Oliver sent her to Gotham on a reconnaissance mission. She agreed only because her bones were beginning to ache and she had no leads big enough to initiate a hunt. And reconnaissance was easy. She didn't have to spend her nights washing blood from behind her ears or from between her toes, and the death count was usually lower.

She'd been to Gotham before. She knew the local hero and the local billionaire playboy, and she knew that the two happened to be the same person. This would be the sixth time she'd been here and the sixth time she'd have met Bruce Wayne, but it would be the first time she'd been mugged during her visit.

The boy came out of nowhere -- and he was just a boy, barely into his teens -- and got a tazer in the neck for his troubles. It was a bad move on her part. The electricity jerked his arm upward, and the knife he had a death-grip on ended up buried between her ribs. The boy looked shocked, not only because he was a walking battery conductor, but because he'd just stabbed someone and she was still standing.

She knocked his legs out from under him and he went down like a sack of potatoes, head lolling to the side. She checked for a pulse before she disappeared down an alleyway to slide the knife out, watching as the wound spilled blood down her ribcage. After a second or two her flesh knitted itself back together, cutting the flow off, and she was left with nothing but a bloody top and a bad mood.

It still creeped her out to see it happen. Still made her feel slightly ill to know that she was one of them, one of those people she used to call freaks. But shit happened and this was the kind of shit she could live with, mostly because it kept her alive.

Yeah. The irony sucked.

--

Bruce Wayne was polite and courteous, and didn't know that Chloe was pretty much invincible. That was why he treated her like a china doll. He knew that she knew his secret, in a vague way that only informed but didn't involve her. To him she was an Innocent and must therefore be Protected, and she was ushered to safety in the depths of the Wayne Mansion whenever the shit happened to hit the fan during one of her visits.

Chloe was happy -- no, she was content -- to play this role while Batman saved the day. Sometimes she played nursemaid when he returned, and thought about the vampires she had killed and the ghosts she had exorcised here. Bruce didn't know about these things and she never told him. This was his city and she wouldn't hurt his masculine pride unless she had to, unless it served a purpose. He was a pompous ass at times, but she liked him, and Chloe didn't like many people these days. And sometimes, only sometimes, she liked to abuse his privileges when Oliver wasn't around.

There were two people who knew her secret. Three, if you wanted to count the now-deceased Dana, who must have been curious as to why Chloe managed to find her feet after having her throat ripped out. The other two, and it wasn't hard to guess that Clark was one of them, were bound to secrecy by loyalty or necessity. And she liked it that way. It kept the right people off her back and the wrong people unaware and unprepared.

It was not until she threw the knife into a garbage can and lifted her head that she realised she was going to have to add another person to her list. Her eyes narrowed and she grumbled softly to herself as a rubber-clad Bruce Wayne stepped towards her.

"This town drives me bat-shit crazy, Wayne," she said.

He smirked at her lame attempt at a joke, arms folded annoyingly over his chest, and said nothing.

She rolled her eyes and ventured towards the entrance of the alley.

"Your rubber fetish worries me," she whispered loudly, and sauntered past.

--

Reconnaissance and Easy flew out of the window when Bruce decided to recruit her for a Most Important Mission. Innocent and Protected also went with it. She was now Security. Or Babysitter, as Chloe preferred to call it.

Her job entailed the constant surveillance and protection of a Miss Rachel Dawes, Bruce's childhood friend and so-called Bargaining Chip that an interesting character called The Joker was likely to use in his tête-à-tête with Batman. This was not the kind of work she did. She kicked ass and she took names, except she really didn't do that last part because she didn't really care who they were. They were Bad Guys and that was all that mattered.

Chloe protected the Good Guys by going after the Bad Guys. She didn't babysit them to safety. She would have said no, but Bruce had done this thing with his eyes, and suddenly she'd been reminded of the Winchester brothers. Bruce had Dean's arrogance, but he also had Sam's penchant for That Look, that one that said, Here is my soul. Take it. Cherish it. Don't use it to play squash with.

Now Chloe wanted to play squash with Bruce's head, because Rachel was apparently Bruce's soul, or part of it, anyway, and she'd promised to take care of it. But it didn't mean she had to like it and she was going to completely kick his ass when he got back.

And then she remembered how her bones were really beginning to ache lately, and how it had been a while since she'd actually sat down and watched TV. And with a woman, no less. She missed female company. She'd lost it the day she gave up the Planet and decided to be a Hunter. There weren't many women in this game and the few that she had met had been hardened by death and murder and hate.

She wondered sometimes if that would be her a decade from now. She fought hard to keep her humanity in the face of her immortality, and she was pretty certain she was winning.

Eyes still trained on the TV, Chloe inquired of the brunette sat next to her, "Do you ever want to... just... you know... kick Bruce's ass for being such a douche bag?"

Rachel looked over at her, a blank look on her face. Then she smiled. "I would, if it wasn't for the padding."

"Damn rubber fetish," Chloe grumbled, and took a sip of her coffee.

--

iv. interaction

"I don't want it."

"It helps. No more knives in the ribcage."

"Bruce, I'm not walking around like an extra from an S&M porn movie. Take your kinks elsewhere."

"Are you always this stubborn?"

"No. But your fascination with creepy, not to mention pornographic costumes does concern me."

"... "

"Don't look at me like that, Wayne. I've managed so far. I'm sure I'll manage for a little longer. Invincible, remember?"

"Someone's going to catch on when you're walking around mortally wounded, looking pissy. Like you are now."

"Mortally wounded?"

"Pissy."

"Something tells me I'm going to draw more attention to myself wearing that get-up. I'm sorry, but I can't fight with my breasts kissing my chin. Now get that thing out of my face."

"At least try the mask on."

"Bruce!"

"Fine. Have it your way."

"I intend to."

--

An hour before she was due back in Star City, she got the call. A routine exorcism gone wrong. A demon on the loose in L.A. Her contact there -- one of her more unusual acquaintances -- had found himself a few men down, too many missions and not a big enough workforce, and needed her help. The demon was sticking to high ground during the day and hiding himself far too well at night, which wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for her fellow ally's aversion to sunlight. It was a problem she could easily handle, though, and her contact knew that.

"I'll be there," she told him, as she boarded Oliver's private jet. Fifty minutes later, she had the package that Bruce had slipped into her palm before she left on Oliver's desk.