Professor Fear (the sequel) - Jonathan Crane

Chapter 12

Jonathan came downstairs to a dozing Daria on the sofa. She'd at least changed into different clothes before falling asleep in the night. In her left hand was an envelope decorated in green question marks. Carefully, he pulled it from her grasp and read the contents addressed to him, expecting an advanced but relevant riddle from his friend.

'You've been formally invited to THE JOKER'S BALL via THE RIDDLER'S REQUEST. It is hoped that all Gotham Rogues will attend. Please turn the card over for event time and whereabouts and then burn this letter.'

Unusual. He thought to himself. As his criminal persona, The Riddler did not 'mix with the common criminal' since he claimed himself a 'mastermind'.
Jonathan turned over the card. The event did not take his fancy at all. He was obviously invited as Scarecrow. Jonathan wondered if Daria could come along. 

After thirty minutes in the kitchen, a bowl of porridge and a cup of black coffee, Jonathan went into the basement to collect his extra papers for work. When he returned upstairs, a woman with a dark brown nest of hair on her head was stretching her arms up with a yawn in the kitchen doorway.

"You made me porridge?" Daria almost cooed. Jonathan had left porridge and black coffee for her on the small table in the kitchen. She'd woken up unusually cheery. When she moved her hands to tie her hair into a bun, she vocalised, as if a mind reader, Jonathan's descriptive statement.
"I don't know how my hair became a bird's nest but I'm sorry you have to see me this way," After producing a bun, she sat down and practically swigged the black coffee like whiskey after a rough day.

"So, what did you think of the message," Jonathan nodded to the Riddler's letter which was now next to the gas stove, due to be lit on fire.
"Is it a no Daria allowed thing or can I come with you?"
"You can come with me but I may encourage you to alter your appearance temporarily for the sake of identity safety,"
"Should I whip out my sewing kit and adopt a burlap grin like yourself?"

"Maybe we could go for a wig and intense makeup, that's what the other girls,"
"but I'm not like the other girls," She said with a mocking voice to convey that the statement was a joke. "Okay, I'll think of something. I'm guessing, other than that you wanted to be sweet, that you made me breakfast because it'll be time for work really soon?"

"The next shuttle leaves in twenty minutes."

Work for Jonathan and Training for Daria passed by quickly. The two met by the front door of Arkham at 6pm and began walking, lead my Jonathan to a district that Daria was not so familiar with.

They reached a brown door near a silent road junction. Jonathan tapped the door in a very precise pattern. The door opened inwards and the tall thin man wearing a green sweater grinned with bright white teeth.
"Jonny! And you brought Ms Morrison,"
"Nigma," Jonathan greeted before walking in the door and being followed closely by Daria. "Got your letter,"
"Oh don't sound so cheery to see me, you'll make your girlfriend think we're seeing each other!" Edward joked at Jonathan's kept formality.
"Sorry it was a busy day at work, I learnt that my current toxin in its lowest doses kills a man after sixteen days,"
"Adam Cleary is dead?" Daria asked.
"Yes, he died today at 11am,"
"Wow Arkham even covers up its causalities from its employees,"
"They don't want to scare the new kids away,"

"And truly kids at that – have you not recently graduated from GCU?" Edward asked, finally directly addressing Daria. "Teliophilia or Sapiophilia?"

"Jonathan isn't that much older than me and I'm sure as hell not a teenager. I was late to college." She rolled her eyes at the question. "Sapiophilia possibly and his undeniably beautiful face," She almost wanted to swallow the words after she said them. It was an unusual amount of confidence resulting in her response.
"How sweet you're blushing," Riddler commented with a dismissive tone, but smiling, and then refocused on Jonathan who was also blushing. "Yes my invite, it'll be... interesting. Feel free to bring a beautiful woman on your arm too, Perhaps a villainess,"
For a second Daria upsettingly thought Nigma meant 'someone other than Daria' but then realised that he meant her but dressed as a villain or something more fitting for a ball with criminals.

"I, of course, do not need another at my side when I arrive since I am equivalent to so many more than a mere two. I'd have to bring most of Gotham for a fighting chance of good intellectual company." Riddler stated proudly. Daria found herself admiring his ego and light humour rather than resenting it.
"I also found Ms Morrison an outfit for the occasion since I know how you can be with mundane activities such as shopping Jonny,"

"What a sweetheart you are Edward, I had no idea," Daria played along. The tall slender green clad man retreated to another room to go retrieve the item.
How could he have known my size or my height without first meeting me? She asked herself, puzzled.
Edward returned with a heap of dark purple fabric in his arms, offering it to Daria. She took it and thanked him, feeling that it would be impolite to assess it at that given moment in case she wasn't comfortable with it.
Jonathan, meanwhile, was still amused by his friend's behaviour.

"So," Edward clasped his hands together, "I will see you both at the event?"

"How does Batman not notice a group of sophisticated villains grouping together during the evening?" Daria asked.

"We aren't disrupting the public...this once. If the batman did know where we were, then he would be risking himself with all those who specialise in attacking him." Jonathan explained. 
Daria wondered if she'd meet the batman one day.