Chapter Text
Jim stared at the mansion in front of him with distaste, the roof blocking the sunlight that he was very fond of, from reaching him. He never understood how someone like Edward Nygma could live here, it was like a graveyard. It was far away from civilization, and the only good thing Jim could see was that it was quiet. A man could come and would never want to leave, if it didn’t look this dead. Shifting from one foot to another, he stared back to his car. He could still leave. Tell Harvey that they didn’t open the door or something. But Harvey knew that he was too stubborn to just accept defeat when The Penguin did not open his door. He was known to pick locks when he couldn’t get somewhere.
He takes a deep breath and closes the door of his car, making sure it was locked before he walked up to the door. The gravel crunched under his feet, until he climbed the wooden stairs up to the door. He knocks a few times and waits.
And waits. Frowning he knocks again, harder and faster this time. He knew they were inside. Did they not hear the knock? He knocked once again, followed by his voice
“Oswald! I know you’re in there! We need to talk! I need Nygma's help on a case. Oswald? OSWALD!” he yelled at the lack of response, his patience beginning to get thinner and thinner every second he stood in front of the door. He stepped away and walked up to a nearby window, cupping his hands to see what was going on.
But he could barely see anything. No sign of Oswald, or anyone. Just as he pulls back, he sees it.
Like a bird nest, barely visible is a ball of curly ginger hair. Its barely visible, the owner of the said hair hiding behind a door. He blinks, and the boy blinks back at him. Jim finds out he is a he when the kid steps forward, not breaking eye contact with him. Jim is too shocked to react in time, as the kid spins around and disappears back into the room.
Jim curses at his luck, and quickly but quietly makes his way back to the front door. He presses his ear against the door, tries to hear what’s going on inside. But he hears nothing. He pulls out his lockpick set that he found one day on his desk with a question mark drawn on his desk, no doubt from no other than Edward Nygma. A part of him wanted to break it, shred it, and throw it into the river. But for some reason he kept it, God knows why.
It takes him a few minutes to finally break in, surprised to find no guards or more locks on the door. He holds his breath as he takes the first few steps in, a hand on his gun, ready at the sight of any threat. He chooses to go the way he saw the child disappear into in the end.
He nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears glass cracking under. He pushes the door open with his foot, his gun out and ready. Raising it, he steps into the room—
He immediately lowers his gun, when he realizes a second too late that he was aiming it at a kid. A Kid. Not one, actually.
There are two of them.
The one he saw through the window, he can see him clearly now. He has curly dirty ginger hair that falls down to his face, his glasses the only thing that protects his eyes from being stabbed by crazy amount of curls. He is wearing a dirty green colored sweater and shorts. He supports the look one would call a nerd these days. Before he can look at the other, he dives under the table, tugging on the red-head's sleeve
“Stay away from him! He has a gun, he could hurt you badly!”
“H-He doesn’t look like he would h-hurt me. . .” he replies, though he looks like he is doubting his own words
“Better be safe than sorry!” heavy. . . Hungarian accent?
“Im not going to hurt you. It’s okay, you can come out.” To prove his point, he puts his gun back to his belt, looking around. The room, it looks like a lab. But it’s a mess. Broken glass, something glowing bright green that Jim is sure not supposed to glow is everywhere. Especially on the kid's clothes and the table. His father instincts kick in and he quickly swoops up the red head into his arms and away from the said glowing substance. The kid yelps and struggles until he is put down, eyes wide. But he doesn’t run away
Jim approaches the table, and kneels down to finally, finally see the other.
Unlike the other, this one is smaller. He has black hair which is neatly combed back, his nose a bit crooked and his eyes are brighter than the other. Face full of freckles. He'1s wearing something more. . .gentleman-ish. A black shirt with black pants and jesus this kids is like a charcoal.
“Hello. Do you mind getting out of there? It might not be safe for you with an unknown substance so close to you, kid.”
“you can’t tell me what to do. And why should I listen to you? Are you a cop?” the kid asks smugly, crossing his arms. Jim Chuckles and reveals his badge, nodding towards it. The look on the kid’s face is hilarious.
“I actually am, little man. So may I have you out of this room?”
After a few seconds, the child moves. He stands next to the one with glasses. Jim wonders how they exactly end up in Penguin's house. Were they kidnapped? They didn’t look afraid or shaken up. Just confused.
“A-Are we i-in trouble?”
“did you do anything wrong?” both of them shake their heads fast
“We woke up in that room.” Explains the smaller one, with raven hair. Instantly Jim feels like something is wrong about this situation. Not a threat kind of off, but as if he is missing something.
“I-I- it was pro-probably my father w-who dropped me here. H-He does that when h-he has w-work” mumbles quietly the ginger. Though not fully, for now, satisfied, he turns to the dark haired child. Which he gets a shrug from.
“Woke up here. Maybe mother dropped me, she is busy with jobs.”
Jim sighs, and stands back up to his feet. “Stay here” he says as he leaves the room, wandering around, hoping to find the owner of the mansion, or get an explanation from whoever else is in here. He doesn’t like leaving them alone, but if there is a threat inside, he has to make sure that said threat is no more.
Didn’t they already have Markeen- no, Martin? Did they decide that they wanted two more children?
He checks the room, one by one, but finds absolutely nothing. Defeated, he makes his way back to where he left the kids, hoping to ask them some questions too—
She almost bumps to someone he recognizes as Olgaas she gently ushered the one with dark hair back into the room, muttering something in Russian that Jim does not understand. It’s one of those days he wishes that he knew more than 2 languages
“Osvald, dear, go in”
“Olga! Finally, can you tell me abou-“
“ убирайся. ты еще не должен быть здесь! “ and the next thing he knows is that with newfound strength, he is being pushed out
“Olga stop, what are you doing!? Stop it! Olga are you listening? Can you even understand me?!”
“ Da . Enough to kick out .” she hisses under her breath, her Russian accent thicker than ever
He tries greatly to struggle out of her grip, but jesus christ this woman is strong and he refuses to hit an old crazy Russian Lady. He prefers his head on his shoulders thank you. The struggle ends when he is thrown out (literally) of the house, and gets the door slammed close to his face. He sits on his ass, as he listens to her locking every single lock on the door, shooting him a smug smile from the window before she disappears back into the house. Jim gets up and knocks on the door a few times, which he gets no answer to.
And to add onto that, she was saying things that Jim had absolutely no idea what it meant. She was not the best English speaker.
He eyed the door one more time before he pulled out his phone, dialing a number he now knows by heart. It rings a couple of times, before someone picks up
“Hi. No, I got some bad news. I need you at the Penguin's house. Now , Harvey. You can get coffee later. . . .”
It takes 16 minutes for Harvey to safely make it to the mansion. He comes out of the car, not forgetting to slam the door to make sure Jim knows that he is not happy about it . His face is also all down, eyes glaring daggers at the other. He stomps heavily on the gravel to make a point, and climbs the stairs.
“I am not happy. You owe me coffee, bud. The good ones too. I could have translated things over the phone but no, I had to let you drag me all the way to here!” Harvey grumbles, shoving Jim aside, pulling his own lockpick set.
He tinkers with the door for a few minutes before they hear a loud cling , the lockpick snapped in half falling down from his hands and onto the floor. Harvey lets out a quiet growl, muttering a ‘it had to be my lock, didn’t it?’
“No way we are opening this door. The keys are on the door.” He gets back up to his feet. Jim runs a hand through his hair, eyeing the door one more time. Perhaps the can break it down. . .
“And no way we are breaking it, Jimbo. I guess we will go back to the GCPD?” But Jim shakes his head. They cant leave without getting answers. He wont be able to sleep peacefully.
“We need answers, Harv. There must be an open window or something around the house-“
“-Jim, accept it. There is no way we are getting into that house. We are wasting our time! Go get into your car, we will try again some other time” Unlike Jim who doesn’t even budge from his place, Harvey pats his shoulder and moves, a smile on his face. Just as he takes the first step down the stairs-
“Wait- Harvey look !” He feel a tug on his arm, which causes him to almost fall as he stumbles.
“Jesus Jim, what are you trying to do, kill…me…” The second he turns around, he sees something at the window that makes him shut up.
“is that a-“ “mhm” “inside-“ “mhm”
He moves back up close the window, followed by Jim who smiles.
“That little guy-“ “-can be our way in, Jim you’re a genius! But a little question, how will we get him to open the door?”
Jim gets a little bit more closer to the window, and stops when he could see the kid clearly. He gently knocks on the window to make sure he has his attention. But its proven to be the wrong action, as the red head quickly steps away from the window, curious eyes widening in fear. Jim raises both hands away from the glass where the kid could see them.
“Wait no no no no no no, please don’t go, I’m not gonna hurt you!” The kid stops where he is. And doesn’t move. Not a single step forward or backwards. Easy to scare, he would have to be very patient and careful with this one.
“Hey kid, can you open the door for us? The lady locked us out, and we really need to speak to her.” The kid eyes the way Jim is pointing, then back to Jim, looking hesitant.
From behind him, Harvey snorts. “You think it’ll work?”
Jim only offered a shrug “It worked with my kid before”
Once he got locked out of his own apartment. And to make things worse, Barbara was in there too. It took him climbing, knocking on the window for straight 5 minutes to wake his kid up, and another 5 to get her to open the lock on the window, promising that he would give her another cookie. (not that he would ever tell her mother that. She would like to be able to see his daughter, thank you very much. If B arbara learned she would kill him)
“Seriously, you got locket out ?! Oh man, now that’s a blackmail material I will definitely be using against you” “Don’t you dare Harvey..” He could sense Harvey smirking at him.
They shut up when the kid slowly walked up to the glass. He huffed, and wrote something with his tiny fingers
- Why
Oh boy… the questioning phase… he could do this. “Because we need to get in”
- Why , he writes again
“Because we need to talk to the lady In the house.”
- Why . And again
“She knows something that we have been trying to learn.”
- Knows what? , the question changes this time
“Something about her boss” He answers calmly. Raising his daughter taught him how to be extra patience with kids.
However, it seemed like Harvey had other ideas. Which involved ruining everything by a simple thing.
Yelling. “Oh I had enough. Kid, open the door, now. We have no time!” He knocks harshly on the door. The kid stumbles back in panic, and as fast as he could, runs away into a room.
“Harvey what the fuck were you thinking?! I had it all under control!”
“I was tired of waiting okay?! Im not a guy who waits! And I thought it would work. It always works!”
Jim groans, and rubs at his face “On criminals, yes Harvey. Now we are never gonna get in thanks to you!” A few seconds passes, and what Harvey did finally sinks in for the man.
“Shit”
Harvey moves forward to the window once again, looking in. He tries to spot the kid, or anyone else that would be able to help them. But he sees none-
A movement catches his eyes, just around the corner. Its Olga, holding the same red haired boy from the back of hıs sweater, way too high from the ground. He is struggling to get free from her grip, but how strong can a child be when going against a fully grown woman?
“Jim...Jim look...” He tugs the younger man closer, and points at them.
“What the hell is she doing?! She could drop him and hurt the kid!” he hisses under his breath.
And it’s exactly what she does. She drops him right outside the door that leads to the place Jim found the two kids. Without another word she slams the door after herself, leaving the kid out. The kid looks around the room from where he is on the ground, eyes lastly landing on the two staring at him. It may or may not be the light, Jim sees unshed tears in his eyes.
“Hey kid... sorry for being mean. Can you open the door for us? Look, I even apologized. Work with me lil pal” His mouth moves, but neither of them understand a single thing.
“Kid, we can’t hear you because of these fuc- uuh ducking windows- ow! ” He yelps at the pinch Jim gives, quickly correcting himself before he could curse. Since Jim became a dad, he has been extra careful. Less drinking, less cursing, and definitely less getting hurt. It seems it was around any little one.
At that, the kid starts roaming around the room, searching for something. It confuses them, until they see a pen clutched tightly in his hand.
Smart kid.
They watch him climb a chair to check the table, almost fall down, and act like nothing happened. At some point he disappears out of sight, only to come back with a small notebook. It looks familiar, but Jim can’t remember from where. Perhaps it belonged to Oswald?
Standing not too close or too far away, he starts scribbling on a paper, a tongue sticking out of his mouth. Once he is done, he holds it high so the two adults could see it
- I was going to open the door, but you yelled at me. So im going to ask another question. If you get it right, I'll open the door.
Before Harvey can speak and maybe say something that might ruin everything for good, Jim places a hand on his mouth and speaks instead
“Of Course, go ahead.” He only removes his hand when he is sure the kid wont back away now. He earns a puzzled look from his partner, but he just shrugs in return
- What goes down but never goes up?
“Are...Are you seriously asking us a riddle? Great, now we have a child version of Ed” Jim shushes Harvey once more.
“If he wants us to answer it, we will.” he pauses, a smirk on his face. One that Harvey absolutely hates “right, Harvey?”
Both the kid and Jim look at him calmly, waiting for his response. After a few seconds of resisting, he throws his hands up “Fine! Yes, we will” and whispers to Jim “YOU will, not me. I suck at these things.” and then pats his arm “You can do it bud” And of course he should have seen this coming...
Jim thinks for a few seconds, repeating the riddle in his head over and over and over again. What goes down...but never goes back up....
He suddenly snaps his fingers and smiles proudly. Thanks to solving many riddles that Ed asked before all this for years, he can think faster and solve puzzles.
“Is the answer Rain ?” The kid grins, nodding quickly. He starts writing something again.
-I think it’s going to rain. I should let you in now.
With that he disappears from sight, leaving the notebook and the pen on the floor. The two move to the door when they hear the soft click of locks, and finally, finally, the kid opens the door.