Disclaimer: Batman is owned by DC Comics and whoever else owns it. I in no way claim it as my own; I'm just borrowing. Any OCs are mine and the plot is also mine, except for anything from TDK.

A/N: One really small thing I want to clear up from last chapter.

I had Jonathan/Scarecrow in a pale blue Arkham suit. I know in the movies the people in Arkham wore orange, but I decided to color-code (to some degree) the inmates in my story, even if you'll never see the extent of it.

In my head, the high-security inmates wear pale blue. Middle-security wears dark orange. Low-security wears forest green. (I know all of that's really unrealistic, so read further.)

Why, you ask? Because I had a dream about living in Arkham Asylum and that's part of how the place worked in my dream. Only, for some reason, my uniform was rainbow-colored. Go figure.

It was like a little shout out to my man Morpheus for always being kind enough to give me a kickass dream whenever I need a little late night boost of inspiration.

Also, this chapter explains why one of Crow's men (Jimmy from the last chapter) was caught and put in Arkham, in case you were wondering.

Enjoy the short chapter!

Queen Takes Pawn

by Syrenia

Chapter Five - Dumb Luck

Back with Chelsie and her Crow, the clown was out performing his little plan to kill Gambol, so the pair had time to themselves. They were not allowed to go because, as the Joker had reasoned, it would look like she didn't care about him. Apparently, that was bad. Go figure.

As of now, Chelsie sat on her side of her bed with her back to her pillows which were propped against the wall, a magazine in her hands that she wasn't really paying attention to. She was busy wondering what Crow's plans were, if Crow even got that far ahead of herself.

'Crow?' Chelsie inwardly called to her alter.

'What is it, sweetheart?' inquired the black bird in the back of their mind.

The host sighed with some trepidation about asking her question, but asked nonetheless.

'What is it you're planning to do?'

'Plannin' isn't much my style, sweetheart; I simply have vague ideas of where I want to go that are easy to employ with some improvisation,' explained the bird with a grin. 'But as for where I want to go, I'm waitin' for the clown to get caught before I take off to do a li'l searchin' around for the identity of the Bat.'

Chelsie quirked an eyebrow curiously, 'Why are you trying to find out Batman's identity?'

'Whoever has the Bat's identity's gotta be the most powerful person in Gotham, sweetheart,' Crow explained patiently. 'What I end up doin' with the name will be the finale. I can always give it to the clown and let him unleash anarchy on Gotham however he sees fit, or I could wait until Gotham turns on the Bat. If Batty-boy becomes wanted, I could give the name then and see what happens to him.'

'For all this, you'd need proof,' pointed out the host. 'So far, we don't even know where to start looking to find his name.'

'Have a li'l faith in me, sweetheart; I know just where to start lookin',' Crow assured her with a mental nod. 'But first, I need to meet up with the Bat to some degree... I gotta see him in action with his li'l toys.'

Chelsie scowled, having never really wanted to see the Bat herself; seeing Batman had always been Crow's idea, and she'd never been happy about it.

'And how do you plan to get us near Batman?'

'Just follow the big dogs, Chels!' laughed Crow. 'If we follow the clown at the right time, we'll be able to meet up with the Bat... and then, at the opportune moment, we escape them both.'

'What do you plan to do once you escape?' Chelsie questioned her other half, intrigued.

Crow shrugged, 'Where we go depends on my analysis of the Bat.'

'Do you even have any clues as to who Batman is, or are you running on empty?' asked the host, doubting Crow had an inkling as to who Batman was.

'Of course I've got clues, sweetheart!' Crow answered indignantly. 'Here are the clues in no particular order: One clue is that somethin' in the Bat's life had to spur his hero complex. And ten to one, somethin' happened in his life involvin' bats. Why else would he pick the theme? And knowing Batsy, it's not just because he likes the li'l winged rats.'

Chelsie outwardly nodded in contemplation, then replied inwardly, 'Yes, I think you're on to something there... What else do you have?'

'Another clue would have to be how I've heard the Bat has all these smooth fightin' moves,' Crow added. 'Either he grew up learnin' somethin' like martial arts, or he had to have disappeared for a time to devote himself to learnin' those moves. You don't just get the kind of moves I've heard he has without spendin' some serious time trainin', sweetheart.'

'You make a valid point, but is that clue the one that's forcing you to meet up with the Batman?' questioned Chelsie curiously.

'No, not that one. I've heard the same type of things from so many thugs that I'm pretty sure the Bat knows some kind of martial arts,' Crow denied, then added the next clue. 'The next clue is why I gotta see the Bat myself. It states that either the Bat himself is rich, which is the most plausible, or he knows rich people, because his suit and play toys are definitely not somethin' you'd find in any store.'

Chelsie nodded outwardly, 'So you've gotta see his toys to make sure your theory is right.'

'Precisely,' Crow answered in the affirmative. 'My last clue is that Batman's daytime persona has to be somebody you'd least expect, or else someone out there would've already figured it out.'

'So he's rich, has a handsome income, either took martial arts classes studiously throughout his life or disappeared for a while to do some crash course learning, and something in his life must have given him a hero complex and the idea to use a bat as his symbol,' Chelsie summed it all up carefully, stroking her chin thoughtfully as she nodded repeatedly.

'Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it, sweetheart,' concluded the black bird with a mental nod.

Chelsie bit her bottom lip, hand falling as she let all of the clues ruminate in her mind, stirring them together like a tasty stew.

'You know, the richest and most unlikely candidate would be that guy you told me to take a look at while we were watching the news the other night,' the host recalled, not sure of his name as she never really paid much attention to the news. 'I think his name was Brice Payne or something... Something like that... No, no! Bruce Wayne! That's it!'

'Wow. Bruce Wayne? That would certainly be a shocker, sweetheart!' Crow said before cackling long and hard, remembering Wayne's playboy persona quite well. 'But, uh... you may be on to somethin'. If even I laugh at the possibility, it has an even greater chance of bein' true.'

'You really think Bruce Wayne could be Batman?' Chelsie asked incredulously, even if she'd been the one to bring him up in the first place.

'It's improbable, I'll grant you that, but nothin' in this world is impossible, sweetheart,' replied the black bird firmly. 'After all, you have dumb luck seein' as you're mostly Irish, and you're still alive after takin' in one villain and continually meetin' up with another... You, of all people, may have the best chance of accidentally stumblin' over the Bat's identity. We seem to have some intrinsic connection to costumed freaks, anyway.'

'You still need proof, though, so will you be checking up on Bruce Wayne?'

'With your luck of the Irish magic in mind, he's my top suspect,' Crow informed her, cackling afterward, the sound echoing through their mind.

Chelsie then spoke up again, 'I was also wondering about what happened to that henchman of ours you didn't wake up. You remember him, right?'

'Uh... No, can't say as I do, sweetheart,' Crow replied, slightly confused. 'Please refresh my memory.'

'We went out on a routine bombing, and that guy named Jimmy had fallen asleep on the roof; you told the others to leave him there, even when there were sirens in the background.'

Crow grinned mentally, 'Yeah, I remember now. I left him there for the cops to find. I wanted to have him in Arkham so that Jonny boy and his darlin' Scarecrow might find out Jimmy was with us. Then he could get some info. from the guy about us.'

Before Chelsie could reply, the black bird asserted, 'Specifically, Jimmy's got a good head on his shoulders and he was startin' to figure out that the bombin's are just a cover now for when I run off to figure out who the Bat is... So I expected him to blab to Jonny boy about it.'

'Why would you want Jonathan and his Scarecrow to know that?' questioned the host.

'I just wanna see what they'll do, obviously,' Crow replied with a mental shrug. 'It's like leavin' breadcrumbs in different directions. I wanna see which way they'll go.'

Chelsie shook her head with a sigh, 'I hope you don't accidentally lead us into more trouble than you're expecting. I don't want to think of what will happen when you finally get caught unawares.'

'And that's precisely why I always expect everythin', includin' the unexpected,' cooed the bird. 'I theorize my choices ahead of time, sweetheart, so you don't have to worry yourself with the details.'

The next day, back in Arkham, it was time for Jonathan and Scarecrow to meet their new psychiatrist.

They were led off to an office with a name on the wooden door which read in gold lettering, "Dr. Harleen Quinzel."

Once inside and seated in a cushioned chair across from the woman, they noted she was a blonde with blue eyes and a happier expression than most doctors in Arkham wore. Their first guess was that she wasn't quite like other psychiatrists.

"Hello, Mr. Crane," greeted the pretty blonde, smile reaching her eyes. "My name is Harleen Quinzel."

Jonathan didn't reply, so the woman fidgeted a little, then went through a clipboard of papers on her desk.

"According to the late Dr. Grayson's work," she began, keeping her eyes down timidly, "the only thing you ever talked about was someone named..."

Harleen looked through her papers to find the name, but Jonathan finally spoke up, finishing her sentence.

"Chelsie and Crow."

She let the papers fall, looking up to her new patient, "Yes... I was wondering if you had anything new to say about Chelsie and Crow."

The blonde leaned forward, clasping together her fingers and intently watching him with interest.

"I would like to have my rec. room privileges returned," he replied simply, then added a helpful prompt. "Perhaps then I would have something more to add to my earlier statements."

An amused smile broke out over Harleen's face as she leaned back in her chair, hands falling to her lap where one long, muscled leg draped over the other.

"Alright, Mr. Crane, we'll try things your way," Harleen conceded easily, though Jonathan could feel the 'but' coming.

"But," the woman began, as predicted, "I can tell you now that Crow hasn't appeared on the news since the night you last saw one of her videos."

She then explained, "I've been keeping up with the news on Crow and the Joker so that if they are brought into Arkham, I might have a chance of becoming their psychiatrist. And then, perhaps, since you three seem somehow connected, we could begin group therapy to work out your interrelated issues."

"As pleasant as that sounds, Ms. Quinzel," Jonathan said, leaning forward and attempting to hide his look of discomfort at the idea of meeting the clown bastard face-to-face in some sham of group therapy, "I simply want to know what Crow is doing on her own."

"The last thing I heard about Crow was that she was suspected of many unconnected bombings," Harleen told him. "She does not appear to have any purpose to what she's been doing so far."

"Ms. Quinzel, anyone with a masters in psychology could tell you that the bombings are just a cover now for her real goal," the ex-doctor snapped impatiently, not knowing whether Crow and Chelsie were alright taking its toll on him and causing his knee-jerk reaction.

Scarecrow growled and spat sarcastically, 'Please, go ahead and tell this idiotic woman that our Crow is planning something! Wonderful idea, doctor!'

Jonathan ignored Scarecrow, although he was mentally kicking himself for announcing Crow's plans to some degree.

What would Crow and Chelsie have thought if they could have seen him just then?

Harleen nibbled on her bottom lip before replying, "And what do you think they're planning to do, Mr. Crane?"

Jonathan collected himself, leaning back in his seat as he stared at her with his icy gaze, regaining his calm demeanor.

"Return our rec. room privileges," he began firmly, "and we'll have something new to say, Ms. Quinzel."

Quinzel sighed, then gave in, "I'll see what I can do."