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"Don't look at me," he says.

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Batman does look at him - looks at both of them, for a few silent seconds.

Then he turns and disappears out the broken window.
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"Unfriendly," comments Pen.

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The Joker laughs softly. "Yeah, he really is."

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Pen does her best to fix the smear she made while startled. "What do for window?"

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"Pick up all that broken glass, for a start," he says. "You can help if you want. Then I guess I'll go find something to cover it with."

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"Okay. Paint first?"

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"Mmhm!"

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Pen finishes painting him, then hops off his lap and starts picking up glass.

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Cindy helps. They get it all cleaned up - he drags a vacuum out of the back of a closet to make sure - and then he goes out.

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Pen walks out through the broken window, wings folded discreetly behind her, to see if she can watch him go from the roof.

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Off he trots, carrying the bag they collected the glass in and the bag out of the vacuum with all the extra little bits in it. He climbs down the tree and crosses the park and turns down the street out of sight.

(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.)
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His guess was correct.

A nearly silent flutter, a nearly invisible shadow, and the Bat is on him, knocking the bags - potential weapons - out of his hands, grabbing the back of his jacket to hurl him into a wall.
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That's the stuff.

"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.
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"I'm not here to reminisce," he says in his best gravel-chewing terror-of-the-night voice. Odd how it all comes back. Like it was yesterday.

"I want to know what game you're playing."
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He lets out a wheezing giggle.

"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.
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He growls, but doesn't bother making a physical threat. It's all too obvious in hindsight that the Joker doesn't find violence a significant motivator.

(In fact, he - no. Some things are just too disturbing to contemplate.)

"I want. To know. What. You're. Doing," he enunciates.
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"Mm, well," he says. "I assume you know that after your little - sleight of hand - with Dent, Gotham's crime took a turn for the distinctly disorganized. Or you would've come back sooner." He cocks his head inquisitively. "Ah-huh?"

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Grudgingly, he nods.

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"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."

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"Get to the point, Joker."

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"Why?" he says cheerfully.

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He almost makes a move, almost grabs the Joker again to shake it out of him, but then checks himself. Barely a twitch, all in all.

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"Not the same bat after all," he murmurs, and grins.

"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?"
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Know what? That the Joker is more intimidating than he is? He's not likely to forget it.

(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.
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