#pi riddler fic

[lfthinkerwrites]

for the fic writer asks:

11, 15, 18, 20?

How many words do you have on AO3

Brace yourselves: 1,027,794. 70% of that is the Verse. God help us all.

Are there words, phrases, mannerisms or scenes you tend to use a lot?

I joke that a lot of my chapters essentially are two people talking in a room. A lot of phrases that have been cropping up are 'I have to know' from Ed and 'What am I supposed to do?' from Ellen. PI Verse, or at least a good chunk of it, is about Edward and Ellen asking questions and demanding answers from the world around them, having to deal with people close to them keeping the truth from them, and trying to navigate their place in an increasingly hostile world.

Recommend someone else fic!

Any Rogues fan, especially Scarecrow and Riddler fans, are required to read @acapelladitty

[jellyfitzjelly]

What’s one of your more obscure ships in DC ?

One of mine is Tiger x Dick!

mhmmm good question!

My "canon" one would be Katana/Geoforce/Owlman (aka Roy Raymond Jr). That run of the Outsiders was trash but GOD the OT3 possibilities... I have a few bits and pieces of a sex pollen/first time fic for them in my folders.

My other obscure ship would be Jason Blood/Bruce Wayne in the BTAS universe. There is one BTAS comic issue where they team up and GOD. I want them to fuck. I want Bruce to wreck Jason. Fun fact, Jason Blood ALSO has a tuff of white hair!

Okay, my "non-canon" ship would be Jack Ryder/Jeremiah Arkham in my PI Riddler AU. They were in a long-term relationship and Jack brutally disappeared when he became the Creeper, as he was unable to control his newfound powers. Jerry (as he only ever allowed Jack to call him) NEVER recovered from it. For years he didn't know what happened to Jack, if he was still alive, if something happened to him. He later found out that Jack left him voluntarily and that left a huge wound on his heart. They would end up reconnecting and coming back together though. ;)

[enigmamuse]

maybe it's time for scriddler PI riddler / Sherlock holmes au fic 🫣👀

[riddle-me-ri]

Writing Ask Meme Thingy! 🎢, ⛔, ❌, 👀

🎢: Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

Hmm, that's a good question...I guess most of my stuff with Dano Riddler, just cause I still can't get a grip on the guy and everytime I write for him there's a bunch of ups and downs of uncertainty.

And then there was my latest Arkhamver Jervis fic where I got so lost in the downhill of character development I almost forgot the smut rip

⛔️: Do you have a fic you started but scrapped?

Oof I have a few. There were some headcanons for the Riddlers being refused a kiss from reader I've scrapped and a one shot with PI Riddler I scrapped I wanna get back to these eventually but I have so many requests not rip

There's also an idea for BTAS Jervis I wanna do but I doubt anyone would read it so it's scrapped.

❌️: What's a trope you will never write for?

Pregnancy tropes, and tropes with kids (I did it once for the funny ha ha's but yeah no not really my thing) or AU's I know technically writing certain characters in my own way or in my own time frames barely clinging to canon can be considered AU's in their own right but like...I don't know that's different compared to like an au with rules like a fantasy au or a soul mate au

I hope that made sense lmao

👀: Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

There's a few in the works right now actually rip, you probably already know about most of these finnie lmao.

There's Jervi reacting to a tik tok dress, there's a daddy!Oz smut fic in the works, and there's a couple holiday/festive related ones I wanna work on before the season's over otherwise it seems dumb to do them later lmao

Thanks for asking Finne ilysm 💚

[lfthinker]

A reviewer reacted to my latest chapter of From the Case Files with barely restrained horror. I’ve done my job right.

[plushievash]

Hi, I really like your art! 💖 So much so you kinda got me into Batman/Riddler. But I can't seem to find any fics about Batman/Zero Year Riddler. Do you have any recommendations?

thank you! i dont have any with zero year riddler specifically but i thought this one was pretty good - instead its arkhamverse riddler so far thats the only riddlebat one i can recommend i havent had time to read fics lately

[talesfromthenorsesmouth]

thinking some more about the backstory for my daft Riddler PI story and now as a result you all have to suffer too yeah i know life’s not fair

so Edward, when first arriving in Gotham in the late 70s, was working at the Gotham Gazette- not, I think, as a journalist, more like the office boy/general dogsbody/runner and crossword setter 

(fairly sure he got his pin badge from a crossword magazine because he’s a Dork)

anyway at some point (one day i’ll work the precise timeline out. one day) he was balancing being the Riddler with being a mild-mannered a sarcastic little Edward so I figured he’d make some attempt at least to disguise that, beyond the domino mask etc, in terms of posture and attitude so this was to try to see that i could make clear its the same person while having two distinct attitudes

PS this was the 70s so YES flares YES huge collars YES kipper ties and YES YES to the sweet Cuban heel he uses to give the Riddler a little extra height don’t judge him. (and YES to him using David Bowie as his style guide you can’t stop me) God knows where he got his first Riddler suit, possibly at a thrift store and then he had to spend a few evenings in his bedsit* adding the question marks with a needle and thread, or a pen, or hell, maybe a potato stamp, he’s always been a crafty little bastard, in every sense of the word

*does america have bedsits or do they get called something else? 

anyway, tl:dr he’s a nerd i love him

[batcxves]

Reputation

a battinson pic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: gun/shooting

a/n: hi, I literally made this account to share this self-indulgent battinson fic that I have been working endlessly on. 8k words and counting so far. enjoy :) 

. . .

CHAPTER ONE -

Dr. F/N L/N was the most widely celebrated woman in the whole of Gotham, perhaps even the whole of the country. Doctor of criminology, she worked as a PI in the city of Gotham, and had been, for the past two years. Tonight was the glorious celebration of her; Commissioner Gordon was awarding her with the Gotham Medal of Honor during the GPD charity banquet. The most prestigious of all citizens in Gotham were to be in attendance to mingle and celebrate the reduction of crime evident in the past year.

Media trucks lined the streets as the line of cars made its way to the city hall, the holding place of the banquet. Naturally, the doctor’s limousine led the line, and special armed guards rushed to line each side of her car as she began her exit. First sight of her was of her shoulder-length, rolling waves of hair. Cat-eyed sunglasses rimmed her eyes despite the darkness of night swallowing the city. A black cashmere thigh-length dress hugged her body, and her hands were wrapped in a matching pair of cashmere gloves, covering her arms to the elbow. Wispy curled bangs hung on the left and right sides of her forehead, but the middle was bare. She wore long, black heels, completing her entirely black ensemble. Her fingers reached to lower her sunglasses, making her accentuated doe-eyes seen, and she flashed an adoring smile to the photographers, who wasted no time. The darkness of the street quickly erupted with white flashes and the noiselessness was completely swallowed by their voices, asking questions, asking for attention, asking, asking, asking.

She ascended the stairs without a word, the smile on her face shrinking, but never disappearing. She was greeted at the doors, and they were opened for her, and closed once again, and as if she had never been there, the people turned their attention to the next approaching car. Even within the building she did not remove her sunglasses. She simply allowed them to dangle on the end of her nose, looking over the top of the rims as she grinned at the mayor and commissioner, both eagerly awaiting her arrival within the hall. She shook their hands respectively, though she felt a light wave of guilt rush through the pit of her stomach.

Of course, she felt she had deserved every bit of praise she had gained; she did reduce crime in the city substantially. Within the first year of her work, at least. For nearly a year now, however, she had not been working alone. Her accomplice, and dirty secret, was a mass vigilante who had been running rampant throughout the city for a year or so before her arrival. Originally, she had moved into the city on a job from a writer for the Gazette, Gotham’s newspaper. The writer had enlisted her help in unmasking the “Batman”, a man who had been roaming the streets at night in search of criminals to bring to his own sense of justice. For a year she searched endlessly, getting little to no sleep, in search of the man.

Her persistence had made a hell of a story for the paper, and it was around six months of running in circles before she realized that she had been being manipulated; used by the writer for a chance at a good story. It hadn’t been more than three months after giving up the case that she came face-to-face with the Batman in person as she worked a case. Never before had she felt so endangered; so small. She soon found herself running into him constantly, and as it turned out, they had like goals. It wasn’t long before they began to use one another for information. From then on, she was never alone in her accomplishments. He was always there, lurking in her shadow, away from the cameras and press, just as he wished it to be. They both benefitted, but still, the guilt was beginning to eat away at her stomach. She had made a liar of herself; made a name for herself with stolen information and a leg-up on the back of a masked man. Never would she admit her faults; the Batman was severely frowned upon within the criminal justice of Gotham. Made the department into a fool, as he solved all the cases they could not; captured all the criminals they could never come close to meeting.

She was pulled from her thoughts of the masked vigilante as the grand doors opened once again, welcoming the second guest into the hall. The guests began to pile in, one after another, and it was seeming that they were in a line to shake her hand and congratulate her. Person after person, she heard the same words of congratulations over and over again, and though she was tired of it, she took it all with a proud smile. As the line of guests was thinning, it was apparent that the room had grown quieter, all eyes fixated on the door. The loud voices were now hushed whispers, and only one thing was audible from the murmurs: a name.

Bruce Wayne.

If the expression tall, dark, and handsome was a person, it would be Bruce Wayne. He looked rough; dark circles hung under his eyes, he was pale as could be, and his eyes hardly made their way from off of the floor. But by God, he was a vision. Dark eyes, messily combed hair, and a casual suit; the entire room’s eyes were stuck on him as if he were magnetic. The entire hall watched in near silence as he made his way up the stairs, hands stuffed in the pockets of his black trousers. He was the only person in the room who did not make his way to Y/N to congratulate her. She bit her tongue and clenched her jaw, feeling disrespected. Truth be told, had it been anybody else in the room, she may not have even noticed. But Bruce Wayne, the Bruce Wayne, to drag his reclusive being out of his mansion to attend her banquet and not even congratulate her; it was an agonizing pain. The need for recognition set her skin ablaze. The absolute nerve of the man captured the entirety of her attention. As he crossed the room and found his seat at the front, near the stage, her eyes followed his every move. Even as the crowd resumed its previous state of conversation, she could not pry away her eyes even if she tried.

She watched as his eyes scanned the room nonchalantly, looking ever-so-apathetic as he took in the scene. It wasn’t until his dark brown eyes met hers that she jolted back to reality. Maneuvering her gaze away as quickly and as naturally as possible, she removed her sunglasses and folded them, placing them into her black clutch.

“Commissioner,” She called for Mr. Gordon’s attention, “Could you point me in the direction of my seat, please?”

With a smile, he beckoned to the lone table at the forefront of the hall. “There, Doctor, the table in the front is reserved for the utmost important of guests. The mayor and I will accompany you there shortly.”

The table had four chairs sitting around it, one of them occupied by the brooding and dauntless Mr. Wayne. She gave but a single nod of the head, and immediately made her way towards the table. The crowd seemed to part for her, as she held her gaze with the table. Though anxiety was building inside her, she held a proud expression. She would not allow herself to be embarrassed by a pretentious wallflower on her big night. As she approached the table, an officer standing nearby pulled out the chair next to Mr. Wayne and beckoned her to sit. She nodded in response as a thanks and he dismissed himself immediately. Crossing both her legs and arms, she attempted a conversation.

“Pleasure seeing you here, Mr. Wayne. I don’t believe I’ve seen as much as a thread of your suit since my arrival here.” Her jaw clenched angrily as he did not respond, only met her gaze for a second and nodded. She pressed on, determined to get something out of him. “What brings you out tonight?”

“Business.” His voice was a little bit gravelly and quiet, obviously he didn’t speak very much. Responding to the question seemed to exhaust him, his eyes looked weary and sleep-deprived, heavy-lidded and unenthused.

Frustrated, she beckoned a waiter over, taking two glasses of champagne off of his tray. “Drink up, Mr. Wayne. Tonight is a night of celebration.” She gritted her teeth and downed the glass quickly as he watched her with a rather blank expression, sipping slowly from the glass he had been offered.

“In conclusion of this charity banquet, I would like to welcome a special guest to the stage,” the commissioner’s voice boomed through the hall with the aid of the microphone. “Dr. F/N L/N, everybody!”

She rose from her seat as applause erupted from all sides of her. With a proud grin, she climbed the stairs and found her spot next to Mr. Gordon. “Dr. L/N has been exceedingly helpful and heroic when it comes to our city’s fight against crime. With a vigilante such as the Batman loose in our streets, it’s hard to make a name for yourself as a good cop. But Dr. L/N here is the epitome of a good cop, and without further ado, I would be honored to award you the highest medal of honor here in Gotham. Please, any words?”

Quickly he pinned the medal to the strap of her dress, careful not to touch her too much. I tightly wound ball of guilt was waiting to burst in the doctor’s stomach at the mention of the Batman, and she cursed herself as her hands were visibly shaking as she took his hand and shook it, taking the microphone from him. “Upstanding citizens of Gotham,” She began the speech that she had rehearsed dozens of times in her mirror, but her mind grew blank as she scanned the crowd and landed on Bruce Wayne’s blank eyes scanning over her, looking as unhappy as ever. She took a breath and decided to forget her speech. “These have been trying times. Ever since I arrived here in Gotham, I have worked my hardest to keep our streets safe. It has been such an honor to serve this city for the two years I have. I want to make it known to everybody here, and everybody across Gotham as a whole, that each and every one of you have my complete and utter being keeping you safe. Even in the darkest shadows of this city, I have your back. I hope that I can continue to keep your faith and support.” She eyed Mr. Wayne once more as the applause broke out, and saw him clap four times in all, and a part of her heart burst. She sent a knowing look and smile into the camera recording her, hoping that wherever he was, whatever he was doing, the Batman heard her nod to him.

As she raised her arm to wave to the applauding crowd, the lights flickered and then shut off, leaving the room in pitch blackness. Panic began to sweep through the startled crowd. The lights flickered on again, and then the room became dark once more. Y/N looked around in an attempt to find the commissioner, eyes barely adjusted to the darkness. Suddenly a loud bang echoed throughout the hall, causing extreme panic to ensue. The sound of people jumping out of their chairs and screams were bouncing off the walls, and it took the doctor a second to come to her senses. The lights came back on once again, and this time, stayed on. The panic and screams became more intense as the eyes of the crowd fixated on the doctor.

“She’s been shot!” The commissioner screams it before she could even realize it for herself, and sure enough, when she brought a hand to where her medal was placed above her heart, she felt the blood seeping out. As she brought her hand away to examine it, the pain finally hit her. She gasped for air as she felt pulsations of pain wash throughout her body, emitting from her chest. She stumbled forward, off of the stage, but instead of falling, she felt two strong arms holding her body steady.

The very last thing she remembered before blacking out was the alarmingly calm look of concern in Bruce Wayne’s eyes as he kept her from falling over.

[theerrorofmylife]

Crime Fighter

Another Battinson fic, this one’s probably one of my favorites, my beta reader loved it so. Little bit of a spin off, lots of tension, possibly a spicy part 2 if I’m feeling it lol. Please enjoy!!

- Error

       Gotham, the city of crime. City of treachery. City of ‘do whatever you want because literally nothing can stop you.’ Or at least that’s what it was 8 months ago. Nowadays, it’s the city of fear, fear of the unknown, fear for your life if you ever did anything wrong. I can’t remember a time when the streets were crowded at night like they are these days, people were no longer afraid to walk the streets even on a night like New Years. Among the crowds, surrounded by alcohol and parties, I was there. Something of an observer, a silent watcher, where Bats was all threat and right-swings, I took a more… laid back approach. I was helping the GCPD anonymously, being something of a PI on the level of urban legend until he showed up. All big black armor suits and blood-covered knuckles. I let him fight, not because I didn’t want to fight, but because I know he needed to. My goal wasn’t to clean up the city, it was to save the people who live here; there’s a difference. But tonight, of all nights, I got to have a little fun, I got to relax, or at least I thought I did.

“You two… follow me.” Gordon led us into a small apartment complex. Walking in, my near soundless footsteps were completely blocked out by the man stomping behind me. My hood was pulled up all the way to shade my eyes and the half-mask was pulled up over my nose and mouth. Dark kohl was painted over my eyes to create some distortion on my features. Behind me, the Batman towered. For the past 2 years I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t skulking around the same crime scenes as me, lurking in the dark while I investigated. And I can’t remember a time when I minded, I can’t recall whether I was ever bothered by his arrival or if I had always been fine with him existing in a world that used to be only for me. Looking around the apartment, it looked clean, like professionally cleaned. Crouching low to the ground, I could hear Bats walking around me as I breathed deep.

“Bleach. Professional clean-up?” I looked up at the man. He was so tall and so scary and so… hot. It was hot, sorry not sorry, but the big scary man was attractive to say the least. He was at least 6 feet, towering over me as I knelt on the floor, and it seemed like the shadows made it all the better. Days into meeting him I knew I was in trouble, his presence was stunning and terrifying and incredibly attractive, but he didn’t know me beyond the hood, and I didn’t know him beyond the mask. We were nothing more than work buddies who didn’t go out for drinks or exchange birthday cards. Which was totally fine, because I needed to protect people. And he needed to clean up Gotham from the roots. If our goals were ever achieved, I wouldn’t see him again. And that was… fine. Totally not upset over not being able to see him without the armor.

“Most likely. But who hired them?” His voice, it was deep, scratchy, and no one else would know but I could tell it was a bit forced. I liked it.

“Not Riddler, or Joker, they don’t care enough to clean up their mess. Someone who didn’t want people to know, someone with a reputation…” We both knew who it was, it was like he could read my mind at this point, but I was no closer to cracking his. I almost hated it, not being able to see into his mind like he could mine. But then again, I liked that the way he looked at me when he did. This little glint in his eyes, a hint of a smile, as if I was his favorite book laying open on the table.

“Someone like Penguin.” I nodded and before I stood fully, he was gone. The Shadow in the Night just left me here… prick. Getting up, I nodded to Gordon who walked over to me.

“So?”

“Bats and I are going clubbing… The Iceberg Lounge is especially nice, but I hear the 44 Below is better.” With that I left, moving deftly through the crowds of cops and forensic people. I would have to catch up.

~

I managed to get there before Bats had beaten everyone to death. It wasn’t a pretty scene but one I was used to. Unconscious bodies littered the entryway, bullet shells on the carpet, and a continuing fight could be heard in the distance.

“BATS.” I ran in. I couldn’t care less about the people in my way, they were criminals and Bats had already taken care of them, but we needed Penguin unscathed for questioning. I can’t let this slip through. When I got there, he was standing by a closed set of double doors, big and painted gold. His strong arms were crossed, and he was facing in my direction, leaning against the door. It was so, so attractive, and so, so distracting.

“You came.”

“You waited for me?”

“Of course.”

“Of course.” Of course. Of course, of course, of course. Of course he waited, of course I would make every effort just to be by his side, of course I broke 12 traffic laws and at least 2 federal laws just to make a 45 minute drive 15 minutes. He kicked open the door and we walked inside to see Penguin and two more men, all holding guns. It was quick, shots firing and ricocheting off the walls and one nearly clipped my ear if not for the fact that I dropped to the floor. Hands on the floor, my left leg stretched out to the side with my right bent under to support myself, I looked up to see Bats not even flinching. The bullets bounced off his armor and I watched as he quickly marched up and took the gun from one of the men. He broke it over his knee, snapped in half, and I nearly lost focus as my eyes were drawn to his thighs. Thick, beautiful, wonderfully ridable thighs. Fuck, focus. Ducking under his arms, I popped up in front of the second man and swung right for his nose while bats reached around and pulled the gun out of his hands. The men fell to the sides and Penguin was left alone, shaking in the corner with a tiny pistol clattering in his grip. I almost feel bad…. No, no I don’t haha. I unclipped the handcuffs from Bats, and I felt Bat’s whole body freeze, the cuffs hanging low on his belt. Bats damn near tore penguin out of the room after I cuffed him. Stopping at the door, he looked back at me, shoulders tense.

“Staying?” I looked up at his eyes, the blue glinting like neon. I could stare at those for hours; I don’t even care how stupid that sounds.

“Yeah, I’ll just uh…” I unclipped my camera from my belt and waved it by my head, mutely offering it as an explanation. He nodded and left with Penguin, and I was alone with two unconscious thugs and a shit ton of evidence that Bat’s and I would need later. Clicking open the camera, I fixed the flash setting before starting at the left side of the room and moving my way across. Files on dozens of people, roughly half a dozen on other mob bosses, boxes stacked on boxes of guns and ammunition. I took particular interest on the guns, making sure to add type and count on the back of each photo as well as a rough count of the ammunition. It took me about an hour to get everything really important before I heard the GCPD forensics team show up. I didn’t really want to get into it with them again (yes, I got caught at a crime scene once by them and I nearly got hit with a solid pelican 1120) so I headed out, grabbing the box of files before I left. I strapped the box to the back of my bike, praying the rain wouldn’t ruin any of the papers before I could get home. It always rained in Gotham, it was like a plague that lingered, as if the sky thought it could cleanse the city every day, never realizing it was futile. My bike slipped in and out of traffic, dodging cars and trucks, until I couldn’t go any farther without being knee deep in water. I left my bike, climbing up the side of a building and making my way across the rooftops, box tucked under my arm. It would be hours before I saw Bat’s again.

~

I sat back in my chair; my suit thrown to the side on the floor. A chill had set up my arms, my sleeveless shirt doing its job in cooling me down after I left the lounge. My computer glowed in the dark of my room as it loaded the pictures from my memory card. I had lived here for years now, in a tiny one room on the lower east side. Ever since Riddler flooded the streets, most of the lower areas were lost as well as all the areas by the docks. I was lucky, it was high enough that the water didn’t touch the flat and the window wasn’t too jammed, so it was prime vigilante real estate. I heard the window open, and I didn’t bother to turn around. Bats had seen me out of costume before, purely by accident but since then I hadn’t bothered to wear it off the job. If he saw me, he didn’t make a scene of it. At least, not in front of me.

“What did you find?”

“It’s like he was preparing for a war, B. He’s got dozens upon dozens of files, on people and bosses all over the city. Guns, ammo, worse, it’s all here.” I pulled up what pictures I did have rendered. I really didn’t want to believe what I was seeing. All of this looked like-

“A gang war.”

“Fuck.”

“Hey-”

“I know I know. But B, a gang war. We can’t have that right now, not with half the city flooded, not with the coast guard trying to fix things. We’ve already had enough issues with Riddler, and before that…” Our first case, the Joker… if this were a gang war, it could shred whatever remains of this city. “B… what do we do?” He stood still for a few seconds, eyes darting over my photo folder. Then darting over me, and I never felt more exposed.

“Which file folder is the largest?” I stared at the folder, thinking. Technically, they were all pretty thick but only one was truly overflowing. I pushed my rolling chair across the room and launched my way over to the file box. I pulled out the two-inch-thick file. He held the pages in the light of my computer, the white and blue light glowing over his armor and spilling onto the folder.

“Fish Mooney.” He held it for a second before flipping through it, stopping at certain pages with annotations and sticky notes. Pictures were taped and clipped onto certain pages, bright marker circling her face and specific places she was seen walking into. It was extreme and entirely unlike Penguin. He wasn’t the kind of person to annotate things or have things annotated.

“There’s notes in here.”

“Penguin definitely didn’t make these files. He had help, and I have a guess as to who.” In the far corners of the pages, little question marks were doodled and scribbled.

“How did Penguin get his help with these? He’s in Arkham, Penguin of all people wouldn’t be able to see him.”

“Wanna pay your old admirer a visit?”

“Not funny.” But I heard the smile in his voice.

“Only way to know for certain what Penguin wants with Fish is to ask the source of all his knowledge. If Riddler is involved in a gang war, I doubt he will pass up the chance to brag. Especially to us.” I slowly climbed out of my chair and walked over to grab my suit from the floor. I felt his eyes following me as I walked across the room.

The air was cold as we rode to Arkham, rain and wind beating against our helmets, bikes side by side on the dark streets. Times like this I forgot Bats was the Batman, in my head he was just a person, a person I shared bike rides with, offered coffee to, did my job with. He wasn’t a vigilante; he was my partner. Which was fine. Pulling up to the old asylum, the flood lights above nearly blinding me. The Batman and I stepped into the visitor’s center.

“S-sir!” The little guy at the front desk sputtered out, waving his superior over. A burly man with a hefty ring of keys on his belt came over.

“Batman and Co. Come on in,” He waved us past the desk and into the hallway where gates upon gates were opened and closed behind us. “Who are you two here for?”

“Riddler.” Was all the mountain of a man in front of me mumbled.

“Riddler? I thought you guys were done with him after he blew up half the city.”

“I wish,” I muttered and ducked ahead of Bats. “We’d really appreciate seeing him privately if that’s alright.”

“Sure, we’ll have someone outside the door in case you need help.” He reassured us. I found it unnecessary, but Bats nodded.

“Thank you, Mr. …?”

“Conroy. Albert Conroy.” He radioed for Riddler to be moved to a remote conference room. Walking down the halls, I felt eyes on me. Eyes I recognized.

“B… He knows we’re here.” I saw him nod out of the corner of my eyes before we were escorted into the dark-lit conference room. Riddler sat on the other side of the table, hands cuffed, glasses cracked, and honestly, he looked pretty pathetic. “We’ll be ok from here, Mr. Conroy. Thank you.” The man left, and Bats immediately walked up to the table, throwing Fish Mooney’s file onto the table.

“What did you do, Ed? How’d you get involved with Penguin?” watching Bats, I leaned back against the wall.

“Oh, I didn’t do much. Hello, Darling, lovely to see you again.” I waved but couldn’t find it in me to respond more than that. Bats stepped in front of me, covering his view.

“Edward, focus, why did you help Penguin? We know you did,” He opened up the file to point to the many little question mark scribbles at the corners. “We just want to know what he’s planning.”

“I bring peace but only at the cost of another’s life. What am I?” He bounced a little, enthusiastically.

“War. Ed, what does he want with Fish?”

“Swimming, jumping, diving, flying, the little fish can go anywhere; until the hungry penguin eats it up.”

“So, it is a turf war? Shit!” I sighed, rubbing my forehead.

“Such vulgar language, something so sweet shouldn’t talk like that.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fair. If Penguin has been caught, then all has been lost; but there are many members in a penguin’s huddler, you must be quick before the cities in rubble.” He just kept sputtering out… lots of words. I was starting to get a headache.

“He has a partner?”

“Thread, field, bird, fear; Standing proud, cowering alone, invading your mind, I look for my home.” My. God. Make. It. Stop.

“Scarecrow… fuck. Well, thanks Eddie, this has been enlightening, really. B, can we go?” He grunted and nodded, heading for the door. Just as he got the door open Edward started damn near screaming at us.

“I grew up from a seed, as tough as a weed. But in a mansion, in a slum, I'll never know where I come from. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about him. About Bruce Wayne. I’ll finish what we started, what we three started!” B pulled me out of the room harshly as guards pushed past us to remove Ed. I could remember the Riddler incident vividly, even though it had been two months ago. Halloween and the days that followed… What was with this city and ruining holidays?

“Don’t think about that last riddle too much. Now that we know Scarecrow is involved, we know the baseline of the turf war. It’s more likely that he’s operating out of his old lab. We can send GCPD over and clear him out.”

“You don’t want to go over and deal with it? I thought you would be all-for kicking Scarecrow’s ass.”

“Not tonight.” What else could he have going on? Maybe his real life, his own little piece of normal that I so desperately wanted to be a part of.

“Weird.” I didn’t have the energy to think too far into his motives, so I walked off. My head was still pounding. I was always prone to migraines, with little forewarning when they hit, and of course I had pills to combat them but there was no way I would have some on me in this suit. I just needed to get back to the apartment. Sluggishly, I tried to climb on my bike only to sway once I sat down.

“Hey,” he caught up with me and grabbed my arm to steady me, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“My head…” It hurt to keep my eyes open, the flood lights blinding me. I heard his movement, the rip of the zipper as he reached into a pocket somewhere on his pants. There was more movement, jostling behind me in what I could only guess was my bag on the back of my bike, and quickly two pills and a water bottle were being placed in my hands.

“Hey,” his voice was barely above a whisper, “Take these.” Suddenly it became infinitely darker, and I was finally able to look up. He had his back to the flood lights, his chest against my shoulder to steady me, blocking the light. Still sitting on the bike, I tossed back the pills quickly, desperate for the pain to stop. “C’mon, you’re riding with me. I already messaged Gordon to come get your bike. You’re not going home by yourself like this.”

“But I can-”

“It’s not worth the risk.” I couldn’t argue with him, not when the hurt had yet to go away, and my energy was waning. He was right anyways, on a bike at night when I could barely open my eyes? Even a vigilante wouldn’t stand a chance. With hands far gentler than one would anticipate from a 6”1 mass of terror, he pulled me from the bike and led me to his, sitting down first and then allowing me to slide on behind him. He passed me my helmet and while I was pushing my hood and mask down, he also pulled his helmet on over the cowl.

“Put your hands here.” He took my hand and placed it on abdomen above his waist and I wrapped my arms around him, leaning against his back in a slow, clearly exhausted motion, and tried my best to remain conscious until he began to drive off. The jostle of the road irritated my head, but if I closed my eyes and just leaned into him, it wasn’t that bad. Peaceful in fact. I wonder if this is what it’s like, to be normal. When your head isn’t filled with crime scene data, or potential uprisings, or concern for citywide safety. Is this what normal people do when they’re with someone they love? I was fine with not being normal, usually. It wasn’t a big deal if I never had a normal relationship, or got a pet, or had a steady job that didn’t involve taking pictures of gun, drugs, and dead bodies. But now, with my chest against his back, helmet side pressed against his shoulder blades, I couldn’t shake the horrible, sad truth that I desperately wanted a little piece of normal. And I wanted that to be him. I felt like an idiot but an honest one at least. I wanted to be normal with Batman, or whoever he really was. I wanted the closeness without the armor. I wanted to see him without armor- it’s not a necessity, just that I’d drop to my knees in seconds with zero dignity for this man. I closed my eyes, trying to muddle the idea with lesser, more trivial thoughts.

I wasn’t paying attention, and soon we were in the northern part of the city, the tall corporate buildings lighting the streets and the cars around us with neon. When I finally opened my eyes, he was tapping my leg, telling me to hold on tightly. He fucking drove us down a set of stairs, this madman. When he pulled to a stop, we were in an underground train station, filled with computers, tables covered in metal scraps, and in the back, what looked to be a car covered by a tarp.

“Where are we?” He helped me off the bike, the lights no longer bothering me so much I couldn’t open my eyes.

“This is my… place… don’t have a name for it yet.”

“Oh my god,” he looked over and I smiled so wide and stupidly. “You have a bat cave.” I put heavy emphasis on the word ‘bat’ and almost laughed if not for the tiny smile I saw from beneath the mask. It stunned me. At times like these, what I wouldn’t give to see what his full smile looked like, without the shadow of the batman cowl over it. Perhaps I was simple minded for thinking it so stunning, or perhaps he simply was so stunning. Either way, what bliss.

“C’mon, there’s a guest room upstairs you can use, you need rest.” Suddenly, like fog had dissipated, I started to have a clear line of thinking.

“Wait, B!” He paused by the elevator doors, turning to look at me with a sharp look of expectancy, “My meds, they’re prescription, special order. How did you have them?”

“I have my ways. When we first started working together, I may have… looked into you. Nothing too personal, but I needed to know if I could trust you, what to do if something happened to you. Found your medical records, got the prescription just in case.” He seemed almost guilty, but at the same time not. As if doing so had been a troubling necessity, and that in the end it was all for the best. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do the exact same, or at least I tried to. Mostly police reports involving him, news pieces, eyewitness statements. I wanted to know if his rage was reliable or… unstable.

“I tried to do the same… turns out that’s hard to do if you’ve never seen the other person.” I let out a nervous laugh, eager for the guilt-ridden tension to disperse. He huffed and when I looked up, there was a tiny grin again. Relief set in and I entered the elevator with him. It was a nice-looking elevator, stainless steel with dark mahogany wood trim. Expensive. Whoever B was, he or his close friends were rich. 27 floors later, we stepped out at a huge apartment, covered in ancient gothic architecture and floor to ceiling windows that looked over Gotham. Ok, so, B was rich rich.

“This way.” He began leading me down the right hallway, but something caught my eye. Mail, sitting on a stool by the elevator, addressed to none-other than Bruce Wayne.

“Holy shit.” I breathed in near disbelief. B was friends with Bruce.

“What- are you snooping here of all places?!” I could tell he wasn’t nearly as offended as he sounded.

“Sorry, not on purpose I swear. I just saw it and… Bruce Wayne? Are you his friend or business partner?”

“Neither. You know him?” He sounded… tense now, as if this was a gateway conversation to a much larger topic. I wouldn’t ask if he didn’t want me to, but maybe this was close to finding out who he really was.

“No… I mean, not really, I almost did a case on him 2 years ago, some embezzlement thing or whatever.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Turns out, not only is he clean, but he’s also a big softy. The money wasn’t being stolen, it was being donated, it just wasn’t being documented properly. Thousands of dollars, supplies, and aid, and a few typos almost launched a full-blown police investigation. He’s a good guy, an honest one.” Walking past him, I looked into the room to see the same gothic architecture, a large four post queen sized bed against the left wall and a beautiful Victorian vanity on the right. Dead ahead, floor to ceiling windows covered the back wall with large, heavy looking drapes hung at each end. “This is beautiful B.”

“Mm. Then it’s yours from now on. Whenever you need to be somewhere else, if something goes wrong, if you just don’t want to be alone… you can come here.” My head snapped towards him, and I nearly leapt in the air at how close he was. If I had stepped back my back would have been against his chest.

“B, are you sure? What about Bruce? Would he mind?” That grin came back, stronger than ever, and thank god it was dark because I felt my face go hot. His hand fit on my cheek, just above my jaw, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead.

“I think he would love you.”

[avatarskywalker78]

Another Motivation Monday - I know it’s been a few weeks since the last one, but life has gotten busy and plot bunnies have been multiplying, but I have time to do this one today!!!!!! Again it will be a mix of fic writers and fan artists!!!! First off, a shout out to @waistcoat35 and @wildenessat221b whose writing I’ve always enjoyed, especially their Good Omens fics, and who I look forward to reading more of once I finally get around to watching Ghosts. I also love @fezwearingjellybananas who writes some excellent DC fics including some great AUs of The Flash.

There is @littlecello who does some truly brilliant fanart of Endeavour and Life on Mars and I’m always so impressed because it’s amazing and yet another standard I’d love to get to. @talesfromthenorsesmouth does some great depictions of characters - I’ve always loved their Blake’s 7 fanart (even had one drawn for me a few years back), and I love what I’ve seen of their Riddler PI AU, which is already on my list of things to catch up on. @raineszramski also makes some good Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who fanart, and whose digital skills I’m really I’m really impressed by. @sonocomics creates some hilarious Mario, Zelda and Ace Attorney comics which always bring a smile to my face when I see them, and lastly @comickergirl, whose DC fan comics are fun to read (my favourite so far has been the Elseworlds one where Kara and Barry realise that Oliver would’ve been the one to take part in the musical episode in this reality and tease him about it).

[lfthinkerwrites]

Fanfic emoji ask:

💖 what made you start writing?

🥰 how do you feel about reader interaction?

💖 what made you start writing?

Honestly? To fill a void and out of pure spite. I'm a big fan of Nigma's PI arc in the comics, and when I started writing, I could count on one hand how many fics there were of him in that period. I had stories with him I wanted to read, so I had to write them.

The Riddler tag at the time was also inundated with Gotham, and nygmobblepot, nygmobblepot, nygmobblepot, neither of which I'm a fan of. So I started my own fics out of sheer spite, just so there'd be something different in the tags, lol.

🥰 how do you feel about reader interaction?

I love interacting with my readers. It's the highlight of my posting, seeing how folks will react to my latest offerings. I can't wait to see the comments and conversations I'll be having when I end The New Order, lmao.

[jellyfitzjelly]

In the wake of that recent reblog, what is a fic/art/whatever medium idea you want to explore but haven't?

oh bestie. OH BESTIE. I want to make a PI Riddler fan comic run. It would borrow a lot to the noir genre but also experiment heavily visually (the use of collage for exemple for some parts), with everything inspired by Art Déco aesthetics. I also want to make a Deathstroke fan comic run centered around his family. Alas.....no drawing skills.........

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Tagged by @gorogues, thank you!

Can you think of three images that are recurring elements in your writing? Are they symbolic of something? What do these images mean to you? Do you have any memories/connotations tied to them?

Hmm, I think this will wind up being less “images,” and more about common themes that pop up in my writing.  Because I don’t think I repeat specific images all that often.

1. Friendship.  A lot of my favorite characters are minor bad guys, not so much on the genocidal world-ending scale, more on the bank-robbing (and occasional murder) scale.  They also tend to be part of groups and teams, like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the Flash Rogues.  Basically, I like watching these characters interact and get along and be nice to each other.  That doesn’t mean that everything is peaches and cream, and that they never fight.  In fact, I imagine them fighting quite frequently.  But I like seeing these characters pal around, fight and make-up (and maybe come to understand each other better), and generally have each other’s backs, like a found family.  it’s a side we don’t see as often in the comics.  A couple of my favorite ships, namely Trickster (James Jesse)/Pied Piper and Pyro (St. John Allerdyce)/Avalanche are romances that grow out of friendships.  And it’s honestly not even about just wanting to see them bang (in fact, I haven’t written any explicit sex fic for either of those ships, although some day I might), it’s about wanting them to have this strong sense of closeness and love for each other.  Which of course, you could still have platonically, and I can enjoy “friendship fics” about my favorite ships just as well.  I think maybe I ship some of these pairings because I want them to be the most important thing in each other’s lives, without a different romantic partner gumming up the works.  Or maybe because that’s a kind of romance that I find ideal - this very close friendship easily transitioning into romantic love rather than “these two people are physically attracted to each other, and spend the next several seasons being stupid and angsty about it.”  I like the Ben Wyatt/Leslie Knope type romance - “I like you and I love you.”

2. Detailed back stories - A lot of my favorites are also fairly minor characters, and as such, aren’t always super-well developed (especially depending on who is writing them).  And I tend to put a lot of details into my stories, even when I don’t intend to.  I can’t just have Hartley find James in his apartment in the morning, I have to say what kind of cereal they are eating and what they are watching on TV.  I have so many useless head-canons about Blob and Toad playing Animal Crossing, and Pyro watching Australian soap operas and Avalanche trying to breed orchids in his spare time.  Do you want to know Pyro’s opinion on Vegemite?  Well, too bad, I’m gonna tell you anyway.  I also like making reference back to older stories in the comics (unless I completely disagree with the portrayal, in which  case I just blithely ignore canon.)  

3. Characters disagreeing without either being entirely wrong.  This is kind of a new thing, since I’ve been exchanging a lot of RP asks with @sebastianshaw, which is mostly my version of Pyro interacting with her version of Sebastian Shaw.  And they hate each other.  They clash in almost every little ficlet I write.  But Sebastian Shaw is not just a strawman for wrong opinions, he’s an interesting and complex character (especially the way @sebastianshaw writes him), who is ruthless and callous, but also intelligent and competent.  Shaw is cruelly observant, and his opinions about Pyro, although overly dismissive and condescending, are not entirely wrong.  Pyro can be needlessly argumentative and hostile (he generally finds something nasty to say to Shaw in every interaction), but he also often has a point.  I don’t know why I enjoy writing this.  Maybe because it often doesn’t sit right with me when one character gets portrayed as a complete unreasonable monster, even though we actually need a few unreasonable monsters to be good villains in the comics.  Or maybe because I tend to be non-confrontational and dislike arguing in real life.  So I get my cathartic release writing as a loud-mouthed, opinionated Australian pyrokinetic who disagrees with everything Shaw says.

Extra bonus theme: Dumb, goofy characters being more competent than portrayed, but still being dumb and goofy.  One of my pet peeves in comics is characters like Trickster (who is an engineering genius) and Pyro (canonically a former journalist and author) being portrayed as complete idiots.  I like to show them (and others like Blob and Toad, who also don’t get much respect) being intelligent and thoughtful.  But then I also like to show them being hilarious dumb-asses because it’s more fun that way.  Like I’d actually enjoy Marauders Pyro if he was given a few moments of intelligence and sophistication to go along with his stupid face tattoo and new penchant for biting people.  It’s a fine line!    

Extra extra bonus theme: Everyone is gay.  I think I head-cannon a lot of my favorite characters as some form of LGBT (or I’m open to imagining them that way, if I don’t directly head-canon it.)  There are a few faves that I still imagine as straight, but not that many.  Maybe because we still don’t get a huge amount of canon LGBT content, so it’s a matter of wanting what I can’t have?  Maybe I just want the widest possibility of ships?  Maybe I just want to imagine two guys banging - although again, I don’t actually write a lot of pure sex fic, and I do the same for female favorite characters.  And I do this even for characters that I don’t have specific favorite ships for, like the Riddler or Loki or Rachel Summers.

Tagging: @esteicy-blog, @sebastianshaw, @allwillbeone

IF and ONLY IF you want to.  Don’t feel obliged.

[lfthinker]

Enigma headcanons

So, the next part of my PI series is going to feature Ed and Enigma together and since she’ll be a pretty important character overall, I thought now was as good a time as ever to share some headcanons I have about her.

-Like her Dad, Enigma HATES school. She’s smart, but only an average student. History is her least favorite subject.

-Her favorite subject and her greatest passion, other than tormenting her father, is art. She’s never without her sketchbook or a camera to take pictures so she can sketch later. She draws caricatures of people she meets for fun.

-Enigma’s fashion sense is...a bit eccentric. She wears a lot of her mother’s hand me down clothes from the 80′s and 90′s. Her favorite color is turquoise, though she wears plenty of green as well. Her favorite article of clothing is an old frock coat of her mother’s.

-Enigma was very close to her mother before she died. She’s very protective of her mother’s memory as a result.

-Because of the relatively small age gap between them and the fact that he only recently came into her life, Enigma does not see Ed as any kind of authority figure. At all. He’s more like a weird uncle or older brother figure to her. For now.

-She takes after her Dad a lot in terms of personality. He describes her as being essentially a mini him, only without his impulse control. He’s not far off.

-The key difference between them though is that Enigma has a much more developed sense of empathy than her father. She will act when it’s the right thing to do, regardless of the risk to herself. In a way, she is more emotionally developed than he is.

-Enigma doesn’t like boys, in any sense of the term. She has a huge crush on Batgirl. Since the Batgirl in my ficverse is Stephanie Brown, Eddie will have at least three heart attacks when he finds that out.

That’s it for now.

[canadian-riddler]

Okay very weird ask but : do you think that thr riddler is capable of real love and romance at this point ? And if so how would this dating happen ? I just recently started to come around to comic books and found out about the 2 "romances" riddler had - I mean the Batgirl thing before the catwoman/batman wedding and the thing from jokers asylum and wanted the input of a fan with more knowledge ? Like all the fanfics with him are so weird like either riddling and swooning or I kidnap you muharhar

It’s not a weird ask, it’s a question that comes up if you think about the Riddler long enough.

There are actually two more women Riddler ends up accosting (there MIGHT be a third one but I can’t remember): one in a comic called Secret Six, where he decides he’s going to marry a woman he doesn’t know, and there is a woman during the PI Riddler portion of Gotham City Sirens where he saves her life, takes her to a fancy restaurant, and then it’s implied they banged in his office and she’s never mentioned again.

So from all of the times we see Riddler interacting with women in comics, do I think Riddler is capable of real love?  No.  There is one thing Riddler is never shown to do in all of canon, and that is to genuinely care about another person’s welfare.  He never does that.  All of the women he accosts he does so because he thinks he deserves them, for whatever reason.  He does not have the ability to genuinely care about anyone. 

Is he capable of romance?  He knows what romance INVOLVES, but when considering this you have to remember that what Riddler REALLY loves is the game.  He loves the mystery, the chase, the puzzle.  If a woman LET him romance her, I have no doubt he would lose interest very quickly.  Because he’s not interested in HAVING her at all.  He’s interested in the PROCESS of having her.  Once he has her, he wins.  He doesn’t need her after that.  He could romance someone, extremely elaborately in fact, but once they’d made it clear he’d figured them out, so to speak, that would be the end of it.

Riddler would not date anyone unless he was trying to get something out of them.  And once he got it, he would exit the relationship. 

The thing with fanfic, especially in the rogues fandom, is that people like to believe the supervillains are nicer and more influenced by trauma than canon states.  So you’ll see fanfics where Riddler does things that don’t actually make any sense whatsoever, but people feel bad when their fav actually does bad things so they tend to get sanitised a lot.  Especially for shipping fics; nobody wants to read about their OTP abusing each other constantly even if that’s totally what would happen.  They want to read about them doing nice things and it doesn’t really matter if they’re in-character or not.  You can’t do anything about that other than write it yourself and hope people don’t give you shit for it. 

If you were actually going to have an accurate fanfic about how Riddler treated a potential S/O, there would be stalking and harassment and it would be a general nightmare to get rid of him.  He wouldn’t go so far as to kill the person for refusing, but he would become increasingly more obsessed with solving the riddle of why they’re refusing him and make their life progressively more difficult until somebody managed to stop him.  And even then it might not actually end.

[talesfromthenorsesmouth]

N O R S E ! :D

ha ha shit i forgot the ask thing was coded by letters and thought this was some Viking threat; that they’d finally caught up to me and this was how it ended

but it’s not! hurrah! here we go! mainly sticking with Batman for these (I say Batman, it’s mainly Riddler, I mean what else?)

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

honestly, I don’t know- I’m coming back to Batman fandom after a gap, and I kind of have no idea what’s going on, or what is common or not, so everything I see, I just sort of appreciate, it’s just nice to be here, waving at all the stuff I see go past

No wait I have one thing, there is like NO Telltale Riddler fic and I want it, I want more about him and Catwoman because it’s suggested he was her mentor or something and the game never explored that and now they never will; I am Let Down by the absence

also Telltale how dare you kill him off so quick? The level of disrespect here, I tell you

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

o boy- is The Riddle too obvious for the Riddler? yes it is let’s think of something else... ok sorry this is a lot of Bowie, but Conversation Piece is definitely baby Edward; also Marc Almond’s Bedsitter Images for a similar time period in his life pre-Riddler (’and so you see I can’t go back, until I either win or crack’ is such an Edward line); and Fame for Eddie in his peak-Riddler years (bonus here’s the live performance on the Cher Show which i also love for the sheer slightly unhinged intensity of it)

Look I have a lot of these but I will stop there- except honorary mention to the Beautiful South’s Bed of Nails for a song about friendship and coming back to someone after many years, there’s a very ‘here you are again, then’ about it and so it fits nicely with how I think about Edward and Vicki Vale for my dumb comic I am trying to write

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

The more I see of Riddler, Scarecrow and Mad Hatter hanging out, the more I want it, they are tiny babies who should be protected at all costs, possibly from themselves, I don’t know who first started the Dork Squad but they’re doing the Lord’s work

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

Query and Echo retired from crime, moved to Florida, got married and started a  gym/boxing studio (do we call them studios? you know what I mean) specialising in self-defence classes and casual gun-running

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

I feel I mainly add crack to any fandom (hilarious is a matter of opinion), because I can’t work any other way; probably the biggest addition is my first real comic attempt for the  MCU fandom, from (god) 9 years ago, about the adventures of Loki and Dr. Selvig, based solely on the after-credits scene from the first Thor movie because I thought it would be cool if they were friends. I managed to write the whole thing before the Avengers came out, and do you know? I wasn’t right about a single thing, something which I remain inordinately proud of

Otherwise, I do/did aggressively stupid comics for Batman, some of which were positively cracky, and my favourite of which was this showing i have been interested in Riddler PI since 2009 and 11 years later may actually get round to doing something about it.

(NB that link will take you to my deviantart, which is... well it’s a place, I’ll say that for it. most things on there are very old, and I like to think I’ve got better since.)