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Deeply and increasingly uncomfortable, he closes his mouth on just such an accusation.

Instead he says: "Why are you telling me this?"
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The Joker shrugs. "I saw the opportunity, and I took it. I like you, you know, I honestly do. Flaws and all. I've missed you all these years. Nobody else throws me off buildings like you do."

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—He almost laughs. It's absurd.

If he ever had control of this conversation, he has lost it and then some.

He steps back. A stray bit of glass from the dropped bags crunches under his boot. Should he make some last comment, some parting shot? The Joker would just take it as encouragement. Like a playground bully, the best response is ignoring him until he goes away.

(It rarely worked that well on playground bullies, either.)

Finally he just turns and walks away. He is almost sure the Joker isn't carrying a concealed gun, and almost sure he wouldn't use it if he did, but his shoulderblades itch with that tiny remaining uncertainty until he's around a corner and out of sight.
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The Joker walks on, abandoning the bags of broken glass. He still has business to do tonight, and he's going to have to get something to cover that window with on his way back.

Oh, it would be so much fun to play the old game again. Especially now that he knows Batman's watching.

(And what was it exactly about that charming little act of vandalism that caught the Bat's eye? It was the most public and obvious thing the Joker's done in a while, that's true. But as an explanation, it just doesn't - quite - feel right. Well, he has time to think about it.)



It's several hours before he comes home, carrying a large board to tape over the window frame. It'll do for now. They'll have to move anyway; as charming as that little visit was, Cindy isn't keen on a repeat.
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He finds Pen trying to figure out why her helicopter won't work (she doesn't really understand batteries). She abandons this mystery to help him hold the board in place. "How was people?" she asks.

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"Boring," he says. The tricky part is taping it so they can still open and close the window, but he manages it with effort and ingenuity.

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"Why were they boring? I don't know. They probably can't help it."

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"Why you go, if boring?"

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"'Cause they're gonna help me with something," he says. "There." He stands back and dusts off his hands. "Window's done; now I'm going to bed."

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"I'm hungry," objects Pen. He was gone a while.

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He yawns.

"Mmkay, I'll make dinner first."

But he is tired, so it will be unelaborate. Tasty, but unelaborate.
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Pen doesn't complain. She eats, and then she reads a little bit, and then she kerflops into bed too.

Another week passes.

She draws a lot of gems in all colors, attached to all sorts of jewelry, especially bracelets like her own - like her mother's - and occasionally has moping fits, but mostly proceeds with equanimity from day to day.

Sometimes Cindy leaves the news on; Pen is interested in the concept of television but not the news in particular.

With help, she solves the helicopter mystery and it soon flies around again.
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And then one day, Cindy comes back from one of his trips outside to say,

"I found us a bigger place to live! With an enormous bathtub."
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"Yay!" Her wings are getting kind of dingy in the places she can't reach by hand.

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"Pack up whatever stuff you wanna keep and we'll truck it all over there."

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Pen puts her K'nex in their box, and finds something else to put her other toys and supplies in.

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Cindy packs himself three big boxes and one backpack. The backpack contains books and music; the boxes contain clothes and weapons, many of them taken out of the dangerous room, and the last half of the last box is filled with all his sewing supplies. It's a chore wrestling everything down to the van he obtained for the occasion, but once they get there, it all fits with room to spare for Pen and a pile of pillows for her to sit on.

The drive takes a while. When they get there, he pulls the truck around to the little parking lot behind the building and lets Pen out of the back.

"See up there," he says, pointing to the second floor, "that balcony with all the fake plants on it? That's ours."
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"In window?" she asks. "I fly up?"

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"Yeah," he says. "Bring whatever stuff you wanna carry; I'll take the rest up a different way."

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Pen takes up one of her bags, flapflapflap, and she makes a rather neat landing on the balcony and tries the window.

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It's a sliding glass door, and therefore opens differently from the previous window, but it still opens just fine.

Inside, there is a very large living room adjoining a very large kitchen, with a hallway just to her left leading to an oddly constructed bedroom. In the bedroom, past an assortment of desks and a very large walk-in closet lined with wardrobes on both sides, there is the bathroom containing the promised bathtub.
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Pen sets about exploring. A bath can wait.

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While she is exploring, the Joker ferries boxes in the front door, then starts unpacking them. His sewing equipment sprawls across the assortment of desks in the bedroom's bizarre anteroom; clothes find their way into wardrobes; the music and books pile up next to one of the numerous couches. Various weaponry gets tucked away in closets and drawers.

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Eventually Pen has observed all of the rooms, and then she tries to figure out the plumbing. She thought she had Earth taps down, but apparently they vary, residence to residence.

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