Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Batman characters included in the story. Melanie and her father are mine as is the plot. All other characters belong to DC Comics.

AN: Ok, so this is my first fanfiction, so please be nice. Also note that I've never read the comics for Batman, just seen the movies so if stuff is off, not my fault. This follows the events of The Dark Knight. Please read and review, give me a chance here, ok?

So the Batman thought that he could win the battle for Gotham that easily? Well, was he in for a surprise or what? I wasn't about to let him be in charge of my city. Just like I wasn't about to be in this padded cell forever as he suggested. I had been here for two months, but I was secretly tunneling my way out by night. And it wouldn't be long now before I was out. I knew where I was going to go, I had my hiding place all picked out so that I could sort of "lay low" for awhile or at least long enough to decide what to do about the Two-Face situation. He was supposedly dead, which should cause me some problems. But hope was not lost, Gotham was still mine for the taking, and take it I would…

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I couldn't believe the downward spiral my life had taken in the last month and a half. My parents had gotten divorced, and I had been sent to live with my dad. I was mad at both of them for that one. Sure, Mom cheated on Dad, but Dad was a total Type A workaholic. Apparently, Mom's only choice to feel important and loved then was to go outside their marriage or that was her story. So six weeks ago, my dad found out about my mom and filed for divorce. Four weeks later, my parents had settled on everything except who would have primary custody of me. But would they let me choose? Nope. They took it to court and a mere week ago, the judge ruled that my dad would have primary custody. That meant two things: one, I would be leaving the few friends I had and two, I would be packing up everything I owned to move with my dad to Gotham City. My dad used to be a profiler for the FBI and he was still fascinated by the criminal minds. Recently, he had taken quite an interest in the psychopath terrorizing Gotham who called himself The Joker. So it was natural that he would give the house to Mom and move out to Gotham so he could do first hand observations of The Joker who was locked up in Arkham.

Here we were, just moving into our new home. I was busy in my room unpacking my past life. I sat in the middle of the floor glaring at everything that was mine, it was too painful, it all reminded me of the life that I had kissed goodbye. No more friends, no more interesting parties to go to, nothing. In six weeks, I had everything in my life stripped away from me, which left me a rather unhappy, defiant eighteen-year-old girl, and it was all because a judge had decided that my dad was a more suitable parent for me to live with full time. I looked around the room at my stuff again and felt my eyes well up with tears, I didn't want to be here, I didn't want to give up everything I had known back in Boston.

A knock on the door pulled me from my pity party. I got up to open the door; of course, it was my dad standing on the other side. "I found another box of your stuff," he said carrying the box in and setting it on the floor in one of the few empty spaces.

"Thanks," I muttered, turning back to rummaging through one of the open boxes on my bed.

"There's this charity party going on at Bruce Wayne's penthouse that I was thinking of going to. You know get to meet some of the people in this city, make some friends. Want to come too?"

"When is it?" I asked, not looking up from the box I was rummaging through.

"Tonight, at 7:00," he answered. "So what do you say?"

"Umm…I think I'd kinda rather just chill here and work on unpacking," I said finally looking up, "I've got a lot of stuff to go through."

"Oh…yeah…ok, I understand," Dad replied, "I'll be back by ten then."

"Ok," I said, turning back to the disaster of a bedroom.

"I'll leave you to your work then, Mel," he said as he left the room.

"Appreciate that," I said bitterly as he closed the door behind him. Once I heard my dad pull out of the driveway, I decided that it was time for some loud, angry music. I turned up the stereo in my room and started jamming to Three Days Grace, one of my favorite bands.

I only worked on unpacking for about an hour more. Then I was just air-guitaring and air-drumming to all the songs as I sung along. Before long, I realized that it was nearly 9 o'clock and Dad would be back in an hour. I shut the music off and went to take a hot shower. My goal was to get into bed before he got home. As I crawled into bed at 10:02, I noticed headlights coming up the driveway announcing Dad's return. I rolled my eyes and rolled over as I drifted into a restless sleep.