Detective Barbara Gordon 7

"You talked big..." Barbara Gordon was holding a piece of paper. "just for..." And now she's clutching it. "THIS?!!" She shouted as she pointed the picture on the paper at Elise who was sitting in front of her.

Elise was ashamed but she didn't want to show it. She really thought the picture would help because it was an accurate portrait of the man she saw the night she was attacked before she got immediately chastised by Barbara upon seeing it.

"We can't even tell this guy's race, hair color, eye color, etc.!"

The picture they were looking at was a racially ambiguous male that wore glasses and a beanie hat. He could have been middle eastern, light-skinned african-american, latino, caucasian, he could even have been a mixed asian. The frame of the glasses hid the bone structure of the cheeks and brows. The hair was covered by the beanie hat. It was so ambiguous that most of the population in brooklyn could be a suspect.

"I-I think his eyes were b-brown..." Elise couldn't help but stutter in front of the angry Barbara. Like a little kid being scolded by her parent.

"You 'think' his eyes were brown or you 'know'? Those are two different things, Elise!"

"D-Don't shout at me! I'm a boss in our group!" She said with cold sweat popping out of her forehead.

"Do I look like I give a damn about your position in your group?! What even did you shout that for? You're basically admitting to a police officer that you have ties with a criminal organization!"

With every sentence, Elise could feel herself shrinking.

"I...!!" Elise's eyes frantically searched for something. "I'll go get some tea!" She lifted the empty teapot at the table and jumped up from her couch to escape towards the kitchen.

"Hey!" Barbara tried to stop the girl ridden with guilt from escaping but she was too fast.

Elise focused on making tea and ignored Barbara from across the room.

"God..." Barbara furrowed her brows and massaged her temples. "And Bruce said 'I' was problematic?"

In her defense, Bruce Wayne always tried to find fault in anyone. Always searching for weaknesses and gaps in case they needed to be taken down. One could say that HE is the problematic one.

Barbara sighed and rested her head on the backrest of the couch before she scanned the place she was in. It was a loft apartment owned by Elise with a good view of Brooklyn.

"Maybe I should switch careers..." She chuckled emptily.

Compared to her apartment, Elise's place was on another level.

She decided to just look at the sketch again. "I guess this is better than nothing at all."

"Hah." Elise scoffed. "I told you it's useful!" She shouted from across the room with a smug grin.

"Only because there's no other option than to make do with this, you dolt! I risked my entire career just by coming to your place and I don't want it to be for nothing!"

Elise jerked at Barbara's scolding. "Y-You keep shouting at me e-even though I'm a boss..."

"What is it with you and being a boss like it's a big deal? I'm not part of your organization. You're not MY boss, okay?"

"Tsk!" Elise went back to making her tea while throwing fits, almost breaking the press.

Barbara narrowed her eyes at her. "What is with this woman? Does she think she's a child?" She muttered.

To think that a boss and an assassin from a criminal organization would act like this. Her whole look and demeanor doesn't match at all with the behavior she is showing right now, but she somehow still made it cute because she was pretty.

Barbara didn't expect it at all. It made her kind of curious as to what kind of life she has been living in for her to think that the way she acts is normal.

She shook her head and just focused on the files in front of her instead of thinking about what could Elise's past be.

----

After both of them had calmed down and after having some tea, they went straight to business.

"So, from what we know, this guy's targets are women with ponytails. His main weapon is a knife according to the stab wounds and backed by your testimony. He wears a beanie hat and glasses to make it hard to identify him without it. We could most certainly be sure that those glasses aren't prescription just because of that fact. He could either be bald or not."

"What do we get with all of this information, Detective?"

"Well, we get that it would be hard to identify him on the street. So, we have to find him when he's wearing these two accessories."

"So, we have to find him during his hunt."

"That's right." Barbara smiled in satisfaction.

"But doesn't he do this randomly?"

"!!" Barbara suddenly had a breakthrough.

"What is it?" Elise furrowed her brows.

"It isn't always random!!"

"What?" Elise tilted her head in confusion.

"Some targets would have been premeditated! A target that he always sees when he goes to work by day and he fights the urge to kill her there and then. We just assumed it was always random because of the irregular time gaps of the killings, plus, the time you were attacked. It wouldn't make sense if it was always by impulse because then, he wouldn't have always gotten away with it!"

"Then...?" Elise had an expression on that seemed to say "so what?"

"Then, we bait him out. Have someone in a ponytail walk around the area where he's at."

"And that will work?"

"It has to. Do you have someone that can do this for us?"

"Why don't I do it?"

"He'll already be wary of you. It won't work."

"It can't be you either because he might know what you look like already if he really did kill Richie. Don't worry about something like this. It's times like this that I can show you the power of a boss." Elise said proudly.

Barbara just rolled her eyes in response

"By the way..." Elise's proud smile turned into a smug one. "Did I mention that I learn quickly, Detective?"

"No..." Barbara furrowed her brows "What do you mean?"

Elise grabbed the tv remote and pointed it at the television set near them.

Barbara glared at Elise immediately.

The tv projected a live video of Elise's apartment in four different angles.

"I relearned the importance of leverage from you the other evening, and so I did this." Elise smirked. "If I go down, then I'll take you down with me."

Barbara's leverage on Elise was made for her to get the rights to have the killer once they catch him. But now that leverage has become useless because she too will end up in prison if she uses it.

"..." Barbara stared at her with disdain. "You really want to kill him that much? That you even set this up to get me off this case? After I just planned everything?"

"Who ever said I'll take you off this operation? You'll just continue this on your own and get in my way regardless. Nah...." Elise chuckled. "I just wanted to level the playing field. It really irked me when you ended up on top in our deal. Matter of fact, I'm making another proposition...."

"Okay...? What is it?" Barbara calmly urged her to continue as she laid back.

"You don't want me killing him, but I don't want you to take him either. So, why not continue this arrangement of ours in sharing our resources and let the first one to catch him when he shows up have him. That's what Richie and me decided before he died, so..."

Barbara formed a faint smile. "Let me clarify this. If I get to him first, I get to take him in and you won't complain about it?"

"Yup." Elise smiled thinly.

"No more bullshit about trumping each other to get the rights to the ponytail killer."

"Agreed."

Barbara made a smug smile and held out her hand.

Elise smiled back at her before shaking her hand.

----

"Shhh! Ha! Hiya! Hua!"

Pak! Bang! Thud!

An empty gym was echoing the loud sound of skin hitting leather mixed in with some breathing and grunting.

"Haaaap..." Barbara breathed in as she lifted her arms up slowly from the side until her palms met at the top. "Shooooo..." Then, she exhaled while bringing down her praying hands to her chest.

Barbara always comes to this place to workout because no one is around. The owner trusts her enough to close it herself when she leaves.

"You have good form." Elise came out of the shadows and remarked.

"You really just watched the whole time. Heh." Barbara chuckled. "I thought you were gonna come in at any moment because of your excited energy pulsing in the air."

Elise chuckled as well. "I guess you noticed me following you here too."

"I know as long as I don't become one of your targets, I can let you hang around me. You don't have any reason to target me, anyway..." Barbara's eyes suddenly turned sharp. "Unless I get just one whiff of your organization's scent, so, you best not stick with me for long."

Elise returned the stare before chuckling. "You're really something, Detective. And now, I'm curious to know what school did you learn in the arts of fighting."

"I didn't learn from a school... I learned from the best."

Elise laughed. "You must be mistaken, because I know 'I' learned from the best. We couldn't be talking about the same person."

"You're right. Everyone that's proud of their skills say they're the best, but I've only ever heard my teacher was the best from his opponents' mouths and not his own." Barbara made a wry smile as she wiped off her sweat with a towel.

"May I ask your teacher's name?"

"I can't tell you that." She replied with a playful smile.

"So... you've also been sworn to secrecy. Maybe our teacher is one and the same."

Barbara chuckled as she started packing her stuff. "I doubt that."

"Hmmm..." Elise made a thinking pose. "Do you know anything about a secret league..."

Barbara raised one of her eyebrows at Elise before chuckling through her nose. "I think I know now where you learned from."

Elise raised a brow. "You really do?"

"Yeah. My teacher outgrew that place a long time ago."

Elise widened her eyes. "He is one of my seniors, then, if that's true. But how come I've never heard of such a person?"

"Probably because your teacher doesn't want to admit it. Ra's being a little bit salty that his proposition to my teacher of becoming his successor was turned down."

"Y-You-!!" Elise wasn't sure if Barbara really knew about the league of assassins or she was just leading her by the nose to fish for information, but hearing her master's name from Barbara's mouth made it clear.

"Someone like that exists? A person that even Ra's acknowledges...." Elise's eyes were restless. "You're from Gotham, right? Could he be-"

"I won't give you any more hints." Barbara put her bag on her shoulder and gave a smug grin to Elise.

"That's just unfair..." Elise sulked as she watched Barbara leave.