She was a young girl, upper teens, blonde, pretty. Wasn't very smart considering she was walking down a street long after the sun had set. Nighttime wasn't a good time to be a woman walking home by their self.

That was evidenced by a man in a dark green hoodie following her several yards back.

The man had been following the girl since she had left a flower shop two streets over. To the girl's credit, she had kept to the well-lit streets, but that was all she had going for her. From his rooftop perch, the Batman studied her stalker. The man's gait and posture were relaxed as if he weren't concerned. Any passerbyer would have assumed he just happened to be walking the same way the girl was.

But the vigilante knew better. While most crimes were spontaneous in nature, every once in awhile he came across thugs that planned out their attacks. This just so happened to be one of them.

His scowl deepened as the girl turned into an alleyway, one that ran right next to the building he crouched on—the blonde's second mistake. Her stalker kept at his own pace, entering the alley moments later. Quietly, he followed the girl and man as they went down the dirty alley. Any minute now, the thug would attack and he would be on him.

Suddenly, the blonde girl came to a stop. Staring at her for a moment, the Batman glanced to the alley's exit and saw another man, this one dressed in a brown coat and baseball cap. He had been expecting a second man, but he wasn't sure where he would be. So these two had been casing this girl for some time, learning her patterns and apparently she thought running down alleyways was a good idea.

The man in the cap said something unintelligible, the acoustics of the alley distorting his words. The man in the green hoodie came to a stop behind the girl, the blonde finally noticing him as she turned her head to look at him before returning it to the one in front of her. Her posture had stiffened with fear; she knew she had made a mistake.

That was when something flashed in the hand of the man with the cap, a switchblade clutched in his fingers. He approached the girl, making sure she saw his weapon until he stood just below the vigilante. A growl reverberated up the Batman's throat. This had gone on long enough.

Standing at the edge of the building, he grasped his cape and stepped off his perch. Gravity instantly took a hold of him and he fell towards the three, his cape billowing open. Due to his grip, it formed a makeshift parachute, slowing his descent just enough to prevent him from injuring himself during the fall.

And then, he let his cape go and dropped the remaining distance down, his feet landing right on top of the man with the cap's shoulders. The force of his fall and weight combined to force the man crumple to the ground with a pained cry, just as the dark-clad vigilante had intended. The girl shrieked and shot over to the wall, providing him a clear path to the man in the hoodie. Not letting the opportunity slip by, the Batman launched himself at his new target, slamming a fist into the man's face, cutting off his terrified yell prematurely.

Grabbing the hoodie, the vigilante then twisted his body to the side and swung the thug into the brick wall of one of the buildings. Then with a grunt, he turned the other way and picked the man right off the ground, throwing him into the building on the other side. The man in the hoodie hit the wall with his back and crashed to the cement ground a moment with a cry. Taking a step to the man, the Batman raised a foot up and kicked it forward, the bottom of his boot making contact with the man's face and slammed the back of his head against the wall, rendering him unconscious.

Staring at the fallen man, Batman turned his head to look at the other and was satisfied that both were immobilized for the time being. Turning his attention to the girl, he found her sitting against one of the walls, her back pressed into it as if it would swallow her up. Her blue eyes were wide with fright and awe. It made him feel uncomfortable. Watching her for a moment, the vigilante grunted out, "Call the police. Let them know what happened."

He only stayed long enough to see the girl nod her head before he turned and left. He was gone by the time she had pulled out her phone from her purse, though he caught her surprised yelp at his disappearance.

As he finished his climb onto the building he had been keeping watch, he transversed the roof and leapt over to the next one. Running now, he pulled out his grapple and fired it at the next, much taller building. Feeling the line go taunt, he kept running until he ran right off the roof's edge. At the same time, he hit the line retrieval button, immediately pulling himself up through the air. The force of his ascension flung him over the point his grapple had latched onto and up onto the taller building's roof. Hitting a second button the grapple gun, the grapple claw released its hold and trailed after him until it reach the gun's barrel. Placing the grapple back into his belt, he crossed over the building's roof and crouched down once more, looking over the city again.

As odd as it seemed, the Batman couldn't shake off the look she had given him. It wasn't that he was shocked by the expression, in fact he had received it many times during his tenure and fully expected it to continue for as long as he did this. No, what disturbed him was that he kept feeling as if they were still on him.

It had started shortly after his fight with Fries. The vigilante had begun feeling as if he were constantly being watched, as if something dormant had awaken in the city and was keeping an eye on him. He didn't like it, not one bit.

The dark-clad man had attempted to find what was watching him, but as of yet he hadn't been successful. Whatever, whoever it was, they did not want to be exposed right now. Too bad that the Batman didn't give a damn what they wanted. Sooner or later, he would corner them and find out what they were up to.

Until then, he had a city to protect.

A scream suddenly rang out, instantly gaining the vigilante's attention. Launching himself off the building, he activated a current of electricity in the gauntlets he wore and grabbed his cape. The cape stiffened into a glider instantly and he flew through the air, closing in on the scream. If there had been one thing good to come out of Fries' rampage, it was the revelation of this cape. The delivery system still needed some improvements, but he could use it more than once now.

Down the street, he caught sight of three people, two men and one woman. One man held a gun and was pointing it at the woman, who was frozen in terror. The other man was on the ground, though it wasn't quite obvious as to why. Didn't matter. Angling his glide down, he descended through the air, bringing him closer to the standoff.

Leaning backwards, he swung his legs out in front of him, keeping them together. A second later, his feet rammed into the side of the thug's head, knocking him off the ground, and slamming him into the side of the nearby building. Pushing off with his feet, the Batman released his hold on his cape and felt it go slack, his body moving backwards as landed nimbly on the sidewalk, watching as the man collapsed into a heap a moment later.

Turning his head to look at the woman, he found that she was standing still, still in fright, but that fright had now transferred to him. A look to the other man showed that he was hurt, a bloody gash on the side of his head. From where the vigilante stood, he couldn't see any bullet wounds, though that didn't mean they weren't there. He'd leave it to the woman to call for medical assistance.

Looking back at the fallen thug, the dark-clad man paused. He recognized the guy, though barely. It was faint, but he swore this guy had worked for one of the mob families, Maroni's or Falcone's. Consider both families were currently inactive, it made sense that some of the lower level men were resorting to petty theft and assault.

However, Batman wasn't a man to simply accept an assumption. He preferred facts and this man would most certainly have some that he wanted.


She needed to be inconspicuous, smart, and above all elusive. She was on the secretest of secret missions one could ever have and the consequences were high should she be caught. Her target, however, was not easy to find. Her best bet laid within a fortress where countless men and women walked the floors, going one place to another, yelling, shouting, calling, and making all sorts of noise.

Some were there by choice, others not so much. Naturally those who weren't there by choice deserved to be there. She on the other hand, well, it was complicated.

Not that that would keep her away, oh no. She was determined to complete her mission regardless of the consequences. Because it would be worth it. Because it was something she needed to do. Because—

"What are you doing here, Barbara? Looking for your old man or something?"

Drat. She had been caught. The red-haired girl put on the charm as she turned to face her identifier only to find...Bullock. Well, maybe there was a way around this.

"Oh, I'm here to see my dad," she said, tilting her head to a side. Her dad had always told her she was cute and she planned to use that to her advantage, somehow. "Do you know where I can find him?" she asked, continuing to lie through her teeth.

"Maybe you can cheer him up," Bullock murmured to himself, though Barbara was able to hear him loud and clearly. It made her a bit worried to hear that her father might not be in a good mood. "The best place to find him would be his office," the large man told her. "He's been there all day cooped up with a bureaucratic weasel. Can't say he's too happy at the moment. But if he's escaped, you might try up on the roof."

On purpose, Barbara frowned. "The roof?"

"Oops, did I say that?" For a second, Bullock looked like a deer in the headlights and he quickly went into damage control mode. "I mean, he's uh...he's...I'm not going to fool you, am I?"

Not very fast on his feet, was he? Wasn't he one of Dad's detectives? Well, perhaps this was more of a blessing in disguise. He wouldn't catch on to her ulterior purpose here in the Gotham City Police Department.

In answer to his question, she shook her head no and watched him expectantly.

"Well, your old man likes going up on the roof for breaks," Bullock told her. Then in a soft whisper, "But don't let him know I told you that."

"Of course," she assured him. "I'm going to look for him all over the place first." Add a wink and…

"Yeah, yeah you do that," Bullock said, relieved.

Feeling the need to be a bit mischievous, she slyly questioned, "Is he going up there to smoke?"

Bullock choked and looked side to side, a hand reaching up to pull at the tie wrapped around his beefy neck.

"Don't worry, he's not that good at hiding it," she reassured as she reached out to pat his arm. "He doesn't want me to worry."

"Yeah...you know him," the detective chuckled uncomfortably.

"I'll tell him you said 'hi'," she said as she continued on her way, trying to keep up an innocent front.

She hadn't gone far enough to hear him muttered, "Never having kids…"

Oh, he was a big softy at heart. He just had to be all tough and stuff. Well, at least she had a lead and further excuse should she need it. Her plan to go in without being detected had failed, but at least her real goal hadn't been found out yet.

Sorry, Daddy. You're too much of a convenient excuse. No, the real reason she was here was to see someone else, someone more, for a lack of a better word, cool.

The Batman was cool. And he had saved her. And she wanted to get another look at him. She didn't understand why everybody was making such a fuss about him when he was going around saving people. Why would people be mad about that?

And according to the paper, he and her dad were friends, so logically the Batman had to visit the police station, right? That's what friends do, they go and visit each other, hang out, share stories. She was hoping that today had one of those visits.

Okay, so where to go? Dad's office? Or the roof? Hmm, choices...as if. It was obvious where to go. The roof. If what Bullock had said was true about her dad and a weasel, by now he would have gotten away.

The girl trekked her way through the department, keep an eye out for any stairs. In particular, she wanted a flight of stairs that would go to the roof. Where would they be? By the elevator? A good place to start so why not?

Turned out her hunch was almost correct; she found a flight of stairs near the elevators. Unfortunately, it didn't lead to the roof. That just meant some more searching, though she would have to be more careful. If the stories of her dad having a hard time with the staff here were true, then she wouldn't be given the same free pass that she had on the lower levels. Eventually, she located another flight of stairs without incident and her luck was looking up this time. They led to the roof!

The cool night air rushed against her as she exited the building and she suppressed a shiver. The weather wasn't warming up yet. A quick glance around revealed that no one else was up here, meaning that her father was someplace else. Probably in his office, most likely.

Of course, her father wasn't the person she was actually looking for.

Letting the door shut behind her, Barbara strolled about on the roof, looking for any kind of movement against the Gotham landscape. It would be fast, but not too fast and it wouldn't be anywhere near street level. And if it wasn't moving, she supposed that it would be stationary, maybe standing atop of any of the nearby buildings.

Glancing at the skyscrapers that towered above her, she noted that what she was looking for may be at a higher altitude. As the minutes passed by and nothing worthy of her attention occurred, she began to become a bit impatient. She didn't know what she had been expecting coming up here, but nothing happening at all wasn't one of them.

If only there was some way to contact him, like some kind of beeper or a flare, heck even a skylight. Maybe one that had a big bat painted on it. That would get anyone's attention.

Wandering about the roof, Barbara continued looking for any sign of her true target, the Batman if it wasn't obvious by now. He worked only at night, from what she knew, so it stood to reason that he had to be out and about right now. So where could he be? She wanted to see him again more than anything and preferably when there weren't a roomful of people trying to kill the both of them.

"What are you doing up here?"

She jumped, already berating herself for not noticing that she had company. Naturally, it couldn't have been some random cop who she could charm as she knew that voice better than the startup sound of her computer.

Standing at the rooftop entrance, the door behind him wide open was none other than her father. "I hope you haven't been picking up any bad habits because that's the only thing that happens up here."

"Oh, um, I was just getting some air," she hastily tried to come up with an excuse, hoping that her father wouldn't catch her.

It was a no go. "You couldn't have opened a window or stayed out front, though I will admit it's safer up here than in front of the precinct." Her father was being all jovial, taking a roundabout way to get her to spill her guts and damn it, it always worked. She wanted to resist as the commissioner strolled his way towards her. "Still, are you sure that's why you came up here? I heard from Bullock that you were looking for me. You could have gone to my office."

She would call Bullock a turncoat, but she knew that she hadn't made an ally of him, so he couldn't have betrayed her in the first place.

"So, are you going to tell me what really brought you up here?" her father finished as he came to a stop beside her, his eyes staring straight into the heart of Gotham.

She shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to answer. It was...embarrassing, that was all.

"It doesn't matter," she practically croaked out, internally wincing. "It's not important. We should be going back inside, shouldn't we?"

"I'm in no hurry," her dad replied. "In fact, I'm in the mood to drag my feet going back in so as you can guess, I'm not heading inside any time soon."

Oh come on! Barbara did not want to be in this spot, not right now. She did not want to get grilled any further and the longer she stayed out her, the greater the chance she would lose her resolve. Damn it, she wasn't supposed to have been caught!

"You're looking for him, aren't you?" Gordon asked quietly, still looking straight ahead. Now she was certain she looked like a deer in the headlights, but before she could demand to know how he knew that, he added, "Don't give me that look. I know you better than you know yourself. You have to give me credit."

There was a reason he was the commissioner, she supposed. That sucked for her because he was always doing this, somehow figuring out what she was up to all the time.

"I wouldn't get too attached, Barbara," her father stated.

Okay, now she had to ask. "Why are so many people against him, Daddy?"

Her father hummed. After a moment, he answered, "It's complicated. There are a lot of reasons; the number one being that he's upsetting the status quo. Others include the fact that he's breaking the law doing what he's doing."

"What do you think?" She had to get that out there. She needed to know what her father thought about it, if he was for or against Batman.

"What do I think," the older man repeated before he let out a sigh. "There's a part of me that wishes that he wasn't around," he admitted, much to Barbara's dismay. "On the other hand, there's a much bigger part of me that knows we need him out there. This city needs to change and it needs to do so badly. I may not wholeheartedly approve of what he's doing, but I know that I appreciate it.

"How about we get back inside? It's a bit chilly up here, don't you think?" Her father adjusted his coat as a breezed chilled the two of them.

"Maybe we can wait up here a little longer. I...I don't get to be with you often," she said quietly. She knew that the one thing her father didn't want to do was go back inside, but the fact that he was offering to, well, that was like him. Thinking of others first, never himself. The least she could do was buy him some more time.

"Isn't that the truth," he agreed, reaching an arm out to wrap around her shoulders.


The tunnel winded left and right until it reached a large cave. The rumbles of a car engine echoed off the rocky walls. Coming to a stop, Batman parked his latest car and turned it off. It was similar in design to his previous one, but there were some aesthetic differences. The batwing fenders on the back were longer and rose higher into the air. The car's body was narrower and sat slower to the ground for increased aerodynamics. Subtle differences to be sure, but they were improvements over the previous design.

Once the canopy slid forward, the Batman climbed out of the vehicle and strode across a metal bridge. Behind him, a metal platform rose up, lifting the car up, and spun around until the vehicle faced the opposite direction, the platform sinking back down.

Reaching the other side of the bridge, the vigilante made his way towards the large computer, its monitor brightly lit. Taking a seat in the chair before it, he immediately began typing on the keyboard, bringing up a documentation program and filling the digital page with words. A comforting silence fell about the cave, the only sounds being made the clicks of keys and the occasional chirp of a bat. It was...soothing.

And then he felt a presence. "Quiet night, Sir?" a british accent inquired.

That soured the dark-clad man's mood. It wasn't directed at the older man behind him as much as what he had found out earlier that night. "In some places," he replied carefully.

"And in others?"

"It's about to get noisier." Pausing for a moment, he then said, "There's word on the streets that Maroni is coming back."

"No doubt to reestablish his criminal empire," Alfred continued for him. There was a clinking sound that distracted Batman for a moment. "Some tea, Sir?"

Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the silver tray in his butler's hands, a pot of tea with two empty china teacups resting on it. "No, thank you," he responded before returning his attention back to his program.

"May I inquire as to how you came across this information, Sir?" Alfred asked, an attempt to continue the conversation.

"One of Maroni's lower level thugs told me," the vigilante answered before the corner of his mouth twitched up into a smirk. "At least that's what I gathered from his babbling."

"And why was this 'thug' babbling?"

"I'm pretty sure it was because of me," he deadpanned. A moment passed before he added thoughtfully, "Though it could have been he was hanging upside down off the edge of the building."

"Surely it was you," Alfred said in a way that made the dark-clad man's smirk grow wider. "I'm assuming he gave you an idea of when Mr. Maroni will be making his reappearance."

"Within the week." Stopping his typing, the Batman leaned back in his chair, a hand raising up to rest under his chin, two fingers extended up and touching his cheek. "I'll need confirmation though, so the next few nights I'll need to patrol Maroni's old territories. Undoubtedly he'll be trying to reassert his racketeering network again to regain control."

"I suppose that's easier said than done."

The vigilante nodded his head. "Stromwell and Loman have been competing with each other over Maroni's turf." A grimace covered his face then. "It'll be a three way fight between the families with a lot of losers, particularly the people living there."

A silence fell over the two men until Alfred cleared his throat. "I apologize to be the bearer of further bad news then. I found out which IA agent has been assigned to investigate Commissioner Gordon."

Batman's other hand went to the keyboard and tapped a couple of buttons. Immediately, the screen showed a picture of a blond man with a stern look on his face. A list of information describing the man was next to the picture, indicating name, DOB, height, weight, and so on. "John Forbes, Lieutenant. Originally an officer from Metropolis, he transferred to Gotham seven years ago, two years in Robbery, the last five in Internal Affairs," the dark-clad man read out loud. "Made several arrests over the years, though all went without convictions thanks to the former commissioner, Loeb. Has a reputation for doggedly pursuing any and all suspects."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that man sounds familiar," Alfred quipped.

"Funny," Batman deadpanned, dropping his hand from his face as he readjusted his posture in the chair. "He may be a problem."

"Concerning the commissioner or you?"

"Both. Gordon's the only link I have the GCPD. If he goes down, I'm as good as cut off from the police. I can only imagine how the Cobblepot bust would have gone down had Gordon not been there."

"Worst case scenario?"

"If someone else was in Gordon's job, he would be in Cobblepot's back pocket, which returns the GCPD back to how it was under Loeb. Assuming that our text did send out the same police force to Cobblepot's building, it's likely SWAT would have been sent in and I'd be their first target."

"Unlike now."

A snort was his response, but that was all he gave concerning that point. "Right now we don't need some hotshot IA lieutenant ruining our work. The mob is weak and we need to stamp them out before they recover."

"Quite." There was a pause. "I believe I do need to remind you that Bruce Wayne is expected this morning. Mr. Elliot is performing a demonstration that he'll expect you to attended."

Batman remained silent before he nodded his acceptance. "I believe this'll be all for tonight."

"Very good, Sir."


To anon: Vale is definitely someone that goes after the truth. At least that's the impression I've gotten from more recent comics. This story, I've started her from square one though, so she doesn't have the cred she does in the canon storylines. And it doesn't help I've also made her catty at times lol. She has some growing to do, that's for sure.