This is pretty much a tribute for Bitemetchie and Bright Nova, possibly the best fanfiction writers that I have ever seen for Batman, for the possible exception of Checkerboard. They all switch from first place so regularly it hard to keep track.

Anyway, I'm rambling.

I never paid much attention to Professor Crane, since I thought he was okay, but not really what I would think really much of a super villain. Though thanks to these girls I got pretty interested in his character and found some interesting stuff.

I just have to respect a man who kills his grandmother and the two kids that made his life hell growing up, kidnaps people to experiment on them, shoot a fire-arm in a classroom full of kids to prove a point while he is still a professor, and a lot of other things that just scream horrible-yet-endearing psycho. And his costume drawn by Tim Sale is goddamn wicked looking, not even going into how scary it is. Though I have to admit I draw his personality more from the Animate Series than the comic. He's not a nice guy, but I would like to think he can be reasonable at times and the cartoon captures that best, I think.

So after realizing this I decided that he really does need lurv and a sandwich, though sadly he gets neither in this fic, but he does get somebody to torture… ahem, experiment on, nonetheless.

So this is my little dedication to these great gals, and I hope that they like it, considering how great their stories are always to me.

By the way, if you haven't figured it out, I don't own nuttin' owned by D.C. This is a shame, but I guess I just have to accept it.

Make Not A Sound

The music was a loud pounding, and barely more than that. Any person over thirty would have argued that it wasn't music at all, but to the ones inside, the beat was the greatest thing in the world. Light flashed in reds, greens, blues, yellows, and was the only thing that kept the room from being pitch black. Bodies, clothed fashionably, yet lightly as not to overheat, danced wildly and close together. Speakers blared at every corner, and while there were tables where some people sat, it was only to recover between each dance. There was no quiet place for conversation, nor did anyone want it.

This was especially true for Hazel Spencer, the trying to make it big D. J. that had been called as a last minute replacement since the one who was suppose to be doing the grand opening for this techno club dance hall had unfortunately been caught in a car wreck and was going to be spending the next couple of days in the hospital.

Hazel was glad to be there, but hadn't been expecting the call, so had been up the since seven that morning running errands for her aunt. Living with her at nineteen was slightly less embarrassing than her parents since the woman was actually her oldest relative at sixty-seven (apparently her dad had been the last child in the line and had been the product of faulty protection long after his parents had decided to stop having children) and needed someone to help her out around the house. Hazel would help out wherever she could and be able to live with a rent cost she could only have dreamed of at only two hundred a month to help with groceries, and it was more than a trade off since her aunt was still more than well enough to cook, which she did often, and home made meals were better than Hazel could have ever created at her age and budget.

The last of the songs were already programmed into the system and Hazel was already packing a couple things into her bags. The place was due to close at two and she was ready to get home as soon as possible since she was feeling incredibly tired. Despite the fact that there was only ten minutes left, the place was still packed with people. But Hazel knew that was no big deal. At this age everyone wanted to be out and about, and at night was the time to do it.

Especially since this was Gotham City, where more people seemed to be alive at night than during the day.

The dancers all groaned when the actually lights all came on signaling that it was time to leave. Hazel unplugged her lab-top from the main system and waved cheerily to the owner of the club before joining the group leaving. Young adults dispersed in all directions, but Hazel left on her own towards the bus stop that was about three blocks away to catch a ride home. The small time house her aunt owned was in the edge of the suburbs of the city and there was no way she was walking the fifteen miles to get there. But the bus stop was a short distance away and it would probably only be a ten to fifteen minute wait until it came along.

It was too bad she never made it.

---------

Jonathan Crane was having a very bad night. His fear toxins had been all nearly used up when that horrendous Batman had shown up and smashed up his supplies. Blasted man had been wearing a gasmask, unaffected by even his most potent vapors, and had forced him to flee. He'd gotten away though, thanks to the teenaged bird brat that had come along with him.

Robin was skilled, though not as much as Batman, and his cocky attitude had gotten him in trouble. It had actually been very easy to sneak up behind Robin while he fought one of his nameless minions and shove the syringe of his new concoction into his back.

He had wanted to watch the effects, wanted to see the horror spread on the Boy Wonder's features, after all, he had been trying to test them anyway that couple he'd found in the park before he'd been interrupted. They would have made excellent guinea pigs if he hadn't been stopped before he could study their screams of horror.

His escape seemed rather hollow considering everything. He had lost his new toxin, hadn't been able to study their effects, his minions were no doubt on their way to lock-up courtesy of the Batman, and his latest hide-out had been destroyed during the fight. He couldn't have gone back to it anyway, but it was still rather irksome to know how horrible the night was being.

So he had planned to head to one of his other lairs. The closest was actually little more than a small apartment owned by a man who didn't care that he was renting a room to a notorious villain, as long as he got paid every month, but it was safe and he wanted to get somewhere warm before the vigilante somehow found him.

That's when he saw her. She was walking casually past the alley he was hiding in, a large black canvas bag slung over one of her shoulders, and dressed in rather punk style of a green and black pleated skirt, orange tights underneath with black tennis-shoes, a lime-green t-shirt with a scowling jack-o-lantern shaped like a heart on it, black fingerless gloves that reached her elbows, and a green denim short-sleeved jacket. She had several safety pins attached to her skirt and gloves, along with a choker, and the most interesting thing about her was her dark orange hair. It might have looked ridiculous in the daytime, but in the dim light, it almost looked as if it were natural.

His first thought was to dismiss her. He no longer had his new toxin, only a few sprays left of his old fear gas and he knew what that could do to a human mind. Experimenting on her wouldn't give him much, except maybe a hassle when he tried to drag to back with him and she screamed and kicked and fought the whole time. That was until he saw the shadow coming up behind her. At first Crane thought of Batman, but when a light of a lone car passed by he saw little more than a large thug with a mean face. His grin was lecherous when he suddenly grabbed the girl from behind and covered her mouth.

Crane watched in disgust as her eyes widened in fear and she tried to struggle to get away. The brute was more than three times her size, and only laughed as she was dragged away. It was sickening to think of what would happen to her. That man had no respect for her, was going to hurt her and walk away, proud of it.

Crane recognized bullies, and how much he hated them. Idiots who tried to make themselves feel superior in size rather than brains, and they would always torture those too small and weak to fight back.

He was striding out of his alley, across the street, and up to the man, a cold rage in the pit of his stomach. He tapped the man on his shoulder as he hunched over the girl who was lying in the street, knocked unconscious, and without any words to the man as he turned around, sprayed him with one of the few canisters of his precious fear gas that he had left. The large man coughed violently for a moment before falling to the ground, shrieking in horror about snakes. Crane merely nudged him aside to look at the girl.

He looked at her and thoughts ran through his mind. He'd lost his new toxin thanks to Batman, and making more would take a day or two, but in the meantime, it wouldn't hurt to try some gas on her. And she was already unconscious so she wouldn't fight him to the lair. She looked like a healthy specimen too, though he would have to wait until she was awake. Besides, after a couple experiments he'd send her home, which was much better than leaving her to the mercy of whatever else was lurking in the allies.

---------

Hazel awoke slowly, eyes flittering as a dull pain throbbed in her head. She sat up from where she was lying to see that she was in a bedroom, a large quilt thrown over her.

Where was she? A sudden jolt of fear gripped her. Had that man- She wanted to throw up at the thought. A quick check of her clothing eased her horror, but only a little. She was still clothed, and that said something, but it was no guarantee that she hadn't been…

"I can assure you," a gentle voice said, "that animal wasn't permitted to touch you. You weren't hurt."

She looked up at the person talking, wondering who had saved her. A tall, lanky man was at the doorway, dressed in dark pants, a red shirt, and a burlap sack and hat covering his head. Her mouth opened slightly in shock as she realized she was looking at Professor Jonathan Crane, also known as the Scarecrow.

Before she could even jump out of the bed, he was on her, and a quick burst of something between vapor and powder invaded her face. She breathed in unwillingly as it attacked her mouth and nose and the nightmares began to invade her mind.

---------

She hadn't been quite what he expected, but he was intrigued by the results all the same. The effects had only meant to last for ten minutes or so. The dosage had been small on purpose; he knew as a scientist it was best to start small and work his way up. But even though well over an hour had passed, she was still in that room, arms clutched to her knees, rocking gently back and forth on the bed. Whatever she had seen must have truly frightened her.

He would give anything to know what it was, but she hadn't given him a single clue. She'd thrashed and tried to get away from him while the fear gas was still in her, and he certainly knew she'd been scared, but of what he couldn't fathom. Mostly because she hadn't made a sound the entire time. Not a scream, a whimper, even a gasp in fear.

It had been the first time anything like that had ever happened. And really he was just dying of curiosity to know why. Feeling that she'd be reasonable enough to talk, he entered the room. She looked up at him, her eyes practically dilated. She didn't seem to care that he'd changed from his costume into a pair of slacks, white polo and a Swede jacket of a normal and rational person. In most cases it was his toxins that put them into a state of panic, but she was still afraid, and it seemed to be of him.

Interesting. He pulled a small pad of paper out of his jacket pocket.

"Hello my child," he said pleasantly. "I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me now that my toxin's effect seems to have faded."

This seemed to scare her even more as her hands went over her mouth and nose.

"Now, don't worry," he told her. "I've already seen the practicing part of the exercise. I'd just like to see how it affected you. Would you like to do this in here or in the living room? I have hot chocolate if you'd like some."

She was looking at him as he had just grown a second head. Honestly, it didn't bother him much anymore. People thought he was some kind of monster that ate small children or whatever nonsense the media had filled the citizens of Gotham's minds with. He didn't like hurting people for the sake of hurting them. He was a scientist, and even with his fascination with fear, he was a hospitable person. He'd never fought against the image, since it did help him conduct his work, but in this case he knew his questions were more likely to get answered if she was at least comfortable.

Slowly she eased herself out of the bed and followed him to the living room, with a small kitchenette attached to it, separated only by a counter and over-hanging above it. She sat at the sofa opposite a love seat and a coffee table between them. Honestly, she had to admit to herself that it had a rather homey feel to it, someplace her aunt might have liked to stay, if not for the insane man within the walls.

A steaming cup was placed in front of her and he sat down opposite her, notebook in his lap, and pen at the ready.

"As I'm sure you noticed," he began to explain, "my elemental fear toxin has a rather base effect. It causes a person to see their worst fears, their phobias if you will. Usually I can then study what fears the subject," he did pause at her flinch at his choice of word, but only to scribble a fast note of it. "As I was saying, what fears they have and how they react to them. I study the first part of the process mostly by the vocalizations of the subject. That is, what they say and scream out in their terror."

A small look of comprehension dawned on her face.

"I can see you know what I'm talking about. Obviously it did affect you, and I would guess strongly from the fact that you are still very shaken up, yet you had enough willpower not to shriek, or in fact make any noise at all. So tell me," he leaned in slightly, "how is that possible? Do you simply clam up when afraid, or is it something more?"

She quickly shook her head and gave the whole room a quick glance around. Then she sat up a little straighter and placed a hand to her throat, slightly below her collar and shook her head again, though with more meaning that time.

Jonathan was slowly piecing it together. She hadn't even made any kind of muffled sounds against her assailants hands, hadn't screamed when her entire mind must have been becoming undone with agony, hadn't said a single word or sound that he had heard once.

"You can't speak?" he asked and she dropped her hand to shake her head.

The girl was a mute. No wonder she hadn't reacted vocally. She couldn't.

"Interesting," he muttered. "I can't believe I never thought of testing on them before. How horribly frustrating it must be to have your terrors surround you, feel this dam of a reaction building inside of you, yet you cannot let it out. Cannot get past that peak where you let it all go and break down."

She was looking at him tentatively, no doubt wondering what would become of her now.

"My child," he said suddenly, "how would you feel to more experimentation? I was so confounded on why you didn't make any noises, I didn't really study your other reactions that well. Of course, I imagine that they would be much more pronounced since you can't give that main reaction, but there are others. The entire body reacts to fear, and I'm very interested to see what you could produce."

She shrunk back into the couch, shaking her head. Their was a wild plead in her eyes, and he could almost hear her begging to be released. Her reactions were amazing, how she seemed to become more and more afraid with everything he said. As if she wasn't simply scared because of the gas that he knew had to have worn off by now, but was scared of him.

"Drink your chocolate," he said, intentionally letting her hang in wonder if she would be released or not. He imagined he would eventually. But to give her up so quickly, it would be irresponsible on him as a scientist not to explore this new avenue.

Besides, it gave him a little thrill at the fact that that she was scared of him. His chemicals could entice a reaction, his costume and name alias yes, but Jonathan Crane very rarely was treated with the respect that fear brought on. Fear was simply the idea that something was more than you were and could hurt or manipulate you while you had no way to stop it. It put superiority in the thing you feared, and so many idiots thought he had no superiority at all because of his gangly and supposedly 'weak' figure.

But she was afraid of him. Of what he could do to her, and how she was powerless to stop him.

Apparently she hadn't thought of the powerless part as she suddenly flung the chocolate at his face. The liquid burned as he yelled in both shock and pain. She had jumped up from her seat and raced towards the nearest door. Unfortunately, this particular door was nothing more than a closet, and by the time she looked wildly around for some other way to get out, he was already up as well and had tackled her.

He wasn't much of a physical person. But he was still strong enough to keep her down on the floor, even as she struggled to get free.

"Listen!" he hissed out sharply. "I don't have much fear toxin left, you've already been attacked by one ugly thug tonight, and you don't even know where you are. For all you know there could be several of my men waiting to see if you come down alone." This last part wasn't technically true, but he doubted she'd risk it. "If you behave, then I will finish my questioning and let you go home. If not, I can always keep you tied up while I make a whole weeks worth of toxins for you."

She gradually calmed down, and he eased his grip on her. In reality, he didn't blame her for trying to run. Flight was a natural reaction to fear, and his anger came more from the fact that he hadn't expected it when he should have. That and his shirt was stained, and he didn't really have that many normal clothes to begin with.

"Can you act rationally now?" he asked annoyed as she stood. She nodded and went back to the couch, sitting again and even looking a little ashamed that she'd gotten subdued so easily. Either that or she felt bad for flinging a scalding hot beverage at him, though he doubted that.

"Tell me what your afraid of," he said as he sat down as well. "Write it down if you like, since I don't much sign-language. If you simply tell me what you saw, then I'll let you leave once we're finished."

She reached out for the pad of paper, although she did not write anything. She simply sat there, staring down at the sheet. Then she scribbled something and handed it back to him.

One word was on the paper.

Scarecrows.

Oh, well that would explain it. No wonder she'd been so terrified of him, even when she hadn't been affected by the toxin. Who needed the hallucinogens when your fear was already walking, talking and obviously out to do you harm?

He really wished he hadn't changed now, knowing how she would have hated it. Then again, he didn't have a replacement for his red shirt.

For moment he thought of keeping her longer, but he really didn't have much toxin left, and he wondered on how easily he could subdue her next time. He had no rope or cuffs to keep her taken care of while he wasn't tending to her, and his sleeping pills in the cabinet were years old, not to mention nearly empty, so keeping her unconscious wasn't really an answer either.

Well, he could always grab her again at some later date if he so chose. For now it seemed keeping his word would be fine.

He asked her a few more routine questions, how she was feeling at the moment, even took her temperature and checked her pulse. To Hazel it felt more like a routine check-up than anything else, though she still didn't want to be there.

He didn't ask why though. Didn't ask why she had that particular phobia. It didn't bother her though, and even if she could bring it up, she wouldn't have. The whole thing was something she hadn't thought about in years. It's not like it was all that tragic, but it had been scary as hell, and had left her more than happy never to come back to her grandfather's farm, even though it hadn't really been his fault.

He hadn't known there was going to be a tornado that crashed the thing through the window and landed right on top of her when she'd only been seven and too weak and scared to push it off of her.

And then he had told her that she could leave.

She looked up at him, questioningly, almost afraid to think she'd heard wrong.

"You want to stay?" he asked sarcastically when she didn't move to which she immediately shook her head. "Good, because I'm too busy to baby-sit you. Take this."

He was holding out a scarf.

"I would really hate to think that you would tell anyone where this all happened, so I'm getting you a ride home. You'll be blindfolded, so you won't be able to let anyone else know about this place."

She didn't like his suggestion, but she supposed it was his rules. So she took it, he handed her bag from the kitchen where he must have placed when she'd been unconscious. He let her check to see if everything was still there, though she noticed he seemed to bristle at the silent accusations that he was a petty thief, and noticed her I. D. was in the wrong spot of her wallet.

"I like to know all the names of my test subject, Miss Spencer," he told her simply when she had looked up at him, horrified. "But trust me, it isn't going to be for anything more than labeling your notes and the videos in the camera placed around the room while you were affected by the toxin."

There had been cameras? The information made her feel a little queasy, but she shook herself out of it and let him place the blindfold on her. She nearly stumbled down the stairs, but when she got outside and was put in a car, she was willing to deal with anything else just to get home.

There were a lot of turns, more than were probably needed, but she had to admit her sense of direction was completely shot by the time the car stopped and the blindfold was removed.

"Have a nice night Miss Spencer," Professor Crane said she opened the car door as quickly as she dared. "And I'd suggest taking some self-defense lessons, and perhaps some mace. I may not be there to help you next time."

She ran inside of her house, but didn't rouse her aunt to call the police. She was shaken, scared and angry, but she did recognize the fact that he had saved her. Forcing an experiment on her as payment for the good deed wasn't something she'd wanted to happen, but she was willing to acknowledge that without him, she probably would have now had a much fresher and worse phobia.

His little taunt before she had fled the car still rang in her ears and she shuddered. By the time she had the courage to peek through the windows, the car was gone from the now empty street.

She didn't fall asleep the entire night, terrified of thin yet impossibly strong fingers coming to grab her again.

End

I don't know, was this right? I was trying to make him mean yet in a twisted sort of way, charitable. There were several times were I could practically hear a female calling out, "Squishykins, you want some help in there knocking her out?" to which I promptly had to laugh and try to recapture the fact that he's trying to scare her. I could only imagine her reaction to the Captain (but they might dig each other's hair, which I had not even noticed until I went to edit it), Techie and Al, though I could never forgive myself for blatantly stealing trophies that are not mine.

HOPE YOU LIKED IT GIRLS! HUG SQUISHYKINS FOR ME, PLEASE!

Oh yeah, and review to let me know what you thought of it, everyone who took time out of their busy schedule to read this. I'd really appreciate it, since I had maybe twenty other things I should have been doing while writing this. Shame on me.