Alfred paced, he knew it was unseemingly, but it couldn't be helped. His boy was in trouble, yet again. How Alfred's heart handled this nonsense all these years was a miracle that even Alfred himself questioned at times.
Bruce had gone off radar and off-comms for almost two hours. Alfred called home the Batmobile while Oracle said she'd start looking around for him and they agreed they'd call in the others if they couldn't find Batman right away. Turns out, once the Batmobile pulled up, Bruce poured out of it like liquid mumbling something about the kids, ordering Alfred to call everybody home that he wanted to see them, wanted to make sure they were alright, and then he promptly passed out, hitting the floor hard. Alfred felt his heart jump, as he rushed over and told Oracle to send everyone to the batcave now.
That had been yesterday morning. They had contacted Dr. Thompkins immediately and she'd found…nothing. Nothing was wrong with Bruce's body, a couple of bruises at most, but nothing else. Not even a concussion to explain why he'd passed out and why he was still unconscious. He wasn't brain dead, the brain scans showed that he was in a sleep-like state. There was no sign of anything in his blood either. With nothing else to do, Jason and Dick bore most of the weight to get Bruce upstairs to his bed while Oracle contacted Zatanna.
Zatanna hadn't found anything wrong in the morning hours either. They were going to contact Doctor Fate as soon as he was back on world. This was worse than Bruce being poisoned or broken or lost in time, they had nothing. And nothing meant they didn't even know where to start to fix this.
"Alf?" Dick leaned in the door, "You okay?" Alfred could see the smile on the boy's face was strained, he was trying to very hard to keep his composure for the others.
"Yes, Master Dick." Alfred took a deep breath, forcing himself to get it together, Dick couldn't handle this alone. "I suppose since none of you are going to go to bed at the moment, I'll start some lunch." With that, he gave a squeeze to Dick's shoulder and headed to the kitchen.
"French toast would be nice." Dick said as he followed the butler.
"Was there anything weird while you guys were out?" Tim and Damian sat at the table, Tim trying to make some sort of time-line, ever the logical one, just like Bruce.
Damian shook his head, "No, nothing unusual."
"Was Bruce acting out of the ordinary?" Tim asked, while Dick sat down next to Damian.
Damian considered the question, Alfred could see the quick inventory the boy was doing in his mind, analyzing the night with Batman carefully. Another Bruce-like trait. "No, Father was at peak condition last night."
"Yeah, B was fine when he let Damian come off with me. I watched him break that drug dealer's arms with a little more force than necessary but he was selling to kids so…" Dick let the sentence trail off, it was normal for Batman to get more violent when it came to anything related to children.
"Yep, typical hypocrite." Jason said as he entered the kitchen, popping the 'p' on yep. Damian glared darkly, about to say something but Alfred presented French toast to the group of boys before things could get nasty. "Thanks Alfie!" Jason reached for the food, barely stopping himself from just grabbing when Alfred raised an eyebrow at him. "I need a plate…?"
"Yes." Alfred agreed, offering the boys plates.
"So whatever happened, must've happened when Bruce was on his own, right?" Stephanie asked as she came in with Cassandra and Barbara, "After Dick and Damian left him?" Alfred gave the girls plates as well.
"Must have." Barbara agreed, "He said he was going to do one last circle around before heading back here. He goes off comms between the pier and the butcher's quarters, his tracker even goes off." Barbara spoke, cutting up her French toast, "Could be something as simple as magnetic interference, the warehouses down in that area are sealed up tight against scanners and such. But there was a whole blackout in a 5-mile radius before B got there, which amplified to a 10-mile radius about 30 minuets after B went offline. Then at 3 am sharp, the blackout just disappeared. Its eerie."
"So 1 am, we all went to get ice cream," Dick began with a gesture to encompass everyone.
Jason put out his hands in a gesture of 'what gives', "And no one invited me?" He asked indignantly.
"I did too!" Dick instantly blustered, "You said you didn't want to be seen with us! But I did invite you! I even said you could have the ice cream with the peanut butter cups and I wouldn't even ask for a bite!"
"Eh-hem." Barbara rapped on the table with her knuckle, "Yes, 1 am, everybody gets ice cream except jerk-face who decided to get a chili dog from a shady vendor,"
"Everybody in that neighborhood is shady." Barbara sent a glare a Jason for his interruption, "I'm just saying."
"Just saying that you're an imbecile who's not offering anything of import to this conversation so silence yourself." Damian snapped.
"You know what, demon?" Jason growled. Alfred cleared his throat, giving Jason and Damian both a good look, which made them both sneer at each other but go quiet.
"1 am, Bruce goes off alone, 1:30 goes off comms, 2 the blackout amplifies, 3 the interference goes away and Alfred calls the Batmobile home which leads us to now." Barbara continues, loudly to prevent any more interruptions.
"What happened when B got home, Alfred?" Tim asked quietly, looking at the butler with his full attention. In fact all of the 'batkids' as the League lovingly referred to them had all gotten that sharp 'Bruce-like' expression on their faces as they looked at Alfred.
"He got out of the Batmobile," A gracious description of how he practically rolled out of the car, "He was very upset, asking after you all." Alfred had heard only a couple snippets of the mutterings, but he understood their content, "Then he passed out."
"Asking after us? He knew we were all getting ice cream. I invited him too." Dick said, sending a look at Jason who rolled his eyes.
"Yes, he was very worried. He said he wanted to see you all, that he wanted you back right then and there." Alfred remembered Bruce even asking specifically if anyone had seen Jason that night, or checked in on Barbara. The batkids shared a few looks, a couple letting out sighs.
"Well that gives us even more questions than answers." Tim murmured bleakly, pushing away his half-eaten French toast and sipping on his coffee, well what he had thought was coffee- Alfred had made him tea for his own good. He wrinkled his nose in distaste but kept drinking.
"I think you all need some rest." Alfred stated, making the kids blink owlishly at him, "Today preferably." This caused a tiny smirk to go around.