Welcome to Gotham, Kid

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Alfred's lips twitch as he tries to suppress a laugh. The 'very serious business man' beside him had tuckered out during the long plane ride, and is now slumped over the tray-table, face mushed flat against his 'very important business papers' that threaten to spill over the edge. It reminds Alfred of the countless nights he found Bruce in a similar state, passed out over a pile of school books. Alfred nudges his traveling companion, who grunts and turns away in reply.

Alfred rolls his eyes and gently shakes Bruce's shoulder. "Com'on now, Master Bruce, wake up. The plane's about to land."

Bruce shifts back toward the source of his irritation. He warily opens an eye, squinting up at his butler. Deciding he can tolerate a few more minutes of Alfred's pestering, he shuts his eye and buries his face back into his paperwork.

"For someone who claims to be a man, you certainly act like a stubborn teenager often enough to convince me otherwise," Alfred taunts, knowing Bruce won't be able to ignore him.

As always, Alfred is right. Bruce groans and sits up, a paper briefly sticking to his cheek before fluttering back down onto his table. Bruce ignores Alfred's poor attempts to stifle his laughter and stretches his cramped arms, cracking his neck and back in the process. "Where are we?" he asks, still slightly dazed from his nap.

His pilot's voice crackles loudly over the intercom, "Will everybody please put on their seatbelts? We're about to begin our descent into Gotham City." Alfred grins at the coincidence, but if Bruce is amused he doesn't show it. He turns to look through the window, the vast city sprawled out beyond his vision. As the buildings pass by he happens to notice his own faint reflection in window, the expression unreadable.

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"Get your nose out of those papers and come help me with these boxes!" Alfred calls, grunting as he lifts yet another large cardboard box from the moving van. He had discarded his jacket hours ago, now showing off sweat stains and lines of dirt and dust on his white shirt.

"I'll be right there, Alfred!" Bruce shouts back, not looking up from the papers in his lap. He's sitting on the sun-warmed stone steps of Wayne manor, an open box of dishes on his right and a glass of tap water on his left.

"If you don't want'a sleep on the floors tonight, you'll get down here now!" Alfred replies.

Bruce grins and puts his papers on the step, setting his drink on top to secure them from the wind. He jogs down the stairs to Alfred just in time to catch a precariously perched small box that was balanced on top of Alfred's stack.

"Good catch, Master Bruce," Alfred says, shifting the boxes in his arms, "I think the crockpot's in there."

"What ever would we do without that?" Bruce teases, spinning the box around so it's right-side-up.

"You'd have a shortage of Shepard's pie, that's for certain," Alfred replies, struggling under the weight of his packages.

"What a shame that would be," the young man muses, briefly considering dropping the box on purpose.

"Don't you dare," Alfred says, reading Bruce's mind. Bruce snickers and scoops up a few more boxes from the lawn, following Alfred up the stairs to the mansion.

Wayne manor had sat empty for nearly 10 years, collecting an impressive amount of dust and cobwebs during that time. Bruce had a cleaning crew go through most of the house a few days before their arrival, creating an unpleasant aroma of acrid cleaning products mixed with mildew in nearly every room. The furniture that was left behind had been dry-cleaned and/or polished, and the dirty white sheets that had covered them for a decade sit carelessly in the corners of each room. When they first arrived, Alfred had opened most of the ground floor windows and doors to flush out the pungent scents. As a result, the freshly washed curtains billow out at them, threatening to trip the two men and their stacks of cardboard boxes.

"Watch your step," Alfred says, shimmying through the narrow kitchen entrance, a sheer curtain whipping out against his face. He shakes his head in irritation and sets the boxes down on the expansive black granite countertop with a sigh of relief. Alfred takes a moment to glance around the large kitchen, trying not to be overwhelmed with the many memories he'd made within the room, but it's no use. Memories of frosting cookies with Bruce and Martha for the Wayne Family Christmas party, dancing on the table with Martha when sampling whiskeys with Thomas had gotten out of hand, and cleaning splattered cake off the stone walls on Bruce's second birthday flood back into the butler's mind. He leans against the counter to catch his breath.

A hand on his shoulder steadies him. "Alfred, are you okay?"

He looks up and smiles weakly at Bruce, whose eyes are wide with concern. "Yes, Master Bruce. The heat's just gettin' to my head, is all."

Bruce frowns. He knows Alfred isn't telling him the truth, but he also knows better than to disagree with him today. It's a difficult day for them both.

Truth be told, this day came much sooner than it should have. Thomas Wayne's official Will states that once Bruce receives his MBA he is eligible to take over as CEO of Wayne Enterprises. After his parent's death, and subsequently their murderer Mario Pepper's death, Alfred had swept Bruce across the sea, back to his home in London. There, at age 14, Bruce joined a highly-accelerated education program meant for preparing students for graduate school, focusing primarily on business. Bruce was intelligent, and fiercely determined, so he graduated the master's program at age 21 instead of 23 like the program promised him.

So here they are in Gotham, mere days after he had walked the stage and accepted his MBA diploma, neither of them truly prepared for the transition. Bruce had been determined to get to Gotham as soon as possible to finally take over his father's company, but failed to anticipate how truly painful it would be for him to walk back into his abandoned childhood home. Part of him became 12 again when he first walked through the door, wondering why the house was so quiet when his mother should have been home from the country club already.

Bruce ignores the sudden tightness in his throat and nods, accepting Alfred's lie. It's a difficult day for them both.

Alfred pushes off the counter and claps his hands together. "Right. Shall we continue on, then?"

Bruce checks his watch and is surprised to find out how late it is. "Perhaps a break for dinner would do us both some good," he suggests, peering out the window to see the lowering sun for himself as if his GPS-controlled wristwatch could be wrong.

"I could whip something up?" Alfred says, "But we'd 'ave to go to the store, I'm afraid."

Bruce is about to agree, but another look at Alfred changes his mind. His butler, despite his advanced age, usually has a spring-in-his-step and British-scented motivational speech in his back pocket. Tonight, however, the spring is gone and the motivation extinguished. He can see that Alfred is tired, and rightfully so. They can do errands later.

"I think some take-out food would suffice for tonight," Bruce says easily.

Alfred smiles gratefully, but it quickly turns into a scowl. "No company is going to deliver all the way out here though, and we can't take the moving van into the city."

Bruce frowns. "I wish our cars' transport hadn't been delayed," he says.

"Moving twenty cars is a hefty order, Master Bruce," Alfred replies with a grin.

Bruce shakes his head and returns the smile. "I suppose you're right." He spots the small pile of mail they had grabbed from the road earlier that day on the countertop, seeing a bill of coupons on top. He begins paging through it, suddenly stopping and jabbing his finger into the page. "Aha!" he exclaims triumphantly, pointing out the Gotham City Vehicle Rentals' 10% off discount coupon.

When the rental arrives ten minutes later, Alfred steps outside and almost trips over the open box of cookware Bruce had left on the top step. He frowns back at his employer, who cringes back apologetically, and then skootches the box to the side with his foot, nearly knocking Bruce's forgotten water glass over.

"Careful, Alfred!" Bruce says, quickly grabbing the glass and snatching the papers out from underneath it. He sets the cup back down and continues down the stairs, keeping the papers close against his chest.

"Ah-ah-ah. Just where do you think you're goin' with that?" Alfred tuts.

Bruce looks innocently between his papers and his butler. "Just a little light reading for the car ride."

"We won't be gone but a minute, Master Bruce, and you've had your nose in those papers all day," Alfred says, crossing his arms. "Lit'rally, during your nap on the plane," he adds with a smirk.

Bruce resists rolling his eyes as he turns to put his papers in the kitchen, away from Alfred and his needlessly concerned expression.

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Their rental rumbles down the street, sputtering to a halt at a red-light, and Alfred mutters under his breath about the quality of American-made cars. Bruce, however, feels strangely comfortable. After they had picked up their take-out, Alfred suggested going for a quick drive through town to see what had changed. Although he had initially felt some anxiety, Bruce found himself relaxing as they drove aimlessly through the city. Bright neon signs bathe the streets with strange colors. The car windows are cracked open, and the familiar scent of smoky hotdogs and wet newspaper floats through the car. Yes, they are in Gotham once again.

Alfred asks him to pass him his food, expertly maneuvering the clutch while opening a packed box of lo-mein in his lap. Bruce follows suit, and soon they're both enjoying dinner in the car, Bruce occasionally taking over the stick so Alfred can sneak a bite in.

Neither of the men particularly notice the sun's absence until a shrill cry for help echoes around them, snapping them both out of their pleasant haze. Alfred checks his watch and curses the rental company for not having a working clock in the vehicle, but Bruce is searching the surroundings for the source of the scream, twisting around both ways in his seat. He sees the tail-end of a person running into a poorly lit alleyway.

"Stop Alfred!" he demands, eyes wide. He unbuckles his seatbelt.

"Excuse me?"

"Stop the car!" Bruce repeats, roughly grabbing the wheel.

"What the hell're you doing?" Alfred shouts, pulling against Bruce and hitting the brakes.

Bruce flings open his door and jumps from the slowed vehicle, immediately running toward the alley. He hears the worn brakes squealing in protest and Alfred shouting furiously after him but he keeps running, knowing Alfred will quickly catch up.

"Hey!" he yells, stopping at the alley entrance. His voice echoes around him mockingly. No one is there. Bruce cautiously walks in, confused, as Alfred huffs up behind him.

"Are you bloody insane?" Alfred demands after seeing that no one else is there. "What the hell's the matter with you?"

"I saw someone," Bruce insists, walking further into the alley.

"That don't matter! You can't go runnin' off into danger-" Alfred's chastising is cut off by another pained scream, this time closer. Bruce is running deeper into the alleyway toward the sound before Alfred can say another word. The butler groans in frustration and takes off after Bruce, this time staying right on his master's heels. They turn the corner and are both visibly taken aback.

A dozen strangely dressed men and women are crowded around a small, cowering child, each holding a weapon stranger-looking than the last and laughing maniacally. Many of them have colorful hair, and all of them are wearing messy clown make-up. Spikes adorn almost every article of clothing.

"Get away from him!" Bruce shouts. He hopes he doesn't look afraid when they simultaneously whip around to look at him, every one of them with an unsettling, insane expression. Where their eyes should be white is instead an inky black color, making the pupil indistinguishable and the group look eerily unhuman.

With their attention diverted, the small child takes the opportunity to run through the legs of his attackers. Luckily, the adults are more interested in the weaponless men that interrupted them and he escapes down the alley. Bruce's relief at this is short-lived as the group begins advancing on them, whooping, yelling, and laughing.

"Fresh meat!" one cries out, a gurgling laugh escaping from its mouth. Another effortlessly swings his baseball bat against a metal trashcan, smashing a dent into the side with a loud crack.

Alfred and Bruce share similar saucer-eyed expressions as they slowly back away from the encroaching crowd, raised hands ready to react. Alfred peers over his shoulder and nearly rips Bruce's sleeve in an effort to get him to follow. They rip down the alley towards their car, only to see three more of the dark-eyed clowns standing at the end of the alleyway, blocking their path.

"Shit!" Bruce curses, coming to an abrupt stop. The villains smile back at him.

Alfred sighs, accepting that an escape from this fight is not an option. "I sit through a 10 hour flight and work in the hot sun all afternoon, only wanting a bit of dinner in return. But no! You had'ta pick a fight with a bunch of demonic clowns, didn'chya." He spots a few rotted two-by-fours leaning against a dumpster and grabs them, pushing one into Bruce's hands, who nods back gratefully. They hold up their crude weapons as the loud clownish humanoids surround them, barking and jeering at the pair.

"Can you consider it dinner and a show?" Bruce offers weakly.

"Not likely," the butler dryly responds. A particularly tall clown snaps at him, and Alfred lurches back. "Right then, are you ready?" Alfred asks, his back against Bruce's.

"Let's keep score," Bruce suggests, his eyes darting wildly between the attackers, head buzzing with adrenaline.

Laughing crazily, one of the more excited of the group strikes first. It steps forward and swings a metal pipe down toward Bruce's head. Unfortunately for it, the young man's extensive martial-arts training kicks in. He blocks the pipe with his two-by-four, easily kicking the villain in the stomach. It falls back, the wind knocked out of its lungs. The others roar, three charging in at a time. Alfred dodges a baseball bat, bringing his piece of lumber around to crack against the attacker's skull.

Bruce is ready when two charge at him, one with a spiked mace and another with a ragged-edged knife. He dodges the mace and slams the two-by-four down onto the knife, pulling it from the clown's grip. He bashes the knife wielder in the face with the edge of the lumber, avoiding another swing of the mace and countering by smashing his elbow into the attacker's nose. He drops his mace and staggers backward, hands flying up to cradle his face.

Alfred ducks under the swing of a spiked club and sweeps the legs of his attacker out from underneath her, causing her to fall with a thud. The one with the pipe goes to attack Bruce again. He blocks the attack with his lumber, but the knife severed the already weakened wood and the lumber splinters apart with the blow, the knife clattering to the ground. Bruce elbows the one with the pipe in the face, turning around just in time to throw half of the piece of wood at another who was running at Alfred. He throws it with enough force to cause the villain to loudly trip backwards into a reeking mound of garbage.

Alfred is busy avoiding a punch from one with a set of brass knuckles when he feels the unmistakable sting of a blade swish against his calf. He kicks the attacker away, turning around to throw the one with the brass knuckles over his shoulder onto the other with the dagger.

Bruce notices the blood immediately.

"Alfred!"

This small distraction is enough for one of the goons to grab hold of Bruce's shirt, swiftly punching Bruce's jaw with his large red boxing glove. The metallic taste of blood fills Bruce's mouth as he angrily uppercuts his attacker, sending him to the ground.

Bruce feels woozy from the blow, and his vision blurs in and out. He glances back at Alfred, who's valiantly defending himself despite the large gash on his calf, then feebly uses his last chunk of wood to block yet another attack. More clownish men and women are standing around them than had been before. Their numbers have nearly doubled. Bruce isn't sure how, if they wriggled out from the cracks in the walls or materialized in thin air, but he knows he's getting tired. His thoughts travel back to the abandoned take-out food in their car, almost wishing he had ignored the cry for help. Almost. His overdeveloped sense of justice would never allow him to do that. But if it did, he and Alfred would be happily full and on their way home instead of fighting a losing battle.

Suddenly an outlier of the group goes sprawling to the ground with a scream, having just been viciously kicked in the head by a stranger with stylish black combat boots.

"Hey freaks!" she shouts, "You forget whose territory you're on?"

The groups' attention snaps to the woman, a rise of panic quickly filling the air. Bruce and Alfred stare, equally surprised. While the woman is neither tall nor bulky, her posture and expression announce that she is not someone to be reckoned with.

Bruce is shocked as a wave of recognition hits him. He searches his memory for an answer but comes up blank.

One of the villains hisses behind Bruce, "What're you gonna do?"

The woman tugs a black handle situated on her belt and an impossibly long basilisk whip unravels onto the pavement. "What do you think?" she asks humorlessly, her hand tightening around the weapon's hilt. The crowd begins shouting insults back at the woman, who glares and readies her weapon. Bruce raises his fists and Alfred his lumber, expecting the worst to happen.

"Enough!" a deep voice roars.

A man drops soundlessly from the fire-escape above. Bruce can't believe he didn't notice him there. As he stands to his full height, the crowd of villains collectively begin to shout excitedly.

However, the expression on the man's face is anything but friendly. From under his hood he glowers at the clowns.

"Leave. NOW!"

Bruce and Alfred's attackers scramble to run away like a pack of wild dogs, pulling their wounded behind them and shrieking into the night. Bruce watches them run, feeling slightly defeated, and turns to address the newcomers.

"Thank you," he says loudly.

The man ignores him and the woman barely glances at him, but her eyes widen slightly when she does. It's a change that he wouldn't have noticed had he not been watching intently (and without blinking).

The tall man gestures at the woman to leave with a tilt of his head. Bruce sees now that he has coppery red hair underneath his hood, a handgun stuffed in his waistband, and a long, menacing katana slung across his back. The equally heavily-armed woman nods, her curly hair bobbing with her.

They turn to leave.

"Wait!"

Bruce isn't thinking when he dashes forward and grabs her gloved hand. She whips around to look at him, her lips curled back in disgust, and rips her fingers from his hold. He manages to stammer, "Forgive me, but I-"

"You must be new here," she interrupts, securing her hands on her hips.

Bruce straightens up. "I suppose I am," He says, staring at her intently. "Who were those…people?"

She studies him silently, their eyes dancing back and forth. "Doesn't matter," she says finally, "But word of the wise? Don't join fights you aren't apart of."

Something about her, the tone of her voice or her cold green eyes, screams familiarity to Bruce but he can't put his finger on it.

"Who are you?" He asks, completely bypassing her comments. She doesn't answer, but glares at him coldly, so icy a glare in fact, that a peculiar, uncomfortable feeling worms into Bruce's gut. He suppresses a shiver.

"Can we get going now?" her companion asks impatiently.

"Well… welcome to Gotham, kid," she says sarcastically, gesturing broadly to the depressing alleyway around them.

Bruce tilts his head, squinting at the woman. Kid. A memory tugs in the back of his mind, but he can't quite reach it.

She backs away and takes off down the alley. The man flashes Bruce an eerie smile before running after her. Bruce watches as they sprint down the alley, easily jumping up to a fire escape. He continues to stare long after they'd disappeared over the top of a building.

"Uh, Master Bruce?"

Bruce snaps back to reality. "Alfred! Is your leg okay?"

Alfred nods, but chucks the car keys to Bruce. At some point during the interaction, he had sunk down to the asphalt and tied his necktie around his calf. He looks pale, and his fingers and hands are coated in a generous amount of fresh blood. "Just a nick, really, but I wouldn't mind if you drove."

"Of course. Wait here," Bruce says quickly, clutching the bloodied keys in his hand, a small surge of panic rising in his throat. He runs back to the car and flings the driver's side door open, only to find that in Alfred's haste to stop, the take-out food had been tossed forward. Sticky noodles cover every inch of the dashboard.

"Alfred will love this," Bruce mutters, wincing from the overwhelming smell. Reluctantly he climbs in and starts the sputtering car.

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THANK YOU to everyone who decided to read! Lemme know what you think(;