Exit Strategy

By Indiana

Characters: Edward Nygma, Riddlerbots (Alan, Ada), Jonathan Crane (cameo)

Synopsis: Edward escapes from the GCPD to find he has nothing left, and nothing left to build from. References several past fics but I'll try to remember to recap when necessary.

Part the First

He had been waiting for two weeks.

The police department had had him on some heavy drug that made him exceedingly tired and rendered complex thought nearly impossible. Once he had come to this realisation he had ceased taking it, but under the guise of doing the opposite, and between that and the withdrawal symptoms he was forced to spend far too much time lying down. He needed to pretend to be asleep, though the raging headaches he was having made actual sleep difficult. He kept himself on one side, back facing anyone who might have the inclination to look in on him, kneaded his brow as discreetly as possible, and listened.

If he waited too long, he would miss his chance. The GCPD had no place to put him or the other former residents of the Asylum at the moment, so they were all crammed into the precinct for the time being. As soon as they were able to move them, however, Edward would lose his edge. That being the fact his mech was, as the information went, being stored in some sort of evidence museum without any safeguards whatsoever. He needed to get to it. If it were truly unguarded, as he'd been told, he could use it to escape the GCPD and return home without any obstacles whatsoever.

Home.

That thought always gave him pause. He had been without a home for a good twenty years: he'd lived in a condominium once, but upon embarking on his career as the Riddler he had traded that for being shuffled from police station to Asylum to Blackgate and back again in some sort of absurd cycle that could not be broken. And the factory… if it remained unknown, it was all he had left. There was nothing there to really classify it as a home, and yet he kept thinking of it that way regardless.

The deciding factor he always arrived on was his children.

They were there. They were waiting for him. Actually, literally, honest-to-God waiting. For him. He scarcely thought such a thing had happened in his entire life. He needed to get back to them, to reward their patience and their loyalty. And… and he had to ensure that they knew he loved them, even if… showing it was something he didn't do very often.

He would tell them the whole story one day, and they would listen and they would understand. It wasn't his fault. He had not been prepared for fatherhood, not in the slightest. But he'd done his best, and he believed that they knew that. Could he have done better? Perhaps. It was hard to be better at something you did not know how to do and had no means of deeper discovery. And he didn't. He didn't know how to be a father, not in the slightest. And it had taken far, far too long for him to understand he should have given this mess up a long, long time ago, but he knew now. It had been fun. He had achieved things so-called better men would never be able to aspire to, let alone accomplish themselves. But the time had come to let it go. He could not let it start over again, could not allow it to consume him again. And he knew with absolute certainty that would be the outcome if he did not get out of here and he did not, finally, leave this accursed city, because he had done it all before and entrenched himself deeper and deeper each time. In an odd twist, the mind-muddying medication had lent him a unique clarity. It had prevented him from complex thought, had kept from him the determination he'd had in the holding cell to start over again and prove, once and for all, what he was and what the Detective could never be, could never hold back, and without that odd… madness, was the only word he could put to it, without that he could think in a way he had lost the ability to do when he had started all of this. He still wanted to start over again. Still wanted to demonstrate to them all that they hadn't beaten him, that they never, ever could! but it was time to move on. He had responsibilities now. He had kids. At home. Waiting for him.

It was the small things he missed the most. Alan's never-ending questions, Ada's weight against his leg, listening to them talk while he did something else. They had been with him a scarce eight months and he already could not contemplate a future without them. The same could not be said about most of the other people he knew. Except for…

He opened his eyes to see the vague and blurry wall in front of him. Jonathan was here someplace as well. He couldn't imagine the GCPD had cared overmuch for what happened to him; if Jonathan was even still alive, he was doubtless very ill and with even less ability to take care of himself than usual. He probably was not going to be able to walk out of here. And Edward knew he did not quite have the strength to help him, not yet; he needed to get himself to safety first, take a few days to recover, and then come back and retrieve Jonathan. But to do all of that he needed to get going in the first place.

He sat up, wincing at the protestation of his largely unused body. If the mech was not there, as Selina had promised, he was unsure if he could even make it back to the factory like this. He'd hardly slept or eaten in months, and being forced to lie motionless for days on end had done nothing for his musculature except allow it to degrade. But it was all only going to get worse if he waited much longer. He picked up the cheap glasses from the place on the floor he had had to keep them and stood up slowly, walking to the door of the cell and squinting out into the hallway. It seemed the way was clear, and the time was right, though even if it wasn't he was pushing the delay to an uncomfortable length. He was not at his best, but he could think passably, and that was good enough for now.

He pulled the arms off the glasses and the curved pieces off the ends of those and slipped his hands through the bars, manoeuvering the bare metal into the lock. It took him a little longer than usual, given his loss of dexterity and aggravatingly present brain fog, but it soon clicked and he pulled the door open one inch in case of an alarm.

None sounded. He frowned, wondering if he should be grateful the GCPD had no budget or insulted they had not felt the need to watch him more closely. No matter. He didn't need difficulties at this time, as flattering as they would be.

Throughout his career as the Riddler, Edward had always found it quite ridiculous how few bodies these places had on the floor to ensure their prisoners stayed put. The night shift was beyond undesirable, and the level of care in these places had always been greatly below par. But seriously? Was he actually just walking down the hallway just now, with no officers to be found? Had they drugged everyone so severely they could not imagine moving, let alone escaping? The corner of his mouth tightened in derision.

The door to the evidence room was locked, and his makeshift lockpick broke inside of it. He dropped the pieces to the floor in distaste. What now? He had to get in there, because even in a police station this negligent walking out the front door was not an option.

Well. There was a vent. He looked down at it in distaste.

If he can do it, so can you.

So after waiting a minute or so to ensure no one was coming down the hallway, Edward knelt down and pulled the grate off the wall with a lot less effort than he'd anticipated. It seemed that the Bat had already ripped this away himself, and stripped the bolts doing so, and the person who had 'fixed' it had merely shoved it back into place and gone on their way. Their mistake, he supposed. He set it aside and resigned himself to the fact they probably had not had their ducts cleaned in the last fifty years.

He wasn't claustrophobic in the slightest – his assorted properties had had their fair share of tight squeezes – but the difficulty he had in pulling himself up to the horizontal despite the fact he could stand inside the first ten feet of the duct made him wish enormously that he'd just been able to unlock the door. He had to pull up the collar of his t-shirt around his nose to avoid breathing in all the dust, and it just made the whole situation far more ridiculous than it really needed to be.

The trip ended sooner than later, thankfully, and the grate on the other side was not refastened particularly strenuously either. He somehow climbed out of it without falling on his face and spent a minute or so covering his nose and mouth with one hand and trying not to cough. Despite this he still had the sudden, intense need for a cigarette. It had been several weeks and you'd think that would be enough time that –

Oh, that needed to wait. He had to get out of here before someone realised he was missing. He brushed the dust and cobwebs off of the jumpsuit and sneezed once or twice. Then he cast his eyes about to look for his mech, but he didn't have to search very hard. Once he saw it he had to just stand there and stare for a second, because it didn't make any sense at all.

It really was just sitting there.

In the open. No security tape. No laser system, no alarm wire. He could tell on sight they hadn't so much as disabled it. They had just walked his mech right up there and left it. Right there. As a laughingstock monument to his failure. His eyes strayed to the button indicating an audio description of the things they had taken from him. A cursory look around told him they had installed these for everything they had stolen and put up here on display. He bit his tongue until the rage burning in his chest subsided a little. He wanted to know what they had said. He needed to know.

No, Eddie, you need to get home.

It would only take a minute.

Every minute you stand here is a minute someone might wander by and find you here. And you are in no state for a standoff with the police right now.

That was true. But –

Quit your waffling and go!

He thinned his lips and climbed into the mech, glancing behind him at his other belongings mounted to the wall inside of a glass case. The hat he had no use for, but the cane he wanted back. He'd be taking that.

He firmed his hands around the controls but did not start up the machine. He had to leave, yes. He couldn't keep sticking around here, no matter how infuriated he was to know that they were treating him as some sort of amusing sideshow act they could put on display and ridicule for the delight of the masses. He could not let them get away with that, could he? He simply couldn't. He set his jaw and tried to think. His brain was still mired down from that damned medication, but something was coming to him. He simply needed another moment.

Then he looked up and around the room again and realised what he was going to do. If the true owners could not have their belongings, then the GCPD would not have them either. He would destroy them and it would serve those pompous ignoramuses right, to think they could just put his mech out here in the open as though it were theirs to do as they liked with. He turned the mech on and directed the laser at one side of the room before activating it, sweeping the beam through all of the trophy cases and then bringing it back to burn through the wall in front of him. There had never been any greater indication of the disgusting state of this city than the act of stealing from people and making a museum out of them. Honestly. If Edward had done anything of the sort he would have been imprisoned and ridiculed in a second, but the police, of course, the police were allowed to do whatever they wanted…

He fumed over that until he got to the Orphanage, at which time he jumped out of the mech to activate the switch that led down into the tunnels from outside. He'd leave the mech there inside the tunnel and make the rest of the trip on foot. If he had to infiltrate his own factory, the mech would be more a hindrance than a help.

The entrance was hidden beneath the puzzle structure he'd built out front of the Orphanage, and laid itself on its side to reveal the hole just big enough for the mech to fit into. Once he'd brought it down into the tunnel he dismounted and ran.

The tunnel would take him twenty minutes to walk usually, which translated to roughly ten minutes or so of running. At least, it would have if he had been in better health. Months of poor nutrition, lack of sleep, and smoking more than usual had put a strain on his body. He only managed a little under five minutes before he had to stop, stumbling into a crouch against the tunnel wall with a terrible ache in his chest and a cough that robbed his lungs of the remaining capacity they had left. When his breath came to him again he saw his hands were shaking. Damn. He considered just walking the rest of the way, but remembered why he'd been running in the first place. He'd been away from them too long. He needed to know if they were all right. He had to know!

He took a deep breath and kept running. By the time he'd come to the end of the tunnel he was dizzy, and more than a little nauseous, but he had to put that aside for now. Once he'd found them he could get things back the way they should be, including himself. He yanked open the door to the factory and was met with a pile of rubble that spilled over his shoes. His throat went dry.

Tabarnac. He had forgotten about that!

He stepped through it with as much caution as he could, since it consisted both of concrete and of rather dangerous metal pieces, to find that it was all gone. All of it. The explosion had been contained underground by his design, in case he'd needed to demolish it all in a hurry but still use the space later, so everything above this was intact. But the factory he had poured six months of work into was gone. All that was left of it now was tonnes of melted and torn metal, splintered wood, and the bits and pieces of the bots he'd left to defend the place in his absence. It put some other kind of ache into his chest, but he had to ignore that now too. This was gone. He had to put it behind him. There were more important things just now.

But when am I going to stop and let it all catch up with me?

It was a good question. He'd been putting it off for… years, now. He was going to have to confront all of it eventually, and he'd be fortunate if the weight of it didn't crush him. He definitely did not need that at the moment.

Since the elevator was now defunct, Edward was going to have to figure out some way of climbing up into the store above. Some of the chainlink had become detached from the ceiling so he could climb up the wall with that, but it was not going to be a whole lot of fun. Especially now that he didn't have any gloves.

Well, it was the only option right now. He wiped his hands off on his pants and set to climbing.

He'd only been in prison a fortnight but he felt so weak. His arms burned just halfway up the wall, and while that was happening he so vividly remembered the months it had taken him to gain the muscle needed to construct on the scale he had. When he got to the top of the wall he had to kneel there for a minute to gather his strength. He was so tired. He wanted to go home, but he had no home to go to. It was gone. Everything he had was gone. He coughed a little. Time to keep going.

He made his way through the rest of the toy store, which was in much the same condition he'd left it. There were some spots of blood and discarded equipment on the floor, signs of Selina's passing, but it didn't really matter. He was getting out of here for good. It was time to retire.

Back on the upper floor, at store level, was more of the same. He hadn't put any equipment nor signs of his presence up here, as a precaution to keep this place an absolute secret, and everything was as it had been, only dustier. Except… no, someone had been there, in the front of the store. There were two suitcases on the floor against a jutting of wall into the centre of the room. Calisse.

Dad?

He turned around, apprehension adding to the unpleasant mix in his gut. "Ada?" It couldn't be. He couldn't dare hope that –

Dad! You're back!

And Ada came running up to him, and when he bent to catch her she latched around his chest far too tightly. Picking her up certainly didn't help him any, but he had to. This was it. This was worth everything, somehow, this hug from his little girl he had never meant to leave for so long. "Oh, my princess," he murmured to her, "I've missed you."

I missed you too! Alan said you were going to be gone one day!

"I… meant to be," Edward hedged, and she was quite capable of clinging to him without support but his back was beginning to pain him. She was moderately heavy and his arms were already tired. It took a moment to pry her from him so he could rest them. "Where is Alan?"

I'm here, Alan said, but oddly he didn't seem to want a hug. Edward would have quite gladly given him one, and considered doing it anyway… but if Alan did not want to instigate it perhaps Edward should leave him for now. Edward put a hand on his shoulder instead.

"I'm glad you're all right, son. And Nikola?"

He wandered off someplace, Alan said. He'll turn up sometime.

Edward was not entirely pleased about that – Nikola was seven feet tall, and difficult to conceal – but if Nikola really wanted to disappear Alan was unable to stop him. He suddenly felt very fatigued again and sat down on the floor against the wall, rubbing his eyes. He was already getting a headache from having lost his glasses.

Are you all right? Alan asked, and when he opened his eyes again he saw that Alan was crouched in front of him. He nodded.

"I'm just tired. I'm going to sleep for a while and then… and then I'll figure out what to do next." Hopefully. God, he was tired. And he felt sick. Very, very sick. If he didn't go to sleep he might actually vomit, and he'd have a hell of a time explaining that to Alan. He lay down and put his glasses aside, having the passing thought that his raised body temperature from all the exertion was going to fade soon enough and he was going to freeze in this unheated room on this November night, but he didn't have the energy to untie the sleeves of the jumpsuit and put them back on.

Ada, come sit with Dad for a bit, he heard Alan say quietly, and Ada came and started tousling his hair. That made him feel better. Not physically – physically he was still a wreck – but hell. They were safe, and he'd be all right eventually, and all he had to do now was rescue Jonathan and get them all out of here. He could do it. He could do anything. He could.

/

Author's Note

This first one is a little on the short side, I apologise. This fic I have been holding onto for a year or so now so if you spot inconsistencies in future PLEASE point them out because a lot of stuff I had to change around from how I wrote some parts of this originally and I might accidentally include old details that don't belong.

'Indy, why is the GCPD so empty that he can just stroll around wherever he wants?' well this is after Arkham Knight so the city is probably broke and the police are probably all over the city fixing shit, the ones that were allowed to come back to the force after they ditched especially. They probably don't have the manpower to watch the precinct too closely, and besides that in the games Batman is always strolling around and never running into anyone.