(trigger warning for violence, mental illness, drug use, medical themes, and language)

(heavily heavily heavily inspired by "why'd it have to be you?" by xxvoltagexx on AO3 bc i agree w them when they say that there is absolutely not enough pre-scarecrow scriddler content. jeez)

Dr. Crane was planning something and Edward knew it. He'd have to be stupid not to notice the screaming from the thin walls of the Arkham cells, former allies (people he didn't dislike) going batshit following one of Jon's visits.

Arkham Asylum was infamous for weaseling around rules and legal shit they didn't want to grapple with. Therefore, it was no surprise that Jon had been able to convince his bosses to let him to test on Arkham patients.

Even if the whole 'injecting-my-patients-with-syringes/giving-my-patients-hallucinogenic-powder' thing was unethical and probably illegal, Arkham decided to be... forgiving... and have the lab rats sign contracts so they would know what the experiment entailed... sorta.

It's Arkham... with contracts. It's still underhanded — the wording is tricky and the descriptions are vague, not to mention the unreadable fine print.

To know what Jonathan was doing to these loons to make them more loony, Edward decided to murder an orderly.

It was pretty simple, really. As we've established, Arkham is shady and unsafe, so all Edward had to do was steal a knife from Zsasz while he wasn't looking, get the orderly alone, then stab him directly in the heart.

After the blood had been shed, clothes were next. This would serve as a disguise and give him a fake identity... whatever the name tag on the uniform said. In this case, it said "Michael Adams." It was a generic enough name that he could be easily impersonated and/or forgotten.

With the keycard that was once in the back pocket of Michael Adams, Edward could now access more rooms in Arkham. One was the infirmary, where there was a box of medical masks. Edward could now disguise his face.

Now with a complete disguise, he stalked Jon until he could distinguish which patient would be tested on next — It was Carmine Falcone, the notorious crime boss that had recently been admitted to the asylum after he pleaded that he was insane. Edward knew it was a lie, of course, but he was intrigued to see where lying would take Mr. Falcone.

"Why should I help you?" Bane questioned gruffly.

"Because I know you want to see your friends again," Edward grinned, getting into Bane's face (and head), "and I know that you know that they're not waiting out there for a slab of meat like you."

Bane growled and tightened his fist.

Edward put his hands out as if he was taming a wild animal, but kept grinning demeaningly. "My point is, you should probably catch up to them while you can." He took his hand out from behind his back, revealing the keycard he'd been using to sneak around Arkham. Bane grabbed for it, but Edward took it back before he could take it.

Bane grunted angrily. "I could break you, little man." He punctuated the sentence by clapping his humongous hand on his humongous fist.

"But you won't if you want out of the asylum," Edward retaliated.

Bane was silent for a moment.

Then, "What do you want?"

*

When Edward was back in his disguise and Jon had walked into Falcone's cell, he cued Bane to lift the cell door off its hinges as the experiment was happening.

Edward timed things correctly... mostly. He got into the room before the hallucinogenic powder was dispersed, so, in theory, he himself would not be affected.

But, since Jon did not realize that Bane had torn into the room at first (the Scarecrow cowl on his head was pretty soundproof), not only had Falcone ingested the drugs, but so had Bane and soon every other Arkham Asylum patient.

And everyone started screaming.

"...Shit," came Jon's cowl-modulated voice.

For a fleeting moment, Edward thought that the creepiness of Jon's voice came from the drug that he had probably just inhaled. However, he soon noticed that he was not delirious and screaming (like most of the rest of the patients, orderlies, et cetera) because of his disguise — which included a medical mask.

"Let's get the hell out of here and quickly, shall we?" Edward said (not asked), and, before Jon could react, took his gloved hand and ran him out of the Asylum.