Work Text:
It begins, like all things, with fear.
(Scarecrow himself began with fear and Jonathon before him. From fear came life and pain and torment. Fear became curiosity and discovery and excitement. Fear is everything. Fear fear fear fear fear—
Fear. )
It begins, like most problems, with a bat.
("Batman! Come out and face your fears!"
"I'm not playing your games, Crane."
"We both know fear is no game, Batman, or we'd both be pathetic players. You cannot conceal your nature from another Nightmare! Whether or not you conceal it from yourself... We are what we fear, Batman! Stop pretending yours is just a bat.")
(Even now, decades dead, Jonathon still fears his father more than anything in the world and that is how he knows he'll never be free of him. The Scarecrow began with fear but Jonathon began with the Scarecrow.)
(We are what we fear, after all.)