Chapter Text
Gotham City, July 1978.
He screams at the top of his lungs, ignoring how dizzy it makes him. A scream of pure, unabashed joy, coming from the depths of his core. He looks at his pseudonym appearing in a neon green color on top of the screen: Enygma140.
No one seems to pay him any attention, apart from Teddy, the owner of the arcade who encourages him with a loud cheer before switching his attention back to his book. Blackmark, 1871. The first full length graphic novel edited in the United-States, Ed notices.
He takes out a pencil and a small piece of paper out of his grey fanny pack and makes sure to scribble his score on it. He keeps track of every single record, obsessively. July 3rd 1978: Space Invaders. Score: 108 746.
He folds the paper and puts it in the outside pocket of his plaid jacket. Green and black madras, a few stitches here and there; it’ll probably last another year before he needs to replace it.
He makes sure to greet Teddy on his way out, waiting until he has finished to read a page of his graphic novel before blurting out: “don’t forget to put me on the legends board, I just scored 108 746.”
Teddy looks up, bouncy ringlets of dark hair covering half of his eyes.
“Lying’s bad Ed, didn’t your dad teach you that?”
Ed shrugs, “No. Yes. I mean— I’m not lying Teddy. Just check for yourself if you don’t believe me. I don’t mind. Just make sure that you properly write my pseudo on the board, it’s Nygma with a “Y”, ‘kay?”
He exits the arcade before Teddy even has time to get behind the counter in order to check if what he just said was actually true. A quick look at his watch informs him that it’s already 6:30pm. Dad said 7pm, I'd better hurry.
He gets home by 7:13pm. His father is waiting for him in the entrance. Patiently sitting on the last steps of the staircase. Ed goes through it with clenched teeth and stifled cries. He’s used to it. The beatings. The screams. The threats.
He makes his way to his room, climbing the stairs in a hurry, almost running from his father’s voice, a tone he despises so much that sometimes he wouldn’t mind tearing his vocal chords one by one.
“That’ll fucking teach you Edward. Coming home late and playing your stupid games all day long. Get a life for fuck’s s—”
Ed slams the door, dismissing his father’s wrath. Two months and you leave this hell behind you. Two months. You can do it.
He spends the next hour tending to his wounds. A split lower lip. A few bruises on the chest. In the background, his old record player struggles to do justice to his new acquisition. Blondie’s most recent album. Parallel Lines. Oswald’s favorite band.
Half of his night is spent reading Biology Today, trying to learn as much information about the course of nucleic acids making their way into the cytoplasm before his tiredness gets the better of him. Oswald would probably get bored to death by his new discovery. He makes an internal note of mentioning it tomorrow before turning the lights off.
Going to bed on an empty stomach has become a habit. A bad one, he knows it, but he proceeds to ignore his internal voice – he’ll down a bowl of Fruity Pebbles tomorrow. Sleep comes and goes, and he drifts between memory-fueled dreams and twisted nightmares.
Ed wakes up around 8:30am, with a headache and a pajama drenched in sweat. The days are getting warmer; he hates it. Summer in Gotham City usually means people getting bored, and bored people do stupid things, such as robbing and killing each other. Not that he minds it. Otherwise he wouldn’t find work as an M.E. But they're messy. Too messy for his taste.
He changes into a fresh t-shirt – a washed out black with the Ace Chemicals logo printed on the back. He got it as a birthday present when he turned sixteen. Probably something his father stole at work. He’s grown out of it and it almost doesn’t fully conceal his stomach but it’ll do.
Oswald is due to come over after 10am so he spends his morning reading the rest of his biology textbook and taking notes in the margins while eating Fruity Pebbles straight out of the box.
He grows restless around 11:23am and sits on the porch's stairs, looking left and right for another fifteen minutes, legs extended in front of him, sipping a lemonade turned sour in his mom’s old coffee mug. He misses her sometimes, but it’s nothing compared to what he felt during the couple of years that followed her death. Grief. Desperately clinging onto his mind, heart, limbs.
Ed drops an aspirin into what remains of his drink but the headache persists. His impatience has attained a new peak; he focuses on the neighbors arguing on the other side of the street. Oswald’s voice sounds so distant, dream-like. For a moment, he wonders if it’s not another of his hallucinations.
“What’s with the ugly t-shirt?”
Ed’s headache is increased by ten when he tilts his head up so fast that he almost breaks a vertebra. Oswald looks at him through dark tinted clip-on sunglasses. 1940’s vintage aviators. Ray-Ban. A good look on him.
The neighbors stop arguing, seemingly more interested in their interaction. Ed blinks, once, twice, before heading inside, leaving his mother’s mug abandoned on the porch’s stairs. One day they’ll talk, and my father will kill me, for good.
Not if you kill him fir—
“Ed?”, Oswald’s voice is heavy with concern.
He follows him to the living room, where Ed proceeds to shut the curtains and plops down on the worn out sofa. Oswald sits on the opposite end, taking off his sunglasses to reveal his impossibly blue eyes before tossing them on the coffee table.
“What’s up? Another headache?”
Ed produces a deep growling sound at the back of his throat in lieu of an answer.
“Ed,” Oswald says, teetering on the edge of being concerned and entirely lost “words, please.”
Ed tries to ignore the pain, dangerously navigating towards what seems to be a full on storm coming from his end, this time.
“You’re awfully late, Oswald. That’s what’s up.”
“Oh, wow. Okay. Well, I’m sorry. Happy?”
Ed turns his head towards Oswald, looking at him for the first-time in what seems to have been a lifetime. Taking in all the things that he adores about him but still focusing on what he wants to destroy in this very moment.
Oswald’s smirk and the paleness of his skin. The traces of smudged eyeliner on his bottom lid, the faint scent of tobacco and vodka. 40.0% alcohol. Smirnoff Red. Someone at the club must’ve spilled their glass on him.
Oswald does the exact same thing but he immediately scoots closer to Ed – ignoring the pain in his leg, when an unusual feature catches his sight. Ed winces, closing his lids – a defensive reflex, when Oswald’s hand goes up to caress the right side of his face.
“Shit, Ed. Did he do that?” Oswald asks, voice heavy with concern, the pad of his thumb brushing right next to the wound on his lover’s lip.
Ed doesn’t reply. He doesn’t need to. Oswald knows exactly what his father does to him, and it takes him only a few seconds to break into his usual discourse.
“You need to leave, Ed. Are you listening to me? You need to leave or else, he’ll kill you.”
Ed scoffs, shifting so that he is now facing Oswald.
“To go— where exactly?”
“You can come to my place. My mom won’t mind, she doesn’t care. Really Ed. She likes you.”
Ed considers the offer. Enjoying the way Oswald’s fingers soothe him, momentarily. But the truth surfaces, tearing all of his fantasies apart.
“If my father realizes that we’re— together, he’ll kill me. He’ll do it this time, you know that Oswald. You do.”
“Don’t say that,” Oswald replies, fingers leaving his lover’s tender flesh, leaning in to let his own lips plant a kiss on Ed’s cheek. “I won’t let him hurt you.”
Oswald’s right hand retrieves a shiny object, carefully tucked between the waist of his black bottom bell jeans and his lower back. He sets it between the two of them, on the beige-turned-brownish fabric of the sofa. Ed’s fingers brush over the canon, the trigger, the handle.
“Fish gave it to me,” Oswald says, giggling like a ten-year-old before a Christmas present. “After all, I’m her favorite.”
Ed’s jaw clenches, only for a few fleeting seconds. Oswald smiles at him, radiating something that Ed despises. Loyalty towards Fish, the woman who hurt him, who still does.
“Oswald, she also broke your leg and left you to rot in a dark alley, remember?”
Oswald sighs, all drama. “Way to ruin the mood Ed.” He leans in, again, to leave a peck on Ed’s bruised lip this time.
“Does it hurt?”
Ed shrugs, lips chasing Oswald’s for another kiss. He closes his eyes, attention shifting. Absolutely focused on his lover’s reactions. The way his hand clutches his t-shirt, exposing his skin. The wet noises of lips against lips. Oswald playfully catching Ed's tongue between his teeth.
Slow, fast, not enough.
They part only to find each other again, breathless. Oswald comes closer, right hand still clutched around the bottom of Ed’s t-shirt, the other pulling him closer. Forever.
Oswald’s brows furrow when Ed puts an end to it, looking over his shoulder towards his abandoned biology book on the kitchen counter. An idea blossoming in the back of his mind.
“What is it?” Oswald asks, hands still on his partner’s chest.
“I could poison him.”
Oswald blinks, not entirely sure of what he just heard. “What?”
“My dad,” Ed looks back at him, eyes full of excitement. “I could poison his coffee. I read something in my biology book this morning, about the symptoms of poisoning and the way it interacts with the respiratory system. My dad’s asthmatic, no one will care about his death. No autopsy, no report, no culprit, no crime. I’ll just need cyanide; do you think you can ask—”
“Ed,” Oswald puts the palms of his hands on his lover’s face, trying as hard as he can not to sound too patronizing, “you do realize that this is nuts, right? You cried for weeks when your hamster died, remember? You can’t kill your dad.”
“I can.” Ed’s tone is defiant. He hardly tries to hide the fact that what he considers to be a lack of faith on Oswald’s part annoys him. “You think I’m not smart enough to do it?”
“Oh, Ed” Oswald let’s go of his face, pressing his palms against his own eyes, as if to get rid of his frustration, “you’re the most brilliant mind I have ever met. But killing isn’t as easy as it looks.”
“Yeah, you know an awful lot about the aftermaths of killing, don’t you?” Ed snaps, almost immediately regretting his words.
Oswald remains exceptionally calm, reminiscing the night of his first kill.
“I did it to save my life,” distant tone, for a distant memory. “I did it because it was either me, or him. And I was lost, lost for a long time. Completely out of it. And I came to you, Ed. Because I knew you’d find the right words, I knew you’d be able to— reason with me, somehow.”
“And I did.”
“And on that night, you said you’d do anything for me Ed. And I’m asking you not to kill your father, because I assure you; it will follow you for the rest of your life. And your dumbass will probably get caught anyway.”
“No I won’t. I never get caught.”
Oswald smiles, faintly. Ed is stubborn and he knows how to recognize a liar when he sees one.
“You always leave a clue behind. One of your stupid puzzles or riddles or whatever the hell that is. You did it in third grade when you released a box full of rats in Mrs. Grimshaw’s classroom. She was just too dumb to figure it out. You did it with me when you wanted to get my attention. First year of high school. I was just too cool to figure it out.”
Ed smiles, ignoring his inside voice. He underestimates you. They all do. He leans forward into Oswald’s arms, holding onto him for dear life.
“Don’t you ever think about killing your dad, Ed,” Oswald mutters into his shoulder.
“Or what?” Ed replies, an air of defiance lingering on his tone, prematurely breaking the hug, chin held up high, eyes sparkling with malice.
Oswald thinks about several replies. Opting for the less serious one. Letting go of his concerns regarding Ed’s homicidal thoughts – if only for a little while.
“I’ll have to help you clean the blood. And that shit is hard to scrub off of wooden floors. Now, can we please get down to business and listen to your obscure rock band music while making out on your bed?”
Ed drives as fast as he can, laughing at Oswald’s shrieks as he clutches his waist with both arms, his torso firmly pressed against his back.
“Ed, if we die crushed by a car, I’ll fucking kill you!”
Ed laughs, mirth overflowing from his very soul. And for a while, he thinks about the last time he was this happy. Just happy. With no other silly emotion overshadowing his mind.
The night is young, Gotham is all yours. Nothing really matters, apart from the arms around his waist, the breath tickling the nape of his neck, the heart beating beside him.
“Oswald.”
“Mh?”
“I love you.”
“I know, Ed. Just— please, if you love me, drive slower. I’ll make it worth your while.”
Oswald Cobblepot. Negotiating. Classic.
They drive past closed stores and busy streets. The city is buzzing, everyone is celebrating. Oswald releases the pressure that he’s been putting around Ed’s waist when they come to a stop near the docks. Ed makes sure to conceal his motorcycle behind a few abandoned crates.
They walk towards the end of their favorite pier, taking a seat at the edge, legs dangling above the water. The spot is familiar. Grey concrete, and red metallic pillars the only witnesses of their first confession, first kiss, first promises.
Oswald massages his ankle, eyes sweeping over the view. The city lights reflecting on the water add to the eerie atmosphere.
“I love Gotham,” he admits, letting go of his leg to rest a hand on Ed’s thigh.
Ed nods, approving. “I wish things would change though.”
“How so?” Oswald asks, curious.
“I don’t know. The city needs a bit more— drama. Don’t you get bored, sometimes?”
“Life is boring Ed. But it gets better when I’m with your smartass.”
Ed chuckles, Oswald shivers. It does get colder by the river. “I told you to bring a jacket.”
Ed takes out his plaid jacket and carefully places it on top of Oswald’s shoulders. Oswald raises his left eyebrow, mockingly. “Such a gentleman Mr. Nygma.”
He fumbles through the pockets and retrieves a folded piece of paper. He reads the score out loud before giving Ed one of his impressed looks.
“Ed, you’re a genius,” Oswald taps on his lover’s forehead with his index finger, “you could actually change this city if you put your great mind to it. Make it less— boring.”
“Oh, you,” Ed pretends to be flattered, “med school first and then we’ll see about taking over Gotham City.”
Oswald shakes his head in mock disappointment before putting the piece of paper back into the pocket.
“Oh, by the way. I have a congratulations gift for you. You deserve it for crushing the entrance exams,” Oswald fumbles through his purple backpack before taking out a magazine carefully sealed in a plastic packaging.
Ed takes it with both hands, mouthing “oh my god”, as soon as he sees the red cover and the design on top of it.
“The 1971 GLF version of Ink Magazine. Printed in London.”
“Hell yeah, baby.”
“How did you get your hands on this?”
“Maybe I used my contacts in the mob,” Oswald mutters the rest of his sentence, “or maybe I just used all of my savings to get it here in time for your favorite day of the year.”
Ed laughs, all belly, pure bliss pouring out of his very soul. And Oswald looks at him, coming to the sudden realization that he wouldn’t mind getting stuck in a permanent loop just to re-live this moment over and over.
And when the moment is gone, and Ed stops laughing, and things go back to what they used to be before this breach through heaven itself, he leans in and kisses him. Adoring every inch of his being.
Ed meets him halfway, hands already worshipping him, grabbing at the collar of the plaid jacket, chasing the intimacy. The whole city could get blown out by one of these lunatics, I wouldn’t care. His heart is ablaze and his limbs go numb when Oswald’s fingers go from his knee to the inside of his thigh.
Ed lets out a moan, hiding his face in the curve of Oswald’s neck.
“Fuck.”
“Language,” Oswald coos, fondly.
“Fuck you,” Ed whispers, his left hand still holding onto the jacket. Knuckles gone white from the pressure.
“Always so needy,” Oswald withdraws his hand. Ed catches his wrist mid-air.
“Always a tease Ozzie. All words, no show.”
Oswald ignores the provocation and grabs Ed’s wrist in turn, planting a kiss on his palm.
“You deserve better than a hand job on a pier, Ed. Besides,” Oswald takes a look at Ed’s watch, “the fireworks are about to start. So shut up and enjoy the show. I overheard Falcone’s men talking about it last night, we’re in for a good one.”
Enjoy the show, Ed. As long as you can.
There is a lump forming inside of his throat, and he fights against the urge to voice all of his concerns. They suddenly come to him, in waves. And there is nothing, nothing he can do about it.
In a few hours, Oswald will go back to work. Ed will go back to his room and to his father. And this moment will be forever lost.
He cries, the sound of his sobs drowned out by the fireworks. Purple, green, gold. Oswald looks at the water instead of the sky, seemingly enjoying the reflection rather than the show itself.
And Ed closes his eyes when Oswald says it, the hiss of the fireworks insignificant compared to his lover’s voice, “I would do anything for you. Anything, Edward.”
“I know.”
“What?” Oswald gasps, scandalized. “I just told you that I’d die for you, you punk.”
Ed smiles before leaving an open mouthed kiss on his neck. “Do you want me tell you everything I learned about the course of nucleic acids –”
Oswald doesn’t even give him the opportunity to go on. He kisses him, fiercely, and Ed feels a little bit more optimistic. A little bit more in love.
Growing old on this earth, in Gotham City, with Oswald by his side, wouldn’t be so terrible.
This is your home, after all.
