CLEARANCE LEVEL ACCESS: VERIFIED.

01/ _{“The world doesn't make sense until you force it to.” ― Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns}LOCATION : CRIME ALLEY. BRUCE WAYNE was on a fast track to success. His whole future built on a legacy decades in the making from the union of two of Gotham’s most infamous families, the Waynes and the Kanes. A union that not only flourished in abundance of affection for each other and their only son but for the city they loved and adored nearly as much as each other. Even with her family's disapproval of their engagement, they moved as a unit. Endearing themselves to the city’s impoverished through their generosity and charity work. The city's accomplishments become synonymous to The Wayne. Thomas with his medical work and Martha with her civic work, aiding where the government fails its constintuents.And with them, a golden renaissance promised. tHE GOAL SET ON continuing to help the city develop not only through urban and business landscape reform but through civic advancement as well. WITH OR WITHOUT THE GOVERNMENT.
Only for it all to come crashing down one night in an alley, when the city's beloved couple are brutally gunned down in front of their only son's eyes.                     THOMAS AND MARTHA WAYNE MURDERED.Bruce Wayne, the young heir to the vast Wayne empire, is made to face the harsh reality of a life without the two people that loved him most over night and in the morning awoken to the cruelty of senseless injustice as his parent's killer would soon evade capture right from their fingertips.On the eve of his parent's funeral, the 8 year old heir makes a promise: no child would ever have to go through what he did.And that young boy's childhood becomes consumed with the promise he made, weeping in front of the grave of his parents. A childhood absolutely focused and devoted to that cause. And just as it was on the eve of his parent's death, an 18 year old Bruce ran away from the city that took his parents away.Presumed dead after five with no sign or word of his existence, he spent the missing seven years exploring the world finding masters, heroes, and criminals that would teach him everything he needed to learn. Everything he needed to be to become something more.Returning only to his beloved city when he's no longer the boy that left but a man with a mission. A man with a promise to uphold and a city to save from itself and the people that have poisoned it in his absence.                   WAYNE HEIR DECLARED LEGALLY DEAD.

02/ _{“Ladies. Gentlemen. You have eaten well. You've eaten Gotham's wealth. Its spirit. Your feast is nearly over. From this moment on...none of you are safe.” ― Frank Miller, Batman: Year One}LOCATION: UPPER EAST SIDE. He comes back hunting. Tearing through Gotham's Crime Family. Making them fear their own shadow. Fear that same greed and ruthlessness that had fed them well in his absence. And bleeding them dry.He makes it his mission to bring his city back into the light. To make them see the potential that his parents saw in them when he was just a boy. Ensure that no child, no creature, no being within Gotham's arms would have to go through what he had gone through alone. But he can't do it as himself. Bruce Wayne is dead afterall. Only the man in THE MASK lives. ^{_{(Batman:Year One, Frank Miller)}}But the city can't survive on fear alone. THE BAT ALONE ISN'T ENOUGH Where just standing in the background and hiding in corners while dragging the worse of the worst by their feet will show the city it's teeth. the city needed more. the city needed a reason to fight back. Gotham deserved more.Fear and vengeance was not everything.BRUCE WAYNE HAD TO COME BACK. Bruce Wayne had to take back his city and everything he had left behind and into deluge that he had walked away from. The same elite and power hungry that made it possible for the criminals to propser and leave gotham to its roots. the same people that let good people die and go hungry for other's sins. the very people that gave tthose with nothing, no power, the end of a barrel of a gun to bleed. ^{_{(Batman:Zero Year, Scott Snyder)}}Gotham City's Prodigal son has returned to continue the promise his parents had left unfinished. And with him a myth arose from the gutters where his mothers pearls fell and with it a plague on gotham's worst citizens.                          beware the bat of gotham.

03/ _{"Twenty years in Gotham Alfred, we've seen what promises are worth, how many good guys are left? How many stay that way? " ─ Bruce Wayne, Batman V Superman : Dawn of Justice}LOCATION: THE BATCAVE. TWENTY YEARS in operation and he is still considered a symbol of mystery and great controversy. The city, the media and even the police act as if he’s real only when it’s useful. To most he’s just a criminal putting out fires or starting them. Bringing the freaks out of the woodwork and making Gotham more dangerous every day. To those that matter, he’s a hero. To the criminals, he’s a promise. And to those that need it, he’s a light in the dark.^{_{―PRE-52 BATMAN DC COMICS}}Meanwhile Bruce Wayne as a public figure has grown more into his role. Less the obtuse playboy socialite and more and more the beguiling business man and the face of change within the city through his charity work in his parent’s name.Operating as CEO and Philanthropist, through the venerable supervision and guidance of Lucius Fox, they make Wayne Enterprise synonymous with ethical progress and Wayne Foundations with generous humanitarianism.And through those decades at war with a city that bleeds life to new crimes and mastercriminals, he has lost and he has lost and he has lost so much.                               BAT BRAND OF JUSTICE!And he has fallen sometimes as far as he thought he could. But he hasn't given up yet.The years may have hardened him but it has not killed his resolve. Gotham has always tried to eat the best and its worst. Tearing him and itself apart with and without his help. But its a ludicrous thing ─ something maybe closer to insanity ─ to convince one self that there is nowhere further to fall.But he does.Hands and knees on the grounds, nails scraping the asphalt and left with a grief that can’t be spoken.And it takes and it takes and it takes.And it would take fighting gods and heaven and the universe itself to put him back together again. To give him what they had taken. To give him his son back. ^{_{― Batman and Robin: Robin Rises, Peter Tomasi}}Because one more soldier, no, one more son was just too much for a Father to bear.                      gotham devestated. city on fire.       

04/ _{"Batman as he is now ─ is less about scaring bad people into shadows than he is bringing good people into the light. " ─ Scott Snyder}LOCATION: AMUSEMENT MILE. None are taken from the DARKNESS without giving up one in RETURN. And perhaps it’s the universe’s way of balancing checks, returning one and taking another. Bringing his son back and his family to him only to rip him away from them. Caught in a death match with a city burning in the hands of the Joker and stopping it. The Dark Knight and The Joker fight until there’s nothing left of each other.― Batman: Endgame, Scott Snyder                              WHERE IS THE BATMAN?Felled by the hands of the CLOWN PRINCE. Lost to the ruins of disaster that has nearly turned the city almost inhabitable overnight. Gotham and its citzens had no choice but to build itself back up twice over. All without the shadow of its protector lurking in the night.Until a call disturbs the unstirred Manor in the middle of the night and off the loyal Pennyworth, nearly last to his name, rusHES back into the city of rubble and fire to come back home with his boy. ^{_{(Batman: Superheavy, Scott Snyder)}}Bruce Wayne comes back to the living yet again.Without memory and without purpose. A shell of the man he used to be. Barely alive and not even nearly dead at all. The Lazarus Pit is his saving grace, pulling him away from death’s final clutches once more. But not enough to rid him of the scars, the torture of the whole ordeal as he struggles to make sense of who and what he was.                       Father? Son? Batman?It takes months before he feels himself again while the city festered and his family struggled in his absence. A man nearly forced to watch the city he loved dissolve like a rotting corpse right before his eyes without comprehension or power to do anything about it. A Father made to look his children in the eye without seeing anything. A blanket of darkness he would kill to turn over and bring back the light.And it works - almost like a switch - as bits and pieces come back. His mistakes and his losses are always the loudest and always in the forefront. And the city is once again in ruin, crying out, with no symbol in sight.But the Bat is there.Back with a VENGEANCE.No longer bound by the same rules and constraints of his previous life, he aims to work better with the system he had already built in his absence. His children. his allies. all of them working together for the good of the city. Streamlining what he knew now were the best assets he was working to begin with: Gotham’s Finest, his homeless information network, the kids and the residents on the grounds, both Bat and Bruce Wayne. Close in the ranks.Allowing himself to dream of a future not so singularly devoted to war but to a legacy that can outlive him. A future where his children, his family, would not know the fear of loss that he knew.With the change, he goes out with a new suit. Coming back from the dead to take back the fear and loss and chaos that Joker left in his wake.And maybe ─ just maybe THE FUTURE COULD BE better.                            THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

CANON. IT FOLLOWS THE MAJORITY OF PRE-52 TIMELINE WITH HANDPICKED STORY POINTS FROM N52, namely Snyder and Capullo's run and Tomasi and Gleason's Batman and ROBIN run.BLOOD IN THE GUTTERS. PRE-BATMAN. MARTHA AND THOMAS WAYNE are gunned down in crime alley. Bruce Wayne is raised by Alfred until he disappears at 18 and isn't found until nearly 8 years later when he comes back at 26. Coincidentally around the time the city starts hearing about this so called BAT. INFLUENCE. Year One Origin, Zero Year OriginI SHALL BECOME A BAT. BATMAN BEGINS.THE START OF THE MYTH.The establishment of allies and villains. The first signs of the beginning of the family. A turning of the tides for Gotham as far as what was normal and what was crazy. 26 to 28 years old. INFLUENCE. Somewhere aong the lines of Year One, Robin: Year One, Batgirl: Year one, and everything in between.THE LONGEST NIGHTS. GOLDEN YEARS. THE TURNING of the tides. From when he loses Dick and then loses Jason and is brought back to the light through Tim's help. A seemingly never ending war has began to take its toll on the Batman. 29 to 35 years old. INFLUENCE. Generally follows Pre-52 events, Bruce's death via Darkseid and successful return after, Final Crisis, The Return of Bruce WayneA BEAUTIFUL LIE. DARK YEARS. THE DARK DAYS. Shattered connections. Lost relationships. Some of NEW52 ─ mostly Snyder-Capullo run. Important events include the Tomas Batman and Robin run as well as Requiem / Damian Wayne's Death / and Endgame . Includes the Amensiac Superheavy arc that eventually leads into rebirth. 36 to 40 years old. DIVERGENCIES. While Bruce's death wasn't definite this time, he was comatose for 2 to 3 months and came back with at least the same amount of memory loss which he regains naturally in the next 3 months so he was out of comission for a good six.GOTHAM IS BATMAN. MAIN VERSE. THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Mostly inspired by Rebirth events and follows some of it as canon continues ( excluding Tom King's arc ) but more importantly very HEADCANON BASED. INFLUENCE. Rebirth, Future State: Dark Detective, All Star: Batman, Alfred is still alive, fuck dc, also to be more explicit: Bruce left Joker to die in Joker WarREBIRTH.There are influences mainly in concept and theme. A lot of the energy of it is mainly inspired from Morrison's last run, BATMAN: RIP to the return of bruce wayne. Essentially follows a return to form, a reinvigorated older dark knight with a goal to do much better than he had in the past and a heavy emphasis in protecting his legacy and the family he had taken in along the way.

SNYDERVERSE. Coincides with most of the events as it happened in Batman v Superman : Dawn of Justice (2016), with headcanon based deviations. For a short period of time before his introduction to Superman , he has been working alone. Ignoring the efforts of his extended family to deal with his grief at the loss of ROBIN aka DAMIAN WAYNE . This, compounded with the events of Man of Steel (2013), led him to a darker path in his life. The citizens of Gotham see a mean streak to the DARK KNIGHT's approach that not only strikes fear in the scum of the streets but the good people as well. DIVERSIONS. Most of the events within the Trinity v Doomsday fight happens as it does in canon.DISCLAIMER. ~THIS VERSE DOESN'T RECOGNIZE ANYTHING PAST Zack Snyder's Justice league (2021) as canon. And this is also my verse for DCTV canon. Plotting beforehand is preferred.NOTE: INTIMATELY AFFILIATED WITH AM4ZON AND P9RRS.

OFFWORLD. General verse or setting that does not fit the MAIN TIMELINE OR ARC but still follows canon.ABSOLUTE VERSE. It follows most of canon save for a few specific origin details. His parents came from a rich history of the elite and founders from some other city but ran off together when they were young and found out about Bruce. They wanted to raise him their own way and settled in Gotham, just when it was still starting out. So his Father becomes a teacher and his mother does civic work and that's how they become pillars from the ground. And an aftermath of the attach at the zoo is damage to his hand from the same bullet that killed his father. It had to be amputated so now he's walking around with a robot hand of his own making. Basically, this specific Bruce is disabled in this verse. The rest follows what's laid out in canon as is.THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS. The Alternate version of Bruce Wayne that upon the death of Joker exposes him to a toxin that changes him. Turns him into something that he was nver meant to be. An apex predator and arbiter for chaos. A direct result of Bruce Wayne's worst fears and an agent of the Dark Multiverse.SMALLVILLE. Mostly based in S11 of Smallville where Bruce has been operating in Gotham as THE BATMAN, the city's dark urban legend scaring the darkest of their citizens off the streets. S11 COMIC INFLUENCE MOSTLY.MARVEL. Adapted mainly to the MARVEL Cinematic Universe, but very flexible. Set in Gotham, New Jersey, The Bat maintains strict confidentiality in regard to his double life which is only known to a few entrusted associates.He is mostly considered a myth outside of Gotham City and outside of all the avengers, has only made contact with BLACK WIDOW . Although he has met BRUCE BANNER at some event sometime in the past. Bruce doesn’t necessarily approve of how the Avengers operated at first, mostly in regards to their secret identities which they theoretically have none since he’s very protective of his own. Functioning more under the lines of putting his own loved one’s safety before his and maintaining a strict line between his nightlife from his day life to save them from the former bleeding out into the latter.Mostly, however, he sticks to his city and lets the big guns deal with the rest unless he could provide some actual help ( although often in the form of Bruce Wayne, rather than Batman which means Bruce spends a lot of the limelight focused more on him doing philanthropic work as Bruce Wayne. )SUPERNATURAL. This is more for a general supernatural verse setting where Bruce was raised as a normal child until his parents untimely death brings him face to face with the history of his parent’s conflicted relationship. Martha Wayne being born into a family of wolves and Thomas having been born into a long history of supernatural hunters . It is with this history that he struggles with and disappears from when he turns 18 after nearly a decade of training to become a hunter only to find out that his parents death was nothing more than an accident and his thirst for vengeance was for naught. It’s in his disappearance however that his werewolf gene is activated and he is forced to deal with how to live as something he had thought he hated for a good majority of his childhood. He now has to face the world he comes back to , tethered between two masks, while trying to rid his city of the monsters that had taken over in his absence.APOCALYPSE. A MAD MAX inspired verse of Bruce Wayne, dressed as a bat, going through desolate wastelands with a bunch of acrobatic kids, dismantling overzealous despots trying to control limited resources and helping people along the way. Adaptable to most apocalyptic settings with minor tweaks for each one. Plot Dependent.