#jonathan crane

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The night Scarecrow died was similar to any other night he partook in a calculated act of cruelty. Statistically, there was no feature of that particular evening that made it unique, and Batman functioned off of the calculation of statistics. As he would on any other occasion, Bruce pursued his foe with an equal amount of swiftness as he always would.

Scarecrow and Bruce’s extended game of cat and mouse led him to a cathedral in a dark corner of the Narrows. Bruce swam through shadows as he entered through one one of the stained glass windows of the stone roof. He slinked through, as if he was liquid, and balanced on one of the ceiling girders, his gaze downcast onto the scene below him. Scarecrow’s presence was always accompanied with a chorus of screams. This time however, it was just one.

A priest was cowering by the unlit fireplace of the church, centered in the stone structure. Above them, a cross with the crucified form of the subject of their worship was hung. 

“Please! God! Save me!” The priest cried. “Save me from this madness!” Terror painted his voice. He held his hands up, swatting away at nothing. 

Drenched in shadow, the Scarecrow emerged in front of the quivering form of the helpless individual.

“Silly man…” He shook his head as if he was a disapproving teacher. “You should be praying to me.” Jonathan spread his arms as if he was the crucified religious figure himself. His shadow cast upon the floor in front of him, his lanky limbs shaping his silhouette as similar to that of one of the many crosses hung throughout the church. Needles extended from his fingers on his left hand, liquid fear toxin glistening at its tips. Bruce observed until he could not without putting the victim at risk. He leapt down from the ceiling girder, gliding down and putting himself between the priest and Crane himself.

“Batman…” Crane murmured with disdain, his galavanting demeanor souring.

“Another experiment, Crane?” Bruce replied offhandedly, clenching his fists. Crane only laughed in response.

“You have no idea!” He declared. “Religion has been a driving factor in quite a few of my torments, so I developed an inquiry of how deep the fear of god runs within its own coterie. I won’t stand you getting in my way.” He pointed to the vigilante, needle catching some of the dull light raining down upon them from the church’s skylight. 

The midnight moon hung overhead, light billowing down from the sky. It filtered through the stained glass, painting Bruce and Scarecrow in red and blue hues.

“Then I’m afraid we won’t get along,” Bruce said sarcastically. The two had been participating in their shared song and dance for too long, a mutual chase. Other foes of Batmans had gone on to find escapes and loopholes to put pivots between themselves and the Bat: Edward becoming a P.I, Oswald running a supposedly crimeless Iceberg Lounge, even Harley being considered as redeemed… But Scarecrow was too enthralled in the exact game Bruce and himself had constructed. It was a beacon that always gave him warmth, blinding him from any other options he could pursue. And thus, they would continue again that night.

Bruce lunged at Scarecrow, with the intention of burying his fist in the man's sickly frame, ending the conflict before it could progress any further. Scarecrow laughed and rushed to put space between himself and the masked vigilante.

Scarecrow behaved like a repelled magnet in response to Bruce’s snappy approaches, like some invisible field was forcing him away, keeping the two at a distance.

“Come now, Batman…” Scarecrow teased. The church began to fill with smoke, obscuring Bruce’s vision as he struggled to keep up with the other. The waves of gray overwhelmed the room, but Bruce recognized it as simple fog, perhaps from a machine Crane had prepared. Scarecrow was attempting to make him doubt his own senses. “You can go faster than that!” He goaded.

“You’re the one running,” Bruce replied coolly. His eyes darted around church, scanning for movement. Instead, the sound of crying stole his attention. He rushed to the back of the church where he identified the noise as originating, where the smoke began to thin, and he found Scarecrow with a man trapped in his grasp. 

A cleaner, based upon the vague uniform Bruce could identify, who had been hiding within the church’s walls shook violently in Scarecrow’s hold, a blade pressed against his perspiring throat. 

“Batman! Help me!” The man begged. “Please– Please, I have a family! I have a son! Only five years old!” The man shouted. His hands pulled at Scarecrow’s, but it was a fruitless venture as the sharpened metal bound him to his place.

“A shame!” Scarecrow lamented with faux-sincierity. 

The words echoed around Bruce like the strum of a cord within an acoustic guitar, repeating recurrently. The image of a young boy over the casket of his father because Bruce had failed at his responsibility that he owed to Gotham haunted Bruce, igniting exactly what Scarecrow wanted beneath his skin. Fear.

Scarecrow moved to drag the metal across the man's throat. It was a motion Bruce became familiar with, activating a primal urge to protect within him. Bruce’s body reacted before his mind. He lunged forward and tore Scarecrow away from the man. The hostage scrambled, evidently alive, and that was enough for Bruce.

Rage took over Bruce’s mind as he brought his fist down onto Scarecrow. Words escaped him as all that occupied his mind was ensuring survival and keeping Scarecrow down. 

“W-Wait–!” Scarecrow choked out and put his hands up in a feeble attempt to defend himself.

Batman brought his fist down once more, effortlessly passing Scarecrow’s thin barricade. Scarecrow let out a cry, muffled by his mask and the force with which he was slammed onto the solid ground of the church.

Bruce buried his fist into his chest again, feeling the bone shift around his kevlar gauntlet. Scarecrow whimpered pathetically, too weak to even scream. 

Bruce didn’t stop and repeated the motion with robotic accuracy, as if the violence he inflicted was a mathematical equation with a precise outcome to reach, and yet desperation made each hit as intense as the previous.

Scarecrow coughed, saliva and blood clotting in his throat, drowning him in his own body as if it were a cage plunged underwater.

Bruce’s beating turned sporadic with panic and desperation. He imagined the man who would be dead. His son. The rage from years of questioning why no one had saved him, the yearning to be saved, piloted Bruce’s behavior like he was nothing more than a weapon. His body acted as an agent to the little boy that still squirmed deep within the coldest confines of his heart, resentment drenching every movement.

He brought his fist down once more.

Scarecrow went limp beneath him.

He brought his hands down upon him again. And again. Again. 

The violence only concluded with Bruce’s trained body screaming at him with exhaustion. Then, sensations slowly returned to Bruce, like water flowing under a bridge. The first to gather his attention was the warmth of red blood painting his hands. Then, the lack of motion from the form beneath him. In contrast, Bruce’s chest rose and fell, heaving with exhaustion.

Panic replaced his righteous anger as he realized what he had done. He reached down and tore Scarecrow’s mask from his body. Strings of blood connected the fabric to his face. Bruce bit his lip with discomfort at the results of his own violence as he saw what was left of Jonathan Crane.

His nose was collapsed, blood painting his face. Bruises littered his gaunt visage. His eyes were glazed over, one too swollen to even identify the presence of his pupil. The mild scent of urine plagued the still air of the church. Only when Bruce’s thoughts quieted, the questions of what if and what then dissipating, did he become terrified by the silence and definitive lack of breathing from Jonathan below him.

Bruce brought his hands to Jonathan’s neck, feeling for a pulse. 

His skin was still, no movement beneath the surface of his clammy skin. 

It happened all too fast.

Bruce should have known. Bruce had one responsibility and it was to preserve life as much as he could. It was one man with one hostage, and yet Bruce had lost control of himself. It was one singular sickly man who would’ve gone down after the first hit. Scarecrow was nothing if not consistent but his body was human, no matter how machine his mind had become.

Perhaps that was where Bruce had gone so very wrong. His mind had overwhelmed him with such fleeting sentiments that it had driven his body to a mechanical reaction. An autoresponse to the weaknesses that sat sore within his heart.

Those weaknesses were given human form in the corpse of Jonathan Crane.

Bruce slowly rose from the ground, his knees aching from having remained arched over the corpse for so long, making him the bridge that would lead between life and death. He stood over the unmoving body.

Jonathan Crane was not a good person. Not for a moment did Bruce doubt that. Jonathan would enact whatever cruelty he saw fit for his own benefit. Yet, Jonathan was indeed a person that Bruce did not deem himself as having the right to execute. 

He did doubt anyone would mourn him, but that did not soothe Bruce. What of Jonathan’s acquaintances? The people waiting for him to return? His unfinished business?

Perhaps if his life had been extended enough he could have had the time to do some good with it.

But Bruce had made that choice for him when he lost control. 

Bruce knew how the role of Batman took control from so many aspects of life, not even simply his own. He gave himself one boundary and he had crossed it. It was his need for control that drove away his closest confidants, and now it had driven a wedge between himself and who he made Batman to be.

Slowly, Bruce reached for his cowl. He had a responsibility before– and he had failed. He wouldn’t let his collar bones crack beneath the weight of a responsibility again, and thus he reached to remove the mask and forfeit the role he could not play. Not until he earned it once more.

He froze as his gloved fingers reached the kevlar. His gloved fingers had taken on a particular texture that was unfamiliar to Bruce. He could identify it simply in the way his glove moved along the surface he had adorned himself in for years. He lowered his hands and his eyes dug into every detail, although they were obscured by the crimson red caked upon them.

Bruce brought his fingers together and watched as the blood drizzled and dripped down his hands, droplets raining onto the already stained floor.

His heart rate had yet to slow down naturally. Bruce had trained himself to be able to lower his heart rate at will, and yet his heart would still behave normally when additional mental focus was not put towards controlling it. His adrenaline should have dissipated by then, and his heart rate with it. Panic was still crackling within his body. He could sense how his pupils were dilated as he looked to the nearby dull light hanging from the ceiling.

All symptoms of fear toxin.

Something had to have been laced with a touch-activated strain of the substance that had come into contact with his hands and then his skin, and then been absorbed. 

On a more rational evaluation, the blood and pure amount of it hardly seemed realistic.

Bruce whipped around at the realization, just in time to see Scarecrow on his feet once more, braced to impale Bruce’s scantily exposed neck with the needles attached to his glove. Bruce caught his wrist and held him into place.

“Jonathan!” He cried out in rage.

“Calling me by my… easier to digest name does not detract from what I am!” Jonathan replied harshly as he yanked his hand back. Bruce raised his fist, but a hesitant relief filled him and weighed him down, halting his motion. He couldn't make the same mistake he feared he would.

He grabbed Scarecrow’s wrist with ease.

“Maybe not. But I know what I am.” He didn’t land another hit, instead holding the other man in place before turning his needles towards himself. Jonathan struggled as he attempted to wield his gloved hand away, but Bruce’s vast strength prevailed. “A taste of your own medicine, Doctor.” 

The set of thin needles pressed into the skin and slowly indented dots into the flesh before it broke beneath the force, allowing the needles passage, injecting the fear toxin directly within. Scarecrow let out a choked sob before collapsing to the ground.

Bruce didn’t let him fall. He grabbed the back of his costume, suspending him in the air before he could hit the pool of red, a mix of real and faux blood.

“Come on, Jonathan.” He put the man over his shoulder and still carried him from the bloodied mess of their creation.

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