A/N: This is a silly little one-shot that Charlotte and I collaborated to create, inspired in part by a song from (don't judge me!!) Shrek the Musical, "I Think I Got You Beat". I've changed a few things in here, which I do hope Charlotte will forgive me for doing.
Since we have so few pieces with our favorite Arkham Asylum psychiatrist, I decided to post this! And who should dear Dr. Leland have to deal with but everyone's favorite Riddle Master??
Title: I Think I Got You Beat
Summary: As they say, if you've lost new material, just use the old - in new ways.
Characters: Edward Nygma/The Riddler, Dr. Joan Leland
Rating: K - Humor and just plain silliness
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman. Charlotte A. Cavitica and I own this piece together. Do not use this in any way - reference, copy, or borrow - unless you have permission from BOTH myself and Charlotte! Thank you!!
Please review!
All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.
~ Emerson
I Think I Got You Beat
Joan moved around from her desk to the green armchair in the center of the room. The chair faced a settee in a reasonably attractive plum shade. Private therapy sessions had once been carried out exclusively in the designated therapy rooms, but Edward—Mr. Nygma—had eventually made a deal with her. His private therapy sessions would take place in her office, where he felt more 'comfortable.' Her professionalism balked at it, and she had initially believed that this was a ruse to get a look at his or another patient's file, or at the least get out from under the eyes of the guards for a while, but he'd been as well-behaved as she suspected it was possible for him to be.
She didn't entertain the idea that she was also more comfortable in her own space. She didn't bother mentioning the memorable afternoon she and Mr. Barker, one of the more personable and pleasant guards in the asylum, had shifted this very chair and settee up from the basement.
Joan smoothed down her coat and swept her hair behind her ears. She was polishing herself for the sake of presenting herself in a professional, neat manner. That was all. Of course it was—it didn't need saying.
Mr. Barker brought Mr. Nygma to the doorway, the latter of whom was bouncing lightly and rather insolently on the balls of his feet and the guard undid his handcuffs. Joan lifted an eyebrow at his effervescent behavior, restraining the urge to roll her eyes when he winked at her.
"Behave yourself, Nygma," Barker muttered, hooking the handcuffs to his belt.
"Anything for you, Phil."
Mr. Barker nodded to the doctor and closed the door behind him.
"His name's really Michael," Edward—Mr. Nygma—clarified.
Joan smiled coolly and gestured to the sofa, smoothing her skirt under herself as she settled into her armchair and lifted up her clipboard. "Please have a seat, Mr. Nygma. How are you doing today?"
"Oh, quite well, I suppose." He answered with a smooth—if not cocky—smile on his face, "And yourself, Joan?"
"Fine," she answered, "Have a seat."
"I can't stand?"
"No, you may not." She replied, settling back in her chair, one leg folded over the other, fixing him with a firm gaze, "Sit, please."
The "please" was just a formality, and she was pleased to note that he acknowledged it as such. That, of course, did not mean he sat down in a professional and decent manner. If anything, he plopped down on the furniture. Though, she had to admit, it was mildly impressive that he was capable of folding his arms behind his head and crossing his ankles over each other and doing it all while depositing himself down into the cushions.
She almost made a note, but instead, she lifted a dark brow and blinked. "You seem to have been exercising your time and abilities in the weight room, Mr. Nygma."
"Why, Joan…I'm flattered you noticed." He said, giving his biceps a light flex.
"Don't flatter yourself too much, Mr. Nygma." She answered, eyes currently on her notebook, "I don't fancy it would do too well for your ego to be swelled an inch more."
He raised a brow, mimicking her expression, "You seem a touch on edge this morning…" he noted.
"It's the afternoon, Mr. Nygma."
He grimaced slightly, but bounced right back without hesitation, "Was the hubby a bit insolent before you came into the office?"
"My personal life is none of your concern, Mr. Nygma."
"But mine is your business? Now, that doesn't seem very fair to me…don't you think we ought to be on the same boat before we start sailing?"
He was trying for a personable approach, drawing parallels between their lives. She almost raised her brow again; this was a common strategy used in interrogation with criminals. He probably picked it up when he was questioned by the police.
Then again…maybe not.
But she'd learned years ago that interrogation worked about as well with him as a brick wall. If she intended to get anywhere, this had to become a match of wits…a game of chess, if one would pardon the analogy.
And she was a very talented chess player.
"That sounds like a fine idea, Mr. Nygma." She said, folding her hands neatly over her knee with a pleasant smile.
He felt the momentary thrill of success, of triumph. He had her right where he—
"Why don't you start?" she smiled at him.
It was a tribute to her ability to conceal her thoughts that she didn't smirk at the expression that stole over his face. It was nothing less than a pout.
"Joan, that was not nice," Mr. Nygma admonished her. She blinked at the precise moment she was supposed to, to effectively communicate her innocence. "We've been doing nothing but discussing my personal life for the last month and a half."
"You'll excuse me, Mr. Nygma, if I thought that it was a subject that would interest you," Joan demurred, inwardly wincing when her words brought the smirk back to his face.
"Ooh, how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a smirking psychologist. To think, you had a sense of humor all this time and I never noticed."
"How kind, Mr. Nygma. Why don't we start with your childhood?"
"We've beaten my childhood to death. I'd rather get a crack at yours."
"Your interest is very flattering. Tell me about the other children you were with in school."
"They were short and vaguely human-shaped."
"Illuminating. Please, proceed."
"You're positively sarcastic!" Edward chortled. He stretched his long arms out over the back of the sofa, opening up his posture. She analyzed it quickly—was he deliberately adjusting his stance to deceive her into thinking that he was being more straightforward, or was he truly at ease? She suspected the former. It was early yet. "Did you get your hair cut recently?" he asked, changing the subject entirely.
Perhaps he actually was slipping. "No." She rested her clipboard on her knee, leaning back in her chair and coolly examining him. "Would you rather discuss your adolescence? We can talk about anything you like."
"Let's talk about you." If he lowered his eyelids at her and gave her his best purr, who would judge him harshly? It was a conversational flourish.
"I wouldn't be doing my job if we did that, Mr. Nygma. And besides, it wouldn't hold your interest for a moment," Joan said diplomatically. "Did you have any part-time jobs in high school?"
"In a toy store, yes. We've been over this. Six times. What about you, Joan? Any boyfriends?"
"No." she answered, perhaps a bit stiffly.
"Oh, of course not…that's our Joan—always the studious one!" he threw up his arms in an exaggerated gesture, "Always the deliberate and determined one…studying in the lovely, great big library, lavishly displayed in the second story—or was it the third story—of the family home. The towers and towers of books, stacked up along either side of our young student as she pours over them, hours on end…never having time to stop and take care of anything else—no, no…it was all about the degree."
He fixed her with a smirk, "And yet, once in high school, she was the life of the party! She wore all the right clothes, associated only with the right people. And of course, she was the most stunning creature in all of the land…the princess waiting for the prince to sweep her off her feet! So tell me, Joan…who was the fine prince running in from the fair kingdom on his noble, shining steed?"
She slowly lowered her notebook, "As eloquent a picture as that is, Mr. Nygma…you have missed the mark entirely. There are things you don't know about me, you know. About my life and how difficult I had it growing up where I did."
"What, in that cushy three-story house of yours?"
"Cushy? Three-story?" she actually laughed, "You haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about, Mr. Nygma. Growing up…I had nothing."
"What, Joan? You run out of shampoo once or twice?"
He'd raised a sarcastic eyebrow. She didn't want to admit how badly that boiled her blood—how it lit the fuse for her temper. She'd had enough of this attitude over this month and a half. She wouldn't deny that he'd had a hard life, harder than anyone deserved. But he wasn't the only one who'd had a tough time, though for all he behaved it was as if the world's misfortunes had landed on him.
And as much as he'd rubbed her the wrong way, she was not about to let him win.
"I had nothing in that house," Joan repeated, crossing her arms and allowing herself to frown. "Penniless as a little…ugh, church-mouse. Fighting boredom by the hour. 'Princess Lonely,' perhaps…running circles."
He snorted and she really thought she was in danger of punching him. Joan took a slow breath.
"I had only bare essentials—tiny bed, army cot, a bookshelf and a million cousins, babysitting several dozen. Every morning I would be up at the crack of dawn just to spend fifteen minutes getting ready—no choice, seeing as we had only one toilet. Slum-side view of devastation, out one window, isolation in my bedroom with very little headroom. And privacy?"
She rolled her eyes, exasperated with her memories. "In such a sweet dream—maybe. Eighteen years I sat and waited…" Joan sneered, repeating the praise her aunts and uncles had used for lack of a kinder thing to say about her. "I'm very dedicated."
She had his interest, at least, that was clear. Of course, he was looking at her as if she was talking rubbish, but she was determined not to let him get under her skin. "I scratched away the days on my wall—they seemed to add by the hour. And I will add that your walls are not the only walls that are padded! So," Joan finished with a delicate glare, "I think I've got you beat."
"Oh, you think so?" he answered, straightening slightly, brow cocked. "That was a sad story, I'll give you that. But I've heard better, I'm just saying—A for effort, thanks for playing." He threw his legs over the edge, sitting upright, one elbow propped on his lower thigh.
"So sad to see a princess suffer." He smirked, "But if you want rough stories, look no further than mine. Like the time a mob of classmates chased me down the hill and threw me into a pool of wet cement, back first. You're just whiny…I was walking back for three miles with a concrete bodysuit. And then they came after me with hammers—including a sledgehammer."
"As I fled, I had to wonder…if I were torn asunder, is there something after this life called heaven?" he leaned closer to her, brow raised high.
"Did I mention, I was seven?"
He settled slightly, one leg crossed over the other with a triumphant smirk. He had her.
"So…I think I've got you beat."
It was truly a testament to how tried her nerves were that the idea of this man being thrown in wet concrete forced her to stifle a very unsympathetic giggle. Of course, her heart swelled with pity and she wanted to swoop in and rescue that little seven year old boy from those little demons with hammers, preferably giving each and every one of them such a collaring and a loud and lingering punishment.
But at the moment, her back was sufficiently up that she wouldn't mind having a crack at the grown man with a sledgehammer herself.
And that insufferable, irritating, smug, unctuous smirk was beginning to make her skin crawl and her blood simmer.
"Never any warm regards." she stated bluntly, eyes flashing in what could never be mistaken as plain challenge. He lifted his eyebrows, momentarily surprised.
But he bounced right back.
"No Christmas cards." he shot back, crossing his arms. She bristled as the smirk returned to his face.
"Mm, I see." She said shortly, "And every day—"
He interrupted her. "Was Hell on Earth."
"Alright, top this." She said, forgetting that they were supposed to be assisting and improving his mental status, not combating tragedies between each other, "I missed my prom!"
Edward snorted, apparently amused. "Tragic. My Dad and Mom threw my house key away. It was my birthday."
Joan waved a hand at him. "I was sent away to boarding school on Christmas Eve."
He let out a growl, and her heart sped with vindictive pleasure at the admission of his being 'bested.' And it was quite clear he wasn't about to take this lying down.
Literally—he'd pushed his legs over the settee, his hands resting on the smoothed edge of her desk. She should have told him to back off, but she was a bit too…shall we say, caught up in this little exchange.
As they say, if you've lost new material, just use the old—in new ways.
And, as always, she was not about to let him win this one on her.
"Bare essentials—army cot, tiny bed—"
"No warm regards—"
"Up at dawn every morning—only one toilet—"
"No Christmas Cards—"
"Slum-side view of devastation out one window, isolation in my bedroom with very little headroom—"
"Every day was Hell on Earth—"
"Eighteen years I sat and waited—"
"I missed my prom," he had the nerve to imitate her voice (in a highly unflattering way, she might add), "My Dad and Mom sent me away—"
"Days kept getting added—luckily those walls were padded!"
"It was my birthday—"
"Eighteen years—"
"I missed my prom—" He did it again!! Oh, he was not getting away with that!
He opened his mouth, and she rushed to cut him off, only to have her words overlap his.
"My Dad and Mom sent me away—"
They both froze, looking at each other. Joan blinked, surprised. She was getting carried away…she was talking too much. But there was something…something in his expression that was surprised to hear his own words spoken back at him.
And they were staring at each other…over her desk, with a grand total of one foot separating their faces.
"So. I-I think I've got you beat," she said quietly, a hand distractedly moving up to her hair and guiding it back behind her hair.
"Yeah?" he drawled.
"Yeah. I think I've got you beat," Joan repeated, annoyed at his tone. "I think—"
A noise from her desk distracted the both of them. Their heads turned like a pair of shots to the origin of the sound, and Joan gritted her teeth to see her cell phone on the desk. Probably Mom or Aunt Sophie or Uncle Casper or Cedric or Jem or Tina calling about them needing her to break off early from work to take care of the grand-nieces and nephews while they went out and did whatever they is they wanted to do.
What's worse, her cousin August had changed her respectable, ordinary ring tone to 'Every Sperm is Sacred'—again.
She felt a flush of embarrassment and fury rush up to her cheeks and, in a fit of impulse and pique she would be humiliated by later, she seized the little device in her hand, pitching it at the opposite wall with all her strength.
"If a sperm is wasted, God gets—" CRUNCH.
Taking a very slow, deep breath, she lowered herself back down to her armchair. One hand lifted to brush a few loose strands of hair behind her ear, tucking them back into place with a calm and collected sigh. She blinked once, and then looked back up at her patient/debating partner, who was staring at her with a blatant expression of amusement and bewilderment.
"Where were we?"
"Out of time, I'm afraid." He said, clearly suppressing a fit of hysterical laughter as he gestured to the clock. Her eyes lifted, following his hand. He was right, and even if he hadn't been, the door opened, revealing Mr. Barker.
"Everything alright in here, Doctor?" he asked, taking in the shattered cell phone on the floor.
"Absolutely," she answered with a charming smile, "And I believe Mr. Nygma is ready to return to his cell."
"Right," he said, adjusting himself slightly (his belt had a tendency to slip down around his waist), "Let's go, Nygma."
"As you say, Michael, milad." He said, easily slipping off the settee and strolling to what Joan presumed to be the doorway—had she suspected differently, she might have refrained from immediately dropping her eyes down to her notes and beginning to fill in some acceptable account of what had transpired this 'session'.
She happened to see the grey-white of his uniform a second before his body shifted close to her. The next second, she felt his lips press to her cheek.
And then a warm whisper in her ear.
"I think I've got you beat."