Arkhamverse 18: The Test

By Indiana

Characters: Jonathan Crane, Alan (Riddlerbot OC), Edward Nygma [Scriddler]

Synopsis: The errand Edward sends Jonathan on seems trivial at first, but it's soon revealed to be more informative than he could possibly have anticipated.

Jonathan stared out the windshield of his truck and attempted to fathom why he had agreed to this.

His first mistake had been letting Edward get behind him. The cloying scent of his cologne was distraction enough even when they were standing farther apart, but Edward's smooth cheek had been pressed into the corner of Jonathan's scarred jaw. At that distance, Jonathan almost didn't truly have a choice in the matter. He had barely been able to concentrate on the sound of Edward's low voice in his ear over the sensation of Edward's strong hands clasped firmly together over his sternum. "Why do I have to do it?" Jonathan had asked in an attempt to get his mind in order. He should have known something like this was going to happen when Edward had asked him to come here 'undressed'.

"I have to go see my lawyer."

That had taken a bit of the edge off. Not much, unfortunately. "See her naked, no doubt," Jonathan had grumbled. Edward's laugh in his ear had been both gentle and genuine.

"I'm not attracted to my lawyer."

"Yes you are. You have a thing for women with short hair."

"True," Edward had acquiesced. "But I don't want to compromise her impeccable integrity. If she allowed me to have sex with her, then she could no longer be my lawyer."

"It would be fun while it lasted."

"Oh, undoubtedly," Edward had said, his lips nearly against Jonathan's earlobe. "But since none of that is happening, I do need to talk to her. And I am also in need of someone to meet this informant in my stead."

"Very well," Jonathan had agreed, and Edward had immediately disengaged and walked off to do something else. He'd sighed and muttered under his breath about how insufferable Edward was, but he had of course heard that and found it very funny. After putting some article from the desk drawer into his back pocket he had returned to his former position and kissed Jonathan so thoroughly he hadn't been able to do anything other than stand there and let him. In an attempt to wrangle his faculties back into working order, he had said, "You have something in mind for the possibility I'm recognised?" Orange plaid flannel and jeans were probably the opposite of what anyone expected to see him in, even if they made the connection between his ravaged face and the diseased claws of a mutant crocodile man, but the question was a distraction from the fresh memory and lingering sensation of Edward's soft and sure mouth on his.

"Just tell them you are that dashingly handsome actor they're thinking of," Edward had said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "And don't worry. You won't have to drive."

He had of course not mentioned why Jonathan would not have to drive, which was because Edward had sent his robot son Alan to do the job. Edward had to be playing some game with him. He did not like Alan and Edward knew that he did not like him. And yet here he was, being driven to a mysterious location by a faceless automaton who could only communicate with him via text message.

Damn Edward and his unfairly attractive… everything.

What made it worse was that Alan had obviously learned to drive from watching Edward. Other than the fact that he had to turn his head all the way to look out of the mirrors because he had no peripheral vision, it was all the same. The confident way he sat back in the seat, the two fingers on the gearshift, the one arm almost in his lap so that he could steer from the bottom of the wheel. It was all so clearly Edward that if that had been his biological son, Jonathan could have mistaken them for each other out of the corner of his eye.

He'd made no secret of how much he disliked Edward's faceless mechanical progeny, which Edward had both shrugged off and laughed at. But this was actually worse than if Alan had brainlessly sat in the truck at a ninety-degree angle, hands at ten and two at all times when he was not using the entirety of his right hand to change gears. This was the result of Alan carefully watching Edward and making the conscious decision that he wanted to do the exact same thing the exact same way.

Or, much worse, it was not intentional at all and the psychology of a robot was farther out of Jonathan's league than he would ever admit to anyone. He did not believe himself to be an especially proud man, nor particularly arrogant about what he did and did not know, but the concept of being bested by a machine was… rankling. Particularly this machine.

Against Jonathan's notice – which was not unusual – they had come to be parked in a semi-full plaza of stores lined up around a curb-divided maze of a parking lot. Alan did not look at him or say anything. Jonathan looked disinterestedly out the passenger side window. Edward had said he'd know who he was looking for when he saw him. When pressed for details, he had of course not provided any. So Jonathan was stuck here in his truck with Edward's son until said informant decided to turn up. The one saving grace was that Alan seemed to be cognisant of the fact that Jonathan did not want to talk to him. Though Jonathan wondered if he knew who they were waiting for. To his knowledge, Alan was not told the finer details of what Edward was doing. A decision to allow him to keep his idealised view of Edward, no doubt, though Jonathan did not fault him for it. It was better for Edward to deal with his needs as opposed to pretending they didn't exist, which was what he usually did.

Speaking of Edward… Jonathan frowned. That man's resemblance to him was uncanny. They probably could have been brothers, if Edward had mentioned having a brother about twice his weight and half again his age…

Wait a minute.

Alan was leaning forward, which at least told Jonathan his vision was not quite hopeless. He had been needing a new prescription for a while now but had not had the time to acquire one. He glanced over at him. "You recognise him?"

Alan nodded. Jonathan's lips thinned.

He could have just asked.

Jonathan pushed the door open and lowered himself onto the asphalt of the parking lot. He didn't actually have a plan, which was both foolish and unlike him. But whether Edward knew it or not, Jonathan had been fantasizing about this for twenty years and he was going to take this chance, come what may. Besides. Alan would not allow too much harm to come to him. It would upset Edward too much.

Good Lord. They truly were the spitting image of each other. Jonathan had thought Edward to be exaggerating this whole time, but if this man's hair had been auburn instead of fading black he might actually have mistaken him for Edward at first glance.

What a torturous adolescence that must have been.

Nashton Senior was leaning against the hood of his car, arms folded, glaring at the passers-by as though he, too, were waiting for someone. Whether he was waiting for Jonathan or not was yet to be known, but he doubted it. Edward had not spoken to his father in twenty years and Jonathan saw no reason for him to start now, even if it was for something like this.

"Nashton," Jonathan called as he drew near, and when he looked up to see the source of his name Jonathan was momentarily, uncharacteristically lost for thought. This man's furrowed brow and deep facial grooves implied he'd never smiled a day in his life, which was just as well because it was bad enough seeing that he had Edward's eyes and Edward's nose; if he'd been able to imagine Edward's smile on his face he might just have had to do something far worse than what he was going to do now. Which was connect his fist with the man's jaw so solidly that he was knocked off the hood of the car and sent sprawling into the space between it and the next. Jonathan had meant next to simply turn away and get back into the truck, but he found that he couldn't both because he was flooded with exhilaration and a little short of breath. That had been much more satisfying than even his most elaborate fantasies had concluded it would be. What the daydreams had not predicted, however, was that his already tremulous hand would not be quite so lucky: his knuckles were beginning to swell. Oh dear. He'd better not have broken his hand. This was a bad time for any further injuries.

That was when he remembered why he did not usually do things without having an extensive plan in mind, for Nashton Senior had already gotten up and was storming towards him with all the determination of a runaway freight train. Right hand still held in front of him as a distraction, his left went into his pocket for his emergency toxin ampule. In the midst of a staring crowd was a terrible place to use it, particularly since none of these people knew who he was and most certainly would once it was broken in front of them, but –

Before he'd quite removed his hand, Alan had materialised from behind him, thrown Nashton Senior onto his stomach, and knelt down on his back while twisting his left arm behind him what seemed to be as hard as possible. Alan was so strong that even a man of Nashton Senior's size could not dislodge the knee buried in his… no. Not his back. His spine.

For all of his robot-related faults, Alan was not stupid. He'd patched Edward up enough times to know something of the fragility of the human body. He'd also been designed to hold his own against a man encased head-to-toe in carbon fibre armour. Edward had always described him as thoughtful and gentle, and yet here he was, fully intending to snuff the life out of a man without a second thought.

He must have felt more strongly about Edward's father than Edward had known him to. "Alan!" he called to him sharply. With a hint of a rebuke in order to spur him towards thinking about what he was doing. Alan paused and looked up at him. Into his eyes, actually. It was disturbing and unnerving, but Jonathan held his blank gaze. He couldn't see what was going on behind it, but there was something. Jonathan shook his head once.

Alan stood up.

Nashton Senior pushed himself onto his knees, gasping for breath as he glared at the assembled gawking crowd. "Is someone going to call the police?" he demanded, his voice heavily accented. Alan's eyes on him were, as ever, inscrutable.

"Someone could," said Jonathan, just quietly enough that he was not shouting, "but who would want to help the man responsible for the Riddler's existence?"

Nashton Senior raised an unsteady finger towards him. "He is not my son."

Jonathan smiled.

"It bothers you, doesn't it," he said softly. "To know he looks just like you."

Nashton Senior spat on the ground and all Jonathan could do was laugh. What marvellous information! He honestly should have realised that years ago. He would have to tell Edward later. Right now he needed a drink. "Wait in the truck a minute," Jonathan told Alan, who had silently come to stand next to him. "I need a coffee."

It was something closer to five or ten minutes, since there was a decent line, but Jonathan's sense of time had never been that great. It was expensive enough that he hesitated in removing his wallet, but it was too late now. It wasn't his money, but old habits and all that. Once he was outside again he discarded the lid and took a drink. It was almost worth what he'd paid for it. The heat both reminded him of the pain in his swollen hand and helped to temper it.

He opened the passenger side door, belatedly remembering his truck did not have cup holders nor any real place for him to put anything that needed to remain upright, but Alan leaned across the bench and held his hand out for it. Well, it was a solution. He handed it off and climbed into the seat. Perhaps he should clean it out sometime soon. It was getting a little out of hand. Once he had closed the seatbelt, Alan returned his coffee and started the truck. He braced one arm on the back of the seat in order to look out of the back window to reverse just as Edward would have. The vibration of the phone in Jonathan's back pocket indicated he had something to say, and Jonathan reluctantly pulled it out in order to see what that was.

Why did you stop me?

Jonathan took a long drink and looked out the windshield. Traffic was getting heavier and he was glad he was not driving. He debated whether or not to bother answering. But if he didn't Alan would undoubtedly mention it to Edward, which would start some big thing Jonathan was exhausted just thinking about. So he said,

"If one intends to bring harm to a man, they need both to know and to understand the consequences of doing so. You don't. You have no idea what it means to hold someone's life in your hands. That was not the time to learn."

Alan ran his hand along the bottom of the steering wheel, from one side of the arc to the other. Then he nodded.

/

When they arrived again at the Orphanage, Alan removed the key from the ignition and handed it to Jonathan, after which he opened the driver's side door and disappeared. Jonathan found himself looking after him. He had not said anything else, nor had there been any further indication he'd thought about what Jonathan had said. Which was… unusual. He had expected Alan, whose Edward-professed goals in life included being a good person, to have some sort of adverse reaction to what he'd been about to do. But there had been nothing. No horror, no self-questioning, no protestations. Absolutely nothing at all other than that solitary motion of his hand. Most distressing of all, he had no idea what that meant.

When he entered the Orphanage it was to find Edward rifling through some pile of papers scattered across his desk, and when he saw Jonathan over his shoulder he opened his mouth to say something. "Your son was going to kill him," Jonathan interrupted, before he could get started in on whatever grand speech he'd been planning, but Edward did not look horrified as he'd expected. Instead he simply… frowned.

"I highly doubt that."

"Why would that be?"

Edward hoisted himself onto the desk and sat with his knees spread. Jonathan was usually all for that, but at the moment it was quite distracting. "Because he doesn't like hurting people."

"Did he not know who it was?"

Edward leaned back far enough to open a desk drawer and rummage around inside of it, pulling out a stack of photographs. He rifled through them and held out two to Jonathan. He took them.

"He's seen those," Edward said, as Jonathan looked with some bafflement down at a pair of photographs which held not only Edward's father, but what must have been his mother as well!

"You never told me about this."

"You've been busy." He removed a cigarette case from his back pocket, put one between two of his fingers, and then lit it after replacing them behind him. "The point at hand is that yes, he is aware of who my father is, what he looks like, and something of what he's done."

Jonathan put the photos on the desk. "So you're saying what he did was out of character."

"It was." He coughed a little into his elbow. "I'm curious as to what you did to provoke it."

"I punched him," Jonathan said. Edward froze entirely.

"You punched him?"

"I did."

Edward shook his head, focusing on the cigarette again. "What on earth possessed you to assault a man three times your size?"

"You must have known I would, else you wouldn't have sent Alan with me."

Edward threw up his hands. "I sent Alan because you hate driving! Not so he could rescue you from – good Lord, Jonathan, I thought you were merely going to gas him or the like. You know. Like you usually do."

Jonathan's leg was beginning to pain him more than he would have liked, so he lifted himself onto the desk next to Edward. "I have been fantasizing about a moment like that for a long time now," he said. "And while I have considered a great many different methods of dispatching him over the years, that was the only one that would truly have done."

"Why's that?" Edward asked, stabbing the end of the cigarette into an ashtray behind him. Jonathan waited until he was facing him again before he answered,

"Because you can't."

The way Edward was looking at him just then was one of the only things that still got to him. As though Jonathan were the one and only thing he valued in all the world. The man had the most fragile heart he'd ever known, and yet every time he was tempted to break it further he would remember that he could shatter anyone he chose, but this was something he would never regain once he had.

"Did he hit the ground?" Edward was asking.

"He did," said Jonathan. "And it was worth it."

Edward leaned over and took his right hand to see what the price had been, and when their eyes met he kissed the top of Jonathan's hand very softly. Despite himself, Jonathan laughed. "All better," he said.

"If only," said Edward, facing forward again.

"You should know," Jonathan said, putting his hand on Edward's knee, "that he despises that you look alike."

Edward's smile seemed almost obligatory. "You'd think he would have gotten over it by now." He folded his hands together and tapped them three times against the edge of the desk between his legs. "You want to go for dinner?"

"If it's somewhere they have fries."

Edward rolled his eyes. "I'm not taking you to McDonald's."

Jonathan laughed. "After what happened last time? I don't believe I'm allowed in one."

Edward's smile was genuine this time. "Good. I can't believe you got me in there in the first place."

Jonathan lowered himself to his feet. "I'll take a shower and then we'll go."

Edward raised an eyebrow. "Planning on staying the night, are we?"

He shrugged. "Your bed is nicer."

"Of course it is. I'm in it."

"Not very often, by the looks of it."

Edward sighed and dismounted, rounding the desk to seat himself in the chair. "'Thank you for working yourself so hard for me, Eddie,'" he said in what was a very poor approximation of Jonathan, though whether that was intentional he couldn't tell. "'I'll refrain from insulting your appearance until after I've stopped relentlessly pestering you day and night.'"

"So you'd prefer I didn't come back here later."

"That depends on whether you're actually going to shower or not."

He was, but he had something to do first. "Do you happen to know where Alan went?"

Edward's brows met in confusion. "Why?"

"That's not the answer I asked for."

"Upstairs," Edward said. "The farthest room on the right. And leave Ada alone, will you?"

That, of course, made him want to frighten her terribly, but it could wait for another time. Alan had something far more important than entertainment value: information.

He was where Edward had said he would be, kneeling down with some electronic contraption he was holding, but he looked up when Jonathan entered the room. Normally this would have inspired some reaction, but Alan of course remained impassive. Jonathan despised it.

"May I ask you something?"

Alan put the item down on the floor, nodding once.

"You weren't going to kill him." More of a statement than a question, but he'd get to it.

Alan shook his head slowly.

"But you wanted to know if I would stop you."

A nod.

"Why?"

For this one he had to take out his phone. Alan had sent, I wanted to know if you understood how much I mean to him.

Jonathan turned away. "I already know which of us he would choose if it came down to it."

That's not what I meant.

Jonathan spared him another glance.

You picked him over yourself, Alan said.

"And?" Jonathan snapped, unable to escape the crawling trepidation that he'd been outdone by a machine. Alan looked at him for a minute.

You seem mad that I know what that means.

Jonathan's single word had been too much.

He pocketed the phone again and left the room. It was bad enough he still had feelings for that silly man in the first place. Now he had passed some test he hadn't even known he was partaking in about them, run by his robot son of all people. He was partially of the mind to simply leave Edward hanging and go on with his day someplace else. And on another day, he might have. But he couldn't now. They hadn't had dinner in so long and he'd already gotten himself looking forward to it.

Once he had cleaned up he went downstairs to find Edward sitting at his desk with his legs propped up on top of it, phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear. When he saw Jonathan he immediately sat up straight and bid the person on the other end goodbye.

"I'm not driving your truck," Edward said, even though they both knew he was going to. He stood up and the both of them walked towards the door. Jonathan, because he had been unable to stop thinking on it and probably still would be well into tomorrow, said, "Your boy is something else, Eddie."

The look that came over him then was one Jonathan had never seen before. He didn't even know what to call it. There was pride there, though not for himself as it usually was. There was joy, and disbelief, and even a little bit of humility. He looped one arm through Jonathan's and put both hands into his pockets.

"He is," Edward said finally, and when they were outside and he was waiting for Jonathan to settle himself in the truck he stared off in what Jonathan presumed to be whatever direction he thought Alan to be in. Then he twisted the key in the ignition and pulled the truck in a wide arc onto the road. "Thank you," he said, as though he'd spent the last few minutes deciding whether he should or not.

"You're welcome," Jonathan said softly, and Edward nodded and ran his hand below the steering wheel exactly the way Alan had earlier and changed the subject.

Author's note

I also did not think we would ever be seeing Alan again. But here he is.

I put it in the series for now but if I decide it doesn't fit later on I'll take it out.