I'm teasing you all so hard right now. You want Riddler? You get him in the next chapter in all his green, irritating glory. Pages and pages of Chelsea/Edward, one-on-one. But not in this chapter. Hate me later. Or maybe just hate me in a review. Yeah, do that one. **Review** (whispers) reviewreviewreview. *throws glitter* Review come on you know you wannaaaaa ilu guysss

This takes place after A Needle, Sharply.

Four: Breath of Cold Air

"Cruel and cold is the judgement of Man,

and cold as the snow.

But by-and-by will

the deed and the plan

be judged by the motive that lieth below."

-Lewis J Bates

"Knock, knock, Professor. Guess who?"

"I grow tired of these insipid games, Mr. Nygma... If you wish to speak to me, my guards will escort you safely to my tower."

"Please, Hugo. If you're going to set a trap, at least pretend to try harder than that."

"No traps, Edward. I simply wish to grant you safe passage through Arkham City. I think the time has come for us to meet as equals."

"You, Strange? My equal? I am the man whose cunning will soon have Batman lying at my feet, bloodied and broken!"

"Really?"

"Then I will pull off his mask and look into his dull, dying eyes. In that last instant he will know that I have finally beaten him... and I will finally know who he really is."

A long beat of silence.

"...My apologies, Edward. I see now that we are nowhere near equals."

"Finally!-"

"-You see, like me, you are obsessed with the Batman, but unlike me, you don't know who he really is. Do you?"

He alighted on a gargoyle with a flutter of fabric and the crunch of his boots grinding against concrete. Folding himself into a compact unit atop his perch, he consulted his scanner.

The signal he was tracking originated due east from his position near the burning church tower. Black smoke still thickened the sky, pressing against the monster of a storm system churning in the atmosphere above. Ashes rained down on the streets to mingle with the powdery flakes of the unending snowfall. With the age of the wood in that building, the tower would burn for a good long while. If anything, it would serve as a landmark for later. To find the courthouse again, he would look for the looming column of black smoke in the distance.

Batman tucked his scanner away, securing it in his belt. The signal would feed directly to his cowl, where he could track it without stopping. He drew his cape up around him, calculated a flight path, and pushed off into open space with a mighty dig of his boots into sculpted cement.

Freezing air cushioned the sails of his cape, propelling him up and onward toward his destination. He didn't mind the cold anymore. His skin was too thick, too scarred and brawl-hardened to be so sensitive – and well, he'd certainly lived with colder. The tingling in his fingers and the sting of ice in his lungs was reassuring, not painful. As long as he could feel it, he knew he was alive.

He passed high above Arkham's streets, careening over buildings and riding stormy gusts alongside the falling snow. Below, he spied clusters of inmates at garbage-bin fires, huddled in makeshift shelters of scrapmetal and wooden packing crates, crouched in solitude in the corners of alleys with heads tucked tight to the crooks of arms and the thin hoods of raincoats. Voices filtered through the earpiece in his cowl. Some complained. Some sniffled, noses running with the cold. Others talked menially, passing time with pointless, abstract chatter. Others were crying. Not everyone in this prison was a criminal, after all.

With the exception of the latest inmates, Arkham City hadn't changed since his previous visit, when he'd discovered that Strange knew the identity of the man behind the face of Batman.

He'd been undercover, then. At least, he had been, initially. Obviously it hadn't lasted.

It was a problem, being compromised. Of course it was a problem. Strange knew who Batman was. Strange ran the City. Strange had an army – a well-trained army, with a dual-compound arsenal at its disposal. And what was more, Strange had contacts. He could announce everything at any time, via radio, via PA, via the press. His identity could be made known to all of Gotham – and then the world – at any time. Through him, they would find his friends, his loved ones, people he was responsible for. Everyone would go down with him. Strange could destroy everything he had built for Gotham in one fell swoop, with a mere four words.

Bruce Wayne is Batman.

The most vexing piece of the equation, though, was that he hadn't.

Weeks had passed since Batman had discovered the identity breach. Even then, how long had it been since Strange himself made the connection? Days before that night? Weeks? Months, or even years? And yet, Strange hadn't breathed a word.

It didn't make sense. There was a piece missing. A motive. A reason why Strange would go to such lengths to let him know he had been discovered, only to capture Bruce Wayne and set Batman loose on the chessboard he'd worked so carefully to set. Why show your hand before the game has started?

There were few possible answers, of course. Either it wasn't the full hand, or the deck was stacked. Batman would find out for himself, or it would be revealed to him on purpose. He hoped it would be the former.

He hated traps.

A pocket of calm air necessitated a re-launch. The thick soles of his boots absorbed the impact of his landing on the roof of a low building. Through his cowl he scanned the area; the signatures of three huddled inmates registered on the ground a mere storey below. He picked out their voices from the slight muddle in his earpiece, tracking their conversation.

"... been days. They gotta feed us, right? They can't just lock us up in here with no food."

"That can't be legal."

"Have you assholes seen this place? The only thing I'm expecting out of this hellhole is frostbite and probably some kind of fungus."

No food. That level of neglect was expected, but the cruelty of it still stung. It always stung.

Unclipping his grapple from his belt, Batman aimed for the ledge of the tallest available building and fired. In the next few moments, the accelerated withdrawal of the hook launched him up and into the air again. As he reached the crest of the launch the bay came into view. To the west, it stretched out to curb against the sprawling, glittering metropolis of the Gotham mainland at night. To the east, it bordered the tangle of cranes and crumbling, unfinished bridges that comprised the Old Gotham docks. The origin of his signal, according to his cowl readout, lay somewhere deep inside that tangle.

As he neared, he made out the enormous neon sign that had been erected at the dock's outermost facade. His chest tightened with a – brief – flicker of apprehension.

Joker's Fun Land.

He had never been to this side of the island. This was uncharted territory – but so, it often seemed, was every fresh encounter with the Joker.

Riding the fresh, frigid breeze of the bay, Batman banked around the GCN transmission tower and headed straight for the innermost circle of the hell that was Arkham City.

"I know you're lying, Strange. There is no way that you could have figured it out. It's some kind of trick. It must be."

"Oh, I used no tricks, no childish puzzles. I simply created a psychological profile of the man most likely to be the Batman, and then matched it against the most logical candidate. I was right, of course."

"Well, who is he?"

"Ah, but that would spoil the game for you, wouldn't it?"

"You must tell me! I implore you, Strange! I—"

"Really, Edward... If I could figure it out, it must be child's play for you."

"But I – I..."

"Interesting. Tell me, Edward – how is the Riddler like a blank dictionary? You're both at a loss for words."