Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or its characters.
Caped Crusader
Homecoming
Bruce Wayne, age 24, had graduated from Miskatonic University with honors. He deserved it. His professors, even years later, would hold every other student up to the bar that Bruce Wayne had set. As expected, the obsessively studious Bruce Wayne made a lot of his fellow students very angry.
Many found it odd that the heir to the Wayne fortune worked so hard in such a demanding field. Counselors questioned how a criminology degree and a psychology minor would help Bruce run a financial empire. Bruce Wayne always gave the same cryptic answer. "I have bigger plans than Wayne Enterprises." During the summers, he visited Santa Prisca.
Indeed, he had reached the end of his life-long journey. He had only one thing left to do. He had to return home to Gotham, the place where it all started 18 years ago. Fighting the mobsters at Haley's Circus had taught Bruce the value of theatrics. If he planned to take on heavily-armed men with non-lethal tactics, he would have to learn, like a stage magician, to put on a show.
From his youth, he remembered a time he fell into a cavern beneath Wayne Manor. He remembered the bats racing around, filling him with dread. That feeling of dread would set the tone of the persona he would create. Bruce Smith had taught him the value of alter egos.
In that same cavern, he found a dark alien world that he felt strangely at home in. Neither the friendly façade of Wayne Manor nor the vicious war zone of Gotham, the Batcave would serve as his private studio, a place where he could store all the props and stage equipment that would aid his admittedly flamboyant style of vigilante justice.
Through shady deals on the black market in Santa Prisca, he bought Nyctoprene, a top-secret prototype with a controversial track record. Designed for Peña Dura prison guards, the skintight ballistic cloth weighed significantly less than Kevlar yet provided equivalent protection. It also had the tear-resistant quality of a stab-proof vest. It would stop bullets and bladed weapons alike.
In truth, it had only two flaws. Firstly, the raw material to make three suits cost more than the annual salary of most world leaders. Secondly, tests revealed a sensitivity to UV radiation many times greater than any other body armor. Nyctoprene as its name implied preferred darkness. Perfect armor for a Dark Knight.
This time, Bruce would have no help from Alfred. He would make this monster by himself. Against the gray cloth, he placed a black bat in a yellow ellipse over his chest, the location of a ceramic trauma plate. If the bad guys wanted to shoot him, he'd give them something to shoot at. The flashy emblem meant he would need something to conceal it with while traveling in stealth.
Bruce did body work on a black Lamborghini Murciélago. Friends with Edmund Dorrance, a blind mechanic in Zesti City, Bruce Wayne learned a few dirty tricks for increasing vehicle performance. He took his time. The emergence of a masked vigilante coinciding with the triumphant return of the Prince of Gotham would raise suspicions. Seven months and he would begin his quest to take back the night.
His first obstacle came from Lucius Fox, Head CEO of Wayne Enterprises. He guarded the equipment he needed for his nightly endeavors. His penetrating intellect made any anonymous theft of the equipment impossible. To get the equipment, he'd have to borrow it from him.
Everyone feared Lucius Fox and his all-seeing eye. In the chemical research branch of the Applied Sciences Division, Jonathan Crane had developed a type of insect repellant that actually made harmful insects afraid of affected crops. Lucius Fox busted him for human experimentation.
Lucius Fox had single-handedly shut down the cryonics wing of the Applied Sciences Division. Victor Fries had an enormous knack when it came to freezing things. His misappropriation of company property to save his dying wife Nora earned him a pink slip and a laboratory mishap of mythological proportions.
The most infamous of Fox's interventions led to the arrest of William Earle, the former Head CEO. He had aided a federal investigation about Wayne Enterprises' ties to a performance-enhancing drug called Venom. Ol' Earle made a lot of new friends in Blackgate. Bottom line: No one could sneak anything past Lucius.
Bruce Wayne asked an innocent enough question about the new prototype. "Oh, you mean the descent cape." If Q had a black cousin, Lucius Fox fitted the bill to a T. He rattled on about how it would replace parachutes and hang-gliders as soon as the tech boys got the cost of scale production down.
Lucius directed his attention to a belt in the display case. "This sucker would make a cop's duty belt jealous." Again, he launched into a lecture about the utility belt. Acetylene blowtorch. Halogen flashlight. Smoke pellets. Flash grenades. Encrypted signal communicator. Again, the price tag proved the enemy of mass production.
Finally, Lucius ended the tour with the pièce de résistance. "This next invention will revolutionize the industry. We got requests from seven governments for a demo." Bruce Wayne could not believe his eyes. Wayne Enterprises had invented a grapnel gun like the ones in the comic books.
Bruce smiled. "Great, I'll take them all." Lucius mirrored his smile with a frown. All the well-orchestrated frivolity had struck a sour note. "If you don't feel comfortable with this, you could just turn your back. I'll just make sure they go missing. No one gets embarrassed and everyone saves face." Bruce forced the biggest smile he could muster.
Lucius Fox shook his head in disappointment. "What you suggested sounds an awful lot like a crime, Mr. Wayne." He marched down the corridor. "You understand I can't just give this stuff away to every bored billionaire who asks for it." A look of askance came over his face. "Unless said billionaire put this equipment to good use."
Bruce Wayne pulled him aside and whispered to him in a conspiratorial tone. "Between you and me, I have received an offer from a very interested party. He has a dire need for our equipment." Lucius greeted Bruce's enthusiasm with skepticism. "Don't believe me. Watch the news. You'll see. He'll make very good use of your equipment."
Lucius Fox handed over the descent cape, utility belt and grapnel gun with a "What have I done?" look on his face. Bruce Wayne walked out of the Applied Sciences Division of Wayne Enterprises. "I would prefer if no one else knew of this." Lucius waved his hands in surrender. Bruce's homecoming had reached its end.