I figured you'd need more before you took more interest in the story. The prologue didn't give you much of the story, just the letter.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.


Rickie had trouble sleeping. Her mind kept wandering to the letter she wrote. She really wished she didn't have to write it, but she couldn't leave them with nothing. Richille Jean Grayson knew she only had months live before Deathstroke the Terminator came. And there was a reason he was called the Terminator.

Deathstroke was good enough that Batman has trouble beating him. He took down half the Justice League, and managed to nearly escape. Batman caught him, barely. In short, she was terrified of him, and for good reason. More than just the Batman reason. She'd had run ins with Deathstroke when she was with the Titans.

But she felt an odd sense of peace, a knot of fear about her future that for so long had been uncertain disappeared.

Rickie was determined that if this was going to be her couple months living, then she wouldn't be mopey and depressed about it. She'd be herself. For the sake of her friends, the ones who helped her after the invasion. Her alarm went off, and Rickie groaned. She rolled out of bed, slamming her hand down on the annoying device.

Quickly, she slipped out of her pajamas, and slipped on her undergarments. Then Rickie put on her police uniform, feeling like she had a death sentence on her head. Oh wait, she did. Her hair was still in its messy bun, so she hurriedly brushed it, and put it in a ponytail.

Thankfully, the media has no pictures of Nightwing, as she tended to avoid cameras, and didn't allow baddies to see her in direct light. Nightwing preferred to stay concealed in the shadows, and annoyed the living daylights out of bad guys by taunting them. It was her version of fun.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. She felt a headache coming on. Good thing she was technically banned from active police duty. Of course, her fellow officers didn't know about her exploits as Nightwing, but she hurt her wrist as an officer. As for the public, and Nightwing . . . After being Nightwing in Bludhaven for five years, she was still considered a rumor. A myth.

The police and Nightwing have a slightly worse relationship. It doesn't help matters that a large number (almost all of them) are corrupt, and the ones that aren't are afraid to speak out. They enjoy life, and they don't want to see their family die.

And the (corrupt or not for the most part) police will do anything to deny Nightwing's existence. Yes, even the non-corrupt ones like her partner are all for denying her existence. She had even been shot at by the stupid police officers.

To explain the dropping crime rate (still second highest in the country, but some crime was down) another rumor started up that Nightwing is just a myth used by cops to strike fear into criminals. Ha. Most criminals laughed when they saw that she was a young woman dressed in a skin tight suit.

And of course, Nightwing was not a myth, because she was Nightwing. Some news reporters have expressed a desire to find out whether Nightwing existed or not, but none of them wanted to go into Bludhaven. Lucky for them, that was the city Nightwing is rumored to be in.

In the end, she was left alone. After it being that way for so long, she kind of preferred it that way. Rickie straightened out her uniform, before snagging her dark navy, almost black rain coat. She took a few more moments to do a mental check of everything.

Rickie glanced around her room. She had a queen sized mattress with a dark blue cover that was light blue on the other side. She had white pillows, and her room was shaped like a square. She was facing the wall away from the bed, and to her right was the door that went into the hall.

On one side of her bed was a table dresser, and at the foot of her bed there was a huge trunk. She didn't have a closet. Towards where she was facing was a long dresser that had a mirror on it. The dresser itself was old, a dark, light-ish wood.

Many things were cluttered on the dresser, and a tack board on the wall to the right of the door held lots of photos. The dresser had her work clothes (shirt she had to wear for bartending and her BPD uniform she currently wore) with her casual clothes in it. The trunk had shoes, while the bedside dresser had her undergarments and socks.

On the long dresser there were a few picture frames. One was of her parents, John and Mary Grayson. She had her mom's blue eyes, and her father's black hair. On the wall across from where the door and the tack board was, she had a window that looked out over the street.

She had long since grown used to hearing the sounds of the city at night. Besides, the lights on her street were the orange eco-friendly kind and she lived in a quiet neighborhood. For Bludhaven, that is. Right now, the window showed a gray sky, and rain pitter-pattered against it. Not the best kind of weather.

She had a tan carpet that was soft, but not shaggy. Her walls were white, though they looked a little yellow at night in the street lights . . . Rickie shook her head to clear her thoughts. She placed her phone in her pocket. Time to head to work on a delightful rainy day.

She glared at the clunky black brace on her arm, the kind with straps to hold it in place. She had sprained her right wrist on a police bust a week ago. Instead of just wrapping it, the doctor insisted on putting it in the damn brace. It wasn't even that bad!

This made her night life as Nightwing more difficult, but she could deal with it. She'd dealt with worse. Mostly, she was just angry that she was - for now - stuck on desk duty for as long as it took her wrist to heal. She hated paperwork. And she got everybody's cases because they're too lazy to do them.

She definitely needed an aspirin. For a moment, Rickie debated on bringing the whole bottle to work. It was going to be a long Monday. She didn't get off until six at night, and she started at seven in the morning. Currently, it was 6:30 A.M. Already she felt like face-planting into her bed for some much needed sleep.

Looking longingly at her bed (Sleep:something as a night crime fighter, she desperately needed), Rickie turned to leave.

She walked out of her room and into the hall. Her room was the furthest on the right. The room across from her was the one Tim claimed when they were on better terms. The room next to her was the one Jason claimed. Both were originally meant to be guests' rooms.

So much for that idea.

The room across from Jason's was the bathroom, which had light blue walls and white tile for the floor. The hall way had light wood floor boards. The walls were a light yellow. At the end of the hall way, to her right when she came out, was a window that led to a fire escape.

The window looked like it was sealed up and wouldn't open, but Rickie knew that wasn't true. To get to the Nest, her HQ as Nightwing, you would climb down the fire escape and take a secret passage that would lead to an old Cold War bunker under the partially used building next to her apartment building.

When Rickie had first found the bunker, she had been surprised. It wasn't on the blue prints, because sometime after the end of the Cold War the building had been knocked down and rebuilt. The bunker was never added to the blue prints.

Gotta loved those forgetful old cranky guys who conveniently left an abandoned bunker to be used by a superhero.

It was an ideal place for her base as Nightwing. And because of the way the building alley way twisted, the fire escape wasn't visible from street view. This allowed her to go up and down without being seen. That didn't mean she wasn't careful, Bat paranoia and all.

In earlier days, she remembered sadly, the phone booth that was placed at the corner of the alley (making it invisible from street view) was a well-used Zeta tube. Now it went unused. She turned to walk down the hall way.

Rickie had a bad feeling something was going to happen today.

Coming out of the hall way and into the living room, she walked to the door, grabbing her hat off the wooden coat rack next to it. She loved the old coat rack. It wasn't attached to the walls, but stood on its own.

Rickie left, locking her door on the way out. She walked through the streets to her work, and kept her head down trying to avoid the rain. She had flipped the hood of her jacket up. Thankfully, she had the sense to not wear her hat, which would've made it hard to put her hood up.

She just carried it to the station. Bludhaven's streets were pretty empty, like they always were on a rainy day. It was cold out, the kind of wet, miserable cold that made someone want to curl up under a blanket inside. When she got to the station, she was relieved. As she was clocking in, Rickie heard a familiar voice call out to her.

"Hey, Rookie! How's your morning been?"

Mike O'Connor, one of her friends and fellow officers at Bludhaven Police Department Precinct 12.

Officer Grayson. Bruce would flip if he knew. "My morning's been going fine, if anything I think it's a little wet. And how many times have I told you? Call me Rickie, Mike."

Mike let out a laugh. "You're fighting a losing battle there, Rookie."

Rickie let out a groan, throwing her head back for dramatic effect.

"Don't call me Rookie!" She said in mock anger.

Someone laughed. Drew Fitzgerald, another of her friends and fellow officers. The woman was about five years older than her, but they got along just fine.

Drew spoke. "Mike, leave poor Rookie be. She hasn't had her coffee yet and she's on desk duty. Speaking of which, can you solve my case for me, sweetie?"

Rickie was tempted to start cracking up. Between Drew and Rickie, it was sort of a running joke to impersonate Jasmine Long. Jasmine has a . . . reputation. As a total b*tch.

She gasped in mock horror. "You've become one of them!"

Drew frowned in concern. "Seeing aliens, sweetie? Sweetie, you know it doesn't help to improve our reputation when one of our officers goes to the therapist. Take it out on the perps, do some anger management, sweetie. We need to preserve our good reputation, you see."

Both Mike and Rickie started cracking up. BCPD did not have a good reputation. At all. They had possibly more corruption in it then GCPD. Some of the corrupt cops were in Rickie's precinct, which had thirty people in it, included Jasmine and the Chief of her precinct, Redhorn.

Any good cops were too afraid to point fingers, it was too high of a chance they'll be killed. Part of the reason she joined was to try and get rid of some of the corruption. Any tries she made will have to be discreet. So far, she hasn't done anything, she was still too new to the department. Suspicion would automatically fall on her.

"Something funny, Rookie?" Arnold 'Archie' Roarbach asked.

Archie was her cop partner. He was around thirty, and reminded her of Alfred with the way he was always nagging her about her health. And he was sort of like her uncle, practically adopting her and taking her under his wing.

"Nothing, sweetie." Rickie managed to reply with a straight face.

This caused Drew to lose it and start laughing. Mike, who had stopped laughing, burst out laughing again. Archie cracked a smile.

He rolled his eyes, attempting to cover it up. "Think you're so funny, don't you Rookie?"

Rickie stuck her tongue out at him. "I have to go to my doom - I mean my job at desk duty, so enjoy whatever the heck you're doing on your shift."

Mike frowned. "I'm stuck with clocking people for speeding on the highway to Hell."

Rickie didn't even bat an eye at his words, only giving him a look of faux sympathy. Mike gave her the finger. She stuck her tongue out at him, and laughed.

Drew whapped Mike upside the head. "Language."

Mike just gave his partner (who was the senior partner in their partnership, actually) a look. "You don't understand. It's the Highway to Hell. With you."

Mike shuddered. Drew smirked.

It was sort of an old joke. The highway led to a bridge that led into Gotham. There was a joke between the BCPD and GCPD. An old officer once joked that if Gotham was hell, then Bludhaven was hell's kitchen. The joke stuck. Therefore, the highway to Gotham was known as the highway to hell.

And the drivers on it didn't have the best reputation as being law-abiding. Any officer clocking people on it would have their hands full. And Drew, well, wasn't the best driver.

"Well at least you're with me, partner! Come along, dear Michael," Drew said cheerfully. She was Mike's police partner, "Let's go stalk poor unsuspecting drivers, and give tickets to the ones who are assholes!" Drew's grin became crooked. "If we're lucky, we might even have to chase a car down."

Mike's face turned into an expression of horror. He mouthed 'HELP ME' as Drew said bye and dragged him off to the police cars. Rickie did not envy him. Drew was definitely not the best high speed chase driver. Long story short, after an unfortunately series of events, Rickie had actually puked after being on a car chase with Drew.

And she grew up with Batman driving the frickin' Batmobile.

Archie let out a laugh. "Poor guy." Turning, he said, "I have our case to go work on."

Rickie perked up. Following him, she asked excitedly, "You finally got a lead?"

The case was one they had picked up a while ago. A serial murderer was targeting and killing young adults. The killer got wind that BPD was on his trail and, bad reputation or not, the killer did not want the cops on their tail. They dropped completely off the map. It was so frustrating.

Archie shot her an apologetic look. "Because you're on desk duty, you can't really do anything. Maybe look over the files I got. If it makes you feel any better, I have to meet with Redhorn and discuss it."

Rickie frowned, then winced at the Redhorn part. The burly man did not have the best reputation. She slumped her shoulders, dejected. "Fine. Sounds good. I'll go and slowly lose my mind on desk duty."

Archie tried to be complacent. "If it makes you feel better I can try to get Captain Redhorn to let you work with me on the case. We are partners, and we did start this case together."

Rickie shook her head. "Nah, its fine. You can try, but I doubt you'll convince him to let me work on it."

Archie sighed. "Alright, kid. Try to stay sane on desk duty, will ya?"

Rickie cracked a small smile. "No promises."

Archie shuffled the case file in his hand that Rickie hadn't even noticed was there until now. He made for Redhorn's office, while she made a dash for their office. Rickie made her way past the confusing mess that was the offices of Precinct 12. There were thirty cops at her precinct.

They were partnered into pairs of two, which made for fifteen pairs of two partners. Each partner had an 'office' they shared, which made for fifteen offices. Thankfully, they had enough offices for everyone, so no one got cubicles. Precinct 12 was kind of ignored by the head of the police department.

The building was two floors, but the second floor was a balcony around the top of the first with doors leading to higher up officer's apartments. Straight ahead from the door she walked in was a hallway that led to the back, where most of the offices were.

There was another hallway on the other door that led to different offices in the opposite corner. All of them were cramped, with barely enough room left from the two desk to walk around. Rickie's office she shared with her senior officer Archie was in the very back corner, tucked away from traffic.

She knew the layout of the building, as confusing as it was, and where everything was, including the interrogation rooms, and holding cells.

Chief Redhorn (Jasmine was his partner, she had her own office next to his) had his own office (like that didn't send up red flags with Corrupt on them), and then there were the other parts of the station, or 'house' as the officers called it. There was the holding cells for the people who had to stay a night, the interrogation rooms, and the break room, or crash pad as it was sometimes called.

There was the records room, filled with old speeding tickets and accident reports, among others. The cases room with both solved and cold cases in it. The area opened to the public (so they could do things like report a theft or a missing person) was a lobby area/waiting room. That was where she had met Mike, Drew, and Archie.

It had a big half circle desk with multiple receptionist at it. Two doors at the end of either side of the half circle desk led to the rest of the house, but mostly they pointed straight ahead down the long hallways to the offices.

Chairs were pushed against the wall, and it was a lot like a crowded high school hall way after the bell rings and everyone attempted to make it to their next class on time.

People bumped into each other, all trying to be first. Some people were so short they disappeaered, others just fight not to be crushed. Police officers often go in or out, and at least once a week someone said a person in the station has a gun.

Okay, that last part wasn't something normally heard in high schools, but hey, it was Bludhaven. Anything could pass as possible (or seem normal) like the traffic route being blocked because a car repair shop had been blown up, and authorities discovered it was a drug hide out.

She winces as she recalls that incident. Not her finest moment. But in all honesty, people shouting that a person has a gun in the police station is common. For Bludhaven, at least.

Personally, Rickie thought, the result was hilarious, as any officer who heard the 'gun' part dogpiled the unsuspecting person. Rickie reached her office are in the back of the building. She sat down at her desk. It was pretty bare, no irreplaceable personal photos or anything valuable on it that could be stolen.

It was Bludhaven. A person could never be too careful. She grew up fighting Gotham criminals. In her experience, one of the few differences between criminals in Gotham, and criminals in Bludhaven was that Bludhaven's murdering psychopaths didn't dress up to kill people.

The photos on her desk were just printed on normal paper, and were tacked up on a board that was in every BPD office at her precinct. Her desk was wooden, and looked like a school teacher's desk. Rickie eyed the mountain of folders and paper work on her desk distastefully. Being the rookie sucked.

She brought her pencil from where she hid it. Pencils were rare and highly coveted at BPD. If someone found a pencil, they were keeping it. Everybody had a bad habit of losing their own pencil and stealing someone else's. That led to the person stealing another person's pencil. The person they stole from steals a pencil, and so on.

So yes. Pencils were very important. And she was procrastinating . . . Rickie glared at the paper mountain, before hunching over and starting to work.

About four hours later, Archie came in. Rickie stretched and yawned.

"Didn't go as well as you hoped?" She asked, noticing the frown on his face.

Archie looked at her, distracted. "Oh no, it went fine, just . . ." His eyes widened at the paper mountain she had on the floor. Rickie had moved it there so she would have room on her desk to work. "I think that's taller than you! Nobody should get stuck with that much paper work."

Rickie decided to ignore the subject change and rolled her eyes. "I am not that short. And as you should know, being the senior officer hear, this is what happens when you have desk duty. You get everybody's paperwork that they should be doing."

"Still . . ." Archie muttered and shook his head. He had never thought before the paperwork he got on desk duty was that much, but seeing it from someone else's point of view, maybe the guys needed to stop being so lazy.

Rickie just waved her hand. "So what's up? You seemed a little distracted when you came in."

"Remember how the serial killer is killing young adults?" Archie said slowly.

"The Slasher killer who slits their throats, wrist, neck, ankles, back of the knees, Achilles, and stomach? Yeah, I do. Kind of hard to forget, since we were talking about him this morning."

Rain patter against the windows high up on the wall. It was cloudy out, the clouds a gray-ish white, and the blinds were half down on the windows. The room was kind of dark. The silence seemed to stretch on forever as Archie debated on telling her something.

He paused, before saying, "I mentioned to Redhorn that you would like to do something to work with this case, and he said maybe we can use you as bait."

Had she been drinking coffee, or anything else at that moment, Rickie would've done an epic spit take.

"Say what now?" She asked in disbelief. An incredulous expression was on her face.

"That lead I have? It's a suspect. Jane Cooper, a victim who managed to get away, was picked up near the suspect's apartment and gave a description matching his." Archie explained. He pinched his nose.

"And you need hard evidence to prove it's him, since she was drugged at the time." Rickie realized. "What's the problem? And why me?"

"The suspect moved to Gotham shortly after the Jane girl escaped, and laid low. He made his first kill in a while now, and Commissioner Gordon of GCPD contacted us when he recognized the pattern." Archie told her.

Rickie's heart skipped a beat when she heard the last name 'Gordon'. She ignored it.

"So now this is a joint case with GCPD. That explains some of the problem. It doesn't explain why me, though." Rickie frowned, thinking. "Is it because I'm you're partner and you mentioned my name?"

Archie shook his head. "No, I asked him why. He said it's because you're the youngest in the department and you need to gain some experience in an undercover operation. In the end, it's not up to me whether or not you do it."

"Crap," Rickie muttered. "He's having me do it, isn't he? Not that I'm all for desk duty, but what about my wrist?"

Archie grimaced. He knew enough about Rickie to know that she wouldn't like what Redhorn said.

"He said something about it making you look more weak and helpless, plus you're a girl who is like, 5'11 and Johnathan Andrews is a guy who is 6'5, and works out."

Sure enough, Rickie didn't like it. "First off, I am not short. Second off, just because he is taller than me does not mean I can't get away from him. Police training, remember? And just because I have a hurt wrist does not in any way mean I'm weak and-"

"Calm down, calm down, I'm just repeating what he said." Archie waved his hands in surrender. "Besides, you did want to work on the case."

Rickie scowled. "That doesn't mean I wanted to become bait for Slasher."

"Uncle . . . ?" Archie offered up weakly.

Rickie groaned. "Ugh. Fine. But if get hurt and end up on desk duty for even longer, you're splitting the load with me. Got it, Uncle?"

"Deal." Archie tried not to smile. He was worried whether or not she'd get hurt, after all.

"Who says you had a choice?" Rickie countered, smirking slightly.

Just like that, she somehow made him less worried. Rickie was tough. She'd be fine. That nagging part of him that had begun to see Rickie as family, maybe a daughter or niece, still worried.

He shook his head. The confidence this girl had was astounding. "We're supposed to go to GPD headquarters and meet with Commissioner Gordon. He agreed to let us meet him there."

"Okay," Rickie nodded, "but I'm not dressing up like some lost schoolgirl."

"I wouldn't dare to hope that, Rookie," Archie rolled his eyes, "You can dress normally."

"Ok," She said cheerfully, grinning. "I'll show up in my cargo pants, and combat boots."

Of course, Archie didn't need to know she actually had combat boots. No cargo pants, though, but if he agreed . . .

"No." Archie said, giving her a withering look. Rickie just rolled her eyes, and her grin widened. Archie struggled to keep a straight face and shook his head to disguise his small smile.

Rickie looked at Archie curiously. "When do we leave?"

"With the three hour drive to Gotham, we're supposed to leave early tomorrow. Bring your coat and your hat, we're spending a Tuesday in Gotham." Archie winced. "Most likely longer."

He knew that Rickie had family in Gotham, and there was some bad blood between them. He also knew who said family was, and Archie never would've guessed that man adopted her.

Rickie sighed. "Three hour car ride, joy. At least it's not paperwork. I'd rather pack an overnight bag for Gotham than do paperwork."

Not entirely true. In Gotham, she might see some old friends. Friends she didn't want nor need to see.

Archie rolled his eyes. "That shows your love of paperwork in plain black and white. C'mon, Rookie, let's get back to work. I have a case to work on, and you have paperwork to do."

Rickie groaned, and her head thudded onto her desk after she shot a look of utter loathing at the paperwork mountain. Archie just laughed. He laughed harder when Rickie flipped him off.


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