"Wait wait wait! Reverse that, I think I spotted something!"
Sitting in a dimly lit room, looking at security footage, Detectives Renee Montoya and Harvey Bullock focused their eyes on the door shown on the screen.
"Just a sec..." Renee bit her lip as she paused the recording and turned back the footage.
"There! Stop it stop it!" Harvey raised his voice as he pointed on the screen, "Now play it at normal speed,"
"But Harv, this is well before the time of the attack-" Renee pointed out, seeing as he stopped the recording a few hours before the estimated time for the crime.
"Just play it and focus," Harvey Bullock told her, his mouth chewing on an unlit cigar as he focused on the screen.
On the screen, the backdoor to Tusk's hotel opened up from the inside, and a young man with scruffy clothing walked out and lit a cigarette. The man leaned on the wall beside the door as he smoked.
"That's Johnny Galpetto, he's one of our victims," Renee pointed out as she recognized the young man, "He was wanted for possession of illegal narcotics and petty theft,"
"Don't focus on him," Harvey told her, "The door, he's left it open,"
Renee focused on the open back door to the hotel, the angle of the camera only allowing the detectives to see a bit into the hotel before they hit a wall.
"Is that-" Renee squinted her eyes as a person moved behind the door, their body only half visible thanks to the angle of the door.
Harvey paused the video and zoomed in, focusing on the figure behind the door.
"Killer Croc..." He smiled, spitting out the unlit cigar in his mouth into a nearby trash can, "Let's go, Renee, we have a lead."
"But Killer Croc?" The Younger detective spoke up as she followed the older man, "We'll need an entire task force to find him!"
"No we won't," Harvey shook his head, "We just need to ask the right man the right questions."
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Mary Turner did not get to enjoy her life as a Talon.
Born in 1934, Mary had to grow up in one of the most influential decades in the history of the modern world.
After watching her family die in a terror attack when she was only 11, she spent the rest of her childhood and early teenage years as a mute acrobat for a traveling circus.
Little did she know, that Circus was a front used to find and recruit potential Talons for the Court of Owls.
Having been trained in the arts of stealth, espionage, acrobatics, and assassination, Mary Turner was finally turned into a full-fledged Talon, undergoing a process that gave her superhuman regenerative abilities and senses, She was placed into a Cryo-Stasis, frozen deep beneath Gotham City, only let out whenever a mission was needed to be completed.
She did not count the number of people she killed, Be they Political opponents of the Court, Traitors who wished to sell the members out, or even criminals who stood in the way of Gotham's progress. She was pointed at a target and told to follow her orders.
Recently, she was given a new mission, one that required her to use stealth above all else, to not be found by the man she was ordered to tail after.
Richard Fisk, He was a weird man. He was both confident yet Timid, Professional yet casual, he was a man who stood out like an Enigma to the Court.
Just a few years prior, Richard Fisk simply did not exist. He has no real medical records, no birth certificate, no ID, his identity does not match with a single person on their many lists.
Sure, people named Richard Fisk exist, over 200 according to the most recent Census, and yet, only a few of them match this Richard Fisk.
Early twenties, Blonde, Blue Eyes, etc.
Yet somehow, This small and simple mission, of following Richard Fisk, keeping an eye on the young man, has brought Mary Turner so much joy.
Not because the mission itself was particularly fun, it was a standard long-term trailing mission.
No, the fun came from being outside for such a long time! She got to see so many sights she simply ignored whenever she was out for other reasons, like the Docks, or that Cafe he entered not too long ago, or even the small Park at the corner of the street!
And the animals! Usually, Mary stays clear of the street animals that roamed the seedy roads of Gotham, but these Puppies and Kitties are sooooo cute~
Sure, one dog tried to bite her arm off, but it was nothing her regeneration couldn't fix~
She didn't know the Crocodile Man had a name! He wasn't even a real Crocodile, He just had a rare skin disease!
Mary would have asked him why he never tried to use soap, but that would have ruined her mission, which required her to stay hidden.
So Mary remained hidden, staying in the shadows, silently following from afar.
And if she got the opportunity to play with some street dogs from time to time, could she really be blamed?
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"This is a Lesbian Bar..." GCPD Detective Renee Montoya used her investigation skills to point out as she stood on the other side of the street from Molly's Bar.
"I know, And our Informant is in there," GCPD Detective Harvey Bullock said, glaring at the painful pink neon sign that stood above the door to the bar.
"Our informant is inside of a Lesbian bar?" Renee raised her eyebrow as she side-eyed her police partner.
"Look, I have an Informant for each Major District of Gotham, Burnside and Otisburg aren't going to do us any good, and my informant for East End got iced last month, so we're here in The Hills because this is the closest place, now get in there and get my informant outside,"
Renee took a moment to process that information, "You want me to go into a Lesbian Bar, grab your informant, and get her outside?"
"Do I look like a Lesbian to you?" Harvey asked her, opening his hands and pointing at himself as if she could somehow mistake him for a woman.
"You do know that guys can enter Lesbian bars, right? You just won't be able to flirt with anyone in there," Renee crossed her arms, waiting to hear Harvey's excuse as to why she needs to be the one to go inside.
"Don't try and wriggle out of this," Harvey frowned, "What's got you so worked up about just going in there and dragging out Informant out anyways?"
"..." Renee looked away from the other detective, "...I broke up with my Ex-here, I just... Don't really want to go inside again."
"...Really? Damn..." Harvey sighed, "Tough luck, Come on then, I'll go in there with you." He pat her on the shoulder before he crossed the street.
"Wait- You're going in there?"
"Yeah, Got a problem with it?" Harvey scoffed, "Look, You should have just said you had some personal history with this place."
"Sorry."
"Don't be, Next time, just ignore whatever history you have with a place, We have a job to do here, we can't let our personal feelings get in the way," Harvey turned to look at Renee a moment before he opened the door, pointing a finger at her face, "I'm not gonna' hold your hand like this next time, Just do your job, understood?"
"...Yeah, I understand."
"Great! Because I hate coming here more than you do, So let's get this over with!" And with a push from his arm, The Detective duo entered Molly's Bar.
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Richard Fisk sighed tiredly as he unlocked his house and went inside, "Rose, I brought dinner!" He called into the house, closed the door, took off his shoes and coat, and lowered the bag from Big Belly Burger onto the dining table.
He just went through a very long and tiring day, From the shitshow over at Visione Dell'amore where the Heir to the Galante Family almost got killed, to then finding out that The 100 got to Tusk, to having to spend the entire day away from his home just so Penguin could make sure nobody would make the connection that he's Rose. The criminal, not the Girl.
And all of this was because his current employer owed a debt to his old employer.
"What the hell did you do, Delilah?" Richard whispered as he started getting the table ready, hearing the tapping of feet deeper in the house as Rose Forrest left her room and grabbed a seat at the table.
"Are you okay?" The girl asked as she opened the bag of Fast Food, taking out a pile of Chips and a classic Big Belly Burger.
"I'm fine," Richard smiled at the question as he grabbed the seat facing Rose, "I got shot at, had to work with a Crocodile Man who worked for an Elephant Man, Might have accidentally got the Sicilian Mob angry at me, you know, the usual~"
"...What?" The girl asked, her mouth hanging open in shock, causing Richard to laugh at her expression.
"It went something like this-" Richard chuckled as he went into detail, explaining everything that happened the night before as the two ate their dinner.
"And what about you? School starts in two weeks, Did you finish reading those books we bought?" Richard changed the subject after he finished speaking, smiling at the look of annoyance that appeared on Rose's face.
The Rest of the evening passed with Richard helping Rose getting caught up with what she needed to learn for School.
This was, after all, the small amount of time both of them could get each day where they could act like normal people. It was best to simply enjoy it.
After all, this normalcy that both of them love so much could easily disappear at a moments notice.
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"Rose, Good to have you here, I want to introduce you to your new coworker~"
Richard Fisk stared at the large man sitting in Oswald Cobblepot's office.
"Hello, Rose~" Waylon Jones smiled at me, showing a mouth full of sharp teeth on his green-scaled face.
"...Waylon Jones." I nodded a greeting to Killer Croc.
It seems things in Penguin's corner just got a lot more interesting.