"It sounds like you went straight for the nasty stuff. Just because the terrifying bat was too hard to stalk and you didn't know where to send flowers?"

"I knew her," he says. "Not the way you know somebody you're friends with, but I knew my options were her hating me or her never knowing I existed. Hating me was much better."

"How did you know those were the options?"

He shrugs. "It's just how she was. You can say a lot of things about the Bat, but 'hard to figure out' has never been one of 'em. Not for me, anyway."

"Okay. But it is manifestly multiversally possible for people like me to have much healthier relationships with people like Brilliance so he will not instantly despair of it and start murdering folks and if he gets that way anyhow he just retires to another world with a bunch of you. Okay."

"Yep," says the Joker. "We've only ever gone the nasty way with alts of the Bat. All your alts that our alts are in love with, they get along fine."

"Except for the time Alice and Stella had that fight, but I already know how to route around that failure mode, I guess," Bella snorts.

"'Get along fine' includes being able to have a fight once in a while and still get along fine afterward," the Joker observes.

"Do most of them fight much? Brilliance is so - he's skittish."

"I won't say they never argue, but that one time with Alice and Stella is far and away the biggest blowup any of 'em have ever had."

"Hm."

"Did you do him?" Lexi asks.

"Oh my god, Lexi."

The Joker snorts.

"Even if you had to ask me that there is a time and a place. God." And with that the twins both disappear from the asteroid.