Batman: Child's Play Part 1 (Patreon)

Authors note: This is fan fiction from the 1966-68 version of Batman.  The one starring Adam West and Bert Ward.

BATMAN In color.

Voiceover: The end of a normal day in Gotham City.  People mostly going home. Some doing some last-minute shopping just before the stores close for the day.  Most are innocent shoppers; others are not what they seem.

A row of stores in a typical neighborhood.  Each store on the block has its marque proclaiming what type of shop it is from a distance.  But up close anyone can see, the fruit store, the laundromat, the card/stationery store, a barber, and in the middle a bakery.

The bakery is a small mom-and-pop shop that is a fixture in the neighborhood.  It opens early and stays open until just after dinner.  The smell of freshly baked loaves of bread has ceased as the last loaves are still on the shelves.  There are also cookies, pastries, brownies, rolls, and other baked goods.  Mom had left the store to prepare dinner for Pop when the rush of the day was quieting down.  Pop was finishing off the last few customers before preparing to close the shop and get home himself.

A woman carrying a young girl in her arms enters the store.  The pair were waiting until they were alone in the shop with Pop.

The woman put the girl down.  They were looking at the treats on display.  Most of the treats were gone since it was the end of the day, but still, plenty to look at.

Pop comes over to the last two in his shop.

“How can I help you?” he asks.

The woman lifts the little girl such that she was at eye level with Pop and could still look down to see the pastries below.

“You want to play with me?” the little girl asked.

Pop smiled at the little girl.  “Maybe, what do you want to play?”

“Look at this and I'll show you,” the little girl says.  In the little girl's hand is what looks like a balloon.  It's small about the size of a handball.  She claps her hands together.  The balloon shatters leaving a fine mist of light blue powder which gets all over Pop's face.  His eyes go wide as his maturity dissipates.  He doesn't feel like an adult anymore.  He doesn't even feel like a teen.  He feels like a boy of about nine.  In front of him is a girl.  He doesn't like girls.  They all have cooties.

“Do you want to play with me?” the girl asks again.

“No, I don't wanna.  I hate girls.”

“I wanna play with you.”

“I'm not going to play with any girl!”  Pop backs off.

The woman thrusts the little girl forward.

Pop runs away.  “Get her away from me!  She has cooties!”

The girl waves her hands with are blue from the powder in the balloon.  Pop is not really frightened but acts as if he is, runs out from behind the counter, and then runs out of the store and keeps running all the way home.

Once Pop was gone, BabyDoll (the little girl) is placed on the floor.  She and her hench-person Molly walk behind the counter.  BabyDoll instructs Molly to open the register and take out the money.  There isn't much there.  In a zippered wallet next to the register, the bulk of the day's receipts is contained.  The funds are transferred to Molly's purse.  The pair walks out of the store and down the street.  They fit in with the rest of the passersby.

In the office of the commissioner of police, Commissioner James Gordon is sitting behind his oak desk in his well-worn leather chair.  Chief of Police O'Hara enters the office.  He doesn't bother to knock as he opens the door.

“Pop on 43rd street doesn't think he is Pop anymore.  Pop thinks he's just a lad now.  When he got home, he refused to eat his vegetables.  Mom knew something was wrong.”

“He was regressed?” Gordon asked.

“Yeap, when Mom asked him to eat his vegetables, he got out of his chair and ran to the bedroom, started jumping on the bed screaming, 'You can't make me!'” the Chief responded.

“The Little Lady of Larceny is back.  Here to change adults to adolescents and teens to tots while stealing both their adulthood as well as all their loot.”

“I thought she was getting help at Arkham?”

“Apparently it didn't help.  Can you get together a task force to track her down?”

“Any ordinary criminal no problem.  But the fear of returning to nursery school scares all my officers.  There is only one man living that can get BabyDoll back into her crib.”

“Thank you, Chief O'Hara.  I admire your honesty.  Whoever he may be behind the mask of his.  Our only hope is the Caped Crusader.”

Commissioner Gordon picks up the lid over a red phone with a single black button in the middle of the dial.  The phone lights up and beeps as he presses the button.  Gordon pulls the handset to his ear.

Voiceover:  And in Wayne Manor, the stately home of millionaire Bruce Wayne and his youthful ward Dick Grayson, Alfred the faithful butler responds to the hotline.

“I'll fetch him now,” Alfred says.

In the other room, Dick Grayson is watching a toy locomotive go around the track.  He increases the speed on the straightaways and slows on the turn.  Bruce is reading a book.

“Excuse me, sir.  It's the batphone.”

“Oh boy, let's go,” Dick said as he ran towards the study almost running into Aunt Harriet.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” she asked.

“We have been playing with toy trains for a while now.  I thought it would be fun to ride a big one,” Bruce told her.

“Yes, Commissioner,” Bruce said into the batphone.

“Brace yourself, BabyDoll is back, and she has a new Mommy.”

“We'll be right there!”

Bruce turns the secret switch which exposed the batpolls from behind the bookcase.  The pair run to their respective polls and slide down.

<BATMAN Introduction>

The duo now garbed in their traditional batman attire of leotards, tights, with cowl masks, capes and boots, ran from the bat-poles through the bat-cave to the bat-mobile.  Neither used the door, they hopped into the seats.  Batman on the driver's side and Robin on the passenger side.  They buckle up their seat belts

“Atomic battery to power, turbines to speed,” Robin announced.  The batmobile roared into action.  Then exited the bat-cave from a secret entrance and headed to police headquarters.  They passed the sign that said 14 miles to Gotham City.

Then parked right in front of police headquarters.  They were allowed to; they were duly deputized officers of the law.  They leaped out of the batmobile, ran to the doors, and entered.  There wasn't any time to waste.  It took less than a minute to get to the commissioners' office.  Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara were waiting for them.

“What is it, Commissioner?” Batman asked.

“It's the Little Lady of Larceny, BabyDoll.”

“Holy juvenility, not her again!” Robin exclaimed.

“I'm afraid so, the Merry Miss of Mind Control is back to regress our fine citizens back to childhood and then steal everything they have.”

“What did she do this time?”

“They turned a baker into a little boy and then stole all his dough at his bakery,” Chief O'Hara reported.

“How did she do it?”

“We don't know.  The baker was alone in his shop.  It was just before closing.  The baker ran out of his shop and all the way home.  When his wife confronted him, he said that girls have cooties, and he ran away.  Then he ran into the bedroom covered his head with the blanket and 'hid' there.  The baker's wife called the police.  We called you when we found out who it was."

“What do we know about BabyDoll?”

“Well BabyDoll is an adult, but because of her diminutive height and slight build, she can look like a girl between four and nine years old depending upon her apparel.  She played the part of little kids in the movies and on television for many years.  She left show business to get a degree at the university.  When she wanted to return to acting and they wouldn't let her play adult roles, she snapped and turned to a life of crime.  She used her degree in biochemistry to mind control her victims and make them think they are young children of various ages.  She can regress a person to infancy.”

“She was a talented actress and had such a brilliant mind.  It's a shame she turned to criminality,” Batman commented about his nemesis.

“Such a waste,” the commissioner agreed.  “How are you going to proceed?”

“I think we are going to visit the baker and see what he can tell us.”

“He's a small boy now.”

“But even children can tell what they know.”

Batman and Robin headed for the baker's house.  They knocked on the door, and the baker's wife opened it.

“Can we see Eugene?” they said.

“He's over there,” the woman pointed out to her husband.  He was loosely watching cartoons while running around the room jumping on the furniture. The man had stripped off his button-down shirt but was still wearing his work pants.

“Eugene, I told you to stop that!” she ordered.

Eugene used the moment that his 'wife' was distracted to start running around the room again.  He was filled with boyish exuberance and a short attention span.

“Hey Eugene, I'm Batman and I want to talk to you,” Batman said in hushed tones.

“Batman!  Can I see your bat-erang?”

“It's not a toy, it's very dangerous.”

“But I want to see it!” the former baker demanded.

“Maybe after we talk I might show it to you?”

“Promise?”

“Maybe.”

“OK.”

“What happened today?”

“When?”

“When that little girl came into your bakery.”

“I don't like girls, they have cooties!”

“Maybe, but what happened.”

“She asked me to play.  But I didn't want to.  I don't play with dumb old girls.  Can I see the bat-erang now?”

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