WARNING: Mentions of sexual activities and swearing. Étoile is very in touch with her sexuality and both her and Declan swear a lot, so if you're uncomfortable with that, this may not be the best story for you.

Jump, grapple, swing, tuck and roll.

Land behind. Approach.

Kick to back, turn, shatter knee. Move forward. Punch, punch, back up.

Grab arm. Twist. Harder.

Regain grip. Throw.

It was almost boring, this take down of simple criminals. When she had first been assigned to a mission in Gotham, she had expected more experienced fighters. Instead, they ended up being irritations, too far below her in skill to challenge her but high enough to be nuisances. They weren't the reason she was here, and she didn't like wasting time. The end goal of a mission was always the most important thing. These thugs were slowing her down. Her mission statement was very clear; take down the crime lord and deliver him to the chamber, as quickly and quietly as possible. The council would determine his fate from there.

Her job was easy under the cover of night. A couple more sharp whacks to their heads and the criminals ended up unconscious on the filthy downtown Gotham sidewalk.

Wiping blood from her knuckles, Étoile hesitated.

Blood...mine? No, I broke his nose. Don't be stupid. It's too early in the mission to be hurt. Hurry now, before the adrenaline wears off.

Opening the doors to the small brick building, she was met with the sight of the boss raising an eyebrow, already subdued. His bodyguards lay unconscious and a figure in black and blue was crouched behind him, binding him to the chair with rope.

"Brought your little girlfriend, Nightwing? You're a little late, girly," He sneered, cocky even at the mercy of a man much stronger than him. A couple of years of power would do that to someone.

"Why do people always say that when a female hero enters the room? Honestly, get a little original." The man didn't seem fazed by her arrival. His eyes didn't even leave the knot he was making, causing irritation to rise in her. Who did this boy think he was, stealing her mission?

He finally looked up from his position and a charming smile replaced his focused stare.

"I'm Nightwing, as you've probably figured out, protector of the city of Blüdhaven. Pleased to meet you." He got up and extended his hand. She shook it quickly, then made her way to her target. She took a broken piece of glass from the floor and sliced the rope, forcing the man to his feet and clasping some handcuffs on him. She moved him forward.

"Étoile, the girl who will be taking this man to get his proper punishment rather than throwing him into a prison that will be broken into in a few month's time," she replied with a nod. Prodding her target along, she got to about five feet in front of the door before Nightwing slid between her and the exit.

"Sorry Étoile, my city, my rules. And I think you owe me a bit for cutting through my handiwork so fast."

She looked at him incredulously.

"We're in Aceline. Not Blϋdhaven."

"Which happens to be the city of a good buddy of mine. Soooo I have more authority here!" There it was again, that stupid, perfect grin. He was actually having fun with this.

"Yeah, how about fuck you."

"Gladl-"

"Do not finish that joke."

"Stop talking about me as if I'm not here, you heroes," the bound man mocked. Nightwing turned on the electricity for one of his escrima sticks and pressed it to the man's abdomen. He convulsed violently for a second before dropping into her awaiting arms, unconscious. She grunted from the sudden dead weight and scowled at the sleeping man.

"What do you want with old boss Conney anyways?" he asked innocently, still leaning against the doorway.

"Conney has been involved with sex slave rings, drug peddling, and an assassination service. He's been in prison four times. All four times, he got out. When something like that happens, certain people take notice, and then people like me are hired to put them into their place. Obviously, these jails aren't meant to house criminals like him," she answered matter-of-factly. "The justice system is too broken to deal with anything more than petty thieves. That's why people like us become vigilantes."

The grin slipped off his face, becoming a serious and still expression that Étoile thought suited a vigilante much better than a smile.

"How come I've never heard of you before, Étoile?" he asked.

"Do you think the public would ever approve of someone like me? They'd assume I was an assassin and blast warnings abut me from every television station. I don't need my targets knowing I'm hunting them."

"And you're telling me you aren't one?" His comment made unpleasant memories become restless. She could feel them pounding against her skull now, begging her to relive them. She grit her teeth together to distract herself and forced out a sentence.

"I only kill when absolutely necessary."

"So you aren't going to kill him?" He seemed doubtful.

That's not my place to decide.

"No. He'll stay alive," she lied. She had no idea what the court would decide. His part in the assassination service could lead them to sentence him to death. She'd never know if she didn't get out of this damn conversation before the cops arrived at the scene and busted her.

He considered the idea for a moment before stepping out of the doorway, opening the door for her.

"This isn't me saying that I agree with you. This is me giving you a chance to prove to me that I can let you do your business in Gotham without my interference. Just don't rough him up too much, alright?" He offered her a small smile and saw the corners of her lips twitch up just the slightest bit in response. Nightwing watched as she nodded and dragged the crook out onto the street. Throwing Conney over her shoulder, she ran and took a running jump before grappling up onto rooftop and running out of sight.

He waited for five minutes, staring where he saw her last, contemplating what to do before turning on his earpiece.

"Tim, are you on patrol tonight? No? Perfect. I need you to find everything you can about a female vigilante named Étoile."

***2 years later***

"Damian I swear to God if you do give me back my laptop-"

"You'll do what, Drake? This is for your own good. You don't get enough sunlight."

"Since when have you cared about my health, brat?"

"You two...will you please shut up?" Dick sighed. His voice echoed throughout the Batcave as he flipped through a file. His day job of being a cop coupled with his vigilante business often left him exhausted. Being with his disfunctional family really wasn't helping.

"How do you expect me to work when this entitled little asshole has my laptop? I need that!" Tim lunged at Damian and the younger of the two brothers dodged.

As the ruckus raged on behind him, the eldest rubbed his temples. Tim frowned and scrambled for a way to convince his older brother to help. As the exhausting memories of last night's research came back to him, he recalled Dick's interest in a certain girl, a very long time ago.

"My work, by the way, involves a certain vigilante named Étoile."

Dick paused.

"Damian, give him the laptop."

"Grayson!"

"Now, kiddo. This is important."

Damian grumbled something under his breath before thrusting the sleek device toward Tim. He wrenched it out of his younger brother's grasp with a triumphant face, flipping it open and setting it down on the tablespace next to the first Robin. Dick walked over and peered at the screen where a blurry picture of the girl he'd met years ago resided. She looked slightly different, but there was no denying that this was the same person.

"She's been silent the last year, or so I thought. I've been working on a different case when I found something weird. Our Wayne tech cameras, the ones we installed in secret? A couple of them had been looping the same feed for a year. An entire year! Our security didn't pick up on it because someone hacked it. Someone hacked our cameras!" Tim seemed agitated now, irritated at himself for not noticing the flaws. "Whoever works with her is good. I restored the cameras last week and I got footage of Étoile and three others around town, dealing with basic criminals on their way southwest. I think she's headed for Blϋdhaven. " Tim nudged the screen over to show him the new footage of her. A quick clip from one of the cameras showed that her fighting style had become more refined. She was taller, leaner, quicker, quieter...dangerous.

"Who is this girl, Grayson? And why do you care?" Damian huffed. He struggled to see the computer from behind the two taller men.

"Just someone I met a while ago, and someone I hope doesn't go down the wrong path. She kind of reminds me of Jason. I couldn't let her end up..." He trailed off.

"She won't, Dick. That wasn't your fault, anyway," Tim provided gently, placing a hand on his shoulder.

There was a solemn silence for a few minutes as they let the oldest boy gather himself. It was shattered rather quickly, however, as a new person entered the conversation.

"I know her." The three jumped at the sound of a fourth voice behind them, female this time. Cassandra Cain looked back at them quizzically.

"Cass, I know you were trained as an assassin but could you please give us a little heads up before you sneak up on us like that?" Tim smoothed back his hair, frazzled.

"Sorry."

"What did you say about her?" Dick asked.

"I met her. Five years ago. She helped me. Her and others from Skye."

"Skye?"

"Skye, an underground organization founded to dole out justice to criminals that, according to them, weren't being given their proper punishments by the government. Not a lot is known about them other than that." When Dick and Tim stared at him blankly, he sighed. "Jesus, doesn't anyone in this family do their research?"

"I was outnumbered and hurt. Her team came to get a target. Bought me time and saved me energy. I did not know her name, though." Cassandra tilted her head curiously at the three in front of her. "Is she hurting anyone?"

"I think the only thing she's hurting is Grayson's focus. She's not a priority," Damian scoffed.

"You're telling me you aren't even the least bit curious about her and Skye?" Tim asked.

"Look at her. She calls herself star in French. She's just another amateur trying to make things better. And hey, she make our job easier, so what do I care what she does?"

His brothers returned to squabbling behind him as Dick studied her route. She did seem to be headed towards his city. And if she was, she became his responsibility. With a new resolve, he decided that if she was returning to Blϋdhaven, he was going to find her and make sure that she wouldn't become another dead corpse on his hands.

Undisclosed location, Skye US Main Headquarters

'Name: Inès Delavergne

Alias: Étoile

Status: Active

Occupation: Hunter

Clearance: Level 4'

The screen at the foot of her bed always glowed. Dim at night, bright in the day, through power outages and routine lock down drills. It displayed her achievements and basic information, her authority among her peers, meant to showcase skill.

More often than not, however, it displayed her mission statements. Today, it was blissfully blank, making it a rare and special day, a day to spend relaxing sore muscles and organizing herself so that she could return to working at her best. And she planned to do exactly that in the Skye saunas.

The wooden walls of the bathhouse and sauna were old, worn, and familiar. The steam was warm against her skin and she approached an empty bath with a soft smile decorating her normally stoic features. Her foot dipped into the hot water, swallowing her body slowly.

"Mmm…" She was fully submerged and just about to relax when a voice shattered her peace.

"What's up, Nez?"

Her arms immediately wrapped around her form at the sound of a male voice in the female saunas. Her dark eyes threw a pointed look over her shoulder, where the source of the voice stood with a lopsided grin on.

"Aw, don't be shy. It's not like we haven't seen each other naked before. We grew up in the same youth dorms and everything. I thought you trusted me more than anybody else here," it teased. The smug face of Declan Connolly emerged from behind a wall. Her hands moved away. He was, annoyingly, right. Years prior, her training group had done trust exercises to build cooperation, one of which included striping down in front of each other. It was unorthodox and uncomfortable, but that was Skye in a nutshell. It had definitely established a strange sort of trust between all of them. The kind of unbreakable trust that came with seeing her best friend's dick in a non-sexual way (and, you know, later seeing it in a fully sexual way) was hard to establish in other people.

"How did you sneak in?"

"I figured out the passcode."

"I knew that your talent with machinery would come back to bite me in the ass."

"Please honey, I thought we agreed that the ass is off limits."

"You are insufferable."

"Love you too," he replied, blowing her a kiss.

He stripped down and joined her in the hot bath.

"And if someone gets in?" She had no doubt he had secured the building, but she always had fun learning what clever shit Declan had done.

"I locked every possible opening."

"Everyone at Skye, even the children, know how to pick locks," she pointed out.

"Not my locks. Specially designed," he smirked, gloating clear in his tone. He pushed a stray brown curl out of his face and grinned widely when she rolled her eyes at him.

Declan was a brilliant boy with tons of potential. A mechanical and technological prodigy. A genius. And what did he decide to do with his skills? Use it to break into the saunas so that he could disturb her on her free day.

"If you're looking to have sex, then today is not the day. I'm more than just your fuck buddy, I am your friend, and not everyone has your insatiable sexual appetite, Connolly. "

H pretended to look hurt and clutched at his chest, "Your SAT words wound me, Nezzy. Can't I just come to check up on my bestie?" He stuck his tongue out maturely. It was truly a mystery how such a childish person could also be a deadly fighter.

"Not if it's you. You always want something."

"Well not this time. We don't get to hang out much anymore. You're always in Gotham. The crime capital of the world has really earned its name." He ran a hand through his wet hair. His smile faltered for a moment and exhaustion was suddenly evident in the dark circles under his eyes and droop of his mouth. Shit. Why hadn't she noticed that before?

"Declan. Are you sleeping?"

There was a half second of silence as he gave her a look.

"Okay, let me rephrase that. Are you getting enough sleep?" Her concern skyrocketed. And here she had been, thinking that today might be relaxing. He muttered something quietly and sank up to his chin into the water.

"Declan Joseph Connolly!"

"It's fiiiiiiiine. I haven't taken a mission in a while and my project is almost done anyways. You know that I like to see things through to the end. Besides, working distracts me from the fact that my best friend isn't here."

"Flattery isn't going to win me over this time. I cannot believe you."

"It isn't flattery, I sincerely missed you. You're my closest friend! Don't get maaaad." Her worry deflated a bit.

"I am not mad, I am concerned. That is it, we're taking the team on a mission and I will make sure you get so drained that you will have no choice but to sleep!"

He cocked his head and smiled. "At least you aren't drugging my drink with sleeping pills this time."

"I did what I had to," she said defensively, "You looked like death. I stand by my decision."

"I was knocked out for an entire day, Nez. The doctors thought I was in a coma."

"I put the proper dosage in. That was just a testament to how much you needed sleep."

"Mhm. If that's what you really think…" She rolled her eyes.

"Why does Saint keep putting our team in Gotham to deal with minor targets anyways? She knows we're good enough for bigger ones. I want a challenge." She hated the way all of the criminals fell for the same tricks and how each capture was mechanical. No testing of skill, nothing to make her improve. All she had learned about were the streets of Gotham and how they worked. Occasionally, they dipped into Blϋdhaven. Every time, she kept an eye out for a blue and black clad body moving through the streets. Once, she thought she spotted a black boot but it was gone before she got a closer look. It could have been a stray cat.

"Don't stress over it. I'm sure it's just practice for some big baddie somewhere in Gotham. They probably just haven't tracked them down yet." Declan's words weren't enough to smooth over her frustration. The hot water steamed when it neared her glowing fingertips. She dunked them in water to cool off. Now was not the best time for her powers to flare up.

"The Gotham baddies should be handled by the Gotham goodies. Batman and crew are perfectly capable." How many of them were there now? Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Red Robin, Batgirl, Batwoman, Orphan, she had even heard Red Hood was involved with them. For a loner, Batman sure did have a large network of coworkers.

"Hey, calm down. Let's just soak for a bit. Some peace and quiet could do us both a world of good." Declan's touch was soothing as he scooted over and rubbed her shoulders.

She was just about to respond when their Skye alert watches began to beep in sync. The two groaned and pulled themselves out of the water. Picking up her watch, Inès frowned. In lieu of a mission statement, the screen simply stated "Report to meeting room 31 for debriefing in ten minutes." Her and Declan exchanged glances. This must be important for them to be pulled from their rest days, even more so if it required a debriefing. The young man gave her a smug look.

"I guess you're getting that challenge you wanted then. Funny, almost like I predicted it."

She punched him in the arm lightly and made her way to the locker rooms with a strange feeling in her stomach and a vague sense of dread.

AN: Hello! Welcome and thanks for reading my story! Goodness, it's been awhile since I've written one of these. Looking back on my old writing from this account is almost painful, but I won't delete them. Improvement is real, kiddos.

I tried to lay down some groundwork, though it was definitely hard not to tell instead of show. I might host a Q and A chapter where I answer questions from PMs or reviews since I can't always spend a lot of time explaining while sticking to the plot. I hope the length isn't too short, because this is probably going to be a standard chapter (2k-3k words). But you don't want to listen to me chatter on. Please leave a review! I would love some pointers, especially on sentence length variation. It may take a while for chapter two since I don't write ahead of time and school is close, but please just hold tight for a while!

Pronunciation guide:

Inès: ee-NEZ

Étoile: ay-TWALL

Declan: DECK-lehn

Connolly: kAA-nuh-lee

Skye: It's still 'sky', just with an 'e', it's not that hard

Delavergne: dell-ah-VERN