Oswald wasn't aware that he'd fallen asleep on the couch until there was a knock on his front door that jolted him awake. His body spasmed in response to the noise, conditioned not to sleep through anything that might prove potentially dangerous.
He pushed himself up from the flat cushions of the sofa, the pale light of his mute TV flickering in his eyes so that he had to squint. He sat for a moment, unsure whether the knock had been the tail-end of a realistic dream.
He clenched his fist, head turning toward the door, waiting. Another pounding came again. Knowing that nothing someone at your doorstep at this hour usually meant nothing good in this neighborhood, Oswald felt around for the gun he had left on his coffee table.
The weight of it was familiar and reassuring in his hand, so he stood from the couch and crossed the short distance to the door. He held the hand holding the gun slightly behind his back as he unlocked the door and slowly opened it.
In front of him, illuminated by the dim moonlight and the false, too-bright streetlights stood a man that Oswald wasn't sure he'd see again. Jim seemed taller than the day Oswald was told to kill him. Perhaps it was the comparison of the version of Jim he saw on that bright morning, as Jim stood with a swollen lip and his nostrils running cherry red, and now seeing him here, clean of all injuries.
He held on a little tighter to his gun. "I told you not to come back," Oswald said.
But Jim didn't listen to his words and walked through the door anyway, turning his head as he surveyed the small apartment that Oswald called home—for now. While Jim's back was to Oswald, he lowered the gun to the floor and pushed it beneath the couch. Now wasn't the opportune time to pull a threat. If things escalated, then he would. But for now, he would try to keep the situation under control.
He rose when Jim finally responded to him, but not before he let out a breath of laughter. "Yes, well, I didn't verbally promise that I wouldn't. You simply pushed me in the water assuming that I would hold up my end of the bargain," he said.
"So why did you come here? It surely can't be to reminisce about our old times together over a glass of brandy," Oswald said, walking back to the couch. But he didn't sit down. Showing your back to someone you didn't know was never a good idea, especially when you had met them in a mob.
"To thank you," Jim said with a shrug.
Oswald let out a laugh, his lips curling as he shook his head. "Dead men don't come all this way just to thank someone for saving their life. Though I appreciate the compliment." It was best to placate him to continue to keep the situation calm. He didn't know Jim well enough to decide whether such a tactic was the best course to continue on, but few men would be angry over flattery, even if it was obvious empty praise.
"Well, that's not the only reason I came. I came with an offer." Jim put his hands in his pockets. Oswald didn't like how relaxed he seemed.
"Well…what sort of offer?" He tilted his head.
"I don't think you spared my life because you're a good person. You're corrupt like the others. But you're ambitious, aren't you? You didn't want Pepper's being framed by Mooney being swept under the rug, because finding the real killer would bring you glory and move you up in the department.
That's why you didn't kill me—because you think I'm still valuable, and you wanted to spite Mooney. You don't like how she has all of the GCPD wrapped around her finger." As Jim spoke each word, he looked straight at Oswald, as if he could tell all those things merely from a simply glance. And maybe he could. Either way, Oswald was uncomfortable with the way that Jim had read him.
Oswald liked keeping things like that close to his chest, and someone with the ability to guess personal details was someone dangerous indeed. Still, he wasn't threatening Oswald.
But he didn't want to any show interest yet. "But they think we caught the real killer. You're wrong," he said with a laugh.
"Yes, and if—or when—it's revealed who really murdered the Waynes, and you're the one that found out, you'll be adulated even more. They'll see you as a hero who stood up to corruption. We can help each other, you and I."
What Jim had said thus far had all been true. He had hardly spared Jim because he felt sorry for the man. If it had been anyone else, he probably would've dropped them in the river without much thought. It was messy to leave loose ends hanging around. But Jim seemed different; he seemed cleverer and sharper, not just another crony mobster looking to grab power. He had brains to match his ambitions.
Still, he didn't want to play his hand. "How do I know you aren't playing me?"
"Because have I explicitly lied to you the whole time we've known each other?" Jim raised an eyebrow.
Oswald considered this. Jim had twisted words as deftly as any storybook villain, spinning the situation to his own advantage in the way only a master of chess could. It wasn't crass manipulation for its own sake; it was a delicate art, played slowly and carefully.
Despite all of that, Jim was right. He had never once truly lied.
"No, you haven't," Oswald finally agreed.
Jim gave a thin, tight smile in the moonlight. "There's nothing more dangerous than an honest man. And there's hardly anything more valuable in this world we're living in."
"Still, why would I have told you not to come back if I thought all those things?"
"On the off chance your plan didn't work out," Jim said.
A chasm opened up in his stomach, and Oswald resisted the urge to take a step back. How had Jim known what he had hoped to gain by all this? Oh, this one was even smarter than he had first gauged. Oswald shook his head with a laugh. "What plan is that?"
"Because if I did came back, all this would work to your advantage. No one looks for a dead man, do they? Least of all a dead man that was little known in the mob. I think you hoped that I would come back and ask to inform for you as a favor for sparing me." Jim shook his head as if he couldn't believe that Oswald would continue this charade of being oblivious to his own plans.
All the blueprints of his strategy were laid out now, but Oswald wasn't willing to bite the bait just yet until had he tested the line just a bit more to see whether Jim was being completely sincere. "If we're being honest with each other, and since you've so eloquently laid out my reasons for doing this, what do you hope to gain?"
With those words, Jim's eyes flicked to the grungy windows in Oswald's apartment. Outside, a car rolled by, painting Jim as a solemn, still silhouette, like a troubled ruler. "Because I look at this city and I don't like what I see. I see chaos and war tearing it apart, and if someone like me doesn't rise to the occasion, then it's only going to continue its descent. And you love this city too. Otherwise you wouldn't be a cop; you'd be someone like me."
Oswald's eyes flicked to Jim's, and he saw himself there for a moment. He saw the same city in Jim's eyes that he saw, the same shadow of a kingdom that was once something beautiful, but was slowly warping in on itself, collapsing under its own weight of rot and crime.
"Go on," Oswald said.
"We can make a name for ourselves together if we help each other I'll tell you information for your cases, and you'll give me information that will help me get to the top." Jim turned away from the window and faced Oswald again. The air was thick with the weight of his offer.
Oswald swallowed. Jim was holding a platter with a lid on it, the food underneath uncertain. It could either be little more than bread crumbs, an empty promise that would not live up to the anticipation of the meal, or it could be a feast, better than the garnishings on the platter could ever suggest. Was it worth it? Was it worth entering into a partnership with this man that he did not know, but somehow still wanted to trust?
No one else seemed to think Oswald clever. No one else seemed to see the things that he was capable of, despite all the scratching and clawing he had done. No one but this man who was extending a hand of partnership.
It would be foolish to decline. Oswald stuck out his hand with a smile. Jim glanced down to his palm and raised an eyebrow.
"Um…you know, the deal is struck?" Oswald gave an uncertain smile.
Jim gave quick, cool smile in return, and with a nod of his head, shook Oswald's offered hand. "The deal is struck."