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“But I want to go trick-or-treating!”
Steph was whining, but she didn’t even care. It was Halloween! Everyone knew there was only one thing to do on Halloween, and that was to trick or treat. Not sit around in a musty old basement planning a stupid heist that was only going to get their teeth knocked out by Batman.
“Stephie, I’m going to need you to go back upstairs and shut the fuck up,” her dad snapped, and Steph narrowed her eyes at him, stuck out her tongue, and then stomped up the basement stairs as noisily as possible.
She could hear one of the men at the table laughing uproariously at that, and her dad’s quiet grumble, but she stomped her way all the way to her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Her mom was at work -- the Halloween night shift was always extra busy, and she hadn’t been able to take the time off so she could take Steph trick-or-treating.
Steph had half a mind to just leave and go by herself, but the thought of going out alone in costume made her tummy a little queasy. Her teacher had spent a long time that morning explaining to the kids why they needed to go out with someone safe, so that nothing bad would happen. She hadn’t told them exactly what bad things might happen, but Steph had a good imagination and had heard plenty more.
She’d put together a costume herself. It was laid out on the bed -- blue leggings, a red skirt, a blue t-shirt she’d attached a fancy S symbol to -- she’d drawn it herself, coloring it just right -- and a red curtain she’d planned on tying around her shoulders for a cape. She scowled at it, because now she wasn’t even going to get to wear it, and she’d spent ages coloring the S just right. She wanted to be a superhero, but her bathing suit was the wrong color to be Wonder Woman, and besides, she could pretend that the S on her chest stood for Steph, and that she was a real life superhero herself.
Her dad wouldn’t even get mad the way that he would if she’d tried for Batman or Robin or Batgirl; everyone knew that Superman was awesome and besides he was in Metropolis and spent his time averting giant disasters, not taking down minor criminals like her dad.
She threw herself down on her bed and stared at the ceiling, sulking, until there was a knock at her door.
She sat up, confused. No one knocked on her door. Her parents either yelled at her through it or barged in. She got up and cautiously opened her door, even though if a bad guy was there, they wouldn’t knock.
Except it turned out they would, because there was a real-life supervillain at her door.
The Riddler smiled at her, only she was supposed to call him Mr. Eddie while he was in her house. He was actually wearing his outfit, though -- green with question marks and cane and mask and everything. Steph stared at him for a minute, then said, “Hi, Mr. Eddie.”
“So you recognize me, huh?” he said, smiling. With the mask, the smile was weirder than it had been downstairs when he’d laughed at her dad.
“‘Course,” Steph said, before realizing that maybe he hadn’t wanted to be recognized. She’d never been introduced to him as The Riddler, after all. “I mean… You’re famous?”
To her relief, Mr. Eddie patted her on the head. “Aren’t you going to ask why I’m dressed up?”
“I thought that would be rude,” Steph said honestly.
“You’re a gem,” Mr. Eddie said. “I have decided that you made a compelling case about the true purpose of Halloween.”
“You wanna go trick-or-treating?” Steph said, doubtful. She was pretty sure the Riddler should have better things to do on Halloween night than go trick-or-treating with a random ten-year-old.
“That I do, young lady,” Mr. Eddie said, giving his question mark cane a twirl. Steph thought that he could use some work with his twirling, she’d seen much better baton twirling before, but wisely kept her mouth shut. “Would you like to accompany me?”
Steph glanced doubtfully down the hall. “My dad said I wasn’t going.”
“And I say you are,” Mr. Eddie said. He pointed the cane at her. “Do you have a costume, or do you want to be one of my Queries?”
“I have a costume!” Steph said quickly, shoving her door shut so she could get dressed. She belatedly realized that meant she’d slammed the door in the Riddler’s face, and yelled through it, “Sorry, Mr. Eddie! I’m getting dressed!”
Thirty seconds later she was dressed in her costume, pulling on her ratty sneakers. She didn’t have any neat red boots, and besides they looked like they would hurt your feet if you had to walk instead of flying. Superman had it easy, never having to break in shoes.
“Should I tell my dad I'm leaving?” Steph asked as she followed Mr. Eddie down the hall. “I’m not supposed to just leave without permission.”
“I already did!” Mr. Eddie said, and shooed her towards the door. “No worries, dear child.”
It was only when Steph was buckling herself into the car that she had the thought that maybe going off with a supervillain alone without telling her parents was the kind of trouble her teacher had warned her to avoid. But it wasn’t like it was a strange supervillain, she’d met Mr. Eddie plenty of times, and he’d never done anything mean to her. Sometimes he asked her silly questions, and her answers would either make him laugh or crinkle his nose in a weird way, but never anything mean.
But Mr. Eddie had said it was fine, and that her dad knew, and he’d been in the basement with her dad looking over bank blueprints that she wasn’t supposed to notice. It was probably fine.
It was too late to change her mind, anyway.
It was only after Mr. Eddie pulled out of her neighborhood that Steph asked where they were going.
“The best trick-or-treating is in the rich neighborhoods,” he informed her. “We’re going to Bristol.”
“Oh,” Steph said. She’d always just walked around her neighborhood with an empty grocery bag. She’d always gotten plenty of good candy that way. “Oh no, I forgot a bag!”
“I’ll get you one,” Mr. Eddie said. “This is going to be the best Halloween you’ve ever had, kid. Trust me.”
Then he turned up the radio and, tapping on the steering wheel to the song playing, drove Steph across the river.
Mr. Eddie started to lead her up to the first house when Steph stopped short. “I don’t have a bag! You can’t get candy if you don’t have a bag.”
“Hang on a sec,” Mr. Eddie said, and disappeared around a hedge. Steph heard a distant sound of a child crying, then Mr. Eddie reappeared and shoved a plastic pumpkin in her hand. “Here you go!”
Steph stared in the pumpkin. It was already half-full of candy. “Did you steal this?”
“Why would you think that?” Mr. Eddie said.
“Because there’s already candy in here? And I could hear that kid crying? I gotta take this back.” Steph started to walk in the direction of the crying child, but Mr. Eddie grabbed onto her cape and tugged her back beside him.
“Nope, what’s done is done. Gotta move forward,” Mr. Eddie said, and Steph, pouting, followed him up to the front door. The houses here had huge yards and she was already thankful that she wore her broken-in shoes.
Mr. Eddie was practically skipping as they climbed the steps. “This is just what I needed. An evening of normalcy. A sojourn into simplicity.”
“Trick or treat!” Steph said loudly, hoping to drown out Mr. Eddie as she held out her bucket. The lady at the door told her how cute she was, gave Eddie an annoyed look, and dumped a full size candy bar into the pumpkin.
“Thanks!” Steph said, eyes wide, as the lady shut the door. She turned to Mr. Eddie. “Did you see that? A full size candy bar!”
“What’d I say?” Mr. Eddie led her down the long driveway to the next house. If they all gave out candy like that lady, then it was absolutely worth the walking. The houses in Steph’s neighborhood were crowded together, which meant she could hit ten times as many houses in this much walking, but she’d never ever gotten a full size candy bar before.
“Best Halloween ever!” Steph cheered, and set down her pumkin long enough to do a celebratory cartwheel.
Each of the houses they went to gave Steph the good candy -- chocolate and gummies and full sizes, no hard candy at all -- and gave Mr. Eddie weird looks, especially when he started spouting off riddles at the homeowners.
“Why’d you do that?” Steph asked, skipping along beside him as they trekked towards the biggest and most isolated house in the neighborhood. The last lady had glared so meanly at Mr. Eddie that Steph had worried he would do something actually villainous to them. She’d even seen a little boy almost her age peeking around the corner in that house, and he’d mouthed the answer to the riddle at her -- the living room, the only room that a ghost would avoid.
“Do what?” Mr. Eddie was in high spirits.
“Don’t you think they’re gonna call the cops or something? I mean, they gotta realize you’re the actual Riddler when you’re wearing your outfit and asking them riddles.”
“That is the brilliance of Halloween,” Mr. Eddie said cheerfully. “They might suspect, but they know they’d sound ridiculous if they called the police claiming the Riddler showed up at their doorstep trick-or-treating with a child.”
“Oh,” Steph said. They trudged through a fancy gate. It was even fancier than the last house, and there were Ws formed in curly-q letters on each gate. “Is that why you brought me?”
“Of course not,” Mr. Eddie said, though he seemed distracted by the house they were approaching. It was big and scary looking, like something out of a horror movie. Steph loved it.
Steph hurried up the steps to the front door. There was a spooky wreath on it, decorated with bats and pumpkins. She rang the doorbell, and after a moment it swung open to reveal an actual butler. Steph didn’t know those actually existed in real life.
“Is that a costume?” she asked, instead of saying trick-or-treat like she was supposed to.
“No, Miss, it is not,” the butler said, and he even talked fancy with a British accent.
Steph bounced, excited, and said, “Trick or treat!”
The butler picked up a large bowl filled with goodie bags, each tied with orange and black ribbons that matched the wreath on the door, and put one in her pumpkin. Steph beamed. “Thank you so so much!”
She turned to Mr. Eddie, who smiled at the butler and said in his Riddler voice, “The person who built it sold it. The person who bought it never used it. The person who used it never saw it. What am I?”
“Unwelcome here,” said the butler, voice gone cold. Steph knew that tone meant they were not welcome anymore, and she clutched her pumpkin close as she tugged on Mr. Eddie’s sleeve. “I’m tired, let’s go.”
“One minute,” said Mr. Eddie. He was peering past the butler, and Steph suddenly realized why he had brought her to the fanciest neighborhood in Gotham to trick-or-treat, and it wasn’t so that she could get the best candy. He was casing the joint. “We have to let our friend here answer my riddle.”
“Not interested,” said the butler. He was glaring at Mr. Eddie in a way that made Steph think that maybe he realized that the costume was real. “Young miss, are you in need of help?”
Steph crinkled her brow. “No, why?”
“If you come inside, I can call your parents,” the butler said.
Steph clutched her pumpkin even tighter and stepped back against Mr. Eddie, who wrapped a protective arm around her. “No, thank you, I’m not allowed to go into strange houses. ‘Sides, my parents know where I am.”
Probably. But Steph was sure that she was safer with Mr. Eddie, who she’d known practically her whole life and had never done anything mean to her, than going into a giant spooky house that was clearly haunted. Especially on Halloween!
“Miss, I really must insist--” the butler began, and he reached out towards her, and Steph jumped back, turned, and began to run down the driveway, because in the dim light the butler’s hand had looked skeletal and strange, like a monster’s.
She didn’t stop until she was through the gate, til she was almost back to Mr. Eddie’s car, and only then did she look to see if Mr. Eddie was running behind her. He was, though she’d been much faster; he was jogging down the road, looking faintly ridiculous while swinging his question mark cane back and forth.
“You should get a cape if you wanna look cool while you’re running,” Steph told him when he finally caught up to her.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mr. Eddie said, though Steph could tell from his tone he was kind of annoyed. “Why didn’t you go inside?”
“Uh, because you don’t go into a stranger’s house?” Steph said. She climbed into the car and buckled herself in securely before starting to investigate the contents of her pumpkin. “It’s not like you kidnapped me. And besides, that butler knew who you were so if I’d gone inside, he would have called the cops, not my parents, and I'm not supposed to talk to cops.”
Mr. Eddie raised an eyebrow at her as he pulled the car into the street. He was driving fast, the way her dad did when he was pulling a getaway, and Steph gripped her pumpkin tightly so she didn't spill her candy. “You think so?”
“I know so,” Steph said. “So you shouldn’t try to rob him for a while, he’ll remember you.”
Mr. Eddie looked surprised. “Why do you think I was planning to rob anyone?”
“Cuz you were casing all those places? I saw you looking inside the houses and at all the gates. You were probably trying to see who had the best stuff and who had the worst security.” Steph started to unwrap a candy bar; her mom never let her eat candy until it’d been checked, but she figured that it’d be okay this once.
Mr. Eddie started to laugh, and he patted her on the head. “You’re a bright little thing, aren’t you?”
“Bright enough that I know this isn’t the way home,” Steph said, pointing out the window.
“Gotta make another stop,” Mr. Eddie said. “You can probably get some more trick-or-treating in while I do.”
Steph slouched down and ate the rest of her candy bar, along with some sour gummies. The drive felt like it took forever, and Steph only vaguely recognized where they were. Bludhaven, she thought. Her mom had taken her there a time or two to meet with a friend to pick up her medicine.
“C’mon,” Mr. Eddie said, getting out of the car and heading into an apartment building. It was rundown, like everything else in Bludhaven, and Steph had no idea why they were here. Her bucket was full, there was clearly nothing here to case out, and her feet were starting to hurt. She made those arguments as Mr. Eddie led them to the elevator, but he ignored her whining.
They rode up to the fourth floor, and once they stepped out Mr. Eddie glanced down at her. “Uh… maybe you should go trick-or-treat while I have a discussion with my… friend.”
Steph knew what that meant. Someone was gonna get roughed up, and she doubted it was Mr. Eddie. “Okay, cool.” She watched as Mr. Eddie went into the second door on the right, and tried to remember so that she didn’t try to trick-or-treat there. Then she skipped down the hall, knocking on the first door she came across.
Most of the doors stayed shut, and the ones that opened only offered a piece or two of candy. One man glared at her and told her to fuck off, so she stuck her tongue out at him and took off, scurrying around a corner and waiting, listening, though happily all she heard was the slamming of his door.
She was considering going to a different floor to trick-or-treat when the door Mr. Eddie had disappeared through cracked open, and he came strolling out, swinging his cane in wide circles and whistling. There was a little smear on the sleeve of his outfit that she tried not to look at too closely.
“Tonight is a banner night for the Riddler,” he said happily as he herded Steph towards the elevator. “You just might be my good luck charm. How do you feel about coming out with me again?”
“Halloween’s not for another year,” Steph said. She was having a good night, sure, but she’d rather be out with her mom, or even her dad. Maybe.
“Maybe we can go caroling,” Mr. Eddie said thoughtfully as they exited the building. Steph was swinging her pumpkin, wondering if the handle would break if she asked to go to another few doors. It was getting awfully heavy. She’d never received so much Halloween candy before. She’d probably still be eating it by Thanksgiving.
They were walking down the sidewalk towards the car when someone flipped down from the sky and landed in front of them.
“Cool!” Steph breathed out, looking up to see where he’d come from. There was a fire escape on the building closest to them, so he’d probably flipped from there. “Can you do that again?”
Mr. Eddie wasn’t as impressed; he grabbed her arm and began to tug her down the sidewalk, around the superhero. Because it was a superhero, now that Steph was looking, wearing a fancy suit in blue and gold and with a face mask.
“Let go of the child, Nygma,” the superhero said sternly.
“Nygma? No clue who that is,” Mr. Eddie tried, even though it was his name. The superhero gave him a look and Eddie sighed. “Nightwing, you have it wrong.”
Nightwing! Steph had heard of him, but had never seen him. He worked with Batman. She’d seen Batman before, and Robin, too, and now she got to see Nightwing? All she had left was Batgirl and she would have seen all of Gotham’s vigilantes. This was the best night ever!
“I’m not in the mood for games tonight. I thought you were better than kidnapping,” Nightwing said.
Steph blinked, looking back and forth between Mr. Eddie and Nightwing. “But Mr. Nightwing, I’m not kidnapped.”
“You don’t have to try to protect him, he’s a bad man--” Nightwing started, but Steph shook her head.
“My mom had to work so Mr. Eddie took me trick-or-treating,” Steph said. She shook her pumpkin at Nightwing. “You want a piece of candy?”
Mr. Eddie’s face was turning an interesting color, like he was holding in laughter, while Nightwing was staring at her like she’d just offered him a bag of snakes. “Uh. No, thank you.”
“You sure? Because we went to the fancy houses and they give out the good stuff,” Steph said. She dug through her pumpkin and pulled out a peanut butter cup. “Here, take this.”
Nightwing tried to tell her to keep her candy, but she tossed it to him so he had to catch it or let it fall to the grimy ground, which would have been a crime, and superheroes had to stop crime from happening. “I-- Thank you?”
“You’re welcome! Thank you for stopping crime!” Steph said brightly, then remembered who she was with. “I mean. Sorry, Mr. Eddie.”
“No problem, kiddo,” Mr. Eddie said. “Enjoy the candy you took from a baby, Nightwing!” He tugged her arm, trying to lead her to the car, but Steph really wanted to stay and talk to a real life superhero some more.
“Kid, are you sure you’re not in any danger?” Nightwing said, sensing her reluctance, but she shook her head.
“Mr. Eddie is really nice. My dad didn’t want to take me tonight but Mr. Eddie did! And I got to see a real life superhero.” She pointed to her costume and whispered, “I think superheroes are the best, but don’t tell Mr. Eddie or my dad I said that.” She raised her voice to normal levels. “And I got full size candy bars, and I didn’t get pulled into a haunted mansion, and this was the best Halloween ever.”
Nightwing gave a little laugh, and said, “Sure sounds like a good night.”
He glanced at Mr. Eddie, then bent down and whispered to her, “If you do need help, you can call out for Superman. Tell him Nightwing said you were a friend and to come pronto.”
Steph nodded solemnly; she could tell this wasn’t advice given out casually. “Thank you, Mr. Nightwing, but I really am fine. You can go help some kids who aren’t.”
Nightwing nodded, stood up, and flashed her a big grin. “Thanks for the candy!”
“You’re welcome!” Steph yelled, because he had jumped up and somehow grabbed onto the fire escape, and then he did a really cool move to pull himself up and flip around that Steph was absolutely going to try at her next gymnastics class.
Mr. Eddie was looking at her almost fondly. “You know, it’s a rare day when I run into a Bat and don’t get punched. We should definitely hang out more often.”
Steph didn’t answer, she was too busy beaming and imagining what it would be like to call out a superhero’s name and have them appear, just like that.
The drive back to her house was spent with Steph staring out the window, pointing out the best costumes she saw -- she saw a Riddler, and Mr. Eddie almost pulled over to take a picture with them until Steph pointed out that wasn’t a very villainous thing to have posted on the internet -- and letting Mr. Eddie sneak pieces of candy out of her bucket while she pretended not to notice. She read the label on a piece of Laffy Taffy and giggled, then asked Mr. Eddie, “How do you spell candy with only two letters?”
Mr. Eddie pretended to think about it, and before he could announce the answer grandly, Steph yelled it out, happily spoiling her own joke. “C and Y! Get it? C and Y?”
Her dad wasn’t even mad when she got home, and Mr. Eddie patted her fondly on top of the head before she skipped up the stairs, clutching her pumpkin and chattering happily to her dad about the night’s adventures.
Best Halloween ever.