A Smile and A Gun

Disclaimer: I do not own Batman or any other characters they are property of DC Comics.

I do own Alice and non-familiar characters, any similarities with these characters to anyone in real life is merely a coincidence.

Description: Al Capone: "You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot father with a smile and a gun." Alice Payne has a job that takes her all over the world, but when she gets assigned to take on organized crime in her home town, Gotham City, her life is changed forever.

A/N: Hello, this is my first fanfiction, it starts out kinda slow but so do most prologues. This does take place during The Dark Knight and the Joker will be showing up in either chapter one or two. I would really like it if anyone reading this would leave a review, constructive criticism would be great. Let me know if you see any errors too. I'm probably going to post again either Friday night or Saturday sometime. I know how I want this to end but I'm not sure what to put in the middle, so if you have suggestions of where you would like this to go just let me know. Thanks and hope you enjoy :)

Prologue

Getting off the plane at Gotham City's Airport is always interesting on any of my journeys, at that exact moment I become myself, Alice Payne though it is rather hard to define who Alice Payne really is. To any of my friends I would have just gotten back from a consulting job in some far off nation for some obscure company that they've never heard of. However, that's a lie, my life is full of lies and deception, and it's been that way since my first year at Gotham University.

My freshman year at college, that's when I got a job that wasn't at some coffee shop or restaurant. The job description was for someone who had multilingual experience and enjoyed travel, well that fit me, and the starting pay was great and would give me enough cash to eat actual food and not instant noodles for the next four years of my life.

During High School, my parents insisted that I broaden my horizons and take some worldly classes, so I took some foreign language classes, can't get more worldly than that, looks great on a college application too. At first I started with German, and I loved it, language really engaged me. What other classes can you learn to insult your teachers, and they have no idea what the hell you're saying. I was hooked. Once I got a handle on German, I added on French, then Spanish, then Russian, and finally Chinese. The Chinese wasn't really my idea, but my dad kept saying something about China taking over the world, so I decided I better start studying for that now.

My family wasn't really the richest in Gotham, so speaking the language, hanging out with foreign exchange students, and reading books was about the closest I could get to traveling the world. That all changed when I got to college and was looking though the jobs section newspaper and saw that job description.

There was only one problem with the description, it wasn't all there, there was far more to the job than I thought. I didn't really think about it, even though the description didn't say at all what you would be doing for them, but I know it did have something to do with traveling. So I applied anyways.

Looking back now, I wonder if I hadn't accepted the job if I would actually been a real consultant, but I did accept the job. And despite anything anyone thinks of me most of them would never guess that a blond girl like me could ever be a spy.

Being a spy isn't all its cracked up to be, yeah there is glamor and deception and danger, the truth is though it's hard to be a different person every week, not that I don't enjoy being a spy I love my job. I guess it's just one of those jobs that makes you really think about your life and everyone you love and who you really are. Mistakes in the kinda job don't really give you a second chance, you screw up your life is no longer in your hands. It's a lot of pressure but I think I handle it well. Lying becomes second nature. There is no one in the entire world that knows everything about me, not one person.

Today was like any other day that I had when I got off the plane. Today I headed through Gate 15C, walked past security, and when over to wait for my luggage to come around the conveyor, I picked up my small suit case, and headed out to my little blue car in long term parking. I found my keys that were in my carry on backpack, threw my luggage in my trunk. Hopping in the driver's seat, rolled down the window, cranked the radio, and made my way to the highway that led to Headquarters.

I heard my phone stop ringing just as a song finished; picking it up I saw that I had missed 3 calls from my boss, Kevin Reynolds. Kevin is a nice guy don't get me wrong but being a boss in this kind of work, he never really gets close to anyone. He's tall and mysterious, and he looks way to old for his age. I started to dial his number when I got a text. It was from Kevin: alice meet 325 s row in 10.

I took the next right, heading towards downtown Gotham and Row St. I'd never been there before but I had heard about it from a co-worker one time. Anyone who was about the have a mission that was close to Gotham would meet there in case someone was watching Headquarters.

About a block away I parked my car. I undid my blond hair from the bun it was, it fell down and my shoulder on one side and was just down about the middle of my back on the other, I put on some sunglasses and my blunt bangs fell just a little over the top of them. I grabbed my backpack and made my way to 325.

I flipped my hair around just as I got to the little apartment, looking at my watch I saw that I had one minuet left. The apartment looked a little old but it looked like it was still in good shape I walked up the five steps and knocked on the door two times.

The door opened and I stepped in.