WARNING: This story is rated R (just to be safe) for language, violence, and mild sexual content.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Batman, Nightwing (even though I'd like to) or any of the related characters. They are owned by WB, AOL Time Warner, and DC Comics. Created by Bob Kane, God rest his soul.

Agent Thomas, Carmella and Sammy, along with the story, though, are mine. Read but do not hurt.

Timeline: Sometime after NML, but before the "Bruce Wayne Murder?" series.

Alright, I finally went through this story, seeing as how I seriously need to write more ... but I decided to go through everything I have already written and make minute corrections. So, I don't think anything big actually changed, but just little things, like spelling, punctuation, and other little things. Anyway, I hope to get up the rest of the story up in a somewhat timely manner, but judging by my previous issues, I can't promise anything. Sorry.

Anyway, enough of that mumbo jumbo crap, I hope you like! And please review!!!

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Gotham City.

It was even more impressive at night than during the day. The city shone brightly along the black horizon as the airliner began its decent. Special Agent Elizabeth Thomas slid the sheet of plastic over the small window. She didn't want to be here. The only other time in her entire life that she had been in Gotham was when she was seventeen. She hoped this trip would be better. The captain's voice rang overhead as if some sort of omnipotent being, announcing their decent, the time, the temperature and other equally unimportant facts. Agent Thomas wasn't listening. She leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, closed her eyes, and sighed.

If there was anything she hated more than Gotham herself, it was having to fly there.

Walking toward baggage claim, her gun, in an arm holster, rubbed against the inside of her forearm. She didn't like guns, but oddly, here, in this city, it made her feel better. Safer. Unlike DC, Gotham was dark. But it wasn't the shadows that scared her so much, it was the freaks that made it their sanctuary.

Like Batman.

Most people didn't even believe he existed. A myth, a fairytale, although not like prince charming fairytales, no, more like the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm fairytales. For a long time Agent Thomas believed the Batman to be something that was told to the super-freaks' spawn to make them eat their vegetables, or maybe to even give the hopeless a little hope. But not anymore. She knew he was real, and so where his followers. The Batgirl and that bird boy.

Or rather man now, she thought with an odd grin.

She shook her head not allowing whatever thought was coming to manifest itself.

Stepping out onto the street in front of the airport, she hailed a cab. It wasn't raining yet, but the clouds above were threatening a downpour. As she climbed in the back seat, she prayed for the change in weather. It was the only thing in the retched city that she could stand.

She arrived at an amazing hotel only fifteen minutes later. Gotham always seemed to set the FBI up with the best of everything, despite how much the Gothamites hated them. The Gotham City Police Department was the worst. They, above everyone else, hated the involvement of the FBI in anything. Agent Thomas wanted to hate them back, but she just couldn't bring her self to. They were good cops. Probably the cleanest in the US. And that was owed solely to the commissioner.

James Gordon.

She was almost excited for their first encounter the following day. She had read everything she could get her hands on about him, not only because she was going to be working with him, but because he intrigued her. She set her gun on the stand next to the bed. She laughed out loud.

I wonder what the Commissioner would think of a Federal Agent who hated guns, she thought.

The best thing about the hotel room was the bedroom. It was a very spacious room with a wall of windows across from the foot of the bed. Agent Thomas opened the ceiling high French doors just as the first drops of the summer storm hit. The smell that radiated off the city was amazing. She was surprised that one of the biggest cities in America could have the smell of Oklahoma when it rained.

The curtains flapped in the slight breeze that brought more of that fresh aroma into the room. It was nearly midnight and once the lamps were flipped off, the room was completely black, except for a small sliver from a gap in the curtains. She lay in the king size bed with the sheets barely covering her waist, and drifted off into a light sleep.