Bruce brooded, naturally. Joker knew nothing. Scarecrow was still at large.
“Get up, you big oaf,” Tim scoffed.
Bruce shook his head. He was going to sit here, all day. He would do nothing but think. What is Scarecrow? Where does he come from? What can he do?
“If you won’t find Scarecrow, I will,” Tim said, suiting up in his Red Robin costume.
“No. I forbid it. We plan before we do anything.”
“The sooner we catch this strawbag, the sooner we can look into Tam’s disappearance,” Red Robin stated.
Bruce was silent. Red Robin walked out.
The guards at Arkham denied Red Robin entry.
“You don’t look like the bat-dude,” one guard commented.
“I’m not the ‘bat-dude’,” Red Robin nodded, “I’m here to find the Scarecrow.”
“The Scarecrow?” a second guard wondered, “The hell is that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Red Robin admitted, “But it has to be here.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and assume the Scarecrow is something bad,” the first guard said. Red Robin nodded.
“So why do you think it’s here? We’ve got a great security system here!” the second guard exclaimed.
“Funny. I could’ve gotten in from above already. I just thought I’d be courteous and come in through the front door,” Red Robin smiled.
“I don’t like what you’re inferring,” the second guard said.
“Just let me in,” Red Robin ordered.
“We can’t do that pal, sorry,” the first guard shrugged.
“Don’t make me do this the hard way,” Red Robin sighed.
“Listen here, punk,” the second guard growled, drawing his pistol, “You’re gonna leave here, right now, or things’re gonna get messy.”
“Yes, they are.”
The second guard aimed his pistol at Red Robin.
“Hey, man, calm down,” the first guard said.
The second guard wrapped his finger around the trigger. Red Robin didn’t move. The second guard fired away, and Red Robin fizzled out.
Then, Red Robin dropped from above, and smacked the second guard with a metal staff.
The first guard turned in shock, shaking. Red Robin shook his hand.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Red Robin grinned.
With that, Red Robin entered Arkham Asylum.
Red Robin arrived at the Clown Car. Joker’s holding cell. He put a small disc on the door, and tapped the earbud he was equipped with. He could hear everything happening on the other side of the door.
“Oh yeah, Mr. J,” a giggly, female voice, cheered, “Real soon. You’ll be outta here real soon.”
Scarecrow was… a girl?
Red Robin smeared some putty around the door, stood back, and blew the door off its hinges. He saw a girl with blonde pigtails squeezing Joker tightly.
“Freeze, Scarecrow!” Red Robin yelled, extending his staff.
“Scarecrow? Oh, silly, I’m not Scarecrow!” the girl laughed, in a twangy Boston accent, “Call me Quinn.”
“Harley Quinn,” Joker added.
“Uh, Batman, are you there?” Red Robin gulped. No response.
“Don’t worry, I’ll treat’cha real nice,” Harley squealed, sauntering towards Red Robin.
“Look, I don’t want to hit a girl, but I will,” Red Robin warned.
“So you’ll pound me, but not Harley?” Joker groaned, “How sexist.”
Red Robin twirled his staff, and narrowed his eyes. Harley lunged at him. She obviously had no combat experience. Red Robin slid to the side, and jabbed at Harley’s abdomen. She stumbled a bit, and Red Robin swept the legs. Harley collapsed, hitting her face on the hard floor.
“Sexist, yeah,” Red Robin nodded, kneeling down to see if Harley was okay. Harley was sobbing, silently.
“Ah, you hurt my gal,” Joker said.
“I’ll hurt you next, Joker,” Red Robin replied. He stood back up, and held Harley down with his staff. Harley rolled over swiftly, and pulled Red Robin down to her. She mounted him, and got close to his face.
“Hiya birdie,” Harley giggled. Then, she went to town on his face. Hurling punches left in right, shaking his head as if it were a pair of maracas.
“Someone!” Red Robin cried out, “Help!”
“Shhh,” Harley hissed, delivering a final blow to Red Robin’s teeth.
Red Robin woke up in the same room, alone. Joker and Harley were gone. Outside, he heard gunshots echo. He got to his feet, pulled his cowl back over his face, and stumbled out of the room. At the end of the hall, he saw a chubby, balding man, stroking his pistol with one finger, nervously. A guard. His nameplate read “Hubet”.
“What’s going on?” Red Robin asked. Hubet jumped, and aimed the pistol at Red Robin. Red Robin put his hands up, and slowly approached Hubet. Hubet lowered his gun.
“Joker… and Dr. Quinzel, his therapist… they got out…” Hubet shivered.
“Where are they?” Red Robin asked.
“They headed for the exit,” Hubet answered.
“Come with me,” Red Robin said, jogging for the grand front doors of the Asylum.
Hubet nodded hurriedly, and wobbled after him.
Red Robin neared the steel front doors, and saw Joker taking aim at guards with a sniper rifle. The guards had formed a blockade around the doors, and they were armed with an assortment of guns. Harley Quinn was nowhere to be found.
“Hubet, stay back. If Joker overpowers me, you fire away. Go for the chest, understood?”
Hubet nodded.
Red Robin crept up behind Joker, and slipped his staff around his neck. Joker squirmed, and hissed.
“Let me go you oversized hen!” Joker cried, kicking and screaming.
“It’s over, Joker,” Red Robin said, cockily, “Now, where’s Quinzel?”
“Right here, Rob,” came a voice from the blockade of guards. A guard stepped forward, and took off the hat that was tucked over their eyes. Harley Quinn. She had a grenade hanging from her mouth, with the pin hooked around one of her teeth.
“Dr. Quinzel, don’t you pull that pin,” Red Robin warned.
“Then don’t you hurt my pookums,” Harley whined.
No.
No, he couldn’t. Joker was a monster. Alone, and unequipped, he was easy enough to take on, but if he got out of the Asylum- back to his gang, and his tools- he would be unstoppable once again.
But if he didn’t release Joker, a small army of guards would die. The initial detonation would ignite the other guards’ grenades, causing a massive explosion.
Red Robin pushed Joker forward, letting his staff rest at his side.
Harley smiled, ripped the pin out, dropped the grenade, and rushed to Joker. Joker swung his arm back, whacking Red Robin across the face. He shook out his hand, and began to giggle as the guards, who had been frozen in shock, were ripped apart by a bright flash.
Harley held Red Robin’s neck down with her foot, and twirled her pistol. Red Robin cried out, screeching every expletive he knew.
“Oopsie,” Harley shrugged, “I didn’t mean to blow those pretty boys up, Red.”
Red Robin grit his teeth, and closed his eyes. A bullet tore through Harley’s stomach. She shrieked, and fired at the ground next to Red Robin’s head. Red Robin threw her off of him, sprung to his feet, and knocked Joker in the face. He turned to see Hubet, gripping his pistol, with wisps of smoke floating away from the chamber.
“Thanks for the save,” Red Robin said.
Hubet nodded. Red Robin smacked Joker between the eyes with his staff.
“Rally a medical crew,” Red Robin instructed, “Call in an ambulance ASAP. Where’s Crane?”
“In his office, probably,” Hubet said.
“And that is-?”
“Take my keycard to the elevator. Top floor,” Hubet said, handing Red Robin his ID.
Red Robin thanked him, and walked to the elevator. He entered, and ascended, eventually reaching the top floor. He wandered past guard quarters, and made it to Warden Jonathan Crane’s office. He turned the handle, but the door didn’t move.
He knocked.
No answer.
Red Robin bashed the door down with his staff, and was blasted with a sweet, nectary smell. He coughed, and cleared the air. Then he saw…
Oh God…
Jonathan Crane was hanging by his neck from a rope that was tied around the light dangling from the ceiling. His white shirt was spattered with blood, and his sleeve were rolled up, revealing jagged cuts across his wrists. His neck was gashed too, letting his head hang back at an odd angle.
The walls were covered in maroon marks. Blood. Letters.
S
Red Robin already knew what it was.
C
Yes.
A
He knew.
R
He wanted to be wrong.
E
He wanted to be wrong so badly.
C
But he was right.
R
Unfortunately, he was one hundred percent correct.
O
No matter how much he dreaded it.
W
Scarecrow had been here.
Red Robin dropped to his knees.
What was the Scarecrow? What had it done to Jonathan Crane?
No. No time for fear. Time for work.
Work.
Detective work.
Red Robin immediately scanned the room for anything that could link back to what happened.
Scuff marks near the desk. Jonathan Crane had kicked it out from under him.
A knife. A bloodied knife. It laid slightly to the left of Crane’s body, on the ground. Red Robin picked it up, and scanned the fingerprints. Then he scanned Crane’s fingerprints. Matching. He analyzed oxidation of the blood on Crane’s wrists. The right wrist had been cut first. The neck had been cut last.
Finally, Red Robin looked for any bruising, red marks, or scratches that could hint at any sort of a struggle. Nothing.
Red Robin had pieced together what happened:
Jonathan Crane had been in his office with… a rope and a knife? Red Robin still had to work out why that ever happened. Crane climbed onto his desk, and strung himself up. He kicked the desk back, then began cutting himself. He cut his right wrist with the knife in his left hand, and vice versa. Then, he slashed his neck, and his arm fell limp, dropping the knife.
Scarecrow had only painted the letters, it seemed. But there were no fingerprints.
How had Scarecrow managed to make Crane hang himself, without any struggle?
“Batman?” Red Robin asked over the comm line.
“Red Robin! I’m here!” Bruce responded, “Where are you?”
“Arkham.”
“I told you not-”
“Listen, it’s Crane. He’s dead. He hung himself. Get here soon.”
Bruce cut the line. He was on his way.
Red Robin stood up, and turned to leave. The door slammed shut. Tears gushed out of Red Robin’s eyes from out of nowhere. He wasn’t even sca-
He had never been so mortified. Never in his life.
“Get up, you big oaf,” Tim scoffed.
Bruce shook his head. He was going to sit here, all day. He would do nothing but think. What is Scarecrow? Where does he come from? What can he do?
“If you won’t find Scarecrow, I will,” Tim said, suiting up in his Red Robin costume.
“No. I forbid it. We plan before we do anything.”
“The sooner we catch this strawbag, the sooner we can look into Tam’s disappearance,” Red Robin stated.
Bruce was silent. Red Robin walked out.
The guards at Arkham denied Red Robin entry.
“You don’t look like the bat-dude,” one guard commented.
“I’m not the ‘bat-dude’,” Red Robin nodded, “I’m here to find the Scarecrow.”
“The Scarecrow?” a second guard wondered, “The hell is that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Red Robin admitted, “But it has to be here.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and assume the Scarecrow is something bad,” the first guard said. Red Robin nodded.
“So why do you think it’s here? We’ve got a great security system here!” the second guard exclaimed.
“Funny. I could’ve gotten in from above already. I just thought I’d be courteous and come in through the front door,” Red Robin smiled.
“I don’t like what you’re inferring,” the second guard said.
“Just let me in,” Red Robin ordered.
“We can’t do that pal, sorry,” the first guard shrugged.
“Don’t make me do this the hard way,” Red Robin sighed.
“Listen here, punk,” the second guard growled, drawing his pistol, “You’re gonna leave here, right now, or things’re gonna get messy.”
“Yes, they are.”
The second guard aimed his pistol at Red Robin.
“Hey, man, calm down,” the first guard said.
The second guard wrapped his finger around the trigger. Red Robin didn’t move. The second guard fired away, and Red Robin fizzled out.
Then, Red Robin dropped from above, and smacked the second guard with a metal staff.
The first guard turned in shock, shaking. Red Robin shook his hand.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Red Robin grinned.
With that, Red Robin entered Arkham Asylum.
Red Robin arrived at the Clown Car. Joker’s holding cell. He put a small disc on the door, and tapped the earbud he was equipped with. He could hear everything happening on the other side of the door.
“Oh yeah, Mr. J,” a giggly, female voice, cheered, “Real soon. You’ll be outta here real soon.”
Scarecrow was… a girl?
Red Robin smeared some putty around the door, stood back, and blew the door off its hinges. He saw a girl with blonde pigtails squeezing Joker tightly.
“Freeze, Scarecrow!” Red Robin yelled, extending his staff.
“Scarecrow? Oh, silly, I’m not Scarecrow!” the girl laughed, in a twangy Boston accent, “Call me Quinn.”
“Harley Quinn,” Joker added.
“Uh, Batman, are you there?” Red Robin gulped. No response.
“Don’t worry, I’ll treat’cha real nice,” Harley squealed, sauntering towards Red Robin.
“Look, I don’t want to hit a girl, but I will,” Red Robin warned.
“So you’ll pound me, but not Harley?” Joker groaned, “How sexist.”
Red Robin twirled his staff, and narrowed his eyes. Harley lunged at him. She obviously had no combat experience. Red Robin slid to the side, and jabbed at Harley’s abdomen. She stumbled a bit, and Red Robin swept the legs. Harley collapsed, hitting her face on the hard floor.
“Sexist, yeah,” Red Robin nodded, kneeling down to see if Harley was okay. Harley was sobbing, silently.
“Ah, you hurt my gal,” Joker said.
“I’ll hurt you next, Joker,” Red Robin replied. He stood back up, and held Harley down with his staff. Harley rolled over swiftly, and pulled Red Robin down to her. She mounted him, and got close to his face.
“Hiya birdie,” Harley giggled. Then, she went to town on his face. Hurling punches left in right, shaking his head as if it were a pair of maracas.
“Someone!” Red Robin cried out, “Help!”
“Shhh,” Harley hissed, delivering a final blow to Red Robin’s teeth.
Red Robin woke up in the same room, alone. Joker and Harley were gone. Outside, he heard gunshots echo. He got to his feet, pulled his cowl back over his face, and stumbled out of the room. At the end of the hall, he saw a chubby, balding man, stroking his pistol with one finger, nervously. A guard. His nameplate read “Hubet”.
“What’s going on?” Red Robin asked. Hubet jumped, and aimed the pistol at Red Robin. Red Robin put his hands up, and slowly approached Hubet. Hubet lowered his gun.
“Joker… and Dr. Quinzel, his therapist… they got out…” Hubet shivered.
“Where are they?” Red Robin asked.
“They headed for the exit,” Hubet answered.
“Come with me,” Red Robin said, jogging for the grand front doors of the Asylum.
Hubet nodded hurriedly, and wobbled after him.
Red Robin neared the steel front doors, and saw Joker taking aim at guards with a sniper rifle. The guards had formed a blockade around the doors, and they were armed with an assortment of guns. Harley Quinn was nowhere to be found.
“Hubet, stay back. If Joker overpowers me, you fire away. Go for the chest, understood?”
Hubet nodded.
Red Robin crept up behind Joker, and slipped his staff around his neck. Joker squirmed, and hissed.
“Let me go you oversized hen!” Joker cried, kicking and screaming.
“It’s over, Joker,” Red Robin said, cockily, “Now, where’s Quinzel?”
“Right here, Rob,” came a voice from the blockade of guards. A guard stepped forward, and took off the hat that was tucked over their eyes. Harley Quinn. She had a grenade hanging from her mouth, with the pin hooked around one of her teeth.
“Dr. Quinzel, don’t you pull that pin,” Red Robin warned.
“Then don’t you hurt my pookums,” Harley whined.
No.
No, he couldn’t. Joker was a monster. Alone, and unequipped, he was easy enough to take on, but if he got out of the Asylum- back to his gang, and his tools- he would be unstoppable once again.
But if he didn’t release Joker, a small army of guards would die. The initial detonation would ignite the other guards’ grenades, causing a massive explosion.
Red Robin pushed Joker forward, letting his staff rest at his side.
Harley smiled, ripped the pin out, dropped the grenade, and rushed to Joker. Joker swung his arm back, whacking Red Robin across the face. He shook out his hand, and began to giggle as the guards, who had been frozen in shock, were ripped apart by a bright flash.
Harley held Red Robin’s neck down with her foot, and twirled her pistol. Red Robin cried out, screeching every expletive he knew.
“Oopsie,” Harley shrugged, “I didn’t mean to blow those pretty boys up, Red.”
Red Robin grit his teeth, and closed his eyes. A bullet tore through Harley’s stomach. She shrieked, and fired at the ground next to Red Robin’s head. Red Robin threw her off of him, sprung to his feet, and knocked Joker in the face. He turned to see Hubet, gripping his pistol, with wisps of smoke floating away from the chamber.
“Thanks for the save,” Red Robin said.
Hubet nodded. Red Robin smacked Joker between the eyes with his staff.
“Rally a medical crew,” Red Robin instructed, “Call in an ambulance ASAP. Where’s Crane?”
“In his office, probably,” Hubet said.
“And that is-?”
“Take my keycard to the elevator. Top floor,” Hubet said, handing Red Robin his ID.
Red Robin thanked him, and walked to the elevator. He entered, and ascended, eventually reaching the top floor. He wandered past guard quarters, and made it to Warden Jonathan Crane’s office. He turned the handle, but the door didn’t move.
He knocked.
No answer.
Red Robin bashed the door down with his staff, and was blasted with a sweet, nectary smell. He coughed, and cleared the air. Then he saw…
Oh God…
Jonathan Crane was hanging by his neck from a rope that was tied around the light dangling from the ceiling. His white shirt was spattered with blood, and his sleeve were rolled up, revealing jagged cuts across his wrists. His neck was gashed too, letting his head hang back at an odd angle.
The walls were covered in maroon marks. Blood. Letters.
S
Red Robin already knew what it was.
C
Yes.
A
He knew.
R
He wanted to be wrong.
E
He wanted to be wrong so badly.
C
But he was right.
R
Unfortunately, he was one hundred percent correct.
O
No matter how much he dreaded it.
W
Scarecrow had been here.
Red Robin dropped to his knees.
What was the Scarecrow? What had it done to Jonathan Crane?
No. No time for fear. Time for work.
Work.
Detective work.
Red Robin immediately scanned the room for anything that could link back to what happened.
Scuff marks near the desk. Jonathan Crane had kicked it out from under him.
A knife. A bloodied knife. It laid slightly to the left of Crane’s body, on the ground. Red Robin picked it up, and scanned the fingerprints. Then he scanned Crane’s fingerprints. Matching. He analyzed oxidation of the blood on Crane’s wrists. The right wrist had been cut first. The neck had been cut last.
Finally, Red Robin looked for any bruising, red marks, or scratches that could hint at any sort of a struggle. Nothing.
Red Robin had pieced together what happened:
Jonathan Crane had been in his office with… a rope and a knife? Red Robin still had to work out why that ever happened. Crane climbed onto his desk, and strung himself up. He kicked the desk back, then began cutting himself. He cut his right wrist with the knife in his left hand, and vice versa. Then, he slashed his neck, and his arm fell limp, dropping the knife.
Scarecrow had only painted the letters, it seemed. But there were no fingerprints.
How had Scarecrow managed to make Crane hang himself, without any struggle?
“Batman?” Red Robin asked over the comm line.
“Red Robin! I’m here!” Bruce responded, “Where are you?”
“Arkham.”
“I told you not-”
“Listen, it’s Crane. He’s dead. He hung himself. Get here soon.”
Bruce cut the line. He was on his way.
Red Robin stood up, and turned to leave. The door slammed shut. Tears gushed out of Red Robin’s eyes from out of nowhere. He wasn’t even sca-
He had never been so mortified. Never in his life.
