"Tell me about the life you were going to have..."
Edward Climbs The Wall.
Edward Nigma died on a Tuesday.
He'd been sick for some time. He'd even beaten cancer once before, after a fashion: the life-giving properties of the Lazarus Pits cured him of the tumor pressing on his cerebellum. But they also drove him insane. Crazier than usual. And in the throes of the worst insanity of his life, he figured out who Bruce Wayne was.
It was then that Thomas Elliot walked into his life having known the same thing.
Naturally they became friends. And set to destroy Bruce.
And then, during a super-criminal raid on Metropolis, Edward'd had his clock cleaned with a mace to the head. He spent the year in a coma and promptly forgot Batman.
Until.
Now.
Standardized case history painted Nigma's particular behavior as obsessive compulsive, a high functioning sociopath with zero understanding of his fellow man, a crippling complexity addiction; occasional demonstrations of a borderline personality disorder. The genius was in there, somewhere, but buried under pathos and symbolism and childish need. Clinically, Nigma varied from, say, the Joker's accepted psychological makeup, which presented more aggressively.
And because of-
Or in spite of these things-
He was no murderer.
Which meant that when it broke he was dying, the responses were different. There were no picket lines outside the Metropolitan Hospital, Thomas Wayne's first residency by the way, calling for justice for his victims. No protestors, and no talking heads on GCN or WLEX talking about a career criminal, a deviant, who deserved this last bit of punishment the universe had to offer. No judgement. No scorn. And no pity, either. Imagine that.
He was just an ill man at the end of his time. For some reason it resonated. People noticed.
And when he finally died, they stopped what they were doing and were very silent.
A mighty tree had fallen.
Bruce went to see him. Not as Batman, either.
In a rich brown houndstooth, in calfskin leather gloves, a tweed suit, Schonenfeld's finest for a harsh November day, the wind barreling down Moldoff and making you hug yourself so tight to protect from the elements that you thought you'd implode. Bruce Wayne strolled into the Metropole, head high and proud despite the circumstances. Asked the desk nurse in an easy, hypnotic voice where Edward Nigma's room was and she said forty forty eight, and up the great glass elevator he went. Around the corner from the elevator bank and through the ward. Forty forty eight was at the end of the hall, facing the exterior wall made of glass and staring out at Snyder Park.
Wayne pushed the door open gently. Shut it behind him as gently. And looked at Nigma.
He looked contorted and corpuscular. A skeleton lying under starched sheets, tubes and wires going in and out of him. An aquiline nose almost all that was left of his face, the rest all sunken and blanched.
Wayne frowned. His heart sunk.
He's lost so much weight, Wayne thought. He was never a bruiser, but he was healthy. This.
This is-
He noticed Nigma's arms, laying on top of the covers, strained and sagging and bony spindles for hands, and. And-
I can see his joints.
"Oh," he said. "Edward."
Nigma was sleeping. His face sort of molded into place. Frowning or grimacing. If he was in pain he was-
His eyes opened slowly and he focused on the room and on Wayne. Slowly. Dementedly. His head bobbled on his neck. Wayne knew the movements well. Struggling to stay awake.
"Ah," Edward said. Hardly any air behind it. But he heard it all the same. "Bruce Wayne."
Then Nigma smiled a bit. Weakly, sadly, thin lines in his face drawing it up at great effort. He was so old and so tired and so-
"I knew you'd come," he said. "I just knew it."
"You asked for me. Here I am."
Nigma relaxed and looked at the ceiling.
"I remembered," Nigma said. "Who you were. Years afterward, you know. Blunt force trauma...you know. Not a long term cure. Much the same you could say for my current predicament."
"Why not use the Pits this time?"
"You know the answer to that," he said and it was hardly a whisper. "You know the whole story."
"They cured you once before."
"And I started vomiting blood last year anyway." He looked out the window and made a face. Bitterly he said, "Look at me now."
"Edward."
"They've got this...tube feed in my stomach. Giving what's left of my stomach nutrients it can't even..."
Wayne frowned.
"My organs are. Failing. You're talking to morphine."
He brought a hand up and covered his face. Cried. Shivered and sighed and said, "oh damn."
Out of nowhere an idea came to Bruce. He'd had it years before and dismissed it. When Tommy cut out Selina's heart, Michael Holt had commented on the technology Elliot had used to keep her alive. Victor Fries could save Nigma. Luthor could. If he would. If the Batman strolled into LexCorp-
"I know people who could help."
"Ffh."
Wayne was silent. Then he said, "What?"
Nigma spoke up. "What do you do, Bruce. When. When you're closer to this line. Than to that one."
"You," Wayne said. "Don't stop fighting."
Nigma chuckled, and it turned into a sick, wet gurgle. "The kids..."
"What?"
"The kids!"
"Edward."
"Your boys. What of them."
"They'll find a way. They always have."
Nigma frowned. Creases in his face went deeper, the skin sagged. "I hope so. I hope they're not wasting their lives. For you."
Wayne made a face. Then he thought better of himself and said, "I...don't think they are."
Nigma scoffed. Half turned in the bed and looked out the window. Far below, the Sprang River twisting through town, hedgerows and trees flanking it on either shore, Snyder Park on the far side, the Opera shell there just waiting for the Summer Arts Series to come round again. If it ever could, if it ever did, who could say, who knows. Who. Knows.
He was decaying so fast. Sentences down to syllables. "I have. Ow. Hours. Left."
"I know."
"...You do know. Don't you."
"Yes."
He sniffed. Once. Quickly. "Will you stay with me?"
Wayne looked at him. Nodded.
Pulled a chair up to the bedside and sat. He looked at Nigma's heart monitor, his stats, gave the IV bag a quick visual check. Blood pressure might as well have been zero over zero, the beats of his heart few and far between.
Then he looked at Nigma, lying there near the end and dying and terrified. And said, "You know, I actually enjoyed the Englehart Trap."
"The electric. Water tank?"
Wayne nodded.
"My greatest hit."
"And the jumpsuit. That domino mask-"
"Hh." Nigma chuckled. "A simpler time. What was I thinking?"
"I envied you," Wayne said. "That magnificent brain and you used it for your own ends."
Nigma looked at him. Frowned. "You wish you could be selfish," he croaked. "Well enough you can't. You'd be as crazy as. Crazy as us."
"You're not like the rest."
"I know. But you. Stacked deck. All the crazies. And you still beat them all."
Wayne hesitated. "There was a price we paid."
Nigma looked at him.
Wayne looked right back.
Nigma asked if it was worth paying.
Wayne thought about it all too briefly, all too rashly. Of course. Every day and every night for years. For an eternity. Sarah and Jim and Jason and Selina. And Tommy, poor wayward Tommy.
And two good people named Thomas and Martha. Taken from him by chance and by stupidity.
Yes he thought about them. Every minute of every day. Since. Since the beginning. Eight years old in an alley in Park Row. Since the source.
Of everything Bruce Wayne was, and everything he would be.
Slowly, peacefully-
"Yes it was worth it. It still is."
Nigma smiled and relaxed.
"Then you answered the riddle."
Nigma closed his eyes. His breathing slowed.
"Edward."
"The riddle," Nigma said. "Of your life. The only one worth solving."
Wayne frowned.
"What," Nigma said. Closed his eyes and spoke slower. "My father. Broke my legs once. Your father. Fixed me. The good man."
Wayne waited a moment. Then:
"Yes," he said. "My father."
Nigma chuckled again. That flat, wet gurgle. "Tell me about your family, Bruce."
Wayne raised an eye.
"Tell me about the life...you were going to have."
And Wayne did. To his credit. Without malice or fear, without regret. He honored this poor dying man's last request. He told him the highlights. The good times.
He told him of Thomas Wayne and his first residency, in this very hospital. Of summers spent funding the Arts Series in the park. Of winters in Metropolis, sighting the Icicle and Alan Scott, of mischief with Tommy, of meeting a little Lutheran named Clark Kent on a cross country trip. Of the loves of his life: Silver and Julie, Vicki and Vesper. Of the Wayne Foundation Arbitrary Scholarship every summer for the company intern that happened to be in the right place at the right time. Of the idea he had to turn the Manor, on the occasion of his death, into a home for wayward youth. Of the Justice League of America and the true friends there. Clark and Diana and Arthur and Wally.
Of three brave boys he had the honor to call sons.
And of Edward Nigma. The last criminal the Batman respected.
They talked into the evening. Even as Nigma's strength faded to nothing. Even as the nurses came in-
He stayed with him until his time came.
And when it had come and gone, he stood and put his hand on Edward Nigma's dead shoulder and patted it. Not cruel or cowardly, not forceful or rude. You did well, Edward. You're gonna be just fine. I believe in that and I believe in you.
He sat there even as Doctor Tsongas pronounced the time of death. As the orderlies wheeled the body out and down to the morgue. Then. Alone in the room, staring out the window, Nurse Rigorelli changing the sheets out behind him.
I hope, Nigma had said. They're not wasting their lives. For you.
Father.
How do I do it?
How do I make them. Not like me.
I don't know who's right, Father. I don't have the answers. I don't know if it's Clark. Or Wally or Hal or you or Alfred or Orion, I don't know.
I haven't...not known...in years.
I've stagnated, Father. I've planted myself while the world changed. While they changed. Doing what I've always done.
Oh damn.
I made a vow to you. Both of you.
I swore I would rid this city of the evil that took your lives. The evil that infests it.
Tonight I saw that fear. More clearly than ever before.
With Nigma, of all people.
I don't know how to live. But I don't want to die.
All the sudden I'm eight years old again. Staring at you. Watching time run out.
I'm afraid of vulnerability. I'm afraid I may have to die.
I fear there may be no other choice.
Father.
"Help me."
Sometimes, Tommy had said to him, years ago, happier days gone by, sometimes...there are no answers.
He remembered.
And of course it was all so mechanical. Real human interaction did not number among the talents of either Bruce or Tommy. Growing up the way they had, you were expected to behave better than the rest. The Wayne fortune was expected to create Thomas Wayne's kind of social responsibility. No fast cars or fast women. No frivolity. Only seriousness. And Bruce was expected to carry this forward, beyond his parents generation. To use his wealth and his responsibility, his social chair, to improve Gotham.
He failed. As grossly as Tommy had in his appropriation of the ancient Elliot money.
They failed together.
Gotham was no better off for Bruce's efforts. It was this that kept him up at night. His own worth.
What his city could look like.
Without a Batman.
He imagined his father. In the room with him, his face as permanently stone and focused in death as in life.
Bruce your assumptions are facile. You know what it is to be a man. Your wealth and your status mean nothing without the honorable behavior to substantiate it.
Honor.
He thought of Tommy. His partnership with Nigma, on the occasion of discovering the Batman's true identity.
Why he had been so damaged over what Tommy did. Masquerading Basil Karlo as Jason. Bribing Crane to profile the Batman's enemies. Even though it's been years. Even though no one's really left to care.
He thought of his old crew team at Princeton. What would Old Rike, his eighth, think of this.
Wayne you old so and so. Gentlemen of Princeton do not kill their parents for the insurance money. And they certainly don't scramble about Gotham's rooftops in search of pyhrric victory.
Tommy.
Bruce, there's been an accident. My mom and dad.
Tommy, I'm sorry.
You swore!
Yes. Yes he swore.
And he thought, here, now, in this moment.
The Batman. Always over-delivering. Always saying too much. Even as Bruce Wayne. Even as a child.
It was almost a superpower. Almost.
Sad old man. Like Nigma. Like.
Tommy.
Tommy there's been an accident. My parents.
Bruce I'm sorry I wish I could be there but Mother you know...
Yes. Yes I understand.
And he had understood all too well. The burden of responsibility. The value of maturity. Thomas Wayne's values. As he lived and died.
And now here was Wayne. Decades past that boy grieving silently over his parents. Decades past the angry, beleaguered Thomas Elliot.
Here. Now. In this place.
Bruce Wayne looked into the night sky. Striated clouds chopping into the bottom half of the moon. A cold breeze flowing through him from nowhere.
And then he was gone. Out of the hospital room. Through the ward and to the great glass elevator. Down past the Sundollers in the lobby. Out to the Elise, far across the parking lot.
And home.
Home.
To his father's house.
Jeremiah Cleans House.
If not for the death of his parents, Bruce might not have become the Batman.
If not for the loss of her legs, Barbara Gordon might not have become Oracle.
One of his most invaluable assets in the war, she wasn't always confined to a wheelchair. Once she could walk. She was young. And beautiful. Full of life and optimism in a way Gotham itself.
Wasn't.
When she got older she became Batgirl. And she became even more useful in the war. Together with The Batman, she fought the Cavalier, and stopped the Killer Moth in his tracks. She fell in love with Dick Grayson. And with Gotham. And with Batman.
Maybe, more than anyone else, she understood his mission. Being an academic she even made its necessity into a working theory about order, chaos, her and Batman and Robin standing on the threshold between the two and doing their best to stem the tide.
She had a great run. A magnificent career.
Then.
The Joker came.
The son of a bitch who put a bullet through her spine, just to prove an insane point to the Batman and Jim Gordon.
And he failed.
She lived. Gordon didn't go insane. And the Batman put the Joker back in prison. Again.
But. Before all that. Before the dark times, before Batgirl, she was just Jim Gordon's daughter.
And during that time, one Halloween when the Batman was seen to be chasing the Scarecrow one hour and the Penguin the next, a sick man named Jervis Tetch kidnapped her and drugged her.
Oh, Batman saved her. Like always.
But Tetch never forgot the insult. His Alice had been taken from him.
Born out of childish need, he determined to take her back.
It took him years. But he got her. Not on his own, because he could never do anything on his own. First and foremost he was a failure in life and in crime. Which meant whatever crimes he tried to eke out were pointless. Simple. Stupid and violent. Blindly harmful.
And it's the simplest freedom story of all, how Tetch got out of Arkham and found himself free enough to hunt down an old score.
Doctor Jeremiah Arkham had made the facility whole again. He fired the old staff summarily, en masse one day. Called them into Amadeus Arkham's old office in the Mansion, the ancient fireplace burning brightly in the gloom, the oil painting of Elizabeth Arkham staring at terrified orderlies from a gilded frame. He handed them their pink slips one by one and told them the days of their own little Teapot Domes were done.
It was actually because of an intern.
Arkham, you see, was tall and gaunt. Messy grey hair on a strained body, glasses dangling from his nose. One of the interns once confused him with Crane, and as a result found himself in need of a new doctoral programme. Not Arkham's finest moment but he could hardly be seen to be running a sound, or revamped, campus if his interns were confusing their administrator with their bogeyman.
Hence the current mission. Tear down what was. So you could create what would be.
So he steadied himself. And spent what was left of his family fortune, insane old Amadeus' last bonanza, to refurbish the Asylum.
And he told the incoming staff this:
"I will tell you all what I once told the Batman. Quackery has no place within these walls. No longer do we tolerate a lenient hand, or the slippery slope on which lives nepotism and declining standards. You are here because you come highly recommended. Because you were the tops of your classes. This in turn tells me you did not waste your time with foolishness, and the pursuit of destructive habits. So. I promise you this. Today is zero year. For all of you, for me, for Doctors Nybakken and Bartholomew, and for this facility. These are not the days of Doctor Cavendish, I'm pleased to say. Toolery, exploitative behaviors and hucksterism are grounds for prompt dismissal. I will not drag my family's name down anymore than this city has already. And you all will not transform into the likes of Simpson Flanders, may he rest in peace.
"We are here to help those who cannot help themselves. To create a peaceful and meaningful atmosphere which promotes the very best aid the mental health profession can offer. Now. With that, it's an honor to hereby rename this facility: the Elizabeth Arkham Home for the Emotionally Troubled."
That was day one. Zero Year, as he kept calling it. Of the old regime, he retained only Scott Nybakken and Timothy Bartholomew.
Five years. Long time to rebuild.
And the process worked to great effect. If for no other reason than the previous so called 'special interest' cases became non-factors only weeks after Arkham's dismissals. Pamela Isley retreated to Robinson Park as she'd done during the No Man's Land, and even the illustrious Mayor Garcia was persuaded not to touch her.
Live and Let Live, said Vicki Vale and the Gazette.
Drop The Issue, said Living Monthly.
Forget About Her, said Engel and the GCN pundits.
So Garcia did.
And Arkham moved on.
The city did too.
Killer Croc had been captured on Moldoff, remanded to Waller and DEO, and never heard from again.
And the rest, well, they faded. They faded away so fast and so far that by the time the facility had only two patients to its name, they could be said not to exist at all. In any practical form.
Except for Jervis Tetch, sitting quietly in his cell with copies of Seventeen and Tiger Beat to satiate his paraphilias-and Harvey Dent, alone in the old Penitentiary, staring at an old Dungeons and Dragons dice like he didn't know what to do with it-
The facility was mostly empty.
And as for Nybakken? He never admitted it to anyone but Jeremiah, but-
He feared the Joker.
The clown had escaped years before without so much as a peep. Days later still there had been no threats to the city. Nothing to indicate escape or even, Nybakken eventually claimed, survival.
"Here's what keeps me up at night, Jere."
"Okay?"
"He's here. Still, I mean. Hiding in the treatment plant or the old sewers, where Sharp used to keep Jones."
Arkham smiled a bit. "The old regime, Scott."
"Smile all you like," Nybakken said. "But I sincerely doubt the Joker ever really escaped this island."
Arkham said he'd take it under advisement. That he'd talk to Gordon and Bullock and see what could be done. "With the understanding, Scott," he said, "that probably no one will find out anything."
"I think it's important."
Arkham regarded him. And simply said, "Alright."
And that was that.
"Now what else is on your mind?"
"The Wright stuff," Nybakken said and cracked a smile at his own joke.
"Oh right, uh, Luthor's client," Arkham said. "How's he coming?"
"Surprisingly open," Nybakken said. "He's had such a tough life, you know, normally these types are inaccessible. It's tremendously interesting to me to see how and why he's open about it."
"Hiding in the light is a popular method," Arkham said. "Most cases tend toward Pollyanna. Outwardly agreeable but still tortured. Is he veering to the personal or the professional?"
"So far personal. Keeps bringing up a boy he used to know at university."
"Latency?"
"About the boy, definitely."
"About Luthor?"
Nybakken shook his head. "It's mentor-student for Jesse. His history with this boy he knew is deeper pathology."
Arkham nodded. "Any conclusions?"
"Nothing publishable yet," Nybakken said. "At the very least, it's two realms. He hates and loves him. Proportionally."
"Keep me posted," he said. "Sounds fascinating."
"I will."
Nybakken left Arkham's office. Strolled down the hall. Through the ward and its single occupied cell.
Tetch.
When Nybakken crossed his periphery, Tetch spoke up. Looked up from his UNO cards with a narrow leer.
"Your patient in the city, Doctor Scott? I do wonder what he's got."
Nybakken stopped and looked sideways at Tetch. "Decided to interact today, eh?"
Tetch kept the grin. "Your little boy of blackened hair is he, wonder you what he thinks of thee? Speaking plainly as a cow, back to Lex his report flies now."
Nybakken produced his mobile and dialed the orderly. In the interim he got close to the glass wall separating him from Tetch.
He spoke and belied his own fear. For Tetch to know about events on the outside-
"And you're close to Fifth Avenue yourself?"
"Aye a fraternity's well and true," Tetch said. "When life hands you lemons it's Greek letters to see you through."
Nybakken breathed.
"Whatever you think you know-"
Tetch launched from his chair. Matched Nybakken's pose.
"I'll tell you all I know. There's little to relate. Your kingdom you think safe, is under eye from Irving's schoolmate."
Nybakken frowned.
"Now, now, very now," Tetch said. "The god of fear is in the city of Law, returning, returning, to join your flaw."
Then he dropped the rhyme. And his voice. He barked and grinned and spit on the glass. Howled and cackled and fell to the floor, tickled at his own magnificence. Not quite a mad dog, Nybakken thought. But getting up there, getting up there.
"You're all going to die," Tetch said and Nybakken was fleeing down the hall, shaken and surprised at his own weakness. "You hear me, Doctor Scott?! The end is nigh!"
When Nybakken was gone from the ward, only Tetch and his echoing madness remained.
Continued...