At least there is Cindy, even though he isn't her real daddy. Cindy is fun and makes tasty food and brings her presents to keep occupied with and doesn't mind that she draws on the walls and likes it when she sings and takes her to the place with room to fly most days, and lets her paint him pretty. Pen makes elaborate K'nex structures, becomes quite adept at piloting her helicopter (it has room to fly even inside the apartment), and improves at drawing. She learns the lyrics to a lot of Queen songs. She does not go in the dangerous room or out the dangerous door; she's safe but Mommy isn't here to safe Cindy too and Pen can't do it because she's not a mint. She can do other things, though. She can play and read and eat waffles and paint Cindy.
She paints him most of the time, now, and she sings while she does it.
The Joker has a small child in his apartment. On his lap. Doing his makeup. She seems perfectly happy to be there. (If she were scared, this would be much easier to handle.)
She has wings.
After a long moment, he says (still in that growly voice): "He's a killer, you know." Just in case she doesn't. Just in case she cares.
(Batman is going to do one of two things now that they're apart. But the Joker expects that if he didn't try to grab Pen right out of his lap, he's not going to try it now. Why would the Joker be an inhibiting presence? It's not as if he was holding her hostage, a fact which even Batman clearly noticed, or that conversation would have gone... differently.)
"Just like old times," he sighs. "Me, I'm getting soft in my old age, but yoouuu—" the sudden shift in emphasis caused not by whim this time but by Batman punching him in the back of the head "—you're the same old Bat."
Both hands braced on the brick wall that is now marked with a smear of face paint, he turns around slowly. There he is, in all his glory. Gotham's dark knight. Oh, he never thought he'd see the day. Not after Dent - not after Dawes - not after four years without a whisper of his best enemy.
"Are you really that incapabllle of believing that something - just - doesn't - concern you?" He could stand on his own now, but he leans back against the wall instead, smoothing his gloved hands over his pockets but deliberately not tucking them in because he wouldn't want to give the wrong impression. "And I thought I had it bad," he continues, with a sympathetic shake of his head.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I have been keeping tabs on that scene." He quirks a smile. "In between... en-ter-tainments. And you know, it was quiet enough for long enough that I almost thought it was just..." he shrugs, "over for good. But of course good and Gotham have never been the best of friends."
"So. There've been a couple squeaks and grumbles over the years, but never anything - serioussss. Until a few months ago. Then I start hearing there's somebody new in town. The new blood isn't even based in Gotham. Whoever this is, they're big." He opens his hands sharply, bouncing them outward, to demonstrate the bigness. "And noooobody's talkinnng, which let me tell you, is nnot usually the case when I start asking questions."
He smiles crookedly.
"But then, you'd know, wouldn't ya?"
(What it's like when you're used to frightening answers out of people and then it doesn't work anymore? That too. He's getting a fresh reminder now, in fact.)
He doesn't repeat his demands for information, just waits. Still and silent. Watching. Some people would be terrified, but Batman is not sure the Joker even feels fear. It would be far too human of him.
"And I found out that the new outfit is extrrrremely professional, veeery tidy, and answers to a guy calling himself Moriarty. I love it! Don't you love it? It's so charming," he says. "Nobody knows who he is or where he lives. It's all a big mystery. Fun and exciting, don'tcha think?"
The Joker sighs wistfully. "Nnnoo. Of course not. Anyway, funny thing, a week after I tickled his toes this literary enthusiast started trying to clean me out! Can you believe it? We've been going back and forth," his hands sway left and then right in time with the words, "ever since. I threaten his people, he has mine followed. He sends my people to jail - amazing resources this guy has, honestly, I'm impressed - and I impersonate a window washer and commit a little vandalism. Which," he adds, "is somehow enough to bring you out of the woodwork - I have to wonder why, I really do."
He could leave the Joker on the roof of the MCU for Commissioner Gordon to find - he's at least confident that this time there will be no exploding minions - but he has no illusions about the ease of getting him there. Letting himself be knocked around is one thing; the Joker isn't going to lie down for an arrest unless it's in his game plan. And then there's the kid. But if he leaves the Joker loose, what's to stop him from getting ideas? A repeat performance of that is the last thing Gotham needs.
So he just... waits.
But Batman is curious. He's never seen the Joker this unguarded. It might be something he can use.
"What's the other half?"
He leans forward, away from the wall, and looks up into Batman's eyes.
"Can you guess what he said?"
It is past time to cut his losses here.
(He is abruptly reminded that he has seen the Joker this unguarded. Once. The words 'you complete me' in that hushed tone of absolute sincerity are still burned into his mind.)
Coming here really was the worst thing he could've done, wasn't it? Here he is with more questions than answers, and an uncomfortable sense that the Joker has just explained the last decade of his life with a single slightly twisted Aesop reference. And if he goes home and the Joker takes this conversation as a reason to get back into the game the way he did four years ago, there is nothing Batman can do to stop him. He made sure of that when he took the fall for Harvey Dent. Gotham doesn't need him anymore.
Which leaves him... where? A mammal with wings. Not a monster like the Joker, or Dent himself, or Crane, or Ra's... but not a person, either.
"You're wrong," he says finally, knowing as he says it that it's worse than futile. "I chose my side."
"Nahhh. We can be vicious little weasels sometimes, I'll give you that, we mmmortals. But we don't come in these neat - little - categories. Good and evil, guilty and innocent—nobody's all one thing or the otherrr." He straightens his jacket, tugging the panels flat. "And now you're gonna tell me I'm just saying that to cover for what a vicious weasel I am. Aren'tcha."
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.