"No, your thumb goes here, if you punch somebody like that, you'll break your fingers."
When he was younger, back in high school, where out of fear kids seem to fight each other. Everyone always fears the Other, the person opposite you, staring, a mind that you have no power over, no control. They stare at you, and can judge you, and hate you. It's this people fear, and high school students fear most. The Other will always have power by a simple glance, to destroy the Other, physical force is taken. And so when Jonathan Crane watched the other kids, just out of an inability to speak to them, they attacked him. He had always been called Scarecrow, he was always tall for his age, always as thin as a stick. Despite being worked to death by a grandparent, his frame never built any muscle. And so they'd yell scarecrow, and they'd use their fists to make him stop staring.
"Now you, see, you sort of curve your arm. Don't! Don't stretch your arm all the way out, keep your elbow bent at least a little, or you'll break your arm."
And there was a girl, a year older than him, who had an appreciation for literature, and a great love for Shakespeare. One day in the Library they found each other. He had gotten a book she wanted, and he managed to tell her that he was willing for her to take it. It was "Hamlet."
"No, don't do that." Harley's laughing.
She takes his tiny fist in her soft hands, putting his thumb back where it should be. She smiles as she does it, smiles this really beautiful smile. It has an infectious nature, and he finds himself smiling.
"I'm starting to think you're not doing this right on purpose, Jono."
So the girl, in all her infinite wisdom, told him that they should go have lunch and decide on Hamlet's fate after lunch. He thinks back to her, and wonders why on Earth she would have made such a bold move. He was supposed to be home to clean the bedrooms, and he had worked hard to fit time to go to the Library, and his grandmother was going to scold him and make him say his prayers, but when she asked him, he said yes.
"You're the psychologist, right?" She asked him as she munched so carefully on a sandwich. "That's what the others say you're gonna be."
"I wasn't aware others said anything about me."
"Well, yeah, they say you're gonna be a psychologist, and that you're a little weird."
"I don't mean to be."
"My original point was, as a psychologist, do you believe Hamlet's antic disposition is an act, or is it sincere? Was he just acting crazy, or did he really go insane?"
"Don't you know?"
"Well, I have my opinion, but I'd like to hear yours."
"Oh."
She stared at him waiting for him to speak, but he didn't really understand, as no one had cared for his opinion before. She had to nudge him, and laugh at him to get him to speak.
"I believe, Hamlet, was merely acting. I think it's very difficult to become insane, and nearly impossible when you intentionally want to become insane."
"I don't think Hamlet wanted to become insane."
"Well, I meant, he was willingly taking on this…new identity. But it's strange, as he's acting, he is able to truly express himself. Able to mock others in words they don't understand, able to make the King afraid of him."
"Afraid?"
"The King feared Hamlet, feared that perhaps it was all an act. And somehow he knew. That's the key to fear. It's knowing people as they really are."
"Huh."
She smiles at him, like Harley does now. They finished their lunch and he went home where his grandmother scolded him and made him do his prayers and made him go to bed with no supper. A boy, nearly a man, sent to bed with no supper still at his age.
But the others saw him with her that day at lunch. And they followed him passed the scarecrow down the road that led to his home. And they used their fists because it was all they could think of to use. Because somehow they had deemed that he was unworthy of this girl who had asked him for lunch in the first place.
He's looking in the mirror then as Harley watches him from the bed. He looks at the familiar black eye staring back at him.
"Does it hurt? I could go get some ice." She says.
"No, no, it's fine. Nothing a mask can't hide."
She looks to the drawer where the face of Scarecrow hangs, and her hate beside it.
"Where'd you come up with that, John?" She asks.
He looks at her, unwilling to speak, but she bites her lips.
"Come on, I'll tell you if you tell me."
"Some kids, they decided it'd be funny one day to tie me to a stick like some kind of scarecrow." He tells her as he starts to straighten his cuffs and tie.
He looks up, expecting her to go.
"Oh. Well, I uh, this is embarrassing, it was just this thing I saw at a costume shop, and I liked it." She laughs at herself.
"And then you wear his face."
"Yes. I do."
She gets up suddenly, reminded of the hard facts of the day. She was a morning person and she always got up early but was slow in getting her day started. She lingered with John in that room, talking, endlessly, and needlessly, almost foolishly. But she stood and she planned out the day.
"We'll find him today." She says. "A few days missing, but today we'll find him. Nigma, we'll find him, and there will be Mister J, not too roughed up, and I'll grab him the moment I see him."
He watches her from the bathroom, finishing his tie.
"Why do you love him?"
"Because, he made me free. And I will become insane for him."
"You and I are just acting on antic dispositions. But you, you want to become insane, truly?"
"Yes. It's the only way to be like him. It's the only way he'll see me."
"If you become insane, I'll be the only sane one left in Gotham."
"You don't think I can do it."
"I don't want you to do it."
"Come on, John, you know you want it too."
He looks away.
"I see the Madman's Wisdom, and I do my best to live by it, but to lose my reason, my insight. I don't know."
"You'll lose nothing of worth, the Madman's mind is worth a hundred reasonable men's."
She turns back to him, frowning.
"Lets not fight. Lets get back on talking. How about this? Who was the first person you ever killed?" She asks.
He stares.
"Okay, I'll go first. A guard, he was about to shoot him."
He straightens his glasses and looks at her.
"My grandmother, when I left for college. Then I tried to kill my mother, who handed me over to the damn woman in the first place."
Harley stares.
"But you didn't…?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Batman stopped me."
She looked up at him and for the first time felt their difference in age and experience. She had lived a happy life before all this. But there, trying to boast, she was standing in front of man who deserved the gift of madness. He deserved to be free from the burden his memories gave him, free of caring what others think, free of caring about anything at all. And she sat there talking about wanting to be insane when her only reason for it was because someone didn't really love her as she was, someone she knew she shouldn't be with in the first place. She felt embarrassed, she felt ashamed, she was blushing and looking away.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know." She says.
"You were never teased in school were you?"
She looks up.
"No. Look at you. All your life you have been given all you want. You may have worked some, seen things as if the world were against you. But you are a beautiful, young, smart woman. And you know you could have anything you want. But you've found yourself wanting the one thing that you can't. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?"
"I'm not afraid of anything, Harley. I don't fear other people, what they think, what they'll do to me, I don't fear death, I'm completely free. I am me, as I am, and I will always be that. But you. You're still waiting for something to happen to you. You have so much fear. You're afraid of him, afraid of him leaving you, afraid of not being able to ever be what you must be in order for him to maybe love you back."
She stares at him, a hard and constant stare. If she didn't blink, she knew she wouldn't cry. And she didn't, even as the water began to collect in her eyes, she didn't cry. She just stared up at him.
"But don't you get lonely?"
"Of course I do. But I'm not afraid of being lonely. I don't mind it."
"You don't ever want to find someone to be with?"
"If it happens, then it will happen. But I gave up on such ambitions, I'm not going to actively seek out something I can do without."
"You don't want someone to love you?"
"I love me."
She couldn't wrap her head around it. She was incapable of it. She had become dependent on the idea of romantic love, of the merging of two people, and she was willing to give up everything to achieve this, everything. She could not live with herself, all the things she's done, all the blood on her hands. She couldn't live with herself without the thought that it was all worth something, and maybe the Joker was right about the world.
She saw why he was the renowned psychologist, and she was the one trying to make a name for herself.
"See? You've lost control of the situation, of our conversation, of us, and you're afraid." He told her.
"Yeah? Well. You punch like a girl." She smiled.
They dumped their current car for one that Harley hijacked. She was driving at the moment and the sun was going down, it was almost time for work to begin. He looked at her differently then, she was still beautiful and smart, but there was a certain tragedy to her as well. She was young, that was her flaw. She was a young woman who seemed so unnatural shooting up bars and breaking limbs. He belonged in this city, he knew that, he came here prepared, he was already a killer before Gotham. But Harley had lived her life without such scars, she came to Gotham, and Gotham made her a killer. It all seemed so, misplaced.
But as they drove to Nigma, she started crying. He went to place his hand on her shoulder.
"Don't touch me." she said.
And he didn't. He stared at the window until nightfall, and she kept on crying.
When they got to Nigma's she was fine. His place was fairly well known, the egomaniac he was did a good job advertising his whereabouts and his schemes. Edward Nigma loved riddles, but he loved attention far more. His acts of crime where cries of attention, the more the merrier, and that's why he'd call news stations and newspapers and random people to tell them when something was going to happen. It was an abandoned storage warehouse by the bay.
He followed her closely, his mask covering everything it needed to, in his hand he brought his little scythe.
Two guards blocked their entrance, and when they saw the two of them emerging out of the dark they straightened up, afraid and surprised anyone was bothering to come by there. She was going to walk right passed them, but one of them grabbed her shoulder. She grabbed his wrist and broke it, and looked at the other one, who backed away. John applauded her efficiency.
When they got in it was mostly empty. Apart from the giant television on the other side with giant couches surrounding that TV. A stereo blasted music as loud as it could from an ipod track list, lights made the void look more like a rave than anything else. And there Nigma sat, playing some war game on Xbox live with complete strangers, yelling riddles into the mic.
She lifted up her gun, and fired into the ceiling.
He jumped out the his chair, and John couldn't help but chuckle. But Harley was in no mood to laugh.
"WHERE IS HE!?" She screamed, her voice grower louder than the stereo.
"WHAT!?" Edward Nigma yelled.
She shot the stereo, silencing it.
"Where is he?"
Nigma stood on his couch looking back at them. He had on a green blazer and purple pants with a big question mark belt buckle. He stared for a moment then grinned.
"Well, well, well, what's red, and black, and really pissed off?" He laughed at her.
She lifted her gun and fired at him. But he jumped out of the way behind the couch, he grabbed his cane and jumped out from the couch. He ran at her, rolling out the way of bullets, and then jumping up and slamming his cane in her head.
"HAH!" he grinned.
He swung at John then, but John backed away, he kicked for John's head, and John ducked. He sliced for the stomach, and John jumped back. Finally, he slammed down Nigma's cane with his scythe. He put his wrist to his face and released that fear toxin. Nigma jumped back and spun the toxin away with his cane. John knew how to fight bullies, he backed away and allowed Nigma to attack. He blocked the cane once more. It stopped the cane and Harley came up from behind him with a kick to his neck.
He fell over quickly and started coughing. Harley put him between her legs and kicked his cane away. She cocked the gun and put it this temple. John put his hand on her shoulder.
"Where is he?"
He coughed up something from his throat before looking over at her through his mask.
"Who?" He asks.
"You know who! The Joker!"
"Your boyfriend?"
"YES!!!"
She fired the gun. Even John jumped. And there beside Nigma's nose was a hole in the ground where the bullet fell. He stared at it for a moment, and smelled the smoke.
"You crazy bitch!" Nigma yelled.
She pressed the gun on his temple again.
"I don't know!" He screamed.
"Harley…"
"I don't know, god damn it!"
"You're lying."
"I don't know!"
"Harley!"
John gripped her shoulder, and she looked up at him, tears in her eyes. Nigma crawled away from her in a rush, she lifted the gun so it followed him. He sat up and put up his hands.
"Look. I don't know anything about the Joker. I stay away from him, everyone does." Nigma said.
"He escaped Arkham a few days ago. We have sources that say you have something to do with his missing." John said.
Nigma stared for a moment.
"You're such a poser." Harley shook her head.
"Excuse me?" Nigma sat up.
"You're nothing, Nigma. You're just a guy with an attention problem, and you yell and scream so much you've got everyone convinced you're crazy. You're not crazy. You're a genius. A loud, obnoxious, unoriginal, genius."
"…Unoriginal?"
"Where'd you get purple and green from, loser!?"
She lifts the gun again and John lowers it.
"Just answer the question, Nigma." He tells Edward.
"I just noticed, what are you two doing together? Does 'Mistah J' know?"
They stare at him.
"Hurm, what could bring you two together? Hang on, give me a minute, I'm real good at these." He puts his chin to his hand and thinks.
"He's not lying, Joker's not here." John tells her.
"He knows something, look at that slimely smile." She points the gun. "What do you know, Riddler?"
His grin grows.
"I like that, calling me 'Riddler,'" he sighs "The clown prince of crime is with his two best friends."
"Batman and who?"
Riddler grins, picking up his cane. He starts brushing himself off, grinning a stupid grin.
"Batman and who?" Harley repeated.
John looked at her, she suddenly looked like she was going to cry again. There was the answer and she couldn't figure it out. But he could.
"Harvey Dent." John said.
"Huh?" She looks up.
Riddler starts laughing.
"If it was Batman, he would've said 'lover.'" John explains.
"It's true, everyone knows what a crush your boyfriend has on the Bat." Riddler chimes in.
"Harvey Dent, Two-face." John tells her.
She smiles and grabs John, hugging him, jumping up down, so very happy.
"Let's go! We can still find him!"
She turned on her heel and began running for the door, as if all the anger for the Riddler had escaped her, replaced only by her new target. John lingered for a moment, holding out his arms for her hug that had passed him by. He turned and watched her exit the warehouse.
Riddler was still laughing.
"So, you and Harley, huh?" He grinned. "I saw that. I saw what you did there. Here's a good one, just for you, Scarecrow. How does a guy like you, get a girl like her?"
The doors were suddenly shut.
"The answer is, you don't."
And Riddler's cane was hit into the back of Jonathan Crane's head.
-------
I always thought of the Riddler as just being a crazy-attention-whore. A genius, a guy who knows he's smarter than you, and knows he can get out of any situation. He's cocky, but he's also insane. And being insane he loves to have fun. So I imagined him screaming riddles into the mic as he played Halo 3 or something. But that's just me.