"Are you sure this is mac n' cheese?"

The chef gave Starr a weary nod before ladling the brown goop onto her plate. Maybe he wasn't used to talking to someone who could actually construct a sentence? She winced at the audible schlop it made upon impact, not looking forward to how that was going to taste. Maybe the whole three square meals thing wasn't quite what it was cracked up to be.

She was beginning to see that it wasn't just the food that was sub-par; the company wasn't exactly top notch either. There were a couple of drooling, glassy eyed lunatics at one table, not a single one of them eating their sorry excuse for mac n' cheese. Huh, maybe they aren't total idiots after all.

The brown mac n' cheese didn't exactly wiggle when she set it down on the table furthest from them; it cracked. A few experimental pokes with her silverware (plastic, of course) were enough to convince her to leave the stuff alone. Instead she sat and wondered how in the hell she was going to get out of Arkham.

It wasn't all bad. She had a bed and... well, the food wasn't great, but it was generally edible. Young had let her read the newspaper every day this week, which was surprisingly liberal of her. The good doctor had threatened medication, but had yet to come through and was providing her with a little contact with the outside world. They'd even let her keep her clothes and forgo the ghastly orange that most patients were forced to wear. If she didn't mess up and misbehave, she might be out of here sooner than she'd previously hoped. A month, tops.

Clack.

Starr visibly flinched back from the sound of another tray being set across from her, more from reflex than anything. The man who'd set his tray down grinned widely at her, settling down to nibble at his quickly solidifying macaroni.

"Excuse me, this is a private table," she spat mechanically.

The decidedly unfriendly reply only seemed to make the man's grin larger. "I don't see your name on it. In fact, I don't see your name on anything in this room. Would you mind introducing yourself? I don't like not knowing these things."

"You can call me Starr. But it's generally polite to introduce yourself before asking someone else their name."

"Apologies." He temporarily abandoned his food and extended a hand. Starr merely glanced at it before taking a sip of the soda she'd chosen for lunch. Caffeine free, but still better than nothing.

He let his hand drop and returned to his own lunch. "You may refer to me as the Riddler, everyone does."

Starr choked on her soda in surprise, wincing as it burned the inside of her throat and nostrils.

"The Riddler?" she coughed. "The guy who leaves those puzzles for Batman all over Gotham?"

"The very same," he conceded smoothly.

Starr knew that gaping at him was rude, but it was just too hard not to. He was reed thin and rather gawky looking, not exactly what she'd been expecting from a super villain. She wondered if he'd ever been outside; his skin was an unhealthy shade of white in contrast with the crimson of his hair. To be brutally honest, it looked awful mixed with the orange of his jumpsuit. A hand unconsciously flew to her own hair, and she wondered if the color was somehow catching.

"Well, nice to meet you," she replied lamely.

"I see that you haven't touched your macaroni. May I have it?"

She ignored the question, sipping her soda and focusing resolutely on the table in front of her. Maybe if she ignored him long enough, he would leave.

"Hmm... I had supposed you were capable of intelligent conversation, but perhaps I was wrong."

No such luck.

"No, you can't have the mac n' cheese," she snapped, irked by his comments about her intelligence. "I'm eating it."

"You're a bit rude, you know," he replied, seeming a bit annoyed himself. It crossed her mind that baiting a super villain who was a known murderer was, perhaps, a bit dangerous.

"Sorry, I've had a bad time these past few weeks," she admitted, hoping it came out sounding somewhat sincere. "I hate it here."

"Ah, first time?"

A slight heat crept into her ears at his insinuation, and she hoped that her eyes didn't make her budding discomfort too obvious. If he says anything too gross, I'll just call the guards. "Yeah, something like that."

"So, what are you in for?" Before she could promptly tell him to piss off, he continued, words running in an excited rush. "No, wait, let me guess! You robbed a bank, but got caught by the bat!"

It was tempting to flip her tray into his face, but she restrained herself. Barely.

"And how do you know that, Riddler?"

"I read the papers as well, Miss Meer. Getting caught by the bat just as your van mysteriously blows up? That doesn't seem a little coincidental to you?" The Riddler seemed eager and gleeful about her plight, and that pissed Starr off to no end.

She angrily thrust her tray towards him, splattering a little bit of soda on his ugly orange jumpsuit. "I've lost my appetite. You can have the shitty macaroni." Quite unexpectedly, he laughed, scraping the macaroni off of her plate and onto his own. Too late she realized he'd been given exactly what he wanted.

The guards who monitored the room stiffened as she stormed towards them, and she wondered exactly what kind of expression she wore. "I'm done eating, take me back to my cell. Please," she added, remembering that they reported directly to Dr. Young. No need to have the doctor breathing down her neck as well.

The Riddler continued chuckling as she was handcuffed and led back to her cell.

Asshole.

It was only much, much later that she wondered why he'd bothered to introduce himself at all. She eventually concluded that it was most likely because she hadn't been drooling or trying to eat her fork. If there was one thing she knew about Gotham's super villains, it was that they just loved an audience for their 'brilliance.'

Take the Joker for example.

Starr shuddered and thumbed through the day's Gotham Globe, feeling as though someone had just dumped a bucket of icy water over her head. Several pictures of the mad man were splayed across the front page, his gleeful grin a stark contrast to the carnage that lay behind him. He'd recently sent hundreds of balloons filled with Smilex to Gotham General in an attempt to 'cheer up' its patients. There had been a few casualties before the Batman arrived to save the day, but considering the Joker's tendencies towards mass homicide, the city had gotten off rather lightly. Although, Starr doubted that was much consolation towards the victims' families. Worse yet, the papers said the man was still at large, though the Batman was surely on his tail by now.

A knock on the cell door startled her away from the paper, and she was somewhat relieved to see a guard peering through the thick iron bars near the top.

"Didn't forget about your appointment with Dr. Young, did you Starr?"

"No way, Maurice." She'd been surprised to find her most regular guard, Maurice Brown, was a genuinely likable fellow who made it a point to be as pleasant as he could towards the patients. It was a small kindness, but not many made the effort. "Well, let's not keep her waiting, Maurice."

Maurice nodded and opened the door, careful to close it behind him. He handcuffed her, not too tightly, but just tight enough that she had very little chance of escaping. Guess I can't blame him for doing his job well, she admitted. Maurice reopened the door and led her out into the hall.

Minimum security seemed even more distraught than usual, she noted. One patient was slamming his fists into his door again and again, screaming as he did so. A stick like woman a little further down rattled the bars of her door, screeching at the tops of her lungs. "HE'S COMING, HE'S COMING!" For some awful reason, Starr couldn't bear to look directly at her. There was something about the woman's madness that made her distinctly uncomfortable.

Maurice seemed to realize something was up as well, sweating profusely as he looked at them. "Jesus, you'd think they're being tortured, the way they're screaming." His free hand grasped the portable walkie talkie that always hung at his belt. "Send some orderlies down to minimum security. We've got a bit of a situation down here."

"Negative, Brown. The Batman's on his way, he's bringing the-"

"HE'S HERE! OH GOD, HE'S HERE." The woman's shouts startled Maurice so badly that he dropped the walkie talkie, and both he and Starr watched as the batteries flew across the room, each heading in an opposite direction. She almost laughed; That was a one in a million drop, Maurice.

"Shit," he swore. The woman kept screaming, her howls now reaching a fevered pitch that was clearly causing Maurice discomfort. He gave Starr a beseeching glance as he pleaded with her. "Starr, you stay right in this spot while I get the batteries, okay? No funny business, please. I just- this woman needs to- please, just stay put."

She gave a quick nod and Maurice dashed off to retrieve the batteries. Her hands hurt as the maniac a few cells down from where she was standing continued to slam on his door. He was certainly going to feel that in the morning.

Maurice had just put the batteries back in when the first alarm went off, shocking Starr into motion. She dashed to the guard's side as he turned the device back on.

"WE'VE GOT TROUBLE, THE JOKER IS FREE. I REPEAT, THE JOKER IS FREE, ALONG WITH SEVERAL HIGH PROFILE INMATES. EVACUATION IS IN-"

The guard on the other end fizzled out as the door behind Starr and Maurice opened. Starr launched herself away from the door just as a long, question mark cane shot out of the entrance, smacking Maurice squarely over the head and knocking him out cold. The woman abruptly stopped screaming, though a steady pounding sound could still be heard a few doors down.

"Well well, what have we here?"

The Riddler was smirking in the doorway, giving Starr a look that made her wish she was back in the relative safety of her cell. He was dressed all in green and purple, complete with a bright green bowler hat. Now this was the super villain she'd heard about. "I do believe it's my rude little friend from lunch, Starr Meer."

"How-how are you out of your cell?" Her heart was hammering in her throat, and her palms were most definitely sweating hand-shaped puddles onto her back.

"You didn't hear? It's all the rage." He gave her cuffs a quick glance before smiling glibly. "Guess you didn't get the memo."

"So, now what?"

The Riddler tipped his hat towards her. "Well, you were rude, but it's only to be expected from someone of your low intelligence. Plus, you gave me your macaroni at lunch, so it seems I owe you a favor."

She nearly laughed at the absurdity of the situation she was in. He was going to spare her life because of macaroni. Yea gods, Arkham was home to the insane.

"Okay, free me from the cuffs then," she requested as pleasantly as she could. The Riddler nodded his assent and fished around at Maurice's belt before retrieving the keys he kept there.

Starr turned her back to him so he could undo the handcuffs, twisting her neck at a painful angle to keep him in view. As though she would trust the RIddler to not stab her in the back given the opportunity. True to his word, however, the Riddler unlocked the cuffs and let them drop to the floor.

"Well, I'll be going now. Look me up if you get out of Arkham alive, kid." He spun to leave and kept spinning, doing a complete 360. "Oh, and consider this your invitation to the party." He handed her a little pin with an eerie smile on it, which she took gingerly, afraid it might explode.

"What party?" He waved off her question and spun again, this time heading for the door.

With that parting puzzle, the Riddler disappeared back out the door he had come in, leaving Starr alone, confused, and kind of hungry.