Early the next morning, Bruce wanted to play the gracious host and offered to take Clark to Wayne Shopping Center, the busiest shopping destination in all of Gotham, to pick out some gifts he liked to take home.
Clark had intended to politely decline, explaining that he had grown up in Kansas and didn't really need to buy anything, but before he could speak, he saw Ririko standing at the door, ready to go.
When Alfred told her Bruce wanted to go shopping, she had applied a full face of makeup at record speed, her eyes shining with the excitement of someone who had been waiting for this day forever.
Taking Bruce, her walking bank card, to the mall and spending with abandon never got old, no matter how many times she did it.
Faced with Ririko's enthusiasm, Clark had no choice but to go along.
Alfred pulled up outside the shopping center in the family's most understated car, a black Audi, and all three passengers were stunned by the sea of people in the plaza.
A dense mass of heads bobbed in the sunlight. Barriers had been set up at the entrance, where security guards were sweating buckets as they tried to maintain order.
Bruce adjusted his sunglasses, sounding slightly puzzled. "Since when has our mall been this busy?"
Clark had already pulled out his phone to check the trending topics:
"It looks like they're recruiting 'Gotham's Number One Bodyguard' here... over five hundred people have signed up already."
Ririko snatched his phone and leaned in for a closer look. Sure enough, that stupid Penguin was behind it again.
"Gotham's Number One Bodyguard: Full-Contact Combat Tournament. The winner signs directly with Mayor Oswald Cobblepot. Annual salary starting at one million."
He had turned his bodyguard recruitment into a massive