In The Shade

By: R.S.Logan

A/N: This story has been one of the most interesting and entertaining ones I've ever written. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing.

Chapter One:

Trisana 'Tris' Carter sighed as she loaded her bags into the back of the family car and prepared to leave yet another foster home. This was the seventh family that had 'loved her dearly but just didn't think they had the time and resources to care for a child with her unique qualities.' She hadn't lost hope in the world but she was beginning to think its people had lost hope in her. After her parents died two years ago Tris had changed dramatically and it seemed that no one wanted anything to do with her anymore. It may have just been that she was difficult, seeing as she sneaked out every night and was strangely secretive and silent. Or it could've been something to do with her telepathic powers and the way she just seemed to know things she shouldn't; she wasn't really sure. Maybe it was both.

She closed the trunk and got in the car where her foster family, the Peters, were waiting.

"Where am I off to this time?" She asked Gloria, the mother of the family.

Gloria smiled weakly. "You're going to stay with your godfather Trisana."

Tris raised an eyebrow. "Wait…my Godfather's dead…that's why I couldn't stay with him at first."

"Apparently they were mistaken." Elijah, her husband, said in a curt tone. "He returned just a few months back and was notified a week ago that you'd be living with him. What was his name again Trisana?"

Tris rolled her eyes; she'd never been able to get them to call her Tris. "Bruce Wayne." She said.

Elijah shook his head. 'Maybe this rich, hotshot will be able to deal with her.' He thought.

"I cannot believe we are accepting a teenage girl into our home with all that goes on here." Alfred ranted to Bruce as they waited for the anticipated arrival of their new guest.

Bruce laughed. "Relax Alfred." He said with a faint smile. "It's nothing we can't handle."

Alfred looked doubtful. "I don't know Master Bruce…but I refuse to listen to loud rap music or escort her shopping for unnecessary items of revealing, pink clothing…I do hope you're correct in making this decision."

"There wasn't any decision to make Alfred." Bruce said. "I knew her father, Lance, at Princeton. We were close friends. They married and when she was born he and Bridget named me the godfather. I could never turn her down."

Alfred nodded. "I understand completely, Master Bruce. I meant no offense to the girl or her late family. I am just concerned that we might have finally met our match."

Just as he finished his sentence, a brown and beige station wagon pulled into the front drive and a tall, fit, girl with short, dark, red hair, gray eyes framed in black, plastic-rimmed glasses, and dark clothes stepped out, followed by two adults.

Bruce walked over to them as they began to unload the bags from their car.

"Here," He said to the girl. "Let me help you with your bags."

She smiled slightly at him. "Thank you but, I'm fine. I only have one."

Alfred looked her over and was suddenly very puzzled. She was not what he expected. He cocked an eyebrow and made his way over to the couple he assumed were the Peters.

"Would you like to come inside?" He questioned. "Master Bruce would surely

enjoy speaking with you and I'm sure young Trisana would love to say goodbye."

The couple shook their heads. "No thank you Sir," Gloria said. "We have two other children at home and we need to get back. Thank you for taking her in though."

Alfred nodded, confused as to their seemingly emotionless manner at losing a child, and followed Bruce and Tris inside.

"So…" Tris said calmly. "…You're not dead."

Bruce smiled. "I'm glad you've noticed. Should I show you your room?"

Tris shrugged. "I dunno…should you?"

Bruce smiled again and began upstairs. He continued down a long hallway and stopped in front of a pair of double doors.

"Here, this is yours." He said as he opened the doors widely.

Tris stared at the room in front of her. "…Wow." She said. "…Thanks."

She walked in and set her things down on the deep green, silk, bedspread and looked around, amazed, at the equally deep forest green walls and book lined shelves.

"I was told green was your favorite color." Bruce said.

Tris nodded. "Yeah…" she said. "That and black."

They stood in silence for a moment before Bruce spoke. "So." He asked. "Should I call you Trisana?"

She shook her head. "Actually, I go by Tris."

He nodded when suddenly Alfred came up behind him.

"Excuse me, Master Bruce, but you're needed downstairs at the moment."

Bruce nodded, instantly understanding the hidden meaning of his statement and turned to Tris. "I'm sorry Tris but, if you'll excuse me, I must take care of some business."

Tris nodded as he walked off. She had work to do too judging by the bat-shaped spotlight hovering in the sky. She quickly opened her suitcase, after she was sure she was alone, and pulled out her uniform. She smiled as she pulled on the long sleeve, flexible, black shirt, a pair of slightly loose, black, pants, and a long black leather trench coat along with a black hood she sewed on the back. She slipped on a pair of dark purple, flexible, leather gloves and slipped the hood over her head. It'd be good to be out in the night air again. Especially when she knew she was helping put criminals off the street.

Tris, or Shade, as she went by during the hours she spent in uniform, sighed as she breathed in the cool night air from her place on the roof. She'd seen the Bat Signal but yet couldn't, for the life of her, find a major incident in the city. Her family had died when she was almost fourteen because they had refused to be bought off by the criminal underground. The fire had been set that day at her house; her family had been trapped inside. After that she'd been obsessed with learning all about criminals and their tactics and ever since Batman had come to the city she'd been going out every night and putting her well-trained, technological and martial-arts skills to use. Suddenly she heard a swish of movement close behind her. She quickly spun around and grabbed and twisted the forearm of…Batman.

"Some reflexes…" He said.

Shade smirked coldly but yet inside she knew that was the most flattering complement she'd ever gotten. She relaxed her grip and he dropped his wrist to his side.

"Now," He said. "What's a girl like you doing in this pit of town?"

Shade's smile lessened. "Helping who I can…" She said quietly. "As you said…this isn't exactly the nicest part of Gotham."

The two were silent for a moment before he spoke again. "How old are you…um…"

"Shade." She said. "I'll be seventeen soon."

Batman raised his eyebrows. "Seventeen?" He asked. "Wow…judging by all the times I've seen you work I'd guessed you'd had about that much training. Who taught you anyway?"

Shade hesitated for a moment. "I taught myself." She said. "I started taking martial-arts when I was six…just as a hobby. But… certain events in my life caused me to rethink how seriously I took my training…and here I am."

Another moment of silence followed before she spoke again.

"You're 2-" She said.

She'd scanned his mind earlier and found this out but due to the fact that she didn't want anyone knowing who she was either, she respected his privacy when it came to his identity.

Batman smirked and admired her subtle attempt to change the subject. She wasn't threatened by him, he could tell, but she trusted no one. Although, the fact that she knew his age disturbed him and made him wonder just how much this girl knew.

She smiled weakly and was about to speak again when slight movement and the glint of a weapon caught her eye in the shadows behind Batman. She scanned out with her mind and found he was indeed armed with a handgun. She walked closer to Batman and pretended to examine his cape as to not alert the suspect and whispered softly.

"Listen closely. " She said. "There is an armed man in the shadows about twenty feet behind you."

He looked down at her and took the corner of his cape from her hands pretending to be explaining to her some fascinating detail about it's make and smiled at her.

"Good to know. But there's got to be more around. Are you bullet-proofed?" He asked.

Shade frowned a bit. "No. I don't exactly get an allowance."

He nodded and pulled out one of his bat-a-rangs. He 'showed it to Shade' then with lightning fast reflexes spun around and threw it catching the perpetrator's clothes in the shoulder and pinning him to crate he stood by.

Shade nodded as she looked around for more attackers. "…Some reflexes." She said.

Batman walked over to the man and held him up into the air by the collar on his shirt. "Are there more of you?" He asked.

The man whimpered but nodded fearfully.

"Where?" Batman demanded. "Where are they?"

But before he could finish his sentence Shade suddenly felt a firm hand and piece of cloth cover her mouth and pull her arm painfully behind her. She recognized the scent of the rag in his hand and immediately began to hold her breath. She'd already inhaled enough of the Chloroform to make her slow and dizzy but if she could escape before her breath ran out she had a chance of staying conscious.

"Hey Batty! "The man behind her said as he pushed her closer to the edge of the roof. "If you want your little girlfriend back alive you better step away from my buddy and drop the weapon. You never know…she may trip and fall."

Batman hesitated, looking for a way out of this, but finally stepped away from the man he'd been interrogating and let his weapon fall the floor.

"Alright…" He said. "Let her go."

The man's gripped loosed a bit and Shade took the advantage. She swung her body around and landed a high kick near his nose. She twisted her arm around trying to free herself but his grip was strong and her head was spinning. She could hear Batman running towards them and kicked out again, this time missing his lower back and hitting him in the back of his knee. He fell onto his stomach and flipped Shade around on top of him. Then, before she could establish how dangerously close to the edge they were, with one final shove he pushed her out and over until she dangled over the street twenty-four stories below; hanging only by the grip he held on her wrist. She could feel her vision going blurry and her body slowly giving into the drugs. She tried to grab onto something but her motor skills had slowed and she didn't have the strength to hold on. All that was keeping her alive, was the very man who had threatened to kill her moments earlier. She heard their voices above her arguing.

"Let her go." Batman said.

The man chuckled. "Or what? You'll kill me and let her fall to her death? Although, she's probably unconscious by now…she wouldn't feel a thing."

Batman narrowed his eyes at the man. "She was drugged." He said, trying to stall the man into making a mistake.

Shade listened harder but was now hearing other voices she knew were impossible to hear. Her mother and father's faces flashed before her eyes. Then the fire and all the police questioning, then her brother, Noah, was learning to ride a bike, the day she'd won the science fair. She shook her head and tried to concentrate but all sorts of random memories and images kept replaying themselves in her head.

He laughed again. "Yes…handy advantage isn't it? Anyway…this is taking too long."

"What do you want?" Batman asked through gritted teeth.

"Well," He said. "For starters, 500,000 dollars to fund a certain…project of mine. I'll contact you later with my details."

Suddenly the man disappeared instantly and Shade felt herself falling through the air. She could hear civilians screaming below her and would've screamed herself if she could've controlled her voice. She closed her eyes as she came closer and closer to the ground but a quick moment later felt a strong arm around her waist. Shade tried to look up into the person's face but her eyes had become too heavy to open and she gave in to unconsciousness.

Shade moaned and slowly opened her eyes. Quickly, she reached up and felt for her mask and heard a voice behind her.

"Don't worry." He said. "I respect your privacy."

Shade looked over in his direction and sighed. Much to her relief Batman was standing there with a tall glass in his hand.

"Here drink this…" He said to her. "It's water. It'll clear your head a bit."

Shade looked at him hesitantly but ultimately took the glass and sipped its contents.

"Thank you…" She said softly. "For everything."

He nodded. "Your welcome." He said. "But there is something we need to talk about."

Shade raised and eyebrow but nodded as he continued.

"The drug you inhaled was…"

"Chloroform." She finished.

He nodded but went on. "Yes…basically. The drug you inhaled was also combined with something else…a rare poison called Xantrix. It's colorless, odorless, tasteless, and is designed to cloud the mind and memories by forcing parts of your brain to work over their limits and put the body into a state of paralysis. It would've eventually proven fatal if you hadn't been given an antidote to reverse its effects."

Shade nodded and took another sip from the glass in her hands. "…Thank you…again."

He smiled down at her and sat down in a wooden chair nearby. He looked at her for a moment before speaking again. "Have you ever seen that man before Shade?"

Shade began to shake her head but then stopped. "Wait…yes." She said with a slight frown of concentration. "He was following me the other night on patrol…I thought it was just a coincidence but to be safe I altered my routine and lost him."

Batman frowned. "I see. Well…if you don't mind I'd like to meet again. I want to continue monitoring the agent in your blood incase there's some sort of time release on the poison's effects. The second release could work even faster if there is one."

Shade nodded and stood up. "Fine…I'll see you around then." She said, knowing she had to get home soon before Bruce noticed she was gone. "I've got to get home."

A week or so later, Tris woke up in her room around 6:00. She'd climbed in through the window the night of her fall and so far to her knowledge no one knew she'd left the confines of her room. She got out of bed and put on a pair of black jogging pants with white stripes down the side and pulled a green tank top over her head along with a pair of running shoes and headed downstairs. When she reached the front hallway, she pulled her hair up into a ponytail and opened the door.

"Where are you off to?" Alfred asked suddenly from behind her. "It's awfully early isn't it?"

Tris looked back at him and reluctantly shut the door. "I was just going for a run. I do it every morning."

Alfred nodded as he turned to leave. "Alright, go ahead." He said. "But just do you know there is a rather large exercise room on the third floor you are welcome to."

Tris went over her options for a moment and finally decided to go and see the room Alfred spoke of. When she arrived, she looked around and was shocked. Alfred had been right. The room was huge; complete with running track, pool, and what looked to be state of the art machinery. She sensed someone behind her and turned around to find Bruce smiling at her.

"Pretty cool huh?" He said with a child like grin on his face.

Tris nodded. "Yeah…pretty cool."

The two worked for a few hours before Alfred rushed in hurriedly. "Sir…" He said, obviously shaken up, as he handed Bruce the phone. "You have a call."

Bruce took the phone and held it to his ear.

A moment passed and he heard a man's voice from the end.

"…Hello…Batman."

A/N: Tee Hee! I hope you liked it! Until next time!

-R.S.Logan