Johnathan Smith hated his partner. She was loud, too nice, too passionate. Okay, maybe he did like Ortíz. Just a little. Officer Ortíz was just impossible to hate. And there is where the problem dwelled. Mia Ortíz was too nice, too good. As young people would say, she was a cinnamon roll, too nice, too pure for this world. Only she wasn't. Mia Ortíz was not, could not, be innocent. No one that was born and raised in Gotham could be. She was just too young. Too small.
At twenty –three, with a height barely reaching four feet and eleven inches, she should not be working for a Police Department. Much less Gotham's Police Department. That was like telling the Joker he wasn't funny. In other words: Suicidal. But Ortíz was a police officer, not only that, but if rumors were true, she was also one of the brightest of her class, back when she was studying in the Police Academy. Therein laid the problem. Johnathan Smith could deal with criminals, scum, with the lowest grade of individual, he could not deal with jealously. The little green monster was too powerful for him to ignore, leading him to treat the object of his jealously with nothing more than contempt.
"Hey, Smith."
His preferred method of dealing with the burning resentment was to simply ignore the problem, ignore the person that had planted such nasty feelings inside him.
"Smith?"
Of course, a task such as that one became astonishingly hard to accomplish when the object of his zealously was assigned to him as a partner, damn it all.
"Smith…" A hiss coming from his small companion finally managed to break his line of thought and attain his attention.
"Yes, Officer Ortíz?"
"I think we may have a problem. "
Sighing deeply, Johnathan glanced at the Latina with barely contained disdain. There she went, spewing nonsensical blabber of them being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He understood the term gut instinct, but what Ortíz possessed went above and beyond. To the point it would seem precognition. But that was impossible. Ortíz was nothing more than a plain human. A human with an inclination for theatrics, but a human nonetheless.
"Why would you think that, Officer Ortíz?" Hopefully his dry tone would tint his tone, making it clear for the women that he was not in the mood for his nonsense.
"Well, for one? I think, and this is just a gut instinct of mine, but I think someone may be following us." Her nervous jitter grated his nerves to the point of no return. Smith could not wait for dawn to make its presence known, for his job would be done when that happened. "I thought Commisioner Gordon told us they were going to set a police barricade around Gotham Museum to try and stop the robbery?" The little woman's hands twitched slightly, and reached jerkily for her gun. "I mean. I could be wrong. But I really feel as if someone could jump on us in any minute."
Sighing with exasperation, Smith placed a withering glare in the tiny officer. "We are the only people in the alley, Ortíz."
"But…!"
"There is no one else here. No one. Gordon took care of it." Annoyance seeped into his tone while he gave his surroundings a lazy glance. The poor women was utterly nervous, making him wonder if he should be more lenient with her. It was, after all, her first time patrolling the city. Ortíz just had to get lucky with her assignment, leading her to patrol the alley behind the Gotham Museum the night of an awaited robbery in hands of Gotham's lest favorite clown. Yeah, maybe he should be more lenient. Maybe.
"Look. We are completely alone. The steps you hear? That is the echo of our footsteps. The mysterious noise you know not of its origin? Probably a cat." Really, she was a grown woman! She should not be so afraid of a desolated alley. Could he hear his footsteps? Of course, with his towering height, he ought to produce much more noise while walking than the little woman. He could also hear the small pitter patter of Ortíz's footstepst. Granted, he could also hear another set of footsteps, but the only way to access the alley they were patrolling was through one of the Museum's back doors. Nobody would be going out of one of those anytime soon.
"Alone? I don't think so! Sorry to be interrupting your little escapee risqué, but you two are in my path to hilarity!" A maniacal laughter, accompanied with an equally crazy voice broke the silence he had imposed over Ortíz.
Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
They had been followed. Followed by no other but the Joker itself.
Mind racing in search of an exit, Johnathan reached for his walkie-talkie, only for a bullet to bury itself in the wall, inches away from his head.
"Now, now! Don't need to be such a party pooper! We three are going to have fun!"
One thing was for sure, if they didn't do anything, they were going to die. The Joker did not tend to take prisoners, officer or civilian. Cursing under his breath, Johnathan managed to maintain a relative calm while she turned to face the goddamned clown. He needed to find a way out, for both of them. And he probably couldn't count with Ortíz lending a hand. The poor girl was paralyzed in fear…
Or that is how it seemed. The rookie had tensed for a second, in the same instant the Joker had made his presence known, but now. Now her shoulders were perfectly relaxed, and she was starting to turn towards the villain. Something about the action made Johnathan freeze in place, letting him absorb what happened in the next couple of seconds.
Ortíz faced the Joker. Her manner was relaxed, her expression eerily calm. Then… Then she moved.
In a matter of seconds two shots were fired. One hit his partners shoulder, cutting clean through the flesh, only to bury itself in the wall behind her. The other found its home buried in the clowns chest.
Silence erupted, only broken when Batman's infamous archenemy fell to the ground with a thud.
Shaking his head as if he was waking of a trance, Johnathan blinked twice before taking a quick glance to the Latina.
"Well, that was anticlimactic." Shrugging, he reached for his walkie-talkie while Ortíz remained frozen in place, one arm putting pressure in the bullet hole in her shoulder. "We have a 10-52. Repeat. We have a 10-52. We need an ambulance. Now." Dropping next to the body, he checked the clown's pulse and grimaced. Ripping the bodies clothes, he used them to apply pressure in the open wound.
"Good aim, Ortíz. But next time I would try not to shoot the criminal in the chest. We need them alive to bring them to justice."
"Wait. Did I kill him?" The voice that came from the normally boisterous Latina was weak with shock.
"Well, he is not death. Yet. It is likely he will, though. I am not a doctor, but he is bleeding quite a bit." His statement was greeted by silence, until he heard the whisper that was slowly gaining volume.
"FuuuuUUCK!"