Chapter Text
Back from his weekly supply run, Crane hung up his coat by the door of his safehouse-cum-laboratory and took a deep breath out. The mask he wore out to retrieve groceries was more figurative than anything, but it disguised who he was far more than any of the costumes he wore when he was being the Scarecrow.
The lab was quiet, which wasn't unusual. He set his things down and headed toward the basement to check on his test subject. Nygma had proven a fascinating case study- it was rare to find a man so capable of rationalising his way through any given situation, so uncontrollably verbose that he would verbalise every iteration of the horrors inflicted on him.
Originally they'd simply partnered on a job, but the Riddler was injured, and Crane was a doctor. It wasn't hard to get him strapped to a gurney after that.
Today, though, the table was empty, which immediately alerted him that his test subject was loose. He swore, reaching immediately for a syringe of a neuromuscular blocking agent he kept nearby, only to find it conspicuously absent.
He had time to say- "Shit," before there was a sharp pain in his shoulder and he glanced down to find out, unpleasantly, exactly where the syringe had ended up. He turned on Edward, the scrawny, naked redhead glaring up at him with a fierce determination that sent ice down his spine. "Hello, Edward," he managed, but his body was starting to slump as his bloodstream carried the NMBA to his neuromuscular junction and essentially disconnected his body from conscious control. Edward, shaky, gave him a shove, and Jon became aware of the world tipping and the gurney rising up to meet him.
"Hello, Jon," Edward said, grinning unpleasantly at him. He was still recovering from similar effects, hungry and cold and exhausted, one of his arms hanging limply, but there was a much stronger force keeping him upright. He was angry.
The doctor wasn't as heavy as a man his size should be - a benefit of his thin frame. The last twitches of fight ebbed out of Jonathan, and he turned into dead weight, watching him with slightly unfocussed eyes.
"You've had me at your mercy for long enough, I should think. When you left me unattended today, I finally managed to get enough torque to dislocate my shoulder and bust out of those ancient restraints you managed to wrap around me. I thought about escaping," he said, lifting Jon's leg up to rest on the table. "But then I thought about how much I wanted to get you back for the last- week? I think it was a week."
Left-handed, he fidgeted with the restraints. "After all, it's only fair at this point, wouldn't you say?" A grunt of frustration, and the buckle finally settled into place across Jon's midsection. He moved on to the wrists. "You fucked me over, Jon. And I was really wanting to like working with the Scarecrow. Lord knows enough of the other rogues in town are miserable bastards about any sort of partnership."
Panting, he leaned on the table, looking Jon in the eyes. The doctor made a soft noise, but it wasn't exactly words. "Hard to enunciate on a dose that strong, mm? Sorry, I didn't have a lot of time to measure out the appropriate dose, Doctor. Not to mention, I don't really care. At this point, if I killed you, I think that would be entirely justified."
Jon blinked up at him, expression slack and unreadable. Ed stroked his cheek, smiling grimly as his former captor made a soft gurgling noise in his throat. "It actually doesn't matter what you have to say, Doc. The point is, you underestimated me, and now you have to face the consequences."
Edward walked fingers down Jon's throat, enjoying what he imagined to be a look of faint panic in the man's eyes. "The big bad scarecrow, at my mercy. Hmm. What should I do? I could pump you full of whatever shit you're currently testing. See how much you like to squirm. But I get the feeling you've already outlived your own usefulness as a lab rat, haven't you, old man? Done too many doses of your own supply to be much good for testing any more."
"In a way, I almost understand. Here's the smartest man in Gotham, at your mercy. You thought you'd crack me open and scoop out the perfect dataset, didn't you?" He shook his head, circling the table to check the bindings. "Who wouldn't want to experiment on me?"
Edward sat against the edge of the table on the other side, sighing slowly, as if this was painful for him. "But I have to make sure you learn your lesson. I'm sure you understand. Fool me once, and all that." He patted Jon's hand, before looking him over and quirking an eyebrow.
"Oh, there's an interesting side effect indeed. Relaxing certain muscles, mm? Do you like that you get all your victims hard before you fill them with your toxins?" He ghosted his hand across Jon's shirt, then hovered above the tent in his slacks, watching the wide-eyed face of the man strapped down next to him.
"Maybe I'll find an entirely different use for you, mm?"