A riddlebat fanfic riddled with angst, lactose intolerance, and love confessions. Bruce Wayne, the Batman, goes undercover on a social media website to hunt down the Riddler, a streamer who has been terrorizing Gotham by exposing its corruption thro...
"Sorry... I was just thinking about... bombs," he answered, posing like this:
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"It's okay... I just have something important to tell you... I understand if you would want to leave after I tell you this. This could potentially ruin our relationship forever, but I want to be completely honest with you."
Eddie didn't look so well since coming back from the bathroom. His face was paler and sweatier than usual. Maybe there was a trace of lactose from the Meat Mountain? I couldn't imagine the excruciating pain he must be feeling.
"This information I just received may be upsetting to hear. People have been talking about this on Twitter-"
His eyes snapped open. "You... You have Twitter?"
"I only got it recently. Anyways, some are very... enthusiastic about this topic, but others aren't. I'm sorry that it has to be this way. I would never purposefully try to hurt you, but I am obligated to do the right thing."
"W- What's going on?" he asked with a slight tremble in his voice.
"I'm so sorry. There's... only one bed."
"THANK GOD," he sighed in relief. "WAIT NO-"
"Oh... um... you're okay with it?"
"I meant... it's okay. I don't mind," he corrected, taking off his clear frame glasses and setting them on the nightstand, he left a greasy fingerprint on the lens (trace evidence). I couldn't remember if I ever saw him without them. They framed his face so nicely, but even then, he looked so... nice. The way his (albeit greasy) hair fell in front of his face, the way his eyes squinted when he smiled; it was enough to make my emo heart leap. I could see the good in Eddie. He was broken like me, but he was good. I wanted him to see himself as I saw him. I saw him like this:
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
He sat down on the bed beside me. "Remember the day you friended me on SpaceHey?"
I laughed. "Of course I do. I bet you had no idea that I was Batman. Or Bruce Wayne."
He shook his head. "You weren't that good of an undercover spy, Dark Knight. It was kind of obvious!"
"What gave it away?"
Eddie looked toward the window. "The bat symbol. Whenever it lit up the sky, you would leave. Amongst other things."
"Right."
He turned to me. "If you could leave the titles of Batman and Bruce Wayne behind, would you have joined?"
The room grew quiet. I tried to think of an answer, but my train of thought was interrupted by a knocking at the door.
I practically leapt out of bed as the door opened.
"Lights off at nine, sir," Marinara shouted. "There shalt beest nay electronics 'r talking!"
"Okayuhhhh," I grumbled.
Marinara looked me up and down, then glanced over to Eddie frozen on the bed behind me.
"And there shalt beest no queer activity, knave!" she scolded before closing the door and turning off the lights.
"Sorry about her. What were we talking about?"
"Oh... it was nothing," Eddie answered, laying back down as I climbed back into bed.
Distant sirens were heard as we tried to fall asleep. You could never escape the criminal activity in Gotham. Even living in the suburbs, I had to worry about crime just like everyone else in the city.
Eventually the sirens stopped, and my eyes grew heavy. I soon felt the coldness of a metal railing. I was holding my body up with my arms, my hips resting on the bar. No... could it be... the cast ball, an intermediate parkour vault? I kicked my legs back, getting my hips up as high as possible and used my arms to pull myself through, over the railing. I had almost forgotten the thrill of epic parkour. Exhilarated, I jumped from obstacle to obstacle, enthusiastically shouting "PARKOUR!" after every jump. Parkour... why had it been so long since I last parkoured? The college recreation space began to fade. I found myself on a sidewalk in the streets of Gotham. In front of me, a couple walked, holding hands with their son. The mother wore... pearls. My mother's pearls. This was the night my parents died. I desperately ran after them as I heard my younger self say, "Watch me do parkour!" and disappear into an alley.
I watched in horror as my younger self climbed the garbage bin and jumped onto a stack of crates. My parents just stood there, pretending to be impressed. A shadowy figure emerged from the fog on the other side of the alley. My father grabbed my arm and pulled me off the crates. I tried to shout at them, telling them to run, but to no avail. Soon enough, my mother's bloodied pearls littered the concrete, and my father would lie with her shortly after. I gazed into my younger self's eyes and remembered the crippling helplessness I had felt. I had lost my parents again, and I failed to save them again.
I woke up in a sweat and saw Eddie sound asleep beside me. I regularly had nightmares about my parents dying because I was an orphan, and it was a particularly scarring experience. My parents were dead in both my dreams and reality. My breathing was still fast, so I reached for my phone to calm myself down. I opened Twitter, which was completely new to me but still peaked my interest nonetheless. I figured Batman should have his own Twitter, so he could fight bad guys both in real life and online (get into Twitter beef). I clicked on the trending tab to check the latest news. My stomach dropped when I saw the Riddler #1 on trending. I thought he had gone quiet after being sent to Arkham. When could he have possibly...
