Chapter Text
After many a harrowing experience, Oswald Cobblepot could definitively be determined quite invincible. Such a conclusion was something that Oswald might have bragged about and used to his domineering advantage once — now, he merely regarded it with nothing more than a sort of reminiscent despondency, wishing it be gone if it could only mean a prompt return to the times when Oswald would not have worried about whether or not he could survive a bullet to the stomach. He would gladly do away with this new and incredible revelation if it meant he could go back to being the mayor with Edward Nygma as his diligent chief of staff. And he would let him live happily however he pleased, whether with Isabella or himself — and if it was the former, he would look on with polite admiration and well-concealed loathsome jealousy if it permitted Ed to live carelessly in that bubble of contented domesticity. It was a hideous lifestyle for someone with such promising potential as Ed, but keeping himself from sticking his nose where it didn’t belong was an easy choice to make if it, in turn, kept him from being shot — if it could keep him living as perfect of a life as he could alongside Ed, and oh, how Oswald prayed it would. If he could turn back time, he’d do so in a heartbeat, leave this metaphorical invincibility to the next unfortunate sap that found himself being dumped in the river with lead in his stomach and staring up at his one and only love interest. A dramatic end to a dramatic story — if only it could be the end, after all.
But such naive dreams were better suited for a child, and Oswald knew better than anyone that immortality — however promising it may seem — was a fleeting fantasy one could not afford to entertain whilst pursuing their attempted murderer. It was a journey he was not looking forward to, regardless of how justified his revenge could be, and he detested himself for such a weakness. But no amount of self-directed abhorrence could banish that lead weight of hesitance — this, Oswald knew all too well. And because of such iron-willed trepidation (however smothered beneath self-hatred it may be), Oswald still paused in the alley outside of Jim Gordon’s house, frozen to his spot on the stairs even as the man himself emerged and locked the door behind him. It was a spell, it seemed — a curse, even, cast upon him the precise moment he’d looked into those dark brown eyes belonging to no one other than that mystical Edward Nygma and fallen desperately in love. Edward could have ripped Oswald’s leg off with his bare hands and beaten him with it and a part of Oswald would always forgive him for it, would always doubt how truly justified any form of revenge against the one you love could be, would always hold his heart captive and make him freeze until further prompted.
“Oswald,” Gordon breathed disbelievingly, a sound that was immensely satisfying to Oswald’s still water-logged ears.
“Hello, Jim,” he said, forcing a smile to his face and relieved to find no hesitation in his muscles at doing so. It seemed Gordon’s words had been enough to thaw his tentative heart — how bitterly ironic, Oswald thought, though not entirely sure as to why.
“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’re still alive,” the officer continued, voice still thick and strained with that tenacious incredulity.
“Yes,” Oswald said with a great sigh of relief. “I am quite hard to kill.”
In a distant spot behind Jim, Firefly ignited her flamethrower in a silent threat, the sight of the brief bursts of fire further thawing Oswald’s muscles and stretching his smile wider.
“I take it this isn’t a social call,” Gordon said, turning back to Oswald once determining that Firefly was not an immediate threat.
“I’m looking for Ed,” Oswald said hastily, more than thankful to skip over the idle chat. “We have some unfinished business. I went home and…he isn’t at the house. He isn’t at City Hall, my agents have reported,” he said, gesturing over Jim’s shoulder. “I’m not quite ready to show my face on the street again — you understand, of course — so, Jim, you’re my last resort. I pray you don’t disappoint me.”
“Nygma?” Jim said. “Well, no, I wouldn’t expect him to be at work. He’s in the hospital. Has been for a while.”
Oswald paused again, his legs and arms growing cold, his heart growing hesitant, his mind going blank.
“The hospital?” he asked in a broken whisper, a weak tone which tugged his self-loathing to the surface.
“Yeah,” Gordon continued slowly, hesitantly, perhaps wanting to test the waters but instead plunging in headfirst when Firefly lit her flamethrower again. “It’s been about a week. I haven’t gotten the chance to learn anything because they’ve been turning away everyone who’s gone in to see him. I was meaning to go in and see him myself later, see if he knew anything about your whereabouts, but I’ve been busy.” He squared his shoulders. “Looks like that won’t be necessary anymore, thank God.”
“Who’s been trying to get in to see him?” Oswald snapped, that poisonous hesitance stamped down by vile jealousy and heart-wrenching concern.
“Coworkers, I’d imagine.”
“You’d imagine? You mean you haven’t checked?”
“Like I said, I’ve been busy,” Gordon said emotionlessly, glancing over his shoulder at Firefly. “As a matter of fact, I’m still busy. I gave you what you asked for, Oswald, do you think I could get back to work?”
“Work,” Oswald growled, pulling Jim closer by a fistful of his shirt, “is all you’ve ever cared about. We’re old friends, Jim — is it too much to ask that, in my absence, you keep track of my better friends? Another old friend of yours, even?”
“You mean the ‘old friend’ that killed three of my coworkers and framed me for murder?” Jim snapped back, voice lower and more chilling than Oswald’s own. “Sorry,” he said with a toothy smile, gripping Oswald’s wrist and prying his hand from his shirt, “if it didn’t cross my mind to maintain a connection with him. He became your handful to deal with the minute you made him your chief of staff. I’m not getting roped into these petty aggressions between you two, so go check on him yourself.”
Oswald jerked his hand back, holding it against his chest as if he’d been burnt, staring daggers at Gordon. “I assure you, Jim,” he said, pounding his walking stick against the ground, “there is nothing petty about it. Go. Run off and deal with whatever vaguely illegal grave you’ve dug yourself now. But,” Oswald continued, catching Jim by his tie when he’d moved to shove past him, “I do expect you to check up on him at some point. Preferably before he’s discharged. If not for amicable reasons, then do it to feed it to the press. I’m sure they’re dying to know what’s happened.”
“Really? You wouldn’t want that kind of credit?”
“All I want, Jim,” Oswald said coldly, tugging Gordon closer a step, “is to ensure the safety and well-being of my dear friend. The rest of it’s in your hands.”
“Gee,” Gordon said with another smile, once again breaking free of Oswald’s grasp and backing up toward the stairs, “you have my gratitude, Mr. Cobblepot.”
If those words glued Oswald to the spot as Gordon disappeared, he certainly didn’t let it show.
“The hospital,” he ordered over his shoulder, Firefly stepping closer to acknowledge that she’d heard him. “I’m going alone. If he’s been in there as long as Jim says he has, then I’m willing to bet he can’t put up a fight. If I call you, however,” Oswald said, turning completely to face his associate, “I expect you to be there promptly.”
“You got it, Mr. Penguin,” she said with a smile, the melted flesh of her face stretched tautly. “Put a cap between his eyes.”
“I intend to,” Oswald said with a smile, turning toward the stairs and pulling out his phone to call Ivy. His limp was worse due to the cold he felt coursing through his veins, that numb white noise of vacillation buzzing in his ear like a fly.
He didn’t intend to shoot Ed. In truth, he didn’t know quite what he intended, but if anyone were to get a bullet in the brain, a part of him said that it would be him. And a larger part of him was itching to do the honors. He hadn’t felt right since he’d woken up in Ivy’s dilapidated greenhouse, hadn’t felt like he’d belonged. He was supposed to be dead, that much was obvious, and a part of him that sympathized with Ed’s aggression felt that he should remedy that mistake, that he should fix it for Ed to not put him through the trouble again.
Since waking up those few days ago, he’d been all too aware of the scar on his stomach, still pink and tender, still sore to an extent. He hadn’t had an appetite, hadn’t dressed with such grace and ease as he used to. Whenever he buttoned a shirt or vest or jacket, he was so mindful of that one painful place on his stomach, the pressure that he still felt within, as if the bullet was still inside, burrowing deeper with every passing thought of Ed that didn’t entail the many ways he could tear him apart. Those thoughts occurred far more than Oswald preferred, thoughts of his smile, his breathtaking eyes, his hands, his voice — sometimes it would speak, sometimes it would just hum some tune Oswald was unfamiliar with, some melody he felt he should know. Only in moments when he was blinded by his rage could he picture putting a bullet in Ed’s stomach (then two, then three), slicing his throat, stabbing him in the heart and tearing him apart bit by bit. And when he was presented with these pictures, he never felt within him the satisfaction and longing he did when thinking of Ed’s gentle caress, every small detail of his face, the way he could look Oswald in his eyes and say with such patent sincerity, “I would do anything for you.”
It was reasons such as this that had Oswald freezing, not speaking, even as Ivy answered his call.
The ride to the hospital was quick and silent, though with no one in the car beside himself and the chauffeur, Oswald wasn’t expecting any chit-chat. He ordered the driver to find a spot and stay there until further notice, leaving Oswald staring up at the bland facade of Gotham General and shivering against the cold that crept through his veins. It was that same sensation of hitting those frigid, ruthless waters, feeling them fill a hole in your body that shouldn’t be there, feeling them shroud you in filth and disease. Oswald knew that sensation all too well, and even after emerging from that seemingly inescapable Hell to which he’d been condemned, he still felt it every waking moment. That creeping gelidity, that embraced hopelessness, that desperate gasping and praying that it was all some nightmare from which he’d wake to find himself cold and alone in the mansion. Every living moment he spent dying, drowning from the moment that gunshot burst his eardrums.
A gunshot that he heard in every dream. A face that he saw in every passing thought. Words that he heard in every opening mouth.
“I don’t love you.”
These were what propelled him forward through the doors and to the receptionist’s desk.
Gotham General was always as Oswald vaguely remembered it: drab, depressing, and so blatantly a white-walls, white-ceiling hospital that it left you wanting to patch up your wounds in the dank and musty basement of an abandoned house. Thankfully, Oswald had never had to suffer being treated here, for in the previous events that he had found himself injured, he’d wound up in a river, in a trailer in the woods, in a stranger’s house, in an abandoned estate overrun by plants, and, most despicably, in the Arkham Asylum infirmary. All very unconventional situations, but still preferable (excluding the infirmary — damned be those demented screams) over this establishment.
Oswald had found himself wondering once or twice if it was a policy within the Gotham General walls to keep everything as painfully average and visually inoffensive as possible, for it seemed that even the staff and their livery were as mind-numbingly insipid as their accommodations. The receptionist at the desk that he was quickly approaching was no exception to this judgement.
“Hello,” Oswald greeted tersely, tapping his walking stick against the floor to attract the woman’s attention. “I’m here to see one Edward Nygma — former chief of staff of this city. I was told he was admitted close to a week ago. I can assure you, he’s not expecting me,” he said with a dry laugh.
The receptionist — a stout woman in her forties, Oswald was willing to estimate — gave him a cursory once-over, then turned back to the newspaper that Oswald was sure she was not even reading. “Edward Nygma is not accepting visitors at this time, please come back later and we’ll see about letting you in,” she recited robotically, idly turning the page of the paper. It appeared a well-rehearsed reply, and perhaps once in recent events, it was delivered with a modicum of sincerity, a quality cruelly discarded with repetition.
“Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough,” Oswald began, veins afire with impatient venom. “My name is Oswald Cobblepot, former mayor of this city, and in one of these bland and disgustingly sterile rooms, you’ve locked up my chief of staff and dear friend Edward Nygma.” He leaned forward over the counter in a vaguely conspiratorial manner, eyes alight with overt hostility. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I don’t know why he’s here. So, I’m going to see him, whether you let me in, or not.”
“Did you say ‘Cobblepot’?” the woman asked, perking up, seemingly unfazed by the unspoken threat to Oswald’s words. “You know, that is the only name the doctor said to accept,” she mumbled, typing something on the computer and bringing up records. With a heavy sigh, she pointed down the hall. “He’s in room 125. I’ll see about having a nurse sent your way to give you his diagnosis.”
“Thank you kindly for your cooperation,” Oswald said with a smile, far less taken aback by the abrupt turn of events than he felt he should be. There must have been something in the “Get Shot by Your Best Friend and Only Love Interest” starter pack that left one inherently prepared for any and all conventionally unexpected situations, Oswald theorized with an inward scoff. Compared to the other mental and emotional alterations he’d experienced since his happy Death Day, this revelation was nothing to dwell upon, and Oswald had been trying to make it a habit not to dawdle, anyhow.
The one advantage this spotless institution had over others, Oswald supposed, was that there was a thankful shortage of crazed screams as one strolled the halls. Of course, an occasional groan or sob would pop up here or there, but nothing that Oswald was strictly speaking unaccustomed to — not as if he was one unaccustomed to the wails of the damned.
Room 125 was frankly painless to reach, though locked and protected by one nondescript security guard that Oswald had never seen before during his mayorship. The sight was disheartening, to say the least, but not an insurmountable obstacle. And still, there was a window, which Oswald calmly took to instead of immediately resorting to unnecessary bloodshed.
Thanks to the closed blinds, there was not much to behold, but Oswald could still make out a bedridden form through the quarter-inch slats of gracious visibility. It was impossible to say what state Edward was in — or if the patient within even was Edward — but the confirmation of some presence was comforting nonetheless. It was an assurance that this tedious digression had not been for nothing.
“Mayor Cobblepot?” a soft voice came, and Oswald cursed inwardly for allowing himself to be snuck up upon.
“Former Mayor Cobblepot, my dear,” he corrected a little breathlessly, straightening his suit self-consciously. “I’m assuming you’ve come with news? What happened?” He rapped his knuckles against the window with a chuckle. “Did he trip over that gigantic ego of his and hit his head?”
For what it was worth, the nurse seemed to be conscious enough of Oswald’s reputation to know to give him a brief smile and laugh, in spite of her blatant solemnity. She moved on from this swiftly, however, preventing Oswald from pointing out such an error by tapping on her clipboard. “Says here it was an overdose.”
At that, Oswald’s heart froze. The sluggish cold that pervaded his extremities should have been alarming, Oswald supposed, but his icy mind was preoccupied with something else.
“An overdose?” he echoed softly, distantly disgusted by the weakness of his tone. “An overdose on what?”
“Uh, the—the test results show that he had a shocking amount of…various drugs in his bloodstream,” the nurse continued hastily, deliberately avoiding eye contact as best she could, Oswald noted. “Opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other obscure psychotropics — the results for one in specific came back strongest, so I think it’s safe to say that that’s what he—”
“That’s impossible,” Oswald interrupted, turning toward the window. The sight was still obscured by those mundane plastic blinds, but in light of recent discoveries, Oswald found he was almost thankful for the lack of view. “Ed…Ed would never do that. Why would he do that?”
“We were sort of hoping that you might be able to shine some light on that situation.”
“Me?” Oswald began slowly, dangerously, a word spat with such potential and inevitable outrage that the nurse had the common sense to retreat a step. “I haven’t been here for weeks! Who was checking up on him all that time? There had to have been someone keeping tabs on him — is there anything in the papers, the news, anything at all?”
“No, Mayor— Mr. Cobblepot,” the nurse stammered. “From the reports I’ve seen, Mr. Nygma hardly made a public appearance after you went missing. Grieving, everyone said. You were presumed dead.”
Presumed dead, Oswald thought, pressing his palm against the glass of the window. If anyone had truly presumed him dead, this hellish city would be in far worse disarray than it already was. Perhaps, he reflected with an additional pang of dread, the city was in shambles and he was just too blind to see it. This city had hardly felt like home since his return, and though Oswald had previously chalked it up to residual shock, he couldn’t help but wonder if the city had changed after all. He was only gone for a few weeks, but he was certainly not one unfamiliar with how productive Edward Nygma and Barbara Kean could be by themselves, not to mention what they could achieve in solidarity. Perhaps if people had done more than simply presume him dead, he wouldn’t have to be dealing with this inconceivable mess.
“How long has been taking the drugs?” Oswald asked with a sigh, fishing his mind out of the lethal pond of dark digressions into which it had sunk. “Am I wrong to assume that you have an estimate?”
The nurse shook her head and turned back to the papers on her clipboard, her wide and fearful eyes skimming over it frantically. “Uh, f-from the results of the blood test, I’d say steadily for a few months.”
“No,” Oswald said simply.
“No?”
“No — a shorter time frame.”
“Mr. Cobblepot, that isn’t—” the nurse began, but Oswald stopped her with a pound against the window.
“He hasn’t been doing them for months — I would have known! Estimate in a shorter time frame!”
“Okay! Um…S-Steadily for a few months or…lethal amounts in recent weeks. But, Mr. Cobblepot, that isn’t a rational assumption. If it’s true, then he should be very, very dead.”
The news had been as Oswald had expected it — expected, perhaps, but not accepted. Two nearly homophonic words which held such different weight in the present situation.
Oswald turned to the window again, his chest constricted by the ice in his heart. “Who’s to say he isn’t?” he said vaguely, and only once the words were out, did Oswald understand what painful truth might lie behind such statements. It was untelling whether Ed was truly alive at all — or, at the very least, living as he once was. The man that Oswald Cobblepot remembered was a passionate, charismatic man, diligent in his duties and…willing to do anything for his boss and friend. The man that had shot him on the pier that day was a man that had been erased from the manuscripts of time — for now, at least. If that man was all that was left of the great Edward Nygma, then Oswald had no choice but to write him back in. And if there was something worse left in those opposing personalities’ wake, well…Oswald was content to burn the manuscript altogether.
“Can I see him?” he asked weakly, scratching his nails ever so faintly against the glass.
“Of course!” the woman gasped, enthusiastic in her surprise but still soft and sympathetic. It reminded Oswald a little too painfully of his mother. “He’s been comatose since they brought him in, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up for some sort of response, but you can always talk to him,” she continued, approaching the guard and accepting the keys that he preemptively held out for her. “Studies have shown that people in comas actually remain aware of their surroundings. I’m sure it would be nice to hear a familiar voice.”
“Nice,” Oswald repeated with a strained breath, trapping it in his already aching chest as the woman pushed the door open ajar. “Of course. Thank you, Nurse. I shan’t keep him up past his bedtime.”
“Of course, May— Mr. Cobblepot,” the lady said with a startlingly understanding smile. “You can visit him as frequently as you like. Good luck.”
“Luck,” Oswald snorted under his breath, striding into the room with as much grace as his wounded and trembling legs would allow him. Luck should not be a word permitted in a hospital, Oswald felt. Luck was something children clung to when operating claw machines. Luck was…
Luck was absolutely what Oswald needed. Luck and faith and several shots of whiskey, he conceded when his eyes fell upon that body in the bed for the first time. In truth, it had taken him an embarrassing amount of time to fully grasp what it was he was looking at — typically, mummies were not kept in patient beds — but once his mind had moved past the prominent external features, his eyes had settled upon the center of that ghastly complexion, and with a horrible, breathless sob that he might have fought if he had any strength within his bones, he recognized the face of his beloved chief of staff. His friend. His love — all housed within one man, held inside a body that hardly seemed fit to hold breath anymore.
With every shaking step he took toward the seat adjacent to the bed, he comprehended the sight just a little more. The dark circles around his bulging eyes, the tired skin faintly webbed with sickly blue blood vessels. The definition of his cheekbones and jaw, and subsequently, the way his gaunt cheeks fell in around them. The utterly pallid skin that seemed both stark white and greenish-blue — the effect, Oswald assumed, of the visible crosshatching of the veins that lay beneath. Lips that were so chapped they were bleeding, but seemingly the only part of his face that had managed to maintain a slightly pinkish hue. It was a sight that Oswald could never have imagined he’d see, and one he felt was far more suited for a horror movie than the real, tangible world. But ideas were spurned by experiences, Oswald mused, and the sad truth was that such cinematic depictions of living death were inspired by those like the man that lay before him. A man that Oswald had loved. A man that he seemed to love now more than ever.
He only looked away to draw the chair he was hovering over closer to the bedside, returning his intense gaze to that dying face as he eased himself into the seat.
“You really did it, didn’t you?” he said, so silently he was almost unsure if he’d heard himself. “You really did overdose. You really did put yourself here.”
Unsurprisingly, there was no reply.
Oswald forced himself to look away, if for nothing else than to stop himself from crying. He smoothed his hand down the papery bedsheets, finding the concealed form of Edward’s sickeningly bony hand and clasping it in his own.
“That…ridiculous but well-meaning nurse will have me believe that you can still hear me,” Oswald said with a wheezing laugh, his face quickly falling as he fought back the tears such physical exertion egged on. “I don’t know if it’s true — and if you could speak, I’m sure you’d be telling me the many reasons that it’s not — but if there’s half a chance in Hell that you can hear me, Ed, you’d best be listening.” He sniffed deeply and pulled his gaze back up to meet that ghostly face again. Somehow, it felt worse to see when he’d been expecting it. “I didn’t cheat Death like he was an old adversary just for you to kill yourself. I didn’t get dragged from that filthy, freezing water and spend weeks fighting for my life just for you to throw yours away. I didn’t stay alive just to come back to for you to die by your own hand. So you’d better wake up, Ed. With you gone, there’s no point for me to stay, and I really don’t think I’m quite ready to die again.”
A deep, chivalrous part of Oswald protested that it was rude to lie to the unaware, but he stamped it down and squeezed Ed’s hand in hopes of a boost of confidence. The truth that that pesky part of him so wanted him to tell was how ready he’d been to die since the moment he’d woken up. And now, sitting in this room by this man that had worked so painfully to end his own life, that inherent preparation was far stronger than it had ever been.
“When you wake up, Ed, I’ll be here. Waiting. And you’ll see that your plan failed — that we’re both still here, and I guess we’ll just have to start again, won’t we? And when that time comes, I’ll gladly take a do-over. Because I didn’t get to do it right the first time.”
Again, there was no response. Objectively, Oswald could see the comfort one might feel when talking to someone who was none the wiser of your presence. It left you with a sort of freedom, free range to do or say whatever you pleased, but Oswald felt that if he were to follow through with such careless possibilities, it would be disgraceful in a way. Why say things to Ed while he was unconscious that Oswald wouldn’t say to him while he was awake? Perhaps because it was easier, Oswald presumed, but if anyone else had been looking upon that face as he was, they too would understand just how difficult such a feat truly was.
“Wake up, Ed,” he said with a broken sob that heralded the tears that were to come before Oswald had even felt them on his face. “If for no other reason, then do it to see me die again. Do it to take me to that pier again and send me back to Hell. Do it to get revenge again.” He squeezed the hand in his grasp tighter, ducking his head and letting the tears fall onto his pants. “Hell, Ed, do it to ask me a riddle,” he sobbed, the words hardly intelligible. “Do it to brag about how much smarter you are than me. Do it for me, Ed. Do it so I can see you again.”
He reared his head up again to look at that pitiful face, this body that served as a torment beyond his darkest imaginings. Even if Ed did wake up, it was possible Oswald wouldn’t be greeted by the same man he’d known. It was possible, Oswald feared, that he wouldn’t be greeted by a man at all. For drugs, though injected to mingle freely with one’s life source, flushed every ounce of living identity one had left in their run-down, beaten up excuse for a body. Oswald had never seen the effects firsthand (hitherto this damnable moment), but he’d heard many a tale from the victims of his insatiable eavesdropping in his Fish Mooney days. Back then, listening to customers’ and coworkers’ tales of woe entailing friends or relatives they’d lost to those alleyway “medications”, he hadn’t felt a scrap of sympathy or empathetic grief. Now, weeping over the might-as-well-be-corpse of the only (arguably) living person that he loved, he knew that rumored pain all too well. It was a pain that quite possibly topped that of a bullet ripping through one’s insides. It was a pain that Oswald Cobblepot would hastily give up if it meant he could rectify his damnable feat of immortality.