Ello! Minon here with the background story to my favorite villian ^-^ . I love Dr. Crane with all~ my heart! Sadly it seems to me that the master of fear isn't very well known or appreciated-I hope to change that. While researching *cough cough, obsessively fangirling* over Scarecrow for a while I decided to write a backstory and although it can stand on it's own it is seen as a bit of a 'prequel' or 'prologue' to Megamind and Minion's next top secret story that we're we're currently working on! There is an OC but don't worry, this is a tradegy after all and everyone knows Dr. Crane is best alone (tehe...for now anyway ^-^). Also i do not in any way, shape, or form own Batman/Batman Begins or anything affiliated with it. With that in mind, enjoy!

"W-would you like to go to the homecoming dance with me?" I asked, cursing myself for stammering. No wonder the school picked on me, I made myself such an easy target. My intended date looked up from her writing with a startled expression. Shocked she looked at me then down at her desk then back at me. I braced myself for the rejection—

"I'd love to," she said without the slightest hint of a Georgian accent.

I blinked and looked up at her even though my glasses had fallen slightly down my nose. She was smiling sweetly, a small blush playing on her cheeks only partially hidden by her long and slightly frizzy hair. I knew to not be flattered though, she was a fairly odd girl. Outgoing in arguments, brilliant when acting small skits in class, but in daily conversation or in class she blushed any time some form of attention fell on her.

I smiled widely then checked my eagerness, I didn't want to scare her off.

"Cool," No, that sounded horrible!

She smiled then seemed uneasy, "So, um, are we meeting here...or?"

I practically stumbled over myself trying to explain, "Well we could if you want—or I mean I could pick you up. I don't know where you live though...but I don't need to, it's okay if you don't want me to know. I—"

"Jonathan, calm down," she said laughing lightly then wrote something down on the edge of her spiral, tearing it out she handed it to me, "Here's my address and phone number...oh do you have your suit planned, I mean is there anything you'd like me to wear...or to not wear?"

It was an awkward question and it left her red but I understood. She was often criticized for her dark clothing and odd interest in morbid or old fashioned things. She probably had a few interesting dresses at home and I found myself uncaring of what she wore as long as she didn't stand me up, like I had been...four times before.

"It's fine, wear whatever. I mean I'm sure your dress will be fine."

She bit her cheek but nodded then the bell rang and class started so I took my seat a few desks behind her on the nearby row. That day it was hard to pay attention in class. I didn't need to of course, I had covered this material in the previous year but it was the middle of school and most teachers saw it fit to reteach last years work for almost half this years time. Hardly productive...

No, it was hard to focus because of the whispers that carried around the room. Although neither of us had said a word, the rest of the class picked up on our date. Speculations were made, and insults hissed at me but I only stuck my nose in a book and tried to tune them out as I thought over my week.

It was only Tuesday and the dance was this Friday, even though the week was young I found myself worn down by my classmates. I was a constant target with my peers due to my bookish appearance. I was tall, lanky, and always kept my nose in a book. I suppose the Georgian heat went to their heads of the rest of the population and reduced their logic to a level below most multiple celled organisms.

At home it was no better, my grandmother who had raised me for most my life was a strict, crazy loon. Overly religious and stern she made daily life hell. We lived in a remote house within some of Georgia's famed cornfields...I hated that house. It's peeling paint, creaking stairs, musty attic where I slept...that was a house of horrors although the worst was my grandmother.

She was a slight thing, barely surpassing five feet but held a sharp tongue and a long, hard memory. To this day she mocked me for wetting the bed when I was a child at the age of two. She ridiculed me for 'misplacing' my glasses and 'wearing out' my clothes. Only a woman of her age and temperament would be so blind as to assume a child who carried constant bruises and torn clothes wasn't being bullied.

I never told the old coot, I never told anyone...and no one cared. What did one clumsy, awkward bookworm matter to the mayor's son who was winning a scholarship with the state's leading university? Why bother pressing charges against the rich children of the upper class for defiling a poverty ridden teenager? Before I had entered highschool and scholarships were things unheard of (for most children at least), the many children who tormented me paid no penance for their crimes.

No matter the days they beat me into the dirt, ripped the pages from my prized books. Nevermind the time they strung me up on a wilting, wooden fence and beat me til I lost consciousness. What did it matter if they mocked me and once tried to drown me in the nearby pound (we were too poor for the local pool and I had never learned to swim, my grandmother's monthly 'baptizes' aside)? No, it didn't matter...everyone looked the other way, teachers swallowed and turned to cajole the other children while I sat in a dingy corner alone. It didn't matter because no one cared...I eventually began to not care.

My mother was among those who neglected me. I was an unwanted burden on her: a mistake. After an affair with my father, a drug dealing carpenter, I was born with my frail body that seemed to repel any love. I grew up without a mother's touch, aside from her cold glare and hissing remarks when she mustered the strength to leave her room at all. Obviously she blamed me for her mistake and wanted no part of my life...The fact stun but I didn't mind it so much anymore. Although I did find it interesting how my relapsing 'mother' escaped the rants and 'teachings' of God which my grandmother forcibly drilled into me.

Yet I wasn't completely overlooked. I remember on my Sophomore year of highschool I was silently waiting between finals for the next class to begin. That day there were twenty minute passing periods to allow lingering test takers additional time. During those twenty minutes I swiftly made my way to the next class and waited in wary suspense for the doors to open and shelter me before I was found by any of the bullies.

Sitting aside from me on the opposite wall, Madeline (although I didn't know it at the time), was sitting and staring off into space occasionally as she wrote on a spiral, uncaring of the potential danger. I paid her no mind, she didn't seem from Georgia with her black pants, black shirt, and was that a black trench coat? Surely no one would dare wear such dark colours even during Georgia's winter, the weather barely fell past 60 degrees!

However she seemed perfectly fine and although she shirked from the sneers and whispers sent her way she didn't change her mannerisms. I checked my watch (a cheap thing made of Velcro and plastic) and found there to only be ten minutes left. I wiped a bit of sweat from my hair and impatiently urged the doors to open faster before—

"Oh look who it is, little Scarecrow all alone..."

I froze at the voice but resumed my staring at the wall, knowing acknowledging him would only worsen things. In fact any type of response, pleasant or harsh, was unaccepted yet at the same time my silence would make things worse. There was no way to win but I found if I tuned out enough I wouldn't hear their mocking laughter so vividly in my nightmares.

I saw Madeline shift but remained where she was. I felt a sort of anger and sympathy toward her. I yearned to yell at her, asking her to both leave and save me but I kept my silence.

"What's a matter, you never seem to talk anymore?" his face filled my eyesight, his brown hair cut close to his head which only drew unflattering attention to his meaty neck and cheeks. This was Marcus, one of the school's football players and one of my usual tormentors.

Lightly he tapped me on either side of my face which stun a bit but I continued to stare at the wall. He then pulled up at my cheeks, "You look so serious, you should smile more."

I felt trapped against the wall but refused to let my panic show. I knew the beating would be swift and painful but I didn't know when it would happen. Marcus shifted his weight then I heard Madeline speak in a lilting voice that was both calm and heavy.

"I don't think he wants to talk," the way she emphasized the 't' and 'k' yet smoothly went over the words left me thinking she had an accent of some sort. She clipped her words strangely but before I could think more on it Marcus turned to look at her.

"What does it matter what you think?"

She exhaled her cheeks reddening and seemed to be struggling with herself.

"Aww, do you feel bad for this sack of straw? Have a little crush on the Scarecrow?"

She stood up somewhat clumsily but held her head high, her clipped way of speaking beginning to fade, "I'm warning you to walk away."

He laughed (well it was a comical sight with her trench coat seeming to swallow her up aside from her long and slightly unruly hair) and turned his back on me. I know what most heroic people would have done. They would want me to attack him from behind and together Madeline and I would become the closest of friends...but it didn't happen that way.

He came closer and I watched with a sort of vengeful curiosity. She hadn't done anything to deserve whatever was coming, in fact she was trying to help me and yet I found I didn't want to help her. She'd learn her lesson then leave me alone and if I even tried to help her I'd only make things worse for myself. So I watched as Marcus drew closer and her cheeks remained reddened, I could almost see the fear and worry rolling off her but she stood her ground.

"Or what?" he sneered in her face.

Without warning she grabbed him and pulled him closer then pushed him against the wall. The shock allowed him to be easily moved but all of his raging strength was useless as she made a fist and awkwardly hit him in his collarbone. She backed away quickly, her breathing faster yet her glare remained. He cried out holding his shoulder and pulled down his shirt. I was confused, she had swiftly tapped him, how would that-

I saw the red skin with two red lines leaking blood. The wounds weren't overly devastating but definitely needed more than a bandage to heal completely.

"You fucking bitch!" he yelled and looked at her horrified, "You freak! What the fuck's your issue?"

He then shook his head and left across the hall. I was in shock...she stabbed him?

I swallowed, "Y-you stabbed him?"

She paused as if she hadn't thought of it that way then looked at me nervously, "I-I guess so..."

She then lifted the object in her hand I saw...a pen and a pencil? She laughed slightly her cheeks fading in colour as she expertly recited with a audible yet controlled voice that wove emotion and pride into her words.

" True, This! —

Beneath the rule of men entirely great,

The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold

The arch-enchanters wand! — itself a nothing! —

But taking sorcery from the master-hand

To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strikeit

The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword-

States can be saved without it."

I smiled feeling an odd sense of affection toward her; she was obviously dangerous and impulsive (and quite fluent in literature) but seemed to mean me no harm. Either way the bell rang and she looked up sharply then seemed to shrink before my eyes. She quickly gathered her things then looked at me quickly as if she was afraid of me, "Sorry," she said then quickly left.

"Sorry?" I echoed.

Apart from that she hadn't bothered me again. She gave me odd looks, curious looks, in the hallways but kept her distance. Whenever she saw someone taunting me her eyes flashed and she seemed at war with herself. Usually she began walking toward me but I turned away and ran down the nearest stairwell or hallway to avoid her. I didn't need her thinking I wanted a savior. Not only was she an outcast but she was a woman! It'd be an open target for more ridicule! Even if I allowed her to help me she may want to become friends which I could not allow.

If she ever met my grandmother...I shuddered just thinking of it. My grandmother was a horrid old bat, she often accused me of masturbating in the cornfields after school (an explanation for the days I returned sweaty, with dirty clothes an hour late) or raping little children in the town (somehow derived from the way little children seemed to hate me, often spurned on by their older siblings...my 'peers'). Even if I brought her home as a friend and she spent the entire time talking with my grandmother, the crazed woman would later accuse me of some atrocious crime or worse yet accuse Madeline of being a witch or some nonsense from her dark clothes.

No, I thought it to be much safer to leave Madeline alone and hope she did the same. So then my asking her to the dance would seemed like the most counterproductive thing I could possibly do...and it was. This was my senior year of highschool. For too long I've been taunted for my glasses or made fun of for my long hair (which couldn't afford annual haircuts so I improvised with rusty scissors which were a struggle to use). I had sharp features and a lanky frame so I earned myself many nicknames the most infuriating: Scarecrow.

I grew tired of being pushed around and soon I would be rid of this town and its people. Already I was eighteen but I needed my highschool diploma if I were to ever leave this place. And as my last year I would make the most of it. Still I was bullied and taunted but if any of my tormentors had cared to look me in the eye they would have been shocked. The fearful gaze and pleading eyes were gone. Oh yes, they would be shocked for now there was only grim determination and a dark glint that sometimes surprised myself. They would be so shock—no shocked isn't the right word...If they had cared to see the look I had in my eyes as they tortured me they would be scared.

The bell rang and I mindlessly gathered my things, perfecting the timing so I wouldn't be alone in the hallways and earn an early beating but also so I wouldn't be too slow and left to straggle with the majority of the waiting bullies. On the way out Madeline gave me a smile, blushing slightly, then suddenly jumped to me and for a moment I was worried. The only times I've seen her lunge at people is to stab them (she quickly caught a reputation although somehow remained unreported). Except I found myself enveloped in a warm hug.

A hug...she hugged me? I felt the smooth yet stiff fabric of her trench coat bunch up and the warmth as she was momentarily pressed against me (I blushed thinking through the implications of that). As soon as it had happened it was over, she pulled away smiling and tilted her head, "I'm looking forward to Friday."

I looked into her blue green eyes confused, she seemed both nervous and happy but after seeing my intense look with my too pale blue eyes (creepy the others called them) she shrunk a bit and blushed, "Sorry."

Before I could stop her she left and was left behind once more echoing her response, "Sorry?"