A/N: This is a two-part piece that can be read as a prequel to "Within My World". As with that story, this one draws inspiration from the musical talents of Evanescence - from their song "Snow White Queen".
Title: Snow White Queen
Summary: You belong to me, my snow white queen. There's nowhere to run, so let's just get it over. Soon I know you'll see, you're just like me.
Characters/Pairing: Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow x Iris DeLaine (OC)
Rating: T for brief mentions of sexual content.
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman or any affiliated characters. Iris DeLaine belongs to me, as does this story. Please do not use without permission. Thank you.
Please review!
Perfumed skin, starched suits and glimmering gowns; soft chatter and gossip echoing through the gallery, drifting through the vents and hallways; the stench of undeserved success and triumph—everything is the same as it had always been. Time has been frozen in this despicable place—untouched by the months.
The memories linger throughout this place—lingering as memories will always do. They haunt and torment a young, malleable mind. They empower and rejuvenate a matured mind—a mind hungering for vengeance, a soul thirsting for blood.
And they will serve him well tonight. They will serve him to remember every single injustice he has ever suffered in this place. And they—every single one of them—will taste the sweet flavor of retribution. He will see them fall to the ground, wriggling and writhing like the helpless little worms they are.
They will pay.
"Guns! They've got guns!" Oh, such sweet cries of fear…but they are nothing to particularly dwell upon. They are too soft, too rapidly hushed to sate his hunger. They are mere samplings to wet his tongue.
The crowd parts, fearful to be an obstacle for those intruders. And he sees the real target, the main course to the evening's delights: an old, pathetic excuse for a male being, clutching a worn brown-leather case like his firstborn child. A touching gesture, truly—defending the money he had been so generously blessed with to save the beloved university. He who has inherited this school from his forefathers, who raised it like he would a son, and has done everything he possibly can to maintain the funding for the school's future.
It was enough to make one vomit.
He is nothing but a whore, selling himself every way possible to maintain these funds, to keep him on a polished throne and fatten up his pockets. He is as much a whore as those insipid females that flock around the university jocks, hanging on every word and cooing at them like a litter of newborn pups.
Dark eyes close behind a burlap mask, relishing brief memories of a young, powdered face contorted in terror, brunette curls previously sprayed to perfection, now a mangled mess clutching to the cheeks, to the sides of a throat expelling shrieks—ah, such music she had made!
A lunatic, they called him. A lunatic, was he—for giving the University's finest a real education and expanding their horizons of knowledge to the harsh realities of their own minds?
"Thank you, Dr. Long." He speaks as polite as ever, but a cruel smile has replaced the neutral one of a professor as he reaches out for the case. "I'll take that."
And it is child's play to relieve the fool of the case. He estimates the weight carefully within his hold, judging that it will be a fine compensation for his trouble. Money is, for the most part, insignificant for his purposes, and it always has been—he was never been brought up with excessive amounts of wealth, and he never desired to possess any in his later years. Of course, this only resulted in further insult from his colleagues—as though he could call them such, these simple-minded fools who knew nothing of the world outside of their posh dwelling and white-picket-fence ideals. But never the less, these spoils will prove useful and beneficial. The cost of chemicals isn't cheap, and he will be able to purchase more books—a familiar and comforting luxury that has been missed.
The old man plays the fool, determined to go down fighting in order to save his money. "Over my dead body!" he proclaims, making to seize the case back, wrinkled hands clutching an arm covered by red rags.
The smile, cruel and expectant, returns to the stitched mouth. "If you insist…" the words are wrapped in a low hiss of a voice, full of dark promises as red mist seeped from his free hand. He is free in seconds, the old man instinctively backing away, his mind attempting to understand just what his eyes are now seeing.
"W…what's happening…?" confusion turns to panic all too easily, his eyes staring in horror at his hands. It is a true pity that his delusion can not be made clearer, but a mind that understands fear as well as his can make an easy guess.
A cry of terror—small and weak, but what can he expect from such a man?—rises from the fool's throat, just before he collapses to the ground. Dark eyes observe him from above, standing tall and triumphant. The legality of the glee he feels right now should be called into question.
"Bring him." He instructs, "His torture has just begun."
More screams herald his departure from the gallery—lovers turned on each other, friends lunging for each other's throats, women ripping jewels from their throats and hair from their scalps…such a fine performance. He only regrets he cannot witness it longer.
Something catches around his ankle, halting his ascension up the stairs. Annoyance drifts over his features, only to be replaced by amusement as he found the interference—Gotham's very own defender of the night. "Batman," he acknowledges, mockingly addressing with him, "I am surprised. I thought you would be at home, enjoying my time-released fear toxin."
And he really should be. After all, a good patient ought to abide by the doctor's orders.
It is easy enough to be rid of the pest—his toxin does a marvelous job of altering one's perception of reality, determining a genuine threat from a minor inconvenience. And what is more genuine a threat than a giant bat?
The lackeys are waiting obediently for him (such good little pets they are). One moves ahead to the blimp, Dr. Long an unconscious heap thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The screams still echo from the gallery below. Briefly, he wondered if they have managed to beat the Batman to a pulp yet.
Suddenly, a shadow flits across the wall above—a short-lived testament, from a poorly lit hallway, that someone is near.
A clawed finger lifts to the stitched mouth, silencing the lackeys at once. With feline grace, he creeps up the staircase, each step careful and deliberate so as not to alert any of his presence quite yet. His right hand reaches to his belt, fingering the barrel of his gun.
A creak in the floorboards echoes in his ears. The stranger—student or other—right around the corner. The little fly is right in the spider's web.
He whips around the corner, gun drawn and aimed with perfection. The other remains perfectly still, staring almost defiantly into his masked face. The silence falls heavy over both of them, and for perhaps the first time in his life, he finds it almost unbearable.
She looks just as he remembers: skin as colorless as porcelain—cold in appearance, but he remembers how warm it felt—right eye hidden behind an inky stain of hair—oh, and even now he can feel the silken strands sliding between his fingers. The left eye stares at him now, an icy pool of blue framed by long dark lashes.
She has not changed at all. And for all that has changed in his life, there are always some things that will never change. His feelings have not changed, complex and alien as they are. He lowers the gun to his side.
"Miss DeLaine." He addresses her with all the old dignity and respect of a professor. It was as it had once been—she coming to visit him in his office, the polite student coming to seek advice from her counselor.
He finds himself longing for those days to return.
He wants to see the look of intrigue, of awed respect that was always present when she approached him, when she came to him seeking answers for her questions—after all, there is no other who could quench her thirst for knowledge…not as he can.
There is none of that old intrigue now, but curiosity steadily seeps into the icy expression she previously held. And then, her eye slowly widens, recognition filling that single orb of blue.
"Professor Crane?"