Fencing

Edward Nygma was clumsy.

He was the guy with the limp and the cane who tried to carry too much one-handed and thus dropped it all more often than not. He tripped when he tried to run, and he often smacked into things because he was busy thinking about or looking at something else. Anyone could see that he was clumsy.

But if one factored in that limp and that cane, if they payed attention to the moments when he wasn't carrying too much or he was fully focused on what he was doing, they'd realize that he wasn't really all that clumsy at all.

In fact, he had a certain level of gracefulness about him, a fluidity to his motions that spoke of control and precision that came easily to him. It came out when he tinkered with his machines or graffitied question marks on his walls with green markers, his fingers moving elegantly in a way the rest of his body copied whenever he wasn't pushing it to do more than it could without proper thought to what he was doing.

Jonathan Crane, as one of Edward's closest friends and a psychologist who was quite skilled at noticing little things like that, of course figured out his typically unnoticed grace fairly quickly. But he hadn't really internalized the concept of it, he realized, until he'd seen Edward fencing.

Edward hadn't noticed that Jonathan was there, too caught up in what he was doing. The Scarecrow had come to fetch Edward for a small birthday dinner with their friends, but he had paused in the doorway when he realized what was happening in front of him. Edward's cane was discarded on the floor, sans handle as the hidden inner sword had been removed.

Edward spun and flowed across the floor, a look of intense concentration on his face as his limbs whirled from one movement to the next. Jonathan stood transfixed as he saw, for the first time, his friend practice his preferred style of physical combat.

The thing was, Jonathan knew how much effort it took for Edward to walk without his cane. His bad leg would get stiff, even painful, if he put any great pressure on it. It wasn't too bad, most days, so long as he had his cane. Some people didn't even realize he had a limp, right away.

But that didn't change the fact that what he was doing at that moment had to be incredibly painful, and incredibly difficult. The signs were there, Jonathan could see sweat on Edward's brow, caught a wince here and there, heard as his breathing became more and more labored.

And yet, he continued. His movements seemed almost effortless, to one that couldn't see the little signs of tire. He fenced against imaginary opponents, his movements not just skilled but masterful, and Jonathan could do little but continue watching him.

Then a thought occurred to Jonathan, one that was a tad more superstitious and fate-based than he was normally inclined to thinking. He wasn't sure whether to blame Corvin's or Jervis's influence for it. Maybe both of them.

The thought was that maybe the accident that crippled Edward Nygma hadn't been an accident at all. Maybe the universe or something in it had orchestrated the events on purpose.

Because if he was like this with the bad leg, Jonathan wondered just how good he would've gotten without it.