Will the Real Batman Please Stand Up?

The barrel of the gun was still pressed against her skin as she relaxed her body with a heavy sigh. The air was thick with breath, the umpteen posse members forgotten all gathered throughout the wall length to watch; smoke traces lingered in the dusted light from a forgotten cigar, dampening the room in its smell; pained wheezing breaths came from blackened lips as Harley’s slender fingers pryed at the knife sticking through her wrist; blood waves flowed over tanned skin in rhythm to pulse; and with each clenching of Jack Napier’s jaw was the unmistakable sound of pressured grinding as his dark brown eyes narrowed to her battered face turned down in the light.

With a slow breath she rose to her feet, walking through the scene to the threshold of a door she hadn’t long entered. A stale odor of gasoline, sulfur and sweat hung in the still air, making the still hemorrhaging wound throb with exposure. Relief flooded her as she pressed on without question, only to be depleted with apprehension as to what would become of her departure. Simplicity could both justify and challenge the actions she intended to carry out as she walked in to the back of the room and removed a paneling of wall, reaching to a cubby inside and pulling out a large shoulder strap bag suitable for traveling. Knowing the contents without needing to look it was thrown over her right arm, and with a limp she silently pushed down the exit to the stair well.

The Joker’s arm had dropped to his side as he watched her in silence leave the room. The aroma of clove honey smoke overlaying years of mildew, smoke and sweat stung his nostrils, and with each gulp of air he could feel his lungs stretch and compact in his chest. Harleen Quinzell’s hissed intakes had taken such a persistency they played in almost a musical rhythm, a track overlayed to any thought regardless of how hard he tried to ignore it. Pressure and expectations of the audience around him set in and his eyes began to sting. He rubbed away the itchiness with the heels of his palms, rubbing his jaw and the smooth skin of his scars with his fingers and noticed, as he pulled them away, his hands were clean.

Jack’s long black lashes overlapped, his clean light colored flesh beginning to redden as his hands gathered to fists at his sides. His throat constricted as a deep roar emitted from his vocal chords, his eyes snapping open to reveal the wavering visions of laughing clowns staring at him and surrounding him. This figure standing before them wasn’t psychological terror from an ingenious or incredulous mind of a debatable lunatic, but a simple man who’s snapped from stress and anger to explode before them.

With another gasp for breath he threw up his hand and pulled the trigger, releasing eight rounds in five seconds to the clowns before him, and they fell to the ground. Leaning on his toes he pivoted, twisting back to point to smoking barrel to a hunched figure behind him, her back arched forward as she cradled her arm, and clenched his finger to hear the empty click of the weapon.

Her blue eyes were limpid with tears and wide with shock as she witnessed her lover standing before her in this state. The vein in his forehead was visible even after calming breaths, and a paler color was coming over his worn yet handsome features. A small smile appeared on his lips as he slowly closed the gap between him and a still slouching Harley. Without a moment’s indication his hand tightened around the hilt of the blade and he extracted it with a quick motion from her arm. A torn screech of pain ripped through her throat before his hand covered her painted lips. The knife’s edge rubbed against her white cheek, shaving against her bare skin.

“You know,” he spoke suddenly in his slick voice. “I really was going to kill you. I mean, I was and then I wasn’t, and then I was and then I wasn’t, but then this thing - ” he laughed and waved his gun in the air beside them, before setting his lip and leaning back in to her.

“You’re just – you’re such a high fucking maintenance target and – and – and-and- ahh!” He punched the wall next to her head. For a moment he stared her in the eye, his brown against her blue, and waited for the right time to say what he needed, but he didn’t know what that was. His lip twitched up in to a smile and dropped her where she stood, turning back to the door.

“Take care of this for me, will you?” he said behind him to Biggy, as he stood in the corner watching dismissively.

Sim tucked in to a dark corner as he quickly danced down the stairs, walking briskly in the morning sun across the gravel in sleek black dress shoes, climbing to a dingy van and kicking up gravel as he left. Squatting to the floor Sim laid out her bag, unzipping the main pocket and digging through the stacks of bills to a pair of faded light blue jeans and slipped them on. In another pocket laid white bandage tape she used to dress her shoulder wound before unclasping her shirt and throwing it in the dust. With an alcohol pad kept in the aid kit she wiped off her face and chest, wiping away the blood. The tee shirt she slipped on was a light green color, bringing out her eyes as she put on a simple pair of black sunglasses, gathering her golden locks and pushing them under a knitted brown cap.

As her appearance was changed in a second she slipped on a pair of shoes and walked across the harbor in the sun, unnoticed by the rest of the world, intending to do herself a little self justice in the night.