Bruce probably wouldn't call it a love language, but mutual mutilation - mapped in skin and scars and deeper - is a phrase he'd appreciate.

He knows, beyond all doubt, they are absolutely going to be the death of each other. Neither one of them are ever, in any universe, any reality, going to pull out of this particular death spiral.

It's frustrating. It's infuriating. It's heartbreaking - not for himself, of course.

He tilts his head very slightly, calmly studies the direction of Joker's gaze and watches not just his initial shock register, but where that gaze lands and the play of emotion and reaction across his face as it registers.

He doesn't move anything beyond that head tilt, and a very, very slowly pointedly uptick in his eyebrows. He's not even surprised by the fury - but maybe he should be.

"No." Flat, kind of cool, but not quite cold. Not defensive, certainly not submissive. "I woke up here with it." It's important, somehow, that he make that clear. There's a warning in it, driven by his sense of fair play - of justice, and even to some degree compassion. "It's been useful."

Not going to be stupid about it, though. He's not giving away anything he doesn't intend to, emotionally or otherwise.