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cillianmesoftlyyy · 4 months ago

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I Can Fix That... Pt 4 | Jonathan Crane x fem!character

summary: Crane plans to return to Gotham with the young detective. Their relationship has changed from enemies to lovers, to partners in crime and it strains their ability to trust one another. Will their relationship be able to stand the pressure of Gotham's crime community? And will Crane stay sane enough to protect her?

warnings: recalls back to drugging and violence, fighting, guns, physical violence, betrayal, trust issues.

word count: 6368k

Bury a Friend- Billie Eilish 🎶

More parts to come!

Recap if needed ( I did lol):

Detective Y/N Y/L/N was one of Gotham’s finest until she overstayed her welcome in Dr. Jonathan Crane’s lab one night. After a lesson on fear and desire, Dr. Crane couldn’t let her go and introduced her to his partner in crime, Ra’s al Ghul. After being with Crane, the young detective could no longer deny the insatiable criminal desire brewing in her and decided to join the men of the League of Shadows. When she and Crane are betrayed by al Ghul, Crane falls back on his backup plan and they escape to his childhood home outside of Gotham city. A night alone together with the ghosts of his past come back to haunt them but bring them even closer together. Secrets are exposed and bonds are cemented as Crane reveals to the young detective her true identity. Learning that she was the daughter of the Arkhams who founded Arkham Asylum but were murdered by Thomas Wayne, she adopts the name her parents gave her when she was born and becomes Matilda Y/N Arkham. She learns that Crane has his own ties to the Wayne family, bringing them even closer together. And piecing her past together gives her the confidence she needed to be her own person and leave her original naiveté behind. She emerges from this conversation as Lady Arkham and agrees to return to Gotham with Crane.

Her eyes snapped to his as he explained his strategy, his face dangerously close.

“Ra’s failed. It's all over the news now. Batman swooped in and saved the day,” he pursed his lips. “I even got an honorable mention. ‘Dr. Jonathan Crane of Arkham Asylum escapes Gotham during mass hysteria, his whereabouts unknown!’” He donned a commercial accent of a newspaper man and went back to his desk, pulling out a pair of silver-rimmed glasses, a backup that he kept in his desk in Crane House. When he put them on she couldn’t mistake him for anyone else any longer, he was the infamous Dr. Jonathan Crane.

“Any news on Ra’s? What happened to him?” She folded her arms across her chest and puffed a strand of hair out of her face.

“They believe he went down with the high speed rail as it carried the micro-wave emitter into a different sector of the city but who knows?” He smiled and shrugged, a hint of his old Scarecrow mannerisms came back into play as he talked. The slip in sanity or just the cool, steely composure that Crane usually donned was exciting, she felt that rush again like the night at Arkham when he had been drugged. He was the Scarecrow again even without the toxin. “They know me, of course, but you,” he pointed down at her chest, his finger brushing her sternum, “they have no idea what you’ve done.”

“Does that mean we’re going back to Gotham city, Scarecrow?”

“Yes, it does.” He nodded and paced the room for a moment, his forehead now creased in concentration.

“Then what do you need me to do?” She smiled and perched on the edge of the desk, crossing her legs and leaning forward to listen. He stopped in front of her and cleared his throat, changing characters.

“You will return to Gotham and stumble into the hospital, dazed and bewildered, still feeling the effects of the fear toxin. You will be treated and Sgt. Gordon will hear that you have turned up and change your missing person status to found,” he talked as if he were teaching a class. She recrossed her legs and he gave her a warning glance, ‘wait until he was finished,’ it said. “I will get the folders of your birth certificate and evidence to you once you leave the hospital and after a few days, you will show them to Sgt. Gordon. When he asks why and how you were able to find this information-”

“I’ll tell him that I discovered the cold case while helping the city restore their records after the chaos.”

“And by some miracle, you uncovered the truth after a little extra digging.”

“But what if Gordon doesn’t want to dig up old controversies? What if he still has a soft spot for the Waynes?”

“If he does, take the records to the hospital and get a DNA test and run it alongside the medical records the hospital had at your birth, it's all there.” He gestured to the folder beside her and cleaned the panel of glass in his glasses before restoring them to his face.

“And that will rightfully reestablish me as Matilda Y/N Arkham.”

“Heir to the Arkham fortune- Arkham Asylum, which finds itself in need of a new director, one with a solid, law-abiding reputation.”

“And a good name.” She added. “Though I like yours better.” She flirted and he chuckled.

“Then you can have it,” he cocked his head, “but only if you do this well.”

She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not but it turned her on nonetheless.

“That sounds manipulative to me.”

“You’d know if I was manipulating you,” he smirked darkly.

“And that sounds like gaslighting.”

“No, it's a lesson on basic psychology,” he licked his lips, “Now pay attention,” he scolded her and she forced herself to be quiet as Crane continued with his plan.

“When you become Arkham’s newest director, our work will finally begin. I have some people I want you to meet but the time will come for that and first, we need to focus on getting you back to Gotham.” He smiled with a wild look in his eye and she shivered… Scarecrow.

“Is it safe to fly back? Won’t people see us” Matilda looked down at the watch on her wrist. They both knew that it wasn’t dark enough outside to return unnoticed.

“We aren’t going to fly back.”

“Then how…” she trailed off. Crane crossed his arms across his chest and leaned against the large desk behind them. His crazed face ignited a strange excitement in her and suddenly, she knew exactly what he had in mind. The sewer lines.

“Because we dried up the main waterline in Gotham, we’ll be able to travel through the empty sewers… back into Gotham.” He smirked haughtily and launched himself off of the table with the subtle quickness of a cat.

“He was right,” Matilda smiled. Crane cocked his head to the side but before he could ask her what she meant, she answered him.

“Ra’s. He called you a criminal mastermind that night in your apartment.”

Crane rolled his eyes and laughed tightly, “I hope that was the only thing he was right about.”

“What do you mean?” She furrowed her brow. Crane looked back at her and shrugged his narrow shoulders slightly. His eyes traveled down her body and then back up.

“It all comes down to trust, detective.”

She lowered her head and nodded at her feet. She didn’t know how to respond to something like that. The topic of trust had come up countless times over the past few days and yet, could they ever really trust each other? She thought so. Crane noticed her change in behavior and clicked his tongue affectionately. “Ra’s didn’t know anything about trust. The man couldn’t even trust himself. I’ll admit, I didn’t trust you in the beginning, not even until last night, but right now in this very moment, I realize how much I’ve relied on you over the past few days. You are my sole reason for survival and I understand that now.”

Matilda smiled and kissed Crane sharply across the mouth. Her teeth caught his bottom lip and he encouraged her by pulling her face closer to his. His fingers were pressed so harshly against her cheek that he could nearly trace the lines of teeth in her jaw. They broke apart and rested their foreheads together, exchanging breath.

“Are you ready to earn your new title, Lady Arkham?” Crane smirked and handed her the file from his desk.

“I’ve already earned it, doctor.”

She didn’t pack a bag, that wouldn’t make sense in case she was busted by Gordon on her way back into the city. Instead, she changed into what she had worn the day before: black slacks and a navy sweater. She fastened her gun back into its holster around her waist and looped her police badge around her neck. The collar of the sweater managed to hide the thin necklace of bruises from where Crane had choked her while under the influence of his own fear serum.

In her moments alone, Matilda mulled over her recent revelations. Never once could she have guessed that her parents were actually the Arkhams and in charge of Gotham’s most notorious asylum before they had been murdered. Thomas Wayne had taken everything from her and done the same to Crane. The Waynes would take and take and take until the entire city was desperate, damaged, and deplorable. Thomas Wayne had made the city like this, a place where someone needed to be the hero, and what had his son become? Bruce Wayne was a socialite and the golden boy of Wall Street locker-room talk. Who needed a real hero when a spoiled, chauvinist jerk could use haughty architecture to distract the masses?

She would avenge her parents one way or another and she didn’t even need Crane’s help to do it. Ever since he’d introduced her to his fear serum, it had unlocked a part of her psychosis that complimented his criminal genius too well to be a coincidence. He’d seen this part of her since the very beginning, in his eyes, she’d already proven herself, she’d already become Lady Arkham. The cruel find each other and the vengeful do too. Gone were the days when she questioned the morals of Crane’s methods, now she would join him in resetting the precedent. Together, they would make a new Gotham… or tear it apart. She hadn’t decided yet. Fuck it.

Crane wore all black, turning himself into a shadow or the hard edge of black onyx. He slipped a pistol into his front pocket and slipped his scarecrow mask into a safe place along the lining of his jacket. There were dark lines beneath his eyes and a twitch in his smile: both symptoms that his sanity was starting to slip. Ra’s had betrayed him but looking on the bright side (as if), it had provided a new perspective. He could turn his attention to a more important foe, the one Gotham called Batman.

“I know you’re there,” Crane called out, interrupting his own thoughts.

Matilda stepped out from behind the cracked door. Crane was fixing his jacket in the mirror and brushed off his chest.

“Why do you still feel the need to spy on me, detective?”

“Call it a kind of kink, whatever you want, but it's an instinct at this point. Years in the Gotham police department makes you into a great eavesdropper if you want to stay informed.”

“I’m not one to judge by any means, darling, but lurking in the shadows? How… unsettling.” Crane clucked his tongue in mock-pity.

“Do you have a diagnosis, doctor?” She leaned against the doorframe with her hands at the small of her back.

“I’d have to do an examination.” Crane met her at the door and brushed his pointer finger against the edge of her jaw.

“Kinky-”

Crane rolled his eyes and switched off the light in his room, having to reach over her shoulder to do so.

“Oh… you have no idea, detective,” Crane’s dark whisper greeted her in the dark room as he pressed his body against hers. He took her hands from behind her back and pushed them up above her head. His tone became serious as he addressed her.

“You’re a smart girl, detective so I’m sure you’ve already surmised how important this is. Do as I say and we’ll both get back into Gotham alive, alright?” His voice was curt, like a stern warning but his lips were occupied, whispering across her cheek but never kissing her. “I’d like you better alive.” He added and pulled her through his bedroom door into the bright hallway.

“Then keep me alive.” She retorted and blinked away the brightness of the room. She could hear Crane’s quiet chuckle behind her as she raced ahead.

They left out the grand front door. She paused to look back at the large and beautiful house behind them, its windows dark and uninviting. She hoped she’d be back.

“What did you tell Hobbs that we were leaving? Does he know?” She hurried to keep up with Crane who was already a few paces ahead. He paused to chuckle and shake his head, his dark hair shifting in place.

“Your concern for others is touching, truly. They know but they don’t know everything. They know what I want them to.”

“Do you think we’ll come back here?” She asked as they maneuvered through the high grass. Brambles snapped against their pants and she struggled to keep herself from slipping on rocks hidden in the dark ridges of Gotham’s countryside. Crane stopped in his tracks and turned to her abruptly, his eyes reflecting the light of the gibbous moon.

“Would you like that?” He raised an eyebrow. The house had offered him no comfort before, only bad memories and nightmares, but with the girl, maybe he could learn to live with the ghosts of his past. But could it be possible? Did she like Crane House even after seeing its cold interior and brittle bones? She came to a stop and tried to catch her breath.

“I would, yes,” she nodded and glanced back at the house, its outline barely visible without the interior lights. “I think the house is the key to understanding Dr. Jonathan Crane…” she smiled and fixed a strand of gelled hair out of Crane's pale face.

“But do you mean it?” Crane caught her hand and held it, his heart was pounding. Honestly, it was embarrassing. She’d never seen him so desperate before. A piece of him was down on his knees before her, begging for commitment and affirmation. Even the toughest of men will break before a good woman. Matilda gave Crane a small smile and nodded.

“I do.”

Crane released a short breath and cleared his throat. She bit her lip to keep from giggling. Had she flustered the great Dr. Crane?

“Well in that case. I want you to come back and live with me after this is all over.” Crane told her calmly, not asking.

They passed the hill with the scarecrow but Crane didn’t even notice. Matilda looked over at his pace face, glowing in the offcast light. He was a villain, he was not bred to be trusted. Could she live with someone that she’d always question his loyalty? That didn’t seem like a very healthy relationship but honestly, that wasn’t the worst of their problems. Remember the lab table? The dubious consent? Whatever, she could change him.

iii

They approached the mouth of the sewer offshoot in cautious silence. Crane pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose but the beads of sweat dripping from his hairline acted against him. The tunnel was dark and ominous like a large open mouth ready to close at any sign of movement. Crane pulled a long flashlight from his jacket and shone it into the mouth of the tunnel. The light barely pilfered the massive darkness, making Matilda shake her head in disbelief.

“Why do I feel like this is a very bad idea?” She whispered with a wary smile. Crane chuckled darkly and lowered his light slightly, illuminated the ground.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of the dark, detective?” His smirk was unmistakable even in the dark. She felt old pangs of annoyance rise inside her from dealing with the old Crane back in Gotham as a detective. She sighed curtly and pulled the gun from her holster.

“Not scared, just careful.”

“Well you can stop being careful now, darling. You’re playing with the big boys now.”

“Shut it, Crane.” She shushed him and aimed into the tunnel with her gun. They slowly walked into the open sewer system and left Gotham’s countryside (and pleasantry) behind them. They tried to dampen the sound of their footsteps by treading softly but the acoustics betrayed their every move.

“While we’re down here, I should tell you a little about my friends,” Crane broke the silence with a lowered voice. Matilda could just make out his silhouette in the flashlight’s glare.

“You have friends?” She deadpanned back and Crane sighed, shaking his head.

“Don’t push it detective, I’m the one who knows the way to Gotham. You’d be lost down here without me.”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit.”

“You’re feisty today… I like it,” Crane broke into a large, devilish grin and laughed despite himself.

They continued down the series of dry, empty passageways until they reached a large rotunda. The light from the flashlight was useless in lighting the whole room but it didn’t matter because Crane switched off the light, dropping them into sudden darkness.

“What the fuck?” She whispered but Crane didn’t respond. She could hear him walking away but the darkness and echoes disoriented her and she couldn’t tell which direction he had gone.

“Crane,” she hissed but still no response came. And one more reason why she couldn’t fully trust the man/criminal mastermind. She imagined for a moment that he was actually leaving her in the dark. Why would he go through all of that just to abandon her down here? That is to say unless there was a reason why they were there in that specific room. Matilda shook as she raised the pistol once again to her eye level and waited for any sign of danger. She’d prepared for this in the police academy. She’d graduated first in her class. Some hide-in-the-dark game wasn’t going to distract her from her talent as a police officer in Gotham. Whatever the hell was about to happen, she was ready.

She felt it before she knew what hit her.

A fist slammed into her gut, knocking her off-balance. She regained control quickly and stabilized herself, panting. The size of the hand was larger than Crane’s. Someone else was with them in the dark. She anticipated his next move which came from the side, so she ducked and used the opportunity to kick her opponent wherever she could. A grunt told her that she had been successful in landing her blow. She rolled to the side and barely avoided a kick to her ribs, nearly squealing in surprise. The gun was swept out of her hand and she could hear it skid across the crude concrete floor. It was too far away now, she’d have to fight with her fists. When she jumped to her feet, she danced around in the dark, quick on the balls of her feet to outrun whoever her attacker was.

“This isn’t a fair fight, you know.” She growled out. She was met with frustrating silence. Where the hell was Crane? She could smell the body beside her so she threw a punch and yelled out when her knuckles came into contact with ribbed steel. It felt like a machine of some sorts but it was connected to the thing she was fighting. Shaking out her wounded hand she tried to duck the next punch but it still caught her in the shoulder. Anger was welling up inside her as she tried to dance around her opponent. She was ready to fucking kill whoever this person was. There was no way she’d die in a sewer so soon after she’d learned about her true identity. That wasn’t going to happen, not to her.

She screamed as she punched the figure beside her, striking a bare chest and knocking the man back. She followed him as he moved backwards, landing punches against muscle and an armor-like material. He shoved her backwards with impressive strength and she fell to the ground, cringing.

When she stood, she sensed a flurry of movement and braved a blind punch. It landed but the body was different.

“You must be kidding me, there are two of you fuckers?” She hissed and landed a second punch where she believed a jaw would be. She missed, and as her fist sailed through the air, a well-placed kick hit her between her hip and her last rib. She screamed out in pain and lashed out, punching the figure. The figure coughed from the blow but quickly recovered. In his defenseless moment, she grabbed the man’s shoulders and raised her knee to his groin, striking him with a swift movement. Unlike most men, the attacker merely hissed and cursed beneath his breath. She knew the sound of that voice.

“Jonathan?” She whispered in disbelief.

“You really need to stop using that mint shampoo. I can tell exactly where you are, even in the dark.” His voice was strained as he was obviously still coping from the pain.

“Oh yeah? Then why didn’t you see that coming? Hurts, doesn’t it?” She growled and raised her fist to punch him but his hand stopped her. She could feel his body inches from hers, a familiar chemistry sparking between them.

“Why are you doing this?” She whispered, his hand still grasped around her raised fist. Crane sighed and drew in a long breath. She could nearly feel him shrug his shoulders before answering.

“You need to learn how to fight anyone when forced too… even me, darling.” Crane pushed her back and smiled as she fell back. “It may surprise you to hear but hand-to-hand combat is one of my many talents. Now get up and punch me harder.”

She could hear the condensation in his unmistakable voice. She rolled to the side before crouching. Crane tried to kick her but she had already moved, giving her an opportunity to elbow a tender place on his back. He cursed and swung around hitting her jaw. She covered her mouth before she could scream out in pain and alarm. Was he trying to kill her now?

“Fuck you,” she spat and launched herself onto him, knocking him flat on his back on the floor. She was trying to hold down his arms as he smirked.

“You already have, remember?”

His sentence caught her off guard, giving him the last opportunity he needed to shove her off.

“If you’d turn on the fucking lights we could fight properly, you bastard,” her lip curled up as she spoke. She wiped sweat from her forehead and tried to catch her breath.

“Good point,” a man with a strange accent grunted somewhere beside her. In the next second, large industrial lamps suspended from the tall ceiling were turned on, blinding her after so long in the dark. She tried to look around for the man but her eyes couldn’t adjust fast enough in the sudden light. She scrambled to her feet and shaded her eyes.

Before her she saw a man of unbelievable size. He was tall and grotesquely jacked, muscles straining against his skin. On his face he wore a dark machine with ribbed metal cables fitted to the front and connected to a tank in the center of his chest. His head was shaved, a pity really, and he wore little more than a tank top and heavy cargo pants. The large man shifted his dark goggles off of his eyes and sighed deeply.

“You were right, Crane. She’s got potential.”

“That’s my girl,” Crane walked out from behind her, replacing his glasses onto his face and rolled his sleeves back down. She was still breathing heavily as she looked between the two men.

“You both need some serious couple’s therapy,” the other man observed and laughed quietly to himself. His laugh was deep and unsettling. She didn’t laugh back. Instead, she wiped a layer of blood from her lip and spat a wad of bloody saliva on the ground.

“I appreciate the concern,” she quipped sarcastically to the stranger and turned to Crane, “ but what the hell was that? If you wanted to fight me why not do it in the light?”

Crane nodded, acknowledging her point and smiled slowly.

“I can answer that,” the man interjected before Crane could respond, “Your boyfriend here has been working with me for a few years now. He contacted me to inform me about a young woman who could fill one of the recently-made-available roles in our organization. However, before I could formally meet you, I wanted to see what kind of potential you had.”

“You also needed to be able to attack me if required. Personal relationships are dangerous in our line of work, which is why we cut the lights. We didn’t want you to be able to see me.”

“This is insane,” she ran her hands over her face, still fuming. She didn’t even know who this other man was. What the hell was Crane thinking?

“I know,” Crane smiled widely, his plump lips pulled back into a manic grin, “and wasn’t it fun?”

Matilda peeked through her fingers at Crane and then moved her gaze to look at the terrifying man beside him.

“Oh I’m sorry, where are my manners? I should introduce myself.” The man slipped his hands beneath the straps of his tank top, supporting the weight of what appeared to be a respirator. “My name is Bane.”

“Matilda… Arkham,” she managed to reply.

“There’s a few more people you need to meet before you go back into Gotham.” Crane cupped her injured cheek and wiped the remaining blood from her chin with his thumb gently. “Remember what I said? Hmmm?”

She looked at him with narrowed, pissed-off eyes. What kind of game was he playing now? Crane chuckled when she didn’t answer and reached behind his back. He withdrew her gun and pressed the handle into her sternum, between her breasts.

“You’re playing with the big boys now,” he whispered against her ear.

What had she gotten herself into?

They escorted her into a different room inside the network of underground tunnels. Much to her surprise, they had converted many of the abandoned tunnels into hideouts for members of The League of Shadows. As they entered the next room, she saw half a dozen other men in various styles of dress and disguises. She was the only woman, and even though she hated Crane at that moment, she stuck close to him.

“Don’t be scared, darling. They’re my friends.”

“I know, that’s why I’m worried,” she growled but still stayed close by his side. He chuckled quietly and placed a protective hand on her lower back.

“You’ll be fine.” His voice feathered against her neck, warming the core in her navel. They really did need couples therapy.

“Ah my friends!” Crane smiled darkly and extended his free hand to show her off to the semi-circle of criminals around them. “Welcome the newest member of the League… Lady Arkham.”

The title on his lips sounded so perfect. She was Lady Arkham.

The men in the room nodded.

“She used to be one of Gotham’s ‘finest’ and now, she’s one of its worst,” Crane’s grip tightened around her waist. “She’ll be going back into the city tonight and working undercover for our cause. She’s our best and most important weapon. No one knows who she is… yet.”

“But that is going to change,” Bane’s loud voice boomed beside them. “Soon everyone will know who she is and what kind of people she represents. Her collaboration with the police and important officials in the city is crucial to the sanctity of our plan for Gotham. That being said, she will hold her own just like any one of us, but her survival is necessary… for the meantime at least,” he cleared his throat.

“Thank you for that vote of confidence. I’m just here for vengeance,” she addressed them all with a curt voice and small shrug.

“Oh, but darling, aren’t we all?” Crane smirked and gestured to the criminals in front of them. “You question our motives so let’s make it very clear. We’re all here for vengeance. Anything else is just a lie.”

“Then what’s the plan that I’ve already been added to?” She raised her eyebrow. Bane sighed loudly, his respirator acting as a microphone.

“You don’t need to know that yet, all that matters now is that we have big plans for Gotham and all of your old colleagues.”

Matilda smiled slowly and nearly started to laugh. She hated the bastards down at the police station, the ones who never believed her, supported her, or even paid attention to her. For all the men that treated her like she was a worthless addition to their force, she’d make them pay. That sounded good to her.

“I think she likes that idea,” Crane smirked and trailed his hand up her back to a lock of hair. He tugged it gently but she felt it and was comforted by the gesture.

“Good, then let’s get on with the introductions shall we?” Bane announced and gestured for Crane to begin, “Dr. Crane?”

Crane nodded his head, his expression returning to a serious state of business. He let go of her and paced slowly down the line of men.

“You’ve probably heard of most of these names from your time in Gotham, detective, but now you finally get the chance to meet them. This is the remaining roster of members after Ra’s unfortunate passing,” his lip curled and his nose scrunched as he spoke.

“The Penguin, Two-Face, Killer Croc, two of Bane’s men, and of course, the Joker.”

Hearing the Joker’s name came as a shock to the detective. She’d been hearing his name for months. Robberies in the era had been connected to the mysterious criminal nicknamed the Joker after the playing card he always left behind. But what startled her the most was the man called Two-Face. It wasn’t his appearance but his face which was so recognizable.

“Harvey Dent…” she heard herself whisper. Two-Face grinned and placed a hand in mock-admiration to his chest.

“Aw, you still recognize me?” His voice was too hard to be kind but she still nodded and swallowed slowly.

“Of course. You were supposed to be Gotham’s ‘White knight,’ it's saving grace.”

“And who says I’m not? I plan on saving Gotham in my own way, not like Batman.”

Crane looked between Matilda and Harvey Dent, a sour expression tugging at his face. He really needed to work on his jealousy problem. Seeing Dent speak to the girl was almost more than he could handle.

“We’re going back into Gotham tonight. Police Chief Gordon needs to see that she’s alive. Once he does, the plan begins. Understood?” Crane addressed the crowd of criminals who all nodded, except for Dent.

“Pity, I had plans to kill Gordon’s family tonight,” Dent clucked, his half-burned lips pursed. Crane kept his expression straight and unchanging.

“Try not to let your personal needs interfere with our work, Dent.”

“Sure thing, doc.” Dent hissed back and flipped a coin, “damn,” he whispered when he checked the face against his palm. Crane didn’t bother to ask what he was flipping for and nodded at Bane who opened up a path for them to leave. Crane walked ahead of her and practically pulled her from the underground chamber and into the next one.

“I was flipping to see whether or not I should have gone out with the girl.”

When they had turned the corner and were back on their way into the city she spoke up. “What happened to him?”

Crane didn’t look over as he answered, his jaw clenched tightly in anger.

“He lost his fiancee in a fire that was intentionally set.”

“By whom?” She interjected.

Crane paused for a moment and sighed through his nose, “the Joker.”

“The Joker tried to kill Dent?”

“It’s a long story.”

“When did this all happen?” She pushed, an eyebrow raised. “He’s Harvey Dent, I should have heard about something like this.”

“Your department covered it up because Gordon was involved. He was the one that picked up his fiancee and took her to the place where she died.”

“Surely he didn’t know…”

“Look,” Crane shoved her against the wall, his face inches from hers as they both panted from the startling action, “you need to decide here and now which side you’re on. The faster you realize that the people you used to know are just as corrupt as we are, the faster you can realize your potential with us… with me.”

“It’s not that fucking easy, Crane.” She whispered harshly and struggled in his strong grip.

“Isn’t it? Tell me where your trust lies.”

“Well it certainly doesn’t lie with you anymore,” she freed her hands and shoved Crane away from her body, “you fucking attacked me and you let Bane attack me. I mean look at me! I’m bleeding, Crane. You did this to me,” she pointed at her busted lip. “How can I trust a man who changes so quickly, who doesn’t let me in, who doesn’t tell me things like this.”

“You were the top of your class in the police academy, you could fight anyone you wanted to. You were made to be one of us, you can’t deny that. This is what life is like in the League, you can’t trust anyone… but me. You can and need to trust me.”

Matilda shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “No,” she whispered and fought away Crane’s hands as he tried to catch her.

“Look at me, detective. Look at me,” Crane caught her harshly in his arms and held her again against the wall. His tone was gentle though his hands holding her against the wall were rough. Slowly, she looked down at his face, half hidden in shadows. His brow was furrowed as he licked his lips and spoke.

“I only did what I had to do, detective. I would never have done anything else to seriously hurt you. I took your gun so Bane couldn’t use it, he still tried however. I hit you where it would hurt but where you could still take it because I need you to be here with me. If I wanted to kill you, detective, I would have done it the day I met you. You mean too much to me now.”

Crane cupped her face not-so-softly in his hands and turned her face up to his, pressing his mouth to her ear.

“Listen to me, Miss Arkham…” he hissed against her cold skin, “I love you.”

He couldn’t believe that the words were leaving his mouth as he spoke them. Every chemical compound in his body was screaming against it. Bonds were broken and reactions triggered as he confessed. Finally admitting his love for her both relieved and frightened him. It would no longer be just him, now he had a woman that he loved who required his protection, love, intelligence… But it was all true, everything he said and felt. He loved her.

Her heart leapt at his words like an electrical impulse flaring to new life. She had never expected him to say those words, the man who’d never loved before. When she looked into his eyes, she could tell that he was telling the truth because for the second time, she witnessed fear in them. When he pulled away she touched her nose to his and looked up into his sterile, silver-blue eyes, her feet finally touching the ground.

“Are love and trust the same thing?” She asked breathlessly and Crane clenched his jaw and pursed his lips.

“They have to be.”

They stared at each other in the yellowish light of the gas lamps suspended like flashlights above their heads. Crane’s black suit jacket and blood stained shirt looked so out of place in the tunnels. She could only imagine what she looked like in her slacks and a ruined blue sweater. The disloyal detective and the (actually) criminal psychiatrist, a match made in whatever the hell Gotham was - - heaven or hell?

“So where does your trust lie, Matilda?” Crane whispered, breaking the silence. She took a deep breath, not breaking eye-contact, and tilted her head to the side. She looked stunning in the yellow light, even with her lip busted and her jaw bruised. He could feel deep bruises developing on his own body and felt a sense of pride that she’d been the one to do that to him. She was the only one who could truly hurt him.

“With you, Crane, and no one else.”

With a breath of relief, Crane stepped closer. Their lips were millimeters apart as Crane cupped the back of her head with his hands and pressed against her hip with the other hand. She exhaled shakily before Crane finally kissed her, gently at first. Their eyes closed and their mouths molded together into that familiar space where everything else faded away. Crane pushed his tongue into her mouth and she moaned softly in return, melting into the cement behind her. They twisted their lips against each other as they moved their heads, wanting to taste every part of one another. He pulled her into his chest and she grabbed the back of his jacket to steady herself. His kiss hardened as she bit his lip harder than she needed to, a small act of revenge and affection. He knew that she knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold back if they kept going the way they were for much longer. Even with a pair of slacks in the way, he’d take her if given the chance and enough pent of desire to fuel it. Drawing up all the strength he could to pull back, Crane broke the kiss and met her eyes once again.

“Gotham awaits, detective. Let’s get you home.”

...

end of Pt 4 :)

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playlistbyjo · 5 months ago

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me obsessing over cillian murphy at 3am: …Maybe I should make a playlist about me falling in love with him

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year ago

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Fed - a Magnus Archives fanfic

So. This was just what it was, now. Hardly the first time in my life I’d faced challenges, gray morality, and a strange situation in which I wasn’t precisely trapped, but all my other options were worse than the one I was considering.

It was heavy. Too heavy.

“Take a moment,” said Spider Martin. “Looks like you need it.”

I eyed him. “Reading my thoughts?”

“No, your face. It’s quite expressive. Whatever you’re thinking about, it’s clearly a lot?”

I hated his blue eyes.

That wasn’t his fault. Something about him just made me remember how I had watched him die.

(Then is your Martin really your Martin?)

Yes. Shut up. I couldn’t… That was not a box we were opening this afternoon.

Spoilers for the whole show. This is post-MAG 200.

Part four of the Magnus Monsterverse AU.

AO3

--------

The fog took me, and as if I’d spent a thousand years there instead of my own metamorphosis, I immediately succumbed.

It wasn’t even conscious: just a completion, a sense of self and no other, an aching, longing magnificence that hurt like pure joy, flooding through me. I think I cried out. I might have come. I definitely wept.

This place… oh. Oh. I ate it up. It ate it up. We ate it up, together. There was such strange joy in me. It was such a wondrously terrible new thing. It drank it in, and I drank it in, and I may have cried out again, because this time, he answered.

“I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m here.” And Martin pulled me in, shocking in his there-ness, his solidity, his presence, the very miracle of his existence.

He was the only thing that was real, and We loved it that way.

I clung to him and cried. I could not get close enough. I never could, not ever; it would never be enough, and I embraced that, painted my body, rolled my eyes back in my head to bask in its glorious void.

He breathed deeply, slowly, and his heart beat strong. “It was you,” he said. “While I was in the waves, it was you, missing you, thinking of you, grieving you… that’s what did it. That’s what powered everything.”

And suddenly, I saw.

Saw him in strange, wild waves, surfacing to stare at a gray sky that matched his eyes.

Saw that he rarely surfaced. He spent most of his time under, in the broad, booming silence, the current pulling him along, far from everyone and everything. The isolation under pressure; the magnificence of loneliness in a world with other living things—

He rejoiced in his pain, felt he deserved it—but it didn’t last.

“They died,” he whispered, and tears kissed his cheeks, so I kissed them off.

He felt them dying; felt the people—so far away their absence made him ache—winking out like lights.

Martin breathed in the water (and I did with him) and mourned and lost.

And when it happened, and all were gone, his god fed on him.

Because of me.

“It was you,” he whispered. “Missing you was… it became everything. I missed you so much that I…”

He lost himself.

I could look up at him, now, and saw him like burning mist, saw his perfect eyes with limbal rings I could tumble into and drown.

“When they found me…” He swallowed. “When Tim leaned through the door of fire that Maneula somehow got him to make and found me, I didn’t know his name. I knew his face, but it just made me cry.”

I understood that. I knew I’d cry when I met him, too. I was sure he still hadn’t forgiven me.

“When they came, I fought them. I thought that if they took me away from here, I’d lose missing you. That’s bonkers, isn’t it?”

“No,” I said.

He touched my lips. His eyes were wide. “What?”

“No,” I repeated.

He looked stunned. “You’re in my silence. You can’t speak.”

Oh. I felt what he meant; he had this weird, Lonely power, this silence he could enforce, but, I—ah. “Yes, I can.” I knew how to talk.

Martin still stared. He looked spooked. “We… we should go back.”

I’d scared him. That would not do, so I kissed him instead.

He made a sound and responded, clutching me, his blazing eyes sliding shut. Color washed his cheeks, and as it did, we became real.

The fog vanished as if eaten by summer sun. We stood together in our apartment block, in the central courtyard, under blue spring sky, in sight of all the windows.

We both breathed hard, shudders trembling through us like aftershocks.

“What did you do?” he whispered.

“I kissed you,” I said, still dazed. “Was I not supposed to?”

“You… you became the Lonely,” said Martin. “You were the Lonely. You… I don’t understand.”

Eh?

What?

Eh?

“I what?”

“Hey, kiddos,” said Mike, coming out from the same building I lived in. “We’re heading out to get a bite. Want to come?”

We had no time for this. We had to deal with what just happened. We—

Oh. Behind him came a rogue’s gallery.

That was Michael Shelley. Right behind him came Helen Richardson, scowling.

There was Arthur Nolan—an angry, angry man, made worse because there were two of him in a row. They had not bothered to be anything but identical.

Sarah Baldwin came out beside Jane Prentiss, both of them chattering away about something called Brother Love I’d never heard of.

(The Eye dropped three seasons’ worth of this bizarre forbidden-love-among-the-cloisters “reality” show into my head. Thanks. You shouldn’t have.)

(Drama! It happily tremored at me.)

I stared at the lot of them, frozen. So many of them had tried to kill me, or been part of my torment. My actions had led to their deaths, as well—and some of them, I’d never even seen in the light of day.

I made a small noise. I don’t know what it was. Some panicked thing.

“I've got you,” said Martin. “It's okay. They’re not going to hurt you.”

I couldn’t believe that.

They greeted Martin with smiles, though no touches, no personal space invasions (and I could appreciate that). Me, however… no one seemed to know what to do with. They eyed me. Jane stared. Michael tilted his head. Helen rolled her eyes.

“We going, or what?” snapped Nolan One with all the grace of a bulldozer. “I’m fuckin’ hungry,” said Nolan Two.

“I think we should initiate our new friend and make him join,” said Mike Crew.

Sarah Baldwin laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound. “He looks like a scared rabbit.”

“He’s fine,” said Martin.

Was this happening? This was happening. “You’re going?” I said to Martin.

He looked grim. “We should.”

He was trying not to be lonely. Trying so hard.

I would never get in the way of that. “I’ll go, sure,” I said, staring at Jane (whose skin boasted numerous scars, even more than my own, but no sign of worms just yet). “I, uh. I’m Jon. Hi.” So graceful. My face burned.

Jane grinned, stretching her scars. "Hi."

Helen laughed. As she did, her face shifted; she was still Helen, still herself, but she’d changed, like distortion through glass. “Hi, Jon. I’m Helen.”

Michael tilted his head further. Too far. Smiling in an utterly banal manner. "Archivist."

“I… yes. It’s weird to see you both at the same time.”

They just looked at me.

(It was thrilled. If I could have shrunk small enough to hide in Martin’s pocket, I would have, and It loved my misery.)

“Oh, I like this one,” said Michael. “You’re much less human than before.”

“Ah. Well,” I said. “That’s true, I suppose.”

“Still a prick,” said Helen.

“Hey,” I protested.

“From what I recall,” said Martin, “you were the one so obsessed with him that you wanted to keep him in your corridors until everybody else he ever knew died so you could have him all to yourself.”

And everyone turned to stare at her.

Helen’s dark cheeks blushed darker. “Well. Desperate times, and all that.”

Michael cracked up.

Crew followed, and Sarah, and soon everyone was laughing, even the Nolans—and it wasn’t a bad laugh, it really was not, but I felt no better.

“We’ve all come a long way,” said Jane.

“Archivist,” said Michael. “Come to us. Join us. Let us see your skill.”

“My what?”

“We’re, uh. We… can you guys go ahead? We’ll meet you at the curb.”

“Ooh,” said Nolan One, low. “Somebody hasn’t been told about the birds and the bees yet.”

“Be nice,” said Sarah, and swatted his arm.

Nolan Two bared his teeth at her.

“Sure,” said Crew, and gestured to them all. They all walked on, continuing their conversations or lack thereof.

Michael winked at me over his shoulder, then loudly said to Helen, “So what did that feel like, all trapped inside you?”

“Kill me now,” I muttered, covering my face.

Martin kissed my forehead. He’d lost just a shade of the color he’d had, but seemed to be holding steady. “So. Here’s how this works. We go and meet at a pre-set point in the city. Then we, uh. He gives us a list of people.”

I looked up slowly. “To what end?”

He just looked back.

“To what? To… to feed on?”

“It’s that, or we feed the Fears through ourselves—and something about us, about what we were at the ends of our worlds means that if we let them feed on us, we supercharge them. We could end it here all over again. So we don’t do that. Instead, we… Annabelle calls it ‘hummingbirds.’”

Flitting from person to person, sipping the nectar of fear. “So it’s all even less stable than Leitner said. This is horrible.”

“It’s not that bad. The people we see don’t even realize it’s happening, usually—we keep it light. Besides, we don’t do it to nice people.”

My look was dry.

“I mean it, Jon. People who hurt animals. That sort of thing.”

“A lot of those in London, are there?”

“You’d be surprised. There’s less fear in this world in general; it’s less spread out, so it’s potent. We only need a little.”

“This is insane. You know that, right? You must see it. This is lunacy.”

“It’s surviving. Which is a choice.”

Oh, how I hated that, but I understood. I knew. I got it. We could all do the world a favor and die, but none of us truly wanted to. Or at least… knew we should not want that. How did one judge the worth of a life? The risk of that life doing wrong? At what point could I or anyone say, you’re too dangerous to live because of what you might do?

“You’re right,” I whispered.

“It's going to be okay. I promise. Come on and join us today.” His smile was small, but real. “Keeps you from going crazy.”

And I knew that was true for him.

And I knew it was true for them.

And I knew it was not true for me.

Something weird was happening here. Or I was delusional.

Or maybe It was lying to me, wanting me so hungry I would make a mistake.

(I knew, though: It could not lie.)

“I’ll join you,” I said, softly. “But I swear, if I see actual innocent people being… being…”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I trust the people we’re working with.”

“Web.” I clenched my jaw. (Were my teeth made of eyes, too? Calcified, maybe?)

“I don’t expect you to be there right away,” he said, and kissed my forehead again. “I don’t expect you to adjust to all this quickly. But I hope you can at least trust me.”

I stared. “That is a hell of a thing to leverage, Martin.”

“It’s that important. I wouldn’t just say that, you know.”

I did know. “You’re really serious about this.”

“I need you so much.” It was a whisper. “I’ll do anything I have to do in order to keep you from… burning out, or getting devoured by your stupid Eye, or falling afoul of the hunters.”

“Hunters?” I said.

“Later.”

We were growing quite a pile of things to talk about later. “All right. All right. I’ll come with you. Show me, Martin. I trust you.”

So help me, he regained some of his color as we walked out of the courtyard to join the others, who’d waited by the curb.

I had never been good with groups of people.

The theater group in which I met Georgie (and through her, gained at least some social skills) had helped a little.

The Magnus Institute Library employees, of whom I was merely one of many, also helped—I could tag along without pressure, camouflaged by their gregariousness.

The Archives… that group was considerably less comfortable because I felt like it was all on me.

It wasn’t. I know that now, but my promotion went straight to my head, and not in a confident way. I’d felt immediately underqualified and out of place, and wondered daily why the hell I’d accepted the position.

I knew now. I could not have refused. I didn’t know that, then. I’m not sure that understanding would have helped, either.

Still, the social aspect of things had only meant stress. To this day, I did not recall going to Martin’s birthday party and rambling about emulsions while eating rum and raisin ice cream. The Eye did not give me that memory back. I knew it happened only because Tim and Martin and Sasha had never stopped teasing me over it. Very funny, really.

(Tim. Sasha. Oh, gods…)

(Right, Archive, focus, you’re all right, they’re here now—)

(Jon. Dear lord. Focus, Jon.)

So I was obviously in a good head space for something like this.

“So you’re really Jon,” said Jane Prentiss, and something that wasn’t a tongue moved in her mouth as she spoke.

I choked a little. “Y… yeah. Hi.”

“Huh. I killed you in my world,” she said.

“I’m hearing that a lot today,” I muttered.

She smiled, and dear gods, her teeth were squirming. “I’m glad they found you. I wanted to apologize.”

“To… wh… why?”

“Well, it wasn’t really you I was mad at. It was your Eye.”

“Oh.”

Her grin made it more awkward, not less; she stepped closer. “You smell delicious, by the way.”

“Martin,” I said in a tiny, pitiful voice.

“Jane, come on, be nice,” said Martin, pulling me closer.

She laughed and backed away.

“Did everybody here kill me?” I whispered.

“Not all of them, but, uh. Possibly most?”

Fuck.

We walked past the park and into the city. It was clean; the vehicles genuinely were all electric. I saw no one who seemed down on their luck, either, which was bizarre.

What kind of idealized place was this? And what, exactly, was the hidden underside?

They were all talking, and because I have terrible timing, I decided this was the moment to whisper to Martin, “What did you mean by, ‘don’t you try to take my choices and blame yourself for them?’”

He stiffened. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“All right. I can wait.”

“Liar.”

I laughed. “I am not lying.”

“You can’t wait to find out,” he teased.

Gods, I wanted to kiss him. “I may have learned a little patience in a thousand years.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he challenged.

I grinned, but before I could respond, he spoke.

No. Another him spoke.

“Right,” said his voice, but it wasn’t him, and I turned slowly to find the other Martin waiting for us all on the corner.

The moment I saw him in the light of day, I knew: this Martin was Web.

Completely Web, all the way through; his smile was perfect, and his stance, and the way he shifted his weight and barely met other people’s eyes and laughed easily.

It was completely fake, and I could see it, and I felt like my skin was going to crawl right off my bones. Or whatever I had under there. Eye-bones.

He seemed to know, and he stopped to stare at me. For one moment, when I met his eyes, they were dead. Flat. Dull. There in place to hide the spiders behind them, utterly without anything resembling emotion or true life.

Then he was just Martin (so similar to my Martin, or… no. What Martin had been before everything), and smiling at everybody. “I’ve got all kinds of assignments for you today,” he said, handing out Post-It notes.

“Sure, but did you account for our latest acquisition?” said Nolan One.

Sarah Baldwin barked a laugh, and Jane elbowed her.

“I did!” said Spider Martin happily. “Jon? It’s okay if I call you Jon, right? You’re starting out with me today.” He approached me.

Don’t reach for the Eye, I told myself. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

On my bright green Post-It was Martin’s flowing script with two addresses and the instructions, 1:30pm Martin B.; 3:00pm Mike C. “What?” I said.

“Why?” said my Martin.

“Because we’ve all got split shifts, and it seems like a good idea to help Jon get along with everybody?” said Spider Martin. “His second will be with Mike.”

“Not fair,” said my Martin, but without anguish.

Spider Martin shrugged. “It’s the best one for this afternoon. Trust me on this.”

Everyone seemed to accept this with ease. Great. They were all drinking the arachnidian Kool-Aid.

“Can I get him next time?” said Michael.

Spider Martin beamed. “Yes! Jane after that.”

“Yipee!” said Michael.

“What is happening right now?” I said.

“I think you’re popular?” said my Martin.

I did not feel popular.

“Shall we?” said Spider Martin.

“I don’t even know what we’re doing. I don’t understand. I don’t—”

My Martin cupped my cheek, turned me to him, and kissed me. Lingering. Slow. A delicate tasting of lips and tongue, a gentle whisper of love and attention, a promise. “You’ll be fine,” he murmured.

“I don’t have a box for any of this,” I murmured back. “And I think my label maker is broken.”

Martin laughed. “Your label maker of doom?”

“Something like that.”

He nuzzled me. “See you in a little bit.”

And he pulled away, paired up with Sarah Baldwin. (Stranger—and if she did anything to him, I would…)

(Would what? Would what? I didn’t know. Something terrible. Something…)

“I don’t bite,” said Spider Martin.

I looked at him.

Martin’s smile. Martin’s face. Martin’s body. No—Martin’s skin. I could feel he was crawling on the inside.

I turned away. Whatever happened to him was done. He wasn’t mine, never had been. I still wanted to react. Violently. As if to his murder.

“I’m not dead, you know,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” I whispered.

“No more than Annabelle. I know—or I’m pretty sure, anyway—that you’ll struggle with this, but I chose this path. I did. I’m happy with it, too.”

“You ended your world.”

“Pot, kettle?”

I swallowed. “Knowing I did wrong hardly exonerates you.”

“We didn’t really get to know you in my world,” said Spider Martin. “You caught up with Darren and took the book back right at Mister Spider’s front door.”

Darren. That’s what the bully’s name was. “Did I?”

“Yeah. You died pretty quickly. Your mind snapped before they could get much fear out of you, so there wasn’t a point to dragging it out.”

I turned to stare at him.

“There you are!” he said cheerily. “Your eyes were brown originally, weren’t they?”

“They were. And yours should be green.”

He beamed. “Naw.”

“Naw?”

“Blue tends to be trusted more easily. It’s racially offensive, and largely due to media influence, but there you go.”

I stared harder.

“Would you rather me pretend to be something I’m not?” he asked, putting genuine curiosity into it.

“No,” I said quietly. “I… it’s a nightmare. This. Is all.”

“Because you think it’s losing someone.”

“It is.”

“No. The Stranger—that’s losing someone. A weird ingestion and rebirth like the Distortion—that’s losing someone. This?” He gestures at himself. “This isn’t losing someone any more than you were lost.”

I wasn’t sure I hadn't been lost.

He smiled so easily. “Come on. Let me show you how this works. You’ll think better when fed,” he said, as harmless and bright as a children’s mascot.

I was already fed. Somehow. But I didn’t want to try to get into it. “Lead the way, I suppose.” Everyone else had already paired off and left. “Do you always assign partners?”

“And areas, yes. We wouldn’t want to cause harm, and the buddy system helps prevent that.”

I snorted.

“It’s true! Your Beholding might lack the ability to consider consequences, but surely you don’t think we do.”

“What, the Web has a stance against overfishing?”

“Yes! Exactly so. We didn’t even mean to end the world when we did. We’re significantly more careful now to avoid it ever happening again.”

“How did it happen, then?”

(The Eye offered to show me. I refused.)

“Get to know me a little bit better, and I’ll tell you.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to get to know him better, but I also didn’t feel like I had a choice.

In silence, he led me north, past old buildings I sort of knew, past silent cars I’d never imagined, past lovely boutiques and pubs with a distinct lack of loud music or voices coming from them.

I’d never seen a London like this. I had no idea how to feel about it.

Neither did It, and the drive to know why this was so grew in me with anticipatory joy like a child looking forward to their birthday.

I couldn’t blame It. This was absolutely unexpected. The differences in history must have been significant.

“How did your world end, anyway?” said Spider Martin. “You hardly have to tell me, of course, but I rather thought you’d prefer we hear your understanding over Manuela’s.”

I really needed to meet this woman. “And how the hell would she even know anything?”

“Same way she found you.” We turned a corner, and finally there was sound—a busker, just beginning to tune his violin. “She calculates things. Honestly, if she weren’t so firmly entrenched in the Eye, she'd have made a lovely sister.”

I stopped walking. “She’s Eye?”

“That she is. It was her desire to see more and know every world that had her prepared and able to escape when the time came.”

I couldn’t imagine Manuela Dominguez as Eye. “Then she didn’t build a Dark Sun. She didn’t hole up at Ny-Ålesund. She didn’t try to summon Mister Pitch.”

“Not her. Some of her alternates, yes, but they’re secondaries. She’s Prime.”

“Prime?”

“The first one of her kind rescued. In her case, the actual rescuer, too.” Martin produced paper money from his pocket.

It wasn’t a design I’d ever seen. “May I?”

“Of course.” He handed it over.

It was a ten-pound banknote. Julius Caesar glowered on the front of it, stern and uncompromising. The bill itself was cornflower blue; intricate guilloche in a gradient from orange to purple subtly deepened the design, and it bore such phrases as The Bank of Holy England and Toward the Greatest Empire.

Damn. I really needed to get hold of some history books.

(The Eye offered to show me how this banknote existed. How it had been designed. What the phrases meant. Why a long-dead Roman emperor decorated the front. No, I told It, firm and tamping down my need. Let me find out on my own.)

This delighted It. The joy of discovery through me was apparently worth the wait.

“What did money look like where you came from?” said Spider Martin.

“Do you actually care?” I drawled.

“Inasmuch as I’m trying to establish a decent working relationship with you, yes, I absolutely do.”

“Then surely you know telling me things is more valuable than asking.”

“What do you think I've been doing?” said Spider Martin. “We are here to pay that man over there to play ‘The Outlandish Knight,’ which he associates with a past girlfriend, with whom he associates the feeling of being trapped and controlled, and playing it makes him afraid he’ll never get free. Thus, shall I be fed. And you, my dear Archivist, merely need to watch him—because he’ll feel very, very watched, and thus shall you be fed.”

I frowned. “And he deserves this, does he?”

“In revenge against that girlfriend, he poisoned her cat.”

“He what?” Well, now I was furious.

Which (calm down, Jon) was probably on purpose. It was calculated.

“He did,” said Spider Martin. “What happened to him wasn’t nice, but he isn’t very nice, either.”

“Did the cat… die?”

“No, fortunately, though it did go blind.”

I clenched my jaw. Anger against this random man tempted. (Easy, Jon. Easy.) “If you’re lying to me, we’re going to have a problem.”

Spider Martin looked at me. “Jon, I’m not stupid enough to lie to you. You could just see it. If I lie, it’ll undo any attempts to build trust between us. All right?”

That… made sense. “All right. Why do you want to work with me, then?”

“Because we all need to work together. All of us. We’re unique in all the world, and we have a challenging existence. We need each other to keep each other balanced and prevent the world from ending again.”

Damn, but it was all logical. “Why did you call me Archivist a moment ago?”

“Because that’s what you are—and I suspected it would be easier to think of eating a bit of this man’s fear with that reminder.”

This honesty was refreshing. Maybe a little too refreshing. It was all calculated, every bit of it.

But then, it was calculated because it would be effective, and I couldn’t fault him for trying to be effective. Web was just… so disturbing about it, which was the entire point. “Will this mark him?”

“No. We’re getting a taste, caring for ourselves, but not doing enough harm to mark anyone. Most of them don’t even remember it happened after; they just shrug it off.”

I exhaled shakily.

It was heavy. Too heavy.

“Take a moment,” said Spider Martin. “Looks like you need it.”

I eyed him. “Reading my thoughts?”

“No, your face. It’s quite expressive. Whatever you’re thinking about, it’s clearly a lot?”

I hated his blue eyes.

That wasn’t his fault. Something about him just made me remember how I had watched him die.

(Then is your Martin really your Martin?)

Yes. Shut up. I couldn’t… That was not a box we were opening this afternoon. No.

Maybe not ever.

“If you’re really not ready, it’s okay,” said Spider Martin. “Last thing I want to do is upset you.”

“Sure. Because I’m so dangerous compared to the lot of you.”

“You are, actually.” Spider Martin shrugged.

I rolled my eyes. “No, I’m really not. I can hardly damage anyone the way I could at the end of my world, and I was nothing but a punching bag before that.”

He tilted his head. “Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s not what we—oh, pardon.” He took out his phone.

“Not what you what?”

Spider Martin’s eyes went wide. “Shit,” he said. “Keep up!” And he turned and ran.

Spider Martin could move. That was not at all how my Martin ran, not at all his body language or motion or mobility, and the smooth, loping speed of it was freakishly comforting compared to the mask of the one I loved.

I ran after him.

Fun fact: being made of eyes and/or light beams made me better at running than I would have guessed.

I mean. I wasn’t good at it. But I also didn’t run out of breath, or stumble, both of which would have been the case before.

I kept up with Spider Martin, who I swear was running with the use of six extra invisible legs, and that was no small thing.

“What is it?” I called at his back.

“Get ready for a fight!” he said.

“A fight? A fight with wh-”

I saw.

Hunters, Martin had said.

Nolan Two on the ground with smoke pouring out of his chest instead of blood.

Nolan One behind a car flipped onto its side, unable to stick his head around it at all because of—

What was—

What WAS that, that was—

I couldn’t understand what I saw. Purple, green, wisps of things like tentacles, not solid, and yet they were, punching holes into that car, not just reaching around it but building Nolan’s fear, and—

We turned the corner at the same time as Mike Crew and Helen Richardson, and everyone acted at once.

Coordinated? No. They’d just done this before.

Helen distorted into a tall and mutated and terrible thing and dropped straight into the sidewalk—and at the same time, a yellow door opened beneath Nolan Two, and he fell out of sight.

(I couldn’t see the attacker. I needed to see it.)

Mike bared his teeth—a horrifying look, actual anger, which he had not shown with me the day he threw me into the sky—and gestured.

Lightning struck.

Struck… what?

(I couldn’t see it! I needed to see it!)

Mike couldn’t see it, either; he struck where those tendrils were coming from, the central invisible knot of them, but evidently did not hit it, because now, it threw tendril-attacks at him. He moved, guessing as much (he could not see them, I knew he could not), staying out of the way of whatever it was punching holes where he’d been.

Spider Martin picked up another car and threw it.

That one connected; the car hit something, but was not enough to stop it, and more tendrils shot out toward Mike and Spider Martin.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. My eyes burned, my head throbbed—I couldn’t see it, I had to see it, I needed to see—

Michael grabbed me and pulled me into a yellow door in a wall just as one of those purple-green tendrils slammed into the sidewalk where I’d been, cracking it, penetrating below the concrete.

The Corridors. So familiar. I knew this well.

“No!” I cried, throwing myself at the door.

“Easy, Archivist,” said Michael, right up behind me, long hands draping over my shoulders to pull me back. “You aren’t ready to deal with them.”

“No! I need to see it! I need to see it!”

“Archivist,” Michael thrummed at me. “You’ll make your Martin cry.”

Martin?

Martin.

I stopped, gripping the door handle. “I… I need to… see it?”

“You will be hurt. Maybe killed. That would be terrible.”

He did not sound like it would be terrible.

I shook. “I couldn’t see it. Michael. Please. I have to see it. I have to try.”

He sighed. “Silly Archivist. As you wish.” He reached past me, all around me, and opened the door.

We were on a nearby roof, and I could look down and see.

I looked.

Looked.

(Use me, It beckoned.)

And I did.

My vision opened as it had not since I arrived here, and I saw.

Connected it was all connected

Powers like the Fears but different

All through this world every living thing everyone was marked or

Not marked something like marked already connected

Connected it was all

The thing

There

A person but not

It was three persons in one

Three of them together standing there strange dark bodysuit a gas mask

No hands

No hands only those tendrils sprouting from their arms, tendrils which now seemed so solid

Each of them moving independently (three person in there, three minds to work them) trying actively to kill us all

To kill the Nolans the Mike the Helen the

I saw, and as I did, I broke the attacker apart.

I didn't even mean to. I just saw it for what it truly was, and made reality real.

One second, it was invisible, impossible to harm, its tendrils unseen by the others. The next it stood there, a person in a weird suit—and it shuddered, and then it was three. They exploded apart, splitting the uniform and popping the gas mask like a hatched egg in rapid-time.

And now, the others could see them. Could see three naked people on the sidewalk, gasping, shuddering, heads down, vomiting.

Nolan, Mike, and Helen surged in without hesitation, all at once.

I looked away, swaying, gasping.

Michael kept me from falling off the roof. He looked amazed. “What did you do?”

Fed.

I was so fed.

I felt rich with it, blissful, drugged. Absolutely relaxed and warm and tingling to the edges of every inch of my form.

Sirens. Coming.

“Time to go!” said Michael, pulling me back through his yellow door.

The Corridors did their thing, and I felt it, and floated in it, and spun and flew and was.

Michael cried out.

So did I. We became colors and swirling paint, flowing out of the drain against gravity in beauty and madness and bliss. And then—

I woke up.

I was back in my little bed in my gray apartment. My hair was wet; I smelled of soap. My heart pounded. (Benign essential blepharospasm, perhaps?)

Martin was next to me, asleep. I stared at my boring popcorn ceiling.

Had that… happened?

Next to me, on the nightstand, was a bright green Post-It note with handwriting I didn’t know. It said, Jon. We need to talk.—JL

Leitner.

Sure. Sure, we could talk. Fuck if I knew about what, though because I had no idea what had occurred.

It was four twenty-two in the morning. Martin slept. Leitner could wait.

I watched Martin, trying to understand (had I slept? If so, it was the first time in a thousand years), trying to parse what I’d seen and what I’d done.

The Eye did not help me because It could not. It didn’t know, either, and that frightened me more than anything else I’d seen.

------

NOTES

He's like a shammy; he's like a towel; he's like a sponge! A regular towel doesn't work wet, but Jon works wet or dry. Holds 12 times his weight in trauma!

#tma #tma fanfic #tma fic #jonathan sims #tma au #magnus monsterverse #martin blackwood #web!martin #mike crew #jane prentiss #arthur nolan #michael distortion #helen distortion

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stryshttu · 8 months ago

Text

gays be like "im fighting my demons" and they end up fucking them 😂 (a oneshot for murphy crow's lore)

the best way to describe this is: "when depression fucks you (literally)" please read the notes of the fic!

#jonathan crane #ao3 link #im writing right now a shortfic about nolanverse jonathan lore because Nolan didnt get him right #making justice for him (i write him being miserable)#this is just a little oneshot of him at college #no one gets him like i do #nolanverse #cillian murphy scarecrow #jonathan crane fanfic

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riddler-green · 1 year ago

Text

Tea for three. Prologue

Summary: You have been a patient/prisoner of Arkham for several months since you were charged with a crime you did not commit. But what happens when you meet Batman's latest enemy? the man of the hour? In which you help Batman on his cases, you're Edward's new favorite person, and Jonathan is part of your past that you want so badly to return to.

Edward Nashton x reader, Bruce Wayne x reader, Jonathan Crane x reader.

A/n: Holaaa everyone! here I am posting another story that I thought of in a sleepless night, I think it's one of my most ambitious fics that I've been planning but that makes it cooler! I should clarify that this fanfic is mixed with the 2022 movie with the Nolan saga (but in such a minuscule way that it's barely imperceivable). I'm back from my vacation so I'll update my other work soon! ♡

I also want to clarify that English is not my first language, so an apologize for the spelling mistakes. ✧˖°. (My English is rusty :´p).

(Also this fanfic is published on AO3) ✿

Warning: Fluff and angst, Obsessive Behavior, Canon Compliant (the flood occurred, sorry) Movie spoiler (Batman 2022) if there is another warning I did not put, please let me know.

Words: 5,400

You stroll as two guards lead you to a room, you don't know where they are taking you but it's not like you could complain either. The guards behind you ignored you all the way chatting with each other as if they were not watching an Arkham patient, they let you into the individual visiting room. Still, you nicknamed it the interrogation room because you only come here when that person requests your presence.

You sit down without a problem in the stiff metal chair, the approving noise of the iron partition sounds throughout the place, and you hear one of the guards closing the door leaving you alone with him.

At first, it was tedious, even traumatic in a way to come to this room to talk to the person who captured you and brought you to Arkham without hesitation. You couldn't refuse to see him, not when the caped man is a colleague of an important commissioner. No matter how many times you told him, how many times you yelled at him that you were innocent, he either didn't believe you or just wouldn't listen. You got tired of telling everyone around you that it wasn't your fault, none of them listened to you.

The metal partition rises completely, and little by little you see the almost imperceptible figure of the knight of the night. He kept silent without sitting down, standing in front of you analyzing you as everyone does nowadays, but you no longer care what he thinks of you, you are practically a hopeless case for him.

"Hello?" your greeting sounded confusing, you were not expecting a visit from him, but you have an idea why he comes to you, on certain occasions he shows you cases of different indoles, also that he has found some clue of the…

"I'm looking for the Riddler" He doesn't greet you and moves closer to the glass that separates them, you can take a better look at him, he's still the same since the last time you saw him, his attire nor his face have changed at all, but you notice something different in his voice, is it tiredness you hear?

"The Riddler?" you look at him unclear as to what he means "Who is that?".

"A serial killer" he informs you, you often hear those terrible words from him, how often does Batman chase killers like that, it's like there's one every week, it's cruel but it's the truth, Gotham is the cradle of evil, hell on earth, some would say.

"And what have I got to do with him?" you ask hesitantly.

Batman leaves a gray folder in the crack that connects the two rooms as if it were a mailbox "I need to know your perspective".

For a moment you thought about rejecting whatever is in that folder, but your curiosity won you over, you slowly grabbed the folder somewhat heavy because of the many sheets stored, on the cover of the folder you can see a CLASSIFIED in capital letters, that fuels your interest even more and you open the folder.

It's a lot to take in at once, you open your eyes from the initial shock, you haven't seen so much blood since your clinical internship days, you close the folder for a few seconds to recover, and you look Batman in the eye with a frown, he didn't even warn you how grotesque the case could be.

Batman looks back at you completely seriously, he looks immutable and silent. You open the folder again and are greeted by the same disturbing images "Wow, it's something " you comment uneasily.

You see the evidence, black and white photos of the murders stapled to the autopsy reports, it is amazing how this man can have such information. the more time you spend reading the events and the evidence the more disturbed you become.

Mayor Don Mitchell Jr, mayor of Gotham for several years, you saw him once at a social event done by Gotham University, he was happy and smiling maybe because of the excess alcohol in his veins. but now you look at the crime scene, his face completely wrapped in duct tape.

"No more lies..." you whisper reading the message on the corpse of the mayor, then that was with an already established motive, to give a statement.

On the other hand, Commissioner Savage's body is barely recognizable, the cage on his head says it all.

This is no ordinary killer.

What have you gotten yourself into, batman?

"why are you showing me this?" you manage to ask him even with the murders fresh in your mind, you don't think you will sleep tonight.

The already-seated masked man repeats to you "I need to know your perspective".

"As a patient or as a psychologist?" technically you can no longer practice your career since they took away your degree, but he doesn't correct you, you peruse everything that was offered, the riddles, the pictures of all the letters he has left for Batman, descriptions of the crime scene, write-ups of the witnesses who found the bodies.

"Both" he declares.

The handcuffs on your wrists do not give you much freedom to move your arms but do not prevent you from handling the documents in the folder, if Batman thought this might interest you he was right, for better or worse you did not stop seeing file after file.

"How extravagant," you say your first impressions "Brusque with his victims, he really is angry" You turn the page to see the pictures of his riddles "But he is also ingenious, this is not prepared from one day to another, he has been planning this for a long time, I would say years".

"Angry at who?" the man in front of you asks but you don't answer him instantly, you take your time carefully reading all the research, it's a lot for only one killer and few victims, but it's nothing that can be used to find him.

"With the world" you turn the page to see Commissioner Savage's crime scene photo "The pattern is evident, the mayor...the commissioner...does not kill ordinary civilians."

"Do you think it's political?".

You barely smile at the mere idea that this is just politics "No, this is too intimate for him, riddles are an essential part of his life that he knows how to use to his advantage...and I only come to one conclusion..." you shut up and rearrange the documents to close the folder.

"What is it?" batman questions you with intrigue in his voice.

You see him again, he must be desperate somehow to find this Riddler who asks for the opinions of third parties, of "crazy" people like you, something he dislikes, he prefers to work alone, that's his emblem. Deep down it angers you to no end, he hasn't caught your living nightmare and he's already looking for another asshole.

"That" you passed him the folder through the crack in the partition between rooms, and he retrieves it in his hands "Is revenge, Batman, and a very wicked one."

"Give me a diagnosis" he speaks faster, and the anger starts to seep into his face and it satisfies you to sometimes see him like this, frustrated Batman...yeah that's a first.

you smile and relax in your stiff metal seat "You should ask Dr. Crane for that, he's more prepared than I am, don't you think?".

"He refused" You'd know he'd turn it down, he's not like Batman or you, he doesn't even like to play Clue.

"yeah, he doesn't have the hobby of playing detective" you shrug your shoulders "I can't give you a diagnosis because it's little, he has left only what he wants us to know, maybe he includes you in this because he admires you or because he wants to kill you, who knows" you blurt out everything you think without any shame, in your mind you are already putting together a criminal profile with only what he gave you, but you won't tell him that, he doesn't deserve your help.

The masked man's posture tenses and he begins to clench his fists, your smile grows.

"all that, all those little clues he leaves you make me think this is all a big riddle on his part" You pointed to the folder held by one of his gloved hands.

"I don't think he's going to stop until he sees everyone on his list dead."

What you told him seemed to affect him, because he suddenly gets up and goes to the door without looking at you, and he found no news "I can't waste time" he whispers with disdain, he leaves the room and you stand watching the door where he left.

So it's a riddle against the clock, huh? you think.

The sky in Gotham looks like a landscape worthy to take a picture of, from here you can see the buildings of different heights, the traffic between highways, and the bridges, even if you force your sight you can see people walking.

"Do you like the view?".

You continue to look through the window reinforced with bars and tempered glass, the bars cover part of the landscape but you can still admire the beautiful gray sky full of clouds ready to rain.

"yes..." you say putting your hands between the bars without stopping to think how happy you would be just to be out of this abyss. you didn't appreciate the beauty of the freedom you had before you were here.

"What do you like most about the view?".

You take a few seconds to respond, the handcuffs on your wrists started to itch on your skin, that itch so normalized on your skin that you don't do much to get rid of that itch, you didn't look away from the window, this simple reinforced window brought you comfort for all these months.

"Everything."

"You hear the voice of your therapist repeat your answer and nod, will your cafeteria still be open? The Gotham Library will have finally added new books? the university will have already changed that horrible lamp in one of your favorite classrooms?

Batman already caught the Riddler?

"What a good answer actually, but I need you to sit down for a further conversation, soon the session will be over" The doctor's professional tone makes you tense up, you feel like you are not talking to a human but to a fucking robot, that's how you have thought them since you were imposed to this therapist.

You listen to what you say and sit in the other chair where you are supposed to be for the whole session, however, Mr. M has let you have the sessions while you watch from the only window, you are grateful for that, even if you didn't like him at all.

"I have been informed about your good behavior this week, if you continue like this you can be given more access through the hospital" Mr.M speaks calmly looking through several documents held by a wooden board.

Fuck you, you thought but didn't tell him, you don't have the luxury of being rude to him. you'll never get the same freedom you got when you were still an average citizen of Gotham and it saddens you, it makes your blood boil to remember every moment of your existence that you're here unjustly.

"Thank you" You speak as little as possible because you know you would break down in tears just remembering that you are another day of your life wasted locked up among so many criminals.

"But" Mr.M stops looking at his documents to turn to look at you "I was also told that you refuse to take your medication, why is that?".

"Why don't I need them" you speak cuttingly again, the itch in your wrists grows and you scratch with your fingernails without realizing it.

"you have to take his medicine...it will make your recovery process more enjoyable" he grabs his tablet with documents and writes again, Mr.M does not scold you but you perceive it like this, you want to go back to your cell, you feel so ashamed that your skin gets hot, how did you come to this? How did you fall so low that you are the one they have to medicate?

"Fine" you lie to him, you dislike the taste of the medicine they force you to take, you know perfectly well what they prescribe you, you studied for it after all.

But everyone seems to forget that.

Only Batman can recognize your abilities, but he does not help you at all in your case.

And well, you paranoidly believe that Jonathan is only talking to you out of unconscious guilt.

"Okey" Mr. M gives a soft smile "Just one last question before our time is up" he checks the time on his wrist watch "Have you made a new friend? Have you managed to get along with anyone?".

You avoid the gaze of your therapist "No" you denied, another issue you don't want to address, your notorious loneliness in this hospital. If it weren't for your unique best friend who works here, you would be all alone.

"Why?."

You don't answer him, you also question the same thing, you haven't had an interest to socialize with the other patients since you arrived, and there are still things that are not clear to you.

Mr. M sighs dropping his papers in a file cabinet near him "Well, I'll leave it as homework for you to start seeing new people, making a friend sounds excellent."

"I'll try" You don't lie to him.

"Perfect."

It's been a day since Batman visited you and you had your weekly session with Mr.M, you haven't been able to sleep due to the tremendous curiosity of the new assassin the bat is looking for.

Just when you thought nothing could surprise you in this city since your accident, along comes a man with a question mark and puts the whole city in check, that's the city to him, a colossal chessboard, the DPGC, the Gotham elite, the citizens, they are all pieces in the game, and Batman and he are the only players.

Batman said he didn't have time, Does that mean that he has to catch him these days? how curious, with the Joker, it took months to find him, you were only intercepted in a couple of hours, and the Scarecrow...

no, you don't want to think about him.

You get distracted thinking about the Riddler again, you do your daily service arranging books in the small library of Arkham, your safe place where few or no people stop around these parts, here it is not necessary to use your wrist and neck cuffs, but your uniform is still on, and the plastic bracelet with your information identify you as a patient.

You yawn as you place a couple of worn-out books on the shelf, you felt like a bookstore worker, sometimes you usually fantasize that you are one to take away your boredom, but others usually burst your dreamy bubble.

Today, one of the guards decided to turn on the old-fashioned TV set in one of the upper corners of the library, you stand near a bookcase to see what channel they put on this time, usually they only put on the sports channel to watch the game of the moment.

But on this occasion, the guard put on the news channel, and you immediately put down the books you have to accommodate to concentrate on what is shown on TV.

The guard is still standing and so are you, both watching a live breaking news broadcast. The news anchor reports a new Riddler attack.

He bombed a prosecutor at the mayor's funeral.

The guard's face looked more and more frightened, you watched the news with morbid curiosity. Batman's new opponent seems more sadistic than you thought, that detailed report confirmed it.

But seeing their repeated acts on TV was shocking, you even heard the guard who put on the news say in a low voice " We are doomed. "

You silently agree with him, for the first time you are relieved to be locked away from all the chaos going on right now.

You saw how the explosion managed to reach Batman, surprising you as the guard, the man takes off his distinctive security guard hat when he sees the video, on the other hand, you are still stunned, not believing it, somehow you forgot that this man dressed in black and wearing a cape is still a human of flesh and blood, he simply can't die like that, not when he has things to save, people to capture.

He hasn't found your living nightmare yet.

Before you pull your hair out in frustration the news anchor states that Batman is still alive, the guard satisfied by the information puts his cap back on and returns to his guard position which is the entrance to the library.

You are still looking at the report, and suddenly the image of the man who calls himself the Riddler appears. You hadn't seen him in such detail until this moment, the photos in the Batman report were extremely blurry images, but this time he is in HD, he is completely wrapped in green clothes, and the only thing you can see of him, is his eyes.

His voice is altered but you can notice that venomous tone of his he asked prosecutor Gil Colson some riddles, but in the end, he couldn't answer what Riddler wanted.

You sigh while grab another couple of books and start arranging them one by one. If Batman is still alive it means this isn't over.

"I knew I would find you here".

"It's not like I can go many places" You smile slightly turning to look at the man who spoke to you.

Jonathan Crane, the living legend of the hospital, with tailored suits, no wrinkles in his coat, and a well-made tie that matches the sweater he wears under his coat. There isn't a single time you haven't seen Jonathan without his perfect appearance but maybe it's just you idealizing as usual.

Jonathan gives you a polite smile "Right" Just by hearing that you know he won't stay to chat for long, he tends to contradict you most of the time just to annoy you and agree with you when he's busy.

"Are you coming to get a book?" you ask him the first thing that comes to mind.

"No, I wanted to talk to you before I left," he says adjusting his glasses "I'm going away for a couple of weeks to blüdhaven University to give lectures, it will be a simple thing" Your smile doesn't falter, you are touched that he lets you know when he won't be able to see you, and how he manages to keep the conversation so casual.

As if they were still colleagues.

"Is that so? What will you talk about?".

"Childhood traumas" he reveals looking at you without any shyness, he has a barely perceptible smile but you notice it.

"why am I not surprised?" you resume your work in arranging books "Although you know how to pick interesting topics, I wish I could attend" You recognize that Jonathan has been too devoted to his work and student life, he is that kind of strict professor who gives his students nightmares from the assignments and exams he gives. His lectures are fascinating, to say the least, you attended many.

"I'll tell you about it when I get back, in the meantime" From inside his suit he pulls out a flyer in half "It's something extremely summarized but it'll do" You take the piece of paper and stuff it in one of your pockets. It's not the first time Jonathan smuggles things to you, god, you can even be sure he gives you something every time you see each other.

"Thank you" you thanked looking at his face, he also remains silent looking at you, the eye contact between you is not something out of another world either, on your part, it's a habit that started when you were still studying, you can't help but want to observe everyone around you, analyze them somehow, see their behavior.

Jonathan does the same, but more rigorous and practical, he is direct and not afraid to say it, you see his hair combed to his liking, his glasses clean without any smudge, his eyes examining you.

You leave your admiring mode when you diverted your gaze a little to the old TV that is still on, the news keeps showing the latest events of the hours, repeating the most recent crime of Riddler.

Your smile dims as you recall the video of the explosion, the prosecutor begging for mercy and the bomb stuck in his chest.

"Did you see what happened at the mayor's funeral?" you whisper to him in a low voice trying not to let anyone hear them, you look with your eyes for the guard on duty but you can't find him, Jonathan must have asked him for some privacy time, at times you forget the influence that the man in front of you has generated with years and effort.

He turns his head for a few seconds watching the news on TV and turns to look at you again with a sensible and neutral face.

"yes, I saw it, I was there when it happened".

"What?" you utter with surprise "You were there?" there was no sign of a lie on his face to make you think he wasn't telling you the truth.

"Some teachers from the university we went to give condolences when the show happened" Jonathan clarifies simply, you approach him to talk closer, he doesn't seem upset "So it's true? Riddler attacked that prosecutor?".

"He killed him."

You shut up for a moment because of his statement, it's true, Riddler killed him, and almost Batman too.

"And Batman? Did you see him in action?" at this point you sound like first-rate gossip, but still Jonathan answers your questions, but is no longer as pleased doing so, the moment you mention Batman.

"He arrived when most of the people had already been evacuated."

"Wow" you blurt out surprised, if you didn't know him better you would have been uneasy with his calmness when talking about the experience, he says it without any fear because that's exactly what's so special about Jonathan in your eyes, he's not afraid of anything.

"Batman looked you up, didn't he?" Jonathan changes the subject quickly and you nod your head, you move away from his side to reach for a cart full of books to be arranged "He wanted my opinion on the riddler, can you believe it?" you laugh "I told him to look you up better, but you turned him down."

"That's right" he assures leaning on one of the bookcases for comfort, he looks at you picking up a book and you place it among several other books on another bookcase "I don't lend myself to that sort of thing".

"I know, killjoy Crane" you scoff boldly.

"Whatever you say" he sighs "I have to go, there will be a meeting at the university" Before you could say goodbye properly, he approaches you to give you an extremely momentary hug, it was so fast that you couldn't return the hug because he had already separated from you. You swore you could smell some of his cologne.

"uh yeah, see ya" You are barely able to utter the words without getting over the small contact they made, he has said goodbye to you like this, but you are still not used to it.

Jonathan smiles at you picking up his briefcase that you didn't see in the first place, walks to one of the tables where the TV control is, picks it up, and turns off the TV "I don't like you watching that" he tells you already heading for the exit where the guard re-enters the library.

You wrinkle your forehead due to irritation. Sometimes you don't understand Jonathan.

You genuinely thought your head was going to explode from the pain.

Being in Arkham meant being cut off from the outside, you had no idea of the chaos that erupted overnight, the perverse game of Batman and Riddler was so forceful, that Arkham unexpectedly came into the spotlight when the green-masked man was captured. An alert in your head went off when you heard from a very nervous guard. You thought it was almost impossible for Batman to catch Riddler, and that he's here being processed to this hospital gives a lot to suspect.

The report Batman showed you are not wrong, the madman of riddles is too elusive to be caught in such a short time.

Why? You ask yourself, why did he let himself be defeated?

The hospital was in chaos with the arrival of the new patient in the middle of the night, nurses running around, and security guards moving patients to different cells temporarily, you were taken out of your small cell to another one just as small and almost the same.

Even with suspicion in your being, you don't understand what all the fuss was about, not even when they paraded the Joker through the main hall in a straitjacket as if he were a villain from some movie did they get as upset as they are now with Riddler.

You sat on your new bed just as hard as the one in your previous cell, not wanting to catch the social panic you try to meditate, Mr. M advised you to do so and since then you put it into practice.

Maintaining a state of relaxation is difficult but you have practiced it for months, you started the breathing exercises, and as you slowly inhale and exhale your thoughts begin to melt one after the other, calming you down, and making your anxiety about all the fuss disappear.

You exhale again and inhale hard again, you could be doing this all day, you have nothing to worry about, you're in your world, locked away from society, and must be recovering from whatever Riddler did as his closing snap.

You open your eyes and stop doing your breathing exercises, you hear a laugh. But not just any laughter, but a loud and annoying laughter, you instantly get up from your bed and run towards the door with a small glass window. The laughter was not your imagination, and you can recognize it now that you are closer to the door.

You don't see any guards guarding this section of cells, how strange. The laughter continues unabated. It must be some neighbor of your cell because of the proximity of the noise and you have an idea of who it might be but you ignore it for only a few minutes, you can't take it anymore and yell "Can you shut up for once?".

Your cell neighbor stops laughing and you can finally feel at peace, but instead starts a conversation.

"Scarecrow?" you close your eyes just hearing that horrible nickname he gave you at some point during his hospital stay. relatively the two have been in Arkham for a similar amount of time, both trapped by Batman and calling them the dark knight's worst enemies.

But you could never compare yourself to someone like him Joker.

You had a chance to get to know each other when you let him participate in common activities, you don't want to remember the first time you spoke to each other, it ended badly, period.

"Don't call me that, asshole" you insult him and he sounds pleased with your response.

"Ah! Are we sensitive today? It's a holiday! Let's celebrate!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"our guest of honor has arrived, only his final trick is missing!" he continues to speak in that animated voice that irritates you.

When you talk to the Joker you get that feeling that he is speaking in another language, but he is not, you understand what you are saying but at the same time, you don't. You also realized that he knows too much to be just an Arkham patient.

But everyone at the hospital can assure you that your neighbor is not an ordinary patient at all.

This time you managed to understand his words, Riddler still has an ace up his sleeve, how could the Joker find out about that?

"Did Batman interrogate you too?".

"Of course he did...I'm his favorite!" he replies in the same arrogant manner as always "but I don't forgive him for being so crude on our anniversary."

"So you saw it, huh? I don't think this is a coincidence" You suppose the Joker must have seen it too, of course, he may be reciprocally insupportable but he's not stupid.

The clown laughs, but you don't, you didn't say anything funny in your opinion.

"Poor little Riddler, he thinks he can be just like him."

You ponder what he says, returning to your bed as you sit up again, the sky begins to clear and you can see it through the tiny barred window.

What if this assassin wanted to imitate Batman in some way?

"What a bizarre introjection you've made, Riddler" you whisper.

First, there was an explosion.

You felt the whole cell rumble, you woke up instantly and got up from your bed to run to the door even with your eyes swollen from sleep, naively you thought it was some kind of earthquake. You stuck your face to the glass of the door in search of a guard or nurse, whatever it is that will help you get out of this cell, you don't want to die here.

However, the section was still empty, there was no one in the guards' small surveillance cubicle, and you could only perceive the monitors on, showing the news.

You heard a completely strident noise, there was no earthquake. You turned slowly to the window, the color was changing from gray to orange.

It can't be.

you rush to see what's going on, you grab a piece of your bed to climb on it and reach the high window of the cell, you level yourself by holding your hands on the rusty metal bars, and you catch a glimpse of what caused such a noise.

You saw the light of an explosion, the combination of yellow and red colors coloring the sky, the smoke, the fire. The explosion happened far away from Arkham, but you can still see it in detail, then the noise became present, and you grimace at the impact on the walls, but it was not over yet.

Explosion after explosion went off all over the city, from bridges to seawalls, a scene so hard to believe if you weren't watching it right now.

The sight takes your breath away, you are so stunned that you almost fall to the floor witnessing such an act, this is what the Joker is referring to? the Riddler's final trick?

not even the scarecrow did so much damage to this city, you underestimated the man with the riddles.

You could not take your eyes off the explosions, there were too many and well-armed to generate so much destruction. The second thing was the water, the waves and drains getting out of control and flooding several streets.

You grip the metal bars tighter, not believing this is real, but it is. Not just bombs but a flood, was that what he had under his mask? Is Gotham drowning with innocent people?

It makes sense now, his cooperation when caught, the guards' restless attitude, and Batman's uneasiness.

All.

Suddenly you focus on the bustle of what seems to be your cell neighbors, you didn't notice when they put the other patient in the cell next to yours. The noises came together to form a horrifying atmosphere. The laughter of the Joker, the excited laughter of your other neighbor, and the explosions that went on and on. Even with your breathing exercises, you could not relax in the face of this horrifying event.

Slowly you let go of the bars and stop looking in the window, slowly you understand one thing.

Someone beat Batman.

Thank you very much for reading! And sorry for the mistakes!*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧.

#the riddler x reader #edward nashton x reader #dano riddler x reader #riddler x reader #paul dano x reader #bruce wayne x reader #jonathan crane x reader

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ghostboyhood · 4 months ago

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plstell me what do i watch ‼️‼️

also hii 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳 hohoho merrey christmas bevause im watching elf rn

HELP WHY ARE YOU WATCHING ELF IN JULY??? merry christmas 😍😍😍

omg so many recommendations...

velvet goldmine!!! its on youtube for free if you look it up its around two hours, iggy pop/david bowie fanfic from the 90s with christian bale, ewan mcgregor, and jonathan rhys meyers.. its soso good

american psycho, christian bale loses his mind and gets bloody but looks so hot doing it

the machinist!! another christian bale movie, psychological its really good, hes also losing his mind in this one PLUS christian bale lost a shit ton of weight for the role

inception, one of my favoritest movies ever, psychological dealing w going into peoples dreams and shit, its so good, leonardo dicaprio, elliot page, cillian murphy, joseph gordon-levitt, tom hardy

memento, another christopher nolan movie, it fucks w your head and perception of time plus lenny is hot as shit

night crawler, jake gyllenhaal stalks crime scenes to get good footage for the news and his acting is so fucking good and creepy

another country, kind of like dps but less of a friend group, canonically gay main character, communist best friend

okay sorry thats a lot.. i think it depends on ur mood, i can suggest more specific things depending on what kind of movie ur in the mood for 😘🤭

#asks #ping !!#ghost talks movies

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tafutofu · 1 year ago

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Became obsessed with this man. His face is so good to draw, I cannot get enough of it.

Silly storytime on how I became obsessed under read more

So, a friend of mine is obsessed with DC. She invited me to watch a re-run of Dark Knight Rises and I fell in love with Tom’s Bane. This went on for some weeks, leading into me reading Fanfic, and there was a Jonathan Crane FF tagged as Bane. Read it, got mad because I got bamboozled, then I went down the Cillian Murphy rabbit hole. Started watching peaky blinders, re-watched the Nolan Triology, will continue to watch all his films and shorts and series and-

on an unrelated note, watched Across the Spider-Verse and I’m mad at the lack of Noir, but also loved Hobie

#loved Cillian Murphy yesterday #love Cillian Murphy today #will love Cillian Murphy tomorrow #cillian murphy #peaky fucking blinders #peaky blinders #thomas shelby #tommy shelby #Fanart #digital art #eye strain #iguess

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ao3feed-brucewayne · 1 month ago

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二代蝙超求索The Testimony

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/xsWltzu by sisyfreak 杰森来到艾尔庄园外，决心在此处表演一场滴水不漏的骗局。但在他与卡尔·艾尔，这间庄园主德鲁·佐德的侄子，也是艾尔家族遗产的继承人相遇之后，一贯长于骗术的杰森却萌生退意。但已经太迟。雇佣他的布鲁诺先生登堂入室，成为佐德的贵宾，因此杰森只能眼睁睁地目睹布鲁诺将卡尔的生活搅得天翻地覆——吗？ Jason arrived outside the El mansion, determined to stage an impeccable scam there. However, upon meeting Kal El, the nephew of the mansion owner Dru Zod and heir to the El family estate. Jason, who was usually adept at cons, began to have second thoughts. But it was already too late. Mr. Bruno, who had hired Jason, made a grand entrance, gaining entry as Zod's esteemed guest. The only option left for Jason was to helplessly witness Bruno turn Kal's life upside down—or has he? * This fanfic is inspired by Fingersmith. Words: 6301, Chapters: 1/?, Language: 中文-普通话國語 Fandoms: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Superman Returns (2006), Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con Categories: M/M Characters: Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Jason Todd, Dru-Zod, Hank Henshaw, Jonathan "Pa" Kent, Martha Kent, Alfred Pennyworth Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Top Bruce Wayne, Bottom Clark Kent, Bottom Clark Kent/Top Bruce Wayne, Alternate Universe - Fingersmith Fusion, Alternate Universe - Historical, 指匠au read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/xsWltzu

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the caped crusader #the dark knight #dcu #ao3 #ao3feed

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ao3feed-superbat · 1 month ago

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二代蝙超求索The Testimony

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/N6mkavJ by sisyfreak 杰森来到艾尔庄园外，决心在此处表演一场滴水不漏的骗局。但在他与卡尔·艾尔，这间庄园主德鲁·佐德的侄子，也是艾尔家族遗产的继承人相遇之后，一贯长于骗术的杰森却萌生退意。但已经太迟。雇佣他的布鲁诺先生登堂入室，成为佐德的贵宾，因此杰森只能眼睁睁地目睹布鲁诺将卡尔的生活搅得天翻地覆——吗？ Jason arrived outside the El mansion, determined to stage an impeccable scam there. However, upon meeting Kal El, the nephew of the mansion owner Dru Zod and heir to the El family estate. Jason, who was usually adept at cons, began to have second thoughts. But it was already too late. Mr. Bruno, who had hired Jason, made a grand entrance, gaining entry as Zod's esteemed guest. The only option left for Jason was to helplessly witness Bruno turn Kal's life upside down—or has he? * This fanfic is inspired by Fingersmith. Words: 6301, Chapters: 1/?, Language: 中文-普通话國語 Fandoms: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Superman Returns (2006), Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con Categories: M/M Characters: Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Jason Todd, Dru-Zod, Hank Henshaw, Jonathan "Pa" Kent, Martha Kent, Alfred Pennyworth Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Top Bruce Wayne, Bottom Clark Kent, Bottom Clark Kent/Top Bruce Wayne, Alternate Universe - Fingersmith Fusion, Alternate Universe - Historical, 指匠au read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/N6mkavJ

#ao3feed #superbat #world's finest #Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne #Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent

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gothy-froggy · 2 years ago

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Ok so for first nsfw ask I'll choose something easy .

What would Scarecrow be into. Just general headcanons.

Y E S.

This was actually fun to write?? Not even gonna lie. We got Jonathan and a little Scarecrow in the mix of this 😏

{This IS more towards to female audiences at times}

Warning(s) : nsfw (duh), cussing, Fear toxin, the Scarecrow making his presence known, not proofread (as usual)

Things the Scarecrow is into (NSFW)

In one of my other head canons I mentioned how much a enjoys his lover getting pissed off. He thinks it's so hot if you're yelling at someone. Even if it's towards him. Arguments with Jonathan are already difficult. He's so calm and collective, usually "wins" (you do obviously it's how it works. You're always right, duh!)

Loves dirty talk. Whether it's from him or you, he loves it. I will say no more.

He wants to use fear toxin. Jonathan wants to use it on you with a mix of dirty talk. He'll even make a special toxin just to use in bed. Why? He doesn't want it to hurt you like it does for his "work." He wants you to be in good health and not affected by the toxin.

Two things. Hair tugging and choking.

That's his shit.

If you and Jonathan are making out and you tug on his hair, things are going to get real, real quick. The choking isn't him choking you. It's you choking him. Yes, this is a reference to the image on my other post. Or just hand your hand around his neck? He's on his knees.

hand slithering towards his neck, giving it a simple squeeze. He whimpers.

"You have no idea the things you do to me, Dr. Crane."

Jonathan enjoys praises, but is rather picky. He doesn't enjoy being called a good boy or someone having a tone of talking to a child, but he loves the praises while making someone feel good.

Body worships. So much. We won't ever stop. Yes, he likes when you do it, but he prefers to be the one doing it.

"Have I told you how beautiful you and your body truly is?" His hands firmly placed on their thighs. He takes one of their hands and kisses the palm.

"It truly is a work of art. Your thighs, palms, fingertips.."

His lingering soft kisses traveled their arm. He looked into their eyes.

"I highly doubt I'm worth to touch something so precious."

Definitely switches between being a dom and sub. Usually when he's feeling one of the two, he sticks with it. If he's feeling dominant, there's a way to make him submissive. Tugging his hair. He's rethinking whether he wants to be in control.

He has quite a thing for hickeys. Both ways. He loves giving and receiving them. He loves marking you up. If it’s Jonathan, he loves leaving them around the collarbone. If Scarecrow makes his entrance, he loves biting thighs.

Jonathan is the embodiment of "I won't admit it." But Mr. Crane has a huge thing for public blowjobs or handjobs. During his break at work? Please do. He loves it, but he'll complain and remind you how you both are in public.

But noooo it's different if it's him doing the same thing to you with fingering in public. He'll whisper for you to keep it down and try not to get caught.

Jonathan's hand snaked around his beloved's waist, pulling them close. Close enough that his lips connects to their ear. His hands moving their hair away from their ear.

"Quiet now. We wouldn't want the others to hear you now would we?"

He whispers. He placed a kiss on their jaw.

"We don't want to get caught, my dear."

He's one bold ass teasing bitch. Why? He'll do it when people are around. Like family dinner? Yeah he's bold enough for that.

Here's the thing. He's nearly impossible to do the same thing to him. Jonathan has a some self control. He can talk through a hand or blow job.

Maybe a few slip ups here and there, but you can’t get revenge that way.

Loves having the mask on during sex. The only thing is that Scarecrow might let his presences known, using a lot more toxin in the process.

“The fear in your eyes...My dear, you’ll be screaming all night long.”

Jonathan loves being able to look into your eyes so really any position where he can see you face is fine with him. His two favorites?

Missionary

and cowgirl

He loves the expressions and the amount of emotions that are in your eyes. It’s like a drug to Jonathan. He’ll do any position but he prefers those the most. I think it’s safe to say that Jonathan is a little adventurous in bed ;0

Oh, did I mention about him wanting you in his office? Jonathan has his ways to allow you to be in his office. Whether you work in the Asylum or not. He learned to enjoy quickies by having you between patient appointments. His favorites during those times is you riding him. Or you riding him anytime really. He’s obsessed over it.

He wasn’t very adventurous or experienced at first. He had affairs with people due to bottled up emotions or frustrations. They were simple, nothing special. It changed when he met you though. He’s more interested now.

He makes up the lack of appreciation and affection he shows by showing, sometimes even saying it, during these intimate times. When he realizes how unappreciated he's been acting for a while, he takes all the time in the world to make it up to you.

#jonathan crane #gotham #jonathan crane x reader #the scarecrow #jonathan crane the scarecrow #scarecrow x reader #the scarecrow x reader #the scarecrow x you #nolan Jonathan crane #cillian murphy jonathan crane #cillian murphy jonathan crane x reader #jonathan crane x you #jonathan crane headcanon #fanfiction #fanfic smut #jonathan crane smut

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novalles · 3 years ago

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When Bells Ring (Part V)

Bruce grinned as he finished his espresso. He decided to invite you for coffee after the awkward encounter at the asylum. His phone was silenced, and his focus was on the current moment. “Y/N, what exactly is going on with you and Crane?”

“Nothing, we are both psychiatrists at the asylum.” I folded my napkin on the table.

“To me, it seems like there's more.” He teased.

“Why do you care?” I raised my eyebrow.

“My good friend at the district attorney’s office hates him.” “Miss Dawes?” You rolled your eyes. To you, Dawes was pathetic. She definitely had a savior complex. You understood and respected her passion and her determination to clean Gotham. Yet, the way she had a black and white perspective made you annoyed. Are the Gotham criminals terrible? Yes. Do they deserve jail? No. You believed that people were complex and that there was an explanation for their behaviors.

“Uh, yeah.” He looked at the ground. “She has a hard time with both of you.”

“Funny.”

“I am sensing you aren’t her biggest fan.”

“You’re right. To me, Dawes is ignorant. Don’t get me wrong, she’s super intelligent and carries herself well yet she sees things as black or white. To me, there is always that gray area. I think she fails to see that.”

“What?” His nostrils started to flare.

“She is just an idealist.” You sipped from your cup.

“She just wants to do what’s best for Gotham.”

“If doing what’s best for Gotham is incarcerating everyone then I can’t support her.”

“Maybe you should re-evaluate your mindset.” His words made you angry.

“Well, Mr. Wayne, You have been raised in a perfect way. You have never felt hungry, the need to survive. You were an orphan yet you had someone there for you. My patients weren’t so lucky. They had to see and experience gruesome things at ages when that shouldn’t have happened.” You looked at him, his face was blank, before continuing.

“My patients are a product of their environments. You and your girlfriend are very narrow-minded.” You with your face in your hands. You were upset at the Wayne boy. You could not comprehend how someone could be so narrow-minded. You then thought about Crane. He understood your point.

#jonathan crane x you #batman villains #jonathan crane #jonathan crane x reader #cillian murphy #batman fanfiction #batman #the dark knight #christian bale #christopher nolan #jonathan crane fanfic #scarecrow x reader #bruce wayne #batman comics #the scarecrow #scarecrow #jonathan crane scarecrow #cillian murphy fanfiction #cillian x reader

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elytrafemme · 3 years ago

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thinking about horror rn

#nightmare.personal #gonna reread my fave horror piece of writing (non fanfic tho i just found some DOPE horror fics just now)#i kind of want to try my hands at writing an actually good piece of horror fic but idk #not sure i'd be that good at it? maybe i just stick to my modern AU niche #whatever i'm not gonna wax poetic it's friday time to get the jonathan nolan out

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eleniel-starlight · 6 years ago

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Lost In Search of His Own

Work Title; Tonight He Grins Again

Warnings; past abuse, ptsd, nightmares, taking advantage of an intoxicated individual

“Come here, child.” Her shaking eight year old body walked forward, but only because her body did not fear Ra’s in the way that her mind did, and so far, her mind had lost all reason. She was terrified, and there was nothing she could do.

“I want you to walk across the ice, and come back. That’s all.”

She should've been hopeful, but she was not. The ice had begun to thin, she had heard. The men talk about it, they talk about the approaching spring, and that soon the ice will be gone and they will not be able to train on it; but Ra’s did not seem to care. After convincing her, the young girl ventures out onto the ice, unmindful of her weight distribution. The ice cracks beneath her and -

“No! No stop!! Stop!!!” She roars. It does not matter, though. The toxin is already in her bloodstream and Scarecrow was across the room, writing furiously.

“What do you see? What is it?” Kalevi’s hands are bound above her in rope and there are no metal objects in the room save for the doorknob. Scarecrow hated that these measures had to be taken, but Jonathan was growing soft around the woman and wanted nothing more than her safety. Well, what could be afforded to her, after all he was experimenting on her with a toxin that would surely tear her mind apart if she did not receive treatment.

“The ice! It’s… it’s so cold…” Her voice has drained now, the screaming has quieted. It’s been three hours since her injection and still the effects have not worn off and she has not passed out. In the time that he’s experimented on her, Scarecrow has learned that Kalevi was not spending time with various family members since her parent’s death, but somewhere else. What, exactly, she had been doing, was still a mystery. The mention of ice only confused Scarecrow further. He would have to prompt Jonathan to inquire about her life.

While he wrote, and thought, he missed the visual of Kalevi freeing herself from the ropes and falling to the ground. He heard her, though. And as he turns, Jonathan comes racing back to his consciousness, and rushes to her side. Her lips had turned blue and she was shivering.

Peculiar. Write it down.

“Not now. She’s going into shock.” Jonathan scooped Kalevi’s shivering body off of the cold cement floor, and rushed her up the stairs and into the bathtub. He twisted the drain and filled the tub with hot water; as it filled, he stripped Kalevi and placed her in the bath before leaving to collect his journal and a pen. He’d never seen the fear toxin work so well on a human, but he suspected that given her supernatural abilities, Kalevi’s body took the serum so seriously that it forced her body into the situations she sees under influence of the toxin.

Jonathan left the door to the bathroom open as he sat at the table in his kitchen and wrote down everything he could, until Kalevi woke up that was. After ten minutes, he stood to check on her.

Kalevi hadn’t woken and cried so often in ages, not since her father died. Yet here she sat, in a cooling bath, stark naked, with her knees to her chest and tears warming her legs as they dripped down. She heard Jonathan’s footsteps in the hall long before he stands at the door, but she pays no mind to him. At the sight of her tears, and shaking body Jonathan smiled. The toxin was working wonders, but somewhere deep inside of him he didn’t feel the same excitement. In his gut, he felt guilty. He ignores the feeling.

“Kalevi.” He said. She didn't look up at him. Jonathan removed his blazer with irritation bubbling up inside of him. “Kalevi.” He repeated. She still didn't answer him. He did not understand why. He rolled the sleeves of his button-up to his elbows, and kneeled against the cast iron tub. Her sobs had subsided, but the shaking continues.

The toxin is still affecting her. Scarecrow mused. Jonathan ignored him as he reached for Kalevi, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She took a single glance at Jonathan and screamed, pushing him back with her bare hands. He didn't move very far.

In the previous weeks, between conversations with both Scarecrow and Jonathan, Kalevi had dropped out of Gotham University, and all but moved into Jonathan’s home to work with him under the agreement that neither of them would share the other’s secret. The constant inhalation and injections of the fear toxin has left Kalevi’s muscles, built over so many years, to waste away. The atrophy had become so severe that Jonathan feared that sooner or later she would crumble under her own weight. He’d never cared before, and he still didn't understand why he cared now. Kalevi’s eyes widen, as though she realised what she’s just done. She began to beg.

“Please… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” Jonathan cut her off with a soft shushing noise, and reached his hand out slowly.

“It’s okay, Kalevi. Come here.” She stared into his eyes for a moment.

This is Jonathan. She thought. His eyes. She told herself. This gave her the strength to take his hand, and he guided her out of the tub. “Here.” He’d seen her naked enough to know that scars littered her body, but even under the influence of a sedative, she said nothing. It’s almost as if she’d convinced herself that the incidents surrounding the scars didn’t happen. Or perhaps it’s the fear toxin, making her forget that they exist yet.

You know what it is. The toxin’s dragging up old memories. Come on, Jonny. Put the pieces together. Scarecrow hissed. “Mnemophobia.” He murmured. Kalevi looked up, question in her eyes. Jonathn shook his head. “I’m sorry. Come here, I’ll get you a towel.” His voice switched over to the tone he used when teaching. Kalevi had grown to hate that voice. Even after she dropped out of Gotham University, she continued to hear it each time he ordered her around. She couldn't take it anymore.

She stuttered out his name, a once mighty warrior, brought so low. “J-J-Jonathan. Please don’t. No more.” He turned, his usually neat hair growing unruly. It’d been a few days since he’d showered, Scarecrow had done a fine job of making him work on the fear toxin with Kalevi.

“No more what?”

“No more… Memories.” She managed. Jonathan finally understood. She couldn’t take anymore fear toxin. It had even begun to affect her abilities. She hadn’t been able to even turn a doorknob in days. Despite Scarecrow’s complaints, he agreed. Jonathan took his time caring for her that night, drying her himself, gently, and taking special care to make sure that she ate every bite of the soup he heat up in the microwave. It might not have been the healthiest thing in the world for her, but he had his own fears, fears of cooking and ruining something so awfully that it makes her more sick than she was. He still didn't understand why he felt the way that he did; he’d never felt this way before.

Kalevi looked up at Jonathan. He hadn't said a word since the bathroom. Neither of them had, but she was starting to despise the silence. It’s allowing for her memories to continue to riddle her mind. So, she said the only thing she could think of.

“They’re still coming.” Jonathan looked up her quickly, and, understanding what she’s saying, hurried to grab his notebook. “Tell me everything.”

So she did. She told him what she sees, and what’s different and the same with each dose of the toxin. “The memories are constant,” she states. “And, I always hear thunder, and rain. If I close my eyes, sometimes…” Jonathan stares at her, begging her to continue.

“Sometimes, I see the lightning.” He stopped writing to look at her with a small amount of concern.

“What do you mean, ‘the’?” Kalevi looked at him, slowly realising what she’d said. She then shook her head, refusing to say anymore. “Please, just… give me something to wear tonight. I want to go home in the morning.”

Stop her! It’s not the Scarecrow this time, but himself. Jonathan feels that he cannot allow her to leave; she was too weak, he rationalized. She might not survive, and that would make him feel bad. But would it? He doesn’t know.

After a moment, Jonathan came to a conclusion. He just wanted to kiss her, that was all. Her screaming has drawn his attention to her lips and now all he and Scarecrow want to do is kiss her. Yes, that’s it. So he did

Kalevi was taken aback by his sudden movement. He grabbed her by the forearm, his grip strong, and pulled her body against his. She couldn’t fight back, and she’s not sure that she wanted to. She’d never done this before, never been kissed properly, and she wanted to tell Jonathan, but there was a fear that he’d stop whatever it is he’s doing now. He’s nearly a foot taller than her, and it started to register in her mind that she’d have to step away from him to kiss him like she wanted to. She doesn’t, though. She let Jonathan make the first move. His hand found its way around her throat, but unlike Scarecrow he doesn’t tighten his grip. Kalevi looked at him, almost begging for something, anything.

So he gave it to her. He leans down, and kissed her. He’s soft, and while the kiss doesn’t last long, he knew he wanted more from her the moment he pulled away.

Kalevi wanted it, too; but some part of her was telling her no, that this isn’t right, and she was not in the right mind to be making those decisions, and for the first time in weeks, she listened to the internal voice. She looked down at her feet, almost like she were dejected, and turndd away from Jonathan. Then, she heard his voice. A small plea. “Stay.”

��Okay.” Kalevi walked back up the stairs, and into the room Jonathan fixed up for her. It takes her three hours before she sleeps, and even then she wakes up at 4:00 am from another nightmare. She went downstairs, in nothing more than a much too-large sweatshirt Jonathan bought for her at the grocery store. In her daze, she made a half decent cup of coffee and sat in silence at the table until Jonathan woke up.

It’s only an hour, but it feels like an eternity. She’s hungry, but the fear toxin still circulating in her body prevents her from getting up. When Jonathan walks down the stairs, her coffee cup is only half empty, and cold. After an awkward moment of silence, he sits across from her. “Are you hungry?”

Her reaction was delayed, but it was still startling for the both of them. She turned her head quickly, fear in her eyes, but she remembered the tenderness he’d shown the night before, and she felt less afraid. She nodded softly. Jonathan stood, and made her a bowl of cereal. He moved slowly, and cautiously; for this, Kalevi was extremely grateful.

She stayed silent while she ate, as does Jonathan. When she finished, she took note that he’d made himself a cup of coffee, and had not gotten ready for work. She tried to speak but her voice was still hoarse from the hours upon hours of screaming the night before. Scarecrow was in Jonathan then; he had refused to help her, delighted by the evidence of her agony.

“I’m staying home today.”

In response, Kalevi creased her brow. Why?

Jonathan quieted for a moment, as though he was unsure how to phrase his next words. Then, he does. “To take care of you.”

Jonathan’s day revolved around Kalevi. He bathed her, and makes sure she takes a nap when that is over. Her exhaustion was as evident of her fear of the Scarecrow, and while Jonathan relishes this, he also hates it. For some reason that he can not grasp, the look of fear in her eyes made him angry, instead of delighted. He intended to get to the bottom of it. Soon.

Kalevi woke screaming for Jonathan. Not Doctor Crane, Jonathan. It was a rare day when she decided to call him that. In the weeks before, she’d only called him Scarecrow. For days, it was all she said, until Jonathan laid off of the toxin for an equal amount of days. Then, he’d gone right back to routine. Now, however, she was screaming for him, not Ra’s; not her father. Jonathan. Nothing felt more foreign.

Nevertheless, Jonathan opened her door and sat at the foot of her bed. LIke a child, she held out her arms, begging him forward. He came, reluctantly. He took the small woman into his arms, and, in one fluid motion, laid her head on his chest and put his head against the headboard. Kalevi had not felt so vulnerable since her childhood.

After a few moments, she spoke.

“Jonathan?”

“Yes?”

Another passage of the minutes. Scarecrow was growing restless, and needless to say, so was Jonathan. “Promise me something?”

“Yes?” He repeated.

“Promise me… Promise me you’ll never use the toxin on me again. Please.”

Scarecrow said no, screamed it, over and over again. Where else would he get a subject so close and under constant observation by a competent party? Arkham. So shut the fuck up and stop whining. I’m making Kalevi off-limits to you.

You won’t keep it that way Jonny boy. Remember Granny?

I didn’t give one single shit about her. Her? She’s off limits. For good.

“I promise.” He said quietly. Consequently, he fell asleep with Kalevi in his arms, and did not wake until her next nightmare.

Images flashed before her, memories she could see only snippets of. The feeling of her first kill; the first time she fell in the ice. Every moment of sheer terror welled up within her until she leapt forward-

Screaming. Jonathan could hear her screaming and he did nothing. He watches, waiting for her to wake up; she always wakes up, why should this time be any different? Minutes pass, and Kalevi still doesn’t wake. She’s calling for someone, no, begging. Ra’s al Ghul. The name means nothing to him, but it’s a name she’s called for so many times that now his interest is piqued, and he makes a mental note to inquire about this Ra’s al Ghul when she wakes up; so far, it doesn’t seem like this will happen soon.

Kindness got the better of Jonathan, and he took her shoulders and shook her awake.

“Kalevi, please. Wake up. Come on, now.” It took her a moment, but she finally stoppdd screaming and opened her now tear-filled eyes. She muttered his name in question before throwing herself around him. “Don’t let him back… I tried so hard…”

Get her off! You’re going soft, Jonathan, get her off!

“No, no I don’t think so.” He whispered. Ignoring everything that was screaming at him to get this woman off of him, he couldn’t, in fact, would not, find it in himself to push her off. Her body was trembling, and when she had once been fierce enough to take the life from him with a simple flick of her wrist, she couldn’t now, and he was all she had. He wanted to protect her. Jonathan wanted to protect Kalevi. He would take on the world with his toxin to protect the weak woman in his arms.

#jonathan crane #cillian murphy #nolanverse #batman begins #christian bale #christopher nolan #writeblr #fanfic #tonight he grins again

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