"Mr. Wayne, you have a visitor."
Bruce looked up from his prospectuses, his face dour, and bit back a snarky response. While it was technically Veronica's job to make sure that he was undisturbed between the hours of one and three, there were occasionally people with business important enough to warrant interrupting him. He hoped for her sake that this was one of those times.
Before he could so much as ask who it was, however, someone barged into the room. His finger was on the button for security in an instant – it wouldn't have been the first time someone had tricked or forced their way past his secretary in an attempt to kidnap him – but he recognized the intruder before he pressed it. "Alfred?!" he started. "What are you doing?"
"I'm terribly sorry, sir," the butler apologized as he shut the door. "Please, just trust me when I tell you that we are on limited time and need to leave this instant."
He blinked hard, trying to decide whether or not the person standing on the other side of the desk was a doppelganger of the man who had raised him. If it was, someone had done a damn good job of getting them ready; everything was exact, right down to the pale liver spots on the back of his calloused hands and the impeccable knot in his tie. Still, Alfred had never barged into his office in such a manner before, and it was hard to imagine that he ever would. "...Explain," he said finally, needing more information in order to decide if this was a trick or a real emergency.
The Englishman sighed. "You don't believe that I am me, I gather. Very well. Then let me assure you that the greatest sight to my eyes has always been candlelight and its reflection in a fine mirror."
The password phrase they had set up more than fifteen years earlier dispelled the last of the billionaire's hesitations. No one other than himself and Alfred knew what it was, or even that they had such a system set up. Given that, this had to be him. "I'll get my coat," he nodded, rising and striding to the closet.
"Leave it, Bruce," a hand closed around his elbow as he made to pass by. As soon as he'd stopped, it began to lead him towards the door. "Time truly is of the essence just now."
"Alfred-" he started, suspicion rising anew. The password had been spoken, but his gut told him that something was terribly wrong. When, he frowned, had he ever seen the man sweat so much in an air-conditioned building?
"When you were seven I sneaked your security blanket away from you while you slept so that it could be laundered," the butler cut him off. "The dryer tore it to shreds. You were utterly inconsolable, and frankly I don't know that you ever truly forgave me for the loss. It had little blue duckies on it, if you'll recall."
"...Alfred, I don't understand," he said, waving to a concerned-looking Veronica as they rushed past her desk and towards the elevator. The story was accurate, and only strengthened his opinion that this was a legitimate whisking from his office, but why the rush and fervor?
"Everything will be explained in the car, sir. This is not the proper venue for what needs to be said."
From that he deduced that the issue was JLA-related. Wonderful, he cursed as they descended towards the parking garage. Here I am an hour from home, and Batman's needed at the Watchtower. He gave himself a mental kick. So many times he had tried to figure out a way to build a secret chamber somewhere in the building, just large enough for a Batsuit and a Zeta extension. It always calculated out to be too dangerous to his identity, but moments like this made him wonder if the fate of the world might someday hang on his unwillingness to take the risk.
They stopped at street level instead of dropping to the subterranean parking. "Alfred-"
"I'm not exaggerating, Master Wayne. We must hurry. The garage would have taken time that we cannot afford."
His discomfort grew. As they stepped out onto the sidewalk, he searched the cars parked along the road. If he didn't recognize the plate number and the vehicle it was attached to, he determined, he wasn't getting into it without a fight. A second later, however, he spotted a match. "...Alfred..." What the hell is going on?!
"You'll find further confirmation of my identity along with your explanation inside," the butler replied as he opened the rear passenger door and held it for him.
There was nothing else he could do if he wanted answers, it seemed, and if this wasn't the real Alfred then he would hang up his cowl and call himself a hack. He dropped inside without another word, then jumped for the second time in ten minutes. "Clark?!"
"Hi, Bruce," the Kryptonian grimaced back.
"Master Damian, say hello to your father, please," Alfred bade as he slid in behind the wheel.
An unhappy grunt that might have been 'hey' sounded. Bruce gave a distracted reply, keeping his attention focused on the man beside him. "Clark, if this is JLA business that's important enough to interrupt me at work for, why are you here? Has someone targeted Gotham?" It was the best solution he could come up with. You can fly at supersonic speeds, but you're sitting in my car, he narrowed his eyes. You're the head of the League, but you're down here escorting me home instead of up above coordinating a counter-assault to whatever the threat is. Gotham being set up as a victim was the only possible explanation.
"Bruce..." Clark took a deep breath as they pulled away from the curb. "...You know the Big Seven meeting we had six, seven weeks ago?"
"If I was there, I remember it." He folded his arms. "Cut to the chase."
"Diana gave a report on some strange wave disturbances that had occurred over the last year or so at the meeting. She said they'd messed with communications satellites, GPS, even regular radio signals, but no one could figure out what they were or where they'd come from. Do you remember that?"
A bolt of fear shot through him. "...Yes. I remember. She came back a couple of weeks later and said that there were correlating earthquakes every time. We were supposed to watch it to determine if the disturbances were a result of the quakes, or vice versa." It had been bothering him ever since, knowing as he did that Dick and Tim would be near a geological hot zone on their hike. Lacking any evidence that the phenomenon was something more than a case of cutting-edge equipment picking up previously undetectable waves, he had kept the concern to himself. The boys had more than earned a vacation from all of their usual worries, and he'd been unwilling to weigh them down with baseless alarm. Now, though, he was beginning to regret his silence. "What of it?"
"...There's been another one. A...a big one." Clark paused. "A very big one."
The Kryptonian hadn't come all the way to Gotham just to tell him there had been another quake somewhere in the world, Bruce knew.Not even a monster quake would be enough to make him waste two hours or more playing escort. That went double if there were people in danger as a result of the temblor, which there likely were unless the event had occurred at the North Pole.He was missing something, and he had a horrible, gut-churning suspicion as to what it was. "Clark, what are you not telling me?" he breathed.
"It...it happened in the park the boys are hiking in," the other man told him gently, tears standing in his eyes. "Alfred showed me the map of their route before we came, and...it was right under them. They were standing right on top of it when it happened."
Steely talons tore into his heart. No. No, not my boys. Not my boys. No... He turned his head to the window, partially to keep Clark from seeing the wretched pain in his eyes and partially because he needed a neutral sight to steady himself. If he could wrestle down his wretched terror, he could act, and he had to act. "How long ago?" he managed.
"About two hours. I Zetaed to the cave as quick as I could after the news came over the wire. I wasn't sure about the boys until I talked to Alfred, but...I don't see how they-"
"Until I have bodies, they are alive," he snarled defensively before that awful sentence could be finished. "They are alive, and the JLA will operate as such until I say otherwise."
The Kryptonian opened his mouth as if to object, then closed it and simply nodded. "I thought you'd feel that way. But you need to understand the magnitude we're talking about here."
"No, you need to understand," he retorted. "I am not going stand by and begin mourning my sons when there might very well still be a chance to save them. If everyone else needs to focus on the cities that have been affected, fine, but I am going after my children. When they are safe, I will join in whatever clean-up efforts you need me to." I'll find them. I have to find them.
"...I meant you need to know what size the quake was."
...Oh. "Well quit beating around the bush and tell me, then!"
"It...it was almost a nine, Bruce. Almost a nine, and the epicenter can't have been more than a few miles from them. I know this isn't what you want to hear," his voice softened after a brief pause, "and I hope like hell that I'm wrong, but...how could anything survive that?"
He closed his eyes. A nine... The land itself wouldn't be the same after an event of that size. Even if they had made it through the quake, they would have to survive as civilians in a tangled, unmapped wilderness until he could get to them. When Clark had said it was big, he'd thought a six, maybe even a seven, but a nine...
"You can ask them when you see them," he choked out. "It's like I said before. Until I have bodies, they're alive." Looking up, he found Alfred's steady gaze waiting for him in the rear view mirror. Their eyes met, and the butler gave him a firm nod of agreement. I'm not giving up on them, goddamn it, he swore, his jaw tightening in determination in response to his back-up. They're together, at least, and that will go a long way. If anyone can survive something like this it's my boys, and I'm going to prove it. "...They're alive," he repeated stolidly.
They have to be. If they aren't...if they aren't, then I'm lost, too.