Upstairs, Alice snuggles up and nuzzles the Joker's shoulder. It's nice, being with somebody he understands so easily, and who understands him the same way. It feels... not safe, kind of the opposite actually, but good.
He pulls Alice into a hug, kisses his cheek, his jaw, the side of his neck just under his ear.
"You're beautiful, anybody ever tell you that?"
He laughs softly and doesn't answer, doesn't even consult his memory to find out.
"I know, honey." He kisses Alice's neck again and scoots closer, reaching past him. "Believe me, I know."
"Could do some damage with this," he murmurs thoughtfully, pressing the gun against Alice's stomach so it digs in a little. "You ever been shot, sweetheart?"
[My regen is good enough to deal with a few bullets through the head. You didn't copy mine. Is yours that good?] Bella asks urgently. She's probably making faces Roberta might want explained. [Sorry if I'm breaking the mood, but I want to take you home alive when you're done.]
Alice declines to answer her, because he doesn't know and right now he doesn't care to.
And then, "So having your guts blown out doesn't scare you any. How about here?" He drags the gun slowly up Alice's chest.
Well. If he doesn't want to know then he has no grounds to complain if she makes it that good right now. She leaves his other unique features. If he gets a bullet in the brain it'll hurt like dying to grow it back. But no actual dying will be involved.
"That scares you," he murmurs.
"I am going to feel much better when I get him home," she mutters.
"I'd do it," he says, his breath warm on Alice's lips. "You know that, don't you? I would."
"There is a gun pointed at my boyfriend. He will survive getting shot and he's having fun with it. That doesn't mean I love it," Bella explains tightly. "I am glad I have a my-boyfriend instead of the alt, in my world."
"I know," he says. His voice catches a little. All of a sudden it's too much, the pressure against the softness of his throat, the fear and uncertainty and everything he was loving a minute ago.
[You can leave,] Bella tells Alice urgently. [You can teleport downstairs and we can go home.]
The Joker clicks the safety on and tosses the gun off the bed, reaching for a blanket in the same movement and wrapping them both in it.
"Shhhh-hhh," he soothes. "I gotcha, baby."
Words are utterly beyond him, but perhaps Bella will be able to deduce from context that he does not want to go anywhere.
(But she does not let up that read for a second.)
"I'm sorry, I might not be very good company for the next unknown period of time," she tells Roberta apologetically. "I can just conjure a book if you'd rather go talk to somebody else."
"No, but now I'm worried," says Roberta, frowning. "Tell me more about this... alternate."
"My boyfriend's name is Alice, but the alternate's significantly older and he told me he's going by 'Joker'," says Bella, rubbing at one of her eyes. "He's locked up in an asylum right now, which he claims he can escape at will and only hasn't because he likes his shrink, but Milliways lets him in in his dreams since he got put away even though he never came here before. He told me that he gets kicked out of here if he does anything too 'unfriendly', but I'm not sure where the line is or - actually - whether that's true, so I buffed Alice's regeneration just now." She shrugs. "What else do you want to know? He has a twisted sense of humor and a crush on a lady who dresses up like a bat for some reason and if I ever find myself in his world I'm going to strand him on a habitable asteroid or kill him because he is dangerous and he would never give up trying to get around any other measures to make him safe."