#especially because he wouldn't take off his regalia around you for much longer because he'd be filling a protector/carer role

[nshtn]

how would creep ed react to his kidnapped friend who inconsolably cried instead of putting up a fight to get away?

He'd get to the part where The Riddler is mysterious and nice and rambling about the dangers of the world a lot faster than he'd planned. He'd be incredibly confused, mildly offended, and just a bit of a frightening teaspoon of validated.

You must be aware that his "Lima syndrome" started the second he started to snoop past the boundaries of your initial friendship's information barrier, so it isn't truly the beginning when he whisks you away. He fully, truly, honestly believes that he's saving you from a much worse fate, and whether or not that rings true depends on your personal situation (the one you decide in your head when you read).

In any case, it's intended that his sweet dove's situation in life is not good before they are taken in. They are physically and mentally in poor shape, and it is what leads to his decision to keep them. If nobody else is willing to care for them, Edward will. Edward wants to be someone's hero. Edward wants to be your hero.

He will take his black hat off and trade it in for grey for the opportunity to see you smile. He will sanitize his info leaks for you, he will stop reverse shelling into anything that will have him to provide you adequate care. You won't hear what he does to hurt the bad people because he'll put earmuffs on you.

Edward will placate your needs so that you don't cry all the time, and what he cannot soothe in perceived changes of action, he will pursue in physical soothing. Because he has access to what you watched to fall asleep to at night or the videos you browsed along to relax to, he can emulate them to soothe you. Add a dash of his need for physical contact and you will be made duly aware of how wanted - no, needed - you are rather swiftly.

That's not to say you've skipped the on-boarding process completely, though. He's still cold and calculating when you 'arrive', though he tosses you niceties no normal captor would much sooner. "'Cause you won't stop," The Riddler remarks, fighting off the urge to coddle you.

Eventually, and in far less time than expected, you will pry off his external persona and find a trembling, aching man underneath who cries when you cry and catches you when you fall if only to tangle himself in you. You can comfort yourself in the knowledge you are a necessity, though before long you may wish you had vouched for distance.

You'd be foisted into The Riddler's lap and taught how to put together a vape pen, his gloved fingertips tapping every surface they rest on rhythmically as he explains carts and pods to you in purposefully grand swaths of detail, repetitious and meandering, perhaps even purposefully repeating syllables if they give you goosebumps. His voice would be soft and gentle, voice changer set only to obscure the pitch of its' user. The way his vocals lilt would be suggestive of adoration rather than the chalky-corrosive sound of his streams.

It's hard to cry when he calls you good and sweet for every little thing you do, and it's hard to sniffle when The Riddler keeps you close and abuses your autonomous sensory meridian response to coax you into relaxing in his grasp. It can be hard to recall the true gravity of your situation, and the way it slips your mind fills you with an unfamiliar wrongness.

But Edward and The Riddler are the same man, and though he may pretend that his edges are softened around you, he is nothing if not blade-sharp and teeth-bared.

He's only silky to your fingertips.

Do not forget the lion of a man that lays with you. He may obscure the redness on his teeth and the glint when they're bared dull over your neck, but he is still a serial killer at dusk and still disappears to enrich himself.