disclaimer: i do not own batman/dark knight, only my characters Charlie and Sonny.
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As Charlie took the first two steps away from the cab and it zoomed up the street and down another avenue, the nearest house, which had an idling black Mercedes in front of it, had its door thrown wide open and out walked a man Charlie never thought she would see out here. Shock rippled through her, her mouth went dry and her palms instantly got sweaty. The man on the stoop stopped dead when he saw her, and the handsome side of his face slowly curled up in a smile. Harvey Two-Face stepped down onto the lawn, pulling off the blood-soaked surgical gloves from his hands and tossing them into the dying garden. A heavy metal record was blaring from within the house, where Charlie presumed the owner was now dead. He sauntered towards her. Her mind screamed for her to run, but her feet remained cemented to the sidewalk. The afternoon sun was suddenly overwhelmingly hot.
"Well, well, well." Two-Face sneered, coming to a stop several feet in front of her. A couple of misplaced birds tweetered in the grey bushes. "Look who it is-- little Charlie, back from the dead? Your father owes me quite a big favour." he reached into his suit pocket, the wild side of it, and pulled out a dented coin, and it flipped with talent over his fingers. "Can I give you a ride, little girl?"
"No. Stay away from me." Charlie ordered, glad to find her voice was strong.
"Good girl. You shouldn't accept rides from strangers." his smirk got wider, the scarred side of his face showing off every one of pearly whites. The structure of a tooth is freakishly long and slender, she saw, and a chill passed through her spine. She thought of a cannibal. Serial killer documentaries she had seen on the television.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, trying to stay calm and composed. Two-Face was a tricky one. He was like her father in a way.
"Taking care of business." he replied nonchalantly. "You know, we've all been wondering where you were, Charlie. Your father was a mess after you disappeared. No lie." Charlie flinched. "He went even crazier, if that was possible. Don't you think what you did was a little selfish?"
"No." she said sharply. "I did it because I had too."
"I guess Wayne treated you too good, huh?" Two-Face shrugged to himself. "What a shame. We all thought you could handle yourself."
"Fuck you, Dent." Charlie spat. "Stay the hell away from me." She turned on her heel and stalked away bravely.
"Or what? You'll tell daddy?" he laughed, heading towards the black Mercedes idling in the street before the aforementioned house, still laughing when he shut the door to the passenger seat. The music of the house followed her halfway up the street, before she broke out in a run and ran straight to the warehouse. Once inside its thin, steely walls, she stood in the silence and dust for a moment, gnawing on her lower lip uneasily. Was Dent right? Had she been selfish? Guilt rippled through her, and suddenly her new clothes and dress and bag looked lame and almost embarassing, and she tossed them angrily on her bed.
Ignore him. He's a fucking jerk. He's trying to hurt you. Charlie thought, fighting back the tears. You're going on a date at six o clock. It's one thirty right now. You have four and a half hours to kill. Forget about him. You're Charlie. You can do whatever you want. She told herself this over and over again, gradually regaining a lighter mood. She pulled on her new jeans and a warm, fitted white hoodie, and set about trying to distract herself, cleaning the place top to bottom.
The Joker and Harley came home around four o clock. Charlie had been reading the newspaper, finally musting the courage. Sipping ramen noodles from the container, she winced and flinched at the eight paged editorial that documented the events of the past 24 hours-- her odd arrest, the horrifying slaughter, Batman's disappearance during the time, Two-Face's strange crime patterns. Gordon was still alive. Charlie wondered how much luck that man had left, before it ran out. She was finally in the arts & entertainment section, and looked up, unsurprised when the two clowns walked in. Harley had a bleeding nose, and she was pinching her nostrils shut, her eyes down-cast and upset. Her father looked very angry.
"What's the matter?" Charlie asked, fearing the worst.
"Oh, nothing. Just this dumb little bitch," he punched Harley between the shoulder-blades, sending her flying to the floor with a pained squeal. Charlie winced. "Doesn't know the fucking difference between right and wr-ong-uh." He nailed his foot into Harley's ribs.
"Dad..." Charlie said quietly. "Don't..."
"Don't tell me what to do, little girl." he said gruffly, and then his mood switched with eery freakish speed. He smiled wide, his scars doubling up on themselves horrifically. "Ah, well. Every clown has her un-funny moments-uh."
"What happened?"
"Harley got cold feet. Left my ass in the wind. But," his angered tone became bright. "Charlie-baby, I'm takin' you to the op-er-uh soon. Like the arts? I think it gives Gotham a more-- uh, personal twist to its ag-un-ee." he was accentuating his words strongly, which gave Charlie a bad feeling. Usually when that happened he had a sick, twisted plan up his sleeve.
"Where were you?" she asked suspiciously. Harley had managed to get on her knees, her breath wheezing in and out of her lungs. Charlie edged over to her until she was standing, what she hoped was inconspicuously, before the injured woman.
"Meeting with the Board of Dire-k-tors...quite the prissy bunch. I got us front row seats to the biggest production you have ever seen." he grinned. "Free of charge. Baby."
"Oh...uhm, okay. Dad?"
"What."
"I'm going out tonight. At like six--" he waved her off, heading towards his room.
"I don't give a fuck what you do, Charlie-baby, just don't get caught. Harley!" he barked at his sidekick. "Get the fuck in here. Now. I don't think I made myself clear..." Charlie watched as he pulled off his jacket and tossed it at her. She caught it, almost stumbling. Harley got to her feet slowly.
"Okay... mistah J'..." she whispered, and Charlie saw fear and devotion mingled in her eyes. Charlie could almost feel her tempest of emotions. It radiated out of her pores-- lust, violence, pain, fright, joy. It had a metallic scent, almost. Like blood. Charlie carefully folded her father's coat and decidedly blocked out the sounds of Harley and the Joker in their room. Her screams mixed with his laughter, rising in a gruesome cacaphony until Charlie completely lost her appetite. Anger rippled through her instead of intimidation, and she stormed over to the door and pounded on it as hard as she could.
"SHUT UP!" she screamed. "I'm a CHILD, for God's sake!" It was quiet for a moment, and then the two of them beyond the door were laughing, and Charlie groaned and hurled her half-finished noodles into the garbage, and slammed the door to her room very hard. She couldn't really hear them in here, but she still could. She looked down at her father's coat. There had been a few new tears that no one had repaired, and opening her purse she pulled out the little needle and thread ball she always kept with her-- living with her father all her life taught her that there was going to be a lot of tears in her clothes (and sometimes skin). She set about sewing the coat up for him, hoping he wouldn't mind that the thread was black instead of plum. The operation took twenty minutes, and she pulled it on to test how it felt.
Still the same. Same scent of gasoline, detergent, and sulpher. She wrapped it tightly around herself and sat on her bed for a moment, just thinking, enjoying the momentary silence. Harley and the Joker had gotten quieter until she was sure that they had been doing other things. She glanced at the nearly-broken clock on the kitchen wall, exiting her room briefly. It was four thirty. Time to get ready. She stowed away into her room, packed her dress carefully into her new bag, her new jewellery and whatnot, slipped on some low-raised high heels that were decent yet, what she thought, rather elegant. She knocked on the door to Harley and the Joker's room.
"What." her father opened the door sharply. She held out his jacket.
"I sewed it for you."
"Oh? Why thank you, Charlie-baby. Where you goin'?"
"Out. Around. I haven't seen Gotham in two years..." he waved her off.
"Yeah, yeah. Have fun. And come home this time." He shut the door in her face. Charlie stood there for several seconds, and then shrugged one shoulder, to herself. She retrieved her bag and took some money left over from her shopping spree earlier, and was standing outside when she remembered she had not told her father about her little confrontation with Two-Face. Should I?, she thought, tracing her lower lip for a moment with her finger. She bit off a few of her fingernails, a bad habit she could never drop, and then decided it was best if she didn't. No sense starting a war between them. She walked up the dock once again, pleased to see that the overcast clouds had disappeared and the sun was glowing mellowly in the sky, warming her front and hair. Soon there was a slight strut in her step as her good mood increased, and when she reached Gotham central she was very happy. She was back in her true home, with her father, and going on a date. A rational part of her mind explained to her while she walked that going on a date with some random guy was probably a very bad idea. She dismissed the voice. She was just about to slot a quarter in a payphone to call Sonny, Gotham's watch-tower proclaiming above her that it was ten to six. The quarter rolled in, jangled, and then a voice spoke.
"Ya know, you could probably reeeaallly fuck with this guy's head, Charlie." she jumped and turned around, but there was no one there. "I'm over here." she looked towards the phone, stepping back from it as if it were a monster, holding the phone arms-length away, eyes wide and eyebrows disappearing into her hairline.
"What the--"
"Fuck? Yeah, you really lost it now, sweetie. The only date you're ever gonna get is with the doctors up in Arkham!" The voice was female and male, both mixed together, sounding almost static around the edges, like frayed hems of curtains or denim cut-offs. It was absurdly close but she couldn't see anybody near her, no one was within a five meter radius of the phone booth and no one was definitely speaking to her from outside. There were no hidden tape recorders or walky-talkies-- she checked. She slammed the phone down and rubbed her eyes hard, fear and discomfort blooming in her stomach, making her uneasy and a little sickened. She waited for the voice to come back, but it didn't. The next time she glanced at the clock it was five after six, and she forgot about the strange voice, dismissing it as her imagination, just some illusion that had accumulated from the stress and rush of the past few days. She picked up the phone, reslotted her quarter, and dialled Sonny's number.