Chapter Text
Jonathan Crane was a man who would often be the first to insist - with no small amount of snark - he was the only sane person in any given room full of ordinary folk. The only sane one, as professors and doctors of this, that, and some othersuch fussed and forced smiles and faked laughs at organised events in order to gain the favour of beneficiaries.
The only sane one, as he administered his own creation; his prototype fear toxin on his own body, completely taken by the feeling of icy cold dread creeping up his throat since he could remember.
Unfortunately, like any drug, prolonged exposure had led to heightened immunity and lessened effect. Quite a problem, then, for a man who craved fear and so rarely felt it.
lt was this predicament that had found Jonathan Crane; sanest man in the room, willingly walking into a building he had on good authority was owned by one of Gotham's so-called Rogue's Gallery. The Riddler, specifically - in recent weeks, the challenging of these infamously difficult and cruel death traps - puzzle rooms, he called them - had become something of a common pastime for his in his rare gaps between teaching and personal research.
The first time this happened, in his defence, had been unintentional. Jonathan was not a man who closely followed the general news and if the Riddler's traps were easy to avoid - well, now, what would be the point of that?
He'd found himself venturing through a few of the lesser-inhabited buildings; particularly stressful weeks often saw him going on aimless wanders in order to clear his head of tension. The gothic aesthetic of the city was something he was able to thoroughly appreciate, and he was more than capable of defending himself by utilising the working prototype of the toxin he carried out of newfound habit.
It was then, while inspecting a green question mark graffiti'd onto the wall that the door to the room locked and previously unseen, concealed neon lights flickered promptly to life. The gaudy shade of green suddenly piercing the room sent a few rats scrambling for the protection of the dark once more. Speakers that had been cleverly built in to compliment and blend to the building's crumbling geometry crackled loudly to life and caused Jonathan to wince slightly. A grimace creeped across his face as he squinted at the neon tubing - also shaped as question marks - and came to the conclusion that this night was to be more eventful and possibly lethal than he'd hoped.
Finally, discernible audio began to play through the speakers. A loud, projecting voice filled air, proclaiming with complete and utter self-confidence.
"Well well well! Greetings and salutations, my fair, nameless little Gothamite. Now-"
Jonathan immediately tuned out from the obnoxious voice currently assaulting his ears - the loud charismatic tones were reminiscent of greasy carnival barkers or tacky game-show hosts and he did not care for it at all. He realised now where he was and he what he had to do; solve whatever the riddle was, obviously, or perish. He had absolutely no intention of allowing the latter and wandered back over to the wall that had the graffiti on it to begin with the former. It was the only thing in the room with any sort of note and so he asserted that whatever the answer was would lay here. Since the voice simply carried on, unresponsive to his apathy, he surmised it must've been pre-recorded. Sensible. At least the lunatic had some common sense.
He mentally tuned back in just in time to hear the riddle proper, now that the man had stopped babbling of his self-proclaimed duties about…. Something.
"My head is a question; I've one pointed toe
My name is a murderer, of one the most old
You can grow me, eat me, walk with me though
Strong as the oak, I'll carry you home.
Who am I?"
Jonathan paused, considering the words carefully. He squinted at the wall, intricate depictions of a great deal of household objects littered the scene - it looked like one of those Lost Object books you gave to children.
"Tick-tock, my clueless friend! Better think fast, or you'll soon meet your end!"
He cringed at the incredibly smug tone that accompanied the taunt. Nobody should ever be so proud of such a cheap rhyme. He noticed then that there was a heavy gas seeping into the room, settling thickly on the floor. His eyes widened slightly, feeling a rare pang of panic spike up through his stomach. There were only a small handful gasses that lay like that and he wanted to inhale exactly none of them.
Thinking fast, then.
His eyes darted back across the imagery, running all of the clues through his mind.
A question for a head?
Something curved, then, surely. It had to be literal, or that statement would be far too abstract. That narrowed it down a fair bit. The pointed toe, of course, must mean an object that comes to a point.
A murderer…
He was more than familiar with the bible, but… Cain? There was nothing about Cain that matched the other two statements. So a snake, then?
After about thirty seconds it was clear there was no sign of any reptiles on the wall, and the thick gas cloud now crept up past his waist. He glanced down and took a slow breath.
Cain. Cain. Ca-
A cane. A curved head. A homonym of Cain. Sugar canes are grown and eaten. The walking cane spoke for itself. That had to be it. Sure enough, after a moment searching, his gaze fell upon a depiction of a tacky looking gold cane with an exaggerated curve in the handle. He slid his palm over it and quickly found a slight depression in the wall. A dull thud reverberated around the room as he pressed into it with a fingertip; just as the gas had begun to encroach on his ribs the flow was cut short. The speakers crackled back to life as Jonathan released a breath he hadn't realised he was holding in. It was shakier than he would have ever admitted.
"My, my! Colour me impressed, my dear little Gothamite. You've got at least half a brain! Congratulations on your... continued survival."
A slow clap that dripped sarcasm rang through the audio feed. The gas dropped, seeping out of some sort of hidden vent.
"Run along now, before I change my mind. Off you go! Be free!"
Jonathan would have scowled at the teasing tone. However, as he quickly exited the room - he wasn’t one to tempt fate - all his thoughts would linger on was the panic, the fear he'd been chasing since the toxin stopped having an effect on him. Despite stoic appearances, the very real and very lethal threat to his life had set his heart rattling in his chest in just the way he had been chasing since his first trial of chemicals.
So it was perfectly understandable, then, when his habitual walks for the purposes of de-stressing then became the studying of Gotham's more... decrepit buildings in the search of further puzzle rooms. A perfectly sane thing to do, he thought to himself with no small hint of sarcasm as he entered the sixth of the death traps he'd discovered.
--
It had not escaped Edward's notice, this curious stranger that had been so completely taken by his devious little puzzle rooms. Well, who could blame him? They were absolutely perfect; in design, execution, and… well, executions! He chuckled to himself internally.
His work on them had succeeded in thinning out more than a handful of Gotham's less-intelligent population and they had been set up so as to leave no evidence back to his control room. Well - no evidence that anyone other than a genius of his own calibre could ever hope to detect.
The man - A one Doctor Jonathan Crane - had caught his curiosity after the third riddle solved, and had certainly captured his attention by the fifth. Now he watched over the security feed with his chin rested in his palms, fixing his gaze to the screen with heated interest. The good Doctor was a curious man in and of himself, from what Edward had gathered - which was actually startlingly little, as the man had been born before things were recorded digitally - after the fourth completed conundrum. Even for a university professor he had quite odd habits, Edward thought idly.
A few minutes passed by, and Dr. Crane emerged unscathed yet again. As always, it was a rather close call. Normally, this would have irritated him, but he was by-and-large simply impressed by the other's active search for his cleverly-laid puzzles. He needed to know what was motivating him to go to such lengths. Clearly, this Crane was an intelligent fellow - he wouldn’t be breathing anymore otherwise! - so the mystery of why he would so eagerly throwing himself into harm's way wasn't something he could easily fathom.
Doctor Crane seemed to be in and of himself, a riddle, and Edward found himself interested in the answers - though he wasn't to know that only time could solve this particular enigma. It would be another two months before the Scarecrow would terrorise Gotham for the very first time.