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Back when he’d first began traveling around the world to learn how to fight, Bruce hadn’t been completely sure how he’d make it work. He knew he wanted to help Gotham to be safer and he’d need to cover more grounds than just the ones his money could cover and his plans to achieve that consisted basically of ‘learn how to fight criminals’ and ‘after that, improvise’.
Though he’d never admit it, he’d also wanted to go on this learning tour to entertain the… less than socially acceptable way his brain worked sometimes.
‘It’s a consequence of seeing his parents die so young’ His therapists had said back then, back before he’d started refusing seeing them, when he’d draw dark things or make ‘creepy’ comments. It tended to put off his classmates and other adult figures.
Ollie hadn’t been put off, though. Him and Alfie might be the only people he regretted leaving behind for this world tour. But he needed it. Why he wasn’t sure. Maybe to fight crime. Maybe, a voice whispered at him as he stared out of the plane window, to commit them.
‘Did you know you die really fast if you cut yourself right here? It’s like a super important place.’
‘Wanna see the pictures of the victims of the gang fight from friday?’
‘Do you think I could kill Mr. Harrington if I hid-’
Bruce shaked his head. He couldn’t let these thoughts consume him. He had left to train to become something good. Not to entertain the thoughts of a broken child. He needed to spend his free time actually thinking of productive things.
He had two years, maybe three if he settled to come back at twenty. He’d given Alfie a temporary leave of however long he wished (and an open invitation to retire, because, as much as he loved the man, Bruce knew Alfie hadn’t signed his contract thinking he’d have to take care of Bruce).
Bruce took another deep breath, burying whatever thoughts the small voice whispered in his head. Three years, he’d be back in three years maximum to help his city.
—
As he set foot at the entrance of his property, Bruce couldn’t help but take in the sight with a wave of nostalgia. This was his parent’s house, he hadn’t been in it for years now and he could feel their presence haunting around him as he opened the doors.
It was dusty, as expected, the dark halls contrasted with Bruce’s memories of walking around with his parents. Before leaving, he’d already lived in the manor without them for longer than he’d lived with them. And yet his heart still weighed heavily in his chest as he turned on the lights and got ready to prepare for what he’d do next.
Bruce Wayne coming back to Gotham still wasn’t known to the public and he’d like to keep it that way for a bit. He needed to finish his plans on how he’d keep the vigilantism separated from himself.
He’d decided during the last three years that he’d turn vigilante once he was back. He’d caught wind of Metropolis’ new hero throughout the last year of his training and it seemed like a good idea to help Gotham directly.
Unlike Superman, though, Bruce couldn’t afford to keep his face bare. The alien likely didn’t have a normal human life to hide, but Bruce very much did, especially if he wished to use his Wayne influence to help Gotham too.
The Wayne manor had a secret basement that wasn’t on the manor’s blueprint and that not even the closest friends had been privy to. He intended to clean the place up, expand it and create an exit from it that was far away from the actual house. This way, he could have a place to keep any vigilante business without the fear of getting discovered.
His father’s study was exactly as he remembered having left it, the only addition being the layer of dust. On top of the desk layered a yellow envelope that was crumbled at places from how much it’d been opened and dragged around. Bruce approached it with shaky hands and took out the papers that were inside.
It was a copy of his parent’s obituary, the police report about it and the pictures of the bodies in the alley, along with several pages full of childish writing, sometimes the phrases were similar to journaling, something he’d tried to do to cope with his parents’ death, other times it seemed almost as if he was treating his their death as an interesting thing that had happened to someone else, but most times the phrases were barely cohesive disturbed speculations about his parents death and their murderer.
Bruce remembered spending hours looking at the photos of his parents bodies and reading the police report, trying to connect the bloodied image with his parents.
Bruce’s lips tightened against each other as he laid the papers over the envelope, carefully putting them back one by one, hesitating slightly with the last photo, the one that showed both of his parents in it.
‘This is why I’m doing this. So it stops happening.’ Bruce thought to himself as he put the photo in his pocket, rather than back on the envelope.
Turning his back to the table, Bruce reached for the broken grandfather clock, remembering the code his father had taught him: Two full circles and then stop at 10. As soon as he let go of the clock, it detached from the wall and Bruce pushed it aside to look into the dark stairs leading him downwards.
The basement was just as messy as he’d remembered, piles and piles of boxes and items his family had abandoned in the secret room through the generations. It would take a while to clean everything up.
As he lifted the boxes and sorted them out by the types of stuff that were in them, choosing what to take upstairs, what to throw away and what to donate to charity once Bruce was officially back in town, a small glimmer at a corner he’d just cleaned caught his attention. Once he approached it, he realized it came from a brooch covered in jewels.
As he picked it up, Bruce realized it was bat shaped and felt a bit warm to the touch, rather than the cold he’d expected. It must have been some kind of family heirloom that got lost in between all the items hidden away in the basement, because it felt familiar, as if he’d seen it before, perhaps in one of the paintings or photos of his family.
He put it on top of a table he’d taken down there, deciding to deal with it later. Perhaps he’d have it donated. Or maybe he’d gift it to Alfred, wherever he was in England.
Bruce planned on finishing cleaning the basement that same day so he could start the expansion by the next day and plan what to bring down to make it a proper base for his vigilantism. There were realistically too many things to finish within a single day, but Bruce was nothing if not obstinate.
He wasn’t sure how long he kept on the task, but he was eventually able to deal with all the boxes and label them according to what he’d do to each of them. Only then did Bruce allow himself to take a small break, picking up the brooch once more to examine it while he sat down to rest a bit.
Its shape caught his attention. Bruce had always considered bats to be quite fearsome creatures, having a creepy factor most normally scary animals didn’t count with. If he planned to have the criminals fear him, he’d likely need to invoke a fearsome image from the start. Something dark to blend with the shadows and cowl or helmet to hide his identity.
Thinking of the bat theme, perhaps he could use a cape and bat ears to the cowl/helmet to mimic the shape of one? A dark cape that was just as much of a motif and an intimidation factor, as well as good for hiding himself in the dark. And having a theme in mind could also help him with deciding on a name, which he had been having difficulties thinking about since he’d decided to become a vigilante.
“A fearsome figure of justice” He pondered outloud, wondering how simple the name should be “The Bat”
As soon as he finished speaking, the brooch’s glimmer intensified and its warmth increased. Alarmed, Bruce attempted to let go of the brooch, but his hands didn’t obey him. The glow became so strong he was forced to close his eyes.
Normally that wouldn’t put him at that much of a disadvantage, he was trained to fight without vision after all, but he couldn’t seem to do more than small movements with his body, which was definitely a problem.
As the glow subsided, Bruce opened his eyes. The basement had disappeared and he seemed to be standing in a dark void.
“What the-” He yelped as he looked down to realize his body was covered by a white glow and he couldn’t feel his clothes anymore. He stumbled backwards slightly and felt the air leave his lungs as his foot never made it to the ground and instead he felt something be created around it with a glittery pop. The other foot was subjected to the same thing almost immediately.
Once that happened, the glow on his body disappeared on the area of his feet and lower legs, revealing two black knee high platform boots with an enormous amount of buckles. Bruce felt as if his brain was being turned into mush, what in the actual fuck was going on?!
Oh.
The brooch.
How a magical article had ended up in his family’s basement was a mystery he’d have to look into once he got out of this situation. He knew magic existed, but it wasn’t supposed to be normal or to exist in Gotham City.
Lost in thoughts, Bruce almost missed when, just like with the boots, he felt something being created around his torso, legs and arms, adding weight underneath the glow before popping it away to give way to black clothing that hugged his muscles and accentuated each of them, only a couple shades lighter than the boots. On top of that, there was a yellow bat symbol printed on the chest area.
Bruce reached with his hands to touch his stomach, hoping to identify the material and gain some semblance of understanding of the situation, however, as soon as his hands touched his stomach, they were covered by the sensation of creating material and black gloves popped into existence.
Bruce resigned himself, deciding to let whatever the magic was trying to do run its course before accessing the situation and deciding how to deal with that.
Guess it didn’t take becoming a vigilante to find trouble. He thought to himself briefly as the popping glittery sound brought a yellow belt and a black cowl into existence. Bruce could feel the weight of two bat-ear shaped things on the top of the cowl.
He’d been thinking of a cowl for his vigilante costume… Was the brooch giving him a uniform for the vigilante identity he’d been planning on taking?! It would… it certainly would be useful. But first he needed to understand it, chances were it wasn’t even close to safe.
Even though he wasn’t sure that was what was going to happen, Bruce began mentally listing all the advantages an arrangement like this could bring. He wouldn’t need to carry his clothes and he could act much faster, not to mention how it would make hiding his identity much easier.
His thoughts were interrupted by the pop of a big cape that was pitch black forming on his shoulders and embracing his entire body as it fell. The material felt heavy around him, but not restraining in any way it would be expected from something as thick.
Finally, the dark void slowly faded away and Bruce was left standing in the basement once again. He used the opportunity to actually examine the material. None of his training had involved recognizing what a piece of clothing was made off, but he had gotten used to the way certain protective cloths felt around the body. He was reminded heavily of Klevar, but it was just different enough to not be classifiable as such.
The gloves and boots seemed made of something similar to leather in feeling while using, but felt as hard as steel from outside touch. Which begged the question, could he take pieces of the clothes off?
As it turned out, he could do that. It did, however, feel weird to be without the gloves, like his body was compelling him to retrieve them. The sensation of taking off the cowl wasn’t as strong, but it was still uncomfortable.
The uncomfortableness from taking pieces off was definitely suspicious. He still needed to confirm the nature of all of this. it would be preferable to get it all back to the brooch form, if only to facilitate research.
But he wasn’t sure how to do it. He should also probably test the clothes in various ways before anything to understand better what he was dealing with. The materials he had to work with were limited, but Bruce was nothing if not resourceful.
—
Eventually, Bruce felt safe enough for his first night out in Gotham. He’d spent the last month building a cave-like hideout full of all the tech he could both build and buy and filled the systems with various countermeasures for safety and as much information on criminals and corruption and everything else as he could hack out of both the GCPD and various socialite’s systems.
As for his mysterious brooch and convenient uniform, he hadn’t been able to find much. During his research, he ruled out the possibility of it being a family heirloom, Bruce had, however, been able to find out that the jewels in it carried ancient magic that seemed to have aided various powerful but mysterious magical figures throughout history before all traces of it had disappeared with the modern era. The contact he’d gotten it front, and that he’d met during his world travels, said that they’d never heard of a bat-brooch being associated with said magic, but it hadn’t been their area of expertise, so anything was possible.
Regardless, not only had he accessed the brooch to be safe, but he found the material of the suit to be much more resistant and safe than normal Kevlar or even straight up armor, while allowing for much more movement and being much lighter than those materials. Deciding to use it for vigilantism hadn’t even been a question at that point, it offered a solution to every problem he had yet to solve and there didn’t seem to be any drawbacks (which, yes, did make him suspicious, but he had made several contingencies for if his magical suit turned against him).
Despite that, Bruce had built most of his gadgets himself. The suit had come with many empty pockets on the utility belt and, during a rather… embarrassing incident that involved tripping and ending up knee-deep into his own cape, he’d discovered that the inside of it was some kind of pocket dimension that he had yet to find something that didn’t fit inside so long as he could dimension it to pass through its frame. He’d been warned that generally the magic jewel came with some kind of minor special ability and that seemed to be his.
The only true con that Bruce had been able to think about the whole arrangement had been the fact that he didn’t quite trust himself with the power of the suit. He’d spent the last years burying the perturbed boy he used to be, but, somewhere in the back of his mind, he could still hear him ranting about all the ways that the steel-like gloves could kill a person, and how the cape could disappear with someone and-
And the boy was escaping again, Bruce realized with a sigh. He shoved the thoughts to the furthest corner of his mind. He was better. The whole point of this was to not let those things happen to the people of Gotham. Just save one person. One person at a time. And then one more. And then the voice in his head would have to shut up because he would be doing good. Don’t think it, don’t feel it, ignore it. He already separates the boy from Bruce, he just needed to separate both from The Bat and make it even more disconnected from the boy.
Bruce was going to show up for the first time as The Bat that night, then, after six months, Bruce Wayne would officially come back and he could start his plans on what he’d do with Wayne Enterprises and the money he had. He would also make up a personality for Bruce that would keep people from figuring out his identity just as much as the cowl from his suit. Perhaps of someone ditzy, a loveable idiot who could neither do harm nor conduct the detective work The Bat would.
It would also help to further exile the boy. If he treated the corners of his mind as three different personas that he would just slip into, then perhaps he would be easy to manage. He’d incorporate Bruce, ditzy billionaire, during the day. During the night, he’d be The Bat, justice’s dark knight. And he’d let The Boy, violent and creepy child, rot in a corner never to be used.
Neither Bruce nor The Bat would ever kill, they’d never let The Boy have his way.
And now, it was time for The Bat’s first night out.
“A fearsome figure of justice. The Bat” He said, activating the brooch and closing his eyes as darkness enveloped him.