Sorry it's taken me forever to update, I've been busy and uninspired. I have honestly no idea where this chapter of the story is going so it might fly a little out of control but please, bear with me in this. I'm a bit of a lunatic myself. Just kidding, anyway, review or there will be no more chapters. Welcome to chapter 12. Enjoy!
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It was late, dark outside and dangerous. Gotham was always dangerous.
But Milo had plans, she had an invitation.
She spent the better part of the evening in the dingy little room that served as a bathroom, dressing herself carefully, tidying her hair and perfecting her face. She checked the pocket-watch she had dangling from the front of her ivory-colored dress; it read 6:13 pm, time to go. Milo struggled into her silver heels and floated down the stairs into the large warehouse room of the Joker's hideout.
She grinned through lips that were slicked with bright red lipstick at the men in the room; Trey gawked longer than the other henchmen. The only person who didn't look was the Joker who kept his eyes carefully focused on the television.
The only thing was, the television screen was blank.
Milo let out a heavy breath through her nostrils and stormed out of the room, snatching a set of keys out of Trey's eager hands. She sat heavily in the front seat of the one normal car that lay dormant in the garage; Milo put the key in the ignition and listened to the engine roar to life before slamming her heeled foot onto the gas pedal and peeling out into the dark streets, a menace to society and human beings in general.
Milo parked the dark blue sedan deep in the city's public parkades, her expression was enough to keep the criminals lurking within to stay far away from her. She grinned, her lips already red with lip color but blood welled up from behind the color anyway.
She took the stairs up to street level and walked slowly and surely to Mr. Wayne's building where his party was being held. She entered the sleek building, looking at the reflection of her feet in the polished marble floor of the swanky apartment building. She tapped her foot three times on the creamy floor while waiting for the elevator to reach ground level.
The elevator pinged gently as Milo finished putting in her second contact, three people stepped out, Milo smiled and nodded, they smiled and nodded back as Milo stepped into the elevator past them, holding tightly to her silver clutch with her left hand and checking the pocket-watch she had tucked into the front of her dress. She was right on time.
The elevator hummed its way upwards towards the penthouse; Milo crossed herself nervously three times. The little numbers ticked by above the door all the way up until it hit the number sixteen.
Sixteen divided by two was Milo's lucky number; this would be a good night.
The elevator pinged for a second time and the doors slid open revealing a grand scale party beyond them. Milo slid her convincing smile into place, checked her reflection in the reflective glass that coated the wall around the elevator doors. Satisfied, Milo walked silkily into the crowd, her dress shifting smoothly around her long slim legs, heels clicking.
She smiled politely at Bruce Wayne's guests, made small talk and was generally pleasant, but kept her hands wrapped tightly around her clutch purse while she socialized. Milo dismissed herself genially from a chatty group, excusing herself to speak with Bruce Wayne alone.
She sidled up next to the wealthy businessman and waited for the people he was currently speaking to enjoyably to exit. They left shortly and Milo stepped up before Bruce Wayne, opening her clutch purse slightly.
"Hello Mr. Wayne," Milo said, putting her voice a pitch higher than it was naturally.
"Welcome, thank you for attending my party Ms.?" Bruce Wayne said, smiling and raising his glass of champagne to clink it against Milo's own martini.
"Call me Milo," the dark haired girl hissed, pulling a tiny phial from her purse. "Don't move."
Her warning froze Bruce in his tracks.
"What do you want?" he asked holding a smile stiffly on his strained face.
"I just want to talk," Milo said. "I don't have anything else in my bag, you won't be harmed, I promise."
"You also promised that you wouldn't try anything funny while you were given your equipment back in prison," Bruce spat.
"I double pinky swear," Milo sighed, holding out her crooked pinky to Bruce Wayne.
"What happened to you?" Bruce asked.
"I fell out of a window," Milo shrugged.
"What do you want to talk about?" Bruce asked.
"Can we talk somewhere more…private?" Milo asked, fiddling with the little phial that shone within her newly manicured fingers.
"Fine," Bruce said, resting his hand on Milo's lower back and guiding her away from the main party.
A few men winked lewdly at the two people and several women stared, but Milo ignored both of these provocations and allowed Bruce to lead her farther away from his vulnerable guests. He guided Milo through a door and into a side room, his study, furnished in rich leather and sumptuous wood.
"Have a seat," Bruce Wayne offered generously, as though Milo was simply a business client. "You look lovely."
"Thank you," Milo said, seating herself gently in a dark green leather chair that situated behind a large wooden desk.
"You wanted to talk?" Wayne asked as he watched Milo play absently with the pens on his desk, sorting them from largest to smallest, spacing them evenly.
"I did," Milo said, re-sorting the pens according to color.
"Do you still wish to talk?" Bruce asked Milo, his hand twitching near his pocket, fingers itching to call Jim Gordon.
"Ah, ah, ah," Milo hissed. "Don't be calling your little friend Mr. Gordon….Batman."
"What did you say?" Bruce asked, suddenly on red-alert.
"Guilty are we?" Milo grinned.
"Of what?" Bruce laughed, trying to scorn off Milo's accusation.
"You are Batman," Milo said, twisting the phial in her fingers.
"What's that?" Batman asked, pointing to the glass tube.
"It's rude to point," Milo snapped.
Bruce rolled his eyes.
"I have a…proposition for you," Milo suggested.
"What kind of proposition?" Bruce asked.
"Drink this and I'll tell you," Milo said, holding the little phial out in her hand towards Bruce.
Bruce knocked the phial roughly out of Milo's clean hands and it shattered on the floor, Milo looked down at the spilled liquid distastefully. Bruce put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his cell-phone, he flipped it open and put it to his ear, hitting a speed dial button. Milo could hear the number dialing.
"It won't work," Milo told him.
"Why not?" Bruce snarled, flinging his phone to the office floor and watching it shatter over the broken phial.
"Your signal's scrambled," Milo said, shifting her legs in her chair.
"How?" Bruce asked harshly.
"Do you really think that I couldn't do that?" Milo asked. "After all I've done for this town."
"You've done nothing for this town," Bruce hissed. "You've just ripped it further than it was already torn."
"You have no idea how much I've done for this town," Milo laughed. "You have no idea."
"I want you to stop this now," Bruce said, edging closer to Milo.
"What you want and what is going to happen are two very different things," Milo shrugged, standing up slowly while holding her little bag far away from her own body.
"Don't move," Bruce ordered.
Milo laughed, "Why should I listen to you?"
"Because it's the right thing to do," Bruce said, taking another step towards Milo.
"What's in it for me?" Milo asked.
"A legitimate life," Bruce said. "You turn in the Joker, you get counseling, you get a legitimate life."
"I'll think about it," Milo said. "And, for now, I'd like to leave, un-harrassed if you'd please."
"No, I can't do that," Bruce said.
"Since when are you a lawyer anyway?" Milo asked. "What would you be doing making legal arrangements for me?"
"I can help, my name means a lot in this town," Bruce said.
"So does mine," Milo retorted, moving around the desk towards the door and away from Bruce.
"Don't even," Bruce warned, stepping in front of the door, hands held up to restrain Milo should she try to escape.
"You know, you really shouldn't have dropped your cell-phone," Milo said, looking uninterestedly towards the cellphone in the pool of liquid on the carpet.
"Wha-," Bruce began, but before he could finish his sentence or even his thought, Milo tossed her silver bag onto the broken cell-phone and puddle of unknown liquid.
The little pile went up in flames, violently.
Milo cackled and scooted past Bruce back into the main area of the party as he struggled to put out the fire with his jacket. Milo hurried through the room crowded with people until she reached the elevator, it pinged and she leapt inside, hitting the 'close door' button before anyone else could follow her in.
The elevator rushed downwards and Milo tapped her feet anxiously, crossing herself three times successively. It hit ground level and Milo rushed out, holding the skirt of her dress up off the floor and running over the slippery marble floor Milo had so admired earlier.
The second elevator pinged open behind her, Bruce Wayne rushed out of it after Milo who looked back anxiously at him and hurried faster across the floor until she was outside the rotating doors that created the entrance to the apartment building. Milo grinned at Bruce as he ran towards her, full-tilt, saluted and waited.
Bruce reached the rotating door and pushed, it didn't move.
He pushed harder and the door still didn't open.
Milo kissed the glass door, leaving a bright red lip-stick print and saluted Bruce as she rushed down towards the parking garage where her blue escape vehicle was parked.
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After Milo disappeared from view, there was a clicking sound as Bruce threw his weight onto the rotating door, a lip-stick tube fell out of the mechanisms that turned the door and Bruce tore out of the building. He followed the sound of Milo's laughter down to the parking garage where she was waiting next to her sedan, keys in hand, grinning.
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Milo skipped back into the Joker's lair, grinning, holding her set of keys to the sedan, bloody and bent. Blood stained the front of Milo's beautiful cream dress red.
Her lips were red too.
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Okay, I meant for this to be longer, but it just made sense to end it here. It's almost like a cliff hanger. I hope you all like it. Reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated, and no reviews=no more chapters. Thanks!
