Work Text:
You grip the side of the building. Breath in, breath out. You keep your eyes squeezed. Breath in, breath out. Your hands are sweaty, the kind of sweat you used to feel after holding his gloved hand while he worked. Your nose is cold, like it was after that day in the park when you ice-skated together.
He was so busy working and being cooped up; you did your best to distract him. You can’t keep a mad man sane forever.
It shocked your family when you began dating a professor.
They swore he’d have no time for you. He was too intellectual, and you were just you.
But he always made time. He always made you feel warm. It was always autumn when you were together. Crunchy leaves, hot cocoa, scary movies. You’d never been with someone like him.
Professor Jonathan Crane. A man of scrawny and tall stature. Thirty-two years old with eye-bags of a fifty-year-old. Pale skin and unruly hair. Hazel eyes and gentle hands. He was home.
You don’t quite know when you and Jonathan Crane began becoming more romantic. You just know one day your hands found each other.
He loves holding hands. Even on those hot Gotham days, he insists on holding onto one another, even if it means just holding pinky’s. Perhaps he likes physical contact, or maybe it’s his stress. He’ll never really tell you.
He eventually opened up to hugs. You still remember the first time you really truly hugged. Sure, you had hugged goodbyes and stuff, but he had never wanted to just hug to hug.
It had been a long day at work for him. His experiments still weren’t working out, and he was running out of resources. You had gone to his home to him at the kitchen table, biting his nails. You told him to stand up, and you hugged him.
Crane hadn’t denied the hug as you expected. He didn’t stay there in an awkward hug. He just wrapped his arms around you and stayed there. No noise, no movement. Just you and him. He’d never admit it, but you swear he left a wet spot on your shoulder.
The only thing that made you two tear apart was a little meow. You both turned your head to a little black and brown kitten on the ground.
This is how you two got Theodore.
The next big thing was moving in. It was a chilly day. It had been near late October when Jonathan had finally asked you the question you’d been waiting for. Would you move in with him? It had been a given, really. You basically already lived with him. So that day you both packed your things and stayed one last night in your little apartment in downtown Gotham.
You had been sitting in the living room on your mattress, hands interlocked under a thick, cozy blanket. A super cheerful Jonathan squeezing your hand a little with a genuine smile upon his face had drilled your gaze until the news had come on. It had started with the typical things about crime rates, when they began to talk about a new super villain. The Scarecrow.
You didn’t get to hear much more of this miscreant when Jonathan had cupped your jaw, his hands calloused from working on his gadgets more so lately. He slightly turned your head and leaned in. His chapped and swollen lips tasted like the pumpkin chapstick you had given him two days ago.
It didn’t stop there, though, things got hot, fast. As you bit his lip, he opened his mouth, breathing coffee drenched air into yours. When you parted for some cool air, he whispered to you. Everything is looking up for us, pumpkin.
The rest of the night was a long pumpkin chapstick, and coffee breath filled night.
Jonathan had never technically told you not to go down to the basement, you just never wanted to go down there. You knew when he was down there, he was there to work and focus. So, you just didn’t go down there when he was there, simple as that.
One day, though, you had wanted to run out to the store and wanted to see if Jonathan wanted to tag along. You didn’t expect to see that mask. You knew it from anywhere. He’d been on the news for months now. With his devilish gas and putrid crimes.
But there’s no way it had been Jonathan, your sweet cat cuddling Jonathan. It couldn’t be. You would know, wouldn’t you?
As you went to go back up the stairs, the step made a creak. A loud one. Jonathan’s head immediately shot up, and his eyes grew wide. His mouth opened as to explain itself. Nothing came out. Not until you had run up the stairs, slamming the door behind you.
You didn’t want to believe it. Just as you didn’t want to wonder why he had been happier, why he had been gone later at night, why he held onto your hand a little tighter when you slept. You didn’t want to see the warning sign. The enormous signs in front of your face, saying wee woo wee woo Jonathan is crazy villain Scarecrow!
Jonathan had hugged you after. He sat you down. Told you everything. About what his father had done to him as a boy, why he had begun to recreate the serum. About why, he had to do this. To show Gotham how corrupt it had gotten. That the citizens weren’t safe, they needed fear. Everyone needs fear.
You didn’t know what to do. As you became less and less responsive, he became more agitated. Biting his skin off his lips, to picking at his nails, to eventually chewing his nails. It was only when you had moved his hand out of his mouth that you looked him in the eyes.
His eyes were more brown than green today. His skin didn’t seem as soft as before, his face more stressed. Worry lines making its way to his forehead. You watched as his eyes looked to his pocket, then hand. Then watched as his hand reached in his pocket. Then watched as he bent down on one knee. As he pulled out a box. And he opened it to expose a shiny gold ring. Then, as his lips moved, forming words.
You shook your head. Not even listening to the words he said. Just yesterday, if he had proposed to you, you would have sprung into his arms and said yes in an instant. But this wasn’t yesterday, this is today.
Flash forward to a few hours later. It’s night. Cold. September, a year and some since the day you moved in. You had gone to the large library blocks away. Very few people were there, probably being as it was nine at night. Suddenly, the doors burst open. You had been on the second level of the building where there had been an opening in the middle of the floor with a balcony where you could see everything below.
Some low-level thugs wearing masks had come in. Some holding guns, some holding bats, some even holding mallets. From the mix of commotion down there, you had gathered that they had come to destroy the books. You hid behind a shelf. You could only hear them now, as suddenly you hear a flick. Flick, flick, flick. C’mon, you fucker, work!
Then the heat rising in the building. Your only option was to go out the window.
You grip the side of the building. Breath in, breath out. You keep your eyes squeezed. Breath in, breath out. Your hands are sweaty, the kind of sweat you used to feel after holding his gloved hand while he worked. Your nose is cold, like it was after that day in the park when you ice-skated together.
You swear you could almost feel his warmth. Smell his coffee breath. Hear his voice.
That’s when you decide to jump. You brace yourself for the cracked Gotham sidewalks outside the building. But it never comes. What does come is that pumpkin chapstick. On your face, then your arms, then hands, then lips. You finally open your eyes. You’re on top of a half masked man who’s now on the ground holding you.
Instantaneously, you recognize the mask concealing the top half of his face. But most of all, you recognize the jaw, lips, and nose being exposed. You find those lips with your own and kiss back. Hard. As you part, all you whisper back is.
Yes.