New Beginning
Bruce entered the elevator that led down to his lab in the basement of Wayne Manor. This had always been his sanctum. Thomas Wayne had provided his son with a lab/workshop well away from the main household. Here the boy could experiment to his hearts content without interfering with the rest of the house.
The elevator doors slid open, not into a man made room, but into a cavern deep under the foundations of the house. His grandfather had used this area to develop most of his prototypes and deep within the surrounding caverns he had tested them before submitting patents. No industrial spy ever got the drop on Joseph Wayne.
Thomas had built his empire on his father's successes. But Wayne Enterprises had a research and development division out in the Gotham Desert. So the old labs had been abandoned, that was until Bruce took them over.
Down here Bruce had developed his first gadgets. As a boy he'd loved exploring the caverns. Bruce rummaged in a box and found what he was looking for. To aid his explorations he developed a gas power grappling hook. The line from the hook was gossamer thin and the hook was a miniature peg with retractable grapples. Bruce checked the gas supply, strapped the devices to his wrist, pointed at the roof of the cave, some 30ft above him, and pressed the trigger. The device shot its bolt high into the roof. Bruce tugged the line to check it was secure then pressed the trigger again. Instantly he was dragged up towards the roof as the line retracted. Bruce, let go of the trigger and took a deep breath as he looked down at the floor below. He gently squeezed the trigger again and he slowly descended. Bruce spun the line in a loose arc and the grapples retracted. He pressed the trigger again and the loose line was wound back in. Bruce smiled, "Knew I'd find a use for this on day!" he muttered to himself.
On the far wall his prototype mobility suite, his first attempt enabling disabled people to move, hung almost forgotten. Made from Kevlar, so as to be strong but lightweight, it incorporated microchips to drive a series of miniature motors. The microchips intercepted the smallest of movements and magnified them ten fold. This suite had been developed to help a disabled person move paralyzed limbs. But modified Bruce decided it could help an able bodied person seem super human.
Bruce set to work on the suite. Several hours later he pulled on the black Kevlar garment. Bruce walk over to the massive oak table that served as a work bench, flexed his gloved hand, before placing it around one of the thick table legs, to activate the controller, and lifted the table with ease. He lowered the table, flexed his knees and with no effort at all jumped up on to the table.
"The Raven lives!" Bruce laughed.
Just then something small and black swooped down and brushed past Bruce's face causing him to recoil back and fall off the table. Bruce hit his head hard on the cave floor. He sat up dazed and hurt and watched the small creature swoop low before soaring up to roost, upside down, on the cave roof. "Maybe the Raven should be a Bat!" Bruce muttered "Either way he needs head protection." he added rubbing his bruised head.
Bruce pulled his old caving helmet off the hook on the side wall. He looked at it closely. "I need head protection, a mask as a disguise and some sort of sound magnifier."
The sound magnifier would be easy just a straight forward, microphone with miniature amplifiers. Bruce once again spotted the bat. "Why not?" he said to himself as he mixed the resins to adapt the helmet into suitable head gear.
Three hours later it was complete. Headgear fit for a vigilante. Incorporating a mask and directional microphones and all shaped like a bats head. Putting the microphones in the pointed ear has amused the young man. Leaving, the new improved helmet to cure Bruce hung up his suite and pained on a bat motif on the chest, if he was going to be the "Bat" he should have a calling card, after all the Raven had always left the feather from a ravens wing as his sign. A bit of bat fur just wouldn't do, but a calling card with the bat emblem would. He then spray painted his new bat helmet black.
An insistent ringing of the phone disturbed Bruce's work. He listened intently to the person on the other end of the line. Grabbed his jacket from the chair and was quickly heading back to the hospital.