"That's not saying anything," Lexi points out.

"Nope," says the Joker. "'Cause if he felt like she was trying to manage how she felt about him to stop him from blowing stuff up, he wouldn't say anything. He'd run away and never come back. Which would mean him not blowing anything up on her account, I guess, but I don't think it's exactly something either of 'em wants."

"But," says Lexi, "don't they all kind of have that problem, like, if one of those Bells who's dating her Joker has a Go Away I'm Introverted And This Book Is Interesting Day - do they do that? - then don't they have worry about presenting that a nice way to their boyfriends so their boyfriends don't think they got indifferent?"

"Mm, think that's part of them settling down together. Stuff like that - I dunno if they do that, I don't hang out with 'em that often - but if it doesn't mean they got indifferent, their boyfriends aren't gonna mind. And even if they thought their Bells had gotten indifferent, they wouldn't move straight on to blowing stuff up, there'd be some yelling and crying and aggressively baking cookies first. This is nnnot the kind'a thing that sneaks up on ya."

"How do you aggressively - anyway, I don't get this, can you guys just not tolerate rejection at all? I was half in love with Darryl Cross last year but he didn't like me so I did the mature thing and ate a lot of chocolate and cried on Bella and moved to another state, I didn't, like, kill his dog."

"Well, Bella's not gonna throw Brilliance off a building. Unless she has to for some reason but I don't really think it'd help even if that were a thing because he can fly."

The Joker snorts.

"So, Bella would think it'd be bad if Brilliance hurt anybody, and she'd try to make that not happen. And you think it'd be bad if she tried to do that the wrong way because Brilliance would be sad. Is that it?"

"Mm, more or less, yeah."

"What would happen if you told Brilliance all this?"

"I don't think he'd be surprised by any of it," the Joker says reflectively. "So it might not make a whole lot of difference to anything. But he might have a better guess than I do about whether he could handle Bella knowing."

"I guess 'Brilliance goes to therapy and learns to deal with unrequited love so Bella can know everything and also not feel pressured' isn't an option?"

"It's not really unrequited love that we can't handle," says the Joker. "And Jokers and therapy don't traditionally mix. Brilliance might not have that problem, but I bet he does. We could hand him to Ghosty and Queenie, I guess, if things look like they might get bad between him and Bella - they're the only two of me who've got the kind of handle on themselves you're talking about. Both of 'em were in love with alts of the same person who threw me off a building, but unlike me, they stayed that way until they died. Seems like that does the trick. Lot of hospitals get blown up on the way, though, so I wouldn't go around recommending it to anybody."

"How is it not unrequited love? Like, he loves her, but if he didn't and she were just some girl it wouldn't matter how he felt, and if she loved him back everything would be fine, right?"

"If she loved him back, or if they were good friends, or if they were mediocre friends who argued a lot, or if she thought he was just kinda okay but loved his cooking and let him make her dinner all the time and was all happy about it. There's all kinds of options there that plain old 'unrequited love' doesn't cover."

"If all she has to do is, like, notice him continuing to exist on a regular basis and also form opinions about that, I don't think there's anything to worry about."

"Mm—strong feelings," he says. "As long as he can give her strong feelings."

"She thinks he's hot, I have seen her looking at him, does that count?"

"Can't hurt," he says, laughing.

"She looks at him kind of like -" Lexi pauses. "Oh my god I think she did him."

"Wouldn't surprise me," says the Joker.

"And she didn't even tell me, God. Well, maybe she didn't, it's just she kinda looks at him like he's a slice of cake and she already had one?"

"Yeah," he says, "I noticed something similar."

"You know the other Bells well enough to notice that kinda thing or you noticed something from Brilliance?"