Your city has collapsed after the war. Crime rampant everywhere and more than ever. The city is not safe for children to grow up, or for women walking alone at night. The rich continues getting richer, and the poorest stay impoverished. The people need their vigilante hero more than ever. The people need their Dark Knight.

You did your research, and finally located where Bruce Wayne went after the war ended. The Wayne Manor was completely abandoned and full of squatters fighting. You’ve always looked up to the man, the mask was a symbol of hope. He was a symbol of hope. That’s why you wear your cape, you need him to train you.

Bruce Wayne left the city ever since the war ended, and has been living in a lake house in the middle of nowhere.

“No. I’m done with that life,” he said, an axe in hand as he swung it hard at the trees. His new life has brought him peace.

“I won’t train you,” he said, shaking his head. He continued his lumbering. “You think I can make you a hero? The last kids who thought that didn’t even get a proper funeral.” He gritted his teeth at the memory. All those deaths, all his fault.

He yanked his axe from the trunk. The wood cracks. Something in him cracks with it.

“I fought for decades. Bled in alleys. Broke bones in backrooms. And for what? The city crowned new monsters the second I stepped down.”

He slams the axe again—harder this time. Wood splinters.

“They built statues of me while building new prisons. Named scholarships after Wayne while taking bribes from Falcone. The city didn’t want saving. It was always corrupted, and a man in a bat suit wasn’t going to save it.”

“If you really want to help people,” he says, stepping past you toward the cabin, “rip that cape off. Go be a doctor. Be a lawyer. Hell, be a janitor in a school that can’t afford one.”

He pauses at the door, back to you.

“But don’t come here asking to be a hero.”