Welcome to part one of my series of short one-shots, Crane out of Context. I hope these will be a little more...humanizing? humorous? I don't know. I'm hoping for reader feedback to tell me where to send Crane next, so please leave me a suggestion in the reviews! Enjoy!
Dr. Jonathan Crane stood in the cold section of his local grocery store. The chill emanating from the open freezer units seemed magnified by the cool tile floor and the fluorescent lights that gleamed off the metal basket he pushed in front of him. The wheels of the cart squeaked as he roamed up and down the aisles of the grocery store.
He hated grocery shopping, for several reasons.
Firstly, he hated it simply because he hated shopping. God forbid he had to attend a birthday party or cookout. Somehow he always managed to get stuck with bringing chips or drinks. Couldn't he just bring something effortless like cups? Or ice?
Secondly, he found the atmosphere to be beyond depressing. And this is coming from a man who worked in an insane asylum. It wasn't the tiled floors or poor lighting; those were nothing new to him. In fact, they were standard at Arkham.
It was the people he couldn't stand: the harried housewives shuffling up one aisle and down another; the "regular joes" grasping frantically at jars and cans on the shelves. As much as he hated to make the comparison, they looked like zombies. He rolled his eyes at himself for even entertaining the notion.
And there was no escaping them, either. After making his business deal with Falcone, he was able to move up from the lowly Food Lion close to his old apartment to the nice Harris Teeter with the sushi bar close to suburban well-to-do Gotham Heights. And yet he had only traded up from blue collar workers and PTA heads to older women who started drinking their pink Cosmotinis at 2pm and brown-nosing vice presidents.
No matter how superior his intellect, he was still a man, and unfortunately enough, man cannot subsist on knowledge alone.
Wearily, Jonathan looked down at his shopping list: "Bread. Milk. Coffee." He sighed. There was a reason that his cabinets at home were nearly always empty.
Just then, two small boys ran down the aisle past him and started hopping around. "Don't step on the red!" one boy yelled. "The red is lava!" The two boys balanced precariously on alternating white squares surrounded by red ones.
Crane narrowed his eyes and smirked, an idea forming. Nonchalantly, he strolled past the boys. At first, they didn't seem to notice him, but after a moment, one of the two boys looked up at him, meeting his icy blue eyes. Jonathan nodded at him curtly and smiled.
As he walked past, he pressed a button on a device strapped to his wrist, under his sleeve. A small puff of powder leaked out of his jacket sleeve and floated towards the boys.
As Crane reached the end of the aisle and turned left, he took in the sound of the two boys screaming and crying as their skin melted off before their eyes.
A woman in clothes about ten years too young for her came running past him, and scooped the two boys up in her arms. She grabbed the wrist of the older boy and pinched the earlobe of the younger. "You stop this right now! HUSH UP! You're embarrassing me, do you hear?" She jerked them along towards the exit of the store.
Crane smiled again, and casually scanned the store around him.
"Ah. There's the coffee."
Thanks again for reading! I'd love to hear your feedback, and suggestions for part 2!