I'm never gonna shake it up
I'll just close my eyes and make so that all the things don't affect me now
I know that I gotta be above it now

Leora slowly peeled her eyes open and then frowned when she didn't recognise her surroundings. Confused, she tried to sit up but quickly realised her arms and legs were bound down to the table. Leora quickly looked around the room and noticed that she was in a warehouse.

"You're awake!" A voice chirped. Leora looked to the side and watched as Jonathan Crane made his way up to her wearing some kind of dirty fabric mask. "Hello hello."

"Where am I?" Leora quickly asked. "And what's with the mask?"

"This is the mask I wear when I work. I took inspiration from scarecrows; their soul purpose is to scare beings away and I quite like that," he said, and looked around the room. "And you're in the warehouse where I created a wonderful toxin of mine. Well, with the help of my son, of course." Leora frowned in question. "I had him coming up with different formulas for a toxin that exploits the fears and phobias of people. He did a good job, my boy. Though I don't think he knew I was going to be using his chemistry work for my own benefits."

Leora frowned. "Jacque doesn't know you're doing this?"

Crane hummed. "No. Currently, he's asleep back at our place. Probably waking up from a bad dream and wondering where his dear friend is."

Leora scoffed. "Some Father you are."

"Could say the same for your father, Miss Lance," he let out a chuckle. "Oh, wait a minute, your father's dead, isn't he? Car crash, I read." He looked down at a table, his hand playing with some sort of device. "You were eleven I think? And a year later, the Green Starling made her first appearance. The Black Canary, who must be your mother, did a good job at focusing your grief onto something else. It's quite sad. Have you even had time to grieve your father yet? Or have you been too busy being a vigilante to think about him?"

"I-I think about him all the time," she replied quietly.

"Hmm." Crane picked up the device and walked around the bench. "Now, I usually experiment on my patients at Arkham Asylum. However, I'd make the exception for you. It'd be interesting to see what a meta human's fear is."

"I'm eighteen. I'd be surprised if it's not a spider or any sort of bug, really," Leora replied. "And I'm not a meta human."

"What about your father's death? You were there in the car when it crashed and he died," Crane said.

"I can't fear something that's already happened. He's dead. How can I be afraid of him dying, again?"

"Maybe not him, but maybe someone else?" Jonathan Crane held the device out in front of Leora.

Leora tried to inch her head away from him. "What is that?"

He let out a low chuckle and then pressed a button, smoke emitting from the device. "I hope you have a good time."

"Crane..." Leora coughed as the gas filled her lungs. "What...what is that?" When the large amount of smoke around Leora disappeared, the mask that Crane was wearing morphed and began to animate and jump out at her. Spiders and termites and multiple different bugs swarmed out of the mouth of the mask as well as the eyes and nose and ears. Leora's breath hitched and her eyes widened in fear as she tried to push away from him. The Scarecrow cackled at her, the bugs slowly beginning to crawl down his arms and then up Leora's body. Leora let out a terrifying high pitched scream that even had Crane flinching a little. The bindings tying Leora down began to tear and break, and Crane quickly picked up a syringe on the table beside him and immediately injected Leora with it. She slowly began to tie out and eventually, fell back asleep.

—

Leora awoke with a gasp, the feeling of spiders and cockroaches making her skin tingle despite looking down her body and seeing nothing but a pair of jeans on her legs. Leora quickly noticed that she was now sitting in a car seat, with a seatbelt over her body and the smell of pine in the air.

"Woah, Peanut. Bad dream?"

Leora's gaze snapped to her left and her mouth hung open at who was driving the car. "Dad, is that you?"

The man let out a short laugh, glancing shortly at his daughter. "Of course it is, Leelee. Did you fall asleep in the car again?"

Leora looked around, feeling the car to make sure that everything felt real. She pinched her arm as well, but she stayed exactly where she was—in the car with her dad. Leora looked back towards her father, a frown on her face. "You're dead. How is this possible?"

Daniel shook his head with a laugh. "Peanut, I'm not dead. I'm right beside you."

"I'm sorry, it's just," she took a deep breath. "This just feels like some big dream."

Daniel chuckled and reached over to grab Leora's hand, giving it a squeeze. "Well, you're definitely not dreaming. You're awake right beside me."

Leora smiled and squeezed his hand back, before letting out a deep sigh. She then looked around at where they were. Everything seemed so familiar. Trees were rushing past them, fresh snow covering the forest all around them. She looked at the dashboard, at the time showing 10:30am. Your Song by Elton John played softly in the background. Leora knew exactly where she was, and exactly what was about to happen.

"Dad, what day is it? And what year?"

"Ahh, why?"

"Just answer me, please."

"16th of April, 2002."

Leora began to panic. She looked ahead of her and down the road, awaiting the red car that was soon to come barreling their way. "No. No, it can't be."

Out of nowhere, Leora's hands began to glow. A bright golden light emitted from both of her hands, slowly beginning to grow brighter as Leora's eyes widened and she began to panic. "I don't remember this...Dad, what's happening?"

Daniel looked over towards his daughter and his eyes widened. "Peanut, calm down. It's okay."

Leora raised her hands and watched as they kept glowing brighter and brighter. "What's happening? Why are my hands doing this?"

Daniel reached over and placed a land on Leora's hand, and Leora watched as her father's hand began to glow also. "Leora, I'm going to pull over and help you out. Your mother and I will tell you everything afterwards."

But all Leora did was panic and she watched as her arms slowly began to glow and the bright light began to blind the two of them so that they couldn't see anything in the car. "I can't stop it! Dad! Help me."

"Leora! Stop, please. You have to get it under control"

"I can't! I can't!"

And then the glow blasted from Leora's hands and the car flipped over. Their car flew into the air and began to roll down the abandoned road, not smashing into the red car that Leora had remembered, but instead landing on the roof of the car with the two passengers inside still breathing.

Leora felt her body begin switch off as her head smacked onto the roof of the car and she laid on her side with her right arm broken and some of her ribs cracked. Daniel, however, was still awake, just taken aback by what his daughter had done. He reached over towards his daughter and placed a hand on her forehead, watching as his hand began to light up and all of the magic in his body began to pulse from him into his daughter.

"One day you'll learn of these powers, and when that day comes, I'll be watching from afar." As soon as his hands stopped glowing, Daniel felt all of the energy in his body begin to disappear and he watched with tired eyes as his daughter's eyes closed and her memory of the entire event was taken from her mind and altered. "I love you, Peanut."

AUTHORS NOTE
SURPRISE lol
Last time I posted a chapter of this book was March this year and I am so so sorry. I have the rest of Part 1 planned out, I just haven't gotten around to writing it. But because of nightwvngs and their constant talk of their Dick Grayson fic, I'm finally going to write some of my own. Thank you loads Ash <3
-rosepetal