It's another glorious day in Gotham City. As the good citizens go about their work, two familiar faces also begin theirs. These familiar faces belong to none other than Batman and Robin, protectors of fair Gotham. Out in the street of the bustling metropolis, the dynamic duo are keeping vigil, cruising around in the legendary Batmobile to make sure that all is well. Rest assured, nothing bad will happen with these two on the prowl. Gotham City is in good hands…
"Gosh darn it Batman, does my bum look big in this?"
The Caped Crusader negotiated a sharp turn, taking his eyes off of the road just long enough to run a cursory glance over his youthful ward Dick Grayson, who was currently in the guise of Robin – faithful sidekick to Batman and one half of the dynamic duo. He looked quickly back up again, surveying the bank across the street with narrowed eyes to make sure that no criminal activity was going on.
"You look alright, Robin." He answered in his pensive way, tightening his grip on the Batmobile's steering wheel.
The Boy Wonder scowled and slumped back in his seat, folding his arms across his chest. "It just doesn't make any sense. How come all I have to wear is knickers, but you get tights and knickers?"
One of Batman's hands left the wheel to almost self-consciously tug his utility belt a little higher. "You'll understand when you're older, old chum. As you… grow as a crime-fighter and start to become popular in your own right, then you too may get your very own pair of tights." The corners of his mouth, the only fully visible feature of his chiselled face, quirked very slightly in a paternalistic smile.
A few people in the streets stopped and waved upon seeing the Caped Crusader's trusty steed vigilantly patrolling. Robin pointedly looked away from the friendly pedestrians, leaning his elbow on the arm rest in the door and resting his chin on his palm. Fidgeting uncomfortably in the passenger seat, he tried to rearrange the knickers that formed the lower half of his costume, discreetly tugging at the leg holes and adjusting himself as best he could.
After a few moments of silent driving he demanded to know "Why can't we wear pants like normal people?"
"Because, old chum, we are crime-fighters," Batman patiently started to explain, but was interrupted by an insistent beeping coming from the complicated array of switches and dials on the dashboard. A red light flashed on and off in sync with the noise. "Ah, the Bat-scanner seems to have picked something up."
This seemed to agitate the young passenger. He sat up straighter and rammed one gloved fist into the palm of his other hand, his eyes blazing. "Holy trademark, that's another thing. How come everything is named after you? The Bat-scanner, the Batmobile, the Bat-phone. Why don't I have anything named after me? Like the Robin-copter, the Robin-rope, the Robin-nest."
"Because," and here Batman indulged in a full smile, "you're just the sidekick. I'm the brains, muscle and looks of this outfit. The show is named after me, ergo so is everything else."
"Ergo yourself, you old queen."
"Who's the one running around in his knickers, Boy Wonderbra?"
Gotham City was spared the humiliation of its two protectors breaking into a full scale bitch-slapping and hair-pulling fight by the Bat-car-phone thankfully choosing that moment to start ringing. Both crime-fighters sat back in their seats and simultaneously tugged on the cuffs of their gloves to straighten them out. Robin glared out of the window whilst Batman answered the phone.
"Yes, Commissioner?" He paused to listen, watching the road ahead with a peculiar intensity, occasionally glancing down to check on his various bat-instruments. "Yes, I'm on my way. Gotham Pat-O-Cake Bakery, 53rd Street." He replaced the phone in its cradle with a ponderous gentleness then turned the Batmobile around so sharply that Robin was thrown against the inside of the passenger door, bruising his shoulder.
"That's it Batman, you're applesauce!" The incensed sidekick struggled furiously against his seatbelt, clenched fists raised in a classical fighting stance, but Batman imperially held up a hand in a halting gesture.
"No time for fighting each other, we've got crime to fight."
"Right!"
Outside Pat-O-Cake Bakery…
Commissioner Gordon and Police Chief O'Haara loitered outside of the bakery, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Batman. With his back firmly to the wanton destruction that lay behind him, Gordon shaded his eyes with a hand, scanning the street first one way and then the other. The road remained empty, stubbornly and worryingly so. He lowered his hand and occupied himself with checking his watch instead, biting the inside of his cheek in consternation.
"It's not like Batman to take so long…" He fretted quietly to O'Haara who was hovering just over his shoulder like a concerned mother hen taking its sickly chick out into the yard for the first time.
"There he is t'be sure!" The Irishman suddenly exclaimed jubilantly, pointing down the street with one hand and clutching Gordon's upper arm with the other. "Lord love us, t'ere he is."
And sure enough the trusty Batmobile raced, shining bright in the mid-morning sun, over the horizon and pulled up in front of the bakery. In a show of energetic heroism, the Caped Crusader himself launched his lithe body over the driver's-side door on one hand without stopping to open it. Not to be outdone, Robin leapt over the windshield onto the bonnet of the open-topped vehicle. Graceful and sure-footed as any mountain goat, he negotiated across the front of the car to land lightly on the pavement beside his adult counterpart. There they stood, those two paragons of virtue, ready to fight for truth and justice. It did Gordon's heart good to know that they were on his side.
"I'm sorry we're late Commissioner, there was a lot of… traffic." Batman apologised with a meaningful look at his sidekick that was lost on the two policemen.
"Not to worry, Batman. We're just glad you're here now."
"What seems to be the trouble, Commissioner?" Tugging on his gauntlets to straighten them, the bat-detective looked around the scene, taking in the bakery's smashed windows, gutted shop front and ruined merchandise, reaching a conclusion about what had happened before Gordon had even started to draw breath to speak with.
"Just over thirty minutes ago, someone broke into this bakery and made off with a tonne of icing, half a tonne of self-raising flour and a crate of candles."
Batman considered this a moment, his left hand cradled beneath the right armpit and the index finger of his free hand curled over his chin in an attitude of deep and profound thought. All eyes were on him as he turned the Commissioner's words over in his great and complex mind. After a moment he smiled paternally and strode into what was left of the bakery, stepping through the empty hole in the wall where a window had been up until recently in one easy movement. "And that's all that was taken?"
"Why yes, I believe so."
The two policemen and the Boy Wonder congregated outside the gaping window, watching Batman make his way over to the cash register. The unfortunate cashier who had been on duty at the time of the robbery was still tied up behind the counter where the brazen thieves had left him. "No glace cherries? No sprinkles? No… money was taken?" The crime-fighter asked as he came to a stop beside the trussed-up man, who looked up hopefully.
"No. Just the icing, the flour and the… the candles," O'Haara counted off on his fingers.
Robin glanced up at the police chief, then smacked a fist into his palm in an open denouncement of crime.
Ever the gentleman, even if he was dressed as a bat, the Caped Crusader nodded a polite greeting to the cashier on the floor. "May I?" He asked, laying a hand on the cash register's drawer, preparing to pull it open for a closer inspection.
The cashier, victim of a heinous and inexplicable crime, nodded his acquiescence and said what sounded like "Be my guest, Batman" through the gag over his mouth.
The drawer was opened with a cheerful little 'ding' and come out stocked with clean, untouched money. Batman reached down a gloved hand and fanned the crisp, green notes through his fingers, a look of concentration on his face. Leaving the money and closing the drawer, he then held his gloved fingers up in front of his eyes and inspected them minutely before briskly rubbing his fingertips and thumb together in the manner of one sprinkling salt over simmering soup that needs seasoning.
"A crime without the motive of wealth…" he mused slowly, glancing up at the three others who stood watching him breathlessly.
"Holy Sherwood!" Robin burst out suddenly, a frown on his youthful face. "Just what kind of a joke are these crooks trying to pull?"
"Whatever it is, it would appear that the joke is on us," Gordon opined with all the mournfulness of a basset hound. To show his agreement, O'Haara took off his hat and hung his head.
"A joke…" Batman echoed thoughtfully, glancing down at the hand he had inspected so closely but a moment ago. "Of course!" He exclaimed triumphantly, curling that same hand into a fist and thumping it down on the counter the cash till sat upon. "The Joker is behind this! Who else would have the temerity to carry out such a bizarre crime?"
O'Haara's head came up sharply, his eyes alight with new energy and vigour. "Of course! But what is he planning?"
A general pensiveness came over the group as they considered this.
"He's obviously got something cooking up…" Robin pondered out loud in reference to the items that had been stolen.
Batman assumed his favourite thinking pose, too wrapped up in the mystery to notice the cashier at his feet rocking from side to side, frantically trying to get the hero's attention. "Yes… and with the size of his ingredients list I wouldn't be surprised if he was entertaining accomplices. A tonne of icing is a lot for anyone, even the Joker, to handle alone."
"But who?"
Robin didn't seem to have heard the Commissioner's question. He was staring up at the awning of the bakery in a world of his own. "Pat-O-Cake Bakery…" he read aloud, sounding the words out with a thoughtful slowness almost rival to the Batman's manner of speaking. "Pat-O-Cake!" His eyes lit up and he bounced a little on the balls of his feet, catching his fist in an open palm. Everyone looked at him for enlightenment. "'Pat-o-cake, pat-o-cake, baker's man' – it's a children's nursery rhyme, and what else do children like? Jokes and riddles!"
Gordon gasped. "You don't mean… Not, the Riddler?"
"That's exactly who I mean, Commissioner."
"Very good, Robin." Batman looked with a proud fondness upon his protégé and for that moment the argument between them that morning was forgiven and forgotten.
"Saints preserve us!" said O'Haara who hadn't spoken in a while and wanted to remind everyone that he was still there.
"Quick Robin, to the Batmobile! We'll go to the Batcave and work out what the Joker and Riddler's next move will be from there."
The dynamic duo sprinted for the Batmobile and leapt nimbly into their seats on the respective sides. "I'll let you know if we find anything!" Batman called back to the Commissioner as he put the sleek black vehicle into gear and sped away in a cloud of righteous dust.
"There goes Gotham City's finest inhabitant, God bless him." O'Haara murmured in awe as he watched the distinctive Batmobile race out of sight on its latest crime-fighting mission. He took off his hat as a mark of respect and held it to his chest as he wiped a shining tear from the corner of his eye.
"I don't know what we'd do without him," Gordon emphatically agreed. "Do you think he suspected anything?"
"Not a t'ing, sir, not a t'ing."
With that, the two pillars of policing got into their car and drove off back to the station, leaving the hapless cashier wild-eyed and alone, tied up behind the counter and completely forgotten about.