Annie's POV

 The wind whipped against my face as I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. The alleyways held a collection of ladders, dumpsters, stairs and other such obstacles that required me to flip over them to keep a fast pace. I was in the middle of a hot pursuit. 

 The person fleeing me was head of a simple gang in town. His name was Billy Mills and he was disgusting. Him and his crew, the Mill gang, targeted the families of the police officers. They would wait until an officer was on his shift and then part of the crew would cause a diversion somewhere in town, drawing attention there, then the other part of the crew would rob the home of the officer and usually beat the family. It was a unique pattern but I had picked up on it and I was determined to stop it. 

 After an adrenaline pumping chase, I finally caught up to the criminal. We were atop some random apartment complex and, seeing that he had no where left to run, he turned to fight me.

  "Is that any way to greet someone you've never met before?" I taunted as I dodged his punches, severely irritating him. I flipped around him, doing an aerial maneuver, and started my assault.

  "Who the hell are you?" He screamed at me as he cowered behind his forearms, trying to dodge my punches. My boxing skills were far better than his.

  "I'm your worst nightmare" I laughed insanely, cliche was certainly my style as of late. I continued pummeling the creep until he was finally knocked unconscious. 

 I reached into my backpack and pulled out a pair of handcuffs, slapping them on the 'bad guy's' wrists. They used to belong to my brother. His whole tool belt and everything he used when he was a cop was in my bag, I always took it with me when I did this sort of thing. He was my reason for doing this, if the streets were clear of crazies—Joker included—he would still be alive. But rather than being sour and depressed and bitter and giving up on life completely—like I wanted to do so badly—I decided to put my talents to use, to make the bad ones pay.

  I handcuffed the criminal to the pipes on the roof, then I started to make my way toward the exit. There was a payphone across the street that I would use to make an anonymous call to the police telling them the scumbag. 

 Before I could leave though, the rest of the Mill gang ambushed me. They had somehow followed me up to the roof and I was surrounded.

  "You gotta be kidding me, another Batfreak in town?" one of them said.

  "Ugh, no! Not with them!" I replied annoyed.

  Things with me and 'Robin' had gotten complicated. After I told Dick that I knew he was Robin, he seemed okay, pretty relieved but also a little freaked out. Bruce was very unhappy though, he thought Dick made it too obvious. This caused Dick to steer clear of me for awhile. It didn't bother me though, I was more preoccupied with other things—like protecting people from ending up like my brother.

  I had run into Batman and Robin one night while I was 'fighting crime'. Robin recognized me under my costume—which really wasn't hard. My crime fighting outfit consisted of a pair of black converse, black spandex shorts-I would switch to leggings when summer ended, a ratty old black t-shirt that had several holes from bleach, a black beanie, some eye black and a pair of dark sunglasses—yeah, I didn't even have a mask. Realizing I looked more like a criminal myself, I clipped my brother's old badge onto my shirt, covering his name up first of course. 

 "She's tiny...she's just a kid, how'd she beat the crap outta Billy?" another one of the gang members asked out loud to the others.

 "Hey! Don't underestimate me! I mean at least not while I'm standing right here" I said allowed before initiating the fighting. 

 There was about thirteen or so of them which meant alot of dodging and flipping out of the way. My arrogance was starting to get the best of me, a couple hardy punches occasionally struck me in the gut, resulting in some serious pain. Still, I was holding my own.

  "It's the Batman!" One of them shouted. Suddenly, everything got smokey. He had dropped a smoke grenade. While I stood there, coughing and sputtering, gagging on the smoke, the bad guys were being beaten.

  When the smoke finally cleared, every single one of the criminals were unconscious and Batman and Robin were standing before me, posing dramatically in the moonlight—seriously, talk about dramatic. I rolled my eyes annoyed and started to walk towards the edge of the rooftop, to scale down it.

 "I had that!" I shouted to them as I got ready to hop down.Before I knew what was happening, a bat bungee cord—or whatever they called it—wrapped itself around my waist and Robin grabbed my arm

 . "Wait! You're not leaving without an explanation again!"I rolled my eyes again—even more dramatically—knowing he couldn't see them from under my sunglasses. 

 "You haven't been answering my texts and we're worried about you! You can't keep doing this, you're going to get yourself killed!"

 It was true, I had been ignoring him. I had shut my phone off and hadn't turned it on in a couple weeks—there was no one that I really needed to hear from, I didn't really have anyone left.

  "I'm not going to stop, you can't make me. It's my decision!" I yelled. 

 "What happens when someone really bad gets a hold of you? What happens to you if they torture and kill you?" He asked, trying to get me to change my mind. 

 "Like Joker almost did? Look, I've already been through the worst. And if it happens again, then I'll deal with it. I've been tortured before and if I end up dying then...well...at least I'll be with my family."

  He looked stunned, even under his dark mask and fancy Robin suit. He hadn't realized how hard everything that had happened affected me.

  "If you're going to do what we do, you can't do it like this. You need more training. You need a better tools. You need an identity." Batman said, finally chiming in. He saw something in me, I don't know for sure what it was but maybe it was the look of someone who had no one left.

  "Look, I appreciate it and all but I wanna do this on my own. I don't need to be babied anymore. I'm not weak."

  "I get that, I do, but you can't keep going down the path you're on. Robin told me that you dropped out of school—you can't do that. You're gonna need to maintain both lives if you're going to keep this up. You have to. You can't be this self-destructive. It won't get you anywhere. People care about you." Batman replied.

  I let out a hefty sigh. It was actually kind of nice to have someone care about me the way they did but I just wanted to keep fighting crime. I had a new mission in life after all my experiences—something of a rebirth—and I was determined to stick to my new mission in life. 

 "I can't take on another apprentice, Robin's all I need. But there's a couple people in the league who I'm sure could use one. And there's someone who I found who you really need to meet. They've been waiting to meet you for some time now." Batman added.

 "I don't wanna be a sidekick. That's not why I do this. I do it for my brother. I do it for the family I've lost here."

 "That's the thing—the person I'm talking about is part of your family."

THE END

Author's Note:

Wow! I can't believe that I actually finished this now! It's been about two years now since I started it and I, for sure, thought there was no way that I was ever going to actually finish it but here I am! 

Firstly, I just wanna say THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! I truly cannot explain how happy I am that people actually cared about what I wrote. Every comment and every vote warms my heart so much and you're all so lovely and sweet. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Secondly, there were a couple of songs that I paired with the story so I was considering making a playlist for it. If anyone wants to suggest any songs that they think would go good with it, lemme know!

Thirdly, I know the book kind of ends on a weird note. Ever since I started it, I intended on making a sequel to it. I may or may not still do that. I have all the ideas for what I want to happen and stuff, it's just a matter of whether or not I'd have time in my schedule and if people want it. So if you actually want me to write the sequel and would be interested in reading it, lemme know in the comments.

This has been such an adventure of posting my first book on wattpad and I just love you all for all the support so again THANK YOU!!! <3