Deadly Games

[Mary-Lou White]

The uneasy tangle of nerves in her tummy wormed themselves into more of a knot as he spoke, and for a for moments she was simply unsure whether he was telling the truth or just trying to cover his tracks. She frowned slightly as he admitted his embarrassment, still too panicked to smile or otherwise acknowledge anything other than the possibility that he had sent her that email. When he started talking though, she started to feel guilty for jumping to conclusions just because paranoia was setting in. When he looked away, admitting that he had been checking her out, Mary-Lou felt a fully fledged blush paint the apples of her cheeks and she bit her lower lips slightly to stifle her smile. When he looked back to her face ‘apology’ was written all over it.

Mary-Lou looked a little closer at his concern that she was too young for him. He was definitely no older than 28, was he? She opened her mouth to speak again, feeling a bit like a fish out of water and realising that he would have seen the outline of a piece under her thin jacket if he’d been... Ohhh, she couldn’t even think about it at the risk of blushing again! She bit her lip again, at a loss for words, only really knowing that she needed to respond when he turned to go. Snapping back into reality, she jogged the few steps after him that he had managed to take, automatically reaching out to put a hand on his forearm.

“Hey,” she said, her tone already indicative that she felt she was the one to blame. “Gosh, I’ so sorry,” she said earnestly, throwing him the puppy-dog eyes for good measure. “I mean, I guess in my job you get a lot of weirdos – not that you are,” she added quickly. She realised she hadn’t yet removed her hand from his arm and she boldly kept it there, feeling a little surprised at herself. “I’m really sorry, Edward.” Mary-Lou paused, hoping that her instincts were right and that not only was he a good guy but a good guy who definitely totally wasn’t a bit too old for her.

“I don’t normally do this,” she said awkwardly, offering him a shy smile, “... but could I buy you a cup of coffee?”

[Edward Nigma]

He was surprised, but pleasantly so, to find his ploy had worked. He had been hoping she would buy it and not follow. But it went beyond that when he heard her footsteps following after him. For a brief moment he feared he had been figured out, reassuring himself that she had nothing on him that she could use in court, but as he felt her hand on his arm he was comforted. That wasn't a policewoman's touch but a friendly one. He looked up into her soft eyes and a smile spread across his face despite himself, despite his darker side. He was more pleased by her retrieving him than he had realized he could be.

Normally Edward didn't like surprises or being caught off guard, but this time he was thrilled. He eyed her for a moment, before nodding, and he didn't have to fake the expression of calm gladness that spread across his cheeks and leaked into his eyes. "I'd like that," he agreed a little shyly. He seemed entirely caught up in looking at her for a moment, continuing in a tone of distractedness. "I'd like that very much." But then he seemed to realize himself and he looked down at his hands.

"Um," he began again. "There's a coffee shop just on the corner there," he pointed at the area in question, "and just nextdoor is a bookstore. Maybe I could pay you back for the coffee by getting you a copy of that book after?" He smiled softly. "Maybe we could compare our other tastes as well."

[Mary-Lou White]

When Edward smiled, Mary-Lou immediately felt relived. He hadn’t been offended or anything, thank goodness! He smile widened slightly when he accepted her invitation, and she felt those darn butterflies in her tummy once again when he looked at her a little longer than he probably should have. It wasn’t that Mary-Lou hadn’t had her fair share of admirers. Back home she’d had more than a few guys who seemed to find her particular brand of home-grown good looks irresistible and her mother liked to joke that she fell in love a hundred times a day. Here in Gotham, everything was different. Women here were sophisticated and smart and... definitely nothing like her. It was refreshing to know that some guys still found her attractive and even more reassuring that she found them attractive in return. Edward was not conventionally ‘hot’; there was a subtle intensity and an aura of intelligence about him that drew Mary-Lou in. She really, really liked it.

She was stoked, therefore, when he said they could go to the bookshop after coffee. EEEE!! A bookshop? She found herself nodding emphatically and linking her arm through his before she started them off walking again. She was innocent enough not to imply anything in the gesture unless he chose to read into it, but would probably blush when telling Susie all about her date-but-maybe-not-a-date later on. And then attempt to lock herself in the bathroom when her cousin tried to kill her for just going along with a stranger when she darn-well should have known better. Only, Susie would cuss.

“That sounds great!” she chirped happily. Other tastes! Usually the type of girl that flew by the moment, she was suddenly worried that aside from coffee and occasional books she would have nothing else in common with Edward and he would soon see she was a boring small-town girl. Gah! She needed something intelligent to talk about. Casting her blue eyes around quickly for inspiration, her mouth moved too fast for her brain as per usual. “Hey, do you ever wonder why it is that birds always poop on the pavement instead of on the grass?” Doh.

[Edward Nigma]

His smirk of satisfaction glowed inwardly and outwardly. He was congratulating himself and at the same time completely forgetting his larger conquest, that the body of his victim remained hidden. No, he was now much more concerned with the young lady he had only happened to run across, who despite being fooled by his charms - he couldn't blame her for that, considering his skill - was exceptionally bright and, like him, longing for acknowledgement. He felt elated, euphoric, on the proverbial cloud nine. Perhaps here was a person who could not only relate to him, but also admire him. It was an exceptional thing.

He was caught off guard by her question about... duck poop, however. His eyebrows quirked, and for a moment he wasn't sure what to feel. But his decision to like Mary-Lou was decided, so an incredulous chuckle bubbled up. Not wanting to insult her, he stifled it down and cleared his throat to cover it. "Um," he said, unable to suppress a grin. "No I haven't," he admitted. But he glanced at her and continued, still amused.

"Maybe," he offered, "It isn't that they never use the grass, but that we never notice it because we don't look there." He paused for a moment, but then continued. "It's like lots of other things that way, isn't it?" He glanced at her just then which leant the look a touch of significance, as if maybe she was one of those things you don't notice unless you take a closer look.

That is to say, she and duck poop had some similarities.

Very few, however, as she was a hundred times more pleasant.

[Mary-Lou White]

Having known that she had (once again) said something inappropriate and more than a little bit embarrassing, Mary-Lou had been content to simply wait and see how Edward took her faux pas before she attempted to atone for it. When he laughed and grinned she was pleased; she was used to people laughing at her offhand comments and now also knew that she had at least one other thing in common with Edward – a sense of humour. She wasn’t entirely prepared for him turning her verbal splurt into something plausible/i] however, and she met his glance with her own sky-blue eyes, her smile soft and her hand lightly on his arm as they strolled.

“Yeah,” she said in an almost dreamy kind of voice, as if she were deep in her own thoughts and replying automatically. “Yes,” she reaffirmed, her smile deepening and her dimples showing before she forced herself not to read into things too much. A group of children zoomed past on skateboards, laughing and shouting at each other in the morning sunlight. Laughing at them and recognising their fun from a childhood of very similar outings, Mary-Lou paused and chanced a sidelong glance at her company before continuing on.

The coffee shop was hardly busy at all. A group of elderly people sat under one umbrella on the pavement, playing scrabble. Choosing a table a little way away from theirs and moving to sit down, Mary-Lou smiled sheepishly before settling herself in the chair. She picked up a packet of raw sugar, left in a bowl on the table for patrons, and immediately began to fiddle with it. “I’m really glad we bumped into each other today,” she told him earnestly. “Otherwise I’d probably be working.”

[Edward Nigma]

Edward wasn't nearly as intent on watching the kids or laughing at their antics as he was in observing the way Mary-Lou watched them and smiling at her reaction. Unlike her, he didn't have those memories to look back on. He had never been particularly active as a child. If he had been maybe things would have been different, maybe his father could have accepted him, but instead he had been more involved in his books and his experiments. And so, things had taken a different path. He was glad to know that Mary-Lou's childhood hadn't been marred in that way.

As they took their table at the coffee shop he couldn't help but look over the Scrabble game taking place, his mind ticking off several options from the letters he could see in the players' trays as they moved past to a table of their own. He watched Mary-Lou play with the sugar, noting her manicured fingernails, before returning his gaze to her face. "Glad to be of service," he replied with a grin. "But," he added, "you never did say what you do for a living?" He tilted his head curiously at her, before adding, "Though I'll understand if that's classified information."

[Mary-Lou White]

The instant Edward enquired about her job, Mar-Lou could feel the traitorous burn on her cheeks again. Thankfully her lightly tanned complexion tended to make a blush look more ‘healthy glow’ than ‘Raggedy Ann’ and she went with it for the time being. Her confidence had been so shaken by moving to Gotham, and even though he was a breath of fresh air to her she could still feel herself second-guessing. Was she coming across too strong, or not strong enough? His grin made her forget about coming across at all, really, and she was struck for not the first time in the short while they had known each other that his eyes were every bit as brilliantly green as hers were blue.

Somewhat sheepishly, she confessed. “I’m a Detective,” she replied. “You had me pegged. Although it’s not really one of those ‘pigeon-hole’ kind of jobs I suppose. There are a bunch of different Departments, and a lot of room to interchange.” The strangest feeling then took over the young blonde woman. Something deep inside her seemed to switch on; a warning system of sorts and she found herself holding back without really knowing why. He didn’t really need to know which Department she worked in though, did he? Not on the first meeting! There was still the matter of that awful email, which Mary-Lou was more and more convinced was some horribly person’s idea of a joke (probably Brewsky).

“Are you intimidated?” she asked him cheekily, inclining her head in a would-be pretentious manner if her wide grin and dimples hadn’t cancelled out the fault before it had settled. It nearly made up for the duck-poop comment. Nearly.

[Edward Nigma]

Edward grinned. "Definitely!" he responded. And that was a little bit true. Though he recognized that he was probably far and away more intelligent than any other person in Gotham, he also knew that it didn't take pure genius to outsmart a person, but a knack, a sixth sense, or pure luck. And Mary-Lou seemed very clever in her own right, and moreover had been dealing with criminals much longer than Edward had been involved in criminal acts. It was best to be at least a little on his guard, lest he slip up like he did earlier with the book recommendation.

"Luckily," he continued, "there's not much a mild-mannered computer programmer has to fear from a Detective. Except, I will be very careful not to make you angry." He laughed. He was only kidding, but she did have a gun and she probably had taken some kind of self-defense classes. He would have to be aware that despite her innocent and charming appearance, she was dangerous not only for her sharp mind but for the many other resources that had been trained into her by the Gotham Police Department.

His laugh came to a quick and gentle end and he glanced up at her. His expression morphed into one of unabated curiosity. "What made you choose that profession?" he asked. "I know I don't know you well but you seem so..." He looked down at the table as he looked for the word. "Cheerful." He smiled. "I never pictured people with your joi de vivre wanting to surround themselves with... crime." He tilted his chin. "Why did you decide to be a detective?"

[Mary-Lou White]

Taking in his grin, Mary-Lou lowered her gaze to the table and the sugar packet she had abandoned earlier. Rolling her lips inward to prevent herself from smiling again, she cursed herself for not being able to contain the bubbly personality she had been blessed with. On a bad day she was like a soda that had been dropped and opened too quick; when someone was really making her happy she could fizz all over the place. From experience she knew this could be a little daunting to most people, and with a guy as reserved as Edward had appeared to be at first she had worried that she might be a little too rambunctious for him. Now that he was laughing at her jokes and off-hand comments and still asking questions and listening – really listening – to her answers she felt bad for having pegged him so early. She was thrilled the way a girl working the counter at a grocery store was when someone asked her how her day was because they really cared about the answer instead of enquiring out of habit.

“I don’t really get angry all that often,” she told him honestly with a little shake of her head that set her windswept ponytail bobbing. “Mostly when people are rude. I don’t really like cussing,” she told him in a tone that slipped higher towards the end, “Or people taking the Lord’s name in vain. And guys at the precinct are always doing that.” She rolled her eyes briefly, stopping mid-action when she smiled at the waitress who had just come to take their order. “Hi! I’ll have a white chocolate mochacino, please! Low fat,” she added with a decisive nod before looking to Edward and waiting until he had placed his order before continuing.

She sure didn’t know what a joy de vivre was, but it sounded like a compliment and that was good enough for Mary-Lou! She shrugged casually. “I couldn’t really pin it on any one thing,” she began to play with her sugar packet again. She thought immediately of Toby and the fact that she had just lied to her new friend. She knew exactly what had made her want to become a police officer. The fact that someone had killed her brother, who had been a good man. And that person was still out there, somewhere. “Actually, you know what? That’s not really true.” She offered him a soft, apologetic smile in recompense and fought back the apprehension that warned her not to mention Toby.

She ignored it.

“My big brother was a police officer here. He was killed in that mass Arkham breakout a couple years ago?” Her tone was questioning. Had he been here then? Did he know what had happened? She really didn’t want to explain it to him if he didn’t. The wound was still raw and even though MaryiLou knew that she couldn’t change the past being here in Gotham, in a city her brother had loved and seeing the sights, smelling the smells – it was the life that he should have been living. “I guess I wanted to try and help.” Her voice petered off and she felt uncomfortable and annoyed at herself for letting her emotions bring her bubbles suddenly flat and listless.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, raising her eyes from her sugar to meet his briefly before moving on again in embarrassment. “I guess I’m not as over it as I thought I should be.”

[Edward Nigma]

Despite his best intentions, a deep taste of guilt bubbled up in the back of Edward's throat as he listened to Mary-Lou's story. He was very uncomfortable under her perfectly innocent gaze, and if he hadn't been so concerned with watching the subtle nuance of emotion across her pretty face he might have given himself away. He thought briefly of the cops who would lose their lives because of his game with the Gotham City Police, of the families who would lose brothers, like Mary-Lou, or sisters, fathers, mothers. For a moment his chest was full of cotton and he felt unable to justify himself. Maybe he should stop it before it got too far out of hand.

And yet, how would the city ever know how lacking their police force was if someone didn't present them with a real challenge? Joker was nothing. He was insane, and because of his random chaos he was difficult to catch. But Edward? He was sane. His riddles were easily solved with basic reasoning. He was a true challenge for them, a real measure of their ability. And when they failed to figure him out, he was certain that would prove once and for all that the force needed serious improvement. In short, Gotham would find out they needed him.

This short-lived moral battle didn't register in his outward appearance, however. Instead he was engrossed in the layers of feeling depicted in her unaffected expression. Loss was palpable there, and it was one of those emotions that always piqued his curiosity because he had never truly experienced it for himself. There was also hesitancy there, but also, there was guilt. He didn't know why she should feel guilty, but the difference between her guilt over something for which she could have no blame and his lack of it for crimes he was very much the cause of made him pause. He was eager to learn more.

He was also eager to share with her another similarity between their two persons. Though he had never experienced the feeling of great loss, he had certainly experienced what most would consider a life-changing void when his father left the world. To be sure, it was life changing for him, although in a very different way.

"I lost my father," he told her. "He was..." He stopped for a second, just as she had, and decided not to give the full account, like she had. "He was killed, too." He gazed between her eyes for a second before reaching out delicately and laying a gentle hand over hers in a supportive way. "I'm very sorry for your loss, Mary-Lou."

[Mary-Lou White]

His supportive touch gave her the reassurance that she needed to justify telling such a personal thing to an almost complete stranger. The mere fact that she had something else in common with him was another bolstering factor, and with these two things in mind she now felt more inclined to share with this handsome, sensitive man. If she had known the inner workings of his mind things obviously would have been different, but luckily for her she didn’t.

Since moving to Gotham, Mary-Lou had fancied herself happy, fulfilled and generally on the right track as far as her life went. She was far enough away from home for it to feel adventurous and had Susie here if things went pear-shaped; she enjoyed her job and it challenged her enough to make it interesting day after day. She had one or two friends that she spent time with, and she had her independence too. But suddenly all of that seemed to pale into insignificance as she found herself spending time with someone who really seemed to understand her.

It was strange, really, the way his green eyes seemed to penetrate her. She had always been the type of person to wear her heart on her sleeve and her thoughts on her face, but his assessment of her felt like it went even deeper than that. It was exciting and frightening all in the one instant because she didn’t really know him all that well, and yet she felt like she knew him as well as she would ever need to. She looked at the hand over hers and moved to thread her fingers through his. At hearing about the loss of his own father almost in the same breath with which he attempted to comfort her, Mary-Lou smiled gratefully.

“Thank you,” she said, with a slight squeeze of his hand. “I’m really sorry to hear about your dad, as well.” She assumed that because his father had been killed that it was naturally something awfully that had caused it and she shook her head sadly, angered by the fact that so many people died senseless – and preventable – deaths. “I don’t understand why these people do the things they do. It’s sad. I feel sorry for them, y’know? Like,” she floundered for words that would sound okay without disregarding the fact that the felons still needed to be punished. “They need help. And obviously no one has been there for them, which is why they’ve become what they are.”

Realising that she had effectively been holding his hand for quite a while, Mary-Lou blushed and took her hand back as their coffees arrived on the table. She thanked the waitress and, eager to change the subject, she decided to continue with the line of conversation Edward had provided earlier. “Anyway. What do you actually do at work? It all sounds really high-tech.” Her smile was encouraging, and she took a sp of her mochacino before licking away the froth on her lips. “I’ve never been really great with computers or math, or scientific facts. You must be really smart!”

[Edward Nigma]

He laughed softly, touching the back of his neck lightly. "I suppose," he replied, not quite above denying his own supposed intelligence, but he could refute one matter. "But what I do isn't really all that difficult. Think of it like..." He looked around the room, trying to think of a way to explain it to someone who had no experience in computer coding. "Well, the first part is like learning another language. You have to know how to communicate with the computer, so to speak. And then, after that it's a bit like, uh... Tetris." He grinned as he landed on the correct comparison. "You already know the pieces you have to work with, the things you can already get the computer to do for you, and you just have to line them up and fit them together in the right way to get the computer to do new things it's never done before."

He paused, letting his hand fall back to cradle his coffee. "I'm not explaining it correctly," he admitted, laughing at himself. "But really, it's not that difficult. What I mean is, it's an exact science, you know, facts and figures, lists and protocol. Not at all like what you do, for instance." He looked up at her. "What you do is... like putting a puzzle together after the fact, with only half the pieces. And you have the human element to deal with, so half the pieces you do have are variables. It's amazing, what you do, it really is."

He shook his head, the scientist in him coming out. But it was more than that. It was not the element of tragedy and repulsive acts that would make the job of detective difficult for him, no; it was just the logistics, just the science. It was telling, but so subtle as to be easily overlooked.

"I'm not at all good at figuring people out," he admitted, his green eyes sweeping Mary-Lou's pretty face, grateful that she wasn't so difficult to figure out as some people were. "They're a conundrum to me. So, you see, we both have different, complimentary sets of talents, you and I."

[Mary-Lou White]

“Perhaps,” she agreed with a soft smile of her own, her cup of coffee warming the same place on her hand that his own hand had previously warmed. She could feel the faint tint of a blush against her tanned cheek and rather than ignore it she embraced it, her golden bangs framing her forget-me-not eyes as she thought about the comparison he had so recently made. “Personally I think the human element makes my job a whole lot easier. People aren’t infallible; they make mistakes. A lot of the time they overestimate themselves and that’s when it’s time to make an arrest.” She gave him a small ‘matter of fact’ shrug and sipped her coffee again. “Computers seem like they would rarely make a wrong move – or at least they seem that way to me,” she laughed lightly. “I can barely get my laptop to cooperate with me most days! But then, the Police computer system has a lot of serious bugs.”

For the moment, Mary-Lou had no idea how much information she had given away by that one simple sentence. It was common knowledge – amongst the officers and admin staff at Gotham PD. Little was the blonde officer to know that a large computer virus would be sent a few days from now to basically cripple their database servers. Ignorance was bliss, and Mary-Lou was presently in Heaven. The day was getting warmer, and Mary-Lou was glad of the small but obliging umbrella that shielded them from the more persistent rays. Hiding in her often ditzy conversation was sparks of her true intelligence, and whilst she might have been generally viewed in the bull-pen as Officer Bimbo she had a good head on her shoulders for police-work, when she set her mind to it. Like now, for instance, as she reviewed Edward’s comment about figuring people out.

She usually was good with first impressions, taking them and dissecting them to present to her inner Judge of Character for consideration. She liked to see the good in people as a rule, sure, but sometimes the good was buried so far under the bad and the ugly that you couldn’t see it no matter how hard you looked. With his soft mannerisms and easy smiles, Mary-Lou was already certain that Edward wasn’t one of those types. The fact that he had stopped out of his way to ask about the wellbeing of a stranger – her, in this case – spoke very loudly for him and she felt that, somehow, she knew him already. How would she have that feeling with someone who was potentially horrible? There was a little sadness in his eyes, she noted, but then there was sadness in hers as well, wasn’t there? Maybe it was that sadness that had drawn them towards each other in a city that hardly cared who was sad or not.

“Sometimes, though, it’s not as easy as just ‘figuring someone out’,” she ventured, a mischievous quality brightening her eyes. “Sometimes you need more time to ask questions. Like now, for example. I mean, walking in the park and having coffee is a great start,” she conceded gratefully, “But dinner would probably be better. I know a great Italian place, if you’re interested?” Unlike all of the questions she had posed and information she had shared thus far this one definitely had an ulterior motive, and she watched his face for any sign of discomfort.

[Edward Nigma]

Edward was certainly surprised at the turn in the conversation, but not at all unpleasantly so. He could honestly say that he had never been picked up by a woman before; most of the time, it was him asking a woman to dinner and not very successfully, either. It was a pleasant surprise that this time he was being asked out and it was by someone he genuinely liked. A broad grin swept his face and he laughed softly, one of those genuine disbelief kind of laughs when someone can't believe how good things are turning out. He nodded his head, his hands opening and gesturing towards her. "I'd love to," he agreed, and for a brief moment the part of him that was unappreciated, afraid, and lonely melted away, leaving only the often ill-gotten emotions of happy and triumphant, and the unconquered territory of feeling genuinely well liked.

"Uh," he said, for a brief moment baffled as to how to proceed, though his quick mind didn't leave him stranded for long. "When are you free?" he asked. She might have meant tonight but he didn't want to appear overeager by suggesting it. He thought briefly of the body in the park and what he would do with it if he did go to dinner, and for the first time regretted that he had become involved in his scheme at all. Had he met Mary-Lou prior to it all, he might not have committed the murder at all. It was just too much of a hassle when he had other things going on, and while he did feel it was his duty to prove to Gotham how lacking in intelligence their so-called 'intelligence agencies' were, that could certainly wait until after he took an entertaining young woman to dinner.

In fact, if the Detective could give him an in, maybe he wouldn't need to go through all that trouble to prove to the police how badly they needed him and his programs. Maybe, the body was worthless anyway. For now, the computer technician with a permanent desire to prove himself felt a glimmer of hope on the horizon, because a stranger who knew next to nothing about him saw him for what he really was: impossibly smart (and dateworthy.)

[Mary-Lou White]

Watching for any tell-tale signs of rejection, Mary-Lou was pleased as punch when she didn’t see any rolling on the horizon and happier even still when he grinned. It didn’t even enter her mind that perhaps he was grinning because he was amused that she had asked him and she smiled all the brighter when he agreed. She was obviously glad that he had said yes and just as obviously looking forward to the dinner, the thought of when or where escaping her until it was brought to her attention. Thinking briefly for a moment, trying to think of her schedule in her mind. Obviously, tonight was out of the question. She wasn’t doing anything, but she definitely didn’t want him to think she was a loser with nothing better to do who asked guys out at the last minute.

She briefly entertained the idea of inviting him as her date to Bruce Wayne’s party on Saturday night, but then she realised that she was technically supposed to be working on Saturday so that wouldn’t really be appropriate. Considering that today was Sunday, it gave them the whole week to have dinner. Tomorrow was too soon, she knew, because she would have to think about what she was going to wear. Friday was definitely too far away, even though it would given her something to look forward to. She had pilates on Wednesday night. Hrm. “How about Tuesday night? Are you busy?” Tuesday, she decided, would be perfect. It left room for a second date later in the week if all went well. Hee!

If only she knew the date of their date could possibly mean the difference between life and death, she might have been a little more eager – or possibly have cuffed the cutie and taken him downtown.