Author's note: For a long time I'd been wanting to do this, but after an epic fail with a fourteen chapter fanfic of "Criminal Minds", I decided that if I did it, it'd have to be a one-shot.
A long time back, I thought to myself, "Why doesn't the Scarecrow have a henchgirl?" So, I actually had a sort of half-asleep dream of the scene with the girl in the warehouse, and Scarecrow is describing fear. Thus, The Rag Doll was born. (Yeah, yeah. There's already a Rag Doll in the DC universe, but come on! They're never gonna put him in a TDK movie or anything!) I hadn't given much thought to her past, origin, or relationship with Scarecrow until now. I didn't want her too run-of-the-mill, but I didn't want to recreate Harley Quinn. So, hopefully I did my job right.
Using the Batman of Nolanverse, I created this. The setting is just after "Batman Beings", and the events of "The Dark Knight" pass during the fic.
Thanks so much for reading!
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Tossing her color treated black curls, she glanced cautiously left and right before pounding the ninth-floor button on the elevator. If this was going to be done, it had to be done right. She needed to be ready – presentable – for him.
She had always been ambitious, but this was different. This was illegal, and quite frankly, insane. Daddy sure wouldn't like it, but then he never approved of anything she did.
Her heart jumped as the elevator opened onto the ninth floor, almost expecting for a moment the Batman to be looming above her, warning her of the chaos she was getting into. But nobody – nothing – was there.
Taking a breath, and pulling her cloak tighter over her newly bought pistol, she swept down the hall of swanky apartment rooms; quite aware of the danger of a single soul exiting their room, and seeing such a suspicious looking girl of Arkham passing by.
The Joker had told her that she would do this; he had had freed himself from the grasp of the Arkham guards just to whisper in her ear, stopping every few words to lick his lips: "Ya know, doll – you look like the type of girl that needs to – let loose – belongs with us. Sooner or later – well, sooner or later you will be."
She'd stomped his foot, sending him into fits of manic laughter, as the guards thrust him into a straightjacket, but he was right. Here she was, doing the impossible. And for what? The glamor? The fight against the Bat? The money, or the fame? No. None of these things mattered. It was all for him. Gotham's first masked man.
The Scarecrow.
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It had been a simple operation; kidnap the girl and make Daddy cough up the ransom. He had needed the cash if he intended to produce more of his wondrous toxin. The daughter of Dr. Jeremiah Arkham would certainly have plenty to give up.
Of course there were other ways of getting money, but Crane had never liked Dr. Arkham; he was weak, and somewhat skittish. If he hadn't avoided coming to work so often he would have wound up similar to most of Crane's 'patients'. It was high-time for a little punishment.
She hadn't put up that much of a fight. She never understood why herself, but after a while she was quite glad she hadn't. Her submissiveness and gullibility had always been severe, but this was different. Perhaps it ran in the family. Daddy wasn't the sanest person she knew, and everyone had always called her strange as she sat alone in school scrawling dark images in her notebook.
He'd come alone, and she didn't get the chance to see his face before some substance knocked her out. She awoke to darkness, and a single dusty beam of grey Gotham light casting down from the ceiling of what appeared to be a warehouse. She winced at the light, and instinctively brought her hand to her throbbing head, surprised that she wasn't tied or restrained in any way. Well, he was confident.
"What a beautiful dress, Miss Arkham," a voiced cooed from the darkness.
She glanced quickly down upon her black, regal, almost Gothic dress (everyone, even Daddy, had always thought her everyday dress-sense peculiar), before addressing the voice:
"Who are you, and why am I here?" Her voice sounded dead, even to herself, almost like a cliché line from a movie.
How could she know what lay beyond the shadows? How could she know his intent?
He had resisted the urge to use his toxin on her during the capture; he needed her alive – for a while, anyway. He had sat there for hours in the pale light, watching her lay lifeless on the cement floor, taking in every detail of Dr. Arkham's treasure; a face that seemed sad even in sleep. Sad, yet emotionless. He had decided then and there he would make her feel. What stronger feeling than fear?
Starring, blankly, at his tattered mask he waited, quietly, for the right moment.
She stood, clumsily, moving into the light. By then she had realized who he was. They had spoken a few brief moments back when everyone assumed him sane, and she knew the voice. She had never forgotten it.
Slinking though the shadows, he moved behind her before speaking once more:
"Have you ever felt?" he asked, not expecting an answer. "Have you ever felt happiness, or anger? Have you ever felt the bliss of friendship, only to be crushed with sadness and regret?"
She knew she should cower – that's what scared woman did – but she wasn't afraid.
"Have you ever felt fear, Miss Arkham?" His voiced now loomed, low and warm, against her ear; a voice as dead as hers had been just a moment before – as hers had always sounded. "Have you ever felt your emotions suddenly peak into a rush of senseless thought, for just a split second, before leveling into a heart pounding adrenaline that sends you running? You run, without telling yourself to; without knowing why. That's the mind's power over the body, Emilia." She closed her eyes submissively at her name, as he brushed a curl behind her ear. "That's the power of fear."
With that he gave into his temptations and quickly jerking on his mask let his toxin poison the air she breathed.
She coughed at the sudden change of humidity.
Grasping her chin, he forced her to bring her eyes to his masked figure. But her features did not distort in panic, and she did not claw at his hand on her face. She didn't scream, or cry. She stared –in interest, rather than horror.
At that moment, the one thing he wanted she did not give him:
Fear.
Perhaps that's why he'd let her go. He couldn't be certain himself. She made him feel something he had never felt, though he couldn't describe it. She seemed dead, yet the most living person he'd ever known.
She had begun feeling the same, the moment he had come behind her, whispering, warmly, into her ear. She had seen it when they'd met, such a long time before. He seemed dead, yet the most living person she'd ever known. That feeling, she knew, could only be one of two things – and she already knew the feeling of insanity.
Upon returning home, she told no one of what had happened. It wasn't long after that the Batman captured him, sending him back to Arkham, but this time as an inmate rather than a doctor. She watched intently as the footage plastered GCN. They pushed and shoved him into Arkham as though he wasn't even human. A cop even squeezed through the crowd and hit him, three times, and no one even glanced his way. Her heart broke at his sad eyes, as a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. Maybe that's what made her snap, or maybe she already had long before. She hated the Batman. This was all his fault. If he hadn't intervened so annoyingly back when Jonathan first emerged as Scarecrow…
She didn't give it a second thought – if she had even given it a first. Her mind decided for her, and her body simply followed, like the dead corpse it was.
She wouldn't let her father's own asylum treat him that way. She wouldn't stand for such betrayal. No, she would do the unthinkable.
She needed armory, and allies. She had to know what she was doing. Months passed before she was ready, in which time the city ran amuck at the treat of a green-haired terrorist they called, the Joker. Gotham's favorite Lieutenant, Jim Gordon, was killed, and was resurrected as Commissioner. Daddy had so-called 'doubled security' on Arkham when the Joker was caught, but that was the least of her worries. The prince of Gotham rebuilt his precious castle, and Arkham finally replaced Dr. Crane with a young (inexperienced, in Emilia's eyes) girl, Dr. Harleen Quinzel.
But finally Emilia was ready. She was ready to let out the girl that she had locked away so deep inside herself.
Tonight she would break him out of Arkham, and Gotham City would meet her anew.
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The dress was badly torn, and tattered. She had scuffed it up pretty badly getting home through the dirty Gotham alleyways so many months before. Her stockings were in even worse shape, but it served her purpose; she needed to look dirty, and thrown away. It was perfectly natural for her alter ego. Besides, he liked it – he made a point of saying so – so what did it matter if it was a little torn and soiled?
Pulling her stocking up to meet the other, she ran her finger along the huge run up the back of her leg. Yes, it served her purpose well.
She slipped on her black Mary-Jane's, and stood straight, overlooking the deranged, pale, thrown away girl in the mirror. It was darker than her usual appearance – quite frightening, in fact. But that's the way it had to be.
But it wasn't there yet. Grabbing her hairbrush, she tangled with her usually perfectly placed curls (noticing too late that she'd forgotten to touch up the brown roots showing), until she was somewhere between homeless, and abused.
To top off her ensemble, a touch of dark grey lipstick, contrasting perfectly against her porcelain skin. The sash was a bit much though, considering his simple mask; that'd have to go.
Emilia stared blankly at the 33 caliber lying, tauntingly, on her pillow. Tucking it into her stocking she prayed she wouldn't have to use it – but she knew she would if the time came.
She exited her apartment though the fire-escape; she wasn't ready for Gotham to see her yet. She had pulled her car around back beforehand, so that she wouldn't be seen leaving.
Pushing her key into the ignition, she glanced one last time at herself in the rearview mirror. She smiled, a thing foreign to her, at the thought of his surprise when she came bursting in for him.
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There was no doubt. If there was one place that needed an asylum, it was the Narrows. Still, the darkest gloomiest part of Gotham, that many people swore never saw sunlight, was just the sort of place she liked.
Arkham Asylum; dark and haunting, yet quite inviting, as Emilia had been there with Daddy so often. She knew the layout perfectly, and much as they – as Daddy tried, Arkham security was horrible. There were security guards, lots of them, with guns. Most of those security guards had dogs. But, nearly all of them had excused themselves from work one way or another, as they did every day. And the remaining handful was distracted with food, conversation, or sleep. As for the dogs, Emilia often questioned whether they were even trained or not.
Patting the gun in her stocking, to be sure it was still there, she slinked passed the guards, and up to the madhouse.
"Thank goodness for Harleen," she whispered to herself, as she entered the prison's back door.
When she had met Dr. Quinzel, she had noticed the unprofessionalism in just the way she spoke. But unprofessionalism was an understatement. Little Miss Quinzel, as it turned out, was just the sort of ally Emilia was looking for. She was an expert bomb maker that knew enough of the right people to fake a physiatrist, and had gotten involved with the Joker earlier on in his career. She had snaked her way into the Wonderful World of Arkham to free him, and a few of her other looney pals. Upon request, Harley agreed to stay late at Arkham, and as she put it, "with a little bit of pixy dust," switch off the security cameras and alarms. Because of her, this would be easier than Emilia had ever planned.
Emilia tip-toed quietly (as quietly as possible with Mary-Janes) down the grey and white halls of Arkham, nearing the old-fashioned elevator that would be her one-way ticket to the cells. Most of the doctors were off duty at 3am, and although an occasional guard paced the floors, she managed to keep out of sight, blending perfectly with the shadows. Besides, if anyone did catch her, they couldn't rightly throw out the daughter of Dr. Arkham himself.
Elevators always seemed to take so long to Emilia. She tapped her foot, impatiently awaiting the best part of her little game – winning. She didn't have a plan for afterwards. She didn't know where they'd go, or what they'd do. She'd leave that up to him.
Finally the elevator came to a rusty halt. She knew which cell was his. She'd asked Daddy, inconspicuously.
Her heart began to pound as she approached #163. She reached for her gun, knowing no other way to get in, when suddenly,
"You there! Halt!" cried the guard at the other end of the hallway, running towards her, gun un-holstered. Emilia's mind raced, for a split second, not knowing what to do. She wasn't sure what happened after that. There was a bang, and the guard fell to the floor, clutching his thigh, as a roar of screams and cheers arose from the inmates watching intently from the small windows in their cells.
She looked down at the smoking gun in her hand, but her mind was blank to emotion. It seemed it always went blank when something sudden and unexpected happened.
Turning back to the cell, she glanced up to the window, but he wasn't there. She hadn't expected him to; he wouldn't care about the commotion.
Pulling the lethal trigger once more, and then again, at the padlock (one more of Arkham's flaws: poor locks), the door came perfectly loose, and with one last shot swung open, the inmates' screams growing louder.
He was alone, almost as if they thought him too unpredictable to share a cell. He sat on the unkempt cot, hands folded, and looking down, as if it was everyday someone broke him out of prison.
Finally looking up, piercing her with lazy blue eyes, he simply asked, "You again?"
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Someone must have fixed the alarms, because Arkham's screeching sirens echoed through all of the Narrows.
They were both out of breath before they reached her car on the other side of the bridge, but they had quite the head start on the ol' GCPD. Still not knowing where to go, or what to do, she jumped into the passengers' side, and let him speed off into the night. He knew where he was going, at least.
Leaving the sirens and the city behind, they slowed down, approaching a familiar spot, outside of town.
Crane pulled into the brush to keep the car from being seen, turned off the car, closed his eyes, leaned back, and sighed a sigh of relief. Emilia studied him from the corner of her eye for the longest time before he opened his eyes and looked her way.
"You couldn't have done this three months ago?"
Emilia smirked and crossed her arms. "I didn't have to do it at all."
He stared at her for a moment, as though trying to figure out her drastic change, before getting out of the car. She followed, recognizing the dark warehouse in the night shadows at once.
"We can't stay here long," he said, looking it over. "Maybe a day. They'll find us too easily if we're not on the move." Emilia nodded, walking around the car to join him on the other side. "Besides, I'll need a new mask."
Emilia's eyes lit up as she remembered. "No you won't," she said, opening the back door of the car. She pulled out something brown, like a sack, and closed the car door. It was his old mask.
A look of surprise, and almost gratitude, crossed his face, as he took it from her. Studying it for a moment to be sure it was the way he'd left it, he lifted his gaze, questioningly.
"Let's just say I know the right people," she said with a wink and a sly smile.
Silence passed between the two, as questions built in Crane's mind. Finally, choosing to keep his questions to himself, and said quietly, "You'll need a name."
"I have one, Jonathan," she replied, daring to use his name. "I'm your Rag Doll."
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So! Hopefully not too bad. I thought it was OK myself. Once again, thanks for reading! Reviews are welcome!