Your name

Ed Nygma

TW: Mentions of child abuse and bullying.

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Oswald Kapelput.

That was the name written on Ed's arm when he was born, which you can see in photos from his birth to when he was almost 6. Kapelput always intrigued him; it sounded strange, but interestingly unique. Maybe foreign. Not only did the unique name make Ed optimistic about finding him, (as there aren't many Kapelput's in America), it gave him hope that his partner would understand him better and not be repulsed by his own "strangeness".

His dad had immediately become dissapointed in the name written on his son's arm. Not only was his soulmate a man but he was likely an immigrant too. That from the start triggered the dissapointed glances and pessimistic talks about his future. The physical abuse only started once he had excitedly brought home an essay that he got an A on, and his dad had punched him so hard that he was on the floor for the next 10 minutes. Cheater. His dad had called him, but he didn't understand. Edward Nashton was not a cheater. He studied hard for that grade.

His peers always considered him odd, but even more so once he quickly began to develop a compulsion for learning and succeeding, as well as a compulsion for telling the truth. He soon realised that he physically could not lie, which in itself earnt him a few bruises from bullies. The closest lie he could ever tell was one that was in between the truth and a lie. His abusive environment at school and home left him developing more and more compulsions, some that were useful, like a desire learning new things, while others began to negatively affect both Ed and those around him. Like the time he had a panic attack during an exam because his pen unexpectedly stopped working even though it still had ink in it, so he now only had one working pen in his pencil case when he always had to have 2 on him at all times. It was a stupid and embarrassing moment, but as soon as the pen stopped working Ed couldn't stop fixating on the idea that he was about to fail the exam because of it, and he broke down until his teacher gave him a spare pen.

It wasn't just his weird compulsions that separated him from his classmates. He began obsessing over riddles and puzzles to an unhealthy extent, and started reading non fiction books so he could learn new things. While boys his age played sports, he was learning the functions of the human body. Perhaps that's where his career choice stemmed from. The 7 year old boy in the library, head buried in a biology book on different systems, cells and bodily functions.

He often found himself staring at Oswald's name on his arm for hours at a time, trying to visualise how he would look, talk and act. Would he be strange too? Would he be smart? Tall or short? Like puzzles? Like science? Does he read? Would he like Ed?

The last question was always the one he became fixated on, to the point where he got frustrated and made a pros and con list of himself to try and work it out. When that didn't calm his nerves, he decided to take a book on soulmates out of the library and study the science behind them. They have a 97% chance of being compatible. Ed did not like those odds. A 97% chance still meant there was a 3% chance of failure. 2% of these situations were caused by one person being soulmates with someone who had a different soulmate, and 1% were cases where the two did not like each other. The idea of being in the 3% scared Ed, and he unadmittedly lost a lot of sleep over it.

By his 18th birthday, Ed was finally able leave his abusive home behind and start a new life. Edward Nashton became Edward Nygma (because it became E.Nygma when shortened, like an enigma). He mainly got the courage from Oswald's surname changing from Kapelput to Cobblepot. Before, he was scared that legally changing his name would make it harder to be found, but the name changed with him so he didn't have to worry.