"So... Are you going to Harley's party?"

Edward Nygma polishes off another cup of coffee, his second today so far. Reaching for the quickly diminishing pot at the edge of the table, the soon-to-be-caffeinated villain poses the question to both his associate and table-mate.

"I hate parties." Is all the thin man seated across from him somberly replies.

Pouring himself yet another cup, the villain in green rolls his eyes.

"That doesn't answer my question." Edward groans.

"Fine." Jonathan sighs heavily into his mug of earl grey. "I hate parties. And no. I'm not going."

Ed pokes at the remnants of what was supposed to be eggs, though if you'd ask him, they were more closely related to rubber. A credit, no doubt, to whatever moron is running the kitchen today.

"But, why?" He practically whines dropping his fork to the plate with a loud clatter.

"Why do I hate parties?" Jonathan wonders.

"No." Edward argues, pointing a finger at the man dressed in a dull brown tweed suit. "Why aren't you going?"

"For the same reason I hate parties." He explains in a tone just as dull. "I don't like people and they don't like me."

Thinking, Edward crosses his arms and stares out across the room towards the door. An older couple enters the diner. The gentleman dressed in a well-worn sports coat and matching hat holds the door for his aging, but still quite lovely wife. She smiles at him and the man's face fills with joy.

"People... like you..." Edward winces. Hell, even he knows that's a lie.

The bespectacled villain across from him crooks a brow above the rim of his horn-rimmed frames. A sign that he doesn't believe the riddle-man one bit.

"Well, they don't dislike you." Ed tries again.

This time a family enters the diner. Two small children, a boy and a girl, and judging by the rather large bump on the woman in tow, one on the way. The kids, wild with excitement, burst through the door and race towards the booths along the window.

"I don't care for social interactions." Jonathan extends in his own hum drum tone.

"Then what do you think we're doing right now?"

Edward watches as the children race towards one booth in particular, the one in the way back with the older husband and wife, no doubt their grandparents.

"Having tea." Jonathan answers, staring down into the murky depths of his half-finished cup.

"Right." Edward reasons with a wave of his hands. "We meet every week. You have tea and I have coffee and together we talk shop. That's a social interaction."

They've been coming to this place for ages now. Since the very beginning of their own respective criminal careers, or damn near close to the very beginning it would seem. Always in plain clothes and always at the same table. It's become so much of a habit that the waitress even knows their exact orders by heart. A whole pot of coffee (black), fresh fruit and two eggs for Edward. And a single cup of earl grey tea and dry toast for Jonathan.

"I'm still not going." The Scarecrow refuses despite the Riddler's sorry attempt to win him over. "Why do you want me to go so desperately, anyway?"

"I don't." Edward only half-answers, eyes still glued to the distraction at the rear of the diner. The happy little family all gathered around. Greeting one another with a hug and a smile. So perfect. So domestic. So... nauseating. It's disgusting. Enough to lose his breakfast if he'd actually eaten any of it.

These people, they remind him of the TV dinners his ineffectual mother would always make him. Warm and inviting on the outside, met with a block of frigid ice in the center. Served, of course, with a heaping helping of one big smack upside the head from his old man. The memory leaves him with a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Well I wouldn't say desperately." Edward returns his attention to Jon and takes another swig of his coffee. "Look, I only want you to go so that I have someone to converse with."

"You mean someone of similar intelligence." The walking, talking pile of skin and bones nibbles at his toast.

"You know how Harley's friends are." Edward pleads. "They're all..."

"Incompetent and intoxicated?" Jonathan takes the words right out of Ed's mouth.

"Precisely."

They really shouldn't speak ill of Harley or her friends. It's not like either of them are the most likable or even tolerable bunch. Which is probably why they choose to meet up once a week together. It's not like they have many other friends. Or any.

"Then don't go." Jonathan offers a solution.

"It's too late. I already told her I would." Ed confesses.

"So?" Jonathan hardly sees the point.

Social niceties and the notion of keeping one's word escapes the master of fear. Being someone who mostly keeps to himself, the concept is hardly in his wheelhouse.

"So if I don't go..." Edward tries to coax his associate to fill in the blanks.

"Ah, I see." Jonathan finally understands. "She'll smash your brains in with a mallet."

There it is. Now he gets it! It has nothing to do with being nice and everything to do with survival. But that's Edward. Always thinking of his own safety and comfort over that of others.

"Yup." Edward returns, hoping he'd finally convinced his so-implied friend to come join him. "So? What do you say?"

"So..." Jonathan sighs as he finishes his tea. "I'm still not going."

In a huff, Edward lays his head down on the table in defeat.

"Thanks. Thanks a lot." He grumbles into the vinyl tabletop, no doubt caked with decades of grime and the sticky residue of industrial strength antiseptic spray.

"Of course." Jonathan hums, returning to his toast with a skeletal grin. "What are friends for?"