Catwoman's Revenge Redux
By Indiana
Characters: Selina Kyle, Edward Nygma [lowkey Riddlecat]
Synopsis: I hate the Catwoman's Revenge DLC so I rewrote it. In my version they have ~history~.
She'd expected better security from him.
It seemed he had been banking on this place being kept secret enough he didn't really have to put resources into defending it. A handful of chatty thugs was not hard to get through, and the riddle, while annoying, was not impossible. And now she was about to make it evident how very wrong he had been.
As she exited the elevator she stepped directly onto a bridge overlooking what was, she had to admit, quite an impressive underground factory. He never had done anything halfway, and this was no exception. It was a little dingy, and he could have used some decorating tips, but for a secret facility beneath an existing structure it was not too shabby at all. She froze for a moment when she heard him speak. Wasn't he supposed to be in prison?
"Computer? It is I, the Riddler!"
"Hello The Riddler, you sound very smart today."
"Thank you, computer. But this is a matter most exigent."
"Error. Do not understand 'exigent'."
Who had let that man near a phone? And why was he allowed to call his computer, of all things?
"It means urgent. Now –"
"Thank you."
"Yes! You're welcome. Now, the Gotham City Police Department currently has me immured. And – "
"Error. Do not understand 'immured'."
He sighed heavily in exasperation. "It means imprisoned! Confined! Incarcerated! Banged up!" She could almost hear him rubbing his forehead. "I don't know which is more corrupt, the prison-industrial complex or your vocabulary files."
"Thank you."
"I – you're welcome. Now. I believe this would be a most felicitous and appurtenant time to run the jailbreak protocol."
"Error. Do not understand 'run'."
"Oh, for…" He trailed off into fatigued silence. "Run vocabulary diagnostics."
"Error. Do not understand 'run'."
"That's what I get for hoping voice recognition would work over the phone… very well. Stay on the line. I will execute it myself by using the keys on this phone to write lines of code."
She had no doubt he actually could run a computer using even the old-model phones at the GCPD, but she was going to have to stop him right there, no matter how impressive and amusing that might be. She climbed over the railing on the bridge and dropped to the factory floor. "Hey, Eddie…"
"C… Catwoman?"
"The one and only." She took a cursory look around. "Aren't you in prison?"
"Ha! No prison can hold me. One moment." His voice faded somewhat. "Yes, Officer Cash, I'm talking to my lawyer. Who else would I be calling?"
Who else indeed.
"Calm down, Eddie. No need to order a breakout. Here's what's going to happen." She raised her voice to ensure he got all the details. "I'm going to steal all your money and destroy everything you've built here. Okay?"
"Selina, sweetheart," he began, and she had to admit he could still turn on that charm when he wanted to. "Let's not be hasty about this."
"Eddie, baby," she returned, "I don't think you're in a position to tell me what to do."
"Telling? Who's telling? I am merely suggesting we renegotiate the deal. There's no need to rush into this."
"I never said we were making a deal." She cast a careful eye around for anything that looked as though it might hold a trap. "I am here to take what's mine, whether you want me to or not. And that's no suggestion, sweetheart."
"Listen." He had dropped the cloying tone altogether now, which was enough to give her pause. "There's something down there that is of extreme import to me. You would not understand if I attempted to explain it to you, so I am asking you to trust –"
"Trust?" she snapped. "You listen, Eddie. I did trust you. That's why we're here in the first place, remember? You lied to me. You tricked me into being a pawn in your sad little game. You owe me and I am here to make sure you pay up. You don't get to negotiate. You took advantage of me." She hardened her tone. "I thought you were better than that."
Silence. Then: "Wait a minute. Did you say 'Selina', Nygma?"
"I did not!" Edward snapped. "I said 'Sabrina'! She's my lawyer. You can call her yourself when I'm finished. She'll have a few choice words for you, this I guarantee." He must have given Cash another moment to leave, because he didn't speak for a good handful of seconds. Then he continued, in a lower voice, "All right. You have a point. But I'm serious. There's… something down there that cannot be replaced if you destroy it."
"I'm not all that inclined to believe you right now."
"Selina." He actually sounded… upset. He might just have been telling the truth. "Please."
Well. She wasn't heartless. She could give him something for his trouble.
"I'll make you a deal. I'm still going to destroy this factory and clean out your bank account, but in return I will provide you some intel. You'll be able to make your escape without needing this malfunctioning computer of yours, and I'll still get what I want. Interested?
"There's no way for me to get you to leave the factory standing."
"No."
He sighed again. "You do know it took me six months of building with my bare hands to put that together."
"And you did a great job. Unfortunately, it's time to say goodbye. Tell me what I need to know or I'm returning to the GCPD and leaving them a little tip telling them exactly where your remaining hideout is so they can destroy it themselves."
"Oh… don't do that."
"Take it or leave it."
"Fine! Fine. But there is a security system in place that I cannot disengage from here. You're going to have to survive long enough that –"
"Survive?"
"There is a small army of Riddlerbots dedicated to protecting the server. I cannot call them off without access to a computer. I have nothing to gain by lying to you."
"You did risk my life, remember?"
"Selina, my dear," he said, surprisingly softly, "do you really believe I thought for a moment he would fail to come to your rescue?"
He always sounded so chivalrous when he called her that.
"I honestly can't tell what you're thinking anymore."
"You're not the only one." He said something over his shoulder she couldn't hear, then continued: "In any event, as soon as you attempt to open the door through which the computer can be found, the combat Riddlerbots will automatically deploy. I cannot deactivate them from here."
"So if I manage to destroy your so-called small army, you will open the server room and allow me to conduct my business?"
A pause, and then he said, "I will."
"I was expecting you to remind me about my offer." She advanced towards the door, mentally preparing herself for yet another altercation with his cursed bots. "Since you didn't, I will tell you just as soon as I've dealt with your little security detail. And any help you are able to provide will be duly noted."
"Very well."
As soon as she laid a hand on the door there came discord from behind her, and she turned to see a goodly number of the bots had already appeared. He hadn't been kidding. She resigned herself to the inevitable and got started.
"That's a mighty long phone call, Nygma."
"I have a very nice lawyer who likes to ask how I'm doing. You should try it sometime. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot: you can't carry on an intelligent conversation. My apologies. I'll leave you to your brutish threats."
She was going to have to hurry this along. She wasn't going to be able to get into the server room without his help, and he was likely to get his phone call revoked sooner rather than later. "Eddie!"
"What?"
"You need to stay on the line long enough to fulfill our deal! You might want to keep your commentary to yourself, hm?" She caught one of the machines around the arm with her whip and wrenched it to the floor.
"I have been putting in some work on my end, you know. It's difficult to write programs on a handset while under such close scrutiny, but you'll be pleased to know I've managed it. You might even want to congratulate me, or at least pretend to be grateful. In any event, you're going to have to get off the floor."
"And what would that do, exactly?" Her heel connected with the neck of a bot with a satisfying crunch.
"It would keep you from being electrocuted, for one thing. But if you're into that, that's fine too. If you aren't, you have approximately eleven seconds before I roast you where you stand."
She climbed back up onto the wall, directing her whip at any robots who dared follow her. "Oh come on, Eddie. You wouldn't do that ."
The floor lit up with a sudden green intensity and all of the Riddlerbots upon it were instantly decimated in a spray of smoke and sparks. "No?"
"You'd miss me too much," she told him, and he actually laughed.
"That I would, my dear, for whom else could I count on to upend my life when least I need it? You may abscond from your perch now. That should be all of them."
"Should be?"
"I can't exactly see."
She jumped lightly down onto the floor, and when it did not spark to life again and no further robots were revealed she crossed the floor to the hidden room. The locking mechanism was denoted by a large question-mark shaped switch and a massive glowing green arrow at which she rolled her eyes. "Eddie."
"Yes, darling."
"Why did you put an arrow pointing at the access point to your own computer? Did you think you'd forget where it was?"
"You aren't here to critique my décor. Press the button and I will provide the verbal confirmation."
She put her hand to it and depressed it, but he remained silent. She frowned over her shoulder. "Eddie."
"Apologies for the delay." She couldn't tell if Cash had returned or if he just needed a moment before handing over the keys to his palace, as it were. "Computer: Tesla."
And with that the door opened, and she stepped beyond it to reveal a very large monitor mounted behind a desk that had been hastily cut out of a large piece of wood. On this desk were only a dismantled robot and an empty mug. She moved to the keyboard. "Do I need a password for this too?"
"No. It will have logged in automatically. You will require one each for the bank transfer and for the… self-destruct." She heard him take a breath. "Listen carefully to my instructions."
She did exactly as he told her, and she had to admit she would not have been able to get into his account without his guidance. It was well-encrypted, with a vendor she had never heard of. "It needs a password to complete the transaction," she said, once she had set it up.
"I'm finding it difficult to believe your lawyer is keeping you on the line this long," Selina heard Cash say. "She usually prefers to meet you in person. I wouldn't be able to guess why."
"Will you leave me alone!?" Edward snapped.
"I'm coming right back, Nygma," Cash warned, "and if you are still on that phone it is not going to be pretty."
"Fine! Just let me finish my phone call in peace!" He sighed directly into the phone and said, more calmly, "It's Lovelace."
It was going to take a minute or two for such a massive transaction to be approved, so she had time to fulfill her end of the deal. "You ready for that intel?"
"Go ahead."
"The GCPD confiscated your mech suit from the Orphanage. You won't believe what they did with it."
"They gave it to the Bat for his trophy room?" he said with derision.
She laughed. "Even better. It's in the GCPD's trophy room."
Silence.
It brought her back to a time when she had been able to feel the chill of it, and she was quickly sobered.
"If this is a joke, Selina, I am as far from amused as can be." His tone was hard, and she remembered that stony look he used to give her when she teased some of his more unusual qualities. She shook her head despite it not being visible to him.
"I'm not joking. They put it in there as part of their exhibit. It's just sitting there, out in the open. It's yours to ride off into the sunset with."
"You're serious."
"Yes."
"That is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard," he said, but he sounded more tired than angry. "Thank you."
"The transfer is done." She placed her hands back on the keyboard. "And the self-destruct?"
"Must you really?" he asked quietly.
"We had a deal. You don't let me do it, I send someone here to do it anyway." Whatever it was he was trying so hard to preserve he could probably replace. He always had been possessive over his things.
"All right." He coughed away from the receiver. He really was still smoking, by the sound of it. "Control R, and then run ."
She did so. "And this password is?"
He didn't answer immediately. She almost changed her mind. Almost.
"Turing," he finally told her, so hushed she almost didn't hear it. "You'll have three minutes."
"Thank you." And she stepped out of the room and walked quickly towards the elevator.
"Guess what?" came Cash's voice over the line. "I just called your lawyer."
"You can have the phone if you want it so much," Edward said snidely. "I've finished with it."
"Finished what? You were there so long you were probably rigging it into a bomb. I've been authorised to use force to get you to cooperate. So I suggest you shut your mouth and come with me."
"What?" Edward protested. "I didn't even do anything, you Neanderthal! Can't a man make a phone call in peace?"
"Watch your tone, Nygma."
"You touch me with that and it is going straight back to my lawyer, do you understand? You have no legal stature to assault me when I-" He cried out suddenly following the sound of an electric sizzling, and as the elevator reached the upper floor she had to wince in sympathy. He hadn't really deserved that.
She missed him sometimes. It had been so long ago now, but she didn't think she'd ever forget how it felt to press her nose into his neck as he slept, or how comforting his arm used to feel around her waist, or how he would smile at her when he came home from yet another unfulfilling day at the GCPD. And she would always remember, too, the unmitigated rages he would fly into without a moment's notice over nothing at all, and the nights he would wake up and cry for hours without ever telling her why, and the times that look would come over his face and he would just disappear even though he was right there. The good times? She missed those. They had almost made the bad times worth it. But she had known, just known, that it was only going to get worse. As if to prove her regrettably right, six months after she left she found that he had vanished from the GCPD. A year and a half after that he was in Blackgate, soon to be transferred to Arkham Asylum. She had made the right choice. He had been too much for her, was probably too much for anyone. But the regret went hand in hand with the nostalgia, and the wondering whisper that asked, Would he be different if…?
She looked back at the toy store which hid the ruins of the factory below it, and considered how long it would take him to make his escape. A few days, more or less. Maybe she would go back after. Ask him just what it was he'd been so eager to protect, when he had the time to explain it. He'd been surprisingly rational about the whole thing: no excuses, no threats, no real protest, even. He had accepted his wrongdoing and met her demands. It was… odd. Like he'd had a change of heart, almost.
Now just what could have caused that?
She had thought she'd feel more triumphant after doing this, but no. It was not all that satisfying to destroy what little he'd had left. All of his structures had already been torn down, his base of operations liberally draped in yellow police tape. Even taking his money was an empty victory; he was much too paranoid to keep all of it in one place like that. She had merely relieved him of a drop in his bucket, most likely.
And she'd never given him an explanation for her disappearance all those years ago. Maybe she'd check up on him in a few and see where they stood. Scarecrow was gone, but there had been rumours and she had not heard from Bruce in two weeks, nor had anyone else she knew. There was something brewing in the city, something different. Being allied with the Riddler just might get her out of it unscathed. And maybe she'd get an old friend back. Maybe.
But it was best not to get too hopeful these days.
Author's note
I haven't listened to it recently because I forget stuff like *snap* and it allows me to revisit content like I almost never heard it before, but the audio files between Catwoman and Riddler in Arkham Knight have Selina doing what Eddie wants preeeeeeeetty much without protest. Selina's not dumb, she's been in Gotham a long time and she's surely watched the Riddler slowly go more and more nuts over the years. She's consorting with an insane supercriminal – who she remarks upon as being completely nutso in the last audio – who has been upping the stakes continually, and she just goes along with that for the monies? Mmmmmmmm not buying it. It puts her firmly on the side of 'not being a good guy', that's for sure. In general they get along pretty well too.
Anyways so I haven't written it yet but they used to be a Thing when Eddie worked at the GCPD circa Arkham Origins and he had not yet learned to hide/contain his mess of a self. They were both in their early twenties.
As for the Rids part, his dialogue in the DLC completely ruins all the exquisite character development of the actual game and the only part I like is the part where he's polite to the computer even though it's annoying him. There's NO WAY the Riddler just randomly left his computer unlocked, or puts his bank account ON HIS DESKTOP, or has a one-click SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE. This is a cyber security specialist AND genius who hacks Batman for funsies, gimme a break. I can buy the voice recognition not working over the phone, but then randomly working again without a keyword to activate it? Nah. And there is indeed an electrified floor during the very boring 'hit two hundred robots' boss fight in the DLC but he never turns it on because… he likes having his stuff stolen and blown up, IDK. And yes. The mech really is just sitting there at the GCPD, out in the open. Waiting for someone to steal it.