Chapter Text
"Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey" a sing-songy voice makes its way through the deep fog of Batmans senses.
He stirs, eyes fluttering only to flinch away from the bright overhead light.
"I've always loved a good escape room." The riddlers voice booms through the room, eminating from the speaker in the wall.
Batman pulls himself off of the ground, opening his eyes fully to take in the surroundings. The room is plain with grey walls and grey floors. The deterioration of the structure indicates to batman that this was a previously abandoned building, which the riddler repurposed. He tries to remember how he got here, images of the bat signal enter his mind. He must have been lured somewhere only to be knocked out and taken here.
"I would say I'm sorry for there not being a theme, but those are made up to create false threat to encourage your escape. Don't be fooled Batman, this threat is very real. If you don't manage to escape before the timer runs out.."
an awkward giggle escapes the speaker
"The room will fill with nerve gas, courtesy of the penguin of course...you really do get around town just pissing everybody off y'know? But I'm giving you a chance Batman. Tick tock."
Batmans heartbeat rises at the ever present threat. His eyes dart around the room, looking for weak spots in the infrastructure. Deep down he knows it's useless trying to escape by brute force. The riddler has the upper hand, the power to knock him out with the push of a button, for all he knows this place could be rigged to blow up if he doesn't play along with the game. He sighs and gives in, beginning to search for the riddles he's meant to solve. The room looks plain, a room you wouldn't even know was a riddle if you weren't told. A trashcan in the corner, a grate on the ground, a whiteboard on the wall with a magnet bottle opener on it as well as a timer propped up on the ledge, undoubtedly the countdown before the room fills with gas, leaving him vulnerable to God knows what. He goes up to the whiteboard, it's blank. He takes the magnet in his hands, flipping it over to see if had any information to give him, but it didn't.
"You made a good call choosing to play along, Batman. I knew you had brains underneath all that brawn." The speaker crackles before going silent again
He doesn't respond, ignoring the riddlers taunts to turn his attention away from the whiteboard, putting the magnet back. He grabs the small garbage can, lifting it up and tipping it over to sprawl the contents on the ground. An empty packet of dry erase markers, a few paperclips and, a receipt for floor tiles and paint. He deduces that there must be a marker for him to find. His eyes trail back to the grate in the floor he saw earlier. He walks over to it and gets on his knees to look inside and sure enough, a skinny dry erase marker with a metal cap lies at the bottom. The grate is bolted to the floor, and his hands are too big to fit between the slits. He notices that the cap must be something custom made by the riddler, as dry erase markers typically don't have metal caps. He remembers the magnet. Part of him knows the magnet isn't the right size to reach the marker but he grabs in anyway, feeling the cool object against his palm as he thinks.
Paper clips.
He rushes to the small pile of trash and hurriedly grabs a paperclip off the ground. The riddlers voice echoes in his head despite the speaker being silent 'tick tock'. He bends the paper clip on a straight line, and rubs it furiously against the magnet, stopping when he feels it should be enough to magnetize it for long enough to hold the marker. He carefully dips the paperclip though the slits in the grate, coaxing the marker to lift through it. After dropping it once, twice, he finally makes it all the way though, letting himself exhale when he gets his hands on it. But once it's in his hands he doesn't stand up, because he realizes he doesn't know what he's supposed to write. He looks at his hands, bottle opener, paperclip, marker. He closes his eyes and runs through all the objects in the room, trying to ignore the fact that he knows he's being watched. When he opens his eyes something catches his attention, the large tiles that line up around the grate are ever so slightly loose. He keeps the receipt in mind as he starts to pry the tiles off of the ground with the bottle opener. Tile after tile, the receipt makes more sense as it reveals a painted message on the floor. The riddle, what he had been missing. He reads it over and over as the words bounce around his brain.
He makes his way over to the whiteboard, a new intensity as the clock nears zero. He quickly writes out the answer big enough for the Riddler to see through the hidden cameras. Click.
The door creaks open as there are only seconds left on the clock.
"Don't think it's over yet Batman You still have to make your way to the front doors. I'd run if I were you."
He makes a run for it down the hall, knowing that if he doesn't make it out the doors this will all be for nothing as the nerve gas will fill not only the room but seep into the remaining hallways through the now open door. Time seems to slow down as he makes his strained steps towards big glass doors. He hears a loud buzzing sound coming from the room he had just escaped from followed by a hiss.
"Tsk tsk, You really were so close, Batman" The speaker echoes through the halls bouncing back into Batmans ears.
The words fade out as he approaches the big glass doors, assuming that this is the result of him getting farther from the speaker. But as his extremities begin to tingle, and legs start to buckle, he realizes the gas has made its way to him. He can almost make out a figure seemingly loitering in front of the building as his body hits the ground. Boom. The last thing he sees is the figure defensively putting their hands in front of their face as an explosion behind him shoots shrapnel through the glass doors, shattering them as heat licks Batmans body.