#post-3x18

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Blood rushed loud and fast through Ed’s ears, yet he felt clammy, cold, like he was standing in a refrigerator. Not that this place was well insulated. Not that this place had much of anything to recommend it. But the cold hadn’t bothered him until the disconnect between the deafening roar in his ears and his complete inability to feel anything other than... cold.

“How are you alive?”

A sneer flickered into Oswald’s expression. But his eyes didn’t change. They looked... like Ed had never seen, lit and yet hollow. They bored into him relentlessly. His mouth creaked open to speak. “You’re a lousy shot.” His voice cracked, as if he hadn’t spoken in a month.

“I pushed you in,” Ed countered, reliving the moment, reliving the blood, the shock, the silky touch of Oswald’s clothes before he let go, “to make sure.”

A strange crackling sound came from Oswald’s throat. It might have been a laugh. It was hard to make out any sounds over his pulse.

“Well then, you didn’t try very hard,” Oswald’s voice was gaining strength, “I warned you. I told you, killing me would be like killing no one else.” He raised his hand to gesticulate.

“Because everyone else stays dead!” He must be shouting, his head was ringing. But it was so hard to hear.

“Next time, do the job right!” Oswald hissed, wringing his hands around the bars until his knuckles turned white. “You wanted to kill me, you should have done it properly!”

He stared straight back into the emptiness of Oswald’s eyes. “Yes. I should have.”

Oswald’s teeth ground to a stop. There was no sound again. His eyes… his monstrous eyes wouldn’t change. The blackness in them was ravenous, sucking Ed in. He could not escape. He’d be drawn into the wells of Oswald’s eyes and drowned there.

Neither of them said anything. Distantly, the blood in Ed’s head brought forth the lapping of waves. The water had accepted Oswald whole, splashing up to take Ed too if he chose to join. For the faintest of seconds, he remembered wanting to follow Oswald into the water.

“Why couldn’t I kill you?” he muttered, half-unaware he was talking again.

The sudden, ragged sound of Oswald’s breath brought him up sharp. He saw, now, that Oswald’s face was creased by pain and his arm, outstretched again, was swinging ineffectually between their cells.

That was not an answer. But as he looked at Oswald, pressing tenaciously between the bars, he saw that Oswald had no answers. Anger boiled in him again, rising to the surface. He could feel it in the grit of his teeth and the heat of his breath.

Oswald’s arm hung there, uselessly, between them, perpetually reaching out. It was not for lack of trying that Oswald had no answers for him.

Ed turned on his heel, looking at anything other than Oswald for the first time since he arrived. Behind him, he heard thrashing, scrambling, and weak, whining whimpers as Oswald’s hunger tore at him. Ed did not reply. He folded his arms across his chest, brought a hand to his lips, thinking.

Oswald was still alive because he had failed to kill him. Whatever else happened, whatever machinations brought him here, he was only enabled to come because he was alive. Because Ed had failed.

You need me, Edward Nygma. Just as I need you.

There is no Ed Nygma without the Penguin.

“The Riddler.”

Ed dropped his arms. His shoulders straightened. Slowly, he turned back over his shoulder to look at Oswald.

“That’s what you call yourself now, isn’t it?” Oswald’s hands were white-knuckled around the bars again. He tilted his head back slightly, trying to use the low light to get a good read of his face. Ed took a half-step closer, turning fully toward him.

“It’s… who I am now,” Ed muttered.

“…it’s a terrible name,” Oswald sniffed.

Ed started to smile. “So was the Penguin.”

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You’re welcome! Of course Fitz lives and breathes kissing that girl like there’s no tomorrow and apparently he’s pretty darn good at it but I thought there was no harm in her wanting to help out :P