From then on, Oswald stalwartly refuses to think about kissing Edward Nygma, the Riddler- whatever the hell the man wants to call himself.
The betrayal at Gotham City's bank helps cement that commitment a little, yet even this latest entry in a long list of broken promises and misplaced trust prompts more anger with Lee than hatred towards Ed.
Besides, Oswald had half resigned himself to this happening from the start. Maybe not so quickly, but even so…
Trust is so very hard to find in Gotham.
Lee Thompkins had never struck Oswald as a cruel woman, certainly not when standing in such fine company as Barbara Kean or Tabitha Galavan. However, she had seemed entirely comfortable with using Ed to achieve her own ends, pulling his strings with long looks and whispered words.
Oswald had thought, after all this time, all those months spent fortifying his heart against the withering, debilitating affliction of loving Edward Nygma, that he couldn't hurt like he had once. That he was safe.
Oh, how foolish he can be.
Realising that the Riddler, just like poor old Ed, is just as easily swayed by pretty eyes and batted eyelashes stings like a slap in the face, a bullet to the gut. Bitterness threatens to curl around his heart and once more make its home there.
Too often, late at night, he finds himself thinking - why her? Why another Kringle, another Isabella? Why never me?
Of course, Oswald already knows the answer. Ed had told him.
Because you are a spoiled child who throws a tantrum any time he doesn't get what he wants. Especially when what he wants doesn't want him back...
So, he doesn't think about kissing Ed, doesn't think about him at all. He stamps out every traitorous butterfly, stifles every quivering heartbeat, squeezes each hopeful thought into oblivion and gets on with his life, with survival, with revenge.
Gotham has a cruel sense of humour sometimes. Because the next time he sees Ed he does kiss him. It just doesn't count.
I want you to know that I consider you a friend. And I am truly sorry...
Oswald limps towards the entrance of Lee's haunt, nestled in the very heart of the Narrows. The world around him is full darkness. He does not know why he is here.
Barely a few hours ago, Oswald had stood, dumbstruck and watched Gotham's bridges explode, scatter into rubble and dust in a horrific spectacle of red and gold. Utterly helpless in the face of such staggering destruction.
And then he had fled, finally completing the cycle of revenge he had spent months plotting. He does not regret punishing Tabitha in the slightest. Nothing she feels at this moment could ever compare to the monumental suffering Oswald had gone through after his beloved mother had bled out in his arms.
And yet… if Tabitha could have loved another. Miss Kean perhaps. Murdering Barbara would have been a far more gleeful occasion after their chequered history while Butch-
Once, he had been a friend. Perhaps his first true friend in Gotham.
Visions flicker behind Oswald's eyes. Blood, scarlet and bursting, Butch staggering to the floor, gaze dull and cold, just like his Mother's had-
Oswald pauses by the door to the club, gloved fingers resting on its wooden panels.
There is no such thing as tidy revenge.
Gotham stands alone, just like Oswald and he can't bear it anymore. He is so tired, so lonely he cannot begin to think of the future, of what new ways he must find to survive in this strange wasteland that was once his city, his home, he needs a moment of respite, of peace, needs someone that knows, that understands.
Loathe as he is to admit it, he needs Edward Nygma. Just as he always does.
You cannot have one without the other.
"Do you want us to wait outside, boss?"
Oswald sighs, blinking up at the hired help.
"No, you might as well come in." He sweeps a quick gaze over the lackey, large muscles bulging against a tight suit jacket. Not a bad sight, he supposes. "I don't know what state to expect them in but I doubt they'll attack on sight."
Hopefully they'll at least be fully clothed.
Again, Oswald swallows down the bile which the image of Ed and Lee involved conjures and steps through the old club's doors.
"I like what you've done with the place, Lee," he calls out, projecting a confidence he does not feel. Delicately, he runs a gloved finger along the bar countertop. Squeaky clean.
He finds his lips tugging into a brief, bittersweet smile. Typical Ed and his cleanliness.
"I'm impressed. You wouldn't even know we're in the Narrows."
Oswald turns and waits a moment, facing the echoing silence. Odd.
"Lee? Edw- Riddler?" Oswald's voice raises slightly and he tries not to let the rising panic he feels bleed into the words. Had they really left Gotham? Together? Just the thought of it hurts, a low ache of abandonment curling tight in his chest.
"It's a bit rude to ignore a guest like this."
Oswald looks up and that's when he notices. His gaze catches on two shapes, slumped against the table at the end of the room, steps leading up to a table which stands imposing over it all, like some sort of sacrificial altar.
"Ed, what-"
No.
Those shapes are bodies. And Oswald would recognise that shade of green anywhere.
In an instant, all of the pain and rage and betrayal of the last few years is sucked away, leaving him breathless, hollow but for the utter terror he felt so long ago, watching as Ed's lifeless body crumpled a few feet away from him in Barbara's old club, Butch's fingerprints raw and red on his pale skin.
"Edward!"
He is running, dragging his crippled leg as fast as the damn thing will move. He half trips up the stairs as his right foot catches, landing heavily on the ground next to the motionless body in front of him. This can't be happening, it can't, not to him-
His heart pounds, face unbearably hot as he turns over the body with shaking hands. Oswald has rarely prayed in his life, not since his childhood, but hell, if he isn't praying now.
His prayers don't help. It's still Ed.
"No..."
The world is a blur of white-noise as Oswald stares down at the man who holds his heart, even now, after everything.
He isn't breathing.
"No." The word is pulled from his lips, ears filled with wax and static. He can't stop saying that word, over and over and over, spilling from his lips like water. "No, no, no, no please no-"
Oswald's knees are sticky as he scrambles forwards, blood, Ed's blood slick over the floor like a spilled drink. Frantically he claws at Ed's clothes, desperately searching for the cause of this atrocity.
"Boss, what's-"
"Get the others. Now." Oswald half spits, half screams. "Fucking move."
The knife is so small he almost misses it. Metal jutting out of Ed's stomach like a stray piece of barbed wire on the Arkham perimeter. It is drowning in a sea of red.
Distantly he hears the sounds of shouts and frantic footsteps, but they are far away. There is so much blood, so much blood everywhere, Oswald can't breathe, doesn't want to, not if Ed isn't-
For men like you and I, love will always be our most crippling weakness.
Physically wrenching himself out of the plummeting vortex of his thoughts, Oswald tears his gloves off with his teeth and hurriedly pushes trembling fingers against Ed's pulse point. He waits.
And waits.
"No," Oswald hisses out the word like venom. "You are not dead. I won't allow it."
Yet, even as he says the words, he remembers holding his mother, a knife in her back and blood on his hands. He remembers his father with foam in his mouth, dying like an animal. He remembers Fish, bright mismatched eyes going cold and dull on the concrete.
And here he is, yet again.
Gotham has only ever taught him how to lose.
He feels like he's about to pass out, adrenaline and sheer terror coursing through his veins, turning his limbs to water.
You're my best friend, Oswald. Remember that.
Blinking away tears and ignoring the protestations of his injured knee strained against the awkward angle, Oswald moves Ed, arranging him flat on his back, arms to the side, head tilted back to facilitate the air flow.
His fingers lace together, hands clenched as they rest against Ed's shirt. Thirty counts. Even pressure. Keep breathing.
"You don't get to do this to me."
One, two, three-
"Do you hear me, Edward Nygma?"
Ten, eleven, twelve-
"You are not allowed to die."
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen-
"You can't-"
Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two-
"Not without me."
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.
Oswald falters for a moment, heart stuttering. Looking down, Ed is pale. Paler than Oswald has ever seen him. Red paints the left corner of his mouth.
He looks beautiful.
Life gives you one love, Oswald. When you find it, run.
Oswald surges down, presses his lips to the man he loves and breathes out everything he has.
Please, Ed, please, I'm giving you everything, all I've got, take it, have it all, if I could give you my beating heart I would, please, please live, please don't make me live in this city without you, I can't do this without you, please don't make me, please come back, just please, Ed-
He pulls back up and it feels like he is breaking the surface of Gotham River, gasping for air, chest burning.
The world is frozen, just like the Riddler's skin and Oswald cannot breathe.
Please, Ed, please, for me, just this once...
Ed inhales, the tiniest sound and the world collapses in around him. The sound of waves crashes in his eardrums, somewhere outside a car screeches to a halt, boots hitting the floor behind him. Oswald gasps in air like a drowning man.
"Thank God."
Ed's eyes stay closed but Oswald doesn't care. He's alive. He's alive.
"Don't worry sir, we've got him."
Oswald is too tired to argue as his men begin to lift Ed between them. "Just be careful with him," he says with not nearly enough bite, beginning to rise on unsteady feet.
"Do we bring her too, boss?"
For the first time, Oswald looks across to see the other lifeless body of Lee Thompkins, crumpled so close, a similar knife impaled in her stomach. Instinctively he feels that whiplash vindictiveness.
A proper Romeo and Juliet you make. What did I tell you? This was always going to end in a bloodbath.
For the space of a breath he considers saying no, order his men to leave her and walk away. Let the deceiver die by Ed's blade, save the man he loves, keep him for himself, him alone, all mine not hers how dare she ever try to steal him-
But he stops himself. No. Surely he's learned by now. Surely he was taught this lesson long ago.
"Bring her too. If Ed lives, so does she."
Oswald is many things but he'll be damned if he plays the fool twice.
"You want to be with Lee, fine," Oswald grinds out under his breath as he helps carry Ed to the door, "that's your mistake. But you won't hold me responsible for the death of another one of your bloody girlfriends."
They manoeuvre them to the car and Oswald spares a moment to be grateful that they brought the van and not the Bentley. Lee is draped across three seats while Ed lies opposite, one arm dangling to the floor, almost as he is reaching for her.
Oswald swallows down the nausea and collapses into the seat adjacent Ed, exhaustion setting in, deep in his bones.
"We going to the hospital, Boss?"
"They can't do anything, thanks to Valeska…" Ed and Lee are practically dead, Oswald realises in a startling second. They don't need medicine - they need a miracle worker. I know just the one.
"Drive for Strange."
The van takes off, tires screeching against asphalt and Oswald breathes out slowly against the thrumming panic in his chest. With blood stained fingers he gently brushes aside Ed's hair, matted with sweat and blood.
He looks strangely peaceful. Calm. That frenzied, frenetic, fantastic mind finally at rest. Oswald has never found something more disturbing.
If only for his own sanity Oswald digs his fingers against Ed's pulse point and grounds himself on the struggling, sputtering beat stammering away under his skin.
"Do you believe in fate, Ed? I didn't, until I met you," Oswald whispers, throat tight.
For a second he thinks he catches the slightest flicker of Ed's eyelids.
"I promise - I'm going to fix you, Ed."