Jonathan Crane softly stroked the glossy, black feathers of the corvid perched on his hand, making sure to move slowly and purposefully as to not alarm the creature and cause it to fly away. It had taken a long time to earn the crow's trust this far and he didn't want to ruin it by letting his excitement getting the best of him. He couldn't help but feel a twinge of satisfaction and dare he say, even affection when the bird only let out soft noises of pleasure at the action, shifting its wings around for Jonathan to rub other spots. Jonathan knew it wouldn't be long now before the crow - whom he had dubbed Nightmare months ago - would trust him fully enough to let him carry him around. Setting the bird down so it could resume pecking at invisible items on the ground, Jonathan gazed out at the whole murder of corvids that were littering the field, all of them surrounding him with a level of trust. Why would they not trust him? He only fed them out here all the time.

No one else knew about the crows. He never bothered telling anyone about them, not finding it important enough to mention and not exactly wanting any of the other more… vengeful rogues to get any ideas on how to get back at him by targeting these guys. He doubted anyone would know where they were either. He was a good few meters away from the city right now, in a more open patch of land. It was too unassuming for any of the other rogues to be interested in it, which made it the perfect hang out spot when he needed to clear his head and think about things. He always wondered though, if by pure unadulterated chance, one of the rogues or Batman or whomever spotted him here what they would think.

The few people who knew the more… intricate parts of his past were often surprised to find out Jonathan was indeed, actually not afraid of birds. They were even more surprised to find out he held a small penchant towards them, especially the smarter kinds of birds such as crows, owls, and parrots.

If they ever bothered to ask him how such a change occurred, he would usually brush it off by simply saying that once he had learned the truth that the crows in the belfry had been nothing more than trained, hungry animals, it had basically washed his fear of the creatures away completely. It had been nothing more than a silly fear perpetuated by his wicked great grandmother, nothing more. Usually, people were satisfied enough with that answer and would move on from there. However, a couple of times he had met a doctor or something, who was bold (or nosy) enough to keep pushing him for information, not completely convinced by his story.

He couldn't believe how ungrateful some people were. Here he had been nice enough to give the nicer, more summarized version but if they insisted on pinpointing when exactly his fear had ended then he would tell them.

To be honest, there wasn't much to add from his short version. The moment he had seen Great Grandma Keeny dress up as the scarecrow with a rat on her shoulder and saw through her little trick, the spell had basically been broken. It was like seeing a magician reveal how he did the trick. Before that, one's mind scrambled… fooled by the illusion… but once it got revealed on how it was done, that's all it was… an illusion. Trickery in a way. It had certainly put the crows in the belfry into perspective on him and shook the way he saw fear today.

However to say that his fear had completely dissipated at that point would be a lie really. Over his years of researching fear, he knew that getting over one's own fears was one of the biggest challenges in the world. Even if one knew that their fear was irrational, that still couldn't stop the feeling of panic and anxiety that would spark inside someone when exposed to the thing that he or she was afraid of. It wouldn't stop their mind from filling in the blanks and imagining horrible scenarios or bringing up horrible memories.

Even after he had found out the truth of Great Grandma Keeny's crows, he had still had a level of aversion lingering on him in childhood. Hell, he couldn't even say he was healed completely now to be perfectly honest. Sometimes when he wandered out here, he would step too close to one crow for the bird's comfort and it would hiss or act aggressively towards him in response… and a small smidgen of him would actually fear for a second of it trying to attack him and rallying all of its friends to do the same. Fortunately, he learned just reprimanding it sharply would be enough to get the bird to back down to him or fly away to another part of the field, but still. So if he was still feeling it now, one could only imagine how it was back in Georgia. Even when he knew the truth about the crows, he had always found himself feeling anxious if he saw one anywhere near his line of sight, eyeing it until it left for good before he could relax.

However, he quickly realized that this was exactly what Great Grandma Keeny had wanted from him. She wanted him to be afraid of the birds. She wanted him to constantly feel on edge. His fear made him weak and malleable and under her control… and that was a thought he did not like the taste of. So he had began taking steps to change his feelings towards the creatures.

It had first started with just not immediately turning away from crows when he saw them out in the field. Then it was approaching them until they flew away. Then it was learning how to train them. He learned one didn't need to get up close and personal to the crows to train it to do your bidding. All one had to do was just teach it to peck at anything that carried food of some kind and voila, he had a weapon. He still remembered the satisfaction of seeing the crow he had fed for weeks that lived in the tree near school attack one of the many bullies who made it a point to harass him whenever he possibly could. He hadn't intended for the kid to lose an eye from it but he couldn't say he felt all that bad. He had lost plenty of teeth and received plenty of broken noses because of that kid, so he figured an eye was only a fair trade for all the years of abuse.

As he continued to expose himself to the birds, his fear for them slowly ebbed. They never once attacked him and if he trained them properly, he could use them as weapons. They were his allies and not his enemies. Once he was sure of this fact, he decided it was about time he tried to get the crows in the belfry to work for him for once. That work came when one day, before he left for Gotham, he seized Great Grandma Keeny by her brittle arm and dragged her towards the kitchen. The old hag had struggled but her age and illness made her weak. All he had to do was open a vial of rat's blood, splash it over her, and once he had accomplished that, he had began dragging her to the belfry… ready to finally rid of himself of the one demon who had been holding him back.

It was almost funny watching as her pride and resolve crumbled with every step to the belfry. At the beginning of the process she had snarled at him and hurled insults and threats like always… but as they got nearer and nearer to the belfry, her insults suddenly dissolved into pleas and begs. She had even started crying.

"Please Jonathan… I am sorry…" she had said. Too little, too late. He had thrown her into the belfry, locked the door, and walked back to the house, her screams howling through the night. After he had had a good night's sleep, he woke up and walked back out and into the belfry. He had been surprised at how fast the crows actually worked. Great Grandma Keeny was nothing more than bits of flesh clinging to bone and some hair at that point. He walked near her body, keeping his eyes out for the crows. They were all there but they paid him no interest. He had nothing they wanted.

The fact that they ignored him as he went through the arduous process of burying Great Grandma Keeny and the Keeny Manor will is what made his fear of the corvids disappear completely.

Of course when he told THAT part of the story that got looks of concern and disgust and suddenly he would either find himself taking a lot more medicine, getting more doctors, or suddenly the time he had to spend in the dump known as Arkham was extended.

When he came to Gotham, he didn't intend to associate with the crows again. They were part of the past. They were just birds now, nothing more. But one thing lead to another and one day, as he was on the run from the Batman, he had found himself in this field. As he was sitting around waiting for it to become daytime (which was when the Batman usually retired), he had fallen asleep at some point… only to wake up feeling something tugging at his shirt sleeve.

For a moment terrified that it was the Batman, he had flinched and jumped, only to be more surprised when a crow leapt back, flapping its wings and cawing in indignation. When he looked around some more, he saw a whole variety of crows around the area, pecking away at the ground or hanging on the limbs of trees.

He had been about to stand up and pay them no mind, seeing as it was dawn now and he was cold as shit and probably should be returning to the city, when he felt the crow that had awoken him tugging at his pant leg now, cawing. He was confused by it's actions for a moment, before it hit him. The crow could smell the crackers he had hidden in his costume. He always kept a pack of those just in case he was in situations like this where he had to hide for indefinite periods of time from the Batman and didn't want to lead the man on a trail back to his house. This crow must have smelt them and wanted some.

Knowing they were stale anyway, he had pulled the pack out, crumbled the crackers up in his hands, and dropped them to feed the crow… which then attracted all of the other crows in the area to come in on the feast. Once he had no more crackers left, he proceeded to head back to the city.

However, this little thing had became a habit. When running from the Bat, he came to the field, the same crow would wake him up at dawn for the crackers, he would feed it to said crow and its buddies, and head back to the city. It had become something relaxing to watch almost, seeing how the crows interacted. Hell, some of them had even grown so adjusted to the routine that he would wake up and not only find the crow who tugged on his sleeve there, but three or four of its buddies already patiently waiting for him to rouse and get the crackers.

Soon it became more and more of a thing where he didn't have to be on the run to come to this place. Whenever he had nothing better to do, he would find himself walking over to the field with stale crackers or bread in hand and feeding the birds, and simply observing them.

He did not consider them pets. They were wild birds and nothing more, so therefore, he usually didn't find himself attaching names to any of them. He could barely remember his own henchmen's names half of the time, so he didn't even want to attempt to remember fifty different names for the birds and find fifty different ways of distinguishing them… but of course there were some exceptions. Some of the birds simply stood out more than others.

There was Nightmare, the bird who had tugged on his sleeve for the crackers in the first place and who was by far the smartest of the bunch in Jonathan's opinion and his personal favorite.

Then there was Craw, the biggest and loudest bird of the bunch who always made tons of noise to let Jonathan know he was hungry. His name had originally been named Caw to mock him for his loudness… but Jonathan soon found that name too unoriginal even by his uncreative standards and saw just how mean to the other birds Craw could be when he wanted bigger bits of food, so he decided the bird needed something more menacing. With his infinite imagination, he added the 'r' to the bird's name and voila. Craw existed.

There was Lenore, one of the few ravens in the group, who was a pretty girl that he often saw some of the other males try to impress. She was definitely a bit more reclusive than some of the others but over time had slowly been approaching more and more.

Hitchcock, who he could tell only by his size alone. The bird was extremely round compared to his fellow crows and he would often use his size to bully the others out of pieces. He used to mock the bird for his size, but he couldn't deny the fact that he had grown increasingly fond of the stupid bastard.

There was Stabby who not only had a missing eye, but had brought him a silver butter knife piece as a gift… which out of all of the shiny items all of the crows had given him was by far the most interesting he had gotten which gave Stabby his name.

There was also Pretty Boy, Poe, Faust, Obsidian, Pretty Boy, Hissy Fit, Dickface, and Umbra to name a few of the others.

Jonathan Crane didn't know why he liked being with the birds so much. Maybe it was because it was one of the few relaxing things in his life. Maybe he liked being depended on by something for once.

Perhaps he was subconsciously reveling in how much he had changed since he was younger. Young Jonathan Crane would've never been here with these crows and ravens… it had gone to show how much he had changed. Showed that he had broken out of Great Grandma Keeny's control.

Whatever the reason he found himself coming back more and more often, each time trying to do something different with the crows. Some days he simply fed them, other days he would talk to them or scold them, with Nightmare he tried to train them.

He often wondered if he could train the rest of the flock like he was doing Nightmare if he could use them as weapons again. Crows could be used for many different uses after all. Messengers, attackers, spies, etc. He could easily do stuff with them if he so wanted. Add them into the chaos that was his life and give him his own element. But one step at a time.

For now he was satisfied for the small alliance he established with the corvids and didn't want to break that. The idea of finding one of his favorites killed in action was not something he necessarily wanted to think about and like mentioned before, this was one of the few peaceful things he had in his life that hadn't been tainted.

So for now the crows would remain his little secret.

Though with every passing day the idea of Batman or one of his annoying Robins and Batgirls having to be harangued by a flock of crows was becoming more and more of an amusing thought…

One step at a time, he reminded himself, one step at a time… he still had a lot of work to do with all of these crows before that dream ever became a reality.

A/N: I had meant for this to get posted on Halloween but school and time kind of slipped by and whoops. One day late. Haha. Anyway, this is inspired by the fact that I really like stories where Jonathan actually likes birds/other animals and since him liking corvids had become such a popular trend on Tumblr, I decided to jump on board by making this. Some of the names of the crows were inspired by this post!: post/151107203386/jon-knows-all-of-his-birds-by-sight-and-can

Follow their blog as well! Quality content! Anyway, I hope everyone had a good Halloween and I hope you enjoyed the story. As always critique is appreciated.