#riddler gotham

The smell of rust filled your lungs as you ran; every breath tore at your throat, and shards of broken glass cracked beneath your shoes, echoing through the cursed hallway. Because this wasn’t just an abandoned asylum. As Edward had told you over and over again, years ago this floor had been designed specifically for the “dangerous” schizophrenic patients, and its architecture had been built deliberately like a maze. Corridors that looked identical to one another. Rooms carrying the same numbers. Passageways that brought you back to the very place you started from when you thought you’d found a dead end. Crooked lighting systems installed in the ceilings to distort a person’s sense of direction… It had all been designed not only to trap the body, but the mind itself.

Most of the walls were covered in moss. Layers of old green paint peeled away in strips, damp wallpaper bulged outward like diseased skin, and above some of the doors, patient names could still barely be read beneath the rust. The building felt less like it had been abandoned for years and more like it had been silently breathing, waiting, watching you.

You didn’t dare look behind you because you had no idea how closely Edward was following you. That was exactly what was wrong with him—he never approached you like a normal person. Every interaction you’d ever had with him in Arkham had become twisted inside his head. Your kindness toward him, the way you listened to his ramblings, solved his riddles, stayed beside him a few minutes longer so he wouldn’t feel alone… he had mistaken all of it for love. And when he saw you with Bruce, the fragile world inside his mind had cracked completely. In his head, you had already belonged to him.

That was why he had kidnapped you. Why he had dragged you all the way to this rotting building outside Gotham and locked you inside the very floor where patients had once gone insane and slaughtered each other. Edward knew every path here. He had described it to you before with that disturbing gleam in his eyes, like it was all some kind of game.

“If you choose the wrong door,” he’d said, smiling, “you end up right back where you started… just like liars do.”

Your trembling hands shoved against the heavy iron door, and when you stumbled inside, the room greeted you with the silence of a tomb.

There were two rusted hospital beds inside. One had been overturned; the other still wore a filthy white sheet stained with rotting brown marks. Half of the ceiling lamp was shattered, and the wind slipping through the open window stirred the sheet ever so slightly, making it seem as though someone in the room was breathing.

The mirror above the sink was completely cracked. When you looked at your reflection, you could barely recognize your own face.

You collapsed into the corner, clamping both hands over your mouth as your heart pounded so violently you were terrified Edward would find you from the sound alone.

The silence here wasn’t normal silence. Even when the building was quiet, it whispered. Metal scraped somewhere far away. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling. Sometimes the wind rushed down the corridor and echoed like a muffled moan. And then you heard him.

Not his footsteps.

His voice.

From somewhere deep within the corridor, his calm voice rose almost playfully:

“It’s not nice to tell lies,

It’s not nice to tell lies…

You’ll be called a liar,

You’ll be called a liar…

Don’t make it a habit,

Don’t make it a habit…

Or you’ll repent…

You’ll repent.”

The final word stretched through the hallways as an echo, and your eyes slammed shut instantly because Edward did this on purpose. This was his favorite way to terrify you. Before physically catching you, he wanted to break your mind apart first.

You covered your ears and buried your face against your knees, your breathing turning ragged as your shoulders trembled uncontrollably.

“Stop… make him stop…” you whispered to yourself. Because hearing his voice dragged you right back to Arkham—to the way he used to stare at you with that strange admiration burning behind his eyes.

Edward had never been the type to scream. That was what made him worse.

Even when he spoke softly, it felt as though he were peeling your skin away and looking directly into your mind.

A door slammed somewhere in the corridor.

Then another.

Then another.

As though he were randomly entering rooms one by one. But you knew that was a lie because Edward never did anything randomly. This was part of the game too. He wanted you panicked. Wanted you unable to guess where he’d come from next.

Your fingers tangled into your hair as you squeezed your eyes shut tighter—and then you noticed the darkness beneath the door shifting.

Someone was standing outside.

Your breath stopped completely. You tried not to make a sound, but when terror takes hold of the body, even your own heartbeat becomes impossible to silence. The stillness beyond the door stretched on and on.

Then Edward spoke from the other side, his voice almost amused. “You know… most of the patients on this floor thought they’d found the exit, only to end up back in the same corridor.”

Your eyes burned with tears, but you fought not to cry because you knew he loved this. He loved seeing you powerless. Loved seeing what fear did to you.

“And do you know the most tragic part?” he continued softly. “Some of them never realized they were lost at all.”

His footsteps slowly began to retreat, and for a few seconds you desperately wanted to believe he had finally gone. But just as you dared to breathe again, a sudden theatrical shout exploded from somewhere deep in the corridor:

“TA-DA!”

Then his laughter spread through the darkness. Not from outside the door. Not from down the hall.

From somewhere impossibly close.

As if it had come from inside the room itself.

He sounded so confident, so exhilarated, that you screamed in terror, convinced he had found you. But he hadn’t.

It had been a bluff—a trap meant to force you into revealing yourself. And in the end, it worked, didn’t it?

His voice remained unnervingly calm, and that was the worst part of all. Beneath that calmness, there was something festering—resentment, obsession, fury—all waiting for the perfect moment to sink its claws into you.

“Ah… so this is where you are, little piggy,” he laughed softly. “Don’t make Daddy work so hard. There’s nowhere you can hide.”

You cried in sheer horror, your eyes locked on the door as if staring at it hard enough could stop it from opening. If he truly found you, you’d shove him aside and run. You’d run with everything you had.

Trembling violently, you pushed yourself upright, gripping the edge of the filthy bed stained with old blood, urine, and rot. Sweat rolled down your forehead and mixed with the tears streaming along your cheeks. Damp strands of hair clung to your face until you shakily brushed them aside, widening your blurred field of vision.

A low growl came from beyond the door.

“There you are, piggy…”

That word again. The name he used whenever he wanted to humiliate you.

The second the door burst open, you bolted toward the opposite corner of the room. You had no space to escape where you’d been hiding before. And now he stood directly in front of you.

You broke into hysterical sobs.

“WHY?! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?!”

He didn’t even seem to hear you.

When you looked into his brown eyes, all you saw were cruel plans soaked in sadism.

The moment he stepped close enough, you lunged at him without warning, shoving him back with all your strength before trying to run.

You made it out of the room.

You were already sprinting down the massive corridor when the Riddler suddenly roared behind you—

“TOO EASY, Y/N! WAY TOO EASY!”

Just as you had finally begun to pick up speed, a brutal force yanked at the back of your neck.

Pain exploded through your skull in an instant as Edward twisted his fist into your hair and jerked you backward so violently that your entire body lost balance. Your head snapped back involuntarily before your spine and knees slammed against the floor with a deafening crash.

Broken tiles, rusted metal fragments, and scattered rubble dug into your skin as a muffled cry tore from your throat, the impact knocking the breath straight out of you.

The hospital floor was freezing cold. Dampness seeped through the thin fabric of your clothes and into your skin while your palms scraped against the ground, leaving raw cuts behind. But Edward didn’t care about any of it.

He still hadn’t let go of your hair. His fingers were tangled so tightly at the roots that it felt as though he were trying to prove he could control your entire body just by holding you there. And that was exactly the point.

More than hurting you, he wanted you to feel his control over you.

“Stop running…” he whispered through clenched teeth. His voice wasn’t loud, but somehow that only made it worse. Every moment he tried to suppress his anger made him more frightening.

As he dragged you back to your feet, he pulled upward by your hair, forcing your neck taut until a trembling breath slipped painfully past your lips.

Your eyes brimmed with tears as you begged him.

“Please… Edward, don’t…” But every time you tried to pull away, his grip only tightened.

Your bodies kept colliding as he forced you down the dark corridor. One of his hands remained locked in your hair while the other wrapped around your throat, his thumb pressing beneath your jaw as he yanked you toward him, controlling the direction you moved.

The struggle between you was so close, so suffocatingly physical, that you could feel his breath against your face. Edward’s uneven breathing brushed near your ear one second, struck the side of your neck the next. And somehow, instead of only terrifying you, that closeness carried a strange, unbearable tension beneath the fear. Because Edward wasn’t touching you with anger alone.

You could feel his obsession bleeding into every movement.

The pressure of his fingers against your throat mixed with the burning pain in your scalp until your body, even while desperately trying to escape him, was forced to remain constantly aware of his physical presence.

Stumbling through the corridor, your shoulder smashed against the wall, the rusted surface scraping painfully across your arm—but Edward immediately dragged you back toward him, so close you nearly collided with his chest.

Behind his glasses, his expression looked completely unraveled now. Jealousy, rage, and that sick, obsessive desire he felt toward you had blurred together into something unstable.

“Were you this scared when you kissed him?” he asked quietly. And as he said it, his grip around your throat tightened just a little more.

Your heartbeat staggered unevenly inside your chest because there was a suffocating line between Edward wanting to hurt you and Edward wanting to be this close to you. And what terrified you most wasn’t just how strong he was.

It was the way he seemed to enjoy touching you.

By the time Edward dragged you to the end of the corridor, you were barely walking anymore—more stumbling than moving. Your bare feet splashed into freezing water, the sharp edges of cracked tiles slicing against your soles with every step while filthy water surged up around your ankles.

The dark, stagnant water flooding the hallway reflected the broken wires hanging from the ceiling and the sickly green light above, making the hospital look less like a building and more like the inside of a rotting nightmare.

The hem of your thin dress was completely ruined now, soaked to your knees and stained with rust and grime. Your damp hair clung heavily to your back; every time Edward jerked you forward, dark strands spilled across your face and stuck to your lips .You were out of breath.

Exhausted from trying to escape, yet too terrified to stop because the anger in Edward’s grip kept growing stronger.

When he suddenly yanked you toward him, your chest slammed hard against his. You stumbled, and immediately his hand wrapped around your throat again. His fingers were cold. But his grip burned.

It was painfully obvious that he enjoyed controlling you, and that realization twisted something else into your fear—something tense and unbearable. Behind his glasses, his gaze had darkened completely now. The way he looked at you felt conflicted, as though he wanted to destroy you and claim you at the exact same time.

“What are you going to do to me…?” you finally whispered.

Your voice trembled. You couldn’t even tell anymore whether it was from fear, lack of oxygen, or simply from having him this close to you.

Edward didn’t answer right away. He just stared at you. His head tilted slightly to the side, almost like he had been waiting for you to ask. Then a small, unstable smile slowly formed at the corner of his mouth.

“First,” he said quietly, sliding his thumb along your throat, “I’m going to punish you.”

Your heart tightened painfully in your chest.

“Because that man ruined you.”

“Before Bruce Wayne…” he murmured, stepping closer. His breath brushed against your face, and instinctively you tried to lean away—but your back had already hit the wall. “…you were so much more innocent.”

“Edward—”

“No.”

His voice sharpened instantly.

“No. You’re going to listen to me.”

One of his hands pressed against the wall beside your head, completely trapping you in place. The damp surface stuck coldly against your back, the thin fabric clinging to your skin.

Edward stood so close that you could feel the movement of his chest every time he breathed. And when his eyes dropped to your lips, your stomach twisted violently because for a few terrible seconds, you truly thought he was about to kiss you. His face moved closer and closer until the tip of his nose almost brushed yours.

Your lips parted involuntarily.

Fear and tension locked your entire body in place. But he didn’t kiss you.

He only smiled while looking at you. And somehow, that was worse.

“You know I wasn’t lying…” you said desperately. “I cared about you. I really did. But I… I was never in love with you.”

The second the words left your mouth, something in Edward’s expression changed.

Instantly.

Completely.

As though something he’d been holding inside himself had finally snapped.

When his hand suddenly tangled harshly into your hair again, pain stole the breath from your lungs. He forced your head back and slammed you harder against the wall. Behind his glasses, his eyes looked wild now—unsteady, almost insane. “Shut up,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

The hand around your throat slowly slid upward until it gripped your jaw instead. He stared at you so intensely that even trying to look away felt impossible.

Like he didn’t just want to see you.

Like he wanted to crawl inside your mind.

“You played games with me,” he said, his voice dropping lower and lower. “You smiled at me. You talked to me. You solved my riddles. You made me feel special.”

“I was just—”

“JUST WHAT?!”

His voice echoed violently through the corridor, rippling across the water.

Your breathing quickened.

When Edward leaned closer again, his lips lowered near your ear, his voice now barely above a whisper. “I still love you,” he murmured. “That’s the most tragic part.”

You shivered when his fingers brushed against your throat again because his touch was rough, yet disturbingly careful at the same time—like someone who didn’t want to hurt you, but wanted to make you completely his.

“I’m going to fix you,” he whispered slowly. “Whatever that man took from you, I’m going to take it back.” Then he buried his face into your hair. His fingers slid through the damp strands as he inhaled deeply. “And in the end…” he said, his voice muffled against you, “...I’m going to make you mine.”

When Edward dragged you into the room, you immediately felt that even the air inside was different from the rest of the hospital.

This didn’t look like an abandoned patient room. It looked like a torture chamber where people’s screams had soaked into the walls for years.

The massive surgical lamp hanging from the ceiling still worked, but the light flickered every few seconds, illuminating the room in broken flashes. Metal pipes stretched overhead, and a deep mechanical hum vibrated through the walls, filling the entire room with a suffocating resonance.

In the center stood an old electroshock table covered in cracked leather restraints. Dark brown stains had seeped permanently into the material over the years, and beside it sat a rusted machine with loose wires still hanging from its side.

That was the moment you understood. Truly understood. Edward wasn’t just trying to scare you. He hadn’t only meant to punish you. He was actually going to do this. And the instant that realization hit, every piece of control inside your body shattered.

“No… no, no, no…” you began gasping breathlessly as you staggered backward. The moment you saw the table, panic swallowed everything else. Your bare feet slipped across the freezing floor, wet strands of hair sticking to your face while your filthy clothes clung heavily to your skin.

All you could think about was reaching the door. But Edward was faster.

The second his hand locked around your arm, your entire body seized with terror. You shoved at him, clawed at him, truly struggling now—wildly, uncontrollably.

Your breathing had turned ragged. “Edward, please— no, you can’t do this—”

“I can,” he answered calmly. And that calmness terrified you even more because there was no rage in his expression anymore. Only horrifying certainty. “Because I’m trying to help you.”

When he dragged you toward him again, your palms slammed against his chest, but you couldn’t stop him. He pulled you toward the table while your legs scraped across the floor, striking against the metal supports beneath it. That was when the panic completely consumed you.

Fear shredded your thoughts apart.

“Let me go!” you screamed, your voice cracking violently. “Edward, please!” But he only stared at your face, almost as though watching you like this convinced him he was right.

“I don’t understand why you’re so afraid,” he said while forcing you down onto the table. “Bruce Wayne approved of this too. And he’s not even a doctor.”

For a split second, your movements froze.

Edward noticed. And smiled. “Don’t lie to yourself,” he murmured, tilting his head slightly. “I know who really has influence over the Arkham board. I know how he manipulates the doctors.”

“You’re wrong…” you whispered, but the strength in your voice had already collapsed.

Edward shoved you firmly onto the table, and the second the surface touched your back, your entire body shuddered from the freezing cold.

You kept struggling, but Edward had clearly been waiting for panic to weaken you. First he pinned your wrists, then threaded the old leather restraints through the rusted buckles, tightening them securely around you.

Every pull of leather against your skin made your breathing faster. Every metallic click echoed through the room. And when your ankles were restrained too, you finally understood that you were truly trapped.

The surgical light burned directly into your face, making your eyes ache. Your hair spilled over the edge of the table, damp strands sticking to your throat. “I hate you…” you whispered eventually, tears filling your eyes. “I hate you, Edward…” And that was the moment the atmosphere in the room changed.

Edward stared at you silently for several seconds. Then slowly stepped back. At first you thought he was going to lose his temper. Scream at you. Maybe turn the machine on immediately. But he didn’t.Instead, he slowly lowered himself to his knees. The movement was so unexpected it stole the air from your lungs.When he lowered his head and gently took your bare foot into his hands, your whole body tensed because his touch wasn’t rough anymore.

It was disturbingly careful.

His thumb slowly brushed away the dirty water marks from your skin, tracing the tiny cuts along the sole of your foot while he looked at you like you were something fragile enough to break. And that look was terrifying. Because there was as much reverence in it as violence.

“Look what they did to you…” he murmured hoarsely.

The moment his lips touched the top of your foot, your body jerked involuntarily. There was nothing romantic about it. Nothing safe. If anything, it terrified you even more because Edward’s love wasn’t normal love. It was obsessive. Suffocating.

The kind that strips away your humanity.

His eyes closed as he kissed your filthy foot, almost as though he were touching something sacred. Then his lips slowly moved upward toward your knee while his hands stroked your leg, his warm breaths brushing against your skin.

“You have no idea what I’d do for you,” he whispered. “If I had to… I’d kill everyone.”

When he lifted his head to look at you again, there was something genuinely insane burning behind his eyes now. “Bruce Wayne doesn’t deserve you.” His fingers drifted slowly across your knee. “He ruined you. He scared you. He changed you.”

Then he rested his head lightly against the edge of the table, his hands still wrapped around your leg. “But me…” he whispered shakily, “...I love you exactly as you are.”

The restraints were digging painfully into your wrists. Every time you tried to move, the leather tightened harder against your skin. Meanwhile, Edward’s touch only became slower. Gentler.And that contradiction made the room feel even more suffocating because the man restraining you to an electroshock table was looking at you as though he worshipped you. And somehow—that was more terrifying than the machine itself.

Lying restrained on the table, you could feel even his breathing beginning to change because the fragile admiration in Edward’s eyes was slowly turning into something else.

At first, you could still see the part of him that loved you—the part that trembled whenever he touched you. But within seconds, that expression would fracture apart, replaced by something cold, calculating, almost emotionless.The shift was so sharp it felt as though two completely different people were living inside the same body .One moment, his fingers traced the tiny cuts on your legs as though they genuinely upset him. The next, every trace of warmth vanished from his face, and he looked at you like nothing more than a problem waiting to be solved. So when he finally spoke again, you noticed the difference in his voice immediately.

Calmer.

More controlled.

More dangerous.

And the moment you realized that, you forced yourself to think through the fear again because Edward’s greatest weakness had always been himself.

His need to be seen. To be understood. The way he confused love with intellectual intimacy.

So you looked at him, trying to steady your breathing, suppressing the panic in your eyes while softening your voice. “Edward…” you whispered slowly as the restraints bit into your wrists. “You’re scaring me, but… I’m trying to understand you.”

Silence filled the room. Edward looked at you. For a long time. Too long. And then he smiled. But it wasn’t the same smile as before. This time, there was no warmth in it. It was the smile of someone who realized you were trying to pry him open and look inside.

“You’re trying to manipulate me,” he said calmly.

Your heart lurched violently, though you tried not to let it show.

Edward slowly rose to his feet. The flickering surgical light split his face in half—one side hidden in shadow while the lens of his glasses reflected the pale glow.

He barely looked human anymore. More like the walking remains of a shattered mind. “This is my favorite part,” he said as he began pacing around the room. “The part where people try to use their intelligence after fear sets in. Because this…” He smiled faintly. “This is where you always make mistakes.” His fingers dragged slowly across the electroshock machine, and the metallic scrape tightened your throat.

You watched him carefully, trying to understand which version of Edward stood in front of you now. The one who knelt before you? The one who kissed your feet? Or this man studying you like a living experiment? Maybe they had always been the same person.

“I’m going to ask you a riddle,” he said at last, turning toward you. “It has two answers. Technically, both are correct.” The corner of his mouth curved upward slightly. “But only the answer I’m thinking of will set you free.”

You closed your eyes for a brief second because you knew him. You had spent countless hours in Arkham watching the way Edward thought. The way he chose answers. The way his ego mattered more to him than logic itself.

Even his truths were emotional. Edward leaned closer. “When does a person stop being themselves?” he asked softly.

The room fell silent. Only the hum above you remained. This was exactly the kind of riddle Edward loved. “Your mind” could have been the answer. “Your heart,” too.

But Edward had never been ruled by logic alone. He saw himself as the tragic hero of some doomed love story. And you were his psychiatrist. You knew which answer he wanted.

You lifted your eyes to him. “When they lose the person they love,” you whispered.

For a split second, the expression on Edward’s face froze. And that was how you knew you had chosen correctly.

But then—something changed. His eyes darkened. And he smiled. “Wrong answer.”

Your breath stopped. “No,” you said immediately. “No, that’s the one you’d choose. I know you, Edward.”

“Then you don’t know me well enough.”

“You’re lying.” Your voice came out sharper this time. “You’re doing this on purpose.”

Edward stared at you silently for several seconds. Then suddenly moved. The instant his hand tangled violently into your hair, pain tore the breath from your lungs. He yanked your head backward by the roots, exposing your throat completely while forcing your spine harder against the table. Your body arched involuntarily. The restraints burned against your wrists as they strained tighter. And Edward just watched you. Hungrily. Almost reverently. Like he could no longer tell the difference between hurting you and touching you.

“Why are you doing this…” you whispered, your voice trembling now.

Edward didn’t answer. His gaze wandered slowly along your throat, watching the frantic pulse beating beneath your skin, studying the way fear moved through your body.

Then he leaned closer. Closer. Until his breath began brushing against your lips.

Instinctively, you tried to pull away. But you were restrained. You couldn’t escape.

For one second, you thought he was going to kiss you. Then he actually did. The moment his lips crashed against yours, it wasn’t gentle. It was meant to silence you.

Hard.

Hungry.

Out of control.

The hand tangled in your hair still hurt, forcing your head back painfully while your jaw trembled beneath the pressure. Fear surged through your body like electricity as his mouth pressed harder against yours, stealing the air from your lungs. It didn’t even feel like Edward was kissing you. It felt like he was trying to claim you. Like he wanted to stop you from speaking, thinking, resisting him entirely.

When the kiss finally broke, your lips hurt. Edward rested his forehead against yours, his breathing ragged now. “I hate that you can figure me out…” he whispered hoarsely. “And somehow I still can’t stop thinking about you.”

Then suddenly he pulled away. And his expression changed again.

Empty.

Emotionless.

When he walked back toward the machine, the sound of the metal switches echoed through the room. Your breathing quickened as Edward picked up the wires, an almost peaceful look settling across his face. “This is going to hurt a little,” he said calmly. “But afterward, you’ll feel better.” As his finger hovered over the switch, he looked at you one last time. “And in the end…” he murmured, broken admiration flickering in his eyes, “...you’ll finally be cured.”

Before lowering his hand onto the switch, Edward watched you for several long seconds. The flickering surgical light overhead spilled across his face, pale reflections glinting against the lenses of his glasses.

In that moment, everything in the room felt horrifyingly vivid.

The smell of rust mixed with the scorched-metal scent of old wires. The groaning pipes above sounded almost synchronized with your pulse, vibrating through the ceiling in slow, suffocating waves. And you were struggling against the restraints now.

Your wrists had turned red beneath the leather straps, deep pressure marks bruising your skin. Every attempt to pull free only made the old restraints tighten harder, burning against your flesh. Your ankles scraped painfully against the metal footrests while your bare feet curled involuntarily from panic.

Your breathing had become uneven.

Fear wouldn’t let your lungs fully fill anymore; every breath stopped halfway.

“Edward, please…” you begged, your voice breaking apart. “Don’t… I don’t want this… please…”

But he wasn’t listening anymore.

Or maybe worse—maybe he was listening and truly believed this was part of helping you.

Standing beside the machine, his expression had changed again. The man who had kissed you harshly only moments ago, who had tangled his hand in your hair, seemed gone now.

In his place was a cold, clinical calmness. And somehow, this version of him was even more terrifying because he no longer looked at you like a person.

He looked at you like something broken that needed to be fixed.

As his fingers adjusted the wires, there was almost a gentle attentiveness in his movements. Combined with the rusted torture equipment surrounding him, it created something deeply sickening.

“Sometimes people are afraid of healing,” he said calmly. “Because they become attached to their pain.”

You shook your head frantically from side to side. Your hair spilled over the edge of the table, damp strands sticking against your throat while tears slid down the sides of your face toward your ears.

Fear had completely overflowed your body now.

Your shoulders trembled uncontrollably, your back arching slightly off the table each time you struggled against the restraints.

“Edward, no— no, please, I’m begging you—”

Suddenly, he stopped.

A slight crease formed between his brows.

Then he looked at you as though he had just remembered something important.

That expression—you recognized it.

It looked exactly like the moments doctors in Arkham had when examining a patient.

“Wait a second,” he murmured softly to himself.

When he began searching through the metal tray beside the machine, your breathing became even faster because you couldn’t understand what he was doing. The sound of rusted instruments clinking together echoed through the room until finally he found a small, old mouth guard.

It had yellowed with age, its edges worn down, but Edward picked it up carefully.

“I forgot,” he said as he approached you. “You could break your teeth.”

Your stomach twisted violently.

“No— no, I don’t want it—”

You tried turning your head away, but his hand immediately closed around your jaw. His fingers held your face firmly while he stared directly into your eyes.

There was something horrifyingly loving in that look.

The kind of love that tries to protect the body while destroying the soul.

“You’re going to be okay,” he said quietly. “Just trust me for a few minutes.”

Then he slid the mouth guard between your teeth.

The instant the taste of old plastic filled your mouth, panic surged even harder because that single movement made everything real.

This was no longer a threat.

It was about to happen.

You tried shaking your head, muffled sounds escaping around the mouth guard as you thrashed against the restraints. Your chest rose and fell rapidly, your thin clothes sticking to your skin from sweat.

The light above burned painfully into your eyes now. And Edward just watched you.

With admiration.

As though seeing you like this didn’t upset him—it only made him feel more attached to you.

Slowly, he leaned down.

When his lips pressed against your damp forehead, your entire body tensed because despite how gentle the kiss seemed, it was terrifying.

It didn’t feel loving.

It felt possessive.

He wasn’t acting like a lover trying to calm you.

He was acting like someone trying to repair a broken toy before it shattered completely.

“Breathe,” he whispered close against your forehead. “I’m right here.”

Then he pressed the switch.

The first sound was small—just a low electrical hum rising from inside the machine. But even that noise alone was enough to lock every muscle in your body tight.

Your eyes widened instantly. Your breathing faltered. The crackling current running through the wires echoed violently against the metal surfaces of the room while Edward stepped back and simply watched you.

And in that moment, the most horrifying thing in the room wasn’t the electroshock machine.

It was the peaceful expression on Edward’s face as he looked at you.

The moment he pressed the switch, it felt as though your body stopped belonging to you.

At first, a thin, burning pain shot upward through your spine. Then every muscle in your body seized all at once, arching violently against the table without your control. The restraints dug deep into your wrists, the old leather straps cutting painfully into your skin because your body was instinctively trying to escape—but there was nowhere to go.

The mouth guard muffled your scream, reducing it to broken, strangled sounds swallowed by the room. Your eyes slammed shut involuntarily before flying open again; the surgical lamp above blurred in and out of focus, the entire room trembling as though submerged underwater.

The pain wasn’t only physical. It felt like the electricity was threading itself between your nerves, tearing apart your thoughts themselves. Your fingers curled violently inward. Your bare feet stretched toward the metal edge of the table, even the muscles in your soles trembling uncontrollably. And Edward simply stepped back and watched you.

The expression on his face was horrifying. Because he didn’t look afraid. He looked happy. There was a light in his eyes now. Watching you thrash helplessly, watching your body lose control, watching your tear-filled eyes wide with terror—it looked as though he had finally reached something he had been chasing for a very long time. His fingers drifted across the controls of the machine while he tilted his head slightly, studying you. In that moment, he didn’t look like the Riddler. He looked like a man admiring his own obsession.

“There…” he breathed softly, almost reverently. “There’s the real you…”

Another wave hit.

Your back arched violently off the table, a muffled scream tearing from your throat while the veins in your neck strained visibly beneath your skin. Tears streamed sideways toward your ears, damp strands of hair sticking to the metal beneath you. You tried to think through it. Tried to hold onto something. But the electricity shattered everything apart. Time itself seemed to warp. Seconds stretched endlessly while sounds blurred together.

Edward took a few slow steps toward you. “Look at me,” he said gently. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

The word made your stomach twist in disgust. But Edward either didn’t notice— or didn’t care.

If anything, his expression softened further as he approached. He seemed to love the way fear had reduced you into something vulnerable and broken.

When his fingers brushed along your cheek, your skin trembled involuntarily because your body was still spasming from the shocks.

“You were never like this with him,” he said, his tone sharpening slightly at the mention of Bruce. “I’m the one who really sees you. The real you.”

Then he adjusted the switch again.

This time, the pain hit harder.

Your entire body locked rigid, your head falling helplessly to the side while muffled cries broke through the mouth guard in shattered sounds. Your shoulders shook violently, your chest heaving desperately for air. Your heart pounded so fast it felt ready to split through your ribs. Even after the current stopped, your muscles refused to relax immediately. Small tremors continued rippling through your body while ragged breaths tore unevenly from your throat.

Edward never looked away from you. As though watching you like this intoxicated him.

“You know…” he murmured quietly as he moved closer again, “people always say love destroys people.”

The corner of his mouth curved faintly upward.

“But even while I’m destroying you…” he whispered, “I still love you.”

When he sat down on the edge of the table, the metal groaned softly beneath his weight. His hand rose slowly to your throat, fingertips gliding across your sweat-damp skin.

His touch seemed gentle. But by now, you knew that didn’t make it safer. Because the most horrifying thing about Edward was the way he blurred tenderness and violence together until they became impossible to separate.

“Even when you said you hated me…” he whispered, leaning closer to your face, “…I still didn’t want to stop touching you.”

Then he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against yours. His breathing was still uneven, almost as though the machine had affected him too.

“One day, you’ll understand why I did this,” he murmured hoarsely.

His trembling fingers brushed your hair behind your ear.

“And when that day comes…” he whispered, broken devotion flickering in his voice, “…you’ll finally love me back.”

Even after the electricity stopped, your body didn’t immediately feel like your own again. And that was the most terrifying part.

The pain was gone, but its effects still lived inside your nerves. Your fingers continued trembling in small, involuntary spasms while the muscles in your legs tightened and released on their own. Your chest rose and fell unevenly, never seeming to draw enough air into your lungs—as though your body had forgotten how to breathe and was now operating on survival instinct alone.

The surgical lamp above blurred in and out of focus. The light expanded, shrank, disappeared completely for a second, then returned again. The edges of the plastic mouth guard tasted metallic against your tongue, and your teeth still ached faintly. Sweat had gathered at your hairline and run down your neck, damp strands sticking to your cheeks. Beneath the restraints, your wrists throbbed painfully. And Edward watched all of it in silence. As though studying the results of an experiment. But what burned in his eyes was far more personal than scientific curiosity.

Something sicker.

When he stepped back toward the table, even the sound of his shoes against the metal floor was enough to make your stomach tighten because your body had already begun conditioning itself to his presence. The second you sensed him near you, fear spread through your muscles before it reached your thoughts. And realizing that something else stirred beneath that fear made you hate yourself. Because Edward’s touch no longer felt like only a threat.

After the electroshock, your mind had become blurred, your sense of reality fractured. The rest of the world felt submerged in fog while Edward remained the only thing that seemed painfully clear—his voice, his breathing, the warmth of his hands.

That realization horrified you.

When Edward began undoing the restraints, your first instinct was to pull away. But your body didn’t obey.

Even after the leather loosened around your wrists, you couldn’t immediately move your arms. You only lay there trembling weakly against the table. Your muscles were so exhausted that even moving felt heavy now. And when Edward noticed that, a strange, softened satisfaction crossed his face.

“See?” he said quietly. “You’re not fighting me anymore.”

The satisfaction in his voice made your stomach twist, but you couldn’t gather enough strength to answer him. Your lips remained slightly parted, your breaths warm and uneven.

When Edward leaned down and carefully removed the mouth guard, your jaw trembled involuntarily. The instant his fingers brushed against your lower lip, your entire body shivered.

This was fear.

It had to be. But your body was beginning to lose the ability to separate fear from everything else. And Edward seemed to notice.

His thumb lingered against the corner of your mouth for several seconds too long. When his gaze dropped to your lips, there was a hungry admiration in his expression—as though he found you even more beautiful like this, broken apart.

“You look so beautiful when you look at me like that…” he murmured hoarsely.

You shook your head weakly from side to side. “No…” you whispered. But even your voice no longer sounded like it belonged to you.

Edward, however, didn’t interpret it as rejection.

He interpreted it as shyness.

“You’re still trying to keep me at a distance,” he said calmly. “But I saw the way you looked at me a moment ago.”

Your heart clenched painfully. Because you were terrified he might be right.

While your mind had been splintering under the shocks, Edward had become the only fixed point in the room. After every wave of pain, his was the first face you saw. During every desperate struggle for breath, you heard his voice. And now your brain was beginning to confuse that with safety.

The realization panicked you internally while simultaneously making it harder to think clearly.

When Edward slid his hands beneath your waist and slowly helped you into a sitting position, your head fell weakly against his chest without your permission. The second you realized it, you wanted to pull away— but your muscles were still weak. And Edward smelled like sweat, metal, and faint cologne.

A real human scent.

In the middle of the hospital’s rotting stench, he felt like the only thing alive.

That frightened you even more.

Edward exhaled softly into your hair. His fingers moved slowly across your back in calm, rhythmic strokes meant to soothe you. And that was exactly what made it disturbing. Because the same man who had strapped you to the table was now comforting you.

“You can feel me now,” he whispered near your ear. “I understand you better than he ever could.”

You closed your eyes because your head was spinning. But Edward interpreted that differently.

His arms tightened around you slightly, as though he believed you were finally moving closer to him.

Then his lips touched yours again.

This time, it wasn’t rough like before.

It started slowly. And somehow, that made it worse. Because for a few seconds, your body didn’t immediately push him away.

Your lips were still numb. Your breathing remained uneven. As Edward kissed you, one of his hands slid behind your neck, fingers threading gently into your damp hair. And for just a few terrible seconds— you felt like you forgot to resist.

The realization turned your stomach violently.

When Edward finally pulled back, there was an almost intoxicated happiness in his eyes.

“There…” he whispered, resting his forehead against yours. “You’re finally letting me in.”

While Edward held you half-upright against the table, the low mechanical hum of the room still echoed inside your skull. The metallic sound of the electroshock machine felt lodged somewhere between your nerves now, refusing to fade away.

Your head felt heavy. Thinking itself was exhausting. And your body no longer felt entirely like yours; tiny tremors still rippled through your muscles while your shoulders shivered involuntarily. In moments like this, the human mind could begin confusing danger with relief. Because after intense pain, slowness, silence, and physical contact could all be mistaken by the brain for safety.

You knew that. That was why every time Edward touched you, one part of you wanted desperately to pull away— while another part of you relaxed in a way that horrified you. And it felt like something inside you was beginning to rot because of it.

Edward could feel it too.

Maybe that was the most terrifying thing of all.

The way he looked at you had changed now. He no longer resembled only an obsessive lover; he looked like someone who had finally recovered something precious after believing it lost for years.

When his fingers rose to your face, his movements were astonishingly slow. His thumb brushed away the dampness beneath your cheek first, almost carefully trying to decide whether it was sweat or tears.

Then his palm closed gently around your jaw.

The touch wasn’t harsh.

But it was possessive.

As he tilted your head upward slightly, he looked into your eyes with such intensity that for a few seconds, everything else in the room seemed to disappear.

“Look at you…” he whispered hoarsely. “Look how badly they frightened you.”

The words twisted painfully inside your stomach because he was the one terrifying you. But Edward’s mind no longer accepted that reality.

He viewed the pain he caused as some kind of purification—something that stripped you down and brought you closer to him. He broke you apart, then convinced himself that only he could put the pieces back together again.

When he leaned closer, his lips touched your forehead first.

The kiss was long.

Heavy.

There was almost no lust in it—only a strange, warped tenderness. And somehow, that made it more disturbing. Because he no longer felt like a lover.

He felt like someone pathologically protective.

His lips lingered against your damp forehead for several seconds before moving lower—to your temple, then your cheek. Every touch was slow, careful, almost ceremonial.

As though he wasn’t trying to comfort you.

As though he was trying to transform you into something that belonged to him.

Meanwhile, you struggled to regulate your breathing.

When Edward’s mouth drifted lower along your jawline, a thin shiver slid down your spine. Your body was still hypersensitive from the electroshock; every touch felt far more intense than it should have.

The warmth of his lips lingered against your skin, making your heartbeat speed up, and that realization panicked you because you were supposed to fear him. And you still did. But now something else had begun mixing into that fear.

Something that humiliated you.

Something that made you disgusted with yourself.

Edward misunderstood it completely.

When his fingers threaded through your damp hair and tucked the strands behind your ear, a strange softness settled across his face.

Like he truly believed you were finally beginning to surrender to him.

“You’re not trembling anymore,” he whispered.

He was lying.

You were still trembling.

Just not only from fear anymore.

When his lips reached your throat, your breath caught involuntarily. He lingered there, directly over the frantic pulse beneath your skin. At first only his breath touched you.

Then his lips did.

You closed your eyes immediately because your body’s reaction terrified you. Your throat was already sensitive from the way your body had strained during the shocks, and now Edward’s slow kisses only heightened that sensitivity further.

The skin beneath his mouth shivered.

Your shoulders tightened involuntarily. And when Edward felt it, his arms tightened around you slightly.

“There…” he murmured softly, almost like he was speaking to himself. “Now you’re safe.”

The sentence echoed violently inside your head.

You weren’t safe. But somehow, in that moment, your body leaned just a little further into his chest.

The movement wasn’t conscious.

It came from exhaustion, fear, shock. But to Edward, none of that mattered because by now he interpreted every action through the lens of his obsession.

As his fingers moved slowly across your back, he began stroking you with slow, rhythmic motions, the kind someone might use to calm a frightened child. And that was exactly what made it horrifying. Because the man who had strapped you to the table and watched you scream was now trying to comfort you.

“No one has ever looked at you the way I do,” he whispered near your throat. “No one has ever loved you the way I do.”

His words thickened in the rotting darkness of the room while his lips brushed your neck again.

This kiss lasted longer.

His breath warmed your skin while his fingers slid slowly downward from the base of your neck. And that was when you began realizing the most horrifying truth of all: His touch disturbed you. But at the same time… it comforted you too. And that realization frightened you more than the electroshock itself ever had.

As Edward’s lips continued to wander along your neck, the fog inside your mind slowly began to clear; the heavy numbness that had settled deep into your body after the electroshock hadn’t fully disappeared yet, but your thoughts were beginning to reconnect with each other again. Your heart was still racing, though this time it wasn’t only because of fear, and the moment you realized that, your stomach tightened painfully. Because the strange sense of relief his touch created inside your body was colliding violently with the terror your mind still felt toward him. That contradiction was tearing you apart from the inside out. Your head rested weakly against his shoulder while you could feel the uneven rhythm of his breathing; erratic, but satisfied. As if he truly believed he had finally broken you enough to pull you closer to him.

Then his lips found yours again.

This kiss was slower; less hungry, more possessive. It didn’t feel like he was trying to silence you this time, but rather like he was trying to soothe something that already belonged to him. His fingers held your chin gently as he tilted your head, mixing his breathing with yours so he could kiss you deeper. The damp air inside the room had become suffocatingly heavy; the mold and decay clinging to the hospital walls mixed with the metallic scent of sweat lingering on Edward’s clothes. Every breath shared between your lips made you feel as though you were slipping further away from yourself.

And then his hands began to move.

At first, they only touched your shoulders.

The tips of his fingers slid slowly over the thin fabric covering your skin, and your body instinctively tensed because you immediately understood what he was about to do. You tried to pull away, but Edward didn’t let you go so easily; he rested his forehead against yours and let his eyes wander over your face for several long seconds. There was something deeply unsettling in that look—something that carried tenderness and possession at the same time. It didn’t feel like he simply wanted to see you. It felt like he wanted to completely uncover you.

“You don’t need to hide anymore,” he whispered.

The moment his hands moved toward the collar of your clothes, your breathing became uneven again. The fabric had already been clinging to your skin from sweat and the dampness filling the hospital air, and when Edward slowly slid it down from your shoulders, the cold air touching your exposed skin sent a shiver down your spine. You still hadn’t fully recovered; your muscles were weak, your head still spinning faintly. Even so, something inside you began sounding the alarm again.

“Edward…” you whispered weakly. “Stop…”

But Edward no longer heard your voice as resistance. To him, it sounded like frightened vulnerability instead. As his hands traveled from your shoulders down your arms, he buried his face against your neck again; his lips brushing your throat while his breath left warm traces against your skin. For him, violence and affection had completely fused together in this moment. He acted as though he was calming you down while slowly making you into something that belonged entirely to him.

When the fabric slipped lower past your waist, the cold air touched your bare skin fully, and your body instinctively tried to curl inward. You attempted to pull your arms toward yourself, but Edward gently caught your wrists and relaxed them again. That gentleness was terrifying because it felt as though he believed force was no longer necessary. His eyes wandered over your body with an expression that looked almost reverent, as though your trembling, broken state had become something sacred to him.

“Look at you…” he murmured hoarsely. “How could they leave you all alone like this?”

After those words, his hands continued moving slowly along your back; careful, patient, disturbingly tender touches. As though he no longer wanted to hurt you. But that was exactly what made it so horrifying, because the same man who had strapped you to that table and sent electricity through your body was now caressing your bare skin as if this were some twisted form of love.

And when you realized, despite all the discomfort crawling beneath your skin, that his touch was actually beginning to calm the trembling in your body, your eyes slowly fell shut.

That realization was darker than anything else inside the room.

As the hazy admiration in Edward's gaze grew increasingly heavy, the way he laid you back down onto the gurney possessed an almost ceremonial slowness. When your back met the gurney again, a fine shiver traveled up your spine; the cold surface, merging with the sensitivity that still lingered on your skin like a burn, caused your breath to turn involuntarily ragged. There was a peaceful expression on Edward's face as he carefully swept your hair over your shoulder and let it fall back. This peace looked so entirely wrong amidst the decayed walls and rusted equipment of the room that it made your stomach churn.

Then, he began to fasten the straps again.

But this time, his movements were different.

He wasn't rushing to restrain you like the first time; instead, he acted as though he were putting you back "in your proper place" with his own hands.

"Don't try to run anymore..." he whispered in a soft voice. "These aren't the things holding you back."

Following those words, when he slowly lowered his head, the air inside the room shifted once more.

Edward’s lips lingered just above your knee at first, leaving long, heavy kisses, as if rewriting you in his own mind through the touch of your skin. As his fingers slowly traced your legs, there was a strange sense of worship in his movements. He behaved less like a lover and more like someone immersed in a dark ritual. And then, he lowered his head a little further.

In that instant, every sound in the room transformed. His fingers found the outer lips of your labia, pulling them apart. When his tongue gently brushed against your clitoris, the humming of the pipes drifted away, and the buzzing of the lamp grew muffled. Nothing remained but your own breath—irregular, fragile, quickening all the more the harder you tried to control it.

Edward’s touches felt less like words now and more like shadows; something not directly seen, yet spreading through the entire room. As his tongue flicked between your clitoris and the opening of your vagina, the tension in your body fractured somewhere between fear and surrender. Because what you were experiencing wasn't merely physical; the boundaries of your mind were shifting as well.

Edward could feel this.

Occasionally, he would lift his head to look at you, a nearly peaceful hunger in his eyes. It was as if seeing you so utterly vulnerable triggered a twisted protective instinct within him. He was the one who had hurt you, yet now he was assuming the role of the one calming you down.

"No one can take you from me now..." he murmured in a husky voice.

Your fingers curled involuntarily beneath the straps. You turned your head to the side and closed your eyes tightly, terrified of the responses your body was giving. You were afraid of this room, of Edward, and of yourself. Yet beneath all this fear, in that dark void opened in your mind following the electroshock, the sinister sense of relief brought on by his touch continued to linger. The capillaries in your clitoris were so intensely stimulated that Edward quickened his pace and hardened his movements with your every breath.

"Did you see that?" Edward said, letting his breath brush against your skin as he tilted his head. "You cannot resist. Because this is not a war. This is... love. You and I. The soul of this room and our own souls. They all want the same thing: the truth."

Finally, he moved. As he removed his white shirt and vest, every motion was controlled and theatrical. Beneath lay pale, almost translucent skin and lean muscles. As he unbuckled his trousers, the metallic clink resonated sharply in the silence of the room. "Now," he said, "the real part of our experiment begins."

His body possessed lean yet hard contours, and as he leaned down over you, the hardness of his erection was tangible proof of his power and desire at that moment. When he climbed on top of you, you felt crushed beneath his entire weight on the gurney. While the cold fabric bit into your back, his skin felt like fire.

"Don't get weary now, doctor," he whispered right into your ear, his warm breath seeping into your hair. "This is our first night together. Our love will reach its purest form."

Without any warning—not slowly, but all at once—he entered you. In that instant, it felt as though your body was being torn in two. The pain was sharp and searing, forcing its way in as if tearing your vagina. A scream caught in your throat but wouldn't come out. Warm tears streamed down your cheeks. Edward did not stop. He began to move his hips rapidly, rhythmically. With every thrust, the metal legs of the gurney screeched against the floor, creating ripples in the water on the cracked tiles. The flickering light caught and lost the mixture of pain and pleasure on his face.

"Look," he said, grabbing your hair and pulling your head back. You were forced to look into his eyes. "Look at your body. It is taking it in. It accepts it. Because this is the way it is meant to be."

He was lying. Your body wasn't accepting it; this was an assault. But... within that damp, bloody space between you, something was changing. Amidst the pain, involuntarily, a sickening leak of pleasure began. This betrayal by your own body was louder than the screams of your mind. This was exactly what Edward wanted: to break you both physically and mentally, to make your body defy your mind, and by forcing you to witness it, to inject guilt into your veins like poison.

"There it is," he groaned, quickening his pace. "Did you see that? You want it. You want it more than ever."

His words pierced into your mind, one by one. Yes, a part of your body wanted this. This humiliating, painful, filthy union. It was like a form of punishment, a form of reward for that melancholy, self-destructive piece inside you. You felt yourself lifting your hips toward him. In that moment, you knew something inside you had broken. You couldn't fight back because you had no strength left to fight. There was only this invasion, this surrender.

With a cry, Edward ejaculated. As his warm semen exploded inside you, your entire body convulsed. It wasn't the tremor of an orgasm, but that of a final collapse. As he got up off you, his penis slid out of your vagina, and blood mixed with fluids trickled down. Standing over you, he pushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose. He looked down at your naked, pale body, your broken state, your hands and feet bound to the straps. His face held a mixture of triumph and, strangely, pride.

"You are magnificent," he finally said, his voice exhausted yet pleased. "You are exactly as I imagined. Shattered, yet... beautiful. So beautiful."