Chapter Text
Bruce opened his eyes to a pounding headache and throbbing body that spoke more towards a hangover than injury and didn't know where his children were.
Bruce's children were not here and he could not remember a threat, the immediate past was dangerously blurry, but he could taste the lingering panic that chased him even now and the bone deep need to find his children. Something had happened. Something dangerous. Something heartrending. He needed them, all of them, in his arms, proof they were alive and safe. It was a sickly fear splashed with the knowledge he failed, that he recognized.
From so many larger and small moments of death and fear and loss and breaking trust.
A sharp cry of alarm smothered into a groan as he sat up a blanket (a warm throw that looked like Tim's favorite but too fresh and unworn to be the one he'd worn like a cape around the cave when sick as a child and even now as an adult) falling around his waist. He sat up smoother than he had in years (no catch in his back, no lingering aches from too quick recoveries, no joints protesting his age taking him a little too soon), only to be sent spinning by a sudden vertigo and nausea. He braced himself on the arm rest of the chaise he'd been sprawled on, clumsily pushing through and stood feet hitting a bottle (The Macallan. His father's favorite. Bruce rarely touched what remained, the last time had been his first year with Tim.) on the ground.
"Kids?" Bruce called out, a croak that made him swallow through a dry throat and try again with as much volume as he could muster, stumbling slightly as he tried to move more quickly than his body wanted. He felt strangely ungainly, like a spring fawn testing new legs (no twinge in his knee from a stab wound the second year with Jason that had never quite went away).
He was in what Dick called the Peacock Room, due to the decorative embroidery in the blue fabric of the furniture and the patterns in the wallpaper Dick insisted were eyes. The other children had been quick to follow the eldest and the name had stuck. The windows let in an offensively soft dawn light. It had been his mother's favorite sitting room, for the light from those windows and Bruce had pleasant memories napping in the window sit while his mother planned her next charity event.
(That seat in the corner had been replaced when a Talon had broken it while trying to kill him.)
Bruce had avoided it for just that reason until it had become Dick's go to place to read during his quieter moments. Then he'd shared it with Jason during their early days and that was that. His other children were just as fond of it. Tim and Cassandra had taken turns napping in the window often with Alfred the Cat perching on one of them once he arrived. Dick liked to drape dramatically on the chaise lounge as he animatedly told stories to whatever sibling occupied the room. Damian had loved it for the natural light, retreating to sketch. Duke had liked to retreat here for a quiet moment to overlook the garden while he'd stayed with them and then sometimes during his visits.
They'd all liked to use it for their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns as well, eventually dragging him into whatever story Duke or Tim or Stephanie or, on one memorable occasion, Jason had constructed for the evening.
There was no sign his children had been here recently, the bookshelves untouched and no arts projects left on the tables or furniture to be returned to later.
(The books on the shelves didn't match his memory.
Gone was eclectic mix marking each of his children's contributions that had started with Dick's favorites.
The classics, romances and historical costume nonfiction for Jason. Gone.
The comics expanded from Jason's one dedicated favorite to a vast collection of Sci-Fi to match the new novels from Tim. Gone.
The detective novels that had purple and red bookmarks in competition dedicated to when the killer had been figured out for Tim and Steph. Gone.
A few Westerns and pulp novels that Tim had collected from Jean-Paul. Gone.
A plethora of fairytales and "classic" children stories Cassandra and Damian had enjoyed learning. Gone.
The Shakespeare dragged down from upstairs for Cassandra. Gone.
The manga that Damian has slowly started to add and carefully curated. Gone.
The poetry section Duke had almost singlehandedly built up. Gone.
They were all missing.
Even the shelf dedicated to their D&D books and family campaign notebooks and dice had been filled with ceramic birds his mother had loved that had long been moved to her old dresser.)
Bruce was not panicking but his unease only increased with the wrongness.
He needed to find his children.
He went unsteadily through the door, opening his mouth to callout again. "Kids?"
The manor responded back with uncomfortable silence. There was something cold, empty about it. With an unease that was steadily building to fear he found his balance and moved forward focusing for any sign of life.
The manor was wrong. Everything was wrong.
(Where were Tim's photos? Damian's paintings and sketches? Instead old paintings collected over generations and formal hung, where once his children's work had been proudly displayed.
The elevator lift, the railings along the wall, the lower shelving was gone. Doors narrower once more where they had once been carefully expanded or removed entirely in some areas. As if Barbara was no longer apart of the make up of the household.
The vase that Dick had destroyed running while teasing Jason about his first crush was back, looking all the more precariously balanced.
The burn in the perfect shape of a hand on the main stairs railing from when Duke had been testing out Tim's "taser gloves" in "stunning tag" was missing.
The rafters hadn't been reenforced for Cassandra's habit of stalking through them when things were too much and there were far too many chandeliers undestroyed by Dick.
The furniture and hangings were too immaculate without even a fresh coating of cat hair or scratch from play fighting children.
The delicate things were out and no longer carefully stored as if an eight year old boy hadn't once ran roughshod through the home and a menagerie of pets didn't currently.)
He zeroed in on the only trace of noise (so familiar, but wrong, wrong, wrong, long gone and an aching wound) in the kitchen.
He saw something he knew to be impossible.
(Oh no. Please yes.)
Alfred, coat hanging primly on the back of a chair, a familiar professional black apron on with white sleeves rolled up carefully to above his elbows. Prim and professional even while cooking, his hands kneading dough while something sizzled on a covered pan. He looked healthy. Younger by decades with hair more dark than white, skin firmer without the slight delicate thinness it had begun to acquire by the time Damian was truly a teenager. His hands were still strong enough to knead without the kneading machine Jason had bought him as a gift when they'd slowly began to work through their estrangement.
His almost father alive in his kitchen.
It was wonderful. It was awful. It meant something he couldn't bear to think of.
"Alfred, where are the children?"
For a moment, Bruce saw the words hit him as Alfred straightened and turned to face him, expression starting carefully calm until he saw Bruce.
Bruce couldn't control his expression, wasn't even sure what he was showing. The world felt too large suddenly and his skin burned with a knowledge he did not want.
"Oh, Master Bruce," Alfred said control cracking into something painful, soft, and rarely shown.
(He was so much younger.)
Bruce could no longer deny the realization he'd been avoiding.
There were no children. It was before he'd ever found them.
Something inside him cracked in turn and Alfred rushed forward with a strong hands on his shoulders before he even realized he was falling.
"Steady, steady," Alfred said, with a heavy grief to mirror Bruce's agony, breath catching out the trembling wail that kept trying to crawl up his throat.
(Gone.
Gone
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.)
"I'm here. I'm here, lad. I am so very sorry."