We could remind ourselves that
We must laugh
Reconsider: fame
I need new reasons
This is detention, it's not fun at all
"Why is a mirror like a psychiatrist's couch?"
The man who called himself the Riddler had a lot going for him – he had a real name, somewhere out in the world he had a family, he still had his intellect and he had a neatly fitted orange jumpsuit with 1056 embroidered on the chest. The only thing missing from the perfect picture was his freedom, but as an inmate of Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane at least he was a shining example. He always took his medication without a fuss, he never incited riots in the mess hall or attacked the guards and he hardly ever, and if he did it was always through no fault of his own, got into trouble with his fellow inmates.
His fatal flaw, his hamartia as the Ancient Greeks might have called it, was the very thing that had landed him here at Arkham in the first place – his obsessive love of riddles.
"Because both are used for reflection," he answered himself as he often had to in so uneducated a world, flashing a triumphant look at his psychiatrist.
It was this love of wordplay, and the arrogance that seemed to go hand in hand with it for him, that had led to the fact that Riddler had in all possibility less that twenty-four hours to live. Some people just didn't appreciate wit; after all, that was the reason Oscar Wilde had ended up in prison wasn't it? Because the masses were scared by intelligence. But now the intelligent one was very scared by the mass of scaly flesh that called itself Killer Croc and who would, in all likelihood, be the one to escort Riddler to the eternal imprisonment of death.
"And are you going to do any reflecting today, Edward?" his psychiatrist asked, rousing him from his morbid thoughts.
Her name was Doctor Harleen Quinzel and as the youngest woman to ever become a fully qualified doctor of psychiatry, she was as brilliant as she was beautiful. Her quick, incisive mind had cut to the heart of criminal psychology, seeing what approaches worked and what didn't until she became renowned in her chosen field of study.
However, all her time spent wading through the dark psyches of her patients didn't seem to have tainted her bright nature. Outside of work she was always ready with a friendly word or a cheerful smile, and with her patients she could be the calming influence they needed.
Her heart was the source of her hamartia, for it tended to lead her into places her reason would rather she not go.
"I'm afraid I can't," Riddler answered with a sigh that almost sounded genuine, watching his psychiatrist slyly from the corners of his eyes. "I'm cracked." Feeling thoroughly pleased with himself, he steepled long fingers beneath his chin and looked pensively up at the ceiling.
With his eyes averted, he didn't notice that Doctor Quinzel had gotten up until she was perched right beside him on the long leather couch upon which he reclined, his legs crossed primly at the ankles. Puzzled, although he took care not to show it on his face, he lowered his gaze to watch her. She placed her notebook and pen down on a little side table nearby, nudging a therapeutically placed pot plant out of the way to make room for them, before carefully removing her glasses and folding the arms up.
"There are more ways than one to skin a cat," she informed him, placing her glasses down beside the pen.
A little suspiciously, his mind still preoccupied with reptilian death threats, Riddler inquired "Would this be the cat that curiosity killed?" But despite his misgivings, a smile still lingered at the corners of his lips. Something was about to happen, something interesting.
It only confirmed Riddler's suspicions when his psychiatrist slowly, intoxicatingly arched her back, bringing a beautifully manicured hand down either side of his head. Some strands of fine blonde hair worked their way free of the professional bun binding them at the nape of her neck and tickled the skin of his face. He swallowed forcefully and tried not to notice that the top button of her blouse was undone.
"Yes, but satisfaction brought her back, Mister Nygma."
Her mouth was so close to his ear, that he could feel her breath, hot and moist. If there had been a little more space between their two bodies, he would have reached across and pinched himself. With that option out of the question he had to simply settle for tentatively placing his hands on her hips and taking reassurance of her reality from the firm press of her body against his. His natural arrogance reasserted itself on his face, driving away the insecurity as if it had never existed.
"And what about my satisfaction, Doctor Quinzel?"
In answer, she dipped her head until her full, bright red lips were pressed against his in a kiss. For a moment he was frozen, but her mouth was so sweet, so pliable and yet so hungry that he returned her passion with fervor. Her body fitted against his as if it had been designed exclusively for the purpose. Eagerly, he held her close and shared in her caresses.
All too soon, Doctor Quinzel was breaking the contact between them, standing and smoothing her hair back into place. It was the first time that Riddler had ever been sorry to reach the end of a counseling session.
Two orderlies entered the room after a perfunctory knock. A professional look back on her features in place of the flushed excitement from moments before, Doctor Quinzel nodded in acknowledgement to them.
Ever so slightly dazed, the taste of his psychiatrist still lingering on in his mouth, Riddler stood and allowed the orderlies to roughly take him by the arms. He hardly took any notice of them as they mechanically manhandled him out of the door, a bronze plaque reading 'Dr. H. Quinzel' affixed to its dark mahogany surface.
"I'll see you next week, Mister Nygma. I think we've made some real progress today," said the good doctor from behind him and it was a mark of her hold over him that he said nothing at all in reply, not even the suggestion of a witty comeback on his tongue.
He woke to reality soon enough in the uninspiring white corridors of Arkham.
Coming towards him, flanked by a couple of the asylum's heavy lifters, was Killer Croc on his way to his weekly counseling session. The sight of him was enough to send any thoughts of romance in Riddler's head scuttling for cover. The man's – if he could even be called that – gait was a shambling predator's prowl, every step sending his powerful musculature rippling in a way that would make any champion weight lifter feel like a ninety pound weakling in comparison.
The Croc's eyes, yellow reptilian slits set deeply in the scaled monstrosity that was his skin, blazed with hatred as they caught sight of Riddler. The smaller man feigned studious disinterest – glancing at the ceiling, his shoes, anywhere except that scaly face with its collapsed-in nose and thin-lipped mouth filled with dagger-like teeth.
And then, just as the two inmates passed each other, Riddler's mouth developed a mind of its own and smirked "Be seeing you later, alligator."
There were a few seconds of tenterhooked silence whilst the insult took time to process through Croc's sluggish mind. When the barb of it did finally sting him, he loosed a roar that seemed to shake the rambling asylum right down to its rotten foundations.
"You're dead! Hear me, Riddler? Dead!"
The threat was followed by the shouts of orderlies and the frantic sounds of a scuffle that Riddler couldn't see because it took place behind him. A man screamed and cursed, the Croc snarled, someone shouted for tranquilizers. The snarls heightened and then gradually died down, followed by a quiet thump as the Croc succumbed to the drugs, leaving silence except for an orderly's quiet whimpers of pain.
Walking on between his two guards, his hands clasped placidly in front of him, Riddler smiled and murmured "At least when I die no one's going to make me into a handbag." He said it even though his heart was beating hard and fast enough to hurt him. But still he smiled calmly.
Once deposited back into the dubious safety of his own cell, Riddler set about tidying it. The walk around the small space and the ritualistic plumping of the stained pillow on his bunk, the twitching back into place of his worn blanket and finally the distasteful inspection of his toilet facilities all helped to calm his down almost as successfully as a challenging crossword puzzle. He always performed those exact tasks in the exact same order every time he was returned to his cell – it made being in there more bearable.
The room straightened out to his satisfaction, Riddler turned his attention to his second favourite past-time here at Arkham. Curling his fingers delicately around the bars that caged him, he leant forwards to see better into the cell opposite his. A low hum of machinery came from within it. The light beyond the bars was poor, the cell being in the shadow of one of the huge ancient trees that populated Arkham's overgrown grounds, and so it took him a few moments to locate his fellow prisoner.
"Hey, Freeze!" he sniped upon catching sight of the man lurking near the back of his confines, surrounded by the humming machinery that kept him cold and therefore in his mind, alive. A malicious sneer tightened Riddler's lips, deepening the lines of his face. "How's Gotham's coolest criminal today? Hm? There's no need to give me the cold shoulder you know, I'm only trying to break the ice."
Freeze said nothing. Since coming to Arkham he hadn't spoken a single word, although sometimes he moaned in his sleep loud enough to wake Riddler from his dreams. All the man did was sit silently in his cell, staring into the dark, unmoving.
"I bet you were a riot with women, Freeze. They'd feel comfortable around a man as frigid as you."
When he finally tired of making puns about the broken shell of the man across the corridor – which was as enjoyable as it was ridiculously easy – Riddler retreated back into his cell.
Crouched beside his toilet facilities, a look of mild disgust on his face, he carefully unscrewed the metal grille that covered a ventilation shaft in the wall and set it aside. He'd been working on the escape route for some time, the inside and edges of the shaft had been dramatically widened, but it still wasn't enough.
Withdrawing a spoon that he had taken from the mess hall at lunch from within the sleeve of his jumpsuit – grateful that it hadn't been discovered by Doctor Quinzel – he began to work on widening the shaft with the utensil. Every once in a while he would pause to brush the brick dust from his hands and clothes. Even though he knew that the task was a hopeless one, he chipped tirelessly away at the hole in the wall. He was still working on it deep into the night, when Freeze's moans and the screams of various inmates began to echo along the labyrinthine corridors.
The one thought that kept him going was that he didn't want to die, not here, unlamented and forgotten, murdered by a walking handbag. He was the Riddler, he deserved so much better than that.
A/N: Well lookee here, Ma, I gone done writ myself a sequel! Ahem, this is the sequel to my fic 'We Could Be Heroes'. I've tried to explain the major events from that, as well as the fic that started it all - From The Inside - as I go along, but it might make things a little clearer if those two were read first. Although I hope that this fic will make sense in its own right. Anyway, as ever, I hope you enjoy!
The lyrics at the beginning are from Gary Numan's song 'Remind Me To Smile', from his album Telekon.