It's my birthday present to me!
Feb. 25th, 2009 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seiberwingTitle: Two Reservations, Three Faces
Fandom: Batman, leaning towards characterization from Batman: TAS and featuring inspiration from Lego Batman.
Pairing/Character: Riddler/Two-Face, other.
Author’s Note: I could blame this on Rath, but I probably shouldn't since pretty much everyone at our communal playing of Lego Batman saw the obvious little pink bricks floating around. Blame Warner Brothers. In terms of canon this doesn't really take place at any particular point in time, it's just kind of there.
The irritating buzzing of the phone brought Harvey Dent out of his self-induced trance. He'd been lying on the bed in his undershirt and slacks for the past hour, staring blankly up at the cracked, yellow ceiling of the cheap motel he and the Riddler had been hiding at every since their joint escape from Arkham.
Nobody should have known they were up there, nobody bar Nigma and if he'd gotten himself into trouble bad enough to call home for backup Dent didn't know if he wanted to get involved. Then again, partners in crime in this town were pretty valuable for as long as the tenuous alliances lasted, and the Riddler wasn't a complete moron. At least, not in the conventional way.
Two-Face flipped.
The scarred coin landed in his palm good heads up on the third ring and he picked the phone up on the fourth. "Yeah?" he asked apprehensively.
The voice on the other end was genial and British, so upper crust it had left the pie altogether. "Good afternoon, sir. Am I speaking to Mr. Stuart Nim?"
"Huh?"
"This is Marshall from the Iceberg Lounge. I'm calling to confirm that your payment has gone through, and I'm terribly sorry about the trouble we had with your credit card. You and your companion are reserved for the post-Valentine dinner on February the 15th at six o'clock."
What the... Oh. Stu Nim. His middle name's probably Doe. Ha ha. Honestly, Nigma, are you the Riddler or the Joker?
"Mr. Nim?" the voice prodded.
Harvey fingered his coin through his pocket, remembering that he'd flipped for a dinner invitation for the so-called genius a few days ago, when they'd first gotten settled in the hotel and gotten their old bank accounts unfrozen. He hadn't thought Nigma would take him up on it so quickly. Penguin ran the place, too; he'd be the last person to panic or call the police when he saw Two-Face sitting at one of his tables. "Yeah, all right."
"Thank you very much. We'll be happy to see you there." Click.
Dent pulled his coin from his pocket, holding it for a moment before flipping it to see whether to be pleased or irritated at Nigma for going around behind his back like this.
Good heads.
Still, when he wasn't ranting off about obscure idiocy, he wasn't a bad guy to be with.
-----
"Hey, um, 'scuse me! Sir?" A frazzled-looking man in a red suit caught up to the Riddler as he walked into the hotel lobby.
The Riddler waved a dismissive hand at him. "I don't tip you for doing your job, buzz off."
"No, that's not, um, that's not it. Are you Mr. Nigma?" The man looked up at him desperately, holding tight to a cone-shaped item covered with a plastic bag.
Riddler recoiled with a scowl and brought his cane up, just in case this was the worst undercover agent ever. He wasn't completely in costume, but there was little one could do about one's face with limited funds and a lack of silly mustaches. "Who wants to know?"
"I'm from Everson Florists. They told me to come here and give this to Mr. Edward Nigma, but they didn't give me the room number and the guy at the front desk went on his break so I couldn't ask him where you were." He grinned awkwardly, looking Nigma in the tie. "I've just been asking every guy who comes in the door and hoping I find the right guy eventually. Sorry to bother if you're not."
It might be some sort of trap. Poison in the flowers, or just some trick to make him reveal himself in public before the pistols or handcuffs came out. But Batman wasn't the sort to toy before the catch and he was fairly certain he hadn't annoyed anyone in the supervillain community lately. Besides, he was curious now.
"It's your lucky day, kid," he said with a wide grin, holding his arms out and indicating himself. "I'm your man."
"Oh good. I am, like, the happiest flower guy in Gotham right now." The delivery boy's shoulders slumped gratefully as he tugged the plastic bag off and pressed a bouquet of carnations into the Riddler's hands.
The flowers were carefully separated by color, with a length of cellophane keeping them apart. The ones on the right were white, the ones on the left were a dark blue--probably the closest they could get to black with food coloring. Obvious. Nigma had to admit to be very, very mildly impressed with the trouble his dual-minded friend had gone to, Dent was usually far less subtle than this.
"It came with this card, although I got no clue what it means. I mean, not that I read the card, I just caught a look at it."
Nigma plucked it from the delivery boy's hands and looked over it thoughtfully. The entire message was a string of numbers, with two circles at the top right corner with an X through the one on the right. His analytical eyes flicked over the coded message, running through basic several alphanumeric systems based on two different applications to every other letter, and translated it in his head in less than a minute.
february fifteen seven pm penguins place be there
How cute. He'd actually gone to the trouble of trying to make it challenging. It was almost as nice as the invitation, even if the cipher was pathetically easy.
The Riddler slipped the flustered delivery boy a fiver, still looking at the card and feeling horribly pleased with himself. Here he'd been, analyzing Harvey's every little quirk and trying to find ways to subtly influence and predict chance itself, and his prey had suddenly turned on the agressive.
"Interesting."
----
The man in the red suit walked out of the hotel with his hands in his pockets, whistling a certain tune about the nature of the former Fuhrer's manhood. He folded up his tip and dropped it into the cup of a homeless man hunched on the sidewalk and gave a small nod and smile in return to his 'God bless you'.
The smile held perfectly until he was sure he wasn't being followed or watched. Then the man ducked into a darkened alleyway and flicked out a small cell phone.
"How'd it go on your end?"
"He seemed to be quite interested in the proposition."
"Good." Of course Harvey would be. He'd overheard their conversation in the hotel while stalking another, less mentally disordered shifty character. In theory he could have taken them both in right then, but it would have disrupted his drug bust and between there and the police station he'd gotten an even better idea.
"I never knew you were such a matchmaker, Master Bruce." He could almost see the faint, restrained smirk on Alfred's face.
"I'm not just doing it because I'm an old softy, Alfred. The Riddler loves it when people pay attention to him, so he won't be going around trying to prove to the rest of the world how smart he is, and it'll keep Harvey's mind off anything more destructive for a little while. If they're spending time with each other, they're not using it to tear up Gotham." And he could use having two of his rogue's gallery out of the way on Valentine's Day. Every other villain in Gotham seemed to think a major romantic holiday was the best time to stalk their crushes, commit acts of violence for their loved ones (Harley Quinn had been on his high priority list all week), or vent their frustration at being single.
"Besides." He tucked the cell phone between his shoulder and his ear and heaved open the dumpster lid, pulling out a dark cape and cowl sealed in plastic. "What kind of Cupid wears black?"
Fandom: Batman, leaning towards characterization from Batman: TAS and featuring inspiration from Lego Batman.
Pairing/Character: Riddler/Two-Face, other.
Author’s Note: I could blame this on Rath, but I probably shouldn't since pretty much everyone at our communal playing of Lego Batman saw the obvious little pink bricks floating around. Blame Warner Brothers. In terms of canon this doesn't really take place at any particular point in time, it's just kind of there.
The irritating buzzing of the phone brought Harvey Dent out of his self-induced trance. He'd been lying on the bed in his undershirt and slacks for the past hour, staring blankly up at the cracked, yellow ceiling of the cheap motel he and the Riddler had been hiding at every since their joint escape from Arkham.
Nobody should have known they were up there, nobody bar Nigma and if he'd gotten himself into trouble bad enough to call home for backup Dent didn't know if he wanted to get involved. Then again, partners in crime in this town were pretty valuable for as long as the tenuous alliances lasted, and the Riddler wasn't a complete moron. At least, not in the conventional way.
Two-Face flipped.
The scarred coin landed in his palm good heads up on the third ring and he picked the phone up on the fourth. "Yeah?" he asked apprehensively.
The voice on the other end was genial and British, so upper crust it had left the pie altogether. "Good afternoon, sir. Am I speaking to Mr. Stuart Nim?"
"Huh?"
"This is Marshall from the Iceberg Lounge. I'm calling to confirm that your payment has gone through, and I'm terribly sorry about the trouble we had with your credit card. You and your companion are reserved for the post-Valentine dinner on February the 15th at six o'clock."
What the... Oh. Stu Nim. His middle name's probably Doe. Ha ha. Honestly, Nigma, are you the Riddler or the Joker?
"Mr. Nim?" the voice prodded.
Harvey fingered his coin through his pocket, remembering that he'd flipped for a dinner invitation for the so-called genius a few days ago, when they'd first gotten settled in the hotel and gotten their old bank accounts unfrozen. He hadn't thought Nigma would take him up on it so quickly. Penguin ran the place, too; he'd be the last person to panic or call the police when he saw Two-Face sitting at one of his tables. "Yeah, all right."
"Thank you very much. We'll be happy to see you there." Click.
Dent pulled his coin from his pocket, holding it for a moment before flipping it to see whether to be pleased or irritated at Nigma for going around behind his back like this.
Good heads.
Still, when he wasn't ranting off about obscure idiocy, he wasn't a bad guy to be with.
-----
"Hey, um, 'scuse me! Sir?" A frazzled-looking man in a red suit caught up to the Riddler as he walked into the hotel lobby.
The Riddler waved a dismissive hand at him. "I don't tip you for doing your job, buzz off."
"No, that's not, um, that's not it. Are you Mr. Nigma?" The man looked up at him desperately, holding tight to a cone-shaped item covered with a plastic bag.
Riddler recoiled with a scowl and brought his cane up, just in case this was the worst undercover agent ever. He wasn't completely in costume, but there was little one could do about one's face with limited funds and a lack of silly mustaches. "Who wants to know?"
"I'm from Everson Florists. They told me to come here and give this to Mr. Edward Nigma, but they didn't give me the room number and the guy at the front desk went on his break so I couldn't ask him where you were." He grinned awkwardly, looking Nigma in the tie. "I've just been asking every guy who comes in the door and hoping I find the right guy eventually. Sorry to bother if you're not."
It might be some sort of trap. Poison in the flowers, or just some trick to make him reveal himself in public before the pistols or handcuffs came out. But Batman wasn't the sort to toy before the catch and he was fairly certain he hadn't annoyed anyone in the supervillain community lately. Besides, he was curious now.
"It's your lucky day, kid," he said with a wide grin, holding his arms out and indicating himself. "I'm your man."
"Oh good. I am, like, the happiest flower guy in Gotham right now." The delivery boy's shoulders slumped gratefully as he tugged the plastic bag off and pressed a bouquet of carnations into the Riddler's hands.
The flowers were carefully separated by color, with a length of cellophane keeping them apart. The ones on the right were white, the ones on the left were a dark blue--probably the closest they could get to black with food coloring. Obvious. Nigma had to admit to be very, very mildly impressed with the trouble his dual-minded friend had gone to, Dent was usually far less subtle than this.
"It came with this card, although I got no clue what it means. I mean, not that I read the card, I just caught a look at it."
Nigma plucked it from the delivery boy's hands and looked over it thoughtfully. The entire message was a string of numbers, with two circles at the top right corner with an X through the one on the right. His analytical eyes flicked over the coded message, running through basic several alphanumeric systems based on two different applications to every other letter, and translated it in his head in less than a minute.
february fifteen seven pm penguins place be there
How cute. He'd actually gone to the trouble of trying to make it challenging. It was almost as nice as the invitation, even if the cipher was pathetically easy.
The Riddler slipped the flustered delivery boy a fiver, still looking at the card and feeling horribly pleased with himself. Here he'd been, analyzing Harvey's every little quirk and trying to find ways to subtly influence and predict chance itself, and his prey had suddenly turned on the agressive.
"Interesting."
----
The man in the red suit walked out of the hotel with his hands in his pockets, whistling a certain tune about the nature of the former Fuhrer's manhood. He folded up his tip and dropped it into the cup of a homeless man hunched on the sidewalk and gave a small nod and smile in return to his 'God bless you'.
The smile held perfectly until he was sure he wasn't being followed or watched. Then the man ducked into a darkened alleyway and flicked out a small cell phone.
"How'd it go on your end?"
"He seemed to be quite interested in the proposition."
"Good." Of course Harvey would be. He'd overheard their conversation in the hotel while stalking another, less mentally disordered shifty character. In theory he could have taken them both in right then, but it would have disrupted his drug bust and between there and the police station he'd gotten an even better idea.
"I never knew you were such a matchmaker, Master Bruce." He could almost see the faint, restrained smirk on Alfred's face.
"I'm not just doing it because I'm an old softy, Alfred. The Riddler loves it when people pay attention to him, so he won't be going around trying to prove to the rest of the world how smart he is, and it'll keep Harvey's mind off anything more destructive for a little while. If they're spending time with each other, they're not using it to tear up Gotham." And he could use having two of his rogue's gallery out of the way on Valentine's Day. Every other villain in Gotham seemed to think a major romantic holiday was the best time to stalk their crushes, commit acts of violence for their loved ones (Harley Quinn had been on his high priority list all week), or vent their frustration at being single.
"Besides." He tucked the cell phone between his shoulder and his ear and heaved open the dumpster lid, pulling out a dark cape and cowl sealed in plastic. "What kind of Cupid wears black?"
