the dimly lit room crackled with the tuning of an old radio, small hands turning the dials left to right in attempt to find a clear station. there were moments of whirring, static, or grumbled voices through the speaker, but the boy kept spinning the dials, until finally finding the right one. it had just hit 11am. his morning chores had been finished with just enough time to phone his neighborhood friend to his house, and they both sat excitedly in front of the radio as it began to crackle with noise.

"you are tuning in to station three-o-seven, listening to batman: scarecrows rise!"

the theme song began to play and benny jumped up with his hands above his head, wearing a cardboard batman mask he had cut out and drawn over with black crayon. swank was right next to him shouting just as cheerfully, humming along to the opening theme and running in circles to make his blanket-cape flow behind him. the two boys were rowdy in their play, reenacting batman and robin's fighting moves on one another until the music stopped. replaced with dark eerie violins playing, and the narrator described the scene.

scarecrow was planning his newest crime of passion against batman with poison ivy and catwoman. they were to lure robin into one of their hideouts and ambush him, capturing the sidekick and using him as bait to get batman to arrive. the voice actors laughed and spoke in their crooked tones, making benny and swank 'boo' at their plans.

"it won't work though." swank chimed in, leaning closer to benny. "batman and catwoman love each other. she'll probably turn on poison ivy and scarecrow to help him."

it made benny think for a moment, before shaking his head. "but that's too obvious. catwoman is supposed to still be a villain. she only helps batman when it helps her, too." swank hushed him though and put his hand over benny's mouth, pointing back to the radio and listened to the story continue. they had missed the part where they caught robin and shoved him into a timed self-destructive vault.

the show carried on, the narrators voice growing in dramatic tension and the musics pace growing faster and batman and alfred tried to figure out what to do. then, the sudden plot twist: poison ivy had been mind controlling scarecrow! her goons took the villain and she used him to gather up more bodies for her to use at her discretion. the self destructive vault was beneath a power plant that had been poisoning the lakes and killing the wildlife, and once it went off the power plant would be no more.

"benny, you know you're not allowed to listen to this!" a sharp voice cut in, and the radio was shut off with a harsh crack of one of the dials. both boys looked up to see benny's mother standing next to the desk, a basket of laundry on her hip. "you boys should be outside playing, not stuck inside all day listening to this rubbish." she sighed, tucking a stray hair behind her ear and placing the basket down.

benny walked toward his mother and pouted, lifting up his cardboard mask. "it was almost over! we were gonna go out right after..." he whined, his shoulders tensing up. he relaxed when he felt her hands cup his cheeks and make her look up at her, though. her sweet smile never kept him angry for long.

"all that violence will take away the sweet boy i love." she giggled, giving him a quick peck on the forehead and turning him around. she placed her hand on his shoulder, and the other on swanks and led them to the backdoor. "you have all this world out there for you guys to play in. when your father comes home from work, you two can listen to as much batman as you want on the tellie. okay?"

"yes mom..." he mumbled, trying to hold onto what little of a grudge he had left before swank nudged him. they opened the door and ran outside, tackling into each other and arguing for who would play bruce, and who would play joker. they had all the time in the world until they had to worry about real life issues. time to play, time to unapologetically be kids and make messes and do dumb things without it defining their life.

time until they had to grow up and pretend they weren't the same kids that sat in front of an old radio pretending to be adults.

//this prompt is purely for viewing and critique! ending was a little rushed bc i had a central idea but didnt wanna lose motivation and not post it bc i didnt know how to end it lmao