Raven

I looked at myself, at Sparrow, in the mirror as I passed the make up brush of powder over my face. I stared into my own eyes that seemed dull and almost lifeless. There was no thrill of excitement tonight. I wasn’t Raven today, I was only little Sparrow who had fallen from the nest and into the arms of the comfortable billionaire, Bruce Wayne.

My lip curled slightly, and a sparkle came back as I recognised the real me, the Raven that was a sadistic killer, who loved to feel other peoples blood run from her hands, drip down her knife. My hands shivered from the thrill of the thoughts and I jerked slightly, to rid myself of Raven for tonight. Today, more accurately, tonight I needed to be Sparrow King, beautiful, seducing, harmless Sparrow.

My eyeliner was slick and ended with a flick, framing my green eyes, making them appear larger than normal, and they shone in the light. But with no murderous ideas. I uncapped my red lipstick, sliding it over my lips, and blotting. I laughed to myself as I had the strange notion of continuing my lipstick across my mouth up the lines of my cheek to create a jagged smile, not that different to someone else’s larger than life smile I knew.

My world was always stepping back and forth from the worlds of both Sparrow and Raven. Normally, I could be both, and skip between them with no difficulty but here, here in this city. In Gotham….it was almost impossible and I don’t know why. I was already mad, but it was beginning to tear at me. The line between my worlds was becoming blurred and often I slipped into each character unknowingly when I was suppose to be the other. I almost killed Barry with a stapler last week, when he criticised a report I’d written up. I needed to keep myself in check, perhaps take a break from Raven…but my wings ached for flight, my blade for blood…and somewhere deep down, I ached for him, for the Joker.

As soon as that notion entered my head, I shook it out. I wouldn’t be thinking of him…he was a psychopathic murderer who would kill me in a blink of an eye, rather like I’d kill him within a nano second. I met a lot of criminals and ‘villains’ in my time through different cities and I’d managed to dispose of them all without much trouble. But this one….this one is going to be difficult. He’s become like a tick, burrowing underneath my skin. I imagined an itch and scratched at my hand as if to ward him away, to shoo him away but no, the Joker would not be disposed of that easily.

I walked out of the bathroom, shaking my hair back over my shoulders where it fell and rose again in dark waves. My hair always seemed blacker, straighter and longer as Raven, I needed to protect my true identity, always. My ankle was almost healed but I could walk fine in my heels and so heels it was.

The evening gown I had chosen (for no doubt Mr Bruce Wayne would take me out to some extravagant restaurant that only the elite could eat in. Golden sugar cubes? I think so) was sleek, and body hugging. It was a deep red that matched my crimson lips, and I practically looked like I had been dipped in wine. There was a long thigh high slit up one side of it, and my leg underneath was creamy and silky smooth, tantalising seductive.

I looked at the clock, twenty five minutes past seven. Bruce Wayne would be right on time. He was fancy like that. I picked up my black beaded bag, rifling through my purse, the small pocket knife I had placed inside it, I couldn’t go anywhere without a small weapon…cities could be dangerous for pretty girls like me….ha-ha.

My eyes flickered to the Joker card that still lay on my bedside table. The animations eyes were slightly squinted as he laughed obscenely, his chin was pointed and grotesque, he taunted me as CB has taunted me by leaving it behind with the rose and the money. He was clearly saying ‘look what I can do. You can never catch me. You can never find me….you can never beat me.’

“We’ll see about that,” I growled to myself and before I knew what I was doing, I opened the clasp of my purse and slipped the card inside, as if it was a useful object.

And then, like I predicted, my phone rang at precisely half seven. “Miss King, Mr Bruce Wayne is waiting in the lobby for you.” Arnold, the concierge’s voice rang into my ears as I picked up the handhold.

“Thank you Arnold, I’ll be right down,” I replied sweetly, practising my fake smile to no-one.

Bruce looked handsome as always in a dark grey suit, with a crimson red tie, matching my dress. I walked over to him, he turning as the click of my heels announced my arrival and he smiled charmingly. I ducked my head, looking at him through my long eyelashes, and I dropped my voice to a sultry tone, “Snap, Mr Wayne.”

He chuckled, picking up my hand as if it were a delicate china object and placing it through the loop of his arm. He led me out to where a dark black stretch limo waited, and I rose my eyebrows at him. “Do you ever do anything normal Mr Wayne? Or do you like being flashy all the time?”

His eyes widened slightly but I allowed my mouth to twitch to feign I was joking when in fact I wasn’t. What was the need to flash your riches around like this? Why a limo when he could buy a fancy sports car which he probably has several of, no doubt. I frowned at myself, wondering at my contempt for Bruce all of a sudden, when yesterday he had me practically moaning his name across my desk. Maybe it was the fact I’d stared at his luscious red rose beside the velvety black one all night, haunted by opposites.

“You know,” Bruce turned to me in the back of the limo, pouring some wine into a glass for me, “I normally tell everyone to call me Bruce, as I’ve already asked you to….but I’m starting to like the way you say ‘Mr Wayne’.’

“Well then Bruce,” I spoke slowly, and softly, never taking my eyes from his as I took the wine glass from between his fingers, “I wouldn’t want you to get too excited.”

He kept my gaze and I could hear his breath quicken slightly and I rose the glass to my lips, allowing my tongue to slip from between my red lips to catch a drop of wine escaping from the corner of my mouth. The tension between us was hot, raw and sexual and for a moment, my contempt for him vanished…and I purely wanted him as any woman would a man.

Then I looked away, breaking the contact, severing the tension. Not tonight. Gotham was the reason I was choosing to spend time with Mr. Wayne…that is what I told myself.

Dinner was rather uneventful, almost disappointing….perhaps if I’d really been up to it, I could have sent him a signal to meet me in the bathrooms down the long fancy corridor, or an empty supply closet and we could have one of those ‘rendezvous’ that he was most known for. But I didn’t, I kept the conversation light, and though now again when the tips of our fingers touched across the table, or his leg brushed against mine underneath it, there was that energy, I ignored it.

But then, then there was the limo home. I was almost glad to be in the confined space with Bruce again, I had felt uneasy in such an open space even dressed the opposite as Raven, I always feared recognition. I could feel eyes on the back of my head the whole time, and though I looked, I saw no-one. I think Gotham is making me more paranoid than I already was.

The limo turned to the final stretch towards my apartment, and that’s when Bruce struck. He grabbed my hand, jerking me from a daydream of mass murder, and I swear I almost killed him, forgetting where I was, and who I was today. But I managed to stay calm, despite jumping slightly for it was only Bruce, and how harmless could a spoilt billionaire be?

I looked at him, his hand was tight around me and his face looked almost feverish though his hand was cool. “Sparrow, I…I can’t control myself around you much longer, I’m sorry.” And like he had in my office, he crashed his lips down on top of mine.

I struggled for a brief moment before allowing myself into the kiss. It became heavier, more passionate, as his hands came around me and he rolled in the limo so he was sitting up, but I was astride his lap, grounding my hips down onto his as we kissed, and making him moan into my ear and it thrilled me, in a sexual sense. It was nothing like killing, nothing at all.

But his hand came up to tangle in my hair and he tugged it slightly, causing a strange pain in my head. I liked it and cried out a moment and then his hands were digging into my shoulders as I gasped his name into his ear.

Then he lowered his hand and it rested on the slit in my dress and it creeped upwards as we kissed in the back of the moving vehicle. His hand was cold against my skin, and it seemed to wake me up. And then I remembered when he had wrapped the bandage around my ankle, his hands had been warm, they had been pleasant. Not like this.

I pulled away both in disgust at my thoughts of CB again and of Bruce. I didn’t want to rush this. Good plans fall into place slowly and this wasn’t slowly. Luckily, the limo was pulling up outside my building.

“Thank you Mr. Wayne. Tonight was a pleasure, truly.” My words sounded fake, even to me. And I got out of the limo, closing the door. Bruce seemed shocked, no doubt he wasn’t used to girls going home alone, rather than back to Wayne Manor. Well, not today Mr Wayne…this little birdies got fish to fry.

I entered my apartment, and slowly went into the bathroom. I stared as I had that evening into my reflection. I no longer knew who I was.

My eyes were dilated, my lipstick was smudged across my face and I dropped my bag to the floor. My hands balled into fists as rage took over me. It had been a long long time since I’d kissed anyone like I had kissed Bruce Wayne. Normally, my work was done without the actual physical intimacies, I normally killed them before that. I didn’t like being intimate like that….well, of course I liked it….but afterwards, afterwards I hated it, I hated myself to allow it to happen, like now.

My eyes closed, and I jerked as a violent flashback of my past blazed in front of me. A cry escaped my lips as I remembered the sounds of my own screaming in my ears, the sounds of them screaming as they died, slowly and painfully. And the white hot pain as my back was sliced open, again and again. I lived with the scars, inside and out. Like the Joker. How had he gotten them? And amidst my madness, my pain, my past…I wondered did this ever happen to him? It happened to me rarely, these psychotic fits, rages, but they still happened. And I could not control them.

I opened my eyes from where they had been closed tight shut. And I hated myself more for being weak and pathetic. And then I allowed all that anger, pain and resentment that had built up over the past weeks loose in a blood curdling scream that ripped my throat apart. No-one would hear me all the way up here. I screamed and I screamed and I screamed. And then my hands came up and down onto the mirror in front of me, and I smashed it into thousands of pieces. I didn’t feel the pain as glass pierced my skin, and I hardly saw the rivers of blood that began to pour down my arms in red streams. My fingers scraped down the surface that now showed my reflection for what it was, a broken person, with several irreparable pieces.

“That was silly.”

I knew he had been following me, somewhere deep down, I knew it. So when I heard his voice come from behind me, I wasn’t startled. He seemed to like sneaking in here, and I no longer even cared.

“Get out.”

“Aw come on Birdie.”

“GET OUT!” I screamed at him, my hands in fists, digging the shards of glass further into the palms of my hand. The pain felt good, it make me feel alive, electric.

He continued to stand there, in the doorframe, staring at me. His purple tailcoat was obscenely bright and it sickened me to look at it. I wanted him dead. I wanted to feel his heart stop beating underneath my fingers. I wanted to watch the life leave his brown eyes. The fun and mischief to disappear forever. I wanted to kill him.

“Little Sparrows clipping her wings. Maybe you should have stayed home little Sparrow, instead of flying the nest.”

I picked up the blade that had fallen from my bag from the floor, and flicking it open, I flung it through the short space. It landed in the wooden frame, inches from his head.

“Aim is off.”

“Fuck you Joker. I’m going to fucking kill you someday. I don’t care about your tricks or your little games. I’m going to laugh down at your corpse, as I take over Gotham, and you can fucking haunt me!”

I had stood up, making my way over to him, leaving blood trails on the floor. I was so intent on watching his face for a reaction to my words, I didn’t notice the gun he had hidden behind his back until he brought it up, whacking me with the butt of it in the head, and I fell unconscious to the floor.

~

I awoke, hours later and immediately the pain hit me. My hands burned and when I looked down, I was startled to see them wrapped in white bandages. There were small nicks on my upper arms from the flying shards, but they had been cleaned and looked fine. I rose one hand gently to my head, where I moaned as I hit the lump where the fucking jackass had knocked me out. I got up, my dress swishing around my feet. I don’t care if he’d bandaged me up, he was going to pay for that…and for breaking and entering.

Then I stopped….why had he looked after me? He’d had the perfect opportunity to kill me. God knows I would have taken it from the other way round. It seemed I would never truly understand him, even if he was the exact copy of me in male form.

I walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and I looked over at the counter where a packet of painkillers had been put out for me, beside a clean glass. Another Joker card was propped up against it, smiling at me.

This time, I smiled back.