MEOW!

Their table will shake any second now should he keep bouncing his knee. Sokol whines and noses his master’s knee to still its tremble. When that fails, he displaces as much of his great weight to the right as he can and lays his cinder block head across Joker’s thigh. Werewolf turns his wrist up to smooth the dog’s head in languid strokes.

Laughter and conversation from nearby tables clutters his brain. More than a few sets of eyes lock on him. Even more whip their phones out.

The lunar craters in his wedding band toy with what little spangles of light will graze them. He follows two across the floor until the table next to them is reached. Strobing bass drops from the club and hookah bar continue to pummel his brain. The ache begins at his temples, then wraps around his head and settles behind his right eye. Joker suffers a harsh, smoky laugh and averts his eyes until a smoke screen protects him. He inflates his lungs with poison, holds, then keeps the wrist and that stick held to his lips to hide just how rehearsed his smile is. 

Squinting doesn’t aid him any. Two of Selina swish together, then wing back out. More fog drowns his vision. Joker bares teeth by grinning to hard and suffers a filthy laugh. It’s breathy, coarse, and fades with the plume that hangs before him.

If she’s aware of the scrutiny around them, Selina is astutely ignoring it. She drags one clawed finger through the liquor options and then sits back in her seat fully. There are enough accidents throughout the city that a missing off-duty cop deposited in the back alley will probably go unnoticed until when next someone takes out the trash. Knowing this doesn’t put Selina at ease. She still glances around attentively and will continue to do so before the evening’s up.

“I’m not trying to accuse you of anything,” Selina asserts. She runs a finger around the rim of her water glass but it makes no sound. They probably wouldn’t hear it even if it did though. She strains for another try anyway with the same results. “I feel like I’m still trying to piece my life together. It’s like no matter what I’m doing, something new rolls into my path that I have to adjust for.” She makes an attempt to catch Joker’s eye. Whatever she’s suggesting might sit in her probing stare. “You know what I mean?” She has a feeling he does.

The waitress comes around for drink orders. Selina clocks the woman’s wandering gaze and too-wide smile and affords herself a snicker only after she’s requested a frozen margarita for herself. “Is that a you thing or a Wayne thing? Or is there not a difference anymore?” Her curiosity is strictly coincidental. Of course.

Bruce  sits  up  and  studies  her.    Trying  to  stop  her  forcefully  will  end  the  night  physically  painful,    so  he  waits  until  she’s  finished  dressing.    He  waits  until  she’s  already  trying  to  retreat.    ❝    Selina.    ❞  It’s  so  quiet  that  his  voice  fills  the  room  as  if  he’d  been  mic’d  up;    there’s  a  speaker  system  installed  in  the  ceiling  for  Zoom  calls,    a  recent  update  that  he  must  have  signed  off  on  at  some  point  yet  barely  remembers  the  installation  having  been  done.    Alfred  would  have  overseen  the  work  if  Bruce  had  been  sleeping  off  a  rough  night  gallivanting  across  Gotham.    That’s  the  likely  explanation.

She’s  keyed  up.    She  has  been  since  the  moment  he  intercepted  her  in  the  hall.    Whatever  she  came  for,    he’s  sure  she’ll  try  again  if  only  to  hurt  him.    He  can’t  say  that  he  blames  her,    but  he  doesn’t  have  to  like  it  or  allow  it  without  a  fight.    She’s  trying  to  flee,    but  Bruce  slides  off  the  table  and  rises  to  his  full  height,    adjusting  his  pants  as  he  crosses  the  short  distance  to  follow  her.

Selina straightens to her full height but he’s still got several inches on her. The lighting in the conference room shades him like he still dons that cowl. It can’t protect her from the bright of his eyes even in the dark. She can put those eyes to his real face now. It infuriates her. “I’m not staying here, if that’s what you’re getting at.” The amusement in her voice is vicious. If he wants to treat her with condescension, she’ll return it in kind enough to disabuse him of trying it again.

It feels like so long ago, but not long enough as it were, that she’d almost wanted to know what she knows now. Ignorance is bliss. What an idiot, the both of them. Bruce draws close enough to steal all the cold in the room, all the liminal light too, and Selina holds her ground out of spite alone. Without his mask, he is just as moody and drawn into himself. More so, actually. Revealed now as he is, she can see how he still wears his brooding like armor.

It’s surprisingly modern and TikTok-trendy on the inside: damp illumine unless one requests the wisteria-blanketed rooftop patio, wall-to-wall authentic Mexican artwork with price tags on most should visitors wish to purchase something, and pulsing bass drops from the DJ’s set in the lounge. None but Joker seem to mind how harsh that beat can get. He tugs his ear and vexes his jaw as if those motions could magically shake the static from his brain.

Once Selina crosses the threshold, he slips in like a specter and shadows her as they approach the hostesses at their podium. Wait staff wears all black and are masked-up to try and dodge the latest Covid strain. With his charred lungs, Joker should be as well. The hostess neither reprimands him for having a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth nor entering with a big black wolf-dog bigger than some humans at his side. That sky-blue harness spells out Sokol's function anyway. 

Joker’s service dog doesn’t help her nerves. Selina rubs her palms down the length of her thighs beneath the table to dispel any natural dampness. Outsiders might assume she fixes the folds in her pants rather than self soothes. She tips back in her seat to force a limper posture just to really sell it, but retains her hypervigilance without drifting her eyes away from the man seated across from her.

“Blood margarita, huh?” Selina plucks up the smaller menu and scans it, this time with the intention to order rather than to fake it before heading out back to drop a cop. She hums now. “You can make it spicy,” she relays from behind her makeshift privacy screen. She lowers it to smile conspiratorially at the eldest Wayne brother, but there’s reservation in what she’d fostered as a friendly demeanor. It sits in her eyes when he breaks that contact first. “Or skinny.”

The  Batman  rolls  onto  his  hands  and  knees,    and  ignores  the  way  his  skull  feels  loose  beneath  his  skin.    Ringing  started  mid  -  flight,    but  now  it’s  a  dull  screaming.    Selina  in  his  periphery  is  all  shadows;    he  can  only  just  make  out  the  shine  of  her  eyes  if  he  focuses  hard  enough.    It  hurts  to  squint  at  her.    His  energy  is  spent  instead  on  reorienting  himself  on  ground  level.

She’d  sent  him  over  the  edge  herself  with  one  swift  kick  to  the  gut.    Another  time,    he  would  have  dodged  or  caught  her  by  the  ankle  and  swept  her  off  balance.    Unmasked  and  in  the  open  though,    and  faced  with  her  immediate  fury  weaponized  against  him,    his  reflexes  took  the  brunt  of  that  relapse.    Even  now,    he  struggles.    When  he  pushes  himself  upright,    he  doesn’t  know  if  she  wavers  in  front  of  him  or  if  he  sways  against  gravity.    Either  way,    it  exacerbates  the  pain  blooming  all  over.

“You don’t get to ask questions,” Selina snaps at him. There’s a fine layer of mist hanging over the alleyway. It’s a pocket wide enough to soak them but it’s likely the clouds cover the entire island. Tomorrow morning will come and this side street might just be half flooded. The southern half of the city still holds a swell of the sea big enough to float dinghies rather than cars.

The Batman’s still looking for his mask. It won’t switch off the face he wears now. Not for Selina. She can still see the shock, and then the grim resignation, that had tightened the skin around his mouth and eyes before she’d kicked him off the roof above. Likely that’ll tumble around in her mind for days. That pisses her off just about as much as the whole damn night does. She debates crossing the canyon to find his cowl just so she can kick it out of his reach.

She'd eyed the nigh-imperceptible snatch of the woman's bracelet as she'd entered into the old Hotel's sickening decadence, while impressed. Her brows made for her hairline and her teeth flashed, revealing those whetted metal fangs everyone inside would prefer for her to hide. The Court loathes the animal of her, yet welcomes a wolf painted as a clown thoroughly into their midst. Nix likely looks to Selina to be just another participant in the gaudy reception inside; pearl-adorned, wrapped in a red dress she didn't pick, her cheeks pink for wine. Despite that, the undoubtful swathe of onlookers snap Skizm's Killer Queen on their phones as an outcast on the step-way.

She flashes her company a dour look, expressing even in her silence that the turn of blame would come as no surprise, then she steals for herself another long drag. Does nothing for her, and yet she'll waste the entire pack of twenty should her husband not emerge to claim them. One the exhale, she finally pulls her voice back.

Selina hefts a hip, and a sizable pocket of tradeable diamonds in her hidden pocket, to one side. Nests a hand there, thumb tucked into the waistline of her smart trousers. She’s donned a costume for the occasion, a trim three piece suit the color of ripe eggplant. Her wig’s long past her shoulders and black and pinstraight. She might almost fit in at this party except for the depth of her gaze which has no lack of shark hunger but suits a different breed.

“Couldn’t find what I was looking for.” Selina tips her head and eyes her witness with inscrutable interest. When she cants her chin nigh centimeters on a swivel to the left, she can see Joker half listening to whatever’s being sold to him. Selina knows almost every person inside. She’s served drinks and drops to over half of them, some on more than one occasion. Joker wears his face, but that’s not what Others him.

(  dialogue  prompts  taken  from  the  batman  (2022),  directed  by  matt  reeves.  feel  free  to  edit  and  change  as  you  seem  fit.  ) 

❛ two years of nights have turned me into a nocturnal animal. ❜

❛ it’s a big city. i can’t be everywhere. ❜

❛ fear is a tool. ❜

❛ the hell are you supposed to be? ❜

❛ i’m vengeance. ❜

❛ what does a liar do when he’s dead? he lies still. ❜

❛ happy fuckin’ halloween. ❜

❛ i wish i could say i’m making a difference, but i don’t know. ❜

❛ the city’s eating itself. maybe it’s beyond saving. but i have to try. ❜

❛ you’re becoming quite a celebrity. ❜

❛ have a shower. ❜

❛ if this continues, it won’t be long before you’ve nothing left. ❜

❛ if i can’t change things here, if i can’t have an effect, then i don’t care what happens to me. ❜

❛ you’re not my father. ❜

❛ some fresh berries there. ❜

❛ oh, this guy’s hilarious. ❜

❛ get out of here. you hear me? or that little suit’s gonna get all full of blood. ❜

❛ take it easy, sweetheart. ❜

❛ boy, you’re everything they say, ain’t ya? ❜

❛ you got a lot of cats. ❜

❛ i have a thing about strays. ❜

❛ you’re not safe here. ❜

❛ i can take care of myself. ❜

❛ hey, why am i starting to feel like a fish on a hook? ❜

❛ boy, you’re a real sweetheart. ❜

❛ look at me. ❜

❛ that’s one of the guys i got into it with the other night. looks like i broke his nose. ❜

❛ is bruce wayne making an actual appearance? ❜

❛ serial killers like to follow reactions to their crimes. ❜

❛ you have to keep up appearances. you’re still a wayne. ❜

❛ i’ve been trying to reach you. ❜

❛ i’m giving you a chance. no one ever gave me a chance. ❜

❛ it can be cruel poetic or blind. but when it’s denied, it’s violence you may find. ❜

❛ if you are justice, please do not lie. what is the price for your blind eye? ❜

❛ since your justice is so select, tell us which vermin you’re paid to protect. ❜

❛ is this how you get your kicks, hon? sneaking up on girls in the dark? ❜

❛ what the hell is this? good cop, batshit cop? ❜

❛ no habla español, fellas? ❜

❛ jesus. his next victim is bruce wayne. ❜

❛ wasn’t sure i’d see you again. ❜

❛ was it worth it? compromising yourself for money? ❜

❛ who are you under there? what are you hiding? are you just hideously scarred? ❜

❛ i told you, baby. i can take care of myself. ❜

❛ do you know who i am? ❜

❛ i could see the fear in your eyes, but i didn’t know how to help. ❜

❛ i could teach you how to fight, but i wasn’t equipped to take care of you. ❜

❛ you needed a father. and all you had was me. ❜

❛ i never thought i’d feel fear like that again. ❜

❛ come on, vengeance. let’s go kill that son of a bitch. ❜

❛ listen to me. don’t throw your life away. ❜

❛ don’t worry, honey. i got nine of ’em. ❜

❛ whatever i know, whatever i’ve done, it’s all going with me to my grave. ❜

❛ i just ordered a slice of pumpkin pie. ❜

❛ my life has been a cruel riddle i could not solve. ❜

❛ i know now what i must become. ❜

❛ if only you knew how long i’ve been waiting for this day. for this moment. ❜

❛ god. look at you. your mask is amazing. i wish you could’ve seen me in mine. ❜

❛ you and i both know i’m looking at the real you right now. ❜

❛ i told you, we’ve been doing this together. you’re a part of this. ❜

❛ we didn’t do anything together. ❜

❛ this is not how this was supposed to go! ❜

❛ oh, you’re really not as smart as i thought you were. ❜

❛ what’s black and blue and dead all over? you. ❜

❛ i can already see things will get worse before they get better. ❜

❛ people need hope. to know someone’s out there for them. ❜

❛ one day you’re on top, the next… you’re a clown. ❜

❛ gotham loves a comeback story. ❜

❛ riddle me this… the less of them you have, the more one is worth. ❜

❛ don’t you ever just say hello? ❜

❛ you know this place is never gonna change. ❜

❛ the bat and the cat. it’s got a nice ring. ❜