"That will be all, Mr. Powers," she says, nearly as absently as she makes it sound. "Security will escort you to pick up any personal belongings you may have in your office."

Derek's face is impressively stone-like, but when he spins on his heel and marches out, a muscle in his back spasms, and she catches his nostrils flaring in the mirror she's placed by the door of her office for precisely that purpose. His gaze flickers momentarily to Maxine before he's gone through the door. She imagines that he suspects that the girl is somehow part of Barbara's brutal and sudden annexation, the end come decades too soon in their long, subtle battle for control of Wayne Enterprise.

Of course, he's right. Once, Barbara had rationed out each covert engagement with Powers, forcing herself to subtler and subtler manoeuvres, told herself she enjoyed the challenge of meeting him on his chosen battlefield, and turning aside each of his maneuvers with the minimum possible application of her resources. She can admit she was lying to herself, now.

"Powers seems kind of overclocked at you," observes Maxine, using only her shoulders to push herself off of the door-frame she was leaning against. "I were you, I'd keep an eye on him."

"Don't slouch, Maxine, it makes you look common," says Barbara, permitting the smile she'd suppressed throughout Powers' interview. She couldn't let Powers think the smile was for him; in fact, she'd been thinking of a two-storey high display wall, mapping out the zones of the city which are falling back under her control. Powers had no hope of holding her attention with Gotham as his competition.

Maxine shows her teeth. "My name's Max." She rolls her shoulders back, though, betraying some stiffness. Barbara's still focusing on building Maxine's upper-body strength. "Do you have anything for me to actually do here? I'm not standing around all day in a monkey-suit to be stared at."

Barbara considers pointing out that if the girl hadn't wanted to be stared at, she could have refrained from colouring her hair in quite such a lurid shade, but Barbara's hair has owed more to science than nature, and to be perfectly honest, more to mischief than beauty, for several decades now. Not that she considers the hypocrisy problematic, but Maxine has seen flats of Barbara in her heyday and cannot have failed to notice that her hair has only gotten redder. Barbara has the girl's training to consider; it won't do to leave Maxine openings that aren't traps.

"You look quite...." Barbara leaves a calculated pause to allow Maxine's conjecture-- "cultured," she slides into the pause, smoothly. "That reminds me, dear, come here. I have a present for you."

Maxine's wariness pleases her, but she affects a mildly hurt expression. Maxine is not noticeably disarmed by it. Barbara slides her drawer open and finds the box without breaking eye-contact, then levers herself out of her chair, letting only a fraction of the pain it costs her show.

Standing, they're too close, and Maxine visibly struggles not to step back, dropping her weight onto her back foot.

"Hold still, Maxine," says Barbara, and reaches up, grazing the girl's chin before dropping two fingers onto the knot of Maxine's necktie. Barbara imagines Maxine, faced with the suit jacket and shirt Barbara had supplied, calculating which tie will make her hair colour the most blatant statement possible without casting her position as Barbara's aide into doubt. The smooth lavender makes her aged fingers seem knobbly and obscene.

Barbara runs her two fingers down the tie where it lies over Maxine's bust until she reaches its mid-point, and then carefully lifts it.

"I don't care if it's made out of the ass-cheeks of baby angels," says Maxine, her voice steady, but a little too high. "Anything you give me, I'm not putting around my neck."

Barbara's mouth twists up, thinking of the gorget of the bat suit, and Maxine's mouth tightens, suggesting she's thinking of the same. "Don't worry, dear," Barbara soothes, for the pleasure of watching Maxine's teeth grind, "I think the tie you picked out looks very pretty." Barbara manages to get the pin out of its box, finally, damned arthritis. "In fact, the colour matches so perfectly that you absolutely must have this." Barbara stabs the pin quickly through the tie, before Maxine can object, and tucks its anchor through the seam-seal.

"Doomsday on ice!" swears Maxine, "It's the size of a-- Is that a real stone in the middle?"

"Don't swear, Maxine," chides Barbara. "And of course it is. It belonged to Martha Wayne, years ago, and would have been worn by Bruce Wayne's bride."

"Yeah," mutters Maxine, "if he hadn't gone and got killed by his butt-boy-- Ow!"

Barbara doesn't apologize; Maxine will learn. "It's only fitting that you wear it," she says, and while she appreciates, grimly, Maxine's look of horror, she's mostly speaking to herself. The only thing of Bruce's that Barbara took was the ring; everything else--the cave, the suit, the name-- she took from Batman. The name she shortened, the cave she modernized. The ring, she had made into a tie-tack. Martha's style didn't fit Babs anymore than the bat suit had. Now it too belongs to Maxine.

Barbara hooks her cane from where it leans against the desk "Make yourself useful. You have root user access from this room, unless and until you do something that brings attention to it. The Society of Assassins is going to attempt to kill me in the next 24 hours, so I suggest you find out who they've sent. I'm going to be meeting with the committee for the policeman's ball."