It was a Sunday. Nobody was in the office except for Bruce. Why should they be? He wasn't a slave driver. He wouldn't be here himself if it weren't due to a certain sense of loss that he was feeling.
In a few short weeks, he'd lost everything and everybody who had surrounded him. Barbara, Maxine, the rest of the Justice League, and Clark. Who was, by rumor, still out there somewhere. Just not in his normal way.
He felt like he'd been floating through a dream for the past month or so. Just working. Not doing anything else. He hadn't donned the Batsuit in so long he wondered if he would be able to get into it again.
Always in the back of his mind, he had considered that he would someday be completely alone. It was entirely different, however, when it actually happened. Only Alfred was there to keep him company.
And Alfred had noticed, Bruce was sure, the melancholy of his boss. But he'd not said anything outright. Made a few hints here and there, of course. But had mostly just left Bruce to his own devices.
Bruce's devices were set on trying to find Clark. But it had been so long. So very long. And not a single trace of him was to be seen. Bruce clung to the idea that he was a statue and still in the city, and not taken away completely.
It was him who answered the phone that day. Mostly because there was nobody else to do it.