Author's Note: This is a oneshot written for the theme 'Enigma' over at the LiveJournal community 'batfic_contest'. Winners of this theme will be announced Nov 24th.

The Clouded Mirror

There is a plan for this evening and I'm quite excited. We have everything ready, my moles and planted clowns are where they need to be elsewhere in Gotham, the right amount of explosives are all set-up in a cobweb throughout our targeted site and little do they know, some of my clowns are wearing a few inconspicuous blasters right now! It's absolutely hilarious.

We're temporarily based in the disused warehouses on the wharf where we currently have some hostages, some arms and oddments, but nothing much to do, so I've decided to play with these police officers who unfortunately remain integral to the plan until approximately 7.13pm, when the call should come through.

A ripped lip here, a couple of criss-crosses over their bare, bound forearms... I cut an ear off eventually. This is when it begins to rain heavily. A Gotham monsoon roars so loudly across the corrugated, steel roofing that the howls of the now earless hostage are nearly drowned out.

It's quite distracting not being able to hear him, really.

So this is it, the moment I first see my clown Stockings edge with deliberation from our midst, only to halt at the edge of the wharf like an absurd lummox in this furious downpour. He is still wearing those stockings on his head, smudged carelessly with a little red about the nose and mouth area, and blue for the eyes.

And he just stands there. One clown cares little (or rather, not at all) for what the other clowns may feel, but what is the meaning of this?

I pace around the concrete floor space of the warehouse, I waggle my dripping blade and my tongue. We are waiting desperately for that call, but until it comes we have to sit tight in our pack. I can see that I am not the only one raging to get on with things, I can smell the anticipation, that musty, reeking stench of testosterone; it lingers like burnt rubber in the air.

By now I've made a jittery circle around the interior and have arrived near the entrance; Stockings is still standing outside in the rain. I cannot grasp why. There is no fun to be had in becoming drenched. I squint through the dark haze and see that Stockings has been joined by two others.

Ridiculous! Surely it's not that exciting?

A quick march places me no more than three feet from the rear of their little formation; they stand mere inches from the wharfs edge themselves. I am swiftly soaked to my bottommost layer of clothing and still nothing has happened. I'm waiting for a tingle, a flicker in my gut, anything... and yet nothing happens.

The torrential rain is making rapid work of my paint. Oily droplets are finding their way into my mouth and ruining the lapels of my jacket – I'm annoyed because now I'll have to do it all over again, I only reapplied it this morning!

Licking the lipstick off my mouth I've yet to suffer a precipitation-induced epiphany. There are no kicks in this nonsense. My stomach is as still and unexcited as it would be if I – if I were... categorising the medicinal properties of bats' spleen!

There's an artificial trill of the telephone inside the warehouse. As though their power supplies had been switched on from an outside force the three, sodden clowns seemed to awaken from their monsoon reveries, turn, dimly startle at the sight of me and then lumber wordlessly back inside to collect their weapons and man the vehicles.

I stood for a moment longer, gazing blackly into the sour light of the warehouse. I'm too wet and cold now, and I'm certainly not pleasured by the rain. Stockings and the other two who I now see to be Schiff and Bomb Head are ready to go, and they look suspiciously calm in comparison to the others.

There are some things my little lunatics do that I will never be able to fathom.