Business Partners • Nygmobblepot

You Really Hate Him, Huh?

"And this is the medical examination lab, which I won't be in as often as I want to be. You'll have to work alone sometimes, especially in between 10am and 2pm, but there's a camera in the top right corner in case you try anything. Oh, and, apparently you're not allowed to interfere with these without permission from either me or the medical examiner," Ed explains, kneeling down to point to and then open a drawer of tools used to cut open and examine bodies.

He's already been giving the tour for half an hour in the main room and the forensics lab, and it's beginning to drag on a bit. Well, it's dragging on a lot. Oswald is doing his best not to just tell him to go away.

"What do they think I'm gonna do?" he asks innocently, choosing to be somewhat nice as much as it pains him.

"Detective Gordon believes you might kill or otherwise injure someone if you're left unsupervised," he replies bluntly, shutting the drawer.

"And you think that too?"

Ed shrugs. "Maybe."

"I'm not a child, Nygma. I can be trusted to not go through your stuff."

"Ed," he corrects him.

"Ed, whatever, I don't care. I know you know who I am, and therefore you should know that if you annoy me any more than you already are, and I get my hands on that knife over there, calling for help will do you more harm than good."

So much for the being nice thing.

"It's not a knife, it's a scalpel. Either way, I thought you cleaned up your act," he says, not seeming fazed at all by the threat.

"You really believe an act can ever be truly cleaned up?"

"Well, it's not like you were ever anything more than Mooney's umbrella boy." He pauses for a second, and winces as he goes over what he just said in his head. "Sorry. That was mean."

Oswald shrugs. "I didn't expect you to believe anything else. It shocks me how oblivious everyone is a lot of the time."

Ed stands back up quickly, suddenly becoming aware of how long he's been on the floor.

"You know what? I totally agree. The majority are, as you said, oblivious. Not about the world, necessarily, just in general. It's like they don't even care sometimes. They go wherever life takes them without a word, even if it never actually makes sense to anyone. They just see it as what's easiest to do or say without thinking about the meaning behind it. That's why riddles are interesting. There's always a meaning. Each one is a unique puzzle, just waiting to be solved. What about puzzles? Do you like them?"

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Talking."

The look on Ed's face almost makes him feel bad. Almost.

"And I meant you're oblivious, too," Oswald adds, as if that would make the last statement any better. He takes notice that this hurts Ed more than the threat does.

There's an uncomfortable silence.

"So what am I doing here, exactly?"

"Uh, well," Ed begins flatly. He turns and gestures to a desk. "As I said before, you'll mainly be working in here. This can be your desk. The medical examiner, Mr Guerra, doesn't use it. He doesn't use most of this stuff. If I'm being honest, he might as well not even work here. I've asked him multiple times if I can use the room and he nearly always says no, which is why I just use it sometimes. And then he starts going on at me about it, which, strictly speaking, I don't-"

"Ed."

"Huh?"

They share a glance.

"Oh, right, sorry, I went off on a bit of a tangent there." He laughs nervously. "Anyway, your working hours starting tomorrow are 9 to 5, but nobody minds if you stay longer, especially over here. If anything, they encourage it. Detective Gordon will come in and talk to you a lot, I'm guessing. He told me earlier he wants you for information on the more crime-based side of the city. I don't expect you'll have a lot of actual paperwork or anything. Maybe you'll come on a few of the missions, watch the cops catch the bad guys. I do sometimes. It's fun."

"Your definition of fun really differs from mine."

"...Oh."

There's another pause. A very long one. Ed does his best to hide a hurt expression, and adjusts his glasses uncomfortably.

"Do you know if I'm getting paid for this?" Oswald asks. "Jim didn't say."

"You should be. You work here, don't you?"

"So they tell me."

"Well, if you have any more questions I'll be happy to answer them, but I do need to get on with my shift pretty soon if you don't mind," Ed says, taking a couple of files from a shelf.

"It might shock you, but I don't mind at all."

"Okie dokie," he replies, regretting it immediately.

Ed leaves the room, walking a little faster than he normally would, and when the door closes behind him Oswald sighs loudly.

He sits in the chair behind the desk to do nothing in particular. Where he's now sitting is just out of view of the camera, but it's not like there's anything he can do except from stab someone in the eye with a pencil if he feels the need.

It doesn't surprise him at all that, just two minutes later, Jim Gordon walks in. Both of them are certain it's because Jim was concerned Oswald had stabbed Ed half way through the tour.

"How are you getting along with Nygma?" Jim asks with that thought in his mind. He seems to have the closest thing on his face Oswald's ever seen to a smile. A fake one, sure, but still.

"Let's just say I haven't thought about touching the scalpel yet."

---

Author's Note:

I love writing Ed's character. Season 1 Ed, specifically. He just talks fast but has this really nice voice that makes you not actually mind that you can't keep up sometimes, and he constantly looks and sounds cheerful (and adorable). I hate that nobody liked him.

Of course, as I have to stay in character, Oswald is gonna hate him too for a while.