Chapter Text
Perhaps galas were cursed. Not cursed cursed but doomed by its very nature, for they attract corruption like moths to flame.
It began like all galas did - obnoxiously bright flashes of paparazzi camera lights, people screeching and screaming his name like he was a celebrity when he was really just a rich white guy, the media hounding for answers to questions that really weren’t any of their business.
It was the same dull, mind-numbing gala until the security abruptly flipped around and pointed their guns at them. Bruce was never going to one of Erikson’s galas again. The man had terrible decor and a god awful voice. Bruce was pretty sure he was embezzling all the donations too. He didn’t even try very hard to hide it. Seriously. It was one thing if one person on the security team was a plant but all of them? That was just criminal negligence. For shame, Erikson, for shame. At least when Bruce’s security were career criminals, it was intentional.
It didn’t take too long for his kids to come save the day (night?) because of course they were monitoring the gala. The overprotective prats.
Bruce sat back from where he was crouched behind a pillar and watched the Bats and Birds of Gotham absolutely destroy these subpar robbers. Nightwing was doing too many flashy and unnecessary flips but they served well to distract the bad guys while his siblings took them down. Black Bat may have jumped from a chandelier, causing it to fall and shatter but it was an eyesore so Bruce didn’t fault her for that.
“Brucie,” Mrs Henderson gasped and grabbed at his jacket sleeve.
A thug had snuck up on them while Bruce was distracted and - shit, was that an alien gun? Why did low level gala crashers have an alien gun?
“Make- make them stop,” she stammered an order.
“What?” Bruce blinked stupidly and it wasn’t Brucie’s airheadedness that prompted it. No, it was genuine bafflement, not at all helped by his three all nighters. He knew he should have taken a nap like Alfred told him to but the ordered nap made him feel like a toddler so he stubbornly refused…like a toddler. There was just no winning.
“I said make them stop! You’re Brucie, they’ll listen to you.”
“You think I control the vigilantes?” Bruce asked slowly. This was slander. His children never listened to him.
“Not control,” - she scoffed and wow, rude - “but they’ll listen if Gotham’s son is in danger.”
“They’re a bit busy right now.” Bruce flashed her a rueful grin, hoping to disarm her. Not that she needed disarming in the first place. The robber seemed to entirely dismiss Bruce as a threat, only pointing a gun at him to make up for her slight figure. “I don’t think they’ll be able to hear me.”
“Perhaps you should just leave while you still can,” Mrs Henderson suggested.
It was not a very good idea to speak up when the person with the gun has forgotten your existence, Bruce thought. He wondered how she had managed to survive swimming with the Gotham sharks for over fifty years if she was like this. Though Bruce did remember her allowing him to hide under her table and play games when galas got too boring for his seven year old self. Mrs Henderson might have gotten by simply by being likeable. A high society pet just like Brucie.
“My brother is getting his snot beat and you want me to run?!” The thug seethed angrily and pointed her gun at Mrs Henderson and - oh no, this was not good - pulled the trigger.
Bruce jumped in front of Mrs Henderson in a panic and – crap, he just made eye contact with Tim.
Red Robin threw his bo-staff at the lady but it was too late.
“Brucie!” Mrs Henderson screeched in horror.
Bruce collapsed to the ground and whimpered. A cold numbing sensation was spreading throughout his body and as he fought to maintain consciousness, he could see Tim watching him with abject terror. Fuck.
Tim felt the blood drain from his face. Bruce was down on the ground, clutching his chest where he was shot, and making quiet keening sounds like a kicked puppy. He couldn’t see any blood but Bruce was visibly growing paler, his lips gaining a blue tinge.
He should have done something sooner. Tim had seen the masked lady with the strange gun standing in front of Bruce and Mrs Henderson but he mistakenly thought that Bruce would be fine. He was Batman after all. But Tim had forgotten. Bruce wasn’t Batman right now. He was Brucie and Brucie didn’t have Batman’s kevlar armour or his endless arsenal of tools.
He was Brucie and he had just been shot by an alien gun.
Tim ran up to where Bruce collapsed, arriving just in time to knock out his assailant once more and confiscated the alien gun responsible for this mess.
He looked around and, fuck, Nightwing and Black Bat had finished off the rest of the thugs and were watching them with unrelenting stares. Tim was glad that at least Damian was not here - he was patrolling downtown with Jason and Steph, while also giving Duke a lesson on night time patrols that he didn’t need. If Damian were here, Tim feared he would not be able to remain professional and expose their relationship with Bruce.
He heard Mrs Henderson gasp again.
“Brucie,” Mrs Henderson whispered and tenderly pillowed Bruce’s head on her lap.
Bruce was…small. His tailored suit draped over his diminished stature like a blanket and made him look so terribly tiny and fragile, like the slightest wind could blow him over.
For a moment, Tim stood stockstill, unsure what to do because his father - his larger than life father - had turned into a child.
Bright blue eyes fluttered open.
“Mrs Henderson…?” Bruce questioned, staring at the aged woman above him.
She was looking down on him with a combination of concern and relief and she looked like the Mrs Henderson that let him hide under the table during boring galas but that Mrs Henderson was in her thirties, unlike the grandma whose lap he was sleeping on. But this Mrs Henderson lookalike brushed at his cheek just like the younger Mrs Henderson did when he was crying because he had gotten separated from his parents and– his parents, oh god, his parents!
Bruce let out a sob, “Mrs Henderson, my parents– Mother and Father are gone. They’re dead.”
He heard a strangled sound behind him but Mrs Henderson’s face collapsed and she held him to his chest and gently rocked him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Brucie.”
“They’re gone,” Bruce cried. “I’ll never see them again.”
Mrs Henderson apologised over and over again but her words fell upon deaf ears because Bruce’s parents were dead. Shot in front of him like cattle. Bruce could still feel their cold sticky blood on his skin and under his nails.
Bruce clawed at Mrs Henderson’s dress through the oversized jacket he was wearing - it was not the cheap coat he remembered being draped over his shoulders by the only officer that spoke to him, who cared about him. “I want Alfred,” he sobbed. “Officer Gordon said Alfred would be here soon.”
Here as in the side of the road filled with patrol cars, not the tackily decorated ballroom Bruce now found himself in. It was odd to have changed locations without him realising it but it didn’t matter. Bruce just wanted Alfred.
While Bruce cried in Mrs Henderson’s arms, Tim looked back at Dick desperately for support. Dick looked heartbroken for Bruce but stayed hidden in the shadows with Cass. “I don’t want to overwhelm him,” he explained on the comms. “I called Alfred and he’ll be arriving soon. Could you tell him that for me? I’ll tell the others what’s going on.”
Tim nodded. Thank fuck Alfred insisted on driving Bruce to the gala tonight or they’ll be stuck with having to hear Bruce mournfully cry out for Alfred for the twenty minutes it would have taken him to drive to the gala.
“Bruce,” Tim said as he knelt down in front of the boy. “Alfred will arrive any moment now.”
Bruce was looking at Tim through tearful eyes, big droplets still clinging onto his long lashes. He looked positively miserable as he nodded in response to Tim’s reassurances.
A spike of panic shot through Tim as the tearworks restarted and Bruce ran out of Mrs Henderson’s arms but Bruce let out a choked “Alfred!” and jumped into their frenzied butler’s arms.
“They’re gone. They’re gone. They’re gone,” Tim could hear Bruce cry.
Alfred simply hugged Bruce tightly against his chest and rubbed his back up and down. “Oh, my boy. I’m here. I’m here now.”
Bruce was taken to the hospital after he cried himself to sleep. They would have preferred to take him back to the cave but unfortunately, Bruce was very publicly shot as Brucie so they couldn’t keep it on the downlow like they would have preferred. By the time Alfred returned home with the sleeping Bruce, the internet had already exploded with news of the de-aged Brucie.
The Waynes and Wayne adjacents quietly seethed at the buzz.
It had somehow gotten out that Bruce had regressed to the night of his parents’ murder and people were digging up articles from back then, gossiping about poor Brucie, experiencing the worst night of his life again. To make matters worse, the infamous photo of Bruce sitting on the curb resurfaced and was attached to every article speaking of Bruce’s current situation.
It was no secret that Bruce hated the photo. He despised that it was his legacy; to have been marked down in history as The Tragic Orphan Boy was an insult to his parents and the man he grew to become. Even at eighteen, twenty, whenever people spoke of him, it was the boy in the photo that they envisioned. Every article had the damn thing attached to it as if the world was staunchly refusing to let Bruce forget what he looked like at his most vulnerable.
When Brucie became more popular than the poor orphaned Wayne heir, the photo gradually faded from the public eye and finally, Bruce didn’t have to see the accursed thing every time he searched up his own name. Now though, with its resurgence, a new generation of people were introduced to the boy Bruce no longer was.
The only silver lining was that no one managed to snap a photo of the current eight year old Bruce. Knowing the media, they would have put the photos of the crying child side by side in a cruel game of spot the difference.
Dick put his phone down solemnly. Alfred was beside Bruce’s bed keeping watch so it was up to him to take the lead. He would have to be the one to attempt to channel his siblings’ anxious energy into something productive.
“Jason and Duke, you two take the gun Tim brought back to a green lantern to get it examined. Tim, call the PR department and see if they could do anything about the photo. Cass and Damian, help me clear the manor of anything dangerous that Bruce could potentially hurt himself on. Steph, ask Alfred for Bruce’s clothing size and buy him a set or two. You’re the least likely of us to get recognised.”
They all nodded in assent, grateful for something to do rather than wait for Bruce to wake up. They scattered to do their respective jobs and Dick quietly let out a breath to steady himself.
“Oracle, can you check where the gun originated from? Find out how such shitty thugs managed to just stumble upon a gun like that.”
“I’m looking into it,” Barbara replied.
“Alright.” Dick hung up and went to help Cass and Damian hide all the easily accessible knives lying around.
Richie Grayson-Wayne @flyinggrayson ✓
Thank you everyone for the kind words. Bruce is resting at the moment but he will be fine. We will not be answering any questions and I ask for your patience and to please respect our need for privacy during this moment of great distress 1/4
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Richie Grayson-Wayne @flyinggrayson ✓
I will also like to ask everyone to refrain from using Bruce’s photo from the incident. It was taken and published without Bruce’s permission when he was at his most vulnerable and for decades, when people spoke of him, it was that photo that they saw. He is not just that boy on the curb. He is more than that. 2/4
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Richie Grayson-Wayne @flyinggrayson ✓
I was lucky to have Bruce shield me from the same fate but I saw how much it bothered him to see that photo continue to haunt him even as an adult. It was a constant reminder of everything that happened that night and Bruce deserves to move on with his life. He is the man Gotham loves to laugh with. Don’t reduce him to one tragic photo 3/4
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Richie Grayson-Wayne @flyinggrayson ✓
If you really must use a photo of when Bruce was 8, please use a less triggering one. Perhaps one he consented to taking. Try using this instead :) [Photo of 8YO Bruce Wayne smiling shyly at the camera] 4/4