[Flashback] Missed Delivery [Jonathan Crane]

Dr. Crane had been sitting at his lab table late that night, perfecting his latest serum. It was such a delicate thing and after his important delivery it had become even more important. His eyes shifted from his work to his phone lying idly on the table. He couldn’t stay focused on his work, which was odd for him considering how much VerMillion enjoyed interrupting him by randomly touching to him on sliding a chair up next to him and staring at him as much as he stared at her. In a way she was fascinating to watch though he would never outright admit that to her. It wasn’t uncommon for Dr. Crane to stare at anyone and anyone that knew his nature knew that he may do so, but with VerMillion it was different. She had a higher purpose than most of the Gotham rabble he ran into and had to deal with much more than he ever desired to.

The phone was really beginning to bother him and his hand stopped placing the dirty yellow droplets onto the plastic round plate. He relaxed in his lab chair and began taking off his gloves one by one, completely focused on the phone. He was never a social man, and never expected calls from anyone. There was no one in his contact list and no one in his miss calls section. It was a good thing and he wanted to always keep it that way. Every number that he ever needed was memorized in his mind and he never wrote any of their names down anywhere. There was no point in doing that when he could just remember the number and then there was little reason for anyone to try and obtain his contacts. It would be difficult to track down something he didn’t have.

After a few more minutes of mentally debating in his head he finally picked up the phone and scrolled through it. He hadn’t missed any texts, he hadn’t missed any calls. This was unusual for the way he had set things up to happen earlier. He was supposed to receive confirmation that the case had been delivered to Ra’s. This was why Dr. Crane didn’t use henchmen or middle men. They could never get anything done. But in this case he avoided talking to Ra’s when he could. Only when he was called on a first name basis would he go to see Ra’s at his will, it was a hold around his neck that he just couldn’t escape and at the expensive of his research he didn’t want to. But that didn’t mean that he had to like the man at all and he didn’t. If he could only find some way to make them grow…But he had tirelessly been trying that, to no avail.

After he discovered that nothing was on the phone he placed it back on the desk with his boney fingers lingering over it still. A few taps of it came to the desk and he pushed up from his lab chair, leaving his work where it was. VerMillion knew better than to go into his lab and start touching things that she wasn’t supposed to and if she did it would probably mean the end of the problem in the first place, she certainly wouldn’t be doing it a second time. Wrapped inside the depth of his own mind he took off his lab coat and grabbed his jacket. Under the same spell he reached for his mask and stuffed it into the back of his slacks, not forgetting to grab his glove attachment before he walked out the door. If he was going to where he suspected he was going, he was going to need everything.

Ra’s didn’t operate this way, and this obviously meant that the package was never delivered to him. It wasn’t too difficult to figure out from there. The man that had taken the case for him had gone through another source to get the case where it needed to go. The only other reliable source to Ra’s that existed in Gotham was Talia Al Ghul. A woman that he would have rather avoided for several reasons. One, he simply wanted nothing to do with the worthless woman. She had nothing to do with his research and never needed to be involved in the first place. When he got outside, he took the car that they had previously lifted from someone and began to drive toward the North Side of Gotham.

Being as close as he was to the league of shadows, he knew where most of them resided. This was part of the agreement between Ra’s and himself, it kept things legitimate between them so things like this wouldn’t happen, as Ra’s had often promised that as long as he did as he was told things would go complication free….But that was too good to be true. Thankfully Dr. Crane always planned loosely, so that anything could go wrong from point A to point B and he would still arrive at point B. When he arrived he made sure to stop and abandon the car several blocks away from his destination as he always did, to walk to the rest of the way. Once he arrived he stopped near the entrance to take in the scenery of the small manor and how he was going to get inside. Suddenly his eyes shot to a woman that was exiting the building and coming around the gate to the corner that he stood at near a dumpster that was accessible by the city.

Dr. Crane body went up against the gate and he pulled out his mask from the back of his slacks, clicking the switch to start the fans before he slipped it over his head. The darkness surrounded him and seemed to cradle its arms around him as a large heavy object was thrown into the dumpster. He had seen that form before and he had heard the echo of a body hitting the insides of the filthy walls of public disposal one too many times. Something told him that that was the man that he had sent. Dr. Crane didn’t give the man another thought; he cared nothing for him and only for the case that was to be sent to the insufferable girl’s father. Did she really wish to invite the nightmare so? Was this her idea of how things were supposed to work? The situation could have easily became complicated, but once they were well on their way back inside. The limber and lanky Scarecrow tossed himself on top of the dumpster and then on top of the stone gate that ran along the lining of the house. He stayed low to it and made his way around the side to some foliage that was conveniently making its way to the roof.

He took a single leap from the gate to the vine and shimmed his way up the rest of it, stopping momentarily beside a window while a maid was making her way down a hall on the third floor. He stared at her through the darkness of the window and the woman stopped dead in her tracks. She came closer to the window progressively, he steps her slow and her face went pale. The Scarecrow hid a sinister smile behind the confines of his mask, literally absorbing the anxiety that was pouring off of her. He didn’t move a muscle, simply waited for her to come closer to the window. She stopped….inches before it and turned, running quickly into another room. What a beautiful display….

Once she was out of the way he lifted from his pocket a simple vile of corrosive acid that he often used to break into homes silently. He poured the acid onto the latch that was clearly locked from the inside and waited as it made its way through the seam. Once it was in there good enough he gave a good tug to the window and it was opened. Ra’s probably wouldn’t have approved of the way he was going about this, but he didn’t care what Ra’s thought about it. This was nearly a breach of their verbal contract, but he never expected anyone to play by the rules, he certainly wouldn’t. The Scarecrow made his way through the halls, opening doors slowly to check in them for the object he was looking for. He wouldn’t have cared if he talked to the woman at all, but something told him she would keep it near her if she was just dying to speak with him.

Then, finally, with open push of a door he saw her across the room standing out on a balcony. There was no mistaking her through the glass. She seemed content with herself; the tall and slender woman was resting idly on the rail overlooking Gotham. As he stood in the doorway he couldn’t help but wonder in the moment, the one question that oh so often got him into trouble with the more professional criminals of Gotham….That one perfect question. She could never understand, and from the looks of what happened she would never. Did Talia kill the man?...What a waste. A waste of a good research subject. It was unlike her if she believed in her father’s cause. A vain attempt to try and make the world something it wasn’t. He cared nothing for Ra’s quest to cleanse the world, the world was already cleansed…it was perfect as it was. People just couldn’t see…what it really was. The reason why she had killed the man…The reason why she was standing on the balcony….and the reason why she had chosen to keep the case for herself in the first place.

The vile still in hand he tossed the rest of the acid at the light switch just barely side the room and made it short out. Then moment it did and darkness covered the room, except for the moonlit fall night, he grabbed his gloved attachment and placed it onto his arm. He was careful not to click it on completely however, wanting to keep himself in total darkness for the moment. Under the cover of the dark he made his way toward the glass, but kept inside the room. “Why…Do you invite the nightmare?” The distortion cracked out from the mask.

Through the darkness The Scarecrow studied her every moment, waiting for any movement at all, waiting for one beautiful expression of anxiety. Any movement at all would do just fine. The distortion from the mask had cracked louder than he wanted and caused a high pitched whine to ring into his ear. His head dropped to the side and his body twitched as if the noise had bothered him, but these things only added to his patient’s fear of him. He never had any intention of fixing the distorter in his mask, if anything it helped more than it hurt. The mask wasn’t just worn to identify him or try to strike fear into his patients. It wasn’t worn to present himself in front of the Batman was a worth foe, No. The Scarecrow came before the Batman. If only for a short time before he was discovered, he was the first to face the Batman. If anything…He would never compare himself to the man in the bat mask, they were simply on two different levels entirely. The batman being a hopeless, ignorant, dream chasing, vigilante, and The Scarecrow being the God of Fear himself.

How could one compare a god to a mere man?

He rarely used the front door to anything, for several reasons. The front door became a blocked pathway for him in life. Society no longer accepted him through the front door and it became a very useful stigma. He would use whatever entrance he wanted, whenever he wanted. But as antisocial as he was, the front door never seemed like a place he wanted to enter from. It wasn’t often that he came to socialize anyway; in fact he never came to socialize. No, he was here for one purpose and that purpose was to get the case back and be on his way. The fact that his hired help was dead was just more proof that there was no reason to be here. He didn’t have time to waste with this woman, there was so much more work to be done. Henchmen were never ‘object’s that the doctor took to. He always worked alone, with the occasional expendable usage of one or two bodies, always expecting them to either not come back alive or not expect payment.

She was cleverer than he expected not to come out of the moonlight. But the fact that she hadn’t already taken the case and ran spoke wonders about her ignorance. Ra’s often kept his work between them to himself, but he thought Talia might have at least known a bit of his work. Perhaps this new project was far too important to Ra’s to let even his daughter know. A sinister smile pulled from the darkness of the mask. She would be ignorant indeed to think it not to be incredibly important. “Expendable…” He commented about the man, not caring one way or the other for him. But when she called him a stud a small twitch came into his eye. A pathetic show of a teasing affection. A lie…A mask for what she was really trying to do as The scarecrow knew all too well that emotions like that didn’t exsist. They couldn’t, because of the one simple truth that consumed every part of this world.

Now that she was aware of his presence he slowly clicked on his wrist brace and the bright yellow liquid began to glow against the darkness. It was faded but you could say it almost radiated with a hint of neon. The toxin filled into the needles of his glove and with a quick hit his hand went to the glass. Slowly he drug it down, letting the needles scrape against it, while keeping his body shrouded in the dark. “Where is it?” He asked simply through the distortion of the mask, in no mood to edge on her false affections.

The Scarecrow had always preferred the darkness. He must have cost the asylum a fortune by now with how many lights they needed to have replaced in his cell. After a while they started to learn their lesson and put new preventions in his cell to protect the lights. But normally the ones to install it were far too afraid to even step into his cell. He had created hysteria at that asylum where everyone was far too afraid to deal with him. It was a running stigma he would rather keep there. Even Dr. Arkham had begun slowly removing more and more from his cell until it was almost entirely bear. It was for good reason, he would have used anything they gave him, and it was a miracle that they hadn’t removed the cot in his room yet. They knew that eventually he would find a way to use it. He never used the cot anyway, and in the darkness of his cell he claimed that he never slept. Even the night vision cameras monitoring his cell were a difficult way to determine whether he was actually sleeping in his cell, he kept far too still.

The dark was used to his advantage in several situations, but to him it was like home. It created a sense of the unknown in general society, and society always feared what they didn’t know. But they feared him even in the light. The absence of light just made things that much more intense between him and his next patient. With Ra’s daughter however, he couldn’t simply make her a patient of his own. It wouldn’t be beyond him to use toxin on her if her truly wanted to, and Ra’s would probably overlook the matter if he was given an adequate enough payment. What was in the case was indeed enough. But The Scarecrow didn’t pay with paper, paper meant nothing to him, instead this deal between the two was strictly chemical, and this newest strain was his best by far.

To be honest with himself when he began packaging it for Ra’s he had second thoughts. These second thoughts were pushed even farther by this entire incident. This breakthrough was far too important to let slip into the hands of this woman, or even into Ra’s hands. The more he thought about it the greedier his mind became with the substance. It wasn’t finished, it was in its Alpha stages, but it could be finished….He couldn’t give this to Ra’s. In fact…He didn’t want Ra’s to ever know. This of course, was a breach of his contract with him, but what Ra’s didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. No, He couldn’t let Ra’s have this, he needed to get the case from her tonight and bring it back to his lab for further testing.

But from her prying statement it didn’t seem like she was going to let the subject go so easily. Of course her eyes did graze over her slender body and revealing clothes, he had noticed that she was in them and noticed that she had tried to woo him with them but it simply wasn’t possible. The Scarecrow couldn’t be sucked in by such affection, simply because his mind had come to the overly studied conclusion that all manner of affection was fabricated. Anyone that fell prey to such things were weak men and he didn’t have time for liabilities or weaknesses. His needles scrapped the glass wall for a moment longer, letting the yellow slosh around and turn even brighter as it did, a glow that was radiant in his eyes. “It is the truth.” The distortion crackled softly and he let his hand fall away from the door. His bright glove could still be seen from the darkness.

Even if she were to look into the case it would have probably just looked like a shipment of his fear toxin. She could have easily mistaken it for it unless she used it upon someone, but if she had it would have been a terrible mistake. It would have been impossible to explain it to her, such a feeble mind, how could she possibly understand? “Where is the case?” He repeated with a bit more power behind the distortion this time. It wasn't often that The Scarecrow decided to repeat himself but with his words he began to encompass the frame of the glass and wrap his needles around the corner toward the outside.

Through every situation Dr. Crane could justify himself with his cause. He wasn’t a murderer, if he would have been better equipped to represent himself in court that fateful day he would have furthered the point that he had never killed anyone. But his lawyer at the time advised him that saying anything was a bad idea, a foolish…fearful man. Afraid of what one big loss could do to his career, so he took the plea of insanity. He said he saved him the shot or the chair, but Dr. Crane feared neither and compared to the other outcome, making society severely disappointed in their attempts to kill him was almost a better choice. But those days were long gone, and that time had long passed. To society’s blind veil, he was a murderer.

The doctor was an incredibly patient man; because of this he was able to tolerate her games. She wasn’t the only one that had wanted to play them with him in the past and although he didn’t have the time throughout the span of his research, getting the case back was far more important. From this moment forward he had already claimed in his mind that the case was not just coming back with him, but it would never reach Ra’s hands. After this, Ra’s didn’t deserve to have such an important piece to his research, he could horde it for himself, whatever the price and however steep.

He watched her closely from the dark, only the glow of his glove emitting the neon light to show where he was. Her reaction to the scrapes on the glass was enough to make him almost smile through the confines of his mask. He was silent except for the light click of a disturbed fan on the right side of his mask that had gotten that way for whatever reason, he was often pushed or shoved in his masks and they didn’t always make it out in tack, but it didn’t matter. If Jonathan didn’t want it to be known he was here he wouldn’t be known.

To further prove his theories on her reactions that came to the forefront and began to cloud his mind she jumped the railing onto the beam to slide below. He made no immediate attempt to answer or follow her, but instead walked slowly to the edge to see where she had gone. A car below was where she was after something, a light source that she had spoken of moments before. She wanted to play with him in his element? Did she not truly understand?...Of course she didn’t. The Scarecrow turned from the railing and went back inside. He had moments to find the case on his own before she was back up here, not that she was any threat to him in his mind, but if he could get to the case that’s all that mattered. He wasn’t discrete about the situation at all as he moved through the dark and flipped tables over. He ran his hands over counters and to side tables, trying to find what was most important to him.

Finally he’d come across it, a light silver case that sat at the edge of an end table. Such a place for this delicate object that resided inside. The truth to all things, and she had treated it like it was nothing. Carefully Jonathan opened the case and began taking out the large property within to tuck tightly into a compartment of his needled glove. He wouldn’t use it now, it wasn’t the time. Now that he had it, he turned back out the door and moved through the dark house. He could have gone out the way he had come in, but something much darker had crept into his mind while he had waited. The more time he’d spent in front of her the more time he had to ask himself that one burning question that was never far from his mind, and now…It was too late. He stepped quietly out the door and went to the main hall, he descended down a short flight of stairs and then came to another that was near the opening to her home.

He heard her beckon to the dark, to the nightmare that she so craved. His hands fanned out his needles as he walked on the second floor. A flash of the light chased the darkness that shrouded around him away for a few moments and cast an ominous black shadow across the wall of the span of his needs and mask. Despite the flash of light he moved immediately afterward letting her play her game. The house was quiet, all but the light click of the right fan on his mask, an ambient residual noise that seemed to tighten the atmosphere around them and as she panned the light again he made his way down the stairs and closer to her, ready to approach her in the place which HE called home. “Are you scared?” The distortion whispered from behind her.