Talon

Friday 17th April 2009, 22:30.

New Jersey,

Gotham City,

East End.

Finding Esau had been incredibly easy after her talk with Alfred, the calm and kind butler without even meaning to, gave her the perfect idea as to how to find her answers with little effort. Barbara knew she was not perfect, everyone no matter how good was prone to make mistakes and overlook key details. She knew that better than anyone else when having witnessed Bruce make simple mistakes after having overlooked the small details once or twice.

No one was perfect.

It was a lesson that had been drilled into her by both her father and by Bruce.

However, Barbara knew that when it counted, she could succeed.

The method to find the answer to whether Esau was Black Hood had been very obvious that it frustrated her as to how blind she had been, yet even then she had hesitated to use it. It involved tracking Esau's location using the Batcomputer in the Batcave by locking it onto his phone but that was precisely why Barbara had hesitated. Using such a method was a serious breach of privacy and Barbara knew that she wouldn't be able to forgive herself, even if Esau might.

As was often the case though, she, much like Esau were determined individuals and they often didn't stop in the pursuit of what they were looking for until they had it. This is why, after having locked onto the GPS location of Esau's phone, it had then been a matter of travelling through Gotham to his location.

She had stressed out over this for so long and Barbara was annoyed at herself for having struggled so long when the method had been so simple and obvious. But the guilt ate away at her as she moved across Gotham, Barbara having been tempted on numerous occasions to turn back and try a different, less intrusive method to find out the truth. Yet every time she was tempted to turn back, the question appeared in her mind once more, what if Esau was Black Hood?

The worry she had at the truth behind that statement led to Barbara affirming her mind and pushing on once more.

So, after a little over a week, Barbara was finally presented with the answer she had been looking for.

When tracking his phone, the Batcomputer had quickly pinpointed his exact location, it being all the way in the northern sector of the East End, the most rundown and crime-ridden part of the East End. Esau himself rarely ever entered that area and considering his apartment was in the south, closer to Gotham Heights, it beggared the question as to what exactly he was doing there.

Yet the sickening feeling she had didn't subside.

From what she knew of Esau's life, Esau had no reason to go there.

However, Black Hood had every reason to do so.

it was where crime thrived, even under Batman's watchful gaze.

Yet even that raised more questions as the police, Batman and herself had already torn apart that area in their search for the caches of Fearless Toxin. Despite their best efforts, though, none had been found, hundreds of arrests and no leads turned up, so they moved on to the next area.

'So, why are you here?' Barbara wondered as she looked down at the figure of Black Hood as he peaked down over the side of a building.

Even from this distance, she could see a group of thugs working tirelessly to carry some sort of contraband into the relatively nice-looking building across the street. It was not run down like most buildings that surrounded it, so it kind of stood out in this area of town, but even then it was not saying much. The building still possessed a few broken windows and copious amounts of graffiti on the side, but it was much better to look at than the rest of the apartments and houses that looked like rundown junkie joints.

She knew from prior knowledge that they actually were just that, or most of them were anyway, some were whorehouses, junkies selling their bodies in the buildings for their next fix. Some also served as conference centres for shady business dealings between criminals, others were storage areas.

Everything in Gotham had a number of uses.

Activating her holographic computer connected to her wristwatch, Barbara looked at the beeping blip on the map, a blip that was in the exact same position as Black Hood.

"Damnit, Esau." She cursed quietly, as she looked at her childhood friend with a sigh.

Despite being happy that she finally had an answer to the question that had been on her mind since the incident, it did not bring her any measure of real joy or sense of accomplishment at all.

In fact, it made her feel worse.

Unfurling her cape, Barbara jumped off the building using the added surface area provided by her cape to glide down gently and silently onto the same rooftop as Esau and slowly moved up beside him. He did not make any move as she crouched down, she having made sure to make just enough noise to alert him to her presence. This had caused him to spare a brief glance over his shoulders at her before dismissing her entirely, focusing all his attention on what was going on down below.

"I don't need yours or Batman's help." He replied sharply and Barbara said nothing, her eyes torn between looking at Esau and what the thugs were doing. She knew that really all she wanted to do was drag him to his apartment and confront him about being Black Hood, but Barbara knew that the thugs down below took priority for now.

She could prioritise and besides, she knew from personal experience that while raw and untrained, Esau was more than a match for any thug. With her at his side they would be able to deal with those numbers easily.

So she would wait for now.

"Batman didn't send me." She replied and Esau spared her a glance before shrugging and looking through a pair of binoculars down at the thugs below.

It was honestly surprising to her how successful he had been so far considering his limited resources. She had built-in lenses that could zoom in and out as well as take photographic and video evidence of anything she wanted. A marvellous piece of technology that worked perfectly in providing evidence to lock up some of the more elusive and influential criminals in Gotham. Yet, Esau had none of that, nor any of the train she had, but had still managed to not only survive, he had also managed to accomplish something great.

Still, she could not dwell on that for long and instead addressed her main concern as to him wasting his time and getting in over his head. "You do realise Batman, Robin and myself as well as the police have already searched this area, right?"

Esau remained silent, but by the way he tensed he was a little irritated at her pointing out that fact. "Yes, I know." He replied shortly and it honestly hurt to be treated so coldly by her childhood friend even if he did not realise that it was her. Barbara knew that Esau had his misgivings about her alter ego and that she and him, Batgirl and Black Hood hadn't exactly gotten on well the last time they met.

"So why are you here?" She questioned further because from what she was seeing, if Esau went down there he would not be escaping alive and if he did, he would be severely injured. His fighting skills while good would not help when facing off against the twenty thugs outside, plus the further fifteen inside. Those numbers were too large even for him and even she would have trouble. It was not impossible but she doubted she could deal with them and escape uninjured.

"Because I have a high suspicion that the Fearless Toxin is in one of the hideouts in this area." He replied and Barbara went to repeat her earlier point when Esau beat her to it. "And yes, I heard you the first time. You and Batman already searched this area and it's exactly for that reason that I think it's here."

"Okay, you've lost me." Despite the mask covering the lower half of his face, she could pick out the movement that indicated he was smiling beneath his mask at her confusion. She did not know how she felt about that, if she did not have her mask on she would respond in kind. Just like Barbara would have responded to Esau being snarky and teasing, like he was now. But she did not want to give Esau a reason to suspect her as Batgirl, not just yet until she was ready.

For now, she was content to know that he was Black Hood and would keep it that way, focusing her efforts on convincing him to stop being Black Hood as Barbara. She would need to find a way to really make it come across as her learning about how his alter ego without alluding to her being Batgirl, but she was confident she could pull it off. It was a good plan and allowed Barbara to save Esau's life while keeping her secret a secret.

"I have this friend," Esau spoke, breaking her from her thoughts as she looked up into his eyes. Thanks to the hyper-focus lenses she could pick out the warmth in his gaze beneath his hood as he mentioned the word 'friend' and it warmed her heart in turn. "We used to play hide and seek loads when we were young and she always used to win."

He chuckled lowly, thinking back to the memory fondly.

She herself remembered those times vividly too.

Esau had always been the more athletic and sporty of the two and so whenever it came to games like that he always won. But when it came to hide and seek she would always win, it used to drive him mad, he was so competitive in that way.

"Every time we played she'd always move to a place I'd looked before and it would lead me on this wild goose chase for ages." Esau looked back over the ledge once more and down at the thugs below. "So if my six-year-old friend could figure out the best way to hide something was in a place people had checked already, then I'm pretty sure whoever took the Fearless a Toxin right out from under mine and Batman's noses, could do the same."

Barbara remained silent, stunned into silence at his reasoning because, in all honesty, it made a lot of sense. As silly as it was to compare thugs hiding a dangerous toxin to a game of hide and seek between six-year-olds, his reasoning as to why he thought it was here was frighteningly accurate and made perfect sense.

Before she could voice this however, someone else beat her to the punch. "Very good, Black Hood." Slow clapping caused the two to spin around and stare as a figure dressed in a black combat outfit, and a black mask with gold highlights shaped into what appeared to be an owl stepped out from the shadows. "Or should I call you, Esau Jacobson?"

Tensing, Esau spared a glance at Batgirl before locking eyes with the masked figure. "Who the hell are you?" He demanded to know as Batgirl slowly moved away to position herself to the right of the figure.

"You can call me Talon."