Victor, bereft of his armor (not that he needed it at the moment, his new 'home' was acclimatized for him), an hour or so after being captured, was sitting on his cell, waiting for the giant soldier to go in and do as he had done to many others before him. Unlike either Poison Ivy or Killer Croc, the ones he shared walls will (he didn't see what was Dent doing, the door was opaque), he knew that putting up resistance was futile.
"I'm sorry Nora." That's all he said, just once, before falling silent after the realization that he wouldn't see his wife ever again struck him.
He was going to die. It was a question of when, not if, and there was nothing he could to to avoid his fate, aside from accepting it... and the fact that Nora would end up dying, if not at Slayer's hands: either the disease finally finished her off, or the stasis would overcome her system and kill her anyway without him being there to control it.
Still, either possibility was better than the alternative, as impossible as it seemed even to him: Doom Slayer turning his wrath on Nora.
Victor didn't cry, he didn't weep at his misfortune or rage at the world he had blamed for his mistakes. All he could do was to wait on that miserable cell, on a cold and silent castle, in a remote and foreboding planet, as Slayer decided to splatter him all over the walls for his crimes.
He sighed and rubbed his face dejectedly. "At least I'll be able to say to Minos that I tried." He then began to wonder to what ring did killers like him (men tempered by the cold and using it in their murders) end up. Wrath? Treachery? He wasn't a particularly religious man, but before being taken he had always hoped that maybe, just maybe, God would take pity on Nora (Victor knew where he'd end up after dying, and had long sincce accepted it) and do a miracle, just a little one, to save her.
He probably decided that she had a part on his sins and had to share punishment. Or not, he didn't know, nor care.
And then, after several days of doing nothing but eat tasteless food and pushing away false hopes of survival, he finally heard it. The steps of something large and heavy moving through the area. Ivy stopped her incessant wailing, but Croc didn't stop roaring and slamming himself.
And then said footsteps stopped right in front of his door.
Victor sighed and straightened himself. It was his time, but at least he'd die with some dignity left. Of course, anything that might happen to his cadaver afterwards would another matter, but still.
The door to his cell opened, revealing the hulking shape of Doom Slayer... who was without his now iconic helmet, showing his bearded face and hardened eyes to Victor.
And then he spoke. His voice was even colder than his own.
"Victor." He said.
At this Victor's eyes widened. He called him by his real name, not the nickname given to him. Something was off, he just knew.
"No, I haven't planned on killing you, despite what you may have been thinking these last days. You are not hard to read, and not just your face."
Victor's eyes widened further for a second before narrowing, still trying to not paint himself as a possible threat. "Then what are you going to do?"
Rather than replying, Doom Slayer extended his left arm. Victor flinched, thinking he'd slam him against the wall, but instead Slayer simply raised the arm to his eye level and opened his clenched hand, revealing a cylinder-shaped object.
Victor stared at the thing, confused, and not just by the fact he wasn't dead... yet. "What is this?"
"It's a data file, assembled entirely by me." Doom Slayer began to explain. "It contains the recipe for the cure of Huntington's Chorea, plus something for your own condition that will allow you to be able to walk under the sun alongside her, but keep your resistance against the cold."
Victor didn't reply, busy as he was staring at the cylinder with wide, open eyes.
It had to be, with such technology at Doom Slayer's disposition.
It then occurred to him that had he had gone to Slayer the moment he proved his technological might, Nora would already be walking under the sun. Not that it mattered at that moment, but still, it gave him food for thought.
"Despite everything you have done, the lives you have taken, and what people think of you, you are not a monster in human skin like many others back on Earth, merely a man whose desperation clouded his mind and messed with his moral compass."
"But why not cure her yourself?"
Doom Slayer's response was, of course, blunt and straight to the point, but also... "She's your wife, not mine. You're the one who has done anything you could to save her life, if by ruining yours."
Tears began falling from Victors face as the realization finally struck him: after three years of pain, loss and sorrow, of destroying other people's lives in a fruitless attempt to save a single one, Nora would be cured! She'd talk, laugh and dance under the sunlight again! Hell, so would he!
But the, did Doom Slayer did it entirely out of the goodness of hish heart! It would be completely in character, but still, he had to make sure it was real.
"How can I thank you for this?"
Victor swore he could see a small smirk on Slayer's face before he spoke. "Use your power for good. Not just your mind, but also your body."
Victor's smile dropped. 'For good', he said. Victor felt the need to laugh: after everything he had done, the only thing he deserved was a bullet between his eyes, and it wasn't just him who thought of that.
"I can give it a try, but the public may not accept it. They won't forgive me."
"They forgave Superman, didn't they? And they accept me despite my actions, and believe me when I say that my killcount is both much, much higher than yours, and wholly intentional. Plus, Nora's not the only one affliced with the chorea: hundreds of thousands of lives can be saved... will be saved, and it'll be from your hand, not mine. The common man likes that. And at the very least, you'll be the one who will actually make the cure; this is just the recipe."
Still overwhelmed by these sudden news, Victor stood there, unable to do anything. But then Doom Slayer spoke and reminded him of the reason he was still alive.
"Don't you have a wife to cure first?"
Nora just wanted it to end.
Unlike what some believe, the 'ice gun' that Mr. Freeze had, and by extension most of the technology he created, could be used to put someone in a state similar to stasis, slowing their metabolism to a crawl and practically stopping their aging proccess, if they were taken care of to a point of course. Still, the freezing didn't affect several parts so that the patient could still live, like of course the heart, and the brain. That meant they were fully conscious under the ice.
Just like a certain Nora Fries, who trapped as she was in Victor's hideout, now longed for a death that might not come fast enough for her.
She hated what her husband had become, all just so she could walk under the sun, neglecting his own life. His desire didn't stop when that bastard Boyle was defeated, and in fact it only got worse. She wished that at least her mouth was free to tell him, to implore him to stop before he did something that he would regret and before his heart froze permanently, that curing her wasn't worth damning himself. But all she could do was watch as her husband became laser-focused on her, and her alone, colder and colder every day that passed.
But then, one day, Victor didn't return. And neither he did in the next, nor the following ones. She didn't know what happen: maybe he couldn't escape from wherever they took him this time, maybe he gave up, or maybe simply died. Either way she reached a conclusion: he wouldn't be coming back, and by extension she'd die.
And then one day, something entered her body. Then, after that happened, her ice cocoon began to melt.
And then, after falling to the ground and gasping for breath she never thought she'd have, she felt someone raising her body.
"V-victor?"
And indeed he was: his blue skin, Arkham's orange uniform, that scar he received the last time she saw him, the smile he had when he talked to her... Only this time, he didn't have the armor on. And his smile was happy, joyous, warm... and contagious.
"Y-your armor..."
Victor's smile widened further still. "I didn't want it to get it between us. You are free, my love. I am free."
She didn't get to see a large, man-shaped silhouette leaving as quickly as it came.
I think the chapter may be a bit corny, crappier, and definitely shorter than usual. I'm afraid the following ones will probably be not much longer, since the issues that are being dealt with are of the easily resolved variant. Still, I hope you like how's the story going.