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Jonathan did not know what to make of this boy who has made his lab a home. A place with rats and chemical bottles and beakers all over the tables, housed in a condemned building. Once, it had probably been a perfectly okay apartment, but now most things had been stripped down to the bones and it was only through a miracle he was able to get a power source going. The water was a lost cause, and he had to pay someone to bring him refilled water jugs.
Well, now, that was Justin's job.
Justin was peculiar. A former test subject who managed to survive an experimental strain of Jon's fear toxin that could have easily killed him, and just never left. Walking around so called Crime Alley, he had been clean, hair styled perfectly, wearing a suit. It was like he was asking to be taken. His fears had been...strange. Familiar, even. Jonathan didn't get to say that often anymore.
The boy couldn't have been even eighteen, but he had withered on the floor of Jonathan's lab whimpering about birds of all things, and reacted negatively to Jonathan's pet crows even once the fear toxin had left his system. It was only now several months later that Jonathan could find him even in the same room as them.
Justin was a very intelligent boy. He was quick to understand whatever equation Jonathan put in front of him, always had thought provoking questions to ask him, and was very polite when he wanted to be. Whatever he was running from, that he would rather hole up in a dingy building with a deranged lunatic, Jonathan actually found himself grateful for. He found himself actually cautious leaving Justin alone now. It was a foreign feeling, whatever it was. A far, far different feeling than the last time he had a younger man following him around his lab.
Jonathan shook his head. This was no time to be thinking of Nygma. Nygma was a thing of the past, and they were better for it.
“I'm goin' ta be back tomorrow,” Jonathan told his young lab partner that evening over reheated pasta and a few boiled hotdogs that had questionable spots on them but only brought him mild stomach discomfort. Justin had wrinkled his nose up at it, his mismatched eyes going cross-eyed at the idea of consuming it, sticking with just the pasta, but Jonathan had ate worse in his life.
"I know you have to do it...to get the best results... but are you sure the formula is ready? Justin said softly. “I know it will be a success and you'll be back by sunset and we'll have our results on how effective the formula is,” the boy added before taking another sip of his water, “But I...”
Jonathan did not look at him in the eye, Justin was not good with eye contact as it, but he knew just as well as Justin did that sometimes going out as Scarecrow, things went wrong. “I'll be back...” he said. “Righ' on time.” He reached across the makeshift table and picked up the pocket watch sitting in front of his young ward. "You won' even have ta have winded this back up before I'll be back."
“Of course, sir.” Justin bowed his head.
It was not his way, but the boy had a strong heart. Too good. Somehow the fear toxin hadn't destroyed that heart. Not like what it had done to Nygma.
It was late. The sun was gone and he had a long night of work ahead of him.