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"How are you holding up in your mobster retirement?"
"This is not retirement, just the calm before the storm! I'll be back soon. Anyway, everything is fine, even better. Where did you run away? I heard it was with the nondescript Harleen Quinzel."
"Yeah, a short break from Gotham is a good solution. I'm not as far as you can imagine, the house in California is quite cozy. You should try too Riddleboy. "
"Oh Ivy I can't leave it like this, Oswald will resist and he will be a pain in the ass at the same time."
"Ah well. That's life, you as Househusband and he as King of the underworld. How did that come about?"
Ivy on the far side of the phone heard a snap.
"I-It's a story for another time, Ivy, Ciao!" With another crash he hung up and she wasn't sure what to think about it, it was definitely not weird.
--- ⸮? ---
Edward flew straight from the kitchen into the guest room. He quickly dusted himself off the flour and took off his apron with blue hearts.
"What was that supposed to be? I was on the phone!"
Edward screamed desperately.
"And what the hell is your dead informant doing on a NEW CARPET !?" Nervously, he began to stamp his foot like a small child offended at the ban on eating sweets before dinner.
"I have no idea. He's lying?" Oswald panicked.
Oswald remained silent and stood staring at his shoes.
"Do you have any idea how much it took me to get it to match the new mansion décor at least a little !?" his anger grew with each word he spoke.
A dead worker was still bleeding out on the light-colored carpet.
" Sorry?" Oswald said after a moment's thought.
"I was pissed, I wasn't thinking straight, we'll buy a new-" Edward gave him a chance to finish his sentence when he exploded.
"BUT I Fought FOR THIS WITH MY LIFE!"
Even then, even Oswald had scared him, which had happened during the shopping solo, that now he sounded like the perfectionist psychopath he was.
--- ⸮? --- {two weeks earlier, while shopping}
Edward had to do dirty work, he decided to take two workers with him.
The two do not know what awaits them, the great Riddler decided to take them to help with the work, but nothing mentally prepared them for what was to come.
They pulled up to the spot in a black restored 1970's Mercedes.
"We've got to get tight, boys. We don't have much time and we're slow anyway." Edward parked the car and the truck got out.
"Boss, I don't want to complain, but it's 7:30 in the morning and we're standing in front of IKEA. What are we actually doing here."
"Exactly, you were talking about dirty work." The second sharply agreed with his colleague. They both actually knew about the Penguin and Riddler relationship, and they also knew what they were both capable of when their partner was offended. In fact, the whole story of Edward Nygma and the Penguin was an understatement because no one really knew if they were in real relationship. They called themselves 'partners in crime' but most people knew or had guesses that in private they were lovers.
"Oh you idiots. It's Biggest Day! You guys will help me with this dirty job." Edward smiled half-jokingly, half-seriously.
So when the store opened at 8:00 AM, We Determined Edward and two slightly confused gangsters walked into the store with him.
As Edward chose the perfect greenish shade of curtain fabric and two gangsters taller than him, Edward felt the eyes of other buyers on him.
Everyone knew who he was but wondered what he was doing at IKEA in the opening hour with two gorillas right behind him.
The crowd was unbearable and there were so many things to do.
One was pushing a shop wuzek and the other was trying to make a way for them to pass between people.
A long moment passed and Edward suddenly screamed pointing to the mob of people at the carpet booth.
"Over there boys!" he shouted and the whole poison began to run to the stand.
The gangsters followed their boss without a word, the curiosity of this situation was so enormous in their eyes that they stopped questioning anything.
It was so crowded and people fought so fiercely that when they came out of the crowd with a carpet that Edward managed to spot, they were surprised that ordinary people, and mostly young women and old ladies, could be so strong.
They walked away a bit, looked like they came back from an unsuccessful transaction on the docks. One of the Bodyguards had a black eye and a red mark on his neck, the other had a bruise on a fragment and a broken fingernail.
Edward had a cut lip and padded ribs. Now they began to wonder if these women were by chance on Indian hill projects.
"Okay our boys! Now just walk through-" he walked over to the store map on the wall. "- Oh shit."
"What's wrong, boss?" one asked wiped the slightly dripping blood with his hand.
"Nothing, we go to the cash register." Edward said proudly.
As he said, so they did, they went to the cash register, thanks to Edward's photographic memory.
They were getting more and more exhausted and frustrated. They had a simple goal of going to the cash register. But Edward had other plans, he rescued himself at the pillow stand.
Now they were standing by one of the blankets, and when Edward looked through the warm down blankets he saw a familiar figure by the towel department.
Jim Gordon and Lee.
Dammit.
He quickly went down to the ground, hiding behind the pile of arranged blankets and squeezed the carpet as if he could help him in this strange situation.
The two gangsters he came with hid behind the shelves. Well, they knew who the man he desperately hides from and they probably knew him too.
As Edward leaned out to look where Jim and his wife had gone.
His heart pounded as if he was hiding from a bloodthirsty creature.
In fact, from his perspective, it was like that.
When the threat was over, he stood up, dusted off his shirt and whistled at the mobsters.
They came out from behind the cupboards and he just said.
"Well done, you guys are not as stupid as I expected." At these words, one was pleased with the praise, and the road stopped at the mention of their presumed stupidity. But what to get the slightest compliment from a Riddler and not be a Penguin is a thing.
After a while they were at the cash register, the rest after all.
Edward looked away for a moment and said.
"Before we finish, we have one more fight, gentlemen." he pointed eagerly at another croup of people, again mostly women.
They both looked at Edward in mild fear.
"Again?"
"Yes. Now let's get what we can." Edward said eagerly.
Another fight at the stuffed animal stand and what really interested Edward, the scented candles.
After another intense blows and ripped objects, they stood at the equally crowded cash registers.
The first gangsters stood up, followed by Edward.
As he shook and waited for his turn, something struck his hip. As he turned towards the person who pushed him, he only heard.
"Sorry"
And- oh my god, this isn't really happening. It must be some goddamn Peep show.
He turned and looked at Jim Gordon.
He did not want this confrontation in a place like this so much.
Gordon could see his purple face and split lip.
But well, Deal with it.
Before Edward could turn around, he showed his face but returned to his backside position again. He just stuttered "That's all right. " in his most natural tone of voice, as if nothing had arisen for him.
Then one of the mobsters turned and said. "are you okay boss?"
Now, Gordon might have thought he was trying to rob a home improvement store in a strange way. Perfectly.
But Jim just stood there and did nothing.
As it was their turn to cry, the cashier looked at Edward's face, still eloquent but tired. The cashier, as well as the whole city, knew his face, some of them as Chef of staff, some of them as right hand of crime boss. She probably knew him as no.2. She burst into saliva loudly and asked in a stuttered voice.
"C-cash or char-charge?"
Edward wanted to look scary, but the young cashier looked like she was about to cry from stress.
In the softest voice reserved only for Oswald and Martin, he said. "By card, please." that there would be a one-time action.
Jim only was surprised that Edward could be so gentle with other people.
The two gangsters with him left the store satisfied that this day was over with this experience. It was exactly 5 PM. Which meant they were in the store for ten hours.
They went to the parking lot and looked into the purse that contained stuff from the stuffed animals and candles.
He didn't saw what was in the bag before.
He opened the bag and looked at the candles silently.
"Lavender, really?"
He entrusted frustrated. "What is this !?"
"What's wrong with lavender."
"I hate laveder, this strong smell makes my head ache. Besides, you could have done better!"
The gangsters looked at each other, waiting for the boss's big outburst, which at that moment had not come.
To this moment.
"Have you completely lost your mind!? "
Edward screamed across the parking lot, staring at the stuffed penguin. His temperament will soon be equal to his beloved with the next attacks of aggression.
Edward shouted at them even more, threatening them with death and torture, one of the gangsters wanted to tell him something.
When he was quiet for a moment, he collapsed in the place where the gangsters were staring.
Both. Here again.
Lee stared at Edward in disbelief.
Edward just grabbed his hair and let out a groan of frustration and nervousness that was about to turn into a sob, closed the trunk and with a typically female nervous step entered the car.
A mixture of shame and frustration hit him as he got stuck in a traffic jam, and he remembered that he had forgotten about Martin's bedding.
He tossed his head against the steering wheel in one move, frustration hitting him even harder. How could he have forgotten something for Martin? After all, it's like- his son(?), He thinks.
He saw two missed calls from Oswald and struck the steering wheel horn by again.
--- ⸮? ----
Edward touched his finger to lips to a memory of a situation. His hand moved to where the glasses lay on his nose, he took a deep breath and exhaled. "Okay, Oswald, never mind. Let's just get rid of this corpse and the sooner I stain the bloodstain by hand, the better for that poor carpet."
Oswald only approached him and stole a kiss. "Thank you honey."
And he wanted to run out of the room.
"Need help? Any chemicals to wash off that much blood?"
"No thanks, but you can stay unless you want to call the boys to grab the body." he chuckled, slightly raising and lowering the hand of the dead man on the green.
"I have to call someone to pick it up and to the school to inform that Martin will be picked up by someone else ..."
"Okay, we'll be able to deal with it."
Together they went to the bathroom with the new carpet.
Edward pulled more detergents from the bench under the sink than Oswald had ever seen in one house.
He chose some bottles.
"What is this all stuff?" Oswald peered over his shoulder.
"Stain remover, carpet wash, fabric softener, washing liquid for white fabrics. But that's for later, now it has to soak up in cold water to reject at least a minimal amount of blood." he explained quickly. Filling the bathtub.
"I'm going to call someone, but who?"
" Not any of employers, that's for sure." he mused.
“The daughter of someone we know goes to class with Martin.” Edward chirped
"Yeah, no way." that was the quick and obvious answer.
"Listen today, it's Barbara, not Gordon or Lee." Edward said with relief. He really never wanted to confront Gordon after what happened two weeks ago. Never.
After a moment of silence, he chose Barbara's phone without a word and began talking.
After less than five minutes, he returned to the bathroom and said. "She agreed."
They both breathed a sigh of relief if it hadn't been for more trouble than just a body left in the room in a phloem bag, lest the rest of the blood run over the old floorboards and the carpet as evidence of the murder in the bathtub.
Edward left the rug to soak and he and Oswald decided to bring a body bag.
"So, someone will come for the dead one or are we going to get dirty ourselves?"
I think this will be fun, we haven't been hiding anyone together since the man we killed at your place."
They left through the front door holding the sack on both sides, stopped by the shovel to the shed and walked into the woods next door far enough that they would not be lit by the headlights of Barbara's car, who was to come with their Martin.
As they approached the site where they were going to bury the body, Edward shoveled the snow away at the digging site, he said. "But you are digging half."
"Edward, don't be ridiculous, what about my leg?"
"I'm sorry to tell you this, but I didn't kill the man and dirty the carpet." Edward stood with his arms folded.
"Okay, let's do it another way."
The 'other solution' was a game of paper, rock, scissors to choose who would kick the first half.
"Ha! I won! You're going to dig a hole!"
"Must be so deep?" he groaned.
"You want us both to have problems darling?" Edward chirped at him as he handed him a shovel.
Oswald just offered him flexing facial muscles, grabbed a shovel and started kicking.
Then it was Edward's turn to dig.
Then they finally happily threw the body down and covered it with dirt.
Ideally, when they were leaving the forest on the mansion property, Barbara's car pulled up in front of the house and illuminated them.
It was at least -10°C and he was dressed only in suit trousers and barely a shirt, Oswald had so much better that he had a jacket.
Oswald had some blood on his face after an act done and Edward had his sleeves pulled up to slightly stain his white shirt.
Barbara just got out for the show in front of her and the rear door swung open.
"Hey Ozzie, I have your kid!"
Martin got out and looked questioningly at both Mrs. Kean and his father and Edward.
Edward stared blankly and counted in his head if it had taken too long for them to do so and Oswald panicked and said.
"Barbara! Hello, nice to see you!"
"Hmh" Barbara just sighed and probably knew what they were doing in the woods, but decided not to broach the subject.
"You're not gonna owe me a favor this time, Ozzie, it's just parents helping parents. Right?" She smiled and patted Martin on the shoulder.
Edward only managed to mumble in response. "Y-yes of course."
Barbara quickly got in and a voice came out of the car.
"Bye Martin!"
Martin smiled at once and turned his back, waving coolly.
As soon as Barbara disappeared from their sight, they quickly ran to the young man, trying to distract him from the shovel which Edward quickly hid behind his back and from the blood on Oswald's face.
Oswald kept Martin busy with questions about the school by helping him get out of his jacket, and Edward just ran upstairs looking at the carpet.
He put the detergents back in the tray and took out the rug while drying it, and decided to let it dry in the huge wine cellar.
He quickly returned to Martin and Oswald.
And he sat down on the couch with them, talking to them about everything.
After a long conversation, he remembered what he had been doing before all this mess.
Fuck.
He was going to make cookies back then when he was talking with Ivy.
A wave of frustration struck him and he covered his face with his hands.