Author's note: Last night I had a dream about a tombstone that read, "THE RIDDLER, 1927-1956" and Robin saying, "And nobody even noticed."
I woke up sad.
I don't own these peoples. Sadness, sadness.
It was weird.
Don't ask me what I was doing in Gotham City Cemetery in the middle of the night. Don't get me wrong, I like night. In the city. When there are lights.
Out there in the boonies, you can barely see the lights. Oh, sure, there are stars, and the moon, but that's hardly the same thing. And besides, that night a storm was brewing, clouds covered everything in the sky except for one or two flickers of lightning off in the distance, and the wind was making that creepy whistling sound it only makes in really bad horror stories. I guess I don't need to mention that the dead tree branches were clicking together like dry bones.
It's times like these I miss the old days. Working for the Riddler, I never had to leave the city. And I liked him, I really did. I was just a lowly henchgirl, not his main squeeze, never in on the planning, but I still felt like I was a part of things. And apparently, he thought pretty well of me, because after the day he disappeared off the face of the earth, I was the first one picked up by another gang. And I've shuffled between bosses ever since. Every time one of them goes back to Arkham, I move on. The Joker, the Penguin, yeah, I've worked for them all. But he was my favorite.
And of course, this month it would be the Scarecrow. It was my first time with him, and I don't think he was all that impressed. It's not that I'm a coward…there are just some things that bother me. Yeah, we'll go with that.
When I got separated from the rest, I didn't quite know what to do. You-know-who might be watching, and I didn't want to lead him back to the boss's hideout. But I didn't know where the others were. That was kind of the point; they were going back by a route that was difficult to find.
So I figured I would go to the cemetery. It wasn't too far away, and if I had any shadowy followers, they would have to get bored watching me weep over some grave and move on to better targets.
And then I got myself creeped out. Some henchman I was. No wonder the Scarecrow wasn't impressed. Maybe this was a sign that it was time to quit. (Not quit altogether, mind you. Just go back to working for the Joker, maybe.)
I managed to stay until I was fairly sure there was nobody watching me, though. (If there's one thing I'm good at, it's watching the watchmen.)
Only, when I got up to leave, I saw that there was someone coming, so I ducked back behind my tombstone. He was being stealthy, but not stalking anything—just trying not to be seen, same as me. And pretty soon I figured out why.
This was Nightwing, former Boy Wonder. (Not everyone knows that, but, hey, you don't work for the Riddler without learning a thing or two.)
And he was carrying a handful of daisies.
That was so weird, I just had to stick around and see what he did with them.
There was no weeping or hysterics. Not even any real grief, as far as I could tell. All he did was stop and lay the flowers on a grave, make a gesture that was something like a respectful salute, and turn and walk away.
How very, very strange. Did the grave belong to someone he knew? A friend, a family member?
I had to find out who he was visiting. That would be the clue that led me to his true identity, and how could I resist a puzzle like that?
So when he left, I crept up to the grave and saw, to my surprise…
No name. At least, not his real name.
Just "The Riddler," along with the year of his birth and the year of his death.
Just the way he would have wanted it. An enigma to the very end.
No one knew how he had died. I hadn't even been sure that he really was dead.
But the tombstone made it real. They wouldn't have put one up if they weren't sure.
Which meant I was standing over his corpse. Ew. I jumped away, over to the side, where I wouldn't be…on anything.
And this meant goodbye.
Or did it?
"Thanks, Nightwing," I whispered. "The flowers are nice." It was good to know that he was missed by someone other than me, even if the person who missed him hadn't actually liked him.
I had liked him, and I still wasn't ready to say goodbye.
I dug around in my pocket until I found an old tube of lipstick. It wasn't green, but it would have to do.
I drew a big pink question mark after the year of his death.
I think he would have liked that.