SLAM!
The pain is blinding and The Riddler can't help but fall to his knees.
A sick, sick man in a white lab coat stands over him and says coldly, eerily, "What botched Shakespearean tragedy is this?"
As Professor Strange turns to look at The Doc, The Riddler catches a glimpse of Kristen's tank in the reflection of his glasses and realizes that they aren't going to make it. They had been so close . . .
"That's what Penguin said when he found you two in The Narrows - before he sent you to me," Professor Strange says. Then he lifts a finger to shake condescendingly and tsk at them. "You two got it all wrong now, didn't you? Romeo & Juliet committed suicide, not murder."
"Yeah, well, we're a different breed," The Doc says, pulling out the knife that that miserable little man had just plunged into The Riddler's thigh and lunging at him. Raising her arm high above his bald, oily head just as he makes a little 'o' with his lips, she slams the butt of the knife down onto his cranium and he immediately falls to the ground unconscious.
Breathing heavily, she opens up her hand and gasps. She recognizes the knife and holds it out for him to see."Riddler. . . It's the knife. Our knife."
It's the one they had used to take each other's lives. Deep down, he's glad it isn't the other one. The one he had brought with him that fateful day - the one that had clattered to the floor as she'd sunk the same knife she currently holds deep into his gut. He never wishes to see that knife again - he can't believe he'd ever held it to her neck in the first place. The thought turns his stomach as he remembers that night at The Riddle Factory.
The pain is still pretty bad and he's breathing heavy, too. He groans and squeezes his eyes shut, refusing to look at the knife she's holding out to him. It's not the time to talk about that night. Not while his hands struggle to stem the flow of blood from the wound in his left thigh. And not while they still need to get their daughter out of here. But nonetheless, a white-hot rage is boiling up within him. This has gone unaddressed for far too long.
"Riddler, be careful . . ." he hears Ed say.
"Shut up, Ed!"
Nothing ever changes.
Eddie has somehow encapsulated all of the fragments of Ed's early memories that had split off over the years and has kept them to himself for safekeeping. But he hadn't been able to keep them all to himself. No. There were some that The Riddler had found deep in the recesses of Ed's tortured mind and had held onto even after Eddie had split off from them. He had needed these fragments so that he could do his job properly. And Eddie had needed them too, so they shared them . . . with Ed none the wiser.
Looking at that knife resting so calmly in The Doc's hand utterly repulses him. The Riddler can distinctly recall the feel of his young hand covered in blood - immersed in the flesh of that pig as it spills out over the hilt. How warm the knife had been once he pulled it out, folded it in half, and tucked it away for safekeeping.
Coldly.
Because it was finally over. There was nothing left to feel.
"Put it away," The Riddler growls. He hates knives. But they're the only way to die.
"Why?" she asks.
"Just do it!" he yells, his eyes flying open.
"Okay, but let me . . ."
The Doc drops the bloody knife into her pocket and kneels, placing her hands upon him soothingly before removing his own hands from the gaping hole in his leg so that she can look at it. Then she takes the scalpel out of the beach bag they'd brought with them and gets to work.
The Riddler watches her turn one of the straps into a tourniquet with a few quick slices and he smiles, but not with mirth. In fact, he doesn't even know why he's smiling. The knife's blade had gone deep into his thigh, just like the first time it had entered his body by her hand that day in The Narrows.
Nothing ever changes.
"Lee?" he asks, his voice laced with ice. "When are you going to kill me again?"
"I'm not L -"
"I'm talking to LEE - all of you - and I will address you as such since you were all there," he says angrily. "And because I know you're all here now. Listening in."
"Then sit still, ED. I'm trying to get this tourniquet on you."
She's still fiddling with the strap, just starting to pull it tight across his leg, when he grabs her forearm and pulls her forcefully down towards him, close enough to grab the knife from her pocket. He jabs it up towards her throat. He has no regrets about using this knife on her.
"Why, Lee?" he snarls. Their faces are mere inches apart.
She takes in a breath but doesn't look scared, just fierce.
"I've gotta hear this," he hears Ed say in his head, now listening with rapt attention.
"You knew," The Riddler says. "You KNEW I would never kill you. And yet you -"
"How would I know that? You killed Kristen." Her voice catches on the name Kristen, now also their daughter's name, and just for a second, his knife falters.
And then they hear voices.
"Fuck," The Doc says. "I didn't realize anyone was still here."
They both look up at the tank, at their baby girl staring down at them in horror, her palms on the glass.
And they feel ashamed.
Before he knows it, The Doc has the tourniquet secure about his leg and she's helping him to his feet.
"We gotta go."
"One last thing . . . "
They approach the tank and each place a hand on it.
"Baby," they say in unison as tears come to The Doc's eyes.
"We'll be back to get you," The Riddler whispers to his daughter. "I promise."
Kristen has barely placed her hands on theirs before they are gone. They cannot afford to get caught, or else they'll never be able to get her out of this place safely.