hey its been a long 3 years right hahah...

Bruce chewed his lip in thought as he looked over the small metal model, glancing over at the old plans occasionally.

He jumped a little as the door to his room opened despite knowing who was there.

"Riddler," he said softly, trying to focus on his work.

"Batman," Riddler said with a soft coo to his voice, walking to the desk and placing a cup of tea on his coaster, Bruce's third of the day. "Things coming along?"

Bruce nodded, putting down the small bit of tech and looking up at Riddler as the man perched on the desk, "I suppose so. It would be easy enough for me to get a handle on this if I had all my equipment… If I could remember drawing up these plans too…"

"It'll get easier as you go along, you'll remember more," Riddler smirked, "I'm no stranger to memory loss. The equipment however… it would have been really helpful if we could have had access to that."

Bruce felt his stomach twist, "What happened to it? What happened to…" suddenly his mind buzzed with questions: what had happened to Dick, Damian, Alfred, his home, his equipment, everything…

He couldn't leave this house.

What had become of the outside world?

He held his hand to the bridge of his nose, "...Fuck…"

Riddler swallowed hard, "I know, it's a lot to take in, you'll get used to it if you just give yourself time to. Give yourself some time."

Bruce grit his teeth, "You keep saying that…"

"I'm trying to help, Bruce."

Quickly Bruce returned his eyes to his work. He needed to finish this prototype model, he needed to get his head around these blueprints so he could help improve them.

These devices hadn't worked last time, or so he'd been told.

Maybe him not remembering was a good thing. He'd have a fresh perspective, he could see what was wrong and fix it.

No one had yet given him the full details of what had happened last time, he wasn't sure if anyone was ever going to tell him, but he was a smart man by anyone's standards, from the rather large breadcrumbs they had dropped he had figured out the bare bones of what had happened.

The main failure, the reason he was attacked and knocked out had been this little device. It was meant to neutralise his attacker so he could go on with his task, but it hasn't worked, and now 'they' had one. They had a way to defend themselves. Bruce needed to find out why this hadn't worked and then make one that did.

Riddler was still at Bruce's desk, half sat on it with one foot dangling a little off the floor, twitching in the most annoying fashion.

"I'd like to get on with this," Bruce almost growled.

Riddler let out a soft huff, "I didn't…" he shook his head, "You know what never mind. Tell me if you find anything."

Bruce ignored him as he walked out, continuing to stare at the paper.

For some reason now it was harder to concentrate. Riddler's voice, he'd seemed almost hurt.

Usually it wouldn't bother him in the slightest, he'd beaten that man within an inch of his life multiple times. what had happened within the last few months to change that? Had they really been that close?

He let out a growled huff and pulled himself back in his chair, "Edward!?" he barked, hoping to get the man's attention wherever in the house he was.

He appeared in the doorway a second later, as if he'd been standing a mere foot away.

"Thank you for the tea," Bruce said strongly.

Riddler frowned and rolled his eyes, "Oh right," his tone was a little happier with that sentence, he shook his head weakly, trying to hold a smile off his face. "I thought you'd found something useful."

"Not yet. I'll let you know, but thankyou."

Riddler chuckled weakly, "Well thank you for the thanks but please reserve my christian name for more important things."

Bruce raised an eyebrow, "You use mine all the time."

Riddler smirked, "That's because I know you better than you know me. Once you get your memory back you will gain the privilege of using my christian name in day to day life. Now isn't that an incentive?"

Bruce scoffed and shook his head dismissively, taking his cup of tea and taking a sip.

Riddler flashed another smirk and slowly backed out of the room, seeming to take extra care to close the door softly.

Yes, it was clear they had been close, if Bruce indulged him for even a moment he seemed to regress to a very friendly state. It was nice. Riddler had seemed so standoffish at first, obviously it was to protect himself, but it had been only a day and a half and his defences had already broken down, what did that say about how close they had been?

He wished he could remember, he hated not knowing. Things like their plan and what had happened to him he could piece together, he could understand why all that had happened, but the personal relationships were an enigma to him; he worked with the justice league all the time and no one other than Clark knew him by his civilian name.

He just couldn't understand it.

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