I honestly never thought I'd be a fan of Batman or even watch it, as a) I don't tend to read comics and b) I didn't think there'd be any way on Earth to justify a man dressing up as a giant bat. But it was free on HBO and whatduya know? It's awesome! So I really wanted to do a fic with Rachel and Bruce as kids and it sort of spiraled off from there. Also, just a side note, I don't think that the Waynes were bad parents. It might come across like that in the fic but I think that they do care for Bruce, but everyone has their bad days.
Oh, yeah. I don't own anything except the general story arc.
Thomas Wayne had gotten lucky for the first time in what felt like months.
He had, first of all, managed to score a trio of first-class seats for Mrs. Wayne's favorite opera, showing next weekend. Then he had gotten a call from Mr. McDunnan to say that the deal for the new Wayne Enterprises endeavor had gone well and that they had scored a shiny new contract. Then he had gotten to work to find that the hospital was full of seniors from Gotham University, all ready and anxious to test out their medical skills, and as a result Mr. Wayne had been let go early. The sun was shining, the birds were singing— it was a wonderful, perfect day.
Except.
Mr. Wayne couldn't help remembering the cataclysmic argument he had had with his only son that morning. That argument that had sent Bruce running off to the school bus long before it was scheduled to come just to get out of the house. It had been about something stupid, something small— but when you're a kid, don't the small things always seem like big things? Like finding a quarter on the sidewalk, or picking up a piece of flint shaped exactly like an arrowhead. Those things mattered to children while they were entirely overlook by adults. The argument had been about something… missing? Mr. Wayne couldn't remember. It had escalated so quickly and gone soaring off on such a dramatic ladder of tangents that he had lost track of its origin.
Mrs. Wayne had called him while he was driving to ask why on Earth Bruce was sitting out by the curb alone so early. Mr. Wayne, not at all believing she hadn't heard their raised voices or the sound of shattering china from the plate Bruce had knocked off the table, had reluctantly relayed the specifics of their argument. To which Mrs. Wayne had replied with an exasperated hm and a few pointed words of advice before hanging up.
Mr. Wayne pulled up to the gatehouse of Wayne Manor and waved at the guard, who let him in. He insisted on driving himself to work and back as opposed to having a designated driver. He would employ them for elegant evening parties, fundraisers, or special events, but his everyday commute simply wasn't worth the expense or flair. He brought the car to a stop in front of the grand, sweeping stone staircase and surrendered the keys to the staff member waiting. Despite how ostentatious Wayne Manor was for a family of three, Thomas loved the house and didn't particularly care what the media thought about it. It had been in his family for generations and would hopefully one day be Bruce's.
Bruce. Right. He had to find Bruce.
Not quite sure whether he was in the mind to apologize or scold his son, Mr. Wayne pushed through the front doors of the manor and handed his coat to Alfred, who stood waiting just inside although Mr. Wayne wasn't sure who had told him he had gotten off work early. Never missed a beat, that man.
"Would you care for a coffee, or perhaps something a little less strong, sir?" Alfred asked politely. The way that man talked— polite and acknowledging of his subservient position, but amiable at the same time. Mr. Wayne marveled at it sometimes.
"No thank you, Alfred. I was actually going to look for Bruce. Have you seen him?"
"Not since he came in from the bus, sir. Actually," Alfred added as Mr. Wayne started to leave, "I think he said something about meeting the young Miss Dawes, if that's any help, sir."
"Not particularly, Alfred, but thanks. Do you know where Martha is, by any chance?"
"Ah," Alfred said, smiling his knowing half-smile. "I do know, sir, that Mrs. Wayne is in the library at the moment."
"Thank you, Alfred," Mr. Wayne said, and hurried off toward the Southeast Wing, leaving Alfred to do whatever he did with the coats he was given. Because Mr. Wayne doubted he would be able to locate his son in a house the size of his, and Alfred was unaware of Bruce's whereabouts, he had to hope that his wife knew.
Mrs. Wayne was indeed in the library, sitting on her favorite couch with a new novel in her hands. She had removed the paper cover and the red lettering was too fine for Mr. Wayne to see what it was at this distance. She lowered the book, however, when her husband entered.
"Home early?" She asked, reaching up to kiss him.
"Med students at the hospital," Mr. Wayne supplied by way of explanation. "How did Alfred know I would be here when you didn't?"
"I think he stakes out the front door just in case," Mrs. Wayne smiled, knowing what her husband was referring to. "Have you thought about my advice?"
"Have you seen Bruce?" Mr. Wayne asked.
"Not since he came in. And he wasn't in the best of moods, either. He mumbled something about grabbing something from his room and then he was gone." She looked at him sternly. "Don't go up there and be hard on him, Thomas. Everyone has their bad days, you know."
"I won't be."
"Thomas—"
"Martha! I won't be! I just want to clear this up sooner rather than later." Mr. Wayne withdrew from the library at his wife's consent.
Bruce's bedroom was four doors down from their own master bedroom and while it was usually wide open, it was now shut tightly. Mr. Wayne refrained from barging through at the last second, and rapped lightly on the space below the beautifully painted blue 'B'. "Bruce?"
No response.
"Bruce? Kiddo, open the door. We should talk."
Nothing. Not even a muffled footstep from the room beyond.
"Bruce, I'm going to open the door if you don't open it for me. Please, I just want to talk about this morning." Mr. Wayne counted to fifteen before trying to door handle. It wasn't locked, which was a good sign. Mrs. Wayne absolutely forbade Bruce to lock his bedroom door, which wasn't to say that he didn't— he just did it when he was absolutely furious.
The room was empty. Vacant. Abandoned. There wasn't any sign of Bruce, and if the boy hadn't emptied the depths of his backpack onto his bedspread Mr. Wayne wouldn't have thought his son had even been in there. Aside from the mess on the bed, the room was spotless. Bruce hadn't been there long, then. The cleaners tidied the rooms during the day and Bruce ruined it during the thirty minutes he was conscious in it at night. The impeccable state of the desk and dresser connoted Bruce's absence.
Mr. Wayne withdrew with a sigh and shut the door behind him. Not in his room, then. Not in the library with Mrs. Wayne, and not anywhere Alfred had encountered him in the past hour since the school bus had dropped him off. That left only about 3/4 of the manor to search, and Mr. Wayne really wanted to settle the matter before they all convened for dinner and a potential fiasco into which his wife would be drawn and dessert would be lost. He would have to scour the manor himself, then.
After poking his head into his own bedroom to make sure that Bruce hadn't ventured in there for some reason, Mr. Wayne began systematically checking the rooms on either side of the hallway, ignoring those he doubted Bruce would bother with. Who would know where Bruce was, other than Alfred and Mrs. Wayne? He supposed he could ask Mrs. Dawes on the cleaning staff, whose daughter Rachel was Bruce's best friend. Maybe she had seen them go off somewhere.
As luck would have it, he ran right into Mrs. Dawes when he rounded the corner. She was dusting the elaborate banister at the top of the main staircase, wielding her feather duster with admirable efficiency.
"Mr. Wayne," she said, straightening up when her employer stopped next to her. She adjusted the apron around her waist. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"Maybe, Mrs. Dawes. I was wondering if you knew where Bruce went? I figured he would be with your daughter."
Mrs. Dawes gave the matter a considerable amount of thought. "They did go off somewhere. It might have been the attic, or maybe the kitchens. I can't remember what it was today, but knowing those two, they probably went for a snack. Is Bruce alright?"
"Yes, yes, he should be. I just wanted to speak with him. Thank you for your help, Mrs. Dawes." Mr. Wayne descended the staircase without waiting for Mrs. Dawes to respond.
The kitchens were on the basement floor of the manor, in the back corner of the house. The sloping ground half swallowed the back of the room but a small side door at the back of the sizable pantry led out onto the grounds. The kitchen wasn't as busy as it was when the Waynes were hosting a dinner or party, but two or three of the chefs hurried around, preparing the more time consuming parts of that night's dinner. There didn't appear to be anyone under four feet tall present, so Mr. Wayne resigned himself to having found simply another stepping stone on the path to his son.
He called over the head chef and asked him if he had seen Bruce recently.
"He and Rachel were here only about an hour ago, sir," the chef replied. "They had me pack up a snack for them and then they were off. Haven't seen them since."
"Pack up a snack?"
"Yes, in the old picnic basket. The wicker one. I didn't ask what they were doing, and they didn't give me any time to." The chef smiled. "They were mighty polite about it, though."
Leaving the chef to his work, Mr. Wayne found himself back in the main hall, unsure of where to go. He was spared making a blind decision by Alfred, who bustled elegantly through a side door next to the stairs. "Are you sure you don't know where Bruce went, Alfred?"
Alfred folded his hands and set his jaw, looking up at the vaulted ceiling in thought. "He might be in the attic if you had no luck in the library, sir. They like to do their homework up there. Him and Miss Dawes, that is."
Mr. Wayne supposed that it wasn't too unlikely that the kids had transported their snacks upstairs in a picnic basket. "The older Mrs. Dawes suggested the attic as well."
"Would you like any help searching, sir?"
"Another pair of eyes can't hurt."
Taking that as assent, Alfred hurried after Mr. Wayne as he climbed the staircase once again. Mrs. Dawes had finished and moved on, and they encountered no other members of the staff except for a maid on the third floor who hurried through the door to the laundry room at the sight of her employer and her overseer marching toward her. When they finally reached the drop-down ladder to the attic Alfred reached past Mr. Wayne to lower it, then stood back to let the younger man climb up first.
The attic was a lofty, drafty, and sunny space packed with boxes and trunks from generations past. Most of the attic was off limits or untouched, but the section from the hatch to the right wall was the designated 'Bruce and Rachel Area'. That space had been dusted and rearranged, a small carpet brought up and a few pillow tossed haphazardly down. A tin of colored pencils and a few stray pages sat abandoned on the floor under the window. There was no Bruce and no Rachel.
"One of the few reasons I wish I had a smaller house," Mr. Wayne remarked to Alfred as the butler climbed stiffly into the attic. "You can never find anyone. Or anything."
"My experience with smaller houses, sir, is that your things are just as hard to find, but then you have to dig for them." Alfred surveyed the room. "No young Master Bruce, then?"
"Apparently not," Mr. Wayne said, turning to descend the ladder. "Think, Alfred, where else would they have gone?"
"This was my best guess, sir. If I may suggest, perhaps Mrs. Wayne has another idea?"
They trekked back down the two flights of stairs and into the library again. A maid had opened the rest of the large windows and the warm late-May sunlight spilled over the rows and rows of shelves. Mrs. Wayne had not moved since her husband had seen her last, and her reaction to the two men this time was much the same as her previous reaction— a nonchalant and charismatic smile, and the lowering of her book.
"What'd he say?" She asked. "Hello Alfred," she added, seeing the butler behind her husband.
"We couldn't find Bruce," Mr. Wayne admitted.
"Did you check the attic?"
Mr. Wayne threw his hands in the air. "Was I the only one who didn't know he was always in the attic?"
"You're never home until dinner, honey, it couldn't be helped." Mrs. Wayne marked her page and stood up. "I'll help you look for him, if you want."
"I've already recruited Alfred, dear, don't trouble yourself," Mr. Wayne informed her. He really wanted to keep his wife out of their father-son argument as long as possible. She always rectified things with a few well-chosen words and later rebuked him for not doing what she had done. He wanted to handle this one on his own for a change.
"I could step out if you two wanted to look for young Master Bruce on your own," Alfred offered from the side, but Mrs. Wayne waved it away.
"Nonsense. We can all look together. Three heads are better than two, and you boys clearly haven't had any luck on your own."
Mr. Wayne almost mentioned something about three being a crowd, but decided that probably wouldn't go over well. He reluctantly accepted the fact that his wife would be accompanying them. "Should we split up to cover more ground?"
"Fantastic idea, sir," Alfred said, and with a small bow the butler took his leave of the parents, disappearing through the far doors toward the West Wing.
There was a moment's silence as the Waynes stood alone in the vast library.
"You don't think he's purposely hiding, do you?" Mr. Wayne asked suddenly.
"Because you yelled at him this morning?"
"Because we had a fight."
Mrs. Wayne shrugged. "Bruce isn't the kind to go off pouting to a corner, is he? I suppose he could be. I think it's more likely that he and Rachel have gone off looking for somewhere new to do their homework, and we just haven't found them yet. We could alert more of the staff and get others to search, if you—"
"I don't think that's necessary," Mr. Wayne said firmly. "How was he when he came in? Was he still angry?"
"I didn't see much of him. He didn't say much, and he didn't stay in the room long."
Mr. Wayne groaned. It sounded like Bruce was angry at him still. Quiet evasiveness was his son's normal way of showing something was wrong.
"What did you two argue about, anyway?" Asked Mrs. Wayne as the couple moved out of the library and up to the second floor.
"Oh, I don't remember," Mr. Wayne said exasperatedly. "It was something little and it got blown out of proportion so fast I lost track." He shut the door to the second floor main bathroom. "Not there."
"At the very least, he'll show up for dinner, or Rachel will come back and she can tell us," Mrs. Wayne reassured him confidently.
"I hope so."
The large grandfather clock at the end of the hallway showed that it was almost 4:30. A near half an hour of search had come up with nothing. Bruce hadn't returned to his room, or the kitchens, or run in to most of the staff, and those who had encountered him didn't have any constructive input as to his current location. In fact, the longer time wore on, the longer the gaps between people sighting Bruce and the present grew.
"Maybe they went outside," Mrs. Wayne suggested as they peeped into a guest bedroom on the first floor. "If they stayed in they would have run into someone by now, surely. Are you sure you don't remember what the argument was about?"
"I think it involved the boats," Mr. Wayne replied thoughtfully. The Waynes, in addition to owning a small, private lake, possessed a small collection of boats. Bruce was absolutely forbidden to take them out alone, a rule which the boy waged war against constantly.
The door at the end of the hall flew open and Alfred bustled in. "Master Wayne, Mrs. Wayne, I have found your son."
Mr. Wayne evaluated the butler's expression. It wasn't his usual serious mask, but instead the small smile he had when he found something amusing and didn't wish to show it. "Did you bring him?"
Alfred shifted, still smiling. "I, ah… couldn't reach him, sir."
"You couldn't reach him? Was he up too high? Did he climb something?"
"Not quite, sir," Alfred amended. "It is partially my fault. The children asked me if they could use the spare plastic water barrels for an arts and crafts project."
"What am I supposed to take away from that?"
"Shall we just say, sir, that the young Master Bruce appears to have inherited his father's ingenuity." Alfred adjusted his coat. "It's rather difficult to explain, Mr. Wayne, I think you had better come and see for yourself."
Bemused and slightly worried, Mr. Wayne trailed after Alfred this time, arm in arm with Mrs. Wayne, who looked far more anxious than her husband as to the welfare of her son. The butler led them out of the house, across the stone patio, down the garden path and across the gravel walkway that bisected the lawn. After they had been walking for a a few minutes Alfred paused, shielding his eyes against the afternoon sun and pointed in the direction of the small lake. "There they are, sir."
Mr. Wayne's ears were suddenly full of Mrs. Wayne's loving laughter, and second later a small craft drifted into the center of his vision. It was the most make-shift raft Mr. Wayne had ever seen— a platform of branches and sticks woven together with spare bits of rope, draped over with beach towels and held afloat by half a dozen empty plastic barrels lashed to the bottom. Sitting quite happily on top of the raft were Bruce and Rachel, dressed in swimwear and sitting hunched over the wicker picnic basket and supposedly the treats inside. Bruce's back was to his parents, but Mr. Wayne would have recognized the floppy mass of reddish brown hair anywhere.
Rachel spotted the three adults watching from the shore and waved, causing the craft to rock a bit on the still water, sending disruptive ripples out in concentric circles. Bruce craned his head around to see them.
Mr. Wayne's heart rose in his throat for a moment as Bruce did nothing.
Then his son sat up and waved enthusiastically, clearly smiling a mile wide, pleased of his and Rachel's work on their raft and delighted that they had gotten to see it in action. Mr. Wayne waved back, grinning. Bruce wasn't furious with him after all.
"His father's ingenuity, indeed," Alfred reiterated. "Would you like me to take out the smaller motorboat and retrieve them, sir?"
"Oh, let them stay," Mr. Wayne said.
"Would you like me to remain down here and keep an eye on them, sir?" Alfred offered.
"No, thank you, Alfred. Thank you for finding them, but I can take it from here."