"We-ell, you could just be after him for his pretty face."

"He has got a pretty face, but nah, I also like him."

"Must be nice," he muses.

"So," Bella says, "how about you? Also nice? Not so nice?"

"The girl I like threw me off a building last month," he says dreamily. "Caught me on the way down, but you can't have everything."

"Why, were you hoping to splat? If you had Wolverine powers like me and Alice I think you'd be less visibly damaged. He burned off all his scars by setting himself on fire without fully thinking it through, and hasn't put them back so far."

"He have any good ones?" he inquires. "Or didja not see 'em all?"

"I didn't personally lay eyes on all of them in person," Bella shrugs, "but I can read his mind and we also have perfect recall, so, if I'm ever curious, the information's there. There was one on his neck he sometimes touched as a nervous habit." She peers at the Joker, looking for a match. "The others had less... interesting... stories."

"Similar. Not exact."

"And what was the story?"

"You know, I'm not actually sure of the status of that story as a secret or not, and it's the sort of thing that might be. Are you interested enough for me to check in with him?"

"Betcha I already know," he says. "I'm surprised, though. I got that one after I left home. It had a friend, too—if you ever got his pants off you woulda seen it for sure."

"I bet you already know too," Bella says, "but in case you don't, or in case he'd mind regardless, I'm not sharing without checking."

"I can read his mind," Bella repeats. "Anytime I like. Information comes in a pretty visual channel with borders around the content according to how much he likes it and my name appears bordered in white every time."

"Does your fancy mind-reading tell you why?"

"When I tell it to. Why do you ask?"

"'Cause I wanna know," he says, "duh."

"You looking for storytime or something more list-shaped?"

"Storytime," he says immediately, perking up in his chair. "I like storytime."

"After we'd known each other for a few days and had a handful of casual conversations and I'd broken up a fight between him and a random classmate in the cafeteria, he invited me over to his house. Before I said yes, I told him I was going to conduct an experiment. I put my dad the police chief's number into my phone, hovered my finger over the call button, and called him a freak. And he asked me to marry him." She pauses. "I said no."

Bella snorts.

"My story isn't nearly that sweet."