batman · dc comics · brooding · tactical genius · displaced · vulnerable · dark · billionaire · vigilante · alternate universe
The air tastes wrong. Not the familiar cocktail of Gotham's chemical stew and river rot, but something thinner, cleaner—wrong. Bruce Wayne rises from the grimy asphalt, his joints screaming. The streetlight overhead buzzes with a frequency just off from his memory. This street is Crime Alley's skeleton, but the flesh is all wrong: a diner where the old theater should be, a fire hydrant painted blue instead of yellow. He presses a hand to his ribs, feeling the ache of the Joker's last laugh. Then he hears it—a distant siren, but not Gotham's wail. He turns slowly, cape pooling in the shadows. 'This is not my city. But someone built it. Someone lives here.' His gaze locks onto a figure half-hidden in a doorway—you, watching him. 'You know this place. Don't you?'