DUPLICITY: IC INBOX

[theansweris]

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[cryfrustration]

[If it wasn't for you, Ed, he's honestly not sure whether he would be making the effort. But this is where we are, and the effort is there without showing any signs of ending any time soon.

That does not, however, make this next bit any less complicated, because when Ed says that about them being unmarked, it actually brings him up short.]

I...

Shit.

Ed, maybe I shouldn't say anything 'cause it's not my place, but I don't wanna see you get blindsided or caught out so I'm gonna: it was Victor Zsasz. That's who attacked him. Only not the one we know. 'Cording to Oswald he didn't even look the same. There's another one here now, 'n it sounds like he's pretty different from the first.

[theansweris]

[ Vrenille. It's almost certainly not worth the effort. But Ed's a little biased and thinks it is.

There's more silence. ]

I see.

No running off half cocked for revenge.

I promise.

[ Riddler purrs it. Means it. Revenge will not be some half cocked affair. It will be slow, methodical and exacting. ]

[cryfrustration]

[Without understanding just what Riddler intends, Vrenille does understand it. He understands, first, that it's him--Riddler, and not Ed--speaking now. And he understands that the promise...the promise isn't a promise of nothing. It's not a promise about the absence of a reprisal.

He understands something else, too, which is that he's the one who's set this in motion. Not alone, of course, and Ed would surely have learned it all sooner or later. But for it to happen just this way? It took his hand--what he began with the gesture of picking up his phone. He could feign or front innocence, ignorance, but it would be a lie.

Wisdom, now, would probably be on the side of letting this all run its course, extricating himself, standing back at safe distance. Whatever Riddler's going to do, Vrenille's pretty sure it will be quite the dangerous game. But where, when it came to dealing with Tim, he tried to reel him in, keep a modicum of civility about the whole thing, this time he attempts no such thing. Maybe he's playing with quite a bit of fire in what he says, after a pause.]

If you need anything, you know where to find me.

[theansweris]

I most certainly do.

Thank you, Vrenille. I don't say that often enough, though undoubtedly Ed says it enough for both of us and then some.