Work Text:
Commissioner Gordon is, by now, only too used to surprises. Of all kinds.
So, when woken way too early one morning by someone pounding at his door – and leaning on the doorbell, by the sound of it – he just sighs and grabs his gun.
Thank Heavens this is Barbara’s weekend to stay with her mom.
He isn’t sure exactly who or what he expected to greet him at the door, but a pajama clad and hysterical Riddler was certainly not in the option list.
“Nygma?”
Now, Gordon is well aware that most of their…frequent fliers, let’s say… are far from sane. But that very insanity means they will stick to their gimmicks.
And Edward Nygma’s gimmick involve his own perfectly tailored getup. Ridiculous costume? Sure, but you know he is going to turn up with it pristine.
Not now. Nygma’s hair is a crow’s nest, like he has been trying to pull it out on the way here. His pajamas with little question marks all over them are wrinkled, his bunny slippers on the wrong feet.
Gordon takes it all in at one glance. “What are you doing here?”
“ROBIN IS DEAD!” Nygma screeches.
Gordon freezes in his tracks. What. “Robin… You mean… Batman’s…”
“I didn’t mean to!” It’s an honest-to-goodness wail this time. Nygma falls to his knees, clutching Gordon’s legs “I didn’t mean to, but now Robin is dead and the Bat will kill me and… Just lock me up!”
No. No way. Not Robin. And Riddler… Riddler of all people killing Robin?
Edward Nygma is dangerous, Gordon is certainly not fooled by the ridiculous costume and the frankly pathetic backstory, but he is hardly what one would call a ruthless killer.
Certainly not one by whose hand Gordon had ever expected Batman – or his little ally for that matter – die.
“You… You’re saying you killed Robin?”
“Lock me up” Riddler pleads, practically wrapping himself around Gordon’s legs “Lock me up before the Bat finds out, before the Bat finds me, Arkham, Blackgate, I’ll go anywhere, just call the guys with the straitjackets, I’ll come quietly, please don’t let him get me and it-“
Gordon slaps him.
Now, that is not exactly the way you bring hysterical people around, despite what is often seen on TV. In fact, slapping someone in hysterics is more likely to make the condition worse than anything else.
But in this case, well, to be honest he just wants to slap that snivelling bastard. And do way more than slap, if what he says is true.
Nygma whimpers “I didn’t mean to, I swear I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even set the trap, not really, and anyway I knew the Bat would figure it out when I actually set it, it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, I was just getting bored-“
“You set a trap for Batman and Robin got caught instead?”
Batman doesn’t allow Robin to go out on patrol alone. Gordon knows that, and has gotten the hero to make multiple promises on that count.
But that doesn’t mean Robin may not simply sneak out alone. They all know the kid does that, sometimes. And wherever Batman lives, whatever security arrangements he has, they are mostly made for keeping people and things out, not in.
“I didn’t even set a trap!” Nygma sobs. “I didn’t actually get around to that! I just had all the stuff collected, I just bought it at a discount from those guys in Metropolis, we had it shipped here last week, I was just looking for the right word to rhyme with ‘radioactive’…”
“Radioactive?” Gordon blanches.
Nygma is rarely directly murderous, yes, but they all know that doesn’t make him any less dangerous in practice.
“I got a bunch of it. Made my own nice little radioactive chamber. It was supposed to be the fifth trap in the next game. You know, the Bat will have to figure out how to get this little silver key from the chamber without-“
“But you never got to set the trap” Gordon interrupts.
He already has his phone out, but is not certain exactly who he should be calling.
Nygma nods so fast that his greasy hair flops into his eyes. “I just had the chamber ready, it’s a movable one, everything shielded and all…”
“But?”
“But Robin got in there!” Riddler screeches. “He just… I don’t even know how he managed to, forget why, but I was asleep and I heard a noise and I just went to check and he was in there!”
Gordon blinks. He really really hopes Nygma is just recounting a nightmare. But when has anyone in Gotham gotten that lucky?
“You are saying Robin just, just got into your freaking radiation death chamber?”
Another frantic series of nods. “I didn’t put him there, I swear I didn’t put him there, I don’t even know how the little damned thing got in my safe house, forget inside the chamber!”
Gordon is not sure how much of that to believe, but if he has deciphered the babbling correctly, there is only one part of it that matters right now.
“Robin is IN the radiation chamber?!?”
Riddler nods. He’s flat out blubbering now “He’s dead and Batman will kill me and-“
“Quit that blubbering and answer me, or I will kill you before Batman gets the chance. Did you leave Robin in there?”
Another nod. “I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t exactly go in and pull him out, it was too late anyway-“
“Too late? Was Robin dead when you left?”
“Ten minutes in there will kill a full-grown man!” Nygma wails “That kid was in there for at least half an hour before I heard the noise, and now it’s been at least another half hour! And he’s so freaking tiny!”
Gordon feels the world tilt on its axis a little.
Yeah, he knows – everyone knows – how risky it is, was, to take a child into the streets like Batman does.
But the sad fact is, this being Gotham, taking your well trained and armoured nine-year-old out into the night with you to fight psychos and monsters makes Batman one of the medium good parents by comparison here.
Besides, having had to deal with babysitting a benched Robin a couple of times, Gordon has reluctantly admitted Batman’s exasperated claim, that he would have kept the child home if he could, has its share of truth.
They all knew the risks, but like most things with Gotham, it is a risk with no practical solution to mitigate it.
So they just…live with it. Just let it happen.
And Robin… The streets whisper that Robin is magic. That Robin is no child, but some kind of trickster sprite the Bat has bound to its service.
The childish giggle from the shadows where no child should be.
The neon bright costume that all the same lends itself to melting into the shadows as well as his mentor’s dark mantle does.
There’s always been an invulnerability about Robin, a magic that let them ignore the fact a child is out there fighting for the city.
And now… Robin dead? Dead practically by accident, dead in a trap that was not even set, a little kid wandering into something he was not ready to tackle-
Gordon stops his runaway train of thought with an effort. Don’t lose it. Not now.
“Where’s the place?”
He thinks Riddler might hesitate, but the guy rattles off the address without missing a beat. Gordon briefly wonders if this is part of the game.
But no, Nygma is never going to let himself be seen as this blubbering mess for any plan. The man is genuinely terrified.
The calls he has to make are pretty much routine. If what Nygma says is true, there’s not much point calling an ambulance.
But he’s got to try. Got to at least make a show of trying, for the sake of his own sanity if nothing else. He hauls Riddler to his feet.
“Come on.”
Gordon knows the address given. Paramedics won’t reach there for another twenty minutes, at best.
Even after a call from the commissioner himself. Well, especially after a call like that. After all, he has told them he is calling about a nine-year-old who has been exposed to severe radiation for about an hour.
They will know there is no point hurrying.
Riddler is sobbing too hard to protest when Gordon drags him into the car and starts driving. “I never meant to, I swear I never meant to-“
“Shut. Up.”
…………………………………..
Renee Montoya is already there when Gordon pulls up. So is Sergeant Bollock. That was the second call he sent after summoning the ambulance.
Montoya is in the process of trying to break in through the upstairs window. She climbs down when she sees Gordon and Nygma.
Bollock wastes no time in grabbing Riddler by the collar, shaking him like the rat he is. Riddler doesn’t even resist.
“I didn’t mean to!”
“Leave him” Gordon goes to open the door. “If he runs, Batman can find him. Or the rest of the League, for that matter.”
Riddler just keeps blubbering apologies. Gordon tunes him out as the door swings open. Montoya is at his side, Geiger counter in hand.
Amounts of trace radiation. Not enough to be a threat, but enough to demonstrate the truth of what Nygma has been babbling about.
There is radioactive material stored inside. If shielded, a lot of it.
They find the chamber exactly where Nygma said it would be. Gordon hesitates before taking the turn that would bring it into view.
Montoya pauses as well, though she tries not to show any reaction. “Should we…call him first?”
Gordon shakes his head. “Not till we know what to expect.”
Questionable choices aside, Gordon – and everyone who has encountered the pair – knows Batman cares about his little bird.
No one is sure what exactly the relationship is, though most assume Robin is Batman’s son. In practice, at least, if not by blood.
Gordon knows what radiation damage will do to a body – especially a young, small body. No parent should have to walk in on their child’s body twisted and burnt like that.
Hell, Gordon knows he certainly doesn’t want to walk in and see Robin like that. But…someone has to. And it is his job.
When he turns the corner, steeling himself, Gordon decides he has started hallucinating.
The radiation chamber is there, as Nygma said.
As ridiculous and dramatic as his settings usually are. Painted green and violet, with little question marks on the frames, and a transparent door (reinforced adequately and shielded, the Geiger counter assures him – Nygma is insane, but not suicidal).
Inside, the heaps of material – Nygma has somehow managed to arrange it in heaps, like he has decided to re create a rockfall with enough radiation to deep fry everyone within a mile radius – glow with the poison within.
And Robin is sitting there crosslegged, absentmindedly juggling with a few of the smaller and rounder pieces.
He pouts when he sees the officers.
Gordon opens and closes his mouth a few times, struggling to make sense of what he is seeing.
His initial assumption – that Nygma simply lied, that this is another game, after all – is cancelled by the sight of the radiation counter installed within the chamber.
Gordon is no expert in radiation, but he is certain that the amounts detected in there is enough to have killed the kid a dozen times over by now.
It is Montoya who finds her voice first, and even then, she sounds plain squeaky. “R…Robin? You… Why…”
“B’s being a jerk” Robin’s voice, coming through the intercom, is perfectly normal.
Pouty, yes, but the usual little kid pouty he gets when Batman benches him or tells him he can’t have another ice cream before dinner.
“You’re… Are you…” Gordon pauses.
How the hell do you ask the kid who has been inside a radiation chamber for one hour whether he’s alright?
But they can see him. No burns. No pallor. No failure of coordination as he juggles the deadly pieces of metal.
Montoya dazedly moves as if to open the door, but Robin holds up a hand. “No, it’ll burn you. I haven’t had time to send it all into the earth yet. It’ll still hurt you guys.”
“And…it doesn’t…hurt you?” Montoya sounds like she’s half convinced she is in a dream. Gordon can relate.
Robin scowls, as if offended she even has to ask “Of course it doesn’t!”
Montoya backs slowly away. “C…Commissioner? What now?”
Gordon reaches for his phone dazedly “Now we call Batman.”
………………………………………….
“He’s throwing a temper tantrum?!?” Gordon wants to bang his head onto the nearest flat surface. “Batman, your kid is inside a freaking radiation chamber and has been for the past sixty seven minutes at the very least!”
The voice on the other end sounds like every parent who has been stuck trying to reason with a hyperactive pre-teen. “I know, he likes to do that. Helps him calm down. Don’t worry, he won’t be radioactive when he comes out. Nor will anything inside the chamber.”
Montoya and Bollock, listening on the speakerphone, exchanges glances. Bollock looks back at Robin whose glare sends him scurrying back again.
“So…what should we…”
“Just leave him there. He needs his space.”
“Inside a radiation chamber built by a supervillain.”
“Yeah, he usually goes to the Watchtower’s decon chambers, but guess he figured Riddler’s was closer. Plus, he’s grounded. Not allowed to use the zeta tubes alone.”
Gordon looks at the kid, looks at Montoya and Bollock, looks at the phone. He…he definitely doesn’t get paid enough to deal with this. Whatever this is.
“Batman. Here is what I will do. I am going to take Riddler to Arkham. I am going to seal off this place. I am going to call off the paramedics I called in when Riddler came to me. You are going to come get your… Come get Robin. We are never going to speak about this again.”
He hangs up, turns on his heel and marches out of the room.
Montoya and Bollock follows, looking about as dazed as Gordon feels. None of them say anything till they are out of the building.
Montoya is the one to break the silence. “Well. At least now we know why Batman and the Justice League are fine with the itty bitty kid in neon colours running around fighting Joker and Killer Croc.”
“We” Bollock groans “are not going to talk about this, right? Ever? Please?”