Bruce Wayne´s Journey Around the World

Stowaway on the Capricorn
In order to flee Gotham, Bruce secretly got on board of a trade ship called the Capricorn, and hid in the cargo hold. The ship left the city towards Central America (the ship travelled beetween the US and several central american countries). Bruce starved for 3 days, having decided firmly not to steal food from the nearby storage (decided not to become a thief like Chill). The morning of the fourth day he is found, fainted, by an african-american crew member called Bertram Johnson, who takes him to the ship´s infirmary. He wakes up moments later to be received by the ship's capitan, Jeffrey Mills and the rest of the crew. At first they threaten to beat him up unless he explains what he is doing there, but they are stopped by Johnson, who recognises Bruce from newspapers. Mills explains that they are on route, far away from Gotham and they will not return because of him. Bruce then explains them that he has no intention to return, in fact, he was there to escape his hometown. He later asks for a job, any job, in the ship. Mills denies at first because Bruce didn't have any documentation, he had left his ID, passport, etc. in the US. He was now literally nobody. He offers to leave him at the next port, at his own luck, of course. In the meantime, Bruce starts working with the crew, and becomes good friends with Johnson. He also earns Mills' sympathy, who leaves aside his previous intentions to kick him out of the boat as soon as possible, and instead offers to hide him aboard his ship as long as he needs too. So, for the next five months, Bruce stays with the crew of the Capricorn. As Johnson's friend, he learns that he had previously been in prison for six years for break and entry, and starts to talk to him about his regrets, his experiences, about the "appeal" of criminality, and so Bruce begins to take his first and slow steps into trying to understand the criminal mind, an intention that he reveals to Bertram, after telling him about his parents, Chill, Falcone, etc.

Johnson´s Help
After six months on the Capricorn, Bruce decides to move on, and get off the ship this time, after crossing the Panama Canal, and reaching El Salvador, country that had called his eye the many times they docked there. When he revealed his decision, Johnson offered him the number of a friend, who would help hip get a false ID. Bruce gets to San Salvador and meets Damian Cortez, who offers his help in exchange for a few favours. First he asks Bruce to smuggle one of his friends to the Hondurian border. He succeeds and Cortez, realizing of Bruce's talent, starts paying him good money, for doing other clandestine jobs. Bruce realizes at this point that in order to understand them, he would have to start to play in their field.

El Salvador
With the money he starts to make as "Pedro Esperanza" (Cortez´s forged false ID), Bruce starts to buy books about medicine and psychology, attempting to know more about pain, physical and emotional, and criminal behaviour. A year after arriving, an earthquake hits the capital, and Cortez is severely injured. To everyone's surprise, Bruce, using his short medical knowledge, saves his life. In gratitude, Damian starts to include him deeper into the organization he was part of, a big chain of gangs that traffic drugs and other items beetween Mexico all the way to South America, through countries like his, and get financed through illegal prostitution and robbering. During this time, Bruce makes a few calls to Alfred, to let him know how he was doing, without revealing much details. He is later included in a massive hit agaist a local bank, helping Cortez and his friends steal 2 million dollars (but only from the rear, since he never wanted to realy become a criminal). Bruce starts to feel lost, but still finds all this necessary to understand crime. A short while after this events, Bruce gets beaten up by a group of crooked cops, working for another cartel. He defends himself the best he can, but he is still defeated, so he decides he has to learn how to fight properly. In the following months he starts to go to martial art schools and gyms in San Salvador.

Six months after the eartquake, Cortez offers Bruce a seat on a plane who would smuggle a considerable amount of cocaine into the argentinian northern borther. Bruce agrees and gets to Argentina. But as soon as the plane lands, him and the crew are confronted by the Argentine National Gendarmerie. The gang members start a shoot out and they end up all killed or arrested. The gendarmes try to arrest Bruce (unaware of his real identity) but he knocks them out using what he had learned at El Salvador. He realizes he was becoming good at combat. For the next few months he hides at the Yungas forest until all is forgotten, planning his next move. Then he remembers about the Ferros. They were a wealthy argentine family who had done bussines with his father, and had become good friends. Maybe they could help him. He goes to the city of Jujuy and then hitchhikes to Buenos Aires, without any ID.

A Contact in Buenos Aires
When he reaches Buenos Aires, he makes contact with the Ferros, who agree to give him a hand. Shortly after, he contacts Alfred, since he had not done for a long time now. Sebastian and Gloria Ferro offer to help him get an argentine citizenship, but Bruce denies, claiming that he wants to remain "invisible".

Carolina Ferro
A few weeks after arriving, Bruce meets the Ferros' only daughter, Carolina. She was an extreme sports obsesive enthusiast and had also learned several fighting techniques throughout her life. They start a passionate affair, and she starts taking him sky diving, rock climbing, etc., all activities in which Bruce starts to prove to be naturally talented. Bruce also read and studied a lot during this period, specially looking for ways to deal with his pain. Eventually, after a year with her Bruce tries to end the affair as he finds out Carolina had had a fianceé all this time, but she replies that she had fallen in love with him.

Not knowing what to do, and chased by the memories of helping Cortez, Bruce joins the Salvation Army, after convincing a priest into doing so without documentation.

Exile in Africa
Bruce arrives al Liberia, bribing the customs agency for not having documentation. There, he helps the relief efforts, taking care of refugees and helping Doctor Rea, to whom he reveals to be Bruce Wayne, and helps perform operations without anesthesia. He has a romance with a nurse called Sara Timmonds for most of this period. Liberia was on a civil war since the last year. He travels to Monrovia every once in a while and gets a good look at the hardest and cruelest forms of criminality.

After two years of being there, a group of crooked government officials steal food supplies right from a refugee camp where he was working. Angered, feeling that had become common in Bruce in all these years, Bruce chases the small group of rebels through the jungle, and as soon as he finds them disarmed, he fights them and knocks them all out, breaking legs and hands, proving now to be an excellent fighter. The LURD soon finds them laying unconscious on the groud and takes them away. When Bruce returns to the refugee camp, he has a conversation with Rea about ways of dealing with his pain. The Doctor knew that he only helped him in his operations to know ways to endure physical pain, so he tells him about some faquirs in India who may be able to help him. The Second Liberian Civil War ends soon after and Bruce stows away in a cargo plane to Egypt.

In that country, Bruce makes no contacts or friends, and ends up living in the streets. At some point he feels forced to steal food in order not to starve. Due to this, he starts to lose many assumptions about right and wrong, as he explains later. A while later, he finds out about a smuggler's plane leaving for South Korea, and he asks for a job there. The crew didn´t mind him having no papers, instead they were surprised to have a white man aboard their ship, so they agreed to smuggle him. After a while, they smuggle Bruce into India.

Working Through Pain
Bruce arrives in Mumbai and requests a meeting with the faquirs who could help him. As he is being ignored, he turns to Arman, Doctor Rea´s contact in India, who gives him shelter and a job as a driver. Bruce keeps communicating with Alfred whenever he can. In the next months, Arman consults the faquirs seeking an audience with Bruce. But after four months, they say definitely "no". Arman then takes Bruce to the hermit girl Cassandra, who takes Bruce as her student, and starts teaching him about pain. Cast out of her community for disguising herself as a boy in an attempt to join a religious sect, Cassandra teaches him to minimize his pain to the point where he can control it, and she does so for over several months. One night, several young men harass Cassandra, who takes their blows without seeming to feel them. Bruce steps in to defend her, not only demonstrating his ability to withstand their attacks, but defeating them all with his martial arts skills. Cassandra then tells him to leave, saying that he has learned what he came to learn. She then comments on how Bruce's pain was beyond her, or possibly even his, ability to handle, but how it also appeared to be leading him down a path he desired.

The White Serpents
Bruce goes back to working with Arman, and starts hearing about a criminal gang called the "The White Serpents" who where originally from that area but were gaining international fame pulling jobs at Pakistan, Buthan, and Sri Lanka. He decides to find a way to infiltrate them, in order to keep trying to understand the criminal mind, in this case, of high profile thieves, and also turn them in (Bruce was decided, just like with Cortez, never to become one of them). Arman tells him of a man called Mohan, rumoured to be associated with the mob and the underground in India. He would know about the Serpents.

Bruce goes into a Mohan owned club, where he meets him and starts asking about the gang. When he exits, he is grabbed and taken to an alley by a group of men, who later reveal themselves as the ones he was looking for. Mistrusting the white man, believing him to be a policeman, the attack him but Bruce defeats them. He later explains them that he wanted to join them, that he knew several very profitable targets and he could help them become really rich.

In the next months, Bruce and the Serpents achieve flawless hits against two banks in Mumbai and a mansion in New Delhi. Made millions. But Bruce had one particular target in mind: A Wayne Enterprises warehouse in Buthan that held merchandise valued around 120 million dollars. The robbery is succesful, but Bruce secretly tips the local police, so they all get arrested after finishing the job. Mission accomplished.

Bruce is then taken to a prison in Buthan, were he keeps searching to fully understand criminals. He gets in a lot of fights, which he always wins, injuring severely other prisoners. One day, after a fight, he is taken to the dungeon, where he meets a man called Henry Ducard, who offers him "a path" to fight criminals, the path of a man called Ra's Al Ghul, the path of a secret vigilante group called The League of Shadows.

The League of Shadows
Bruce is freed from prison and heads into the Himalayas, towards the League's headquarters. He trains under Ducard with excellent performance. The things he learnt here would be the trigger to his trasformation into Batman. After completing his training Ra´s Al Ghul asks him for a final test: to behead a criminal. Bruce denies, arguin that compassion is the only thing that separates him from the criminals. He is later revealed that he is expected to be the leader of a massive attack to destroy Gotham. So, he confronts the League, leading to Ra's Al Ghul death (his decoy, actually), and the destruction of their headquarters. He saves Ducard's life and leaves him unconscious on a nearby town.

Return to Gotham
After seven years of wandering around the world, Bruce heads to Timbu and manages to contact Alfred, who picks him up in his private jet. In the flight back Bruce reveals to his butler and friend his plans for Gotham: to show the people that their city doesn't belong to the criminals and the corrupt, and that he would need to become a "symbol" to be unstoppable.