Jonathan Crane was not a man given to the practice of solving puzzles. It wasn't in his nature to be interested in such things; his primary concern was fear, not curiosity and as such, puzzles were never in his realm of interest.
Yet here he sat, on this part bench, presented with a most perplexing one.
One would think that a red and white thermos would hold no interest for a man like Crane, but it did. He'd been coming to this spot for the past several weeks to meet with his chemical suppliers and nothing like this had happened before...
It was more suspicion than curiosity that drove him to stare at the offending object in question as though it might explode. After all, men in his chosen profession had to be ever vigilant in everything they did. His line of work was one where making enemies was miraculously easy and the enemies one made in a place like Gotham were not the sort to be trifled with.
He eyed the unassuming container warily and pondered on the possible meaning it could have.
A thermos.
Who did he know that would use such a thing as a delivery system for his doom?
(The fact that the idea of a 'Thermos of Doom' sounded absolutely ridiculous did not escape his notice.)
He stared at the thermos for several minutes, going over every possibility in his head.
Joker?
No...not ostentatious enough.
Definitely not the Riddler...
The Penguin didn't have any quarrels with him...not recently anyway.
Two Face was in Arkham, as were all the other 'big' criminals that might have had a bone to pick with him.
Maybe someone just forgot the thing on the park bench?
No, no...there were no coincidences. Not in Gotham. Someone had left this for him specifically.
Why?
He continued regarding the thermos cautiously, growing ever more suspicious by the second. If only there was some way to know who had sent it…some clue.
As it was, there was no indication, no proverbial Joker Grin™ that gave away any idea of who it might have been that left this for him.
That was what bothered him the most. He hadn't the foggiest notion of who was trying to kill him with such an unassuming piece of bric-a-brac.
Crane glared at the thermos
Stupid thing. Making him feel the need to investigate what it contained.
It was aggravation at the unknown that made him reach out and poke the thing, against his better judgment.
A nanosecond after the fleshy pad of his index finger came in contact with the warm metal, he withdrew his hand, having a moment of clarity that maybe, just maybe, poking it was what might set it off.
Bracing himself for the worst, Crane squeezed his eyes shut.
Why he squeezed his eyes shut was anybody's guess. After all, the amount of protection that action would afford him in the instance of an explosion was comparable to that provided by handling plutonium with an oven mitt.
He chalked it up to reflex.
Eyelids still glued together, he focused his other senses; nose trying to detect the scent of any foreign chemical, ears trying to pick up on any tell-tale ticking noises.
Nothing.
He cracked one eye open and stared directly at the thermos.
It looked just as harmless as ever. No change in its appearance, no sudden sprouting of any mechanical appendages, nothing of the sort.
One of Crane's eyebrows lifted of its own accord.
Interesting.
With a sudden surge of bravery, he reached over and poked it again.
And again.
And once more for good measure.
He poked the red and white cylinder seventeen times before he was satisfied it wasn't going to attack, maim, blow up, or otherwise harm him.
Alright…so it wasn't a bomb.
His brow furrowed, leaving his forehead in a mass of confused crinkles.
If it wasn't a bomb, what in God's name was it?
Crane balked internally as a possibility occurred to him, absurd though it was.
What if it was filled with some kind of airborne toxin, just waiting for him to open it and become infected?
Surely no one would try to gas the Scarecrow.
The very idea!
The notion!
The nerve!
Crane harrumphed a little inside. What unmitigated gall.
Well, if that was the game afoot, his would-be assassin was out of luck.
That hideous red and green scarf he wore did more than just stave off the cold. Concealed inside it was a filter (of his design, naturally) which effectively kept him safe from every known airborne toxin, gas and virus.
Feeling mildly cocky for his think ahead-ed-ness, Crane reached over and picked up the thermos between his thumb and forefinger.
It had a good weight to it, so it definitely held something substantial, the only question was what.
Ever so carefully, he unscrewed the lid and found--
Soup?
Wait a minute…what?
He stared at the golden liquid, pieces of noodles and small flecks of herbs floating on its surface.
Someone left the Scarecrow…soup.
His glasses were fogged up by the warmth of the offered meal, but he didn't notice.
Soup? Of all things to leave as an offering for a super villain…
Soup?
Of all the ridiculous, illogical, daft--
Poison.
Ah! Of course!
Someone had left him something so seemingly harmless, so obviously nontoxic, so innocently innocuous, that they hoped he wouldn't even suspect it was out to do him in.
Glowering at the soup, he screwed the lid back on and tucked it inside his jacket.
He'd take it back to his lab and test it. That would give him some indication of who was trying to murder him.
Death by chicken soup. What an idiotic concept.
How would that make him look?
Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, the All Powerful Master of Fear…killed by soup.
Not only was someone trying to kill him, they were trying to make him look bad as well.
Being humiliated was one thing that Jonathan Crane could not abide and he swore to himself then that the second he found out who was trying to kill him, he would take his revenge.
With that silent oath, he set off for home, thermos tucked safely inside his threadbare coat.
He spent the entire night testing and retesting the soup, only to find that there was nothing more sinister than a bit more salt than he would have liked in it.
No arsenic, no Joker toxin, nothing lethal at all.
Curiouser and curiouser.
After an entire evening of making certain there was nothing deadly in it, he ventured to try some of it.
Which quickly led to gobbling down every last bit of it.
He hadn't had a decent meal since he escaped Arkham, and even then, what they served was substandard slop that he wouldn't have inflicted on a dog.
But the soup…
He hated to admit it, but it was actually…good.
A little strong on the oregano though.
He wrote a small note expressing as much and taped it to the lid after he decided to return the item to the park bench on his next outing.
He told himself it wasn't curiosity that made him drop off the thermos at his customary spot half an hour before he usually showed up.
He convinced himself it wasn't interest in who his anonymous benefactor was that made him stay where he could keep the bench (and anyone who approached it) in sight.
And he absolutely ordered himself that it wasn't most intriguing that a young, scholarly looking woman came to collect the thermos.
Crane watched as she shook the thing and a smile slowly spread across her face at the discovery that it was empty.
She looked unbelievably pleased.
Which positively boggled his mind.
Why would anyone be happy that he had eaten?
Why would anyone look that thrilled that they had fed him?
He was a criminal. A bad guy.
Crane shook his head, flinging off the confusion he felt and dismissing it.
There was no point wondering, he knew that.
It didn't take the Riddler's puzzling prowess to tell him that women were the most unsolvable, maddening conundrum of all.