Owning things? And I thought my jokes were bad.

Red

They brought him in around daybreak, looking as if he'd been beaten half to death.

I didn't recognize him at first, for all the bruises. I was also too surprised at seeing another arrival to actually pay attention to his identity – I'd already closed up most of the infirmary, packed away the medicine and bandaging equipment for the night. Our makeshift medical ward had been readmitting medium to low-level security patients into Arkham like an assembly line, examining each patient before dispatching them back to their cells. To my knowledge, all of Arkham's non-Rogue patients had already been admitted… Had I missed an entry?

I watched in confusion as the exhausted guards wheeled the mysterious patient into my empty ward; they ungracefully unloaded their delivery on one of the remaining cots. I found my voice, registering that this unnamed individual was going to be here to stay unless I said something.

"Excuse me," I called. They didn't seem to hear me. I tried again, louder. "Excuse me – who is this patient? I already have –"

"Other ward is closed," one of the guards gruffly cut me off. "He's your problem now, doc."

And the two men started towards the exit, rolling their empty cart ahead of them without as much as a backward glance. My brain stuttered around this response.

'Other ward'? There was only one other medical ward open, besides mine: the ward only accepting Rogues. Wait. Rogues.

My stomach flip-flopped.

"Wait!" My feet carried me forward, but not fast enough. The guards were already at the door, pushing it open, stepping out. "You can't just—!"

They were gone. Distantly I heard the revving of an engine and the squealing of tires on pavement. I slowed to a halt, at a complete loss. Feeling immensely off-balance, I swivelled to face the latecomer, heart suddenly pounding with nervousness.

A Rogue.

I was alone with a Rogue.

All but a handful of my nurses had been dismissed from duty several hours ago, and the remaining few had accompanied the orderlies in their last run to the penitentiary. Thinking that I was in the clear for the rest of the morning, I had stayed to clean up. And now I was alone. With a Rogue.

Carefully, quietly, I approached his cot. My short heels clicked emptily on the tile floors.

The patient was dirty, his skin pale beneath the bruises, and I could make out the dark blotches of old bloodstains on his chest. He was obviously still recovering from a long night in custody – a brutal nineteen hours of detention in Blackgate's penitentiary camp. Half a day crammed in among the masses of other broken and bloody members of Gotham's least-favourite scumbags.

But which of the Rogues is he? There were dozens, I knew, but which of them could have actually been smart enough to leave and then stupid enough to get caught?

That was when I saw the hair, drew close enough to vaguely recall the familiarity of the patient's face, beneath the mosaic of blackening bruises on his face; so it was an inmate I'd at least seen recently, perhaps even treated before…

My memory placed him suddenly, resurfacing from the depths of my fatigued brain. Short hair, fairly tall, thin, a sharp chin. I knew his face. I could even remember his voice.

The Riddler.

I was alone with the Riddler.

Staring down at him, I nervously picked at the hem of my lab coat sleeve.

The infamous genius lay sprawled on the cot, his brown hair almost melding with the dirty orange of his prison jumpsuit; his bruises, on the other hand, stood out starkly in contrast. They looked painful – puffy and swollen. And if that was what his face looked like, I was pained to think of what might be hiding beneath his jumpsuit. The GCPD liked to go for the ribs.

I caught myself working my bottom lip with my teeth. He needs to be treated.

But this wasn't in my jurisdiction, not today. Under normal circumstances I was qualified to treat just about any patient in Arkham, but today… today, I was under strict orders to limit myself to the patients under medium to low-level security. The Riddler was not low-level security, by any means. Which meant that I could either be severely chastised for treating him on my own, or castigated for not making an executive decision in the first place.

I'm a doctor. It's my job to help.

I could end up losing said job if I did this.

The feeling nagged at me as I studied him; the longer I observed his condition, the weaker my resolve became. Supervillain or not, there had never been a patient in my care I'd ever left untreated. It was compulsory for me to help, practically necessary...

I had to do it. I had to treat him.

So I fetched a blank medical form from the other end of the room, hurried back to the cot. Pen in hand, my fingers filled the patient identification box in a slanted scrawl of letters, stealing the information from the recesses of my brain.

Patient Identification: Edward Nashton/Nygma (AKA: The Riddler)

Attending Physician: Doctor Chelsea DeLane

I sketched in the Riddler's – the patient's – list of medications, rolling down my mental list. Burying my nervousness in my medical duties was not difficult, and I comforted myself with the logic that the man before me was not exactly as volatile as the other Rogues. Physically he was one of the more easily detained supervillains, particularly when drugged. I have nothing to worry about. He's completely unconscious.

Despite all this, I was still immensely off-balance. Cautiously I leaned over to assess the extent of his injuries while maintaining a fairly healthy distance between us. I recorded my doctor's scribble of shorthand observations on the medical form.

Healing bruises on face, hematoma left cheekbone?

Bldstains, uniform – old/fresh. Swllng in nose: broken at some pt,, not realigned? -Nosebld wd fit stains on uniform.

My pen halted in its course across the page; a small movement had caught my eye. I froze. The unconscious supervillain twitched once more – a jump in a muscle of his right hand, and his eyes fluttered once beneath bruised lids. I didn't move, didn't breathe, waiting to see if he would move again. Maybe it was just muscle spasms. I waited almost a full minute.

Nothing.

My breath left me in a sigh of relief. He was still out cold, body submissive to the drugs circulating through his system.

I went back to my medical chart.

Dfclty breathing: whzing. Poss. chest injury?

It occurred to me then, that, like every other patient that had come into my care in the past twenty-six hours, he would have as many internal injuries as external. I'd encountered the GCPD's exaggerated handiwork countless times before – they were always particularly brutal to the Rogues after a breakout. It was as if the police did all they legally could to make Gotham's crazies pay for the death and fear and suffering they caused upon escaping.

As a doctor working at the world's most notorious insane asylum, I couldn't honestly say that the enforcers of the law weren't justified. The patients, at least the Rogues, were out of control on almost every level. Were they evil? No. Were they all completely insane? Also no. They were still dangerous criminals that required punishment to keep them in their place.

As a doctor that kind of thinking tended to grind against my nerves, but revenge was human, after all. Even if my own vengeful thoughts made me feel ridiculiously guilty later, I couldn't always stop myself from having them. Who could?

I approached the patient with more confidence than I felt, moving close enough to tug at the zipper of his prison jumper. Confirming my suspicions was a painful-looking, deep purple bruise spreading across his chest and shoulder – a hematoma over a fractured collarbone, most likely. I pulled the zipper down further to see more bruising on his ribs.

That certainly explained the breathing problem.

Finally feeling more grounded – I was in my element again – I reached out and grazed the swell of the hematoma with a gloved thumb, gauging the extent of the damage.

I annotated the patient's medical report with my findings and then moved to check his pulse. I touched two fingers to the inside of his wrist, started counting: One, two, three, f—

With a gasp I tore my hand away and leapt back, seizing up with panic. His fingers had curled weakly around my wrist. But even as adrenaline stirred my blood and sped my heart I chastised myself: It's just another reflex, he's still—

The patient stirred again, hands flexing. His mouth contorted into a grimace; his brow creased as his eyebrows drew together, his lips pulled back over his teeth as he clenched his jaw from the pain.

The drugs were wearing off. He was waking up. I was frozen, gaping like a petrified statue. What do I do – who do I call?

He groaned: a wheezy, strangled noise of pain. His eyes slowly blinked open, past the haze of drugs and concussion. But then he seemed to focus more acutely and shifted his gaze; tipping his head, bloodshot green eyes met mine.

The eyes narrowed sharply and my own eyes did the opposite, widening in a moment of pure, unadulterated panic. I couldn't breathe. I felt myself on the very edge of passing out. He moved suddenly, lurching upward in an effort to sit up.

But it proved to be a mistake: with a spasm and a gasp of pain, he collapsed back against the cot with his good hand flung to his chest, struggling to breathe.

It broke the spell over me.

Lab coat flapping at my ankles I dashed to the other end of the infirmary and rifled wildly through the shelves of my medical carts. I located the glass bottle I needed and a fresh syringe. In a flash I was back at his bedside.

The patient wheezed frantically, fingers still clutching at his chest: the more it hurt, the more he tried to breathe, and the more he tried to breathe, the more it hurt. I filled my syringe, held it poised and reached out to anchor him in place–

The hand clutching his chest left his shirt to grasp my wrist; the patient's eyes darted frantically between my face and the needle in my hand. His expression was bright with adrenaline – anger, panic, maybe even fear. I struggled against him, fighting his grip with one hand and holding the needle high with the other. He was surprisingly strong, but not enough to fight both me and his pain at the same time.

Goddammit, Chell, take control!

With a jerk and a flick of my wrist, the syringe penetrated his forearm.

As if time had stopped around him, the patient froze, body tightening, his expression that of shock. He stared at me with wide eyes, studying my face. He still had a hold of my wrist. I couldn't look away. Couldn't move.

This was the closest I'd ever been to a Rogue. I was as fascinated as I was scared out my wits. The man was scrawny, compared to most of Arkham's inhabitants, but his person emanated power and control. He had a presence, and its magnitude was bewildering.

The patient's eyelids drooped; he was fighting the drug hard, but the medicine was too strong. Finally his eyes closed completely and his body relaxed into the clutches of unconsciousness. His grip loosened and his head sank back against the cot.

My breath left me in a rush, taking my tension with it.

I carefully removed my hand from his, extracted the needle from his arm. Tossed the syringe into the garbage. Stood back, ran a sweaty hand through my hair. Gradually I calmed, the adrenaline leaking from my bloodstream and leaving me mentally and physically exhausted.

"Damn." I sagged, the force of gravity growing stronger as fatigue set in. I dragged a hand down my face and then back across my forehead, sweeping loose hairs towards my ponytail. "That was close."

"They say talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity."

I had a silent heart attack, too tired to physically react in proportion to the level of my surprise. I swivelled clumsily to face the voice, though I'd already placed it.

One of my assistants, double-interning for the medical and psych wards, stood in the doorway across the room. Back from the penitentiary, then. Just in time. Where were you three minutes ago?

"Are you alright?" she asked, strolling in. Then she noticed the body I was standing next to, and the tired but pleasant expression on her face vanished. Caution took its place. Arkham was not place for unexpected curiosities, after all. "Hold on, who's that? I thought we-"

"It's taken care of." I cut her off smoothly, my voice more solid than anything else about my person. Well, I reasoned, at least she didn't witness anything. And the cameras were still down, so I could preserve my job and actually keep this whole ordeal on the DL.

Wow. I must be seriously tired if I'm using phrases like 'DL.'

My intern's look of caution faltered to mild panic. "But we checked in all of the patients. I filed the roster myself, just now. Did we miss -?"

"I said it's taken care of, Annie." My tone was sharp. I couldn't deal with this right now. "Where are the others? I need the orderlies to take this patient back to his cell."

"The - the others are still on their way back. Where, um, where is his cell?"

"Intensive Treatment." I kept my face a steady mask, smoothed my coat avoided her eye. "When the others return, check him back in. Tell the guards you are doing so on my authority because the other ward was closed." I turned my back on her and collected my patient report, shoved all the pages under the clamp of my clipboard.

"And leave this on my desk to file later," I added, setting the paperwork on a side table. "Leave the infirmiry as it is and go home when you're done. Just lock up, please."

I started walking, then, intending to leave without another word. I did not having the mental stability to face the look of shock I knew would be on the young woman's face. I knew she would have no problems with the patient rousing, granted the dosage of tranquilizers I had given him, so my conscience was not as heavy as it might have been.

"But - Doctor DeLane?" Annie Shea called after me, hysteria rising in her voice. "Am I supposed to just-"

The double doors swung shut behind me, and then I heard nothing but the wind and the sounds of Gotham city in the distance.