Tick…..

"You had enough time to kill her if you wanted to, Crane."

Tick…

"She isn't everything you hate,"

Tick…..

"She's everything you fear."

KABLAMM!

Numerous times in Jonathan Crane's former life had he been rejected of many things. Books, music, new clothes…love.

When he was in high school, the time where puberty had just starting to kick in and everyone was getting into relationships, he stayed after school for extra tutoring in his chemistry classes. He never fit in then, even with the smart kids. He had never quite fit into anything really, maybe that was why the bullies picked on him the most. Of course things had changed up a bit when he graduated. He became a professor of psychiatry, a respected…well more respected than he was before, member of society. Fears were his passion and the mind had been and still was his playground.

However, old scars do not fade it seemed as he went to work at the very school he had been taunted most at. Oh how things had changed. Strangers were no longer picking on him to his face; instead they went behind his back in the form of his fellow professors. He could still hear their taunts like it was yesterday.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

"You're coming to the party I'm giving tonight, don't forget."

"All except one, eh? He looks so shabby in those old clothes, positively weird."

"He earns the same salary we do, why doesn't he buy some decent clothes?"

"He spends every cent he earns to buy new books!"

"Poor Crane! He looks like a Scarecrow in those clothes, he certainly is a queer fellow..."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

As it seemed fair at the time, he went behind theirs too, plucking the people that wouldn't be missed and examining them under bright lights as his newly developed fear toxin soared through their veins.

Of course the good-for-nothing board of directors didn't agree on his teaching strategies. He was dismissed. Not that he cared really. The university was small, community at most. He could do much better he had thought. But first, came his revenge. He would show all of the board what they had done, that it was a mistake to fire him.

And so he had terrorized the school with vandalism, thievery and kidnappings. How it had been worth it, if anything went wrong they blamed it on "The Scarecrow" haunting the place. Then Batman had to step in and ruin it all by exposing his identity and putting him on display like a maniac in Arkham. From that point on he was an outcast again. Looking back, he realized that he had always been an outcast no matter how he changed the perspective.

And so that was what had him leaping over the shrubs, ducking under thorns and hiding in the tree tops of the forests surrounding Gotham.

Jonathan lost count of how many times he had relived this same scene in his life. Escape, get caught, escape, get caught, like a maddening roller coaster. No, he had been through too many cycles, this time he wasn't going back.

He needed to think about what was doing in life. As you could probably guess, Arkham wasn't the best place to mull over the fine points of your existence, so of course a break out was in order. Maybe he needed to star over again, go from scratch.

Perhaps start teaching again. He really had enjoyed it when the students were actually listening. Yes, that sounded like an acceptable start. Oh but Scarecrow was far from done. He just needed to be hidden for a while, until the heat was off of him, a few months, a few years? Crane could wait. And just when no one expected it, the master of fear would come back to strike.