Solutions

Author's Note: Final chapter of this story arc. If you want more, make your opinion heard and tell me so. Otherwise, enjoy.

Appraisal of situation: stuck in a death-trap with one of the smartest men on the planet with an unconscious physics professor and a newly unconscious superhero unaware of how dated his hairstyle is. Have wedged the entrance open with flash grenade but am too far away from Brewster or Golden Boy to engineer a fast escape. Brewster is still suspended upside down by his ankles in a Chinese Water Torture Cell and Dick is still twitching slightly in the aftermath of eating raw electricity. The only way out of here to ensure my survival is to drop a smoke pellet and flee out the door, leaving them both to die. Of course I don't mind doing that to Ponytail, but Brewster doesn't deserve that ending. So, it looks like I'm just going to have to play Eddie's game and hope I can bluff my way past him. Summary of situation: we're all fucked. Nice attitude, Jay-Jay; the big man will really appreciate that when you're all dead, how you shrugged your shoulders and just gave up. You know the rules: don't break, bend, cry or fold to anything or anyone, don't give them the satisfaction of seeing you beg or plead and definitely don't give up fighting until you're dead. If it works on the streets then it works here too. But nobody ever said begging and negotiating were the same thing…

"Here is your first riddle: what…"

"Why don't we make this interesting, Eddie? You know for a fact I'm not all that good at brain-teasers and this would be a pretty short exercise in futility. So I'll make you a deal: I ask YOU the riddles and you give me the answers. You get six in a row and you can kill me outright. You have to answer EVERY riddle and if you guess wrong I get to walk out of here with my fallen sidekick and the prune in the tank. So what do ya say? You wanna test yourself against MY knowledge or not?" There's a brief silence as the green goon considers my ill-conceived proposal. I then watch the same smug smile always present on Dick's face spread its way onto his. He lets out a small moan of what can only be pleasure, like oh so many of the perverts I've known, and slopes his fingers together. He's going to bite.

"That does sound like a more enjoyable way to watch you and your colleagues meet your ends." There is a rumble that sounds like thunder when he claps his hands, "Very well, Bird-brained Wonder! Ask your riddles!"

"Just one more thing, Eddie; you've only got thirty seconds to answer each riddle. Think you can do it?" Riddler scoffs at my time constraints.

"That shan't be a problem! There isn't a riddle in the civilized world I cannot solve in less than twenty seconds! Let us begin!" Okay then, no way to outsmart this son-of-a-bitch, but I bet there's a way to break him. I already know from our last encounter that he despises my lowbrow humour and frankly tasteless jokes and that he was so peeved at me for the ass jibe last night that he purposely constructed this just to trap me. His weakness is not his ego like Bruce thinks or his pride like I used to think; his biggest failing is his lack of a sense of humour. The man simply can't take a joke, tasteless or otherwise. On Gotham's streets I had nothing but a sense of humour to stave off suicide and starvation. Granted, my humour is so black that even Bruce's seems light by comparison, but it is the one asset I possess that Eddie doesn't. So it's time to run with it and see what happens…

"What's green, weighs a hundred pounds, and lives at the bottom of the ocean?" This one is a classic from the bygone days when I did attend mainstream school, the third grade to be exact. The answer should be obvious, even to a man as 'sophisticated' as riddle boy here. Eddie narrows his eyes at me and his smug expression disappears without trace, leaving only a slight snarl in its place.

"Is this the level of sophistication for all your riddles, boy?" He inquires with annoyance already substituting what had been glee. I must really rub him up the wrong way to get this reaction so soon. I shrug my shoulders.

"Are you struggling already, Eddikins? Need a clue?"

"The answer is obvious to anyone who attended the third grade: Moby Snot. One down, five to go."

Eddie knows I'm all by my lonesome here, but what he doesn't know is that although he does have a jamming field in place for electronics it only works completely in a sealed environment. The flash grenade stuck in the door is only giving an inch of space away from total entrapment, but it's enough to allow one piece of my equipment to work: the emergency beacon. This little distress signal tells Alfred that we need some serious backup and gives a GPS grid location for him to direct them to. Knowing Gordon's response time to assemble a swat team and air support and then transport them here, I'd say I've only got to hold out for another twelve minutes. But twelve minutes is a long time to get out five more riddles and be killed, in fact, it's enough time to do it twice over. So stalling needs to be heavily relied upon.

"That's right, Eddie. You attend grade school too?" He looks insulted by the question and his indignant tone in answering only confirms it.

"Of course I did! Did you even make it past the third grade?" Now he sounds like a petulant teenager…eerily like me to be honest. I give him some ammunition.

"I dropped out in the sixth grade, actually." I say. Eddie sneers.

"Well, it doesn't show; you seem far stupider than a twelve-year-old."

"Why thank you."

"You're welcome, idiot boy. Continue riddling." He gives that response through almost gritted teeth. I'm getting to him all over again. Try this bad boy on for size, you big baby…

"A big moron and a little moron were standing on a bridge over the River Send. The big moron fell in but the little moron didn't. Why?" My dad told me this one when I was nine. At the time, I thought it was the cleverest thing I'd ever heard and that my old man was some kind of genius. I still think it's pretty smart, but my dad was definitely not a genius of any kind. Judging by the slowly gathering thunder on Eddie's face, he's of the same opinion.

"He was a little more ON. Plebeian at best. Next…"

"Let me ask you something: since you're so smart and knew exactly how to lure my ponytail sporting companion into that trap, what can you tell about me?" Riddler looks wholly disinterested in this avenue of conversation so I goad him a little, "Is your 'highly analytical' mind not up to the task of dissecting what makes me tick? Are you that desperate for my next conundrum?" This pretty childish threat of having his ears clogged with yet more bad riddles, prompts him to answer.

"I suppose not. I estimate that Mr Brewster has little over an hour left to live before his heart gives out and that your companion will remain unconscious for the next ten minutes. Therefore, I will oblige your request and tear you to pieces…" Eddie leans back and folds his arms before scrutinising me in silence for a few seconds. Then he responds. "You're a former member of Gotham's down and outs, but judging by your age and current physical condition you haven't been in the gutter in some time. I would also wager that, looking at your speech and mannerisms, your parents were not affluent members of this society and all your mentor's attempts to civilize you have failed. I suppose…a likely possibility exists you prostituted yourself to pay for food and accommodation and is why you seem to resent the more wealthy patrons of this city. The papers often comment on your rudeness to high societal types after saving the day and such a theory would support it; they have everything and have never suffered like you." He stops to consider something, rubbing his chin briefly before articulating his thought, "Your biggest chip on the shoulder though is your paralytic predecessor lying on the floor. You, for all your talents at head-butting thugs and arm breaking, are not as good as him. Your mentor thinks so too and what's more, he tells you at every possible point he can. You feel inferior next to him and rightly so." Not a bad effort, Eddie, not bad at all. He seems so involved in his own analysis that he clearly wants to continue, but I cut him off before he can voice another syllable.

"Well you got all the major elements of the sob story right, Eddie baby, kudos on that." I begin, clapping my hands in mock applause. "But none of that crap is what makes me tick. That's just my life in two hundred words or less by a bad storyteller. What gets my rocks off is beating guys like you." Eddie scoffs and leans forward again.

"You would have to add one hundred IQ points to stand even a slight chance of…"

"I didn't mean with my mind, dumbass. I meant really beating you…with my bare hands. Because I know you're in this building right now."

"Impossible. You haven't the faintest idea where I am at this moment." Not up until you decided to lean back I didn't. With your head filling up most of the screen, you could've been on Mars for all I knew, but then you leaned back far enough to see the wall behind you. You couldn't have known it, Eddie, but I know that wall like I know this building. It's not a special wall or anything, just another plethora of decaying brickwork and peeling damp wallpaper, but it has got one distinctive characteristic in the bottom right corner. There, almost out of camera shot is a little information about a former occupant of the middle floor. Scrawled in black crayon are the words 'JT lived here.'

In my early days as a street urchin, I slept in a lot of abandoned buildings and alleyways at night. This building we're currently stood in used to be my favourite because of the views of the city from the middle floor. On a clear night, you could see right across the Bowery all the way to the financial district. It was like a sea of lights and altogether very beautiful. Every time I slept somewhere, even if it was just for the night, I would write 'JT lived here' on the nearest wall. I even did it in the motels and bathrooms I got fucked in towards the end of my apprenticeship as a vagrant. It was my way of leaving my mark on the city because I figured I'd never be able to do it any other way given my circumstances. As we all know now, that's no longer the case. There's a costumed maniac right above me and I fully intend to leave my mark two inches deep in his face with my boot heel. All I have to do is figure out how to get him down here…

I look up at the ceiling and smile.

This room's ceiling is not smooth and looks fairly brittle from where I'm standing. There are some pretty significant areas of dry-rot and mould looking down at me and altogether it's unsound for human habitation, hence the fact this dump is condemned. If I remember the layout of this place, the main stairwell would be almost where Brewster is doing his bat impersonation and would lead to the upstairs corridor. The room facing the financial district is on the left as you go up the stairs and the wall I scribbled on is the far right one as you walk through the doorway to that room…I adjust my position to get a better look at the ceiling beneath where I believe that room is. The plaster is warped and chunks of it look freshly disturbed. A quick scan of the remaining area shows no similar phenomenon and I'm convinced Eddie is above that shaken plaster. I must've been mute a while because Nigma suddenly sounds smug and impatient again.

"Are you quite finished trying to 'psyche' me out, Cave Boy?" I look from the ceiling to the projector screen and smile. I reach behind my back to the pouches where I store sticky explosive charges and take two in my right hand. When thrown, these babies stick to whatever surface in front of them and detonate after a two second delay. Bruce thinks they're unreliable but I think they're awesome; I've wasted many hours in the cave flinging them around with varying charges and watching the ensuing carnage they create.

"I take it you've got your finger on that magical button that sends us all to meet our makers, ready to end this contest if I so much as glance at you the wrong way, correct?" I ask bringing my now clenched right hand to just under my chin. Eddie leers at me in sick pleasure as he did at the start of our little game. He's composed himself just enough to think he's gotten to me on some level; what a fucking tool.

"So there is some intelligence hiding amongst the simian brain you possess. You are quite correct; one false move and I…"

"ATCHOO!" It's pretty lame I know, but an untimely sneeze is the only distraction I could think of that would actually fly here, along with the stickies I released simultaneously. I hear them land with what can only be described as a soft splat and know I've got him. "Sorry, you were saying?" Eddie goes to continue his sentence…

Two…

One…

"I…"

End of days, Eddie baby. I hit the deck and watch the fireworks.

The ensuing explosion is everything I love in action movies; loud, fiery and above all devastatingly effective. As soon as the main brunt of debris is on the ground, I feel relief. The explosion brought down half the ceiling, including Eddie and his control panels. Both lay crumpled and broken on the floor, one a mess of fried circuits and the other a mess of blood and superficial burns. Brewster is still safe inside his cell and Golden Boy only got partially buried in newly fallen rubble. After dusting off as much of the fallout as possible, I stand up and stroll over to Eddie's mangled form and check his pulse; unfortunately, he's still alive. I wander over and check Dick's pulse and feel my blood run cold…

He's STILL alive too. Never mind, Jay-Jay, never mind. I examine Brewster's cage. It looks like the door is sealed shut and only the correct combination will open it up again. However, the glass used is the same stuff they use in maximum security prisons. Called 'safety glass' by the prison staff, this stuff is bulletproof and resistant to high yield explosives, possessing virtually no weakness in its structural integrity and is as close to unbreakable as is possible to engineer. Why am I pleased about this discovery? This stuff is close to unbreakable, yes, but it IS breakable. All a guy needs is sufficient force and the correct angle to strike it at; seventeen degrees left of absolute centre to be exact. Thank you Google. No, I'm kidding, it was Bruce that told me. One perfect kick later, the kind I practice for hours and hours in the cave for when I inevitably enter the prison system, and the glass shatters like a gangbanger's teeth. I free Brewster of his restraints, turn him right way up and check his breathing and heart rate; they're both faint, but they're there all the same.

I free Ponytail from his tomb of ceiling chunks and assorted pipe fragments and drag his limp ass to the relative safety of the doorway which is still ajar. I do the same for Brewster and then turn my attentions to the room's designer. Eddie's eyes are half-open and glazed as I crouch down to move him. As I reach for his wrist, he grabs my arm and shakes his head.

"You…You…ch-ch-cheated." The moron manages to mumble in his drunken stupor. I nod at him and grin.

"I know. And I won. I do hope you'll think of this beautiful moment when you're having a catheter shoved up your dick in Arkham's infirmary; out-smarted by a caveman." Eddie appropriately loses whatever semblance of consciousness he had immediately after I finish taunting him. I pick him up effortlessly and place him by the others. Next up is forensic bagging and tagging of the circuit boards that nutjob used to control this death-trap. Normally I'd leave it for the cops, but Bruce will want to see this one for future reference. A few minutes later, Golden Boy finally stirs.

"What happened?" He moans pathetically whilst getting to his feet with all the grace of a cow on ice.

"Nothing much. I just saved your ass and stopped a demented psychopath from killing anyone else." I tell him as I shoulder the door wide open. I hear the sound of roaring engines speeding towards us and know Gordon's nearly here.

"Blowing up the building was your solution?" He sounds unimpressed and maybe even a little disappointed. Fuck you, Ponytail.

"Fuck you, Ponytail. I stopped him didn't I? Everyone's still alive, aren't they? Quit your bitching about procedure and just help me get Brewster some medical assistance before he croaks." I snap at him. It feels great and Golden Boy does exactly as he's told. I force the door to stay open using one of Dick's collapsible escrima sticks and use a fireman's carry to move Brewster to the safety of a waiting ambulance. The swat team pile into the building and secure the perimeter as Ponytail and I have a short chat with Jim.

"Is he not feeling well?" Gordon inquires after our mutual teacher.

"No, he's fucked, Sir." I inform him to get a scathing glance from both of them. I don't care. I don't care about anything right now, because I saved the day all on my own.

"Well, send him my compliments for all your hard work these past few weeks with this lunatic. Although, I would like you to stress to him that this is supposed to be a partnership. If he has relevant information about these degenerates in future, please ask him to share it with us. We are allegedly the face of law and order in this city, not its damn clean-up crew. Now, with that said, whose idea was it to nearly char Mr Nigma to a crisp and almost bring down the building on top of you by using explosives?" Gordon asks before sternly gazing in my direction. "Was it you by any chance, son?" I'm about to tell him to bite me only for Dick to take the heat on my behalf.

"It was me, Sir. I apologize but I had little alternative in the situation." Jim adopts a surprised expression.

"I can't believe you would be so reckless. I thought your mentor taught you better! If you had used just a fraction more, the whole building would have crumbled and we'd be dragging four corpses out of there instead! This area is condemned for a damn reason, son! You're lucky I don't charge you with reckless endangerment for that stunt! Next time you won't be so fortunate, do I make myself clear?" Gotta hand it to Golden Boy, he takes his tongue-lashing like a man; I would've probably walked off somewhere in the middle. When Jim's done with his angry headmaster routine, Dick nods and is very much a diplomat in his response.

"Yes, Sir. Do you require us for anything else?"

"No. No, I don't think so. Tell your boss to contact me at the earliest opportunity to discuss this matter. Get out of here." We turn around and leave the scene, heading back towards the car. Al's trying to make contact with me on my earpiece, but I'm ignoring him because I'm pissed off. Dick fills him on the situation and spares few details, typical teacher's pet. I just saved the day, but they've just made it sound like I've destroyed half the world and need to have someone cover for me. Sure there was always a chance the building could collapse under the pressure of the explosives, but it didn't. There was always a chance they'd be pulling our dead bodies out of the rubble, but they weren't. Risk versus reward is a tricky thing to calculate, but I made my choice, stuck to it and it paid off big time. I didn't get it wrong and I didn't fuck up; I won. Just like I told Eddie, I won out and saved the day.

Dick tries to tell me he only took the flak because he wants to make me look good. That's a load of shit but I don't bother telling him that. He tries to communicate how wrong he was about my abilities to handle the big moments and how impressed he is with my efforts. Again, I ignore him and I keep blanking him all the way back to the cave. Golden Boy's opinion doesn't mean jack. I don't want his thoughts and I don't want his cover from Gordon or Bruce or anybody else. I'm Jason Todd and I can fight my own battles and take my own punishments without some self-absorbed guardian angel by my side. I did it before I met Bruce and I can do it right now too. So just shove it, Circus Boy, before I shove it for you.

Once we're parked up, Al comes down to meet us. He gestures at Dick. "Master Richard, please come with me for medical treatment. Master Jason, go upstairs. Master Bruce wishes to speak with you immediately." I pull off my domino mask and walk up to the house. I go straight through the library and parlour, up the master staircase and straight to his study door. I don't knock. I go straight in and sit down without being invited. Bruce is sat behind the antique desk in his dressing gown, regarding me with a typically unreadable expression. He looks well-rested and no longer burdened by exhaustion or obsession. He opens conversation after a few minutes of vacant staring.

"Are you okay, Jason?" He says. I roll my eyes.

"Look if you're going to chew me up for what happened to Riddle Boy…"

"I am not going to do that, Jason. Nigma killed three people and was potentially not far away from killing another four including Miss Richards and yourselves and Mr Brewster tonight. It is only fitting he suffer somewhat for the misery he has caused and families he has torn apart. I called you in here to inform that, no matter what anyone else may say, I am confident you acted in the best way possible given your situation and that the results speak for themselves. I want you to know…I'm proud of you, Jason." That last part looked like it was hard for him to admit out loud, but he did say it and I did hear it clearly. I need to clarify something.

"Are you saying you would've done the same thing in my place?"

"No and only because I would have no way of knowing Nigma was in that building at that time. How did you know?"

"I used to rough it there from time to time. I saw my initials in the video feed and knew he was above me in my old haunt. Lucky break, huh?" Bruce nods in agreement.

"It's fortunate you were astute enough to notice such a minor detail. Had you missed it, the outcome could have been radically different. Well done." Thanks a lot, big guy. It genuinely means something that he thinks I did what was best in the situation. For once, it's Bruce and not just Al who's on my side. I don't tell him this. I just nod back and prepare to get to my feet.

"Yeah, well, if there's nothing else, I'm going to go shower and then go to bed." I get up to leave only for the big guy to copy me and stand up too. He rounds the desk and walks the few steps to where I am. I get nervous and start thinking this is finally the part where he bends me over the desk and rapes me, but it's still not gotten to that stage yet.

"I'm glad you're safe, Jay-Jay. After the traumas you have suffered in the past few months, I was afraid you might suffer some side-effects. This work has a cumulative effect as I have no doubt demonstrated in recent weeks and I was concerned you might be heading in the same direction. So you're sure you're alright, son?" He asks putting a firm hand on my shoulder. I nod.

"Yeah, I'm just tired. I'm pretty sure you know what I mean, huh?" Bruce smiles at me and I return the favour. He nods in understanding but seems uncomfortable to let his hand leave my shoulder. Maybe he feels he should offer me more than this; if I were Dick he'd probably have hugged me before now or something similar. But I'm not Dick and I don't need his affection…

I just want it is all.

"Goodnight, Jason." Bruce says letting his hand fall off my shoulder. I decide I should just tell him how this is supposed to work between us.

"Listen, for future reference, don't be afraid to hug me. I'm tough, but I still feel like one every now and again and I'm still only sixteen. Just try not to fuck me up any more than the world's already managed, okay?" The big guy absorbs this Jason Todd top tip and nods.

"Okay."

"Thanks for being nice to me for once too. It does help, honest. I'll see you in the morning, Bruce." I say stepping past him and leaving the room without saying another word or looking at him again. Today was okay. I enjoyed being the knight in shining armour yet again, making Golden Boy look like a court jester and garnering the praise of the kingdom's king. Finally, the kid gets the nod. Finally, Jason Todd wins.