#god i hope gotham knights doesn't suck

[quandaryqueen]

Evermore I

Year One Jonathan Crane X Reader

Following the serial killer Scarecrow's pattern, Batman and Robin tracked down Crane's divorcee situated in Gotham in time to prevent any more deaths.

This piece is loosely based on the transgressions of the Year One Scarecrow comic. This piece will have multiple parts, so stay tuned.

The last you expected to greet you after a long day from work was the Batman and Robin standing in the middle of your apartment. What could you have done to possibly warrant the Bat to enter your apartment? The first thought that occured to you was to the ongoing faculty investigation in the school, the perpetrator responsible for the embezzlement that's yet to be solved, but then you remembered it's the Batman, why would he care about something as comparably small as that?

"Professor L/N?" Gotham's Dark Knight queries.

"Yes... That's me..." Still put off by their presence, you warily took your shoes off and put your bag aside. Just when you wanted to spend the night in peace and quiet, perhaps watch whatever program is on television, the Batman comes in waltzing. So much for a break.

"Have you been receiving anything strange? Seen anything?" Robin asks, comfortably seated on your couch.

You were too exhausted to deal with this. "May I at least get a drink of water first?"

Twelve weeks. Twelve weeks you've dealt with the constant abuse from a system that's far from saving and you stayed to encourage the new hope for the future to work better, smarter. Then there were the parents of the little rascals, whining at just about anything. Late nights you spent your miserable little self slaving away for the heaps and heaps of paper to be stomped and spat on by the next day. Then there were the unruly, spoiled little heads seated on their desks scoffing and throwing profanities at you for doing your job. Sometimes you had to keep yourself away from doing something, anything to the students. Lest should you follow your former husband's steps.

"Answer my question." Batman presses forward with firmness, that you'd be intimidated if it weren't for the fact you've been surviving off of three-hours worth of sleep.

"No. Nothing but letters from the school administration."

"Nothing at all? How about from Johnathan Crane?

The mention of his name had caught you in a chokehold. A name that you've forcibly pushed at the back of your mind, through lock and key, suddenly breaks free amid an encounter of the Dark Knight. His name slips from Batman's tongue like a spell, summonimg the memories you've buried along with your old self.

"Hello?" Robin's voice grounds you back, then realised had stood before you, waving his gloved hand before your face. "Woah, thought we lost you there for a second." He light-heartedly teasesz though there had been an underlying sense of anxiety that came with it.

"I-I'm sorry..." Your thumb instinctively reached to swipe under your eye, knowing there would be tears there. He was the only being that can ever make you cry and true to that word, there was a stray tear you smear away as evidence. "N-No... J-... He doesn't. Not since w-we... Um... Separated."

"What can you tell us about Crane?"

"I..." Gone was the stone wall you've established following after the tumultuous times you've been through at the last duration of your relationship with him. At the mention of his name, the walls you've built over the years gave weight and crumbled before the Bat. "We-... He and I-..." You didn't realise you needed to breathe until you sucked in a sharp breath, and how you needed the door behind your to stabilise yourself from the collapse of your legs.

The boy wonder took pity, holding your hand and leading you to take a seat on the couch. His eyes bore within your distant ones, noticing how ashen your complexion was.

Jonathan Crane... God you thought his name no longer had an effect on you. You've lost all sense of sentiment after the emotional pandemonium you've gone through with him. You thought you could support your own weight but then he comes along, not even in physical presence, and breaks you apart so seamlessly.

"Jonathan..." You finally spoke his name just above a whisper, with a certain fondness and hurt. His name was poisonous honey against your tongue but denied that you relish its pain. And the final hay in the stack that broke the camel's back, the dam in your eyes breaks and your face flooded with long-held emotions.

"I-I'm sorry—" you hid behind your palms in shame, your voice small from the tight restrictions of your sealing throat, shoulders shaking. You didn't even attempt to hide it anymore, rub your face raw until it's dry of tears, you just let it all out, but still in shame.

God, why now? Why are they here for him in the first place? What could he have possibly done to warrant a visit from the Batman?

"Why are you asking me that?" You were almost afraid to ask.

"Jonathan Crane is responsible for multiple counts if murder—" serial killing? Your Johnathan was now serial killer? "— at first he seems to have arbitrary targets, perhaps under the employment of criminals. But then he began targeting former colleagues. His former college professors, I believe you are familiar of them, you've worked as a professor with your former husband, correct?" You nodded. "All his victims are found dead, bound in duct tape and all had suffered a peculiar death of a heart attack. One of them suffered a delirious-induced death, his grandmother Marion Keeny, who had abandoned that name and adapted Francesca Olivia Dove. She hallucinated an attack and in an attempt to fend it off, hurt herself in the process. We manage to track you down after finding out about his identity. Their deaths have a common theme, an envelope containing a straw. Speak now of you have recently received something, Y/N. We are here to protect you."

The revelation had you closing your eyes. All at once it had hit you. Your Jonathan couldn't have done something like that, could it? No, there's just no way. He was kind, although a bit eccentric and odd, he wouldn't hurt anybody! He'd only take action against other if need be... No it couldn't be, that's not how he is. He could never!

"You're lying." Your voice held a little more conviction. "Someone's framing him, I'm sure of it! Jonathan could never! He is but a disturbed little boy back then and still he is, of course it would be obvious someone would pin those murders on him!"

"Professor L/N—"

"No! He couldn't have... He's..."

There was a moment you recall upon the mention of murder and Jonathan in one sentence. Back then, when told you about a bully. You can't remember the name but you can remember him and his one eye. Jonathan had confessed to you that he's had enough of the guy always taking his lunch money and so he had done something about it. He laced the bill with a certain concoction that had attracted birds to attack the bully, resulting for the kid to have permanent damage on his eye. God...

Your Jonathan is capable of murder. And Batman implies that you'd be next.

"Oh my god, John... He killed them... And I'm next?"

"It's only a speculation, Professor." Robin reassures.

"Tell me about your relationship with Crane."

Robin glances at Batman with a wince, having been sympathetic of you upon the sudden intrusion in your home and news about your former spouse possibly coming to kill you. Was it really the appropriate time to ask you about your previous affiliations with the serial killer?

For a moment you were silent. Then, you let out a shaky sigh, rubbing the bottom of your palm under your eye and sniffling.

"I met Johnathan at a Sunday when my family first moved into Georgia when I was nine years old. I specifically remember that it was a Sunday, because he came from the church after an early mass. I immediately noticed how miserable he looked compared to the other attending children there, as they ran around. I thought that a mass was something of a celebration, so I was confused why he wasn't. My parent/s taught me it was rude to ask whatever comes to mind, but a child's curiousity holds no bounds. I approached him and I was comfortable approaching him, he seems to be my age and I was correct. I greeted him with a hello and he timidly returns it, I told him my name and asked for his. Then I asked why he was sad. He said he didn't know. I was about to ask him if he wanted to play with me and my cousins, when this elderly woman approached us, furiously. I am normally comfortable around adults as they are people who are supposed to be watching over us, but the moment I saw her I felt scared.

It was Johnathan's great granny Keeny in her Sunday dress, snatching Johnathan by the wrist and hissing at him with a hushed voice, pinching him by his arm. I can't recall her words verbatim, but apparently Johnathan had absentmindedly walked away from granny Keeny whilst she was busily discussing with fellow church attendees. She didn't acknowledge me and they left, Johnathan being dragged by the wrist and he was barely keeping up with her. But he turned to wave goodbye at me. That's how we met."

To be continued →→→