For not the first time, Joker wonders if he's completely ruined things between himself and the little sister he's tried so hard to protect. It hits him as he watches her, drawing in as small as a ball way up high. Aurora had been wrong, he thinks. Being more open had been a bad idea, at least where it concerned his family. He should have tried, somehow, to be just as fine as alright as he always was, and not let any of the cracks in his mask shine through.

He'd already seen what that had done to Beast. It'd been foolish to let his precious little sister see it, too.

"Ain't as much as it seemed," he says, trying to keep his voice in the usual gentle lull he's used with her in the past. "Just ran around a bit and then did a whole lot of waitin'." There's more to it than that, of course, some of it that he's more conscious of than the rest, but... That, he'll keep locked away. Ignore it, move past it. What else can he do?