'Sabrina, When She Became the Riddler's Lawyer'
By Indiana
Characters: Sabrina, Edward Nygma
Synopsis: Her job was to provide him justice, whether he deserved it or not. And she never did decide which.
[Takes place after Arkham Asylum]
"Good day, madam."
She probably wasn't ready for this.
Sabrina offered her hand across the table to him, belatedly realising his own hands were confined to the table with a pair of handcuffs. He took it anyway, looking her straight in the eye as he did so, and she couldn't hold his gaze. His fingers were a little too tight over her hand, but she couldn't tell if it was a display of dominance or if he genuinely was unaware of the force he was applying. She didn't know him well enough yet to properly guess.
"Good day," she returned. "My name is Sabrina and I'll be taking over as your defense lawyer."
"And I am Edward Nygma, the Riddler, but you already knew that." His smile was at once gentle and predatory. "I must say you are a great deal lovelier than my previous attorneys."
She couldn't keep herself from frowning. "Do you say that kind of thing to all your lawyers?"
"In fact I do." He folded his hands together. "Why? Does it make you uncomfortable?"
Was he teasing her? She turned over one of the pages in front of her without reading it.
"Do you know why I'm here?" Sabrina asked, and he shrugged and leaned back in the chair.
"Of course. I just don't care. I won't be here much longer anyway."
"Your plan is to escape Blackgate." She could count on one hand the number of people who had done that.
"I'm working on it."
"I've been going through the past documentation," she said, deciding to ignore that for now, "and I don't think you should be here anyway."
"I know!" he exclaimed, leaning forward and dropping some of the haughtiness for the first time. "My dear, if you look at it like -"
"You are clearly mentally unfit to stand trial," she cut in. "You should have remained in Arkham Asylum after your second conviction."
The way he was staring at her made it difficult to breathe normally. She was reminded, suddenly, of just how dangerous he was, even handcuffed to a table. When he spoke, his voice was a little too calm. "We're finished here."
"I'm just trying to do my job, Mr Nygma."
"And your job now includes passing judgement on my mental state?" He looked away from her, his expression of exaggerated doubt. "My previous lawyers seem to have skipped that step."
"I have done no such thing. I have," and here she held up a blue file folder, "three separate psychiatric evaluations. The only manage to agree on one thing: you are not mentally sound."
The corner of his mouth twitched in derision. "Have you ever read the DSM, Sabrina?"
"I have not."
"According to that overglorified dictionary of differences, everyone is crazy. Even you." He absently traced the top of his thumbnail with his other thumb. "Anyone who thinks they can know a man based upon a single interview and a reference manual designed to funnel as much money into the pharmaceutical industry as possible is, quite frankly, an idiot." He leveled his eyes at her, and said, quietly: "Are you an idiot, Sabrina?"
She didn't know whether to be afraid or irritated. She took a breath and resolved to be neither.
"You were previously admitted to the Asylum," she continued.
"Your reading comprehension is top-notch, my dear."
She was legitimately ready to throw the folder at his self-satisfied head. "Thank you. Is there a particular reason they moved you from the Asylum to Blackgate?"
"I would have thought your papers have the answer to that question."
"I haven't had time to memorize them yet," Sabrina said, forgetting, exactly, just what kind of person was sitting in front of her. "I can sit here and read them or you can deign to tell me."
Surprisingly, he just smiled. "None of the interviewing psychologists could agree on which tidy label applied to me. The judge decided it was none of them and sentenced me to Blackgate."
She frowned. "And your previous attorneys didn't appeal?"
He shook his head. "You can guess as to why."
She put the folder down. "I'll see what I can do about this."
"Why?"
"It's my job." She slid the folder back into her briefcase. "I would appreciate your cooperation."
"Very well," Nygma said. "I accept your counsel."
She was halted in the middle of standing. "You don't really have a choice."
He just smiled at her, in an eerily serene sort of way. "Of course I do."
/
"Do you like wearing heels, Sabrina?"
She tried not to look too surprised at the question. "There's no other way I'm getting any taller."
"Oh, trust me," he said, waving one hand, "it's overrated. They are very nice shoes, I must say. They complement your blazer nicely."
She sat down with a little too much force. "Do you often comment on the appearance of everyone who will have a conversation with you?"
"Not everyone is as lovely as you," he said, not looking bothered at all by the question. "Confidentially, my boyfriend is not much to look at. My eye does wander."
"You have a boyfriend." She couldn't believe it. As usual, he just seemed to find her amusing.
"Is it the gender that confuses you, or the fact someone is willing to take up that title on my behalf?"
"You are very… brusque."
"He even moreso than I. But you didn't hear it from me." He leaned his head back momentarily. "To what do I owe the pleasure today?"
"I just need to clarify some things with you personally. That's all." She withdrew a paper from her briefcase with the talking points she needed to go over. Nygma sat back in his chair and smiled to himself. "What?" she asked.
"You do know they only let you in here because they think we have a sexual relationship," Nygma said, not looking at her. "They think this meeting will be yet another way of making my life more difficult."
She slid her fingers together.
"Why would they think that? Do you regularly have that kind of relations with your lawyers?"
"Not regularly. But some people don't need the money and are content with the power they have. Those people just want a good story, and I give it to them. Not that they can tell anyone afterward, since who would believe them?" He smiled at her before looking away again.
"I don't want to have sex with you," she felt the need to clarify.
"I wasn't offering."
"Should I be insulted?"
"It depends. Do you find the assessment that you are young and still have all of your scruples insulting?"
"Of course not."
He spread his hands as far as he was able. "Then no." His smile then was unnerving. "No need to worry. I'll go easy on you."
She frowned. "What does that mean?"
"You know perfectly well why my previous lawyers didn't last."
"Because they didn't like that you hold the upper hand, even though you're the client," she said. "It was a clash of egos and…"
"And?" he prompted when she didn't continue.
She was tempted to keep her eyes on the paper when she answered. "You are aware of your… reputation."
He slid his fingers together. "I am aware that what people describe as 'egocentricity' is actually a reflection of their jealousy at the fact that they have not achieved half of what I have."
"Since we're getting along so well, I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me about this." She slid the paper down to him and pointed at an item at the top. He peered down over his glasses at the page.
"Oh, you don't want to hear about that," Nygma said, turning the page around and pushing it back. "My statement there is entirely honest. You would learn nothing by having me recount it to you."
"Mr Nygma, I only -"
"Wouldn't you prefer I told you of the one I got away with?"
Sabrina slowly moved the paper back into the folder. "The one you..." Why would he want to tell her that? Was this some sort of trick? What was she supposed to say?
"Oh yes," Nygma said, eyes cast directly into hers. "He was obviously an inconsequential nobody, given that no one ever cared he went missing." He smiled a little. "It's so interesting, isn't it, how few people leave a significant enough mark? We all struggle to make something of ourselves, and yet when the time comes we simply... fade away."
"Even yourself, Mr Nygma?" she dared to suggest.
"Of course not," he said briskly. "I am not so small as that. You were confused by my use of the word 'we', most likely. It was entirely to maintain our rapport, my dear."
"If you believe I am no one of consequence, why would you have me represent you?" she asked, putting the folder aside. He was still smiling, in a way that made her feel as though he knew something about her that she didn't.
"Anyone has the potential to be of consequence in my proximity," he answered. "Those that are of use to me are deeply rewarded."
"Even if the water is deep, I doubt many people find being thrown off the pier rewarding."
He laughed, without malice. He seemed genuinely amused. "That's not one of my methods, my dear. If people fail me, I merely express my disappointment and send them on their way." He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. "Many of them are happy to come crawling back."
"You must be a very generous employer." She still didn't know why he was telling her any of this.
"You'll soon see for yourself. But back to my crime." He sat against the back of the chair. "Do you know of the diner down the road from the Asylum?"
"I've driven by it."
"I have some people there. They keep an ear out, I pay them accordingly. There's a wonderful older woman who works nights there." He was looking off in the direction of the ceiling, and it made it quite awkward for her to keep her eyes on him, but she wasn't going to stop. "One night a common thug entered the diner and threatened her life."
"And you swooped in to save her?"
He laughed a little. "No, no. I wasn't even in the city at the time. No, she gave him what he wanted and still he shot her for her trouble. Imagine my surprise when I went in there looking for her and was told she had been hospitalised the previous weekend."
"I would think you would be more angry than surprised, Mr Nygma."
He smiled at her quite cordially. "Very good, my dear! That is indeed what I was. And so I immediately went to work finding this thug and exacting upon him that which he deserved. However, in my ire I neglected to do that and instead set upon my way with merely a borrowed revolver and far too much emotion blinding my rationality."
"So you found him and you shot him."
"I did," Nygma answered. "By mistake."
Was this the part she was supposed to be suspicious of? "Mistake, Mr Nygma?"
"I had his collar in my left hand and the gun in my right, set parallel to his throat."
"Then how was it an accident?"
"I'm left-handed," he answered, as though she should have somehow known that already. "And what a mess that made."
"What did you do with the body?"
"Oh," he said with as dismissive a wave as possible with his hands cuffed to the table, "I just left it there. He lived in a decrepit room in a forgotten corner of town." He seemed almost a little wistful. "I wonder if the value of that property could possibly have gone any lower."
She took a long breath and glanced at her watch.
"What are you going to do with this information?" he asked softly. She bit her tongue before looking over at him again.
"What should I do with it?"
"Why would you ask me that? Aren't you the lawyer?"
"I am the lawyer," she said, "but I'm having trouble figuring out what the purpose of telling me that story was."
"I wanted to know what you'd do with it."
She spread her hands. "Then the answer is 'nothing', Mr Nygma. The only evidence I have is your word, and though I have no reason to think you would sit here wasting both our time with fairy tales, a crime you weren't convicted for isn't relevant to your case whatsoever. If we could return to that, I think it would be more helpful for you."
Nygma rubbed his thumbs together. "Very good," he said. But he had sobered noticeably, and he was looking across the room somewhat distantly. As though he regretted something. But it wouldn't have been the murder…
"And how is she doing?" Sabrina asked softly. His frown was nearly imperceptible.
"She's fine," he said shortly.
The call she made later that night proved otherwise.
/
This visit found him handcuffed to the table before she got there, and she had to insist heavily to get the security guards to leave. She sat down and shook her head. "Are you causing trouble down here?"
"Me?" Nygma said, putting a hand to his chest. "Does that sound like something I would do?"
She opened her briefcase and slid a page over to him from it. "I'm still working on your defense. If you could verify this it would be very helpful."
He took the paper and looked down at it for several moments. He looked strange. Upon further thought she realised he was paler and thinner than she remembered. "Are you okay?"
He looked overtop the document bemusedly. "Why do you ask."
She shrugged. "You look different." And he had a beard, which she didn't think she'd seen before in any of his documentation.
"I was put into solitary," he said, and went back to reading.
"For what?" She fervently hoped he hadn't done anything to hurt the case. He just shrugged.
"No reason."
"There has to be a reason. How long have you been there?" The duration would give her something of an idea.
He shrugged again.
"How do you not know?"
He put the paper down entirely. "Sabrina. My dear. They put you in a white brick room the size of a parking space for twenty-four hours a day with nothing to do. I don't know because there is no way I can possibly tell the time."
"Surely you could… count the number of times the lights were turned off."
"They never turn them off," Nygma said tiredly, as though he were telling her something everyone but she was aware of. "And if you were about to suggest counting mealtimes, that is equally impossible. They only exist if security decides that they do." He closed his eyes for a moment. "Not that it's anything you would want to keep track of."
"Why?"
"Do you know who makes the food in prison, Sabrina?"
She shook her head.
"There are inmates assigned to that task. And a great many of them get a kick out of abusing that power and making food that is completely inedible. Especially Nutraloaf."
"That's banned in three states," she protested. "Mr Nygma, do you have any idea how long you've been in solitary?"
He sat back in the chair. "What day is it."
"The seventeenth."
He leaned forward. "Really?"
"… yes?"
Palms together, he pressed his hands to his nose. "That's good news," he said. "I've been… it's been almost a month now."
"Why is the date good news?"
He looked at her as though she had suddenly mutated in some way. "It's prime, Sabrina."
"I mean… that's interesting, but it doesn't mean –"
"It means everything!" Nygma interrupted, pressing his hands to the table. "Seventeen is prime, Sabrina. And here you are. There are eleven primes in a month and here you are. That means –"
"What happened to your hands?" she asked, taking notice of them now that he was waving them around, as much as he could handcuffed that was. The skin on his hands was rough and peeling, and the knuckles in particular were newly scabbed. He looked down at them.
"Nothing," he said. "They're fine."
Something she'd read in one of the psych evaluations was coming back to her. She wondered how far she would be able to push him on it. "There are only eleven primes in months with thirty-one days."
"And?"
"This month has thirty days." She watched him carefully. "Is that still a good sign?"
"Yes," he said after a moment. "Seventeen is the seventh prime, which is also prime."
"How often have you been thinking about prime numbers lately?"
"Constantly," Nygma admitted. "Solitary is not very stimulating."
"When they brought you in here, did you count the bricks in the wall?"
"Of course I did," he snapped.
"It's not legal to keep you in solitary, Mr Nygma."
He rolled his eyes. "This is a supermax, Sabrina. They don't care about legality any more than I do."
"On the grounds of your mental disorder, however, it's… solitary confinement over fifteen days has been classified as torture, but for you…"
"I do not have a mental – "
Sabrina folded her hands on top of the table. "Mr Nygma, could you please tell me how many words are on that document in front of you?"
"Three hundred twelve," he said immediately.
"And do you have anything to say about the contents of the document, or were you too busy counting them to actually read it?"
"I do not have what you are implying I have," he said, through clenched teeth. His hand had moved into a hard fist. Sabrina looked through the papers of her briefcase and withdrew the relevant paper. He didn't even look at it.
"I already told you what I thought of that ridiculous manual."
God, he was so difficult. She resolved to stay calm and in control. "I suppose you like it in solitary, then. The walls aren't prime but you count them in blocks of three just to make sure, don't you?"
"Stop that."
"The only thing you can control in there is how many times you wash your hands, but you're not in control of that, either, are you?"
"I told you to stop."
"You keep thinking that doing it will make things better, somehow, but they keep getting worse and in order to convince yourself it's going to work eventually you just keep doing it, and before long someone is threatening to shut the water off and –"
Nygma slammed his hands on the table hard enough that she couldn't keep from jumping, and he looked her right in the eye as he said, his voice very low, "You can stop now, or you can not make it home tonight. Your decision."
Given the power he had, there was a risk the threat was not entirely empty. "And you can do your part in helping me get you out of here, or you can go right back down to solitary for the next twenty years and never see the light of day again. Your decision." Her pulse was heavy in her throat. She was suddenly acutely aware of the fact he could probably find a way to kill her even handcuffed to a table and half-starved and sleepless for a month.
"I don't suppose you smoke at all," he said finally.
"The mint-flavoured kind," she answered. "Would you like one?"
"Please," he said, and she pulled one out of her purse, lit it, and handed it to him. He burned through half of it in one inhalation.
"You're sure you can get me out of there?" Nygma asked quietly after a moment, all malice gone completely. She took as long and private a breath as she could.
"I can. Did you file complaints?"
He glanced behind him. "I tried to," he said, voice still just this side of audible. "You only do that once or twice." He finished the cigarette and threw the end on the floor.
"Why?"
"If they don't tear them up in front of you, they punish you for having the temerity to even ask for one. The second time they didn't even give me a pen to fill it out with. When I asked for one they took away my sheet." He was rubbing his brow very slowly. "You can't prove anything. All you can do is remember who wronged you and make sure they don't get away with it."
He pressed his clasped hands to his forehead and sat like that long enough she got a little concerned. "What?"
"You shouldn't have come," he said, bitterly.
"I told you I was going to – "
"Now I have to go back down there," he said angrily. "I haven't had a conversation with anyone in… I don't even know how long, and you have the audacity to come in here and tease me like this? Do you even understand what I have to go back to?"
"I can't say I understand," Sabrina told him, "but I've heard enough to appeal. It is illegal to put you into solitary if you have a mental condition. I don't care what you have to say about it," she said, before he could protest. "You have a documented medical condition that is being exacerbated by a negligent staff and an inappropriate environment. It's enough to get you out of here. And I can find an attorney who will sue on behalf of you and everyone else in a similar position, if you can give me the information I need."
"Like what."
"A personal account of your time spent in solitary, with as much accuracy as possible." But before she had even finished he was shaking his head. "Mr Nygma, please –"
"No," he said. "Once I leave – once anyone leaves – it's not something to discuss. It's something to try to forget. It haunts you. For the rest of your life."
"I understand," Sabrina said gently. "But this is going to remain a problem until enough people stand up to fix it."
He looked at her with such incredible fatigue on his face. "I am not your book deal, Sabrina."
"I'm not going to write a book." She reached over and put a hand on top of his. It was dry to the touch, and he seemed a little surprised that she had put it there. It wasn't the most advisable action, but she was running out of time and options.
"How long is the appeal going to take."
"I don't know. It could be months."
He rubbed his face with his hands very slowly. If one month in solitary could do this, she was unsure she even wanted to know what the effects of several were.
"Do you mind if I borrow another one," he asked tonelessly. "I'll return them later."
She gave him another cigarette and instead of smoking it he just held it between his fingers. She had a faint recollection of persons with mental disorders self-medicating with cigarettes. Perhaps that was what he was doing.
"After a while you end up talking to yourself just to hear somebody's voice," he said quietly. "And you see things that aren't there, just to have something to look at. They know. They know when you're starting to break down. And they tempt you."
"With what?"
"A pill," he answered. "A psychotropic. Taking it will make everything go away. Including yourself." He rubbed at his wrists. "
"Hang in there," she told him. "I'm getting you back into the Asylum." She took her papers back and slotted them into the briefcase. "How did you get out of Blackgate after the first conviction?"
"A mistrial was called based on personal bias from the judge. I escaped in the middle of that mess."
That was soundly unhelpful. She stood up. "You're going to have another psych evaluation for the appeal to document the deterioration for the suit."
"I'm quivering in anticipation."
She bit her tongue and reminded herself his haughty defiance was probably all that kept him going at this point. "You need to tell the truth when they get here. As detailed as possible. I can't help you without your cooperation."
"And why are you helping?" he asked, the barest hint of suspicion in his tone. She closed the briefcase.
"It's my job, Mr Nygma. I just prefer to do it more thoroughly than other people." And with that she left, because she had a great deal of work to do, and quickly. Nygma's legendary defiance was only going to take him so far, especially taking into account his markedly subdued state and mood swings in the space of that thirty minutes. She needed to get him moved before he gave into the pressure to take those pills… or worse.
/
She was not given the opportunity to speak to him again; the staff at Blackgate had apparently not liked the contents of their conversation and refused her request. Well, that was fine. The more she had on them, the better.
Trying to get a colloquially-termed supervillain moved from a supermax to an insane asylum was a great deal more work than she had anticipated, especially given that nobody who had ever traded words with the man seemed to like him. It took more months than she had ever wanted to put into it, and when her family heard who she was working so hard to acquit most of them stopped talking to her. She did her best not to care. She had taken this job and she was going to see it through to the finish.
The day finally came where she stood before a judge and argued that the conviction had been a result of the previous judge's incompetence and the determination of the court at the time to overlook the facts, as well as sending a man with a very clearly documented mental disorder to a facility that would exacerbate his condition and possibly drive him to extremes that she herself had witnessed. The judge took three days to make his verdict, and every one of these three days saw her lying awake at night, running through everything she had presented and said and praying it had been enough.
It came through exactly as she had hoped: not guilty by reason of insanity. The prosecution was up in arms over this, of course, but she didn't care. She'd won.
Now onto the next part of her mission, which was to gather enough evidence that a friend of hers with a lot more influence could use to sue Blackgate Penitentiary on behalf of all the prisoners who had been locked up in solitary far past legal limits. It would be a big and messy trial with a lot of risk involved, but he'd agreed to do it on the grounds that she collated all the proof for him. The most vital proof, she already knew, was locked in Edward Nygma's eidetic memory, the validity of which could be and had been proven in court already.
She spent most of her time going over the documentation and the various tenets of the law they could be applied to, taking a break to go down to a coffee shop nearabouts her apartment in the afternoons. On the fourth day of this she was exiting the shop when she saw in the reflection of the window someone step out of a side street and stride forward purposefully. She tried not to let on that she had seen while still walking quickly. Damn. She hoped she was imagining things. Her heart beat strong enough to make her feel mildly ill.
A hand gripped her arm and she turned to face the owner, who pulled her right into himself and growled, "Do you have any idea what you've done, letting that freak loose?"
"Let go of me," she said calmly, even though there was no way he couldn't tell she was scared out of her wits. She should have planned for this. She should have known this would happen, she was dealing with a branded criminal for God's sake –
"The lady said to let go," said a third voice from behind both of them, and Sabrina could just hear the click of a safety. Oh no she did not need this –
"All right," her attacker said, shoving her off of him so that she stumbled to the sidewalk. "No need for that." And he ran off, leaving Sabrina with an armed man who… held out a hand to help her up.
"Thanks," she said, brushing off her skirt. He shrugged and tucked the gun away. Now that she could see him, she recognised him as one of the people who had been sitting at the counter in front of the window. In fact, he was there every day. At the same time. In the same… she frowned.
"You're not working for anybody, are you?"
"We're all working for someone, ma'am," he said politely, and he went back into the coffee shop.
Just how many people in Gotham were on the Riddler's payroll?
And it wasn't just him. There were people who sat patiently at the same bus stop every afternoon, or inspected apples far too judiciously at the grocery store. Were they all specifically there to watch her? Or did they have some other task they were doing simultaneously? Or maybe she was just being paranoid? Daily routine was a thing, after all.
Well, she'd have to ask him. And hope he felt like telling the truth. She had to wait a few weeks for the transfer date to arrive but as soon as it did and the time for him to have been checked into the Asylum had passed, she called to arrange a meeting with him.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," the man on the other end said, and he did sound apologetic, "Riddler never arrived at the Asylum."
She could have sworn her heart stopped.
"Excuse me?" was all she could think of to say.
"The transfer vehicle was hijacked along the way and he escaped. We're working with the police force but –"
She hung up and pitched the phone onto her bed. Damn him! Did he have any idea what he had done?
Think, Sabrina, she told herself. Where would a supercriminal who has been in prison – in solitary confinement – for the last several months go if he managed an escape?
'Into hiding' was what she would do, but no. That couldn't be it. Every encounter with Nygma, even parts of when he had been in solitary, had oozed overconfidence. He wouldn't hide. And if he did, it would be in plain sight, so he could laugh at everyone who failed to see him. Yet he would be smart about it. In plain sight, but untouchable…
She raised her head. She had an idea, and trying it was going to be dangerous, but he had already endangered her by pulling this stunt.
/
"I'm here to see Edward Nygma," she told the bouncer at the door of the Iceberg Lounge, and he eyed her up and down before saying,
"Mr Nygma didn't say he was expecting anyone this evening."
Oh, damn him. He was there! She slipped her fingers together in an attempt to remain patient and calm. "Would you mind asking if he has time to see me? It's important."
There was a long pause as the man scrutinised her again.
"Your name?"
"Sabrina," she said, following it up with the most genuine smile she could conjure at the moment, and he grunted and went inside.
She folded her arms across her chest as she waited.
"He'll see you," the bouncer said when he returned, waving her through the door. He pointed towards the bar. "He's in his usual spot."
"Thank you." She didn't know what 'his usual spot' was, but there couldn't be too many tall redheads sitting at the bar.
There was only the one, thoughtfully eating a shrimp cocktail while watching a very intense round of tonsil hockey going on against one of the walls, and she marched up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. He held an expression of indignity until he recognised her. Then he smiled.
"Oh, you are here! Please. Have a seat."
"You tricked me," she said. He frowned only slightly.
"Into?"
She raised an accusing finger. "You wanted to go back to the Asylum. It's easier for you to escape from."
He eyed her for a moment, then picked up his drink – something clear that could have been one of many liquors – and drained the ounce or so that was left. "I'll be back," he said, dismounting from the stool, and as she opened her mouth to protest he put a hand on her arm. "Don't worry. I'm not running off. I haven't settled my bill, and trust me, Ozzie's wrath would be considerably worse than yours." And he disappeared into the darkness. She felt out of place standing there alone so she sat upon the stool next to the one he had vacated and settled in to wait.
When he returned about three minutes later a silent bartender appeared from nowhere and effortlessly took up his empty glass, pouring about another three ounces of liquid into it and placing it back down on a fresh coaster in front of him. Nygma thanked the man, who nodded once and then vanished again. She watched as he picked up the glass, considered the contents, and then put it down again.
"We need to talk about what you're doing here," she began, and to her complete confusion and annoyance he just laughed. She put her hands on top of the bar in irritation, but he only reached into a pocket of the blazer hanging off the back of his stool and removed a box of cigarettes, which he opened and offered to her. Well, she couldn't say she couldn't use one right now. She froze when she realised what kind they were.
"I owed you two," he said, and she removed them from the box. He pulled one out for himself and lit it with a green cigarette lighter shaped vaguely like a precious gem. He handed it to her and she accepted it gingerly. It was heavy.
"Is this made of glass?"
He finished his inhalation of the cigarette before answering, "Yes it is."
She lit hers and handed it back to him. "That's…"
"Classy? Elegant? Sophisticated?"
"Pretentious," she finished. He smiled and shook his head.
"As for what I'm doing here," he said, tapping the end of his cigarette into the ashtray that had appeared beyond Sabrina's notice, "after being in prison for all those months I thought I deserved a drink and some real food."
"You know this makes me look really bad."
"It makes everyone look bad except for you," he corrected, removing the tail from one of his shrimp and placing it on the saucer beneath the glass, then handing her the prawn. She accepted it with some hesitance. She felt a great deal like she was being wined and dined by someone very powerful and very illegal. He ate one of the shrimp himself and said, after swallowing some of his drink, "You had nothing to do with the van, nor the persons driving it, nor the persons who were supposed to be keeping me confined. The disappearance of your client based on an order from a judge you managed to sway to your arguments has nothing to do with you."
She ate the prawn in her hand, mostly so she didn't have to keep holding it. It was better than she'd expected. "That doesn't address why you tricked me."
"Oh, Sabrina," he said, with something approaching a fatherly tone, "you are a treat. I do like you quite a lot, you know."
"Why." She was unsure if being liked by the Riddler was a good thing.
"Look at you." He waved a hand grandly in her direction. "You stormed into a club you knew full well was populated with some of the worst people in the city – in the state, even – and demanded to speak with someone whose power and influence, quite frankly, you seem to have very little grasp of. You seek to berate me for tricking you, but even as you become upset at my seeming breakage of your trust, you," he said, sitting back in his chair and loosening his knees, "still trusted that I would agree to see you and not instead have you killed on the spot for your presumptuousness."
She spent too long stubbing out the end of her cigarette in an attempt to process that. She was unable to.
"I did not trick you," Nygma said, looking over again at the couple in the corner. "Everything I said to you was the truth. There is no need for lies when the reality is a much, much better story."
"Story," she echoed. He frowned in consideration.
"A mere turn of phrase, my dear. When I realised you intended to help me in earnest, I gave you the trust you had earned. You went far above and beyond anything I had ever anticipated." He picked up his drink. "No trickery." He swallowed about half the liquid. "Solitary is every bit as terrible as I stated."
"Well, I need you to go over it again," she said, suddenly remembering why she had been looking for him in the first place. "I need names." Before she'd even finished talking he was shaking his head.
"My friend can't go forward with the lawsuit without your account. You're the only one who can give names and descriptions. You're the only one who remembers."
"I don't care."
"It's not about you," she argued, leaning forward. He wasn't looking at her. "It's about everyone who comes after you."
"Why did you become a lawyer," he asked distantly. She knit her brow.
"Justice," she answered.
"And your idea of justice is to try and force the employees of a supermax to treat their murderers and rapists with more dignity?" He raised his eyebrows momentarily. "It seems your efforts would be directed better elsewhere."
"Maybe," Sabrina said. "But that's the direction they're in right now."
He abruptly finished the rest of his drink and stood up, pulling his blazer over his arms. He withdrew a slip of paper from one of his pockets, which he tucked next to his glass – a hundred dollar bill, no less – and stepped away from the bar. "Come," Nygma said, and he moved towards the exit without checking to see if she was following. A man silently handed him a long green coat as he approached, and as he shrugged it on Nygma slipped something into his hand before nodding and passing through the doorway.
The chill was not as severe after having been in such a warm atmosphere for so long. He led her around one side of the building and once there he lit a cigarette – a different brand than hers – and looked out into the badly-lit street for a moment. Then he said, "You once had visions of keeping innocent men off death row, didn't you."
She stuffed her hands into her pockets. "Everyone dreams of doing something big and important."
"Interesting choice of words." His glasses were down his nose a distance but he did not fix them. "Tell me, did you find yourself on small or on unimportant dockets?"
She considered that for a moment.
"Neither," she answered. "All of the cases were big and important to the people involved. So I had to redefine the way I thought about them."
He smiled. "That's so very empathetic," he said, grinding out his cigarette beneath his toe. "An odd trait for a lawyer."
"Which is why I need your statement, Mr Nygma," she pressed. He looked at her, sliding his own hands into his pockets.
"Something I found interesting about you," he said, ignoring her, "is that you have never once called me Edward."
"You're my client, not my friend."
He raised one finger. "But you introduced yourself to me with your first name. This is symbolic of leaving the ball in my court, so to speak. Now why," he asked, secluding his hand again, "why would you, whose entire career hinges on having the power to locate and orate a convincing argument, purposely create an unequal power dynamic from the very beginning?"
"I wasn't," Sabrina protested. "I was – "
But he held out his finger again. "Sabrina. I am telling you what I saw. What many people you are going to meet over the years are going to see. Where you strive to demonstrate friendliness and approachability, people like myself see only weakness. You're going to get yourself killed if you keep that up."
"Then why are you telling me this?" she demanded. "Why didn't you just let that mugger kill me?"
"Oh, I had nothing to do with that," he said, waving a hand. "Not directly, anyway. I merely promised a bonus to any of my informants that kept an eye out for you. And why did I do that? It's in my best interest. It's very difficult to find good, let alone outstanding, help. Similar to the payments I've made. You are worth a certain amount of compensation to me and so I have provided it. What I am trying to tell you is that if you continue lawyering at Blackgate, you are going to encounter persons who are more than happy to hang you out to dry. You can't make friends with them. You can't appeal to their softer sides. There is no 'getting through' to them. There are men who request solitary and contentedly measure out the rest of their days there. The citizens of Blackgate do not, for the most part, deserve your sympathy."
"And you, a former citizen of Blackgate, are warning me because…"
"It's very difficult to retain an excellent lawyer when they're dead."
"It's not my job to decide whether you deserve justice or not. It's my job to fight for it regardless."
"That's quite noble," he said, "but if I wish for there to be justice I am more than capable of dispensing it myself."
"Mr Nygma, please," she said, trying to come up with some miracle words to convince him. He paused in his exit, giving her one last moment. "If you truly value my work and what I've done for you, give me the statement. I've made the law work in your favour. You know I'm capable. Let me right this."
He only turned around, and it suddenly occurred to her maybe she did have something to appeal to him with. Not a concept he didn't care about, or a something something. But a piece of knowledge she did know mattered to him. His reaction was unknowable, but she had nothing left to lose.
"One more thing."
He sighed laboriously, to signal she was a tremendous waste of his precious time no doubt, but he did stop. She took a breath and said, as clearly as he could, "I'm sorry about Ainsley."
The look he cast over his shoulder was… a lot of things. A little bit of shock, a little bit of confusion. Anger at her presumptuousness. He looked at her for only a moment, but it seemed as though he was doing so for long minutes, contemplating whether he should close the space between them so he could slap her across the face, or stab her with some weapon hidden on his person, or call the bouncer from in front of the bar to deal with her. She bit her tongue as perhaps she should have done when he had tried to leave. She just might have gone too far this time.
But he just kept walking without another word.
/
It was a bitter prologue to winter in more ways than one. She lost two of her cases and the third was dropped on the grounds of her client being murdered. Maybe her success with the Riddler had been a fluke. Maybe she hadn't done it at all, and he had merely arranged for everything and allowed her to take credit. He certainly seemed to have the power. It could have been he had faked everything, and had never been in solitary at all.
No. No, she believed him. Without that she had no ground to stand on. And to her knowledge he never lied directly; he would slant the truth, as far as he could in many cases, but outright lying about being somewhere he'd never been? She didn't think he'd do that.
She had the same line of thought repeatedly over the course of several weeks; that, and repurposing herself into some other career, such as divorce law. It wouldn't be any less soul-sucking, but it would be much less dangerous and the stakes would be much lower.
She sat down at her desk one day at the end of that month and looked at the mail that had come in. She had no real interest in opening any of it. On top of the pile was an unmarked letter mail envelope with something small and light contained within it. She picked it up and wondered if she should be concerned yet about mysterious packages arriving on her desk.
Oh well.
She directed her letter opener into the top right corner and pulled a slit across the flap. The envelope contained a micro cassette and a square of paper, folded over once. The cassette was also unmarked. She stared at it for a moment.
Was this meant for her? She didn't have anything that could play the tape, nor did she know anyone that did. She traded the tape for the paper and opened it.
Merry Christmas. - Edward
He had either given her the cassette to ensure it could not be easily copied, or to simply be as difficult as possible.
No, it was both. Definitely both. She put the tape down and rubbed her forehead. She'd have to find something to play it in. But he'd given it to her. He'd turned everything around with a decision that probably meant absolutely nothing to him. She'd have to thank him somehow. The account on that tape had probably been very stressful for him, and going through the ordeal not anything he'd ever wanted to do. If she'd known where to find him, she would have put him on her Christmas card list.
He'd known all along he was going to do it, hadn't he. He'd just wanted to string her along. Make her work for it. He'd made her wait all this time for an answer he'd been ready to give when she'd originally asked.
"You're such an asshole," she whispered to herself in delight.
Author's note
The legalities are probably terribly wrong here but since this is all based on a comic book series where so many criminals are able to plead insanity that a separate prison had to be built to house them all when not guilty by reason of insanity verdicts are very rare….. I'm not gonna sweat it.
The bit about the handshake in the beginning is about how every time a man shakes my hand, he feels the need to absolutely crush it. Now I'm a small person with small hands so it's PRETTY obvious a great deal of force is not required. I'm inclined to think they just don't know they're a great deal stronger than me.
He wasn't lying about how solitary affected him, it genuinely is torturous.
Ainsley is his pretend aunt from We Get Along and, since the fic that mentions it won't be finished for a million years, a fun fact I'll tell you about her is that she learned how to make Real Actual French-Canadian Poutine just for him and she will make it for him whenever he asks. Also I'm preeeeetty sure I stated Edward doesn't drink in We Get Along but he kinda just ends up doing it anyway at several points in the future because he has a bit of an addictive personality and some days it's just easier not to resist.
Because I use the first names of real people I know in my fics, nobody actually has a last name. So from a meta standpoint Sabrina doesn't actually have a last name to give him lol.