A/N: Hey guys! This is my take on the vigilante trope. There are already quite a few excellent vigilante Clexa stories on both FFN and AO3, but I've noticed that all of them feature vigilante! Lexa. Hence, I thought I'd write about an AU where Clarke is the vigilante instead. This story is heavily inspired by both The Dark Knight trilogy and Telltale's Batman game, so please pardon a few recurring ideas throughout the story. There will be a lot of character deaths, both major and minor, so be prepared. I will be updating daily and I hope that you enjoy it. A preview of the next chapter is at the end. Please leave a review and let me know what you think, constructive criticism is very welcomed.


Chapter One: Polis

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain. That came from a movie, but Octavia thought that it rang painfully true for Polis. Eleven years ago, a bomb killed Diana Sydney, an epitome of the corruption which had long plagued Polis. Every Mayor who came after her either stayed true to their ideals or became devoured by the same swamp. Either way, they left office in a body bag.

Some people were still optimistic about future. Octavia guessed that was why they believed in Clarke Griffin, the mysterious and beautiful heir to the multi-billion Griffin Enterprise and her colleague, who drew people in like magnetic. Those who were still fighting, but had long become disillusioned, rallied behind the tough-talking DA Charles Pike with a résumé polished by hundreds of convictions; and those who hadn't dared to let themselves hope when the visionary diplomat-turned-politician Marcus Kane was elected Mayor by a landslide. The elites who had no intention of loosening their grip on Polis' political and economic establishment lined up behind Cage Wallace, who oversaw Mt. Weather Corp's lucrative arms business. And finally, there was the woman who unleashed all the chaos. Polis' most notorious crime boss, Nia of the Azgeda, The Ice Queen.

Octavia looked at Lincoln, who had an arm around her tightly, his thick black coat soaked with rain, and smiled. It felt like a lifetime ago when they were the faces of Polis, and maybe she can do better than all of them. They were surrounded by people, stricken with grief. Polis always seemed to be mourning someone, but with Lincoln next to her, Octavia almost let herself hope, against her better judgment, that there wouldn't be another funeral for a long time.

Polis won't just fix itself. Obstacles await her, and sacrifices are bound to be made. But if there is anything that Clarke and Lexa taught her, it's that as long as there are still good people left in Polis, the sacrifices are worth it.


Eighteen Months Ago

"Can I help you?" A voice broke Lexa out of her trance. It was raspy with a slight hint of amusement and Lexa blinked, mentally scolding herself for letting someone catch her off guard. She had been so captivated by the painting that she didn't even realize someone had pushed open the glass door until they were right in front of her.

"I umm-" A faint shade of pink crept up Lexa's cheeks when she realized that she was caught. The figure in front of her observed Lexa curiously, a small smile tugging at her lips. She was around Lexa's age, late twenties to early thirties with light blonde curls that fell just above her shoulder. Her eyes were a dark shade of blue, like the ocean, deep and mesmerizing, glinting with amusement at Lexa's staggered speech. Her short hair and the low cut of her dress readily made visible the lucrative skin of her soft, smooth neck as well as enough cleavage to make any onlooker gawk like a horny teen. The black dress she wore ended mid-thigh, revealing her pale, and very long legs, a view that would render any man or woman to a drooling fool. Lexa thought that explained how the woman was taller than her until she noticed the pair of heels she was wearing.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Lexa cleared her throat, "I saw the painting from across the street, and I just couldn't help it."

The blonde woman followed Lexa's line of her sight until her eyes landed on the drawing in question. When she did, her eyebrows arched up in surprise.

"Interesting choice," she noted, "I can't say I've had people staring at it like it holds the key to the universe before."

Lexa definitely saw why the blonde would say that. Lexa could tell that the gallery showcased extraordinary works even though her knowledge of the arts is next to non-existent. The work she had her eyes on, was a charcoal drawing. It was a field of wildflowers untouched by civilization, charming but plain, with a strange sense that sent chills down her spine. It was undisputedly beautiful, but not beautiful like Aphrodite, rather beautiful in a way that reminded her of Thanatos. Honestly, Lexa herself was surprised that out of all the exquisite artworks that graced the gallery, this was the one that caught her eye.

"There's something about that drawing that just speaks to me," Lexa explained, "I don't exactly know, but it just feels so… beautiful, but there is also a sense of sadness to it. Like it's longing for something- something that it knows it can't have."

The blonde only hummed, looking at Lexa with a strange expression that she could not decipher.

"Come on," the smile returned to her face after a few seconds of silence, something akin to curiosity appeared in her eyes as the blonde turned around and beaconed Lexa to follow her. The brunette complied. Once they were both inside, the blonde woman closed the door behind her. It only took a glance around the open space for Lexa to realize that they were alone in the studio. There was no one behind what Lexa presumed was the reception, while the lighting was too dim with dark clouds ensuring it would be a night with no trace of the moon.

"I hope I'm not keeping you at work."

"Don't worry, you aren't. We weren't supposed to be closed for another hour anyway," the blonde waved it off with a small smile, "but we didn't get a lot of people all day, so I sent my staff home early. I was actually pretty surprised when I saw you."

"You own this place?" Lexa asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise and gesturing around the gallery, "and all these paintings, did you draw them?"

"I don't get that reaction a lot," the blonde chuckled, giving Lexa an amused look, "but yes, it's my gallery, and most of these works are mine."

"They are magnificent," Lexa breathed, turning and taking in all the artworks hanging on the walls. Most of them were paintings, but there were quite a few sketches as well, though Lexa didn't see anything else done by charcoal, "I don't know anything about art and even I can tell that. People must love your work."

"Thank you," a small smile graced the blonde woman's lips, followed by a wistful look. Something strange flashed in her eyes, but it vanished as soon as it appeared, "it's been quiet since I bought this place, refurbished it and opened it back up. A lot more people used to come here every day when I was much younger. I remember families, parents bringing their children to exhibitions on weekends-"

The woman didn't finish her sentence, but she didn't need to. Lexa nodded, looking at the blonde sadly. They both knew what happened next, why families no longer went out for picnics, why children stopped playing on the streets, why Polis became a ghost town when it was barely dark. The Mayor was assassinated, crime spiraled out of control, the police, underfunded and understaffed, became overran by organized criminal gangs. The worst of them, Nia and her Azgeda, terrorized the city. It was one of the many reasons why Lexa returned home, only to put on another uniform.

"Anyway, here it is," the blonde cleared her throat, removing the framed charcoal drawing from the wall and offering Lexa a small smile.

"How much do you want for it?" Lexa asked.

"You can have it," the blonde woman shook her head.

Lexa opened her mouth to protest, but the blonde beat her to it.

"Making a friend who understands your art is worth a lot more than an old charcoal drawing," the blonde said, her smile was pleasant and genuine, and Lexa didn't have it in her to say no. So she nodded instead.

"Where is this?"

"It's in Arkadia."

"It's not in Polis, I presume."

"You presume right," The blonde smiled, a distant look on her face. Her pupils dilated just enough that Lexa knew she must be caught in a memory, "Arkadia is half way across the world. I found it by chance during my travels. I was immediately captivated by it. Sitting there and just be was easily my favorite thing to do during my time there."

"Is that why the painting is so sad? Did something happen?" Lexa's curiosity got better of her before her brain could process what she was doing. Once it did, she almost winced at her own words.

The blonde visibly tensed, her distant expression replaced by a blank mask that betrayed no emotions, one that Lexa often found on her own face. The mirth that had become a permanent fixture in her sapphire eyes was gone, replaced by ice, like the end of a cone, so sharp that Lexa felt coldness slicing her skin open without even touching. Lexa had never felt as exposed as she was in that moment, in front of a pair of stone hard blue eyes, not even during the months she spent in a medical facility, feeling utterly powerless as she struggled to get back on her feet.

"I'm sorry," Lexa said quickly, "I didn't mean to intrude. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. I shouldn't have let my curiosity get the better of me."

Guarded blue eyes scanned Lexa's face carefully. The blonde woman must have found whatever she was looking for because her body relaxed. The ice in her blue eyes melted, warmth returned to them as the blonde woman offered Lexa a small, almost apologetic smile.

"It's okay," She said, inhaling sharply, "I would be curious too if I was in your position. Let's just say that the circumstances of my departure from Arkadia weren't exactly pleasant."

Lexa nodded. A small part of her wanted to press the blonde woman, but a larger, and much more sensible part of her was surprised that the blonde was willing to tell her anything in the first place.

"I'm Clarke, by the way," Said the blonde as she offered her hand to Lexa, "Clarke Griffin."

"I guessed as much when you told me you own the gallery," Lexa returned her smile and shook Clarke's hand firmly, "not a lot of people in Polis can afford a place like this, even less would be generous enough to gift me her painting. I'm Lexa, Lexa Woods."

"Lexa Woods? You wouldn't happen to be a police officer, would you?" Clarke raised an eyebrow.

"I am," Lexa confirmed, surprise in her voice, "how did you know?"

"Octavia and I went to high school together," Clarke chuckled, "she has been complaining about her 'commander hard-ass' non-stop ever since I got back."

That did sound like Blake.

"Anyway, what are you doing here?" Clarke asked, "I thought cops would be too busy dealing with the Azgeda for midnight art show stops, not that I'm not happy to see you, of course."

"You are right," Lexa sighed and ran a hand through her brunette hair absently, "I just left the station. I didn't mean to come here, I didn't even know about this place, but I must have made a wrong turn somewhere. It's been a rough day."

"Why don't we go upstairs?" Clarke suggested, catching Lexa so off guard that she almost choked on air. The brunette wasn't sure if Clarke's voice was huskier than usual or if her mind was simply playing tricks on her.

"I umm-" Lexa swallowed, her throat suddenly incredibly dry, "I can't, I'm sorry, I have a fiancée."

"I didn't mean it like that," Clarke laughed goodheartedly, "I was just going to offer you a drink. You looked like you could use one."

"Oh," Lexa was sure her cheeks were burning furiously, wanting nothing more than for the ground to crack open and swallow her whole, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have assumed."

"It's okay," Clarke chuckled, "I can definitely see why you did though, I'm sure girls throw themselves at you."

"So," Lexa cleared her throat, steering the conversation away from the land of social awkwardness, "what about that drink?"

"Right," Clarke shot Lexa an amused look that told the brunette she knew exactly what was going on, "Follow me."

As it turned out, there was much more to the gallery than what Lexa expected. The gallery was a three-story penthouse. The bottom two levels were converted into easily the grandest gallery in Polis, each of them showcasing dozens of paintings that had Lexa's eyes wide in awe. Landscapes beautiful beyond the limits of Lexa's vocabulary, affirming that the magazines Costia read weren't exaggerating the slightest when they called Clarke one of the most promising young artists in the world.

The attic was Clarke's living space. The blonde told Lexa to make herself comfortable on the couch while she got them drinks. Lexa noted that the living room alone was probably as big as the apartment she shared with Costia. A painting caught Lexa's attention. It was the only one that Lexa could see in the attic, but unlike most of Clarke's work, the painting was a portrait. In fact, Lexa didn't think she saw one portrait in the entire exhibition.

There were three figures in the portrait. A middle-aged man with a jovial glint in his eyes and a quirky smile on his lips was on the left, dressed in an impeccably sharp blue suit and a white shirt. He had light brown hair and a pair of very familiar blue eyes, looking at her warmly. On the right was a woman in a long, black dress. Her brunette hair was tied into an elegant knot, her status affirmed by the silky material of her dress that probably cost more than a whole year of Lexa's salary. She looked between them with a fond softness in her brown eyes, where a small girl stood. The child was very young, no more than five or six years old. She had long, curly blonde hair that fell freely behind her back, like a Disney princess. She had a pair of sapphire blue eyes, bright and curious. Many years later, when Lexa looked back to this moment, she would realize that that particular shade of blue became her favorite color the instant she looked into those eyes.

"I painted that when I was fourteen," Lexa was so captivated by the painting that she didn't hear the sound of Clarke's heels clicking. When the blonde spoke, she almost jumped, blinking furiously as she was shaken out of her trance, "It's one of the last happy memories I have of my family."

Clarke set two glasses on the table and poured them a glass of Vodka each. She handed one to Lexa, which the brunette accepted with a stiff nod, and gulped down the content of her own glass in one swallow, "I was seven when my dad was killed in Landon Alley, gunned down by some mugger. I was never as close to my mom as I was to my dad, but she was almost warm and caring. After my dad died, she changed. She became distant; it's almost as if she couldn't stand the thought of being in the same room with her daughter. She shipped me off to boarding school the first chance she got and buried herself in work," Clarke laughed humorlessly as she poured herself another glass of alcohol. There was no hint of menace in her tone, but there wasn't warmth either, "but you already know that. The whole world does."

"I lost someone I loved too," Lexa could tell that whatever Clarke was expecting, condolences she didn't mean or pity that was unwanted, she wasn't expecting an admission of equal power. And if Lexa was honest with herself, she didn't want or plan to offer it to a stranger she just met a few minutes ago until the words were already rolling off her tongue, "my parents were good people, both of them. They were lawyers. We didn't have a lot because my parents didn't work for the rich, they defended the people who couldn't afford a lawyer. I never understood my parents, until Nia had them killed."

Silence.

Clarke had coached her expression to one of neutral at some point, but there was no denying that Lexa's confession took the blonde by surprise. Neither of them spoke, Lexa was looking at Clarke, gauging her reaction. Her face betrayed no emotion, but Lexa found that there was always a trace of something behind those sapphire eyes of hers. This time, it was a mix of surprise and curiosity.

"Is that why you joined the PCPD?"

Lexa nodded, "I was young and idealistic. I always wanted to be part of something greater, so I joined the Army right after high school and served a tour. When I came home, I thought I had done my duty to my people. Then my parents died, and I knew my fight was not over. When Commissioner Miller offered me a job, I didn't even hesitate."

"Your parents sound like great people."

"They were."

"I'm sure they would be proud of you."

"Thank you," Lexa said, hoping that the sincerity she felt was conveyed in her tone. Judging by the soft smile on Clarke's face, it was.

A comfortable silence descended over them until Clarke broke it.

"Is that why you said you had a rough day?" The blonde inquired, "is it because of your job?"

Lexa was hesitant to answer. The people in the force knew better than to ask the Commander such things. Whiskey and silence were how her team dealt with it. Costia and her used to talk about work, hell, when Lexa's parents died, the brunette was a wreck. Costia was the one who got her back on track. But the duo had seen a fair amount of brutality between the two of them, with Lexa as a cop and Costia the Assistant DA, so they quickly agreed to keep work out of their home. If one of them had a particularly rough day, the other would simply hold them, no questions asked.

It may not be healthy, but it works for them.

So Lexa, never the one to talk about the permanent state of emotional wreck her work left her in, almost said no when the question left Clarke's mouth. Not because she didn't trust her, but simply because she never talked to anybody about it. But this was Clarke, and although they just met, she felt like the blonde deserved an explanation for opening up to her about her family.

"My team had a long day," Lexa inhaled sharply, more appreciative of the strong liquor burning in her throat than ever, "a string of home invasions. The last one was the worst. It was in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. A little girl called the police. She was crying and saying she was scared. By the time we got there, it was too late. The girl hid in the closet, but her parents and sister, who was only five, were already dead. It looked like the father tried to shield them from the bullets, but he couldn't save them. Wanheda was there too, but she didn't get there in time either. The girl told us that she saw Wanheda kill the man who killed her family. The body had more bones broken than forensics could count. Wanheda was so engrossed in brutalizing the invader that she didn't even realize the girl was there until his face was bloody beyond recognition. She told the girl to stay hidden and vanished. The girl was left alone with the bodies of her family and their murderer for God knows how long until my team arrived. The girl's name is Fox, she's only seven, and she's going to be an orphan."

By the time Lexa was finished, her hands were shaking so much that she had to set the glass down to not spill its content. The alcohol did not make her voice steady like she hoped, instead, the feelings that she had long learned to bury made an unwelcoming return. The overwhelming sense of failure whenever she arrived at the scene too late or lost someone. Tears rushing to her eyes as pain shook her system, as if the pain of the victim was the pain of her own. And above everything else, the feeling of attachment to the girl who was left alone in the city, the one thing that Anya had warned her to avoid in the most explicit terms, lest she becomes too emotionally fucked up to continue.

She didn't need to find out the girl's name was Fox. She certainly shouldn't have. Thousands of children in Polis are without a family because of Nia and Fox was no different. She couldn't let herself get attached to every orphan she came across because she wouldn't be able to do her job otherwise. A good cop doesn't let themselves become emotionally compromised. That was the first lesson Anya taught her as a rookie. Just like the day her company was deployed, her Sergeant told her that she was going to see a lot of people die. And more often than not, they'd be innocents who didn't deserve it. Her Sergeant told her she'd get used to it.

"You did your best Lexa. You tried to save them. Sometimes all you can do is your best." Said Clarke in a soothing, comforting voice, but the brunette was anything but soothed.

"That's not good enough," Lexa replied sulkily, loathing herself for not being able to save Fox's family and for being so weak in front of a stranger.

"We are not gods, Lexa. We are human. And there is only so much we can do, have you ever thought of that?"

"That didn't stop Wanheda from acting like one, did it?"

"Wanheda was only trying to do the right thing, same as you."

Something inside Lexa snapped.

"What has she done? Murdering people? My job is to protect people, not kill them."

"Criminals, Wanheda kills criminals who deserve it." Lexa wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or if Clarke all the sudden sounded very defensive, but Lexa took an oath to uphold the law, twice, and she was not going to give some superhero wannabe a free pass.

"It's not Wanheda's place to decide who's guilty and who deserves death," Lexa retorted, "a judge does that. Going around killing people doesn't restore order, it creates more chaos."

"You mean corrupt judges and corrupt cops in Nia's pocket," neither Clarke nor Lexa realized how loud they had become, or, in the heat of the argument, how flushed their faces had become and how close they were, standing on their feet, staring down at each other, their breaths tickling each other's face due to their proximity. But of course, neither of them registered any of it, for they would have jumped apart instantly otherwise, their faces flushing for entirely different reasons.

"If Wanheda really wants to help then she should turn herself in, and let those of us who actually follow the law do our job."

"Really? Because Wanheda kills criminals who would never have answered for their crimes otherwise. She keeps families safe by being willing to do whatever it takes to protect them. That's more than I can say for you."

Lexa flinched. Clarke's words tore into her heart like daggers. The blonde seemed to realize this too because her eyes widened so much that it would have been funny if the situation was comic even the slightest. But it wasn't. Clarke opened her mouth to apologize, but like every bad chick flick written in the last fifty years, Lexa beat her to it.

"Thank you for the drinks, Miss Griffin," Said Lexa coolly, her face stoic, "but I've already taken up enough of your time."

She was gone before Clarke could figure out how to ask her to stay.

For better or worse, Lexa's Sergeant was wrong. By the time Lexa was airlifted to Germany, she had lost count of how many people she couldn't save. But she never learned to numb the pain. She only learned to act as if she did.


Next time on The Ice Queen

"What is it?" Clarke frowned. Maya's voice was tense and her body language rigid, the two things together usually spelled disaster.

"A stress signal was sent from a cargo ship twenty minutes ago," Maya began explaining as the duo rushed to the staircase, taking two steps at a time until Clarke's attic entered their view, "It's only a matter of time before the PCPD picks it up."

"What's so special about this ship?"

"You really need to get down there."