CHAPTER 2

FEAR TOXIN

❝ Give a man a mask and he will show you his true face. ❞

Eleanor had lost count to the number of people she had talked to, or argued with, over the past few days, from police officers to lawyers to district attorney's assistants, and yet they all blurred into a single indistinctive face in her mind, stopping her from remembering any of them. There was only one face that stood out amongst the dust in the corners of her brain, and that was Dr. Jonathan Crane's, with its chiseled angles and eyes of ice.

It had been five days since she was arrested and she was still at the police station awaiting trial; Mr. Jones, the man she had attacked, had survived, so she was going to be accused of second degree attempted murder. Everything was taking too long for her liking; she had thought of all places Gotham wouldn't be one to care much about bureaucracy, but apparently, she was wrong.

Some nurses had even draw blood from her on Jonathan's request for some analysis, but she hadn't seen him since that first day, a fact she wasn't happy about given as how he had proven to be the only source of entertainment she had managed to have in the entire week. The doctor intrigued her, and she couldn't explain why, but she found herself hoping he would walk in through that door and break the monotony of her days.

And by the end of the week, her wishes were granted. After a succession of days in which all minutes and hours seemed the same, Eleanor was sitting with her head resting on the table and her eyes closed in an attempt to get some sleep when she heard a faint knock on the door, followed by someone opening it without waiting for her reply.

"Why did you bring these?" Eleanor heard the police officer by the door asking whoever had just come in. She didn't bother to look up, she was too exhausted to do so.

"My patient prefers cupcakes," as soon as she heard his voice, Eleanor's head snapped up, to him, and their eyes touched violently, droplets of ice against the softest of blues, and instantly Eleanor felt very awake, as if she had just drunk three cups of coffee in a row. For some reason Jonathan had the same reinvigorating effect on her.

"I'm not your patient," Eleanor replied, unable to prevent one side of her lips from curling up when she saw the box of cupcakes he was holding. She knew it wasn't a gesture of kindness as much as it was a way to win her over, but still, he could have dismissed her request and not bring her anything at all.

"I told you. From now on, you are," the doctor retorted, his eyes finally flicking back to the guard. "Wait outside please, I'd like to have a talk with Miss Tadman."

Only when the officer closed the door behind him did Jonathan move from his place and placed his grey case on the table in front of her. But instead of sitting across from her he stopped behind her, fishing a key out of his pocket.

"How did you get that?"

"I'm full of surprises," he said simply, crouching down to where her cuffed hands were. "May I?"

"Yes," Eleanor found herself nodding, and the doctor didn't waste time, his cold fingers brushing against the skin of her inner wrist as he unchained her handcuffs. It was a quick movement and it was over in a second but Eleanor still felt her skin burning in the place where he'd touched it.

He sat across from her in the white, bright cell, his stare scanning her face quickly in that trained gesture that told her this was a man that was used to study people as if they were an open book, but Eleanor was no such thing. She was a very closed one, and if he tried to open her, he'd see she was written in an entirely different language he'd never be able to comprehend. Or so she hoped. She couldn't let him decipher her, not without her doing the same to him anyway. For some reason, she had the feeling that if she tried opening his book, all the pages would be blank. As if he was waiting for someone to write on them, or perhaps hiding his true self under a mask of brightness.

"I'm sorry it's been so long since our last encounter, I've had some troubles with... the assistant district attorney," his voice was veiled and contained, but Eleanor still managed to detect a clear hint of distaste in it.

"Rachel Dawes, you mean?" She asked, amused by the idea Jonathan might not like her. From what she could remember of her, Rachel had seemed like a professional, kind person who was serious about her job and her morals, and Eleanor knew how rare such thing was in Gotham. "I think I've talked to her one of these days. She seemed nice."

"Right. If by 'nice' you mean filling your head with lies, that is."

"That's impossible," Eleanor's lips twisted into a smirk, her eyes shimmering with that shrewdness that made Jonathan sure he wasn't dealing with one of his normal patients, those that drank his words like thirsty men in the desert and followed his every command, but rather a woman with her own mind and a very strong spirit. Which made him all the more intrigued as to why she was there, in front of him, ready to plead guilty to a crime she had no reasons to commit. And now it was his task to prevent her from going to prison and instead channel her to the Asylum, and it would be no easy task, as she was very far from the lunatic prisoners he normally dealt with. But that just made it all the more fun to him. "My head's a lie on itself."

"You always talk like this," the doctor noticed, his fingers readjusting the glasses on his nose. "So cryptically."

"Is that a bad thing?" She tilted her head to the side. "I thought psychiatrists enjoyed building and dismantling people's thoughts the same way one enjoys fitting puzzle pieces together."

"No, you're right, I enjoy it. But I assume the majority of people doesn't, as they are not used to having to think more than the absolute necessary to satisfy their basic needs. People like you and me – we're different. We see beyond, we think beyond, and we are judged by it. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Where are you hoping to get with this, doctor?"

Jonathan smiled, pleased Eleanor had seen through his words. "I've talked to some of the people in your life, your co-workers at the bar you work in in the downtown of Gotham, your school teachers, your neighbors—"

"I'm feeling invaded right now," Eleanor interrupted. She knew this was something the police officers investigating the crime would do, but she didn't think Jonathan would go to such lengths to get to know her. "Ever heard of the word privacy?"

"I would have talked to your family but it seems like you don't have any," he deadpanned, and the dryness in his voice, the inflexibility in it, the complete lack of empathy that was supposed to be in a sentence like that made Eleanor realize that maybe the rumors about him were true, that this doctor had some skeletons in his closet too. And as much as she knew she should stay away from it and never open it, she wanted to, and she felt like her hand was already on the handle, ready to find out whatever was on the other side. "So, the people I talked to, they all agreed on two things: we don't understand Eleanor Tadman and we don't know her."

Eleanor swallowed. Jonathan was using her circumstances of life to make her feel bad about herself, to make her give in more easily into whatever he had planned and was about to propose to her. He was shoving her loneliness down her throat and she did not like it one bit; the more time she spent with him, the more she realized this doctor was far from wanting to help her; he wanted something from her, that was sure, but not her improvement. Most likely her worsening.

"So what? Is being antisocial a crime as well now?"

"No, but it's in line with what I was saying before. You're different from most people and you suffer for it. Your teachers say you were a peculiar child, curious and clever and never still, but that you also didn't get along with the other kids, who would sometimes mock you or—"

"I got the point," Eleanor cut off coldly. Remembering her childhood was painful because it hadn't always been like that. It was so easy to draw a line in her life between before and after. Before the murder of her parents she was a happy child, understood and liked by her peers, but then her parents died, and someone else was born inside her, and she changed. Irreversibly, and the world didn't change with her. Everyone else remained the same, and she suffered the price for it.

The world was a cruel place to those who changed faster than it did.

"Did you get anything else from your little investigations, doc? An ex-boyfriend desperate to get back with me, perhaps?"

One tip of his lips teetered slightly, in the smallest of smiles. Eleanor was under the impression Jonathan, with his dry tones and drop-dead seriousness, enjoyed her humor, and she wasn't sure how that made her feel.

"Well, I understand now why you don't get along with your colleagues or neighbors, they're pricks," Jonathan rested his back against the chair, gazing at her through his glasses with unreadable eyes.

Eleanor snorted at his bluntness. "What made you think that?"

"They didn't say the nicest things about you, but that's because they don't understand you."

Eleanor felt a lump forming in her throat. It's not like she didn't want to be close to people, she talked to them casually when she needed, but no one seemed to connect with her. It wasn't easy being her, especially when that came with more than one person in the package.

"And you think you do?"

Jonathan smiled, the same way a snake would if it could. "I think I will."

"I warn you, those are dangerous waters you're walking into."

"I'll be the judge of that," his long, pale fingers drummed hauntingly on the table between them as his icy eyes bore into hers. Suddenly Eleanor felt like she was against an iceberg she was destined to crash into. "But your lack of social and familiar relationships wants to be used by your lawyer as a mitigating factor. He wants to say you're suffering from depression, that you weren't thinking clearly when you committed the crime."

"Well, you're the psychiatrist. So am I? Depressed?"

"I will need more time to tell. But if you are, I don't think it's because of the lack of people in your life. I think it's because of the excess of them in you."

Eleanor felt a violent thud twisting her entire heart into a different shape, as if all her skin had fallen and all there was left was muscle and bone and he was seeing it all. His eyes were serious and inscrutable and yet she felt like he was seeing right through her, and into her. The other one who had ruined her life.

"Care to elaborate?" She tried to maintain a neutral voice but everything in her was screaming. It couldn't be; he couldn't have discovered her most guarded secret in just the second time he was seeing her.

"Like I said, I need some more time. I don't like jumping into conclusions and formulating diagnosis without being absolutely sure and going over all the details."

"Wise of you," Eleanor said at the same time the doctor opened her file and she saw a picture of herself on the front page. "I admit, not my best shot."

A dry chuckle escaped past Jonathan's lips, his head raising so his eyes could wound hers. She felt seasick all of a sudden, as if his stare was coming to her in waves. This man was a storm. And she was either the wrecked ship or the clouds that formed it.

"Not going to try the cupcakes? I brought them for you, you know."

Eleanor looked over at the pink box, her fingers touching it carefully. When she finally opened it, she was surprised to find six cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting and sprinkles inside. Not her favorites, but almost.

"Are these poisoned?" She asked, nose scrunched up as she took one out.

"Would you prefer they were?"

She pointed a finger at him. "That's dangerous talk for a psychiatrist."

Jonathan shrugged. "Call me... unconventional. You're not my most conventional of patients either."

"How are those?" She questioned, taking a cautious bite of the cupcake, her palate immediately struck by the sugary bitterness of the topping.

"They usually talk less, cry more. And they scream, a lot. And they don't answer my questions with even more questions."

Eleanor smiled, missing how Jonathan's watchful eyes followed every change in her face. "What can I say, I'm one of a kind."

"Yes," the doctor narrowed his eyes, and she knew he was back to business. "You are. Eleanor, after your parents died, when you were thirteen, you were put under social care and moved from orphanage to another, never settling in one due to your rebellious behavior. You were constantly running away, living on the streets of Gotham, and I can imagine all that instability might not have been the best for your mind. But then you reached adulthood and started working and straightened your life. I find that remarkable. I think you're a clever, resourceful woman, and that's why I don't understand why in your right mind you'd want to plead guilty."

Eleanor opened her mouth to speak, but Jonathan didn't let her go on.

"And before you say something like 'How can you know I'm in my right mind', just hear me out. You'll be safer and more comfortable in the Arkham Asylum than you'll ever be in Gotham Penitentiary. I'm trying to help you, Eleanor, this is a matter of your survival. Going to the Asylum would be the best that could happen to you in this situation."

I doubt it, Eleanor thought, teeth biting down on her bottom lip. If the things I have heard about it, about you, are true, the best thing I can do is stay as far away from it as I can.

"Why do you want so bad to prevent me from going to prison and make me go to your Asylum?"

"Why do you want so bad to go to prison in the first place?" Jonathan replied, almost exasperated. "Is there something there – someone – you wish to see? There are easier ways to get that, if that's the case."

Eleanor snickered. "Who would I want to see? You said it yourself, I have no family and no friends." She made sure of that. She made sure of everything ever since she appeared. When looking at her serene, mischievous eyes no one would tell, but the truth was Eleanor was terrified, all the time. Terrified for not being in control of her own life, her own mind, her own decisions. Her other self could appear at any moment and there was nothing she could do about it. Her body and her mind were no longer her own – they belonged to her, and so did Eleanor's fate.

"And yet you refuse to choose what's best for you," Jonathan shook his head in disbelief, and there was a sudden difference in his stare, as if he was getting truly annoyed. It was almost like watching a mask slipping off his face, his normal, composed expression shifting into one of derangement.

Suddenly Eleanor had a bad feeling about him; but her being her, that still wasn't enough to keep her mouth shut.

"Don't come at me thinking you know what's best for me, doctor, thinking you know me. There's nothing you can do to me that will make me change my mind. I will not step one foot inside your hideous Asyl—"

"Miss Tadman," Jonathan cut off, his voice suddenly less neutral, almost unhinged. Without her realizing he had brought the briefcase closer to him and was clicking it open, his eyes so heavy on hers, so pressuring, she felt like she was drowning with his hands on her neck. "Would you like to see my mask?"

He didn't give her time to answer, though, swiftly taking out a brown, hideous bag from the case and putting it over his head. It had two holes for the eyes and a sewed mouth, and Eleanor only had time to notice him pressing a button and getting up before a mist of smoke spread around them, burning her nostrils and entering her mind.

Eleanor closed her eyes, shaking her head as her brain seemed to spin inside her skull. There was something wrong there. There was something very wrong there.

"Open your eyes, Eleanor," she heard him say, silky and hushed voice, but it came to her muffled, as if on the other side of a dream. Or a nightmare. "Face your fears."

Against her will, she did, her eyes opened and she swallowed hard, because suddenly she wasn't seeing the doctor anymore, nor his mask, but herself as she had seen so many dreadful times, with messy, dirty hair and blood around her lips. Suddenly, and for the first time, she was there, in front of her, without the help of a mirror. She could see her not just in the glass or her nightmares. Almost as if now, with whatever it was Jonathan was doing, she could choose when to see her. And Eleanor knew she should hate, and fear it, but she didn't. Because for the first time, the choice was hers. And she was not going to let her, or Jonathan, take it away from her.

"So the rumors are true," Eleanor forced herself to speak through the fog and the dense air that blocked her lungs and tightened her chest, "you are Scarecrow."

The doctor leaned back a bit, startled. This was his true self and he wasn't bothering to hide it with the mask of sanity he put on every day. It must have been exhausting, she thought. Not being able to be himself in society. In some far, twisted way, she related to that.

"How...?" He mumbled. This surely wasn't the reaction he was expecting from her. Eleanor remembered his previous words. They usually talk less, cry more. And they scream, a lot. So this is what he meant by it. A sting of rage and repulsion invaded her as she thought back to all the people he had done this to before, patients who had been helpless to fight him and could only do so much as let him explore and exploit their deepest fears. Patients he had taken to the Asylum to most likely experiment on them there. Eleanor wasn't immune to this fear toxin of his, she felt the dizziness and the fear, but unlike others she had learned how to master it over the years. Because she had seen that very same face every time she looked on the mirror or closed her eyes. Her biggest fear was herself.

And that's what the doctor had failed to grasp.

"You're a son of a bitch," Eleanor spat, forcing herself to see past her own reflection to discern the masked doctor underneath it. Even if it was an illusion, it still felt so real. As if she could simply extend a hand and touch the monster that had been trapped inside her for so long.

It was fascinating, in a way. But it still didn't make what he did to her okay.

"Can't you see that you can't make me fear more than I already do? The only thing I've been living with ever since I was thirteen is fear!" She shouted, getting up herself. She knew that if he had planned to do this now there would be no one around to hear her screams. And yet she wasn't afraid. Not of him. "Do you not expect me to have learned how to live with it and face it by now? Do you seriously expect to use it against me when it's the only thing that's not against me, that truly knows me?"

Just like that, the doctor took off his mask and closed his case harshly, his raven hair ruffled and his eyes deranged. Slowly, the haze around them subsided and her other self went away, the blood still dripping from her chin as she disappeared.

"No, it's not possible..." He babbled incoherently. "I tested your blood, there was no antidote on it!"

"So that's what the tests were for? You're a lunatic bastard!" she yelled, and not a second after her hand was landing hard on his right cheek, leaving a bright red mark on his skin. Jonathan barely even reacted, his sense of self still lost somewhere else. "And if you think for one second I'm going to give in to your madness and willingly walk into your Asylum, you're even crazier than you seem. I'm going to jail, Doctor, where you should be too. But I seriously hope I won't find you in there."

Eleanor walked to the door and Jonathan didn't try to stop her. He was too out of himself to think clearly and detaining her would just make it worse. He had known she was different – but not that she was special. This special. Not until now.

She stopped before grabbing the knob and looked over her shoulder, but his gaze didn't flicker to her. It was lost in some point she couldn't recognize. When she spoke, her voice was icier than his eyes could ever be.

"Because if I do – we'll see who fears who then."

author's note.

So we finally got to see Scarecrow in all his glory... but things didn't work out for him as he had planned. I hope you liked this chapter, please leave your votes and comments so I can know what you thought of it :)

Also I know these first few chapters have basically just been dialogue and conversation but the next ones will be more eventful! Stay tuned <3

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