AN: 'Fear of Halloween'. One more. One more…and it's so beautiful. Well. Not for Batman. But shh…
McStaken-Dolls suck. And yeah...though the fact that you could go through pretty much anything was nice. (Until I drove off a rooftop for the third time in a row, that was bad.) Well, I did have her on my operating table...but shh.
Qatzol-Thanks!
Forbidden Moons-I didn't realize he was in that part of the sewers. Oh, he won't! People keep moving here despite it all.
Halloween in Gotham is…complicated. On one hand, the city will invariably suffer some sort of horrible Scarecrow-related incident. On the other hand, Gotham is nothing if not stubborn, and it celebrates anyway with decorations and candy.
Jonathan Crane resents this. Every year-every damn year!-he does something to them. Why. Haven't. They. Learned. Four years now, he's been active. Four. Years.
And yet, there they all are, putting out little bowls of candy and embarrassingly tacky 'Happy Halloween!' signs and fake pumpkins.
At least they've stopped putting up cartoony scarecrows. They learned those were bad, at least. (Well, except for the occasional transplant, but other than that…)
Still. What he wants is for the streets to be deserted, for Halloween to be declared a day of emergency, for the general population to prove that they are slightly smarter than a box of rocks. Batman has learned. Even his little birds have learned-not that he ever lets any them out alone on Halloween. So why can't the Good People of Gotham comprehend that Halloween is not a day of celebration, it is a day of terror?
It really isn't that difficult of a concept to grasp.
He leans against the window, glass comfortably cold against his skin, and scowls at a cheery pumpkin sitting across the street. How dare it be cheery? It is a mockery of everything he stands for and he is not happy.
Not for the first time, he feels a surge of sympathy for the Grinch.
No matter. This will be the fifth year he's been truly active, and they're in for a real treat.
Gotham's annual Halloween Parade has gotten a lot smaller and a lot less popular over the past few years, but it's still done. 'Tradition', they say. Jonathan would call it 'stupidity', but no matter.
This might be its last year. That's certainly his intention. He despises the Jack-o-lantern inflatable, the giggling jesters, the witches flinging candy into the crowd.
But no matter. He thinks he'll rather enjoy himself this year.
Despite the public knowledge that today, of all days, should be a day to be wary of scarecrows, he avoids being seen as he makes his way through the throngs of fishnet-clad people, scythe in hand.
It's tragic, really, that the most notice he gets is a drunk frat boy laughing and saying, "Wiiiiicked scythe, maaaaan!"
Oh, it is. It truly is.
He'll have to hunt this one down later, see if his opinion remains the same.
The hated pumpkin is riding on a slow-moving wagon designed to look like a giant cart. A few people dressed as farmers are sitting with it, waving and smiling and throwing packs of candy corn (oh, to add insult to injury) at people. He's almost tempted to let them continue. Candy corn is one of the worst things to inflict upon the innocent. Where is Batman when you need him…oh, that's right, it's broad daylight, he's probably hanging upside-down somewhere.
Pity.
It's no trouble, none at all, to swing himself onto the ridiculous float. One of the farmers turns, smile dropping a little, and manages to get out a, "Hey, man, you're not s'posed ta-"
Then he swings the scythe, slicing the pumpkin neatly down the seam. Green (a little coloring, he wants them to know what's going to happen!) gas pours out, sweeping down the street in a cloud of terror.
While two of the farmers attack each other, screaming and clawing, the Scarecrow leans on his scythe and smiles.
Happy Halloween, Gotham.
THE END