We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when…
Music croons down the hallway of Ed's hide-out, notes scratched out on what sounds like a gramophone. Oswald finds himself slowing, each uneven step beginning to match the rhythm of this distant melody. He half-wonders if even his anxious heart starts to beat in time.
But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day…
The track stutters to a stop as he reaches the panelled doors, firelight glimmering from the room within.
He's here. Oswald inhales slowly, steels himself for being shot on sight and enters.
"After all this time, you've come to me for help…"
Well, Oswald has to give it to him. While No Man's Land has done a terrible disservice to the Riddler's personal aesthetic, the man has managed to acquire some rather nice digs. Half the books of Gotham's library must be in this room, not to mention the city's remaining candelabras. Ed steps out of the shadows, candlelight flickering against the gun aimed at Oswald's heart, every line of his body utterly relaxed.
Oswald swallows down a stab of fear and forces himself to match Ed's easy, indignant posture as he listens to him monologue. Honestly, the things he puts up with for this man.
"...and after naming your dog after me."
Oswald barely resists rolling his eyes.
"First of all, I am very fond of that dog. Secondly, I had Hugo Strange save your life." He licks his lips, rounding off his itemised list that he hopes Ed appreciates, if only for its systematic presentation. "Thirdly, did you really think I didn't have plans to save you from Jim Gordon? "
Ed smiles at him, eyes glowing with something almost fond and Oswald's chest aches.
"You always have an answer for everything, don't you, Oswald?"
Trying not to love Edward is like trying to force his knee to stop aching or will his mother back from the grave. He has tried, hell, has he tried, but reality refuses to bend to his wishes.
Oswald knows this love is unrequited and useless and wasted, a puncture wound in his heart that has not stopped seeping blood since the moment he fell, and yet, still it persists. This love takes and takes, saps him of strength and weakens him so utterly, just like Ed had warned it would.
Thankfully Oswald is used to overcoming that which cripples.
"We have been through all of this before. I've tried to kill you. You've tried to kill me. But here we are, in this room, together…"
The gun lowers, Ed's finger not even on the trigger and Oswald exhales heavily.
"It means fate has different plans for us."
A few moments slink by as Ed searches Oswald's face, dark eyes alight and lingering. And then, at last, the penny drops.
"What plans?"
Thus begins the most unexpected co-habitation of the Penguin and the Riddler.
Good morning, sleepy-head.
The first morning he wakes Oswald in his, no, their base and comes downstairs to find Ed surrounded by blueprints and pencil shavings, he thinks he is dreaming.
"Good morning, Oswald."
Ed doesn't look at him as he speaks, eyes firmly fixed on whatever he is reading. Even so, the familiarity of it is stunningly surreal.
Ed's voice is like gravel, throat rough and unused after a night of sleep. I'm the first person he's seen today. The thought goes straight to Oswald's stomach as those long dormant butterflies make their inevitable re-appearance.
"Good morning, Ed. I hope you slept well."
Ed huffs and he almost sounds amused. "Better than a night in a dumpster."
Oswald is amazed to find he is smiling. The muscle movement feels alien, his lips curling so gently and softly as old warmth dusts his cheeks with pink.
The déjà vu is so sudden and overwhelming he has to retreat to the kitchen to stop his traitorous mouth from making any foolish comments which would give the game away before they've even begun.
We really have been through all of this before...
All too quickly, they begin to slip into old habits without realising it. Oswald brings Ed his coffee without prompting, made exactly how he likes it. Ed begins rattling off morning briefings over breakfast, Oswald nodding along still half-asleep.
Oswald forces Ed to get a sorely needed haircut.
Ed makes a point to judge the success of the colour coordination of Oswald's suits.
Oswald reminds Ed that despite his best attempts he still requires sleep to function.
Ed chastises Oswald for his vanity and ensures he wears the leg brace on colder days.
They both seem to remember in increments, slowly edging back into patterns of long ago, like ghosts retracing the steps of a past life.
Oswald tries very hard not to see it as a second chance.
Of course, it wouldn't be Gotham if their delicate domesticity wasn't occasionally punctuated by the downright bizarre. A few times an experiment goes awry and one of the last working fire extinguishers in the city is brought into action. Once, Oswald thinks Edward (the dog, on this occasion) has escaped and almost goes into cardiac arrest. The stupid animal is eventually found hiding underneath a mountain of discarded blueprints.
However, the most memorable interruption is their run in with a demonic doll and the Penguin's resurrected right-hand man.
Murderous puppets seem to be coming up a lot.
It is a day of seesawing between intense emotions, disbelief and death threats, words sharper than any dagger and declarations of almost everything. Ed describes their bond as friendship for the first time in years and Oswald cannot help it, cannot stop himself, the words spilling out as his heart overflows.
Perhaps, Edward, we really are meant for each other.
It skims so close to the truth that Oswald feels his fingertips burn. Still, Ed's breathless laughter and the taste of iron on his lips makes the confession seem permissible, if only for this moment.
He tells himself that he can love without longing, cherish with coveting, adore without cutting open his chest in the vain hope that Ed might pity him and stitch him back together. That he can love and not lose everything.
Three weeks later Oswald realises he is in too deep.
It is evening. They are celebrating a crucial break through on the sonar: the two of them share a scavenged bottle of wine and recline against the plush sofas, jackets strewn over chairs and shoes kicked off.
Oswald makes a joke about 'Mr Scarface' and Ed tilts back his head and laughs, the sound lazy and rich and warm. Oswald's eyes catch on the movement, lingering on Ed's long neck, exposed in the firelight and he realises in a startling instant - they are both completely relaxed. Totally at ease with each other. These days he barely remembers the knife hidden in his leg brace, let alone has he once come close to considering using it.
The sands of time shift beneath his feet and he feels as if they are back years ago, lounging about in the evenings in front of the fire, reading through papers together in companionable silence.
I hope you know, Oswald, I would do anything for you…
In a jolt of self-awareness, Oswald shakes himself free. No. He refuses to do this, to fall into the trap of romanticising what has been and gone. What they have now is different. Similar, true, but by no means the same.
Back then, there had been an obvious power imbalance. Ed had been his employee, Oswald his mentor. Their friendship was fresh and tentative, Ed so painstakingly trying to impress him at every turn, Oswald so caught in the fluster of new love he could barely look at him on his worst days. It had been genuine and warm, but on reflection, painfully naïve. Both had placed the other on a pedestal impossible to live up to, and consequently their relationship had been brittle, prone to break and snap as soon as the illusion was shattered.
Maybe if Oswald had acted differently, if he had learned what sacrifice meant sooner, it could have matured and become something else, something more-
But no. No point in dwelling on what could have been. Oswald blinks back to himself and watches with fresh eyes as Ed lazily traces the curve of his glass rim with a finger, red wine staining his lips.
This, what they have now, is new and wonderful and, if Oswald is being honest, downright miraculous. They are equals. Friends. Partners. Just what Ed had once duplicitously asked for.
Two men who have seen the worst of the other, have done the worst to the other and decided that a life together is better than death apart.
Oswald cherishes every second of the joy which blossoms in his chest at the thought of it, yet he is practiced enough by this point not to allow it to become more. He has lost the right to look at Ed that way, to dare to want him, even if some nights he feels that traitorous pull, low in his gut, every instinct singing to reach out, to touch, to taste-
He tries not to think of the expiration date on this whole arrangement.
Weeks tumble into months and, before he knows it, their first aborted escape attempt has sent them hurrying to the clinic to retrieve a pressure-regulator-thing from Barbara who is pregnant and being helped by Lee, Jim's wife-
Sometimes even Oswald has difficulty believing the ridiculous situations they find themselves in.
Learning that Ed had seemingly risked their lives to save Lee Thompkins is-
Well.
Oswald breathes through the pain in his abdomen and wonders how many times he can learn the same lesson.
Honestly, Oswald, you deserve this. You are opportunistic, your loyalty is shaky at best and you will hurt anyone, anyone to get what you want.
They scramble back to the docks, plans secure and energised from their latest near-brush with death. And yet, as the jubilation fades and adrenaline runs dry, Oswald feels strangely cold. Unsettled.
He tells himself it is just last minute nerves but all through the evening he finds his mind distracted, sleeping in fits and starts. Everything feels wrong, crowded, claustrophobic and his dreams are full of prison bars and bullet shells.
Oswald, we have been through thick and thin, and I hold no grudge on you. But you come against Lee and you come against me.
He wakes, dread thick in his stomach.
Perhaps seeing Ed and Lee together in a room has acted as the shock of ice-cold reality he has needed. For all their talk of friendship and acceptance, Ed will never come anyway near to returning Oswald's depth of feeling. There will always be someone he wants more, someone better, someone worth betraying him for.
Delusions of a future together, working side by side on the mainland are as vacuous as they were before the bridges blew. Barely a few hours ago they had seemed so real but now, they vanish like mist, breath on a mirror.
Ed is only here, with him, because he has no other choice. Oswald may very well step out from the submarine only to fall on foreign ground with a knife in his back and a riddle in his ears. He cannot help but remember their pact forged in a cage, an alliance born of necessity with the end clear in sight.
We help each other escape, together, so that we may be free to murder each other outside. Deal.
Oswald takes one final morning to prepare, allows his aides to perfect his make-up, chooses the sharpest and cruellest of his knives. He dresses not for an escape but for battle and tries not to shudder when Fish's last words echo in his mind.
Listen to me. Make this city yours or you burn it to the ground.
Finally, standing next to the submarine, Oswald feels nostalgia smother him as he looks out over the waves.
How much sweat and blood has he spilled on this cement? How much has he sacrificed in safeguarding this beautiful, awful city from the storm he had seen all those years ago? How is it that a mere collection of buildings can feel like a living, breathing thing, a symbiotic part of him?
His home. His legacy.
Oswald swallows down bile, sick to his stomach with the realisation that he cannot go through with it. He cannot abandon Gotham, not for all the gold and jewels in the world. Not even for Edward Nygma.
Damnit.
Saying goodbye to Ed hurts like hell. Yet, even so, he appreciates the irony - Oswald being the one to walk away from him on this dock, of all places.
I've done everything in Gotham. Some things I've done twice.
It is mildly surprising that Ed tries to stop him but he refuses to let himself be swayed.
"Very well. I'm going to follow my heart."
"Oswald!"
His eyes pinch shut, desperately fighting the urge to throw everything away and follow this man to the end of the world.
"You have been down this road before. Following your heart has never worked out for you."
Oswald stands there, mute in shock, utter disbelief that Ed dares- that Ed has the gall to say that to him, to insinuate that here, ten paces from where he had tried to-
Indignant fury surges through his veins and before he knows it Oswald is pushing up into Ed's space, eyes burning.
"Perhaps. But perhaps you could learn something if you listened to this, instead of this."
As ever, Ed remains immovable, back ramrod straight and Oswald could hit him. Still, he refuses to change his mind, to let himself be tempted back to a man and a future which can only promise oblivion.
I'm going to miss you, Edward.
He viciously wipes away the tears and, for the first time in his life, leaves Ed behind him.
Or at least, he would have. But as ever, Ed refuses to let him have the last word.
"It takes two men to pilot that submarine, Oswald. Dog can't do it."
It stings a little, having held onto the foolish hope that Ed had returned because he'd wanted to, because Oswald had finally gotten through to him - not because he had been robbed of the choice. Yet, even so, with Ed standing in Jim's office, like a phantom created from Oswald's mind, he struggles to feel anything other than ecstatic.
It's almost funny how quickly that changes.
The world is awash with gunfire, the scent of metal and gasoline thick in each breath Oswald frantically draws, putrid smoke filling his lungs. Hunkering down against the blockade, he takes a moment to look around them. Bodies litter the ground, blood oozing out onto this concrete pyre and the rattle of his machine-gun reverberates in his teeth.
The clink of metal and a blur of movement is all the warning he gets.
"Ed!"
With visions of Ed lying still before him, pulse silent and skin cold, Oswald hurls himself forward before he even registers what is happening.
Following your heart has never worked out for you.
The world around him goes supernova, light brilliant and blinding as fire licks up his face, skin tearing apart as shrapnel buries itself into his flesh.
He cannot stop the howl of agony tearing free, convulsing on the ground as pain excruciatingly hot and searing overtakes him completely. He clutches at his eye as if he could claw the fire away with his fingernails.
Oswald had thought nothing could compare to the torture Fish had inflicted on his leg. Looks like he'd been a fool, yet again.
Distantly he feels shaking hands on his shoulder, someone forcing him up and pushing him forwards. The world is bloodsoaked and dust-ridden around him. Concrete is painted scarlet and the air hums with the cacophony of bullets, yet still somehow the voice of Jim Gordon carries over the firefight. Retreat! Pull back!
Before Oswald fully realises what is happening he is inside somewhere, struggling down steps as each movement sends a flare of fire shooting up his face.
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, his leg reminds him that it too took a beating and he finds he cannot stand anymore.
Collapsing, he takes a moment to tear himself a makeshift bandage from his shirt and press it against his eye. Fuck, it hurts. Stars explode in his vision and he screws his eyes shut, breathing through the waves of dizziness.
Why is it always the right side of my body, hmm? First the leg, then the shoulder, now the eye. Can't anyone bloody aim somewhere else?
"Oswald," a voice comes low and insistent in his left ear, so sudden it makes him flinch, "we can't stay here. I'm sorry but we need to move."
With a hand on his arm, Oswald struggles upwards. Blinking open his one good eye, his vision clears to reveal the face of Edward Nygma. Oh.
Of course. The man he'd crippled himself to save.
Wincing, he peers up at Ed and immediately knows something is wrong.
"Oswald, I'm so sorry."
Ed is white as a sheet, breath coming quick, hands hovering anxiously between them. And there is something in his face and voice which seems years younger, as if he should be calling him Mr Penguin.
"I saw the grenade and I froze." Ed swallows painfully, eyes wide and in any other situation Oswald would adore this uncharacteristic tenderness; however, just at this moment, it feels like his face is on fire and he may have just lost his right eye forever, so his patience is ever so slightly limited. "I'm sorry, I should have-"
Oswald cuts him off abruptly, body tight with pain. Without warning, the memory of Isabella on a morgue slab flickers behind his eyelids, the left half of her body wrecked and ruined like she'd been cut down the centre. Penance finally paid.
"It was the least I could do."
Something flashes in Ed's eyes as he swallows again, mercurial and dark, and there is something, some shifting emotion written all over Ed's face, this look that seems strikingly new and strangely familiar...
Oswald blinks and pain lances through his flesh, a new wave of agony. He clenches his jaw tight. Whatever it is, it can wait.
"Is it bad?"
Ed's burning eyes flicker over the injury as the blood-soaked cloth is peeled away. "No, it's fine-"
Ed retches, quickly looking away as he somehow goes even paler. Oswald hurriedly replaces the bandage - they can't both be out of action right now - and resists the urge to roll his eyes and exacerbate the pain.
I'd never known you to be squeamish, Ed.
It is only as they escape the immediacy of the battle ground, scurrying through the back alleys of the Green Zone that Oswald realises-
Ed had been the GCPD's forensics officer. Oswald has watched him torture countless people, shoot men at point blank range, examine disfigured corpses with glee.
Edward Nygma has never once been squeamish in his life. And yet, seeing Oswald's eye turned to pulp and gore, he flinches.
Oswald decides not to think about the implications of that. Just to preserve his sanity.
"Can you believe they were prepared to leave you?" Ed seethes as he walks through the quiet streets, silent and dark with the oppression of war.
"Yes." Oswald thinks of Jim Gordon and sighs. "I can completely believe it."
"You could have died from that grenade. We still don't know if it's infected-"
"What a comforting thought."
"-And it could so easily have been them hit by that grenade." Each syllable is punctuated with harsh consonants, nostrils flared. "You selflessly came back to protect this city and how do they repay you?"
"I know, Ed-"
"It's disgusting. They're disgusting." Ed charges on forward at a punishing pace and Oswald struggles to keep level. "Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock, leaving us behind. Unbelievable."
"It is a miracle we evaded the army." Oswald tries to inject a little humour into his voice in a desperate attempt to soothe Ed's unexpected outburst. After all, who knows what hellish creatures might still be hiding in these streets.
Oswald opens his mouth, ready to make another blasé comment on their fateful escape when suddenly the ground shakes.
"Oh my…"
They both stumble to a halt and watch as Wayne Tower, the stalwart symbol of hope and order, soaring above the city, explodes before their eyes. Bright and brilliant against the skyline, rubble and fire and ash.
The stunned silence stretches out between them as the magnitude of what has happened slowly settles. Only when Oswald feels the weight of Ed's hand on his arm does he realise he too has reached out, instinctively steadying himself on the man beside him. Their eyes meet in the dark.
"Shall we get back to the GCPD?"
A sharp nod is the only response Oswald receives. It may be a trick of the light, but he thinks that Ed walks closer to him now, both of them watching the rooftops.
They end up back at the precinct and discover, to Oswald's immense horror, that it was their side that brought down Wayne Tower. He really shouldn't be surprised at anything that happens in this damnable city but even so-
"This is insane." Oswald rests heavily against a desk in the GCPD, gulping down painkillers dry as Ed hovers at his side. He intends to savour these few snatched moments before the chaos continues. "Bruce Wayne blowing up his parent's legacy."
Oswald has dealt with that boy- well, no, after this hellish year Bruce Wayne has earned his adulthood- but never had he thought he could do something like this. There's something about him, something bruised and hardened but still so full of hope it almost makes Oswald want to turn back the clock and try this all again.
He chuckles, the sound brittle even to his ears. "The kid has gusto, I'll give him that."
"Hmm?"
Oswald looks at Ed, face pinched and eyes resting somewhere beyond Oswald's right ear. Distracted? Of course.
"Fine, ignore me." Oswald huffs out a breath as he swivels to follow Ed's line of sight, bracing himself for the inevitable and… surprisingly, he does not see Lee.
Instead, Ed's eyes are pinned to the large reception desk at the other end of the precinct, expression distant.
"Do you remember when we first met?"
Oswald blinks, startled. He wets his lips, mouth suddenly unbearably dry. "Vaguely, yes."
"I asked you a riddle," Ed murmurs, voice distant.
Oswald feels his lips twist into something half-amused, half-pained. "I still don't like them."
"You were right." Ed's jaw works, gloved fingers curling tight. "Back then I was a nervous, jittery loser. Nothing of note."
Oswald shudders, as if a sea breeze has just brushed past the nape of his neck. "Well, so was I, at the start of this all. Look how far we've come."
Ed opens his mouth, lips about to form words when-
"Alright people, move your asses!"
Ed's teeth click together. Oswald tries not to feel like he has missed something very important.
"That means you too, Cobblepot, Nygma!"
Oswald grimaces as movement sends flames up his face and leg, but thankfully the painkillers seem to be kicking in. Soon enough a new wave of adrenaline is enough to carry him through as Oswald finds himself staring down a black ops-grade squadron with a bunch of unarmed Gotham civilians the only thing between them and annihilation.
By some miracle, they don't die.
In the sudden rush of relief and exhaustion, Oswald laughs. His eyes meet Ed's in the firelight as the citizens of Gotham cheer around them. He feels a hand on his shoulder, warm through the battered fabric.
"That's our cue for a timely exit, don't you think?"
A fleck of ash is smudged against Ed's cheek. Oswald has just enough self-restraint to resist tracing it with his thumb.
"After you, Riddler."
They walk Gotham's battered and bloodied streets, shouts of victory growing dim behind them as shadows smother the little light there is left.
Oswald swears he can hear the distant chatter of bats.
Naturally, victory in Gotham can never be without a cost. Any warm-hearted, gooey feelings of solidarity and compassion quickly evaporate as soon as they discover that Nyssa Al Ghul, the utter bitch, made off with not only their submarine and treasure, but also Oswald's beloved dog. He hopes Edward mauled her.
He hasn't been this livid in months, utterly furious that after everything, after he has given so much to save this city he has once again been left with-
"Nothing. I feel absolutely nothing for those drab, boring people..."
Oswald watches with blinkered vision as the Riddler takes centre stage once more, so lost in his own reflection that Oswald needn't be in the room. Ed's voice pitches lower with each word, the sound so low it scrapes against Oswald's eardrums and sets his nerves on end.
"That was me once. Minimum wage at a thankless job at the GCPD. Shy, awkward, pathetic, Ed." The Riddler turns to the mirror whiplash quick, old darkness filling his eyes like smoke. "Common criminals. Never again."
So that was the cause for your nostalgia. Oswald wants to hit himself. Of course Ed hadn't been reminiscing about their relationship, looking back on where they had started out of a sense of friendship - as ever the man was focused entirely on himself. Typical.
"I've shown this city who I am before and I will do it again."
Despite being a few feet from the fire, Oswald feels his skin go cold as he remembers exactly what had preceded the Riddler's first emergence.
The weight of the knife against his leg feels suddenly far heavier.
"They will bow to the Riddler and they won't get up until I permit them to."
Oswald finds himself standing, limbs seeming to react, rebel against the words that could so easily throw him in with all the others, mark him once again as Ed's enemy.
"Yes, you're right. Our accomplishments erased, our brilliant minds underrated." Pain pulses behind his skull and he feels bitterness grip him like a poison. "If they had let me run this city the way I wanted to it would not be in ruins now. I had the men, the money, the guns-
"Gordon took them. Why? Because he still sees you as Fish Mooney's umbrella boy and he always will."
Yes. Oswald feels bitterness boil over into rage, as a wave of dizziness washes over him.
"I only came back to help him save this city so I could take it for myself."
Oswald vision blurs for a moment before crystallizing, Ed's stony expression all he can see as the shadows of the room seem to grow darker.
It takes two men to pilot that submarine. Dog can't do it.
For all Ed might claim to have had a master-plan or some burning need for revenge, Oswald is painfully aware that Ed had only stayed because he'd been forced to. He hadn't chosen vengeance or the city or, heaven forbid, him. He hadn't chosen at all.
Still, Oswald finds himself desperately clutching at the dream of a future where Ed still could.
"We would be stronger together," Oswald breathes, allowing himself for one brief second to hope, chest aching with the thought of it, the two of them, united, "No one could stop us."
Ed's eyes flicker as he smooths a hand over his suit. "Yeah, perhaps."
Ed smiles to himself and Oswald feels all hope extinguish, like all the lights of Gotham have just been plunged into darkness as the bridges crumble once again.
For some men, love is a source of strength. But for you and I love will always be our most crippling weakness. We are better off unencumbered
There is only one way this can end. Oswald has known this since their victory over Bane, hell, probably since the hospital with Barbara and Lee. These last few months have been nothing but the fumes of a fantasy long dead. He should know this by now - the Penguin and the Riddler can only ever be the other's annihilation.
Oswald swallows, resignation thick and sluggish in his veins like venom.
Sometimes, if you're not very careful, friendship can blind you to what is staring you straight in the face.
"Let's make a pact, here and now." Ed's eyes flick to his, cold and assessing. "We will take what we want from who we want and we will suffer no fools."
The knife is heavy in his hand, heavier than it has ever felt and the right side of his face burns.
"Together." Something in Oswald's chest splinters under that word but still, he refuses to flinch, refuses to falter. "Shall we shake on that?"
"Please, we're brothers." Oswald has to hold back the bile as he says it - to liken their relationship to brotherhood is soridiculous and sits so acidic and vile in his mouth that all the saccharine sweetness in the world couldn't make it easier to say.
But, he thinks viciously, it's the most Ed could ever think of him as. Brothers.
"A hug."
There is a slight smile playing on Ed's lips, expression too knowing, all too aware that their destinies are to be decided on who can dare to strike first. Mutually assured destruction. So be it.
"A hug it is."
Betrayal. It's how every friendship ends. So what good are friends anyway?
Oswald limps forward, heart thumping wildly in his chest as he grips the knife tight to avoid dropping it. He would be a fool not to notice how Ed also steps forward with careful calculation, one arm coming around to encircle Oswald like a snake.
He raises the curved blade, muscles coiled, ready to strike. This has to be quick, this is to protect himself, kill before he can be killed, Oswald just-
I hope you know, Oswald… I would do anything for you.
Oswald's breath catches as the warmth from Ed's body finally hits him and oh, no, not again, please, please-
He hasn't been in Ed's arms in years, years bereft from this feeling of utter security, of rightness, of home, even knowing there is a knife at his back.
He is so tired. Everything hurts, his right knee burns, he has lost his eye, and Edward Nygma is holding him. He has been cold, frozen so long and now he can do nothing else but melt.
Oswald feels tears in his eyes and fuck it, he cannot bring himself to care about the noise which leaves his throat, such a desperate sound of need and he feels every muscle in his body finally relax, half collapsing into the embrace he hasn't dared to dream of.
I can't be bought but I can be stolen with a glance. I'm worthless to one but priceless to two. What am I?
Oswald allows himself, finally to accept defeat. Eyes fluttering shut he buries his head in the crook of Ed's neck and inhales deeply, letting Ed utterly overwhelm his senses as he did once, long ago.
He thinks he can die happy here. Gotham is safe, his mother is avenged, and the love of his life will rule this city in his stead. He finds himself smiling.
I hope I've made you proud, mother.
Oswald pulls Ed closer to him, heart aching as he waits for the pain to hit, for the blade to strike, for his flesh to tear and rip and sunder.
He waits.
And waits.
Ed's breath is warm and sharp against his neck, goose pimples erupting beneath each shaky exhale. He feels Ed's fist tighten against his jacket, clutching Oswald to him even closer and Oswald fancies he is close enough that he can hear Ed's shuddering heartbeat against his own.
The knife never comes.
Life gives you one love, Oswald. When you find it…
Oswald pulls back while he is still able to, before the wetness in his eyes becomes full blown tears, before he pushes his luck when he has been gifted this precious second chance.
Blade quickly schooled away, Oswald looks up at this impossible, inscrutable man before him and marvels at the fact that they are both still alive, that somehow, they have survived everything, survived each other.
Here we are in this room, together. It means fate has different plans for us.
The fire reflected in Ed's glasses doesn't come near to the heat Oswald feels once again, the warmth which starts in his belly and spreads its greedy fingers outwards, filling up every last inch of him, soothing his aching muscles and stilling his anxious heart.
"Life begins anew."
Edward smiles, one of those rare, genuine smiles that softens his face and Oswald for once allows himself to acknowledge, to imagine, to thrill with just how utterly right it would be to meet those lips with his own.
"Shall we get to work?"
For the first time all evening Ed's voice sounds warm, syllables no longer clipped by that hideous gravel of rage and anger.
Oswald nods, his smile small but genuine.
Together.
At last, a new chapter. A fresh start, a chance to finally begin their friendship anew. It is more than he had ever thought possible.
In this moment, Oswald promises himself that there will be no more false hope, no more wasted dreams, no more mourning what he never had - it is, at long last, time to put the past behind him and embrace what the future promises. The Penguin and the Riddler, allies, their enemies at their feet and a city to conquer.
"My dear Ed, I thought you'd never ask."
Outside, a new dawn paints Gotham's streets with gold.