The Question moved silently through Gotham's streets as she contemplated the nature of riddles.
The trick with riddles is their ability to challenge one's expectations for both form and substance.
What runs but never walks; has a bed but never sleeps?
It works because it confuses the mind, forces someone to consider words in different ways than they expected; forced to consider the nature of things to which they had barely paid a second glance; listen to the same songs but hear them differently; look at the familiar as if it was foreign.
To most, Gotham was a riddle.
Superficially, a tourist might become disoriented visiting years apart - the buildings are forced to change their faces after each bombing or supernatural fight, the companies change their identities from scandal to scandal, the heroes and villains alike don masks and variations of those masks over and over pretending they can escape the endings written for them by someone else's pen. And yet, seeing beyond the facade, the substructures never changed. This was the secret to the riddle of Gotham - you have to look beneath the surface. Abandon your expectations at the outskirts. It had been years since she walked this city, but it could never change enough to fool her.
It was how she knew Bruce Wayne was Batman before he ever told her; how she could identify Kate and Batwoman through touch alone; the same reason she herself wore no face but those who knew her wouldn't need to see it to know who she was -
If you knew the substance of a thing, it didn't matter the form it took. Even its absence was a shape. Seeing what was not there took skill; seeing what was there but disguised took just as much. This is why her feet were leading her to the last known location tied to Riddler's last survivor - an apartment in the Narrows where the neighbors had no eyes, no hears, and no mouths; at least, not to outsiders.
If a tree falls in the middle of a forest, but no one hears it, did it make a sound? If a woman is murdered in the middle of a city, but no one cares enough to ask why she is screaming, did her life matter at all?
Renee walked inside the building, a single lightbulb the only source of illumination in the foyer; given the dinginess and grime, Renee thinks she would have preferred total darkness. Slowly, silently, she walks up the stairs to the second floor and begins moving down the hall to the apartment that sits at the furthest end of the corridor. Everything is loud around her as she passes the other dwellings; some people are fucking, some are fighting, one is listening to TV so loudly she wonders if they are actually doing something else and do want to be heard. But the apartment at the end of the hallway? The one with the Riddler's last survivor?
Renee has her energy pistol drawn at her side as she lifts her fist to knock - only for the door to creak open at her touch.
Someone had gotten here before she had. Her pulse quickens but her hands are steady as she nudges the door the rest of the way open with her foot.
The Scarecrow pauses just long enough to hear the door open. He is busy, this test subject of his clawing at his wrists like that will save it from the end that is approaching. He is crouched in front of it, so that the two of them are at eye level, so that he may see every passing thought that dares to slide into its brain.
His hold on its mouth tightens minutely as his attention is drawn elsewhere. Tears are spilling across his hands, even though he has yet to inject any toxins.
There are a handful of paths here, ones that lead to death. To escape. To violence. There are a handful of methods that could be used, in order to deal with and discard of the problem. But the Question is early. It has messed with many of those potential plans.
His head turns as he finally, slowly stands, dragging the test subject to its feet along with him. The scythe that had been resting harmlessly on the Scarecrow's shoulder moves, now. It is no longer a staff or a cane or a prop, but the weapon that he has made it into, held firmly by his side.
"There is a child present."
