This one's taken me a few days to pound out, but here it is! I would like to say thank you to everyone who gave me critiques and reviews, including Zeny, can'tthinkofasuitableusername, thelyonspenance, nessusmallum, and probably other people I'm forgetting. I hope you'll stick with this story, and continue to give me feedback!


Crane walked up to the sleazy bar where he had agreed to meet with Falcone. It was well known that the whole area was practically owned by the mobster, so most cops kept well away. As long as their pockets were lined, they were content to let any misdemeanors that might occur slide.

Jonathan wasn't a big fan of the place. Bodyguards and neon lights flickering in the windows welcomed him. The exterior had overflowing garbage cans and litter all around it. Everything looked germ-ridden and disgusting. He was no Mysophobe, but it never hurt to be cautious. Every time he came for a meeting, he was careful to touch nothing unless he absolutely had to.

In comparison to the outside, inside the décor was relatively high-brow. Relatively. Wood-paneled walls, creative lighting, a fireplace. The whole back wall was made of glass, where you could see a desk and several bookshelves in the room beyond it. Falcone's office. Despite all this, however, there was no disguising the fact that this was just a bar, pretensions aside. His shoes stuck to the tile floor, coated with spilled alcohol.

This time of day, there weren't many people just knocking back drinks, and there were no civilians out looking for a good time. These were all either dock workers, or Falcone's men. In some cases, both.

Had they known what he was capable of, what he had just done to two of their own, he would probably be looking down the barrels of half a dozen guns. The idea was almost enough to give him goosebumps.

Luckily for him, the two men he'd left in the alley would be unable to share their story. Eventually, they would exhaust themselves and pass out, to wake up with their memories of the events of the car ride nothing but a blur. The drug had somewhat amnesiac aftereffects, thanks to some of Dr. Crane's modifications.

If they knew what was good for them, they'd just shrug it off. Perhaps they'd knocked their heads on the dashboard in their near-collision, and lost bits of their memory. Perhaps.

As Crane crossed the black and white checked tile floor towards a booth in the back of the restaurant, he struggled to reel himself back in. It was best to talk to Falcone with complete focus. After all, the man was The Roman. But while he no longer felt the physical need to unleash fear upon those around him, it was difficult to suppress Scarecrow's reactions to their surroundings.

Ah. There he is. Looking as inflated as his misguided sense of self-worth.

Before he could sit at the table, one of Falcone's muscle men patted him down and checked him for any weapons. Crane couldn't stop himself from exhaling loudly and rolling his eyes.

At the sound, Falcone looked up at him, mid bite of something that looked fried and greasy. The older man was dressed in a grey suit, with a napkin tucked in around his neck. He looked quite unaffected by the younger man in any capacity, looking at him with as much interest as he would an impatient teenager.

He was, after all, untouchable. He didn't care about Jonathan's position of power. He had men of power on a leash, feeding them scraps under the table. He wasn't intimidated by the man's education, youth, or good looks. Falcone had the power of fear on his side.

But so did Dr. Crane.

Finally seated, Jonathan sat across from the man, watching him shovel food down, fork by forkful.

"Dr. Crane. Can I offer you anything? On me."

Crane declined, save for a glass of water, which he barely touched, although he was thirsty. The sheen of sweat on his forehead had begun to cool in the air conditioned building, and his heart rate was slowing. The water quenched him, and his more excitable self began to retreat with less effort than he would have thought.

He waited for the man to finish. They made no conversation. Falcone and Crane had little in common to talk about that could be discussed outside of the back office. A newspaper was laying on the table, so Crane picked it up and began to leaf through the pages.

The biggest headline, right on the front page, read "The Prince of Gotham, Billionaire Bruce Wayne, Makes His Return From The Dead."

"Wonder where he's been all this time, eh?" Falcone said aloud. "Probably jet setting around, spending what his father left behind bit by bit. But who can blame him, eh?"

"Well, I certainly wouldn't grudge him the ability to spend his inheritance how he sees fit. However, I can't help but remark on the irresponsibility of allowing the world to think you're dead for seven years."

Crane really had no opinion either way on the matter, and so closed the paper and sat back in his seat, universal language for "this conversation is over." Instead, he contented himself with sitting as still as possible, while glancing down at the crossword puzzle on the back of the paper, still visible to him.

Shortly enough, Carmine stood and gestured for Crane to follow him. In a few short steps, they were in his office, the window at his back. And now to the business at hand.

About a week ago, Crane had made a now-routine appearance in court, to testify as to the mental state of a criminal. The man was one of dozens of Falcone's men who had managed to get himself caught, and who would soon be an inmate at Arkham Asylum. Crane would testify that Falcone's men were mentally unstable, "treat" them at Arkham, and then soon after would be pronounced "cured" and would return to a life of street crime. This was all part of the deal Crane and the League had with Falcone in exchange for bringing in the shipments of the powdered blue flower for Crane's toxin.

However, after this particular trial, he had been approached by an assistant D.A. who had been making some pretty troubling accusations. Finally, someone, it seemed, was on to him.

Crane began. "No more favors. Someone is sniffing around."

"Hey, I scratch your back, you scratch mine, doc. I'm bringing in the shipments."

Crane made a bewildered face, brow furrowing slightly and his eyes narrowing, his neck jutting out a bit. What did Falcone's bringing in the shipments have to do with anything? Was he telling Crane he himself should be doing something about the interloper exchange for the service? That was not part of the deal. "We are paying you for that," Crane said with disbelief.

"Maybe money isn't as interesting to me as favors."

Crane felt a rush of anger and frustration, and an itchy feeling on his skin. His clothes felt like they were coated with straw. Scarecrow was with him. Typical gangster type. Why does it always have to be about "favors?"

Jaw stiff, Crane took off his glasses and looked Falcone straight in the eyes. It was textbook body language, showing his resistance to Falcone's words. He looked at Falcone with hard, unsympathetic eyes.

"I am more than aware that you are not intimidated by me, Mr. Falcone. But you know who I'm working for, and when he gets here -"

"He- he's coming to Gotham?" Falcone stuttered his sentence. Now we're getting somewhere.

"Yes, he is. And when he gets here, he's not going to want to hear that you have endangered our operation just to get your thugs out of a little jail time." Crane's voice had become dangerously cold. Falcone was making eye contact with him, just as intended. He held contact, not allowing the man to look away.

Finally he managed to break away from Dr. Crane's gaze. "Who's bothering you?" It's hard to shake a man like Falcone, but the mention of the imminent arrival of The League of Shadows in Gotham City had struck a note with the man.

"There's a girl at the DA's office." Rachel Dawes, assistant D.A. and unfathomable pest. When they had last encountered each other, after the trial, she had been more than forthright about her ideas. In fact, she had blatantly called him corrupt. Which, even though it may have been true, ground at him immeasurably.

He was doing everything he could, and everything he had been told to do by both The League and Falcone to make sure everything would run smoothly. If a lowly D.A.'s assistant could figure out what was going on, if they were that close to being exposed, well, it was by no fault of his. If it was up to him, he would be in the Asylum's basement, analyzing chemical compounds, not on the stand. Still, his pride made it impossible for him to shrug her words off.

"We'll buy her off," suggested Falcone.

"Not this one." She was too good for that. She clearly saw herself as some sort of hero, an unshakable pillar of righteousness in a corrupt justice system. She wanted to change the world. But evolution takes time, and she was little more than a cog in a fiercely turning machine. A cog that sticks out like that either gets crushed by the other wheels or jams the whole thing. She had to be dealt with.

"Ah. Idealist, eh? Well there's an answer to that too."

"I don't want to know."

"Yes you do."

There was a pause. Crane looked Falcone right in the eyes and gave him the slightest of smiles.


All my love again, m.