A/N: Thanks very much for the reviews. I always appreciate the feedback.

Batman & Benson

Three

"Getting To Know Gotham City's Nightlife."

Despite her fear, which threatened to send her full tilt into blubbering madness, Olivia tried to fight back as much as she could against the shadowy monster that emerged from the night and had so effortlessly taken her prisoner. Although her wrists were trussed up above her head, her legs were still free, and so Olivia tried kicking at the thing.

But the black-clad monster ignored her Judo kicks and stepped so close to her she could feel his breath. He reached out and grabbed Olivia by the neck. His grip was strong enough to hold Olivia, but not to strangle her.

"Who are you working for?" the Batman said.

Olivia stared at him, stunned. She had no idea that this…this thing could talk. But as she gazed at Batman, she saw that the lower half of his face appeared human—then she quickly realized that it was a man wearing a bat mask. She was dealing with a person—an extremely dangerous and crazy person who was dressed up as a bat—but still a human being nonetheless.

"I know who you are," Batman said, his voice a dark whisper, "but I want to know why you're here in Gotham City. Who hired you?"

"Captain Donald Cragen!" Olivia blurted out.

"WRONG ANSWER!" Batman bellowed, as he pulled out a lethal looking blade in the shape of a bat. As he flicked it in his hand, it flipped open with a metallic ka-ching sound.

Olivia flinched as he swung the blade over her head, cutting the rope that secured her wrists to the overhead pipe. He hauled Olivia over his shoulder as if she was nothing more than dead weight.

Then he strode over to the edge of the terrace, and Olivia let out a scream of horror as he flung her over the side.

"UGH!" Olivia cried, as her fall was stopped in mid-air, the shock almost ripping her arms out of their sockets. She glanced up and saw that Batman held her with one hand out beyond the terrace railing by her bound wrists. Her feet dangled over a 50-story fall.

"WHO HIRED YOU!" Batman demanded. "Was it the New York gang?"

"N-New York Gang?" Olivia asked, dazed.

"You know damn well what I mean, the New York City end of the slavery ring," Batman snarled. "Did they hire you?"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Olivia cried. "I'm a cop!"

"NO YOU'RE NOT! " Batman shouted at her. "I know the Gotham City Police Force backwards and forwards, lady, and you're not on it!"

"I didn't say I was a Gotham City cop!" Olivia screamed back at him. "I'm Detective Olivia Benson, with the Special Victim's Unit of the NYPD. And if you don't like that answer, you might as well drop me right now, you frigging nutcase!"

"That's all you got to say?" Batman asked, as his eyes narrowed.

"I am an NYPD detective. And that's the only answer you're gonna get from me," Olivia angrily shouted. "Because it's THE GODDAMN TRUTH! "

Batman stared at her, and for a very scary moment, Olivia thought he would simply drop her to her death.

Then he yanked her back onto the terrace, where she collapsed in an exhausted heap on the floor. Olivia felt the Batman rifling through the empty holster pack on her hip, which also contained her badge and ID. By the time she tried to wearily kick him away, he already had what he wanted and was looking through her ID.

"If you're truly a member of the Special Victim's Unit," Batman said, "then you've heard about the raid they made on the slave ring up there in Queens."

'He's still testing me,' Olivia realized. She shook her head as she sat up. "The raid wasn't in Queens, it was in Times Square. I know because I was there, along with the other SVU detectives and the SWAT team. You want the address of the place that we hit, too? How about the names of my fellow SVU detectives, while you're at it?"

Now Batman shook his head. Olivia was startled when he pulled out the bat-knife again, but he quickly pacified her by holding up a hand. "Easy, I'm just cutting the bonds on your wrists."

Olivia held out her wrists and allowed him to slice the ropes off of them. "Who the hell are you?" she asked, her voice unsteady.

"A friend," he said simply, as he placed her badge and ID on a table.

"You sure have a funny way of treating your friends," Olivia said tartly.

"I thought you were someone else, Detective Benson," Batman said, his voice tinged with regret. He stood with his head bowed in shame. "I'm very sorry for the rough treatment."

"Sorry? You're sorry?" Olivia said with disbelief. She looked around the ground for her Glock, and when she found it, Olivia aimed it at the Batman. "I'll show you sorry, you frigging son of a b—!"

But he was gone.

"What the—?" Olivia said in amazement. In the brief instant it took for her to grab her gun, the Batman had vanished as if he had never been there. She stood up and did a full sweep of the terrace, as well as her hotel suite, but Batman was nowhere to be seen. Holstering her Glock, she wearily sat down on the edge of her bed and put her face in her hands. Olivia still couldn't quite wrap her brain around the encounter she just had right now.

'He looks like a psychopath in a Halloween costume, but he knows what he's doing,' she thought. 'And he's fast, he's got great reflexes. But once he found out I was a cop, he left me alone. What did he say? He said he thought I was someone else. Who the hell did he think I was?'

Olivia took out her cell phone and began to call 911. But after only dialing 'nine' she stopped. She had just been physically assaulted, and she needed to report it. But what the hell was she going to say? 'Hello, 911, I've just been attacked by Batman'?

"Oh God," Olivia muttered, as she finished dialing. What she wouldn't give to be dealing with a nice, normal SVU case right about now. She was tempted to just pack up and return to New York right this very instant, but she was duty-bound to report this. Besides, there were too many loose ends in Gotham Cityfor her to ignore.

She gave the information to the 911 operator, who told her that the police would be there in a jiffy. Olivia only told the woman that a man, nothing more, had assaulted her. She figured she would give the cops at the scene more details. She switched off the phone and dreaded what she would tell the Gotham City police. 'It's bad enough to be telling this crazy story to fellow cops, but at least they won't be NYPD,' she thought with a measure of relief. 'If word gets back to my precinct about my run in with Batman, they'll never let me live it down.'

Olivia frowned when there was a knock at her door. At first she nervously thought it might be Batman again, but then she realized he didn't appear to be the type who entered a room through a regular old door.

"Who is it?" Olivia called, as she peered through the peephole.

A busboy stood in the hallway with a tray. "Room service," he called.

"I didn't order any room service," Olivia said as she opened the door.

Yet no sooner did she open the door than the busboy stuck a gun right into her face. Another busboy darted out from the side of the doorway and snatched Olivia's Glock from her holster.

"Get inside, now," the busboy with the gun ordered.

'This is just not my frigging night,' Olivia thought, as she reluctantly did what she was told, holding her hands up as she backed up into the room.

"Sit on the bed," the busboy ordered, "with your hands palms down on your knees."

For one crazy moment, Olivia was about to ask if there was something wrong with the hotel bill. After her weird encounter with the Batman, she figured anything was now possible. "Listen, I'm a cop—I'm with NYPD—and I just called the police," she told the men. "So if you're gonna rob me, you better hurry it up and get it over with before they get here."

"Be quiet," the other bellboy told her. He turned to the opened doorway and called, "She's secure, sir!"

"Splendid, splendid!" a short, squat man said, as he waddled into Olivia's hotel room. Barely four feet in height, he was impeccably dressed in a black suit and tie and had an umbrella in one hand, which he used as a cane. A black top hat and a monocle over his right eye completed his bizarre wardrobe. He smoked a cigarette on a narrow cigarette holder that was almost as long as his thin, pointed nose. "Ah, my dear Moiré, welcome to Gotham City!"

Olivia shook her head. "I'm afraid you have the wrong person, sir. My name is Olivia Benson, I'm a detective with the NYPD."

"Oh, yes, of course you are!" the little man said exuberantly. "And what a superb cover that is, by the way. Who would suspect you, of all people, posing as a cop! Wonderful idea my dear! Waugh! Waugh! Waugh!"

Olivia was taken aback by the three sharp burst of noises the man made; at first she thought he was having an asthma attack, until she realized that those noises were laughter—or at least this odd little man's version of laughter. Feeling completely baffled, she held up a hand and said, "Who are you and what do you want?"

"There is no need to maintain your cover with me, Moiré, especially since I know who you are and why you're here. But I find it interesting that you should have a little encounter with Gotham City's other distinctive resident, the Batman, shortly before I should arrive. Therefore, I'm now most interested in what you said to the Batman that made him release you."

"Like I just said to the busboys from hell right here, I called the cops, andthey'll be here in a few minutes," Olivia told him. "I called them just after my previous 'guest' left."

"Calling the police? How mundane!" the little man said with a frown. "I do believe you're losing your touch, my dear Moiré. In any event, perhaps it would be better if we moved this little chat to my more comfy abode, eh?"

"I'm not going anywhere with you." Olivia sat back when he abruptly pointed the tip of his umbrella right at her face. "Hey, whoa, watch where you point that—"

Olivia let out a startled cry as a thick gas shot out from the tip of the man's umbrella, flooding her mouth and nose and making it hard to breathe.

Suddenly the whole room began to spin as Olivia fell to the floor, coughing heavily.

'Oh Jesus, what did he shoot me with?' Olivia thought in a panic, as everything became blurry. She also felt very tired and sluggish, she could barely move.

The little man waddled over to Olivia's prone form and peered down at her. "Wrap her up, boys! We'll devour this little morsel at home. Don't you just love take out? Waugh! Waugh! Waugh!"

And that was the last thing Olivia heard just before she blacked out.

To Be Continued...