopelessly charmed you to anyone who asks.”

“I think you’re underestimating how difficult that will be,” Barbara tells him flatly.

“You wound me, Barbara Gordon,” Edward starts, but Barbara shushes him.

“Maybe don’t say my real name in here, Eddie?” She hisses.

“Then what?”

“Well - I was going to tell them my name was Elizabeth. Just use that.”

“Elizabeth… What, then? Nygma?”

Barbara reels slightly. “Are we married?”

Edward shrugs indifferently.

“We are not married,” Barbara tells him.

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to make something up, then. Hopefully not Burnham.” Edward tips his hat to her with a grin. “I need to go make some rounds for appearance’s sake. Try to enjoy yourself… darling.”

Barbara lets him saunter away, looking a bit sourly after him. She really should have suspected that he might pull something like… well, not like this - she doesn’t think she could have predicted whatever is going on right now - but. Something.

Well. Maybe she should have predicted this. He certainly loves the attention enough to engineer a situation where she - or anyone - has to pretend to be enamored by him.

The thought crosses her mind briefly that Edward has a more personal motive for this particular line of action - that is to say, he has some kind of crush on her. But, somehow, the idea seems absurd. And for that matter, it seems vaguely torturous to have to spend the whole evening pretending it were real, if he really did like her. (For another matter, she’s seen how he acts around Bruce. If he felt the same way for her, she thinks she might know by now.)

Barbara knows herself well enough to be very sure that she really isn’t attracted to Edward, not like that, anyway. Romance has never really been... her thing.

But -

- Well. The notion that there’s a but attached to any of those statements is enough for her to decide that she is very plainly too busy right now to deal with it.

She needs to find a drink. Nothing too strong, obviously, she is working; but strong enough to keep her sane.

-------

Barbara Gordon, Edward thinks, is taking this whole affair (ha!) far more seriously than she should.

Edward has a lot of thoughts about Barbara Gordon in general - yet more than he has about most things, which from what he’s gathered about normal thought processes in people who aren’t him would bring it up from ‘too many’ to ‘astoundingly too many’. Certainly more than he’d like to be having. Thankfully, he has an elaborate series of handy-dandy boxes in his brain specifically for the purpose of shoving unwanted thoughts into, which he often puts to good use.

The topic at hand, though. Edward talks his way around the room as pleasantly as he ever does, which is surprisingly much, he thinks, given the very small percentage of people in the room who would ever honestly choose to talk to him out of anything other than polite manners or business engagements.

He’s far from an idiot. He knows most people don’t like him; but it’s his business and generally his pleasure to act like they do, even if he’s long since been smart enough to discount the possibility of it becoming a reality.

Edward is excellent at memorizing rules: it makes him a very good test-taker, a very good socialite, and, more importantly, a very bad socialite, when he wants to be. He has a particular talent (if he does say so himself) for stretching Gotham’s polite society to its limits without quite breaking it; and tonight, at a lack of any goal of his own more significant than routine information-gathering, he is enjoying himself.

Eventually, though, he has to put a pin in his wanderings and return to poor Barbara. She’s making nice to some DA office assistant with a white-knuckle grip on her champagne glass, and he slips up to her side exactly as unobtrusively as he means to - and as one possibly can while wearing an outfit as loud as his; which is to say not in the slightest.

“O-oh! Mr. Nygma!” The assistant says with a shrill laugh. “We were just talking about you!”

“Were you, now!” Edward says, delighted. He puts a hand on Barbara’s back in a way that he’s banking on coming across as casually familiar. “Dare I ask what mi amor was saying about me in my absence?”

Barbara looks up at him with a fake smile. “Just that I was - uh - charmed! By. Your charisma. You know, when we met.”

“Ooh, I’m sure that’s a story,” The assistant says. “How did you two meet?”

“Well,” Edward begins abruptly, “I was feeling rather peckish one day, and I thought to myself, 'a little fermented curd will do the trick', so, I curtailed my riddling activities, sallied forth, and promptly infiltrated a place of commerce to negotiate the vending of some cheesy comestibles.”

“What?” says the assistant.

“I went to buy some cheese,” says Edward.

“Oh,” says the assistant. “And… and that’s where you met her?”

“Well - “

“Yes! And it was very romantic,” Barbara says hurriedly. “Edward, a minute? Excuse us, please, sorry.”

She pulls him away from the bemused assistant and into a lesser-populated corner, looking thoroughly unamused.

“First of - actually, first of all: Monty Python? Seriously?”

Edward shrugs noncommittally. It had been the first thing to pop into his mind. It’s not his fault she doesn’t appreciate the fickle art of stringing hapless bystanders along in pointless conversation for one’s own amusement.

“ - Second of all,” Barbara goes on, “Are we really gonna stand around all night wasting time? Or are you gonna help me look for something on this guy we can use?”

“Last I checked, Elizabeth, you did invite me here,” Edward points out. “I assumed it was your call. I am just your backup, remember? Do you even know where he is?”

“Of course I do! He - he should still be over by the drink table. I wasn’t going to approach him directly just in case he recognized me from… the whole Harvester thing.”

“Ah, the curse of publicity,” Edward says woefully, leaning on his cane. He certainly knows the pitfalls of that kind of thing well enough.

Barbara sighs. “Look, I’ve got some corners to poke around in. If you can just keep the crowd occupied enough that nobody will pay any attention to me - by which I mean individually,” she adds when Edward opens his mouth. He closes it again and mentally crosses off several of his regular crowd-diversion tactics.

“Ah - how exactly are you planning to gain access to those aforementioned corners?” he asks.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, Ed,” Barbara says. “I’ve got a few tricks left up my sleeve.”

With effort, Edward refrains from commenting on the very sleeveless nature of her current attire.

“Well then. Good luck to you, darling,” he says instead, grins at Barbara’s supremely flat look, and turns back to the crowd.

-------

The tricks up Barbara’s nonexistent sleeve mostly consist of asking where a bathroom might be, wandering in that general direction, and planning to play up the ditzy-lost-trophy-girlfriend thing if anyone finds out that’s not exactly where she went. Not the most inventive plan, but, hey, if it works, she’s certainly not one to tamper with the classics.

The clack of her heels echoes unnervingly loud down the empty hallways, bouncing cleanly off of the plain walls and tiled floor. The place doesn’t seem to be unusually heavy on security, though. She supposes it would really only serve to make it seem suspicious.

The lights aren’t on in this part of the building, and Barbara uses the cover of darkness to slip down the empty hallways unnoticed, until she finds an office door labeled FOX.

Convenient.

She tries the handle - locked, predictably - and after a moment of consideration opens her purse and pulls out a barebones set of small lock-picking tools; and after a moment more, pulls out a pair of blue disposable gloves and puts them on.

She gets down on one knee (and god, it’s not easy in heels), keeping a careful watch down the hallway, and inserts the tension wrench and then the pick, carefully setting each pin until the lock twists open easily.

The office itself is fairly inconspicuous - off-white walls, passably boring corporate decor, plastic plant in the corner. Compared to the external architecture of the building, it’s horrifically disappointing. It looks like exactly the kind of place she’d expect this guy to work in.

The file drawers on the desk are locked, but, luckily for her, the locks aren’t any more complex than the one on the door. She rifles through the organized files carefully until she finds one that looks half-promising, and pulls it out, balancing it on her knee as she flips through it.

Clack.

The door at the end of the hall.

Barbara’s heart jolts painfully in her chest. She puts the file back in the drawer and rolls it shut as quietly as possible, then casts a quietly panicked glance around the room.

She needs cover. Shit.

The desk - too small, not facing the right way - the door - not enough time - the couch - too obvious. Extra table in the corner, cabinet under it - maybe not enough space. Shit. Shit. It’s her best option.

She scrambles underneath it, wedging herself uncomfortably between the filing cabinet and the far wall, and tries to make herself as small as possible.

A handful of abysmally long seconds later, the office door opens.

“ - Really, take it from someone who’s been on the other end of them: those motion detectors are not reliable. I’d bet good money it was a mote of dust, honestly. Or a mouse. ...You don’t have mice in here, do you?”

With effort, Barbara remains totally silent. Of course Edward would find a way to stick his nose in this the second she left him alone for five minutes.

“Not as far as I know, Mr. Nygma,” Roland Fox says rather mildly. “At least, I’ve never seen one.”

“Well! That’s good,” Edward replies, and starts talking about something or other that Barbara doesn’t really hear, because she’s busy trying to focus on the sounds of Fox moving around the office. He walks to his desk, stops, continues. Walks around the side of it, and stops briefly again in front of the plastic plant, as though someone might possibly have broken in to tamper with it. If she weren’t hiding, Barbara might be tempted to laugh.

He starts walking again, and stops in front of the table. Barbara holds her breath.

The sound unnervingly close, his nails scrape across the top of the table as he picks up some kind of sheet of paper. He holds it a moment and then sets it back down again -

- And then he walks away, the sound of his footsteps slowly receding before he pauses near the far wall.

Barbara lets out a breath as smoothly and quietly as her burning lungs will allow. Jesus. That was close.

“I’m beginning to think you may have been right,” Fox muses, cutting through whatever Edward had been saying. “About the sensor, that is.”

“ - Hm? Ah. Well, yes. I often am,” replies Edward.

Fox sighs. “I’ve been telling them we should have cameras in this place, but they just won’t listen to me. The state of security these days, really. I mean, it’s Gotham!”

“Well, you don’t have to tell me.”

“I certainly don’t,” Fox says wryly. “But, still. I suppose I’ll take my chances, for now.” There’s a brief silence, and he clears his throat. “Ah - did you want to return to our earlier business, then? We can stay here, if you’d prefer it to be quieter.”

“Oh no,” Edward responds abruptly. “I’d - like to talk in the main hall, wouldn’t you? It’s so much… warmer… in there.”

“Lead the way,” says Fox.

The door creaks shut again, and in the following silence Barbara has a moment of time to sort her jumbled thoughts into a semblance of order, which goes about like this:

Firstly: if Roland Fox was willing to get buddy-buddy with the Riddler, she’s sure he must have something worthwhile to hide.

Secondly: what the hell is Edward doing?

Thirdly, and maybe the most abruptly pressing: how the fuck is she going to get out of this office?

She counts silently to sixty, and then again, and a third time; then she unfolds herself from behind the cabinet, stands up slowly to mitigate the head rush, and winces as her legs start to wake up, pins and needles cascading down her shins.

Shit. Okay. She doesn’t know where the motion detector is, and she’s betting on Fox coming right back if it goes off a second time, which means that her only shot at getting out of here is as fast as possible.

She slips out the door as quietly as she can - doesn’t see anyone in the hallway, thank god - and peels her gloves off, just for a semblance of plausible deniability. She shuffles the taser to the surface of her bag and leaves the top open, clutching it tight to her side. Just in case.

Remember, Babs: casual. Be casual, she thinks. It almost sounds a bit like Edward’s voice, but he doesn’t often call her nicknames. She thinks he likes all the syllables too much.

She makes it, to her credit, nearly all the way back down the hallway, past two more office doors and a disused water-cooler, and then -

- Someone grabs her by the arm, and she whips around instantly prepared to struggle, her heart pounding in her chest -

- “Shhh,” Edward hisses at her vehemently, “It’s just me - come here,” and before she can collect herself enough to resist he tugs her a few steps with him through the door of the tiny storage closet and hurriedly shuts it behind them, throwing them into darkness.

“Eddie, what - “

He shushes her again. “Hold on, I think there’s - “ A click as he pulls the lightbulb cord above them, and Barbara blinks in the sudden glare. “Ah.”

Edward’s hat has tipped precariously to one side, like he had taken it off and jammed it back on again in a hurry; but he looks fine aside from that, which answers exactly none of Barbara’s questions.

“Eddie. What on earth are you doing?” she hisses. “I told you to keep people busy, not - not tail Fox straight to his office!”

“I was keeping people busy!” Edward insists. “In fact, I was keeping him busy, which was going to work directly to your advantage - “

“By making some kind of deal with him?” Barbara snaps, reluctantly lowering her voice when Edward shushes her a third time. “How am I supposed to know you didn’t just rat me out to him?”

“Oh, yes, Barbara, I just gave up our entire plan to him,” says Edward. “Jamming us into a tool closet was part of it too. When I open the door again he’ll jump out and yell - “ his gaze shifts downward absently, and his face abruptly fills with alarm. “ - Woah woah woah, kidding, kidding! Hey, don’t - ”

“What?” says Barbara, confused, and then she follows his gaze and finally realizes with a slight start that she’s been clutching her taser in her hand. She must have pulled it out on sheer instinct when he had originally grabbed her. “Oh. Eddie, I’m not - “

“ - The fucking taser, Barbara - “

“I wasn’t going to taze you, Eddie,” Barbara tells him.

Edward sputters. “Then why were you pointing it at me?!”

“You grabbed me! I thought you were someone else!”

“I - So you were going to taze me? Unknowingly?”

“No one is getting tazed!” Barbara snaps, and very slowly and deliberately puts the offending object back into her bag. For Edward’s sake.

“See if I ever invite you into a closet with me again,” Edward mutters, crossing his arms.

Barbara restrains a remark on what Edward’s concept of an invitation is. “I heard what you were saying to Fox,” she says instead. “Wasn’t he expecting you? What did you tell him?”

“Only the truth,” Edward shrugs. “I’d be with him soon; I lost track of you and needed to talk to you for a moment.”

“And what’s your excuse if they find us in - actually, you know what? I don’t want to know. Don’t answer that.” And after a moment: “If you try and kiss me, I’m gonna kill you, though.”

Edward actually laughs at that; a short, genuine snap of sound. “Honestly? The thought hadn’t crossed my mind.”

He looks for a moment like he’s about to say something more, but he just closes his mouth and a short silence falls over them.

“So,” Barbara says to fill it, “Why are we in here? Just to get me out of the hallway?”

“Well, for a start,” Edward says. “But I’m starting to think it might be wise for us to, ah, how do you say it? Skedaddle. Vamoose. Get the fuck out of here. Please tell me you found what you wanted from that office.”

Barbara shakes her head. “No dice. I’m lucky I was even able to hide.”

Edward groans. “Don’t say you want to go back. Motion detectors only get so faulty.”

“I have to get something somehow or the whole night’s a bust. Word of mouth won’t cut it - especially if anyone knows I was here with you. No offense.”

“None taken,” says Edward. “Look, I... may know of something that could get you by. But I will tell you about it after we make our departure for the night. Deal?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Edward insists.

“What makes you want to leave so badly all of a sudden, anyway?”

“You know,” Edward steeples his fingers, “Believe it or not, over the many long years of my career, I’ve picked up something of an uncanny talent for telling when I should no longer be somewhere. Unless you think your instincts outweigh mine?”

Barbara huffs. “Fine. But if you’re lying...”

She trails off, letting the sentence hang ominously in the air.

Edward rolls his eyes irritatedly. “I know, I know. You’ll give me a big bad talking-to and then you’ll call the nice men with the big truck to take me straight back to Arkham. Great. Fine. I’m not lying. Can we get out of here?”

“You know that’s not what I - “ Barbara breaks off, frustrated. “I - We don’t have time for this. You’re right. Let’s just go.”

Edward steps out of the closet first, and when he’s verified the hall is clear he gestures for Barbara to step out after him.

“I think I saw a back exit around this way,” Barbara says, and leads Edward along the hall - in some shared unspoken agreement he offers her his arm and she takes it: just some stupid lost couple, bored at a party and fooling around away from the crowd, trying to find their way back.

The residual tension of their unfinished argument hangs between them; but despite that Barbara finds it isn’t - and hasn’t been - nearly as difficult as she’d thought, to… pretend. If she squints the right way, she can almost start to believe they really are just here for themselves: not as a couple, certainly, but as a… a pair. Two matching halves of a set.

Barbara wants very badly to be able to reassure herself that that thought, and a number of the thoughts preceding it, are just that - thoughts - and not indicative of any particular state of reality, but she just can’t quite seem to convince herself of it. It is true that Edward’s invitation to this particular event had mostly been a matter of convenience, but there are still other things - her unlocked window above the fire-escape, the food she often keeps in her kitchen for him; even the fact that the Riddler is on her viable list of people to invite out to cases with her - that lead her to conclusions she truthfully doesn’t know how to feel about.

She enjoys Edward’s company much more than she thinks she’s supposed to, and she doesn’t know what to do about that fact. She doesn’t really even enjoy acknowledging it, but her thoughts run far too fast for her to keep up with; especially when she’s distracted.

He is a crook. There’s no denying that. But he is a crook that she likes, and she has no idea what that makes her.

And she doesn’t have time for this, anyway. They’re almost at the door.

-------

Edward is beginning to develop a certain sense - a sense entirely separate from his garden-variety paranoid intrusive thoughts, thank you - that the world is contriving against him in particular, because the second his hand touches the push-bar on the door he hears that fucking voice again.

“Leaving so soon?” Roland Fox says. “I thought you wanted to talk to me.”

“I’m afraid something - came up,” Edward starts saying before he can think. “A - well, a personal emergency, you know, my sincerest regrets, but we really have to - “

“Personal to you?” Fox says flatly. “Or personal to your, ah… your companion, was it? I mean to say,” He pauses slightly, “While I was waiting for you, I stepped out for a cigarette - nasty habit to keep, I know, but every man has a vice - and, do you know, Mr. Nygma, I struck up conversation with our friend manning the door! He was telling me all about how he swore he had seen that girlfriend of yours somewhere before, but he just couldn’t remember where - “

Edward’s patience for this man’s monologuing ran out about two sentences ago, but he forces himself to stay still and resume listening. Maybe there’s still an out somewhere.

“ - seemed to jog his memory,” Fox is saying. He smiles pointedly. “And it certainly did. Barbara Gordon.”

Edward manages to be surprised for a split-second, then his brain takes a sharp left turn into disappointed resignation. Oh, well. It had been fun while it lasted.

“What do you want?” Barbara snaps.

“Only some answers,” Fox says pleasantly. “Such as. What brings an ex-police to this gathering of ours? Turn coat that quickly? And for that matter - what brings the Riddler to such company?”

He makes a sweeping gesture with his arms, taking a few slow steps forward. Barbara shoots Edward a wide-eyed look of warning. Edward does his best to convey not yet back to her without moving his head or face very much.

“What I really can’t tell,” Fox starts (and then pauses again, god, he is full of himself), “Is which of you is working for who. But I think it wouldn't be very well for either of your… conventional public faces to be seen with each other like this.”

Edward opens his mouth to say something exceptionally clever and well-timed, but just then, apparently, Barbara’s patience runs out.

“Ed!” she hisses vehemently at him, and shoves the door open behind them, and Edward really has no choice but to let her pull him through it.

He hears Fox exclaim something behind them, but they’re halfway down the side-street before he even manages to process the noise. His left knee pivots uncomfortably beneath him at the sudden burst of movement, but it continues to support his weight, so he ignores it. How Barbara manages to run in those heels she has on is beyond him.

They do, surprisingly, make it around about half of the building uninterrupted, until Barbara skids to a halt suddenly and Edward shortly follows, his legs wobbling dangerously under him.

“Shit,” Barbara hisses, and doubles over to catch her breath.

Edward peers over her shoulder, struggling to heave in his own breath, and sees -

- Ah. Well. He does see the problem there.

See, the side of the building they left from was the opposite end from where Barbara had left the car - so, either they go around the entire block, and lose any hope of reasonably losing their pursuer, what with the current state of Edward’s movement abilities; or they cross in front of the building, and look incredibly suspicious to the still-present doorman. Not the… ideal dilemma.

“Would this be a good time to mention my bloodsugar is crashing,” says Edward despondently.

“You can deal,” Barbara snaps impatiently.

Edward blinks. “Well, certainly not if I pass out, I can’t.”

Barbara twists to look at him, alarmed. “What? You’re not - are you diabetic?”

“Non-diabetic hypoglycemic,” Edward tells her. “Kind of… the same thing. Except entirely not. I probably won’t actually pass out, if it makes you feel better.”

“It... doesn’t,” Barbara says. “Will you be alright?”

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Edward responds glumly. “ - Unless we have to do any more running.”

Barbara huffs. “That kind of limits our options.”

“Well, we have about ten seconds until he catches up to us again, so I suggest you come up with something.”

“I - ugh. Fine. You go distract the door guy while I go around and get the car. Then we’ll make a run for it.”

“Me?” Edward hisses. “What am I supposed to say to him?”

“Make something up,” Barbara snaps, unsympathetic. “You’re good at that.”

Well. Edward supposes he might deserve that one a little bit.

“Come on, let’s go,” Barbara says before he can argue, pats him once on the shoulder and then starts across the street.

Edward huffs quietly to himself. He straightens his hat, puts on his best winning smile, pauses, reconsiders, then un-straightens his hat again and does his best to look considerately harried.

Then he steps around the corner.

-------

Barbara makes it close enough to the car that she actually starts to think it might not be so bad - just get in, kick the thing into drive, pick Edward up from… whatever he’s doing, and hope nobody is invested enough to follow them.

She’s rifling around in her bag for the car keys when a quiet click makes her freeze in place.

She wasn’t a cop for that long, but she was a cop for more than long enough to recognize in her sleep the sound of a gun cocking.

“I wouldn’t try that,” says Fox evenly.

“I don’t have anything,” Barbara replies, slowly turning.

Fox chuckles dryly. “Of course you don’t. Just out for the night with your boyfriend, aren’t you? But he had to keep you out of the way while he got to me.”

If she weren’t being threatened with a gun, Barbara might actually be a little bit offended at that. She knows he’s a career criminal, and their (well, his) cover story is specifically designed not to look like she’s doing anything, but seriously, come on. Edward is here to help her.

Not that his help has necessarily gotten her anywhere. But.

“See, Eddie’s an old friend of mine,” Fox says, gun still leveled at Barbara’s chest. “I know him. He hides it, but I know how much he cares. And if I threaten his little lady friend, he’ll roll right over.”

“H - He - “ Barbara plays up the stuttering, eyes fixed on a point over Fox’s shoulder, “I don’t know where he is.”

“That’s fine, darlin’, just come with - “

Crack!

Barbara winces.

“Not quite a pistol-whipping, but it’ll do,” says Edward out-of-breath to Fox’s prone body on the ground, lowering his cane.

“We need to fucking leave,” says Barbara. She had been very desperately trying not to track Edward with her eyes while he had snuck up behind Fox and had been mostly failing. “Who knows how long he’ll stay out for.”

“Agreed,” Edward says, straightening his hat.

They climb unceremoniously into Barbara’s car. She can’t stop herself from glancing a few more times than necessary into the rear-view mirrors as she pulls away from the curb, holding the wheel in a white-knuckle grip. Call it learned caution. Or nerves. Probably nerves.

At least she didn’t get shot, she figures. That would have put an unpleasant spin on the evening.

Well. More unpleasant.

“Goddamnit,” Barbara says out loud, as her scattered thoughts finally catch up to each other. All of that mess, and she hadn’t managed to get a single grain of the dirt on Fox she had been looking for. And now he was onto her, which effectively took the rest of her opportunities out back and shot them.

Edward looks at her. “What?”

“What do you think?” Barbara snaps, her patience long since drained. “This whole night’s a bust. I spent all that time making myself look like an idiot at a party with you, we got caught anyway, I almost got shot, and now we’ve got less than we started with.”

“Well, don’t take this to mean anything, but I am glad he didn’t shoot you.” Edward pauses slightly. “That certainly would have put an unpleasant spin on the evening.”

Barbara’s eyebrows raise at that, but she lets him continue.

“And, well… besides. Our hands aren’t exactly empty. Mine aren’t, anyway.”

“Go on?”

Edward takes his hat off and flips it over, pointing to a spot to the side of the band. “Do you know what this is?”

Barbara squints at him warily. “...Your hat pin?”

“It would appear so,” Edward says proudly, “but this, my dear Barbara, is a clever little invention of my own creation.” He turns the hat over again and points to a particular spot on the inside. “You see this?”

“Eddie, believe it or not, I am trying to drive right now,” says Barbara, who had just almost run the last red light because she had been looking at Edward’s hat.

“It’s a camera,” says Edward.

“It’s - sorry, it’s a what?” Barbara’s disbelief lasts a second before it’s overwritten by anger. “You - Edward! You had a camera in your hat that entire fucking time and you didn’t tell me?”

“I was going to!” Edward exclaims. “It wasn’t exactly relevant at first - I only brought it for my own record-keeping. I assumed you’d get what you needed by yourself. And then we had to leave before one of us got shot,” he adds pointedly.

Barbara hums in a deeply peeved manner.

“Besides, we’ve got the footage now. - And audio too,” Edward says somewhat distractedly. “Not bad quality, either. ...It really is one of my better tricks.”

Barbara supposes it’s probably better not to ask where on earth Edward possibly got the materials to put something like that together.

“Hey, wait a minute,” she says as the thought occurs to her, “What happened with you and that guy at the door, anyway? I lost track of you for like, ten minutes back there.”

“Oh, yes, him,” Edward says offhandedly. “I… very much doubt he suspects us of anything untoward. He might now be slightly under the impression that we... may or may not have, ah…. an unborn child between us, though.”

Barbara takes one hand off the wheel to punch him in the arm. “A child?!”

“Ow!” Edward yelps. “Look, there wasn’t another way to - “

“Edward! I’m not - what could you have possibly said to - we weren’t even supposed to be married! What - “

Edward coughs a surprised laugh. “Barbara, are you telling me that having a child out of wedlock is your problem with this scenario? Trust me, I think the baby will have slightly bigger concerns than being born a bastard - ”

“That is so not - ! - Look. Look. Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I am not getting into an argument about the status of a - a fictional child that you’ve invented. Between us. ...Eugh.”

“Oh, no argument there,” Edward says quickly.

After a second, Barbara snorts. “We’re not old enough for children anyway. Well - “ she knows from his file that Edward is going on thirty-one, which makes him about five years her senior, so, “ - I’m not old enough for children. You’re just... a loser.”

“A loser with exceedingly little financial stability, an extensive criminal record, and about half the DSM-5 rolling around up here,” says Edward, tapping the side of his head.

“Jesus,” says Barbara.

Edward laughs a little at that.

Maybe, Barbara thinks, the night wasn’t a complete loss.

----

Edward steps into the familiar entranceway of Barbara’s building with a slight tilt and a grimace of pain.

Barbara is apparently more frazzled by the night’s events than she lets on - or otherwise distracted by something - because she nearly leaves Edward behind on the stairs up to her unit. Several of his joints wobble precariously underneath him as he hauls himself up the first flight, his cane to one side of him and the handrail to the other.

“Barbara, as much as I appreciate the punctuality - “ Edward manages when he reaches the landing. As much as he loves the physical sensation of a bloodsugar crash (he doesn’t), it doesn’t exactly make it fun to, well. Use any of the muscles in his body. Which puts a bit of a stick in the whole staircase thing.

“Oh,” Barbara pauses, looking down over the railing at him. “Sorry. Do you need - ?”

“No, just - give me a minute,” Edward says, figuring his pride has taken enough strain for one day. He starts up again much more slowly, sticking his tongue between his molars and biting down to ward off the wifts of lightheadedness that threaten to creep in. He pulls himself up the rest of the stairs with minimal fanfare.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Barbara asks when he reaches the top.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” says Edward, meaning it to be casual, but it comes out flatter than intended. He hasn’t caught his breath yet, which he’s certain isn’t helping.

“You’re not complaining,” says Barbara.

Edward swallows absently, trying to think of a response, but only draws blanks; which, he supposes, is only more credence to her point.

“Let’s just go in,” he says finally, and tries to forget about the worried crease in her brow.

----

Edward’s lack of complaint - more accurately, Edward’s lack of anything - really does worry Barbara. She can’t tell if he’s just exhausted, in pain, or both; or if there’s something else bothering him. When he gives up poking fun at her entirely, it tends to only mean bad news.

Edward wobbles particularly notably on the way past her doorway before she can stop herself, Barbara reaches a hand out to his arm to steady him.

Edward gives her a look of surprise and she retracts her hand, swallowing. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“No, Barbara, I’m a helpless fragile damsel, and I’m about to keel over here and now into your waiting arms, “ Edward scoffs, and then looks away. “Sorry.”

After a second Barbara shrugs. “It’s fine. I might have deserved that. But… really, if you do need anything, just let me know, alright?”

“I… wouldn’t refuse something to eat,” Edward admits.

“Help yourself to anything in the kitchen,” Barbara says gratefully. “I’m gonna go change out of this damn dress real quick.”

In her bedroom, she strips off the somewhat-battered dress in question and replaces it with a tank top, and pulls on a pair of sweatpants over the bike shorts. When she returns to the living room Edward is sitting at her table eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon, his jacket hanging off the back of his chair and his shirt-sleeves rolled up. His hat is sitting on the table next to him. The whole image would border on something approaching sickeningly domestic, if it weren’t for the garish shades of green, the secret camera she knows is under his hat-band, and the fact that it’s Edward, who is patently not allowed to be sickeningly domestic in her house with her there, lest she have to recategorize a worrying number of things in her brain.

“You know, there’s bread in there if you want a sandwich,” Barbara says, sitting down across from him.

“‘M fine,” Edward says around the peanut butter.

Barbara shrugs. Edward doesn’t really eat much: at first she had thought it was purely out of lack of access, and had made an effort to (subtly, lest it offend him) offer him something whenever he showed up at her place; but she had quickly discovered that moreso than that, he just doesn’t seem to like very many foods. The things he ever willingly picks out mostly boil down to scrambled eggs (plain except for salt), yogurt cups (blueberry flavor, and only one specific brand of them), occasionally toaster waffles (which he eats frozen straight out of the package, for some reason) and, apparently, peanut butter.

Barbara isn’t really one to judge - she only could stand three or four different foods when she was a kid, and although she’s since grown out of it, she understands - so she does her best to keep some things around her place that he can eat.

When he’s had his fill of the peanut butter he gets up to take the jar back to the fridge and the spoon to the sink, and Barbara watches him wobble slightly and frowns. He’s using his cane, too, which strikes her as an unusual occurrence - she’s seen him with other, plainer canes before, and usually he just sets them aside in her small living room.

“You want some ice for your leg?” She asks, and he pauses. She gets up from her chair before he can answer anyway, and crosses the room to pull an ice-pack out of the freezer for him, and, after a moment of consideration, another one for herself; which she puts on top of her head, still kneeling in front of the open freezer.

“When did you hit your head?” Edward asks, carefully shuffling closer to wordlessly accept the pack she got for him.

“I didn’t,” Barbara tells him. “Just… calms me down. I like the cold. It’s soothing.”

“Huh,” says Edward, in some inscrutable tone. Seemingly hesitant to cross the room again, he leans slowly against the edge of the counter, holding the ice-pack not against his leg where she had expected, but against a spot on his lower back.

“What happened to you?” Barbara questions.

“Oh, just a… recurring injury,” Edward says, sounding slightly uncomfortable. “Nothing important. I think it’s just a pinched nerve, really. Sometimes I bump it the wrong way and it makes… everything… hurt. For a while. It’ll get better on its own in a day or two.”

“I feel like you might want to get that looked at,” Barbara says, and then remembers who she’s talking to and feels exceedingly silly for a second. The ice-pack is starting to hurt her head, so she shoves it back in the freezer and stands up.

Edward just shrugs. “It's no big deal. You know - Barbara, are you aware of how god-awful the tile in here is? I think a picture of this exact room would come up if you googled ‘clashing color schemes’.”

“You just said it made ‘everything hurt’,” Barbara says, ignoring his attempt at diversion. “I think that counts as a big deal.”

“Yeah, well.” Edward sighs ruefully. “Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix. Assuming - you don’t mind if I stay a few hours?”

Barbara nods absently - Edward crashes on her couch every now and then, which she had quickly grown used to; maybe more than she would have wanted to, even. But something else occurs to her:

“Actually - I don’t want you on the couch, not in this state,” she says, sees a flicker of something on Edward's face that he wipes off of it almost reflexively, rushes to amend - “It’ll just be hell on your back. You know better than I do that that thing is not comfortable. You can sleep in my room tonight - I’ll take the couch.”

“Oh,” Edward says, and opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again: “Okay.”

He looks like he wants to say something more for a moment, but he just falls silent again, looking away.

Barbara sighs, rubbing the back of her neck. “Not that I’m looking forward to sleeping on that thing. Felt it for a week the last time I fell asleep there.”

“I… really would regret displacing you in your own home,” Edward says. “I already owe you for everything else. I’ve slept in far worse places than - “

Barbara shakes her head. “No. Eddie, no. I’m not making you take the couch. You can barely walk, for god’s sake.”

Edward shifts uncomfortably against the counter. “You really trust me alone in your bedroom, Detective? How do you know I won’t take anything?”

“If you really wanted to screw me over for money, you could have just ratted me out earlier,” Barbara points out. “Or not shown me your camera. Or not helped me in the first place. Or - “

“Okay, okay. Point taken. I’m a saint in your eyes.”

“Absolutely not,” Barbara says. “But I’m saying that I might trust you.”

Edward has the good grace to look mildly shocked about that statement, at least before his expression goes through several microbiomes of mischievously pleased that she’s known him for just long enough to partially translate. She can almost hear the half-formed quips cycling around behind his eyes.

“I’m not sure what exactly you’d be taking, anyway. I don’t exactly have a family fortune hidden in the bottom of my sock drawer.”

“You never know, Detective. maybe some of them are discontinued.”

“The socks?”

“Some people out there are extremely invested in the preservation of outdated lines of footwear,” Edward says very knowingly. “You could make a lot of money that way.”

“I’ll be sure to get them appraised,” Barbara responds dryly.

A little while later finds her showing Edward back down the hall to her plain bedroom - tired and aching after their night of activity, it doesn’t take a detective to know that both of them are keen to get to sleep. Barbara lets him into the room with very little fanfare: her bed is tucked into the corner opposite the door, a dresser, a small desk, and a pair of shelves being the only other notable occupants of the room, aside from a couple of mismatched posters.

She half-expects Edward to poke fun at her decor again - or at least her taste in movies - but he remains unusually quiet, his eyes skirting around the room curiously, drinking in the details. Barbara supposes she would be equally intrigued if she were to see Edward’s bedroom, if he were to have one, so she makes no comment.

Barbara stays long enough to click on her small bedside lamp and somewhat uselessly straighten the bedcovers, and then crosses the room again.

“Get some sleep, Ed,” she tells him fondly, patting him on the shoulder absently as she goes through the doorway.

“Wait,” Edward says suddenly, his voice a bit hoarse, and Barbara turns back to look at him. “You’re - you really shouldn’t sleep on the couch, you know that? Take it from me, that thing’s awful for your back. Could cause all kinds of long-term issues. Think about the damages: your spine - your sacroiliac joints - those things are important, you know - “

“Eddie,” Barbara says gently. “Listen. Hey. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Alright? But don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

Edward opens his mouth as if to argue, but then just shuts it again, swallowing.

Looking at him standing backlit in her doorway, his shirt untucked, his glasses slightly askew, worn and unguarded - it’s easy to forget about the fraught history between them, about all the things he’s done. About all the things she’s done. It’s easy to forget that either of them have a time limit, a real life to get back to outside of this tiny box of a house.

It’s easy to forget that he isn’t even supposed to be her friend.

“You know, if you really don’t want me to sleep on the couch,” Barbara blurts out, slow enough to regret it but too quick to stop herself, “We could just share.”

For a split second Edward looks almost comically surprised, and then: “You know, Barbara, if you wanted to get in bed with me that badly - “

“You know what I mean, Eddie,” Barbara snaps, too exhausted to avoid letting him get a rise out of her.

“Oh, fine, fine. I suppose that it… would solve both of our problems,” says Edward in a tone of voice that Barbara can’t quite place.

“Is that a yes?”

“You, Barbara Gordon, are far from the strangest bedfellow I have ever ended up with,” Edward replies with a slight sigh, and moves out of the doorway to let her come back in, which she supposes suffices well enough.

Barbara, in some suppressed corner of her mind, is very relieved.

“Corner bed, huh?” Edward observes, when he’s crossed the room again and leant his cane in the corner between her bed-table and the wall . “Not very… grown-up.”

Barbara huffs quietly. “Call it paranoia, but I’ve always liked to sleep with my back to a wall.”

“Just a wall?”

Barbara twists to look at Edward in the dim light. “What are you saying?”

“You never… you know, have anyone over?”

“Nobody except you,” says Barbara truthfully, stretching out on her half of the bed.

“Really?” Edward says curiously. “No prospects?”

Barabra shifts in place slightly. “I’m just not really… into all that. Not my scene.”

“Don’t tell me you’re looking for a committed relationship?” asks Edward jokingly.

“Nah, just… in general.”

“Oh,” Edward says, and after a moment he shrugs. “Yeah, me neither.”

Barbara looks at him curiously, but he’s busying himself taking his bowtie and socks off, as if they hadn’t been talking. She lets her head fall back and feels strangely, overwhelmingly relaxed.

Edward takes his glasses off, folds them, unfolds them, folds them the opposite way, and places them on her bed-table. Then he carefully stretches out next to her, and after a moment, reaches out and turns off the bedside lamp with a muted click of the chain-pull.

Barbara supposes she should feel more conflicted about this than she does, but honestly, she doesn’t have it in her. She’s exhausted, and sleep is far more tempting right now than whatever guilt-laden moral turmoil her brain can possibly conjure up about her current choice of bedfellow.

For a minute or two the room is silent except for the quiet intake of breath and the very distant whirring of the bathroom fan. Barbara wonders with fleeting annoyance if it’s been running all day, but the soft white noise is soothing to listen to and her eyes are leaden with sleep.

She’ll fix it in the morning.

------

“I have two bodies, joined into one. The stiller I stand, the faster I run,” blurts Edward abruptly into the darkness, unable to suppress his nervous instinct to divert himself (and Barbara, presumably) from thinking about the fact that he is lying next to someone on a bed in the dark.

Not that it’s the first time he’s ever done something like this, thank you, but it is the first time he’s ever done it in this context - namely, with someone he’s not in some kind of relationship with, and with someone who he is notably (annoyingly) invested in having a good opinion of him, beyond the bounds of what he would consider a normal amount, which is deeply vexing to him, which is why he tries not to think about it, and he is most certainly fucking it up somehow, though his brain refuses to tell him how so that he can fix it.

Beside him Barbara makes a small noise of irritation, and shifts her head to fall against his shoulder, which does not help.

“Mmmh. Water… water. Hourglass,” she mumbles, clearly on the verge of sleep, which just makes Edward’s mind spin circles around him even faster, insistently hissing things that make him ache to think about, like oh she really really trusts you, why does she trust you? and what if you hurt her in your sleep what if you can’t stop yourself, what if this is some kind of set-up, what if they’re going to take you in again (helpfully punctuated by a painfully well-founded diagram of how easy it would be for someone to get into the apartment while he’s asleep) and she’s the only one who gets your riddles; the only one except -

- And that’s where Edward forcefully cuts those thoughts off, because that is too much on top of everything else to be thinking about right now.

Not that his current selection of thoughts are at all appealing. He would very much like to stop thinking them. Maybe go to sleep, so this will all be over sooner.

Except… well. That’s the problem. He doesn’t really want it to be over. Which is, when you think about it, very embarrassing for him, because he’s very much almost-entirely-certain that Barbara definitely does not feel the same way. She puts up with a lot from him - more than most people - and it’s not like he doesn’t test her limits (so sue him, it’s fun), but this is really pushing it.

It’s not so much the fact alone that she lets him get away with it that distresses him; it’s just that he can’t figure out why. She’s not getting anything from it, unless you count his admittedly questionable help that evening, of which he truthfully hadn’t expected to be nearly as eventful as it had been, or he might not have gone; or his company, of which the thought would be somewhat laughable. He knows she has friends who are not him. That’s enough information to quell that line of suspicion.

The other half of the equation is comprised of the straightforward unavoidable fact that Barbara is sleeping, and people generally don’t… do that around Edward. Certainly not that he would do - or take - anything while she’s out (he’s not nearly that desperate) - but that in Barbara’s seemingly best sensibilities, she trusts him not to do that, is… a lot to think about.

His brain may be as determined as ever to tie itself in knots, but his body is still exhausted, and though he finds no easy answers in his dwellings he does find that his eyes are beginning to drift shut.

He’ll deal with all of it in the morning, he tells himself. It doesn’t do much.

------

Barbara wakes up shivering.

For a minute she’s disoriented in the haze of dreamless sleep, wildly detached from any real coherent train of thought. She sits up and ignores the headache building behind her eyes, an early-warning sign that she’s missing too many hours of sleep.

And then she looks at her bed-table to check the time, and sees the absence of Edward’s things, and that’s what makes her remember.

Oh.

Last night. The party. Riiiiiight.

Like water trickling down into a basin, the pieces slowly slot together in her head. Edward was here last night. Edward is not here now. Judging by the half-light outside, it can’t have been more than three or four hours. He took his things with him.

Barbara looks at the other, empty half of her bed and feels a sudden, piquing ache in her chest. She forces herself to ignore it.

Somewhat despondently, she considers just going back to sleep, but something prickles insistently in the back of her mind until she shuffles herself out of bed and pads slowly down the hall, rubbing her arms in a futile bid for warmth. She notes absently that the bathroom fan is no longer running - Edward must have turned it off before he left.

She’s not entirely sure what she expects to find in the living room. If she were to consider it later on, she would say maybe some kind of clue, a note or a card, maybe. A riddle from the Riddler.

She does not expect to find Edward himself, his coat wrinkled and his cane at his side, staring out the wide-open window above the fire escape.

“Eddie,” she says softly, before she can think to stop herself.

Edward jumps. “Detective!” he says, his voice just a touch unstable. “You’re a lighter sleeper than I gave you credit for, after all.”

“You’re… are you leaving?” Barbara asks, moving a few slow paces forward. In a strange way she feels some layer of methodical caution to be necessary, as if Edward is a stray cat she’s trying not to scare away.

“Well, I suppose I must be,” Edward says in the same unsteady voice, looking at a spot just over her shoulder.

“Oh,” Barbara responds, and for a second neither of them move. A bitterly cold breeze is coming in through the open window.

Barbara, truthfully, doesn’t know what to say. So she says the only thing she can think of. “You know you can stay if you want to.”

Edward swallows harshly. “I know.”

Barbara realizes as he looks away that he’s not wearing his hat. It’s still sitting on the table, perfectly centered. Maybe that was what he had meant to leave behind: the camera footage, granted she could figure out how to retrieve it (and she was sure she could).

But more than a clue, Barbara thinks, it seems a bit like a promise. Edward loves his hats. He’d come back for it. Surely, that’s all she can ask of him.

Barbara suddenly feels like she’s expecting far too much from Edward; unfairly so to him. She takes a half-step back towards the hallway.

Edward is gripping the handle of his cane tightly, his eyes still fixed on the window. The breeze is mussing his hair up, strands of it falling down in front of his glasses out of where he had clearly raked it back with his hands. He looks very lonely.

“I think you should stay,” Barbara says, yet more quietly than before, so quietly she’s not even sure if he hears it; and then she turns around and walks back to her bed.

------

The thing is.

The thing is, Edward thinks, it would be the perfect getaway.

It would be so... Riddler. One last unanswered question, swept away with the morning breeze. One last knowing tip of the hat. The last page of a good novel. It would be so easy to leave now.

The thing is, really, as he listens to Barbara padding back down the hallway, is that the wind is cold. The wind is cold and it’s giving him a nasty headache. It’s such a stupid, inconsequential thing. The icy morning air is like a barrier in his brain, one final paragon of displeasure that he can’t bring himself to defeat.

The thing is, really, that if you spend your life fighting for scraps and a hand comes offering food, you will bite straight through it because it is all you know how to do.

Or, Edward thinks rather bitterly, some other pretentious, useless metaphor to distract him from the process of refusing to leave that he is currently in the middle of.

It would be so easy. Key word: would.

It would be easy to leave if it were more than half-light out and if he weren’t shivering and if his head wasn’t pounding and if Barbara hadn’t told him to stay.

He puts out a hand and means to guide himself under the window-frame and then he processes that he’s pushed it closed. Somewhere deep in his brain he is yelling at himself, banging pots and pans, raising hell to leave, you imbecile, just leave. She doesn’t care about you. Just leave and throw a fit about it alone like you always do and gloss it over with perfect uncaring by next week.

But with the window shut his headache is beginning to ease.

Slowly, almost methodically, he leans his cane against the side of the table, and then unbuttons his jacket and takes it off again, hanging it over the back of the nearest chair.

His fingers curl stubbornly around the top of the chair-back, some last lifeline or cry for dignity. He uncurls them with significant effort and takes a stilted step away from the table; away from the window. He stands there for a few seconds and then starts slightly and kicks off his shoes.

With his outerlayer off he’s forced to take the only other path: back in. He swallows heavily, his brain running down pointless fantastical scenarios of what could possibly go wrong like a lab rat running a maze for a reward that it’ll never be given.

The thought of sleep suddenly tempts him terribly. He walks slowly down the hallway, his footsteps muted by the cheap wall-to-wall carpeting.

Barbara’s bed is across from the door - when Edward pauses uncertainly in the doorway she turns her head from where she’s lying to see him, blinking in the muted light.

“Eddie?” she asks sleepily, softly. It makes Edward feel scraped out raw.

“You… I - “ He swallows. “Can - do you mind if I stay for a… a few minutes?”

“C’mere, Ed,” Barbara says in response, half-raising a beckoning hand before giving up the motion to let it flop down back to the bed.

Edward shuffles closer almost sheepishly, leaving his cane in the same spot it had been in before. He sits down on the edge of the bed and stays there for a while, fiddling with his glasses instead of putting them down on the bed-table.

The bedframe creaks slightly as Barbara pulls herself upright, shuffling over to sit next to him. She puts a hand on his shoulder to steady herself and he tries not to react.

“You wanna lie down?” She asks quietly.

Edward looks away. He does, he does, he does. His brain scratches at him now more than ever.

“I’m - you know I’m not used to… this,” he confesses haltingly. “I - I don’t know how to do it right.”

Barbara makes a slight noise that might be a laugh. “You know, I don’t think anyone really does.”

Edward scrubs at his eyes. His headache is building again. “Then maybe I’m sane after all,” he mutters.

Barbara sighs quietly. “Hey. You remember that diner bathroom?”

Of course Edward remembers the diner bathroom. It’d stuck like a snag in his brain for weeks afterwards, prickling at him. He’d had to shut it out like all of his other intrusive thoughts. At the time, he hadn’t had the stomach to pretend that it meant anything. But…

“I meant what I said to you in there, Eddie. You really do deserve something better than this.”

The something hadn’t been there before. Something implies an alternative concept. Something tangible. Somewhere to go; somewhere to stay. Someone to be with.

The something settles into place in Edward’s chest before he can stop it, heavy and warm and very, very melancholy.

“Well, maybe I don’t want anything better,” he says very quietly, and almost as an afterthought he puts his hand over where Barbara’s still rests on his shoulder, to keep her from taking it away.

Barbara squeezes his shoulder placatingly, leaning forward to rest her forehead against the side of it. If he were anyone else, he might take it as something like a promise.

“C’mon, Eddie. Let’s get some sleep.”

-------

(He wakes up slowly, sometime past two PM. Barbara’s head is tucked under his chin, her hair itching the end of his nose when he breathes. His arm is thrown over her and one of her elbows is jammed painfully into his ribs. His other arm is dead asleep, and their legs are all hopelessly tangled together. It is, overall, horrifically uncomfortable.

Edward, blinking fuzzily into the afternoon light, has the fleeting suspicion that it all may have been worth it.)