She gets left alone a lot, though. Cindy is out doing things all the time. He doesn't have as much time to take her to the flying place. (Once, when he is out and she can't even ask, she hops out over the patio balcony onto the neighboring roof, and checks to see if there is anybody around, and flies a little bit, low and owl-quiet. She doesn't think anybody sees.) She builds elaborate structures. She solicits another box of pieces.
He leaves the news on, a lot. Pen mostly ignores it. She knows English, technically, but the pentagon didn't tell her the concepts her upbringing has left her missing.
"He break door!" exclaims Pen plaintively. "He be in nice bar, and he go, then door break!"
"I broke the door? I did not break the door," says John. "And there's not much I could do about it if I had. I only get them once a year."
"I don't know! I didn't do anything to it!" he says. "I just went out like I always do."
"Well, door broke. Now I stuck till Mommy or Daddy or one them finds me. This one not count." She waves at Cindy.
"Yep," he says. "Apparently there's a bunch of me and one of 'em has four kids. She's the littlest." He addresses Pen. "Do you still wanna put Johnny on the brainphone even though he maybe broke your magic door?"
Assuming they're all still alive by that point, which is not really an assumption he's willing to make, but he doesn't see much point in making that part explicit.
"What it sounds like. Handy way to keep in touch, 'cause you can be damn sure nobody's listening," says the Joker.
"...Okay," he says. "And you can only - brainphone - people who have it? And," he looks between Pen and the Joker and settles on Pen, "you're the only one here who can give it to people?"
He looks at the Joker again, then at Pen. Pen, Joker. Joker, Pen.
He decides after a final look that the chance of the Joker not knowing what he's thinking is negligible.
"...I'm wondering if you're okay with him or if I should find somebody else to take care of you," he says.
"I find him. On purpose. He one Daddy, here hasn't one Mommy, checked that." says Pen. "Makes waffles!"