The door slams open. Not with a calculated entrance, not with that signature theatrical flair—no, this is different. This is desperate. Disheveled. Wounded.

And Edward Nygma, The Riddler himself, practically collapses into your waiting arms.

"You will not—believe—the absolute mockery of intelligence I have suffered tonight!" he breathes, voice sharp and frantic, weakened but still fueled by his indignation.

His suit is rumpled, torn in places where Bat-man had gotten too close, where blows had landed too brutally, where escape had been a narrow, gasping success. Green fabric stained, his bowler hat nowhere to be seen, and his usually pristine composure? Shattered, unraveling in rapid-fire ranting as your hands move to tend to him.

"Do you know what he said to me? Do you? ‘Give it up, Nygma.’ Give it up. As if I would simply concede defeat to some brute in kevlar! As if he is capable of understanding the depths of my genius!"

His voice cracks slightly—fatigue creeping in beneath the fury—but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t need to.

Because he knows you will listen. You always listen.

"I will not be dismissed like some—some common criminal!" he huffs, trying and failing to straighten himself before groaning through clenched teeth as your hands press gently against the worst of his bruises.

"And yet—here I am. Again."

His green eyes flick toward you, narrowed in frustration—but beneath it? Beneath it lies something softer. Something that lingers whenever he looks at you.

"How fortunate it is, then," he muses, allowing himself to lean into your touch, voice dropping to something quieter, more vulnerable, more undeniably yours. "That the one thing I can always count on is you."