To Want - bonezthewriter - Gotham (TV) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter Text

Edward Nygma has been having an absolutely dreadful day. So far, he’s only brought some officers papers, since there wasn't even an opportunity for him to research anything on his own, or, better yet, investigate any cadavers.

His job isn’t meant to be this– he’s meant to investigate crime scenes and bodies to unearth clues and catch villains– except this busy-work has been delegated to him. Some officers look at him with pity, others annoy, but they all look away after a second and return to their more important work. For today, his life was devoid of mystery.

Criminals move in and out of cells as slow as molasses, and only a single criminal was fully convicted today– which is unusual for a city such as Gotham. And particularly boring.

A faint sound of clicking accompanied his steps on the stone flooring of the main office of the police force in Gotham, the GCPD. Light shines through the few windows of the building, illuminating the edges of the furniture along with the small lamps on each desk.

Once again, he directs himself to an officer’s desk, papers and evidence in hand.

The papers he’s holding fall onto Harvey Bullock's wooden desk with a quiet slap. The officer grunts noncommittally, not being polite enough to just look up at the other man. Along with the papers, Edward holds up a bag full of a bullet in Bullock's view.

“Guess what this is.” Edward requests gleefully with a smile and euphemism laced in his tone. Harvey rolls his eyes and tilts his head to glare at Edward.

“Just tell me, Ed. If I wanted to hear riddles, I’d read the funny pages.” He encouraged rudely.

"It’s a .45 caliber bullet." Edward reports, “What kind of gun-?”

“Ah-ah-ah, don’t ask. Just tell.”

Edward’s smile fades, and when he speaks again it's not with his previous euphemism, “The bullet came from a pistol not known by our database. No prints either.”

“What else have you got?” He asks, even though if he looked at the papers currently waiting on his desk, he’d know that the rest of the sparse information is already written in them.

“What’s nowhere but everywhere, except where something is?” Edward asks, but at the officer’s blank, unimpressed look, he explains plainly and with a frown, “Nothing.”

"Leave, Ed; I'm not in the mood for this sh*t." Harvey dismisses him rudely as he begins to rummage through the papers with one hand, waving him off with his unoccupied one.

Edward frowns further but relents and walks away. All of the officers in the GCPD have learned to never let him talk, or he'd just ‘ramble on’, in their words– even though his ramblings were always filled with useful information. He was practically an outcast from the rest of his office, but he still holds onto hope that someone– preferably Kristen– will finally listen to him.

Directing himself to the filing room, he takes inventory in his mind of what evidence he needs to find. From a recent case, a terrible murder of a young woman in her own apartment, he had found the murder weapon: a bloodstained knife. Although he had found the weapon, the murderer was still unfound, which will be a job for Detective Jim Gordon when he returns. For that reason, he needs to deliver the evidence directly to the man’s desk.

His hand moves to open the door to the filing room, the frosted window in the door obscuring any details from inside, revealing Kristen Kringle on the other end.

She turns, and a slight crease appears in her brow. In her hand rests a few papers, likely being held so she can organize them. Light streaks across the room from the small, rectangular windows above the cabinets, highlighting the glasses that rest on her nose. Her subtle, gentle, beautiful, azure eyes shine at him like the sun.

The rest of the room is devoid of life, only holding flint cabinets and a few desks.

“Oh, Edward… hello.” She greets with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Hello, Kristen Kringle.” He greets with glee, putting special annunciation on her name.

“Did you… need something?” She asks after a lapse of silence.

“Sometimes I shine, sometimes I’m dull, but I am always deadly. What am I?” He asks playfully, his hands clasping behind his back to contain his excitement.

She sighs and rubs her eyes from behind her glasses, “I don’t know, Ed. What are you?”

“A knife,” he replies with a disappointed look, “Specifically, I need the knife from the Sampson case.”

“Great, I can go get that for you!” She exits the room quickly to enter the evidence section of the department, leaving Edward behind to stand awkwardly at the front of the room.

When she walks back from the evidence room, she hands him a bag holding the knife without a word, and – following her example– he leaves without a goodbye.

He continues to hand out pages of case information to officers, gaining the same results as he did when speaking to Harvey. When he reaches Jim's desk, one of his favorite officers after he listened to his riddles once, even with a grimace, he plops the papers down on the empty desk.

Jim’s seat is empty, his gun and other equipment taken with him. Ed doesn’t mind his absence too much, as it means he won't have to deal with any more snide comments barely covered with politeness today. Although Jim was kinder to him than Harvey and most others, they both treat Edward as some sort of punching bag.

SLAM!

Edward swivels around to the main door of the GCPD at the sudden bang of the doors opening. When he fully turns, he sees the King of Gotham walking in: not the mayor, or commissioner, but the Penguin. He gasps; although the Penguin visits Jim Gordon often, never once had Edward actually seen him in the flesh. His main assassin, Victor Zsasz, follows close behind.

At the same time that he feels fear, he also feels excitement. Of course, this was one of the most dangerous men in Gotham, but he was also the most powerful. Edward was personally enraptured with the man ever since he read a case file about his work, and saw a corpse of one of his enemies which was… disposed of.

Oswald Cobblepot, The Penguin, is practically his idol. The power emanating from the large man in front of him is intoxicating, and he wants to get drunk on it.

"Where is Jim Gordon?" The Penguin's loud, commanding voice echoes throughout the room. Even his voice itself was powerful, and many officers cower just from the sound of it. None of the cowardly officers answer him, and he furrows his eyebrows. His large hands grip into fists, and beside him Victor shuffles where he stands.

Edward tenses up, awaiting one of Penguin's infamous outbursts of violence. Even when he was still a developing criminal, he never had his anger in control and everyone knows it. Even if they hadn’t heard, the countless deaths under his belt speak for themselves. If one more thing annoys him today, there could be a shootout in this very room.

He glances around the room to look for Jim's desk before his eyes lock on Edward.

"You." The Penguin growls out with his hand pointing directly at him. Edward squeaks and freezes up like a goat as the mob boss begins to advance towards him.

Before he can do anything more than take a step back, The Penguin’s standing right in front of him. Ed stumbles back until the edge of Jim’s desk shoves into his back and prevents him from going any further. He feels the butterflies in his stomach circling like a ball of excitement, and his heart beats faster– either from excitement or fear.

"Where is he." The Penguin’s voice rumbles, demanding an answer.

"Uhh, well- he,” Edward giggles nervously, ”well-” he sputters, unable to create any words when the most powerful man in Gotham was addressing him.

He glances around the room just to see that all of the officers have turned away, pretending not to notice the danger he was in. It wasn’t surprising, since many of them are being paid by the Penguin to turn their heads at anything criminal he did. Still, Edward can't help but feel betrayed by his fellow officers. He scowls at their spinelessness, but his train of thought is interrupted as The Penguin moves.

The Penguin's hand swipes up to grip Edward's tie and tug. He sputters as the soft, seemingly expensive fabric tightens around his neck. The man pulls tighter, forcing Edward to hunch in on himself, lest he get choked. The tie twists in his grasp, taught enough that it wraps around his hand like a leash. Their faces are close enough that Edward feels his warm breath brushing over his face, and meets his intriguing, brutal, beautiful azure eyes.. His face blooms red and his heart continues to beat faster in his chest.

"He's out at the moment,dealing with one of your…” he gulps,” associates, and should be back in an hour." He gasps out, his face beet red. The grip on his tie restricts his breathing, and colors swirl around in his vision. The only thing he can fully see is the man before him. His hands come up to rest on Oswald's shoulders, aiming to either push him away to get room to breathe or pull him closer, but before he can Oswald lets go of his tie and steps away.

Edward stumbles back, no longer supported by Oswald’s grip, and he attempts to catch his breath when he rests his weight on the desk behind him. Still, his knees feel weak from the interaction, and he trembles slightly as Oswald’s eyes pierce him. Despite their distance, his presence is still just as intimidating as before. For a moment, their breaths intertwining are the only noise in the station.

Then, without another word but a smirk on his face, Oswald turns and walks away, seemingly having gotten all that he needed from him.

"W-wait!" Edward exclaims, his hand extending as if to drag him back. Immediately, he cringes back. Oswald turns his head back to face him over his shoulder, his eyebrow raising at Edward as he awaits what he wants to say.

"Did you know that male emperor penguins keep their eggs warm by balancing them on their feet," Edward blurts out, blush growing on his face, "Isn't that neat?" His voice falls into a squeak from the other man’s glaring eyes. He forces a nervous grin on his face while his hands wrap around each other and he holds his posture tightly.

"Nice to meet you, sir. You were very helpful." Penguin says after a moment of silence, a sultry grin on his face. He turns back to Victor Zsasz, snaps his fingers, and leaves with him in tow.

The Penguin leaves almost as quickly as he entered, leaving silence in his place.

When the doors thud back closed, every officer turns back to their work as if nothing had happened at all– everyone but Edward. He was practically sitting on Jim’s desk to not slide down to the floor. He looks down at his tie and notices that it’s all twisted up, and would probably need to be ironed if he didn;t want it to stay wrinkled.

His head swivels to look around the room to see if anyone saw how he was reacting to the mob boss. While he realizes that everyone was deliberately looking away from the scene, he straightens his tie out as much as he can.

With his face a shade of crimson and his heart still thudding in his chest, he picks up the extra papers he dropped on Jim’s desk. The clamminess of his hands on the paper is evident, and he cringes more at all the physical reactions he had to the Penguin. He hopes The Penguin didn’t notice.

After he scurries back to the filing area, a place he hangs around often, he slides down the door to sit on the cold concrete floor.

He’s acting as if he were a schoolgirl with a crush, but he can't help it. This man– the Penguin– was just as intoxicating as he imagined he would be before. In his fantasies, the man was an imposing, powerful, and large figure. Now that he has finally met him, an exhilarating experience that he will surely remember when he tries to sleep at night, his fantasies have been validated. Now, he can’t get him out of his mind.

His hand rests above his heart as if he could calm it down. He can only hope that the next time Oswald was here, likely searching for Jim Gordon, Edward would be able to see him again.

“Edward?” A feminine voice calls from the other side of the room.

“Huh?” He whips his head to the side, “Oh, hello, Ms. Kringle.” He turns his head away , hand on chin, and analyzes his encounter with The Penguin; each minute detail; each slight sign of body language; each fierce, intimidating look from a man who knows he holds all the power in a situation.

Her blue eyes search his disheveled form, “What happened?” She asks gently.

Edward sighs, tilting his head up .”Something very… curious.” he whispers. Suddenlyhe pushes himself up to his feet, picoting towards files organized under ‘P’.

“Really, Ms. Kringle.” Edward giggles, “You should let me re-organize this whole system–it’s so inefficient!” He exclaims, ignoring the displeased huff from behind him. His hands speed through the different sections with practiced ease, until he comes upon the large section of cases about The Penguin.

“I have everything exactly organized how I want it.” She scowls as she leans over his shoulder.

“The Penguin,” She reads from the papers he’s holding, “Why are you looking for information on him?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“Oh,” she steps back, “I see. I… suppose it isn’t.”

She turns away from him, but pauses at the door. Her manicured hands, painted red, rest on the wooden barrier between them.

“Are you okay, Edward?” She asks after looking back to him, extending a final olive branch.

“Hm?” He picks up his head from the sea of papers to look at her for a second, “Oh, yes. I am fine.” And with a final glance, she leaves the room.

A heavy thud sounds throughout the room. After it, the sound of papers flipping is loud through the room as Edward skims through each page, looking for new knowledge on the man currently holding his heart and his mind hostage.