I don't own anything to do with Batman. I do own Eleanor Black, her parents, her background, her dog, her friends Adam and Shauna, the NanoShift technology and this plot. This fic doesn't go along with the movie, which is why Rachel doesn't know that Bruce is Batman, and this fic has NOTHING to do with my other Batman fics. It's rated T for violence, blood, language and drinking. Maybe some mild sexual content. Oh, and some REAL bitchy-ness on the part of Eleanor. I hope you enjoy this fic.

Reflection of His Enemy
Chapter One / Under the Gotham Lights

The screen of her computer hummed unenthusiastically back at her as she played with filters on one of her latest photographs. She was trying to put together an artistic composition of people in the parks of Uptown Gotham, but it wasn't working that well, at least not the way she wanted it to. She sighed loudly and plunked her head down on the keyboard, creating a symphony of angry beeps and expressing a great deal of frustration to no one at all, because the offices of Wayne Tower were normally completely deserted at this hour. She had only stayed late to finish some plans and displays for the next day's board meeting, but had ended up tinkering with her photographs on the more advanced programs available on her super-powerful work computer. This scenario wasn't uncommon with her.

Eleanor Black had just turned twenty-eight, and thoroughly enjoyed her job as a personal assistant to the man in charge of Wayne Enterprises, Lucius Fox, who also happened to be a dear friend of her father's. She made more money for herself by selling her photographs freelance to magazines, newspapers and art galleries. Not that she needed to make any more money, as her parents, Liam and Naomi Black, were very, very rich and would happily give their daughter anything she wanted or needed; for her twenty-third birthday they had given her an insanely expensive loft located in uptown Gotham City, far enough away from the family mansion for Eleanor to feel free, but not far enough away to place her where most of the crime took place. She had to take the monorail train to work everyday, but she didn't mind. Eleanor just preferred to work for her money, like everyone else, she didn't want to be one of those rich people who was always like, "I'm so much better than you because I don't have to work." She had learned that state of mind from Liam and Naomi, who were both heads of departments at the hospital: Liam was head of Neurosurgery and Naomi was head of Cardiothoracic surgery.

But, even the chance to work, disregarded as the norm by so many, she might not have had if Liam hadn't found her in an alley one day when he'd been walking to the monorail station after a house call early in his career. Eleanor had been adopted by the Blacks and had no idea who her real parents were and no real inclination to hunt them down; her mother had abandoned her in an alley, probably because she had been raped. Liam and Naomi took great care of Eleanor. They always had. Why would she want to change that? Why would want to discover her real mother who could ruin her life? She was happy with her life the way it was. She didn't want to change anything. Naomi did. Eleanor was twenty-eight and alone, save her red Siberian husky, Blaze. Naomi desperately wanted grandchildren. And she pushed for them.

But that wasn't in the cards right now. At least not in Eleanor's mind.

Not that Eleanor would have any trouble finding a boyfriend. She wasn't super-model gorgeous or anything, but she wasn't ugly. She had rich, red-brown hair, intelligent cobalt blue eyes and a trim, curvy figure. She just had trouble keeping boyfriends. Eleanor was a little slow to trust and tended to be rather judgmental. She also enjoyed playing hard-to-get a little too much, and that was always a problem.

"How's your night going, Eleanor?" a kind voice suddenly asked to her right.

Startled, she pulled her face off the keyboard and looked up at Lucius Fox. He was smiling kindly, as was his nature, his wise brown eyes sparkling, and his snow white, pepper-flecked hair looking blue-tinged in the dim light from her computer monitor. "Fine, Mr. Fox. But what are you doing here so late? I didn't think you stayed any later than six. I didn't think anyone did…" she added as an afterthought.

He laughed warmly. "Usually, I don't, but I was just checking some things downstairs."

"Downstairs" meant what used to be the Applied Sciences department, but what was now a large storage room that held all the unused, un-bought, not-known-about-by-most-people gadgets from Wayne Enterprises. Lucius spent quite a lot of time down there, especially when Bruce Wayne dropped by; Bruce always left with a new gadget. No one knew what he wanted them for, but no one protested because, technically, they were his gadgets anyway. Wayne Enterprises was his company, even though he left the running of it to Lucius.

"Ah. I see," Eleanor said, inconspicuously pressing some keys to close the photo editing window and flipping a stray strand of hair out of her face. No matter how tightly she tied it back, some always managed to fall into her eyes. "Those plans for tomorrow's meeting are going… Uhm… OK," she lied. She hadn't worked on them since that afternoon.

Lucius smiled knowingly, and patted her on the shoulder. "Just keep working on them and make sure they're done for tomorrow. Don't stay too late though, Eleanor. I need you fully alert for the meeting." He started walking back towards his office, and then stopped. "Bruce Wayne is going to be attending the meeting as well, by the way," he said. With one more wise smile over his shoulder, his disappeared into his enclosed office.

Hm… Bruce Wayne… There was a knot in the relatively smooth rope of Eleanor's mind.

She had grown up around the billionaire as Liam and Naomi had been very, very close friends with Thomas and Martha Wayne. Her and Bruce were friends, but by no means were they best friends or even very close. No, Bruce's best friend was Rachel Dawes, whose mother had worked for the Waynes and who was the same age as Bruce; Eleanor was two years younger than the both of them. Eleanor was around Bruce a lot of the time now and, as they spent more and more time together, they grew closer and Eleanor thought that perhaps they were gaining the friendship they never had when they were young.

She had seen the most of him around the people who worked for him, and he generally pretended to be uninterested in the techno-babble, although it was fairly clear he understood every word of it, as he was a very smart man. Eleanor was also pretty sure he was interested in the workings of his company, even if he pretended not to be. On the other hand, she had seen him at the rich-people parties she loathed, and she could have sworn he was a different person. At those parties, he was completely… blank. There wasn't a trace of any genuine interest in him then. Everything was faked. He was always with two or more gorgeous models and always had a glass of wine in his hand. Which in itself was odd, because he never seemed to get drunk. He laughed at jokes no matter how bad they were and he discussed the trivial gossip rich people seemed to be so fascinated with. He worked very hard to keep up the billionaire playboy front for some reason.

And then there were the rare moments Eleanor got to see the "private" Bruce Wayne. She had only had the pleasure of talking to the real Bruce a few times before, but, as they became closer, she was realizing that he spoke to her from that mindset a lot more frequently.

But, no matter where he was, what he was doing, he always seemed to look brilliantly handsome, and Eleanor loved taking pictures of him, which she did at every opportunity she had; some of the pictures she'd made the most money off were pictures of him she'd sold to magazines. It was an artistic obsession. At least, that's what she kept telling herself, but deep down, she knew that she had feelings for him, she knew that she had had feelings for him for most of her life. But she justified that by saying every girl and every woman had a crush on Bruce Wayne, Gotham's most eligible bachelor.

Shaking her head, Eleanor forced herself to continue work on the plans, and to not think about Bruce Wayne. It would probably be in her best interest if she got what she had to done soon and then headed home. It was almost eight o'clock, and she hadn't eaten since noon, and she needed to tend to her dog. Blaze would not be happy with her, but he would be fine as soon as she took him for a w-a-l-k and gave him some food.

A few moments after Lucius left for the evening, Eleanor's cell phone rang. She jumped as the shrill noise rattled through the still, silent air and then dug the device out of her massive red purse on her desk to her left. "Hello?" she asked, holding the phone between her right ear and shoulder.

"Ellie, honey! What the hell are you still doing at work?!"

Eleanor didn't even ask how her mother knew she was still at work. "Just finishing up some plans for a meeting tomorrow, mom. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm just fine, except I never get to spend any time with my daughter any more! When are we going to get to go shopping again? Or spend any time together? It's been so long. You should come for dinner soon! Everyone at the house misses you…"

"Mom, I'd love to, but it can't be this week. Wayne Enterprises has meetings with three potential buyers. I won't have any time to do anything for or with anyone but the company."

"You're going to work yourself to death!"

Eleanor laughed, picturing her mother, deep red hair and emerald eyes, all frazzled on the other end of the line. "I'll be fine mom. Why don't we plan something for next week? I'll meet you out front of Wayne Tower, we'll go and get lunch and then go shopping. Bruce Wayne's annual Halloween party should be soon, and I'll need a good costume." She knew her mother could never resist shopping, especially when it had to do with Bruce's parties.

"Oh, that sounds great!"

"All right, mom. I'll see you next Wednesday at eleven-thirty. Oh, and tomorrow at the party. I love you." As Eleanor remembered she had promised to attend a charity ball tomorrow evening, she cringed.

"Love you too, dear!"

As she closed her shiny blue flip phone, Eleanor laughed to herself again, and pressed on in her work, knowing she'd be done and home around nine. And at exactly that time, she stumbled into her open concept loft and fell onto the tan leather couch. A cold nose pressed against her cheek followed by a smooth, warm tongue. "Blaze!" Eleanor sat up and greeted her dog properly, with a great hug, a scratch behind the ears and a bit of a wrestle. "I suppose you want food."

She had grabbed a salad at from the late-night cafeteria at work before she'd left for the night and was full. After her dog had devoured a bowl of chow and lapped up half a bowl of water, she changed into a pair of black sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt and a zip-up sweater, put her MP3 player headphones in her ears, the player and her cell phone and keys in her pocket, hooked on her dog's leash and headed out into the mild fall air. Blaze knew the way to his favourite park – North City Park – and he led Eleanor there at a run, allowing her mind and eyes to wander, as she enjoyed the soundtrack from her favourite movie thundering through her head.

Before she knew it, they were standing by the pond, Blaze exhausted from running and lying in the long grass, watching the ducks swim elegantly by in the faint light from the nearby hotels. Eleanor looked across the water to the outdoor patio of one of those high-end hotel and sighed to herself. There was another rich-people party going on. She only attended a few of those parties a year, preferring to stay away, and she always went with Liam and Naomi, so she'd at least know two people; three, if you counted Bruce, because he was always at those parties. Generally, her friends were from work or the art community and weren't in to the party scene, although there were a few. Eleanor wasn't a big fan of getting dressed up for a few hours to go and "make a good impression" on people you'd probably already met and who probably already hated you and talked about you behind your back. If she had found one thing, it was that there was a large amount of rich people who were so bored, all they did was gossip.

Blaze barked, bringing her out of her thoughts and signaling he was ready to walk around some more. "All right boy, let's go…" She cast one last gaze towards the party before starting down the winding path through the tree-covered areas of North City Park.

Bruce Wayne smiled his empty smile at the model to his left as he spun her into his chest. Was her name Samantha? Or Kate? He couldn't remember. She laughed and tried to kiss him – an advance he blatantly refused by taking a long drink of the wine in his hand. As the song ended, Bruce politely, if a little drunkenly, excused himself and proceeded outside the patio for some air. These parties he attended exhausted him. But, if h wanted to keep his secret, he had to keep up his public image of "billionaire playboy" even if it tended to irritate the hell out of him. Good thing he was an excellent actor.

He leaned on the wide white marble railing, propping himself up with his forearms, and gazed across the river towards the park. Even though it was late and nearing complete darkness outside, there were still a good number of people moving silently through the shadows. One shadow – a woman and her dog, by the looks of things – had stopped directly across the pond and were turned towards the hotel. She seemed to be looking at the party, and Bruce mused that it was probably someone just wishing how much she could be invited to one of those fancy, rich people parties. Ha, how little she really knew.

Bruce watched the woman until her and her dog turned down the path. North City Park was the nicest park in Uptown Gotham, and he knew that the paths lead into brilliant landscapes during the day, but at night, they lead into a place where attackers could hide. He had this sudden urge to run into the park and tell her that she shouldn't walk into the trees.

"Bruce! Come back inside and dance!" his other model-date called from inside. Maybe she was Samantha…

He waved a hand at her, and turned to head back in, when the unmistakable feeling of being watched crept down his spine. Bruce turned and scanned the park across the pond and the gardens and trees around him, but saw nothing. Dismissing the feeling as an effect of the wine he'd actually drank, Bruce headed back inside.

Little did he know, that the source of that feeling wasn't the wine, but a small, slight woman who had hidden herself in the bushes, and was very intent on watching him.

Eleanor swung her comfortable boardroom chair from side to side as she absently listened to the droning of the man wearing the bad toupee who was standing in front of the projector screen, waving his hands about in an attempt to emphasize his point. Beside her, Lucius was paying a remarkable amount of attention to the speaker. He had an uncanny ability to listen only to the words someone was saying and not their weird gestures or the tone of their voice. On the other side of the table, directly across from Eleanor, sat Bruce Wayne, looking a little tired and really bored; she was having a hard time not looking at him. Every time he caught her eye and smiled, Eleanor felt herself blush slightly, but she never looked away, only returned the grin.

When the bad-toupee finally sat down, someone else from his company stood up and started railing off the financial benefits to Wayne Enterprises if they sold their products to them. As if Lucius didn't know the financial benefits. Wayne Enterprises had the best financial teams in America and they knew it. Eleanor wished she could fall asleep with her eyes open.

Finally, the meeting ended, and Eleanor headed towards the cafeteria for lunch, not really knowing what verdict had been reached.

"Eleanor," a familiar voice called from behind her.

She stopped and turned around, her hair brushing against her cheeks and smiled at Bruce. "Hello," she said. "What I can do for you Mr. Wayne?" Keep it professional Eleanor, she reminded herself, all too aware of her tendency to flirt.

"I was just wondering why you weren't at that birthday party last night."

"Do you even remember who the birthday party was for?"

"No, but that has nothing to do with my question. Why weren't you there? Liam and Naomi were."

Eleanor started walking again and Bruce fell into step beside her. This was the kind of chatter she liked to avoid. If she was going to talk to Bruce, she wanted it to be the real him. "I was busy with plans for the meeting. You know, doing my job. And you know how much I hate those parties. I only go to the ones I choose to go to, and I don't get so drunk I can't ever remember who or what the party was for." Bruce wouldn't have been drunk, but that wasn't the point.

"OK, fair enough. Will you be going to the –"

"No, I won't. The next party I'll be going to will be your Halloween party, Bruce. I've got two more meetings to finish plans for this week, and then I've got plans with my mom next week and more meeting to plan for. So no, I won't be going to whatever party you were thinking about."

"I think you need some time off."

"Huh."

Bruce followed her into the elevator and said: "You know, I've never understood why you work so hard for someone who doesn't need to."

The doors slid shut, and, as her luck would have it, her and Bruce were the only two people on the elevator. "I need to work or I would go insane. Not everyone has the mental capacity to sit around and do nothing all day and then go to parties all night, Bruce." She regretted saying that as soon as it was out of her mouth. "Sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. You're right," Eleanor said, looking up at Bruce, who was smiling down at her, "I do need some time off." The elevator stopped at the floor of the cafeteria. "I'll see you later Bruce."

He just smiled at her.

Author's Note… All right, so here it is, my new Batman fic. I'm restarting it because now it's better planned and I'll be able to focus on it more. I'll be working on this one at the same time I'm working on my new X-Men fic too. Enjoy.