Sooo I was watching Gotham again. And this happened. I don't even know if this is going anywhere yet, but something in my brain wanted to sling these two at each other and see what happened. Also: for all those who said lovely lovely things about my Rocky Horror fic - THANK YOU. Proper replies when I'm at a proper computer, I promise. xx
Wayne Manor. The broken window gapes like the maw of some monstrous deep sea creature, unnatural, out of place, and definitely unwelcome. The inevitable rain patters in, the curtains flapping wetly in the unexpected wind.
It's dark inside. Too dark to see clearly.
But Alfred doesn't need to be able to see clearly to be dangerous. This is his lair that's been invaded, and he is the wolf. This is his home. He wears the manor like a skin. He often walks through it late at night after Bruce is in bed. In complete darkness, his hands outstretched to brush the surfaces, the walls, all the quirky little points that make it more than a showpiece house. All the things that make it almost alive.
If Jim Gordon is the city's guard dog, then Alfred is the manor's. It's more than a single sense that drives his movement: it's all of them, embodied in the feeling that runs through his nerves, his heart, down his arms, prickles the hairs on every limb and the back of his neck. Alfred is a very good butler, but he was a trained killer first. The silver tea service tends to put up less of a fight.
He doesn't even have to look as he takes the swing, and feels it connect. Only at the last moment does he harbour a faint, fleeting hope that it's young master Wayne, and pulls the blow a little, taking the sting out of it.
Immediately he knows it isn't Bruce. Too tall. Face too rough. There's a clatter as the shadowy figure reels from the blow, careening backwards into (the Edwardian sideboard) the furniture.
"Think you're so tough, don't'cha?" he growls. Intimidation is a key part of what makes Alfred dangerous too. All bark and no bite, people tend to think. They see the smart suit and the cufflinks and take him for some kind of mouthy pansy. So they push that little bit too far, and they poke what they see as the lapdog, and then the wolf rises up, shucks his vest and fancy clothes, and rips out their throats. "Well. Chose the wrong gaff to break into tonight, old son."
Speaking of vests and fancy clothes - whoever this is looks like he got scooped up, dragged through a hedge and run over by a truck on the way to the world's snobbiest party. He's got blood on him already, and Alfred knows that his pulled punch is hardly likely to have done more than bruised. Dark hair. Pale skin. All this Alfred glimpses in the dimness and the strobing watery light as the moon breaks cloud and outlines the flapping curtains and the jagged glass in silver.
The burglar chooses poorly again by making another lunge at Alfred. He's got no finesse. Obviously never been trained. Alfred dances back in his brogues, easily avoiding the blow. There's something disquieting about the ragged, almost fevered movements of the man. No training, but enough bile and fright combined to make this a formidable opponant should he ever manage to get his shit together enough to actually close with Alfred.
Best not to let him close, then. Alright. No problem with that. Alfred ducks and dodges and weaves, dukes up like he's sticking to Queensbury - though he really isn't, nobody ever won a fight by bouncing about like a six-year-old at beginner's ballroom dancing class - and the stranger never lands a blow. He flails. He lunges, he actually snarls in a terrified colouratura, but he doesn't make contact. Alfred can feel the panic oozing from him, the pain, and not for the first time wonders what the bloody hell this is all about, because it's going on too long to be a burglary and if it's an attempted abduction, it's the most amateur of jobs.
The moon brightens. The man staggers back into the window space, long enough for his outline to be completely visible. He's all gangly lines and wet spikes of hair, and he's got a nose so sharp you could use it to open bottles.
Oh.
Alfred is almost surprised enough to miss the blow when it comes. Almost. Not quite. He's a professional, after all. He ducks it, puts his head down like a bull, grabbing the Penguin around the breadth of his body, enveloping the slighter form with his own heavier torso, and squeezes. In an entirely unfriendly manner.
Oswald Cobblepot chokes like a fish out of water as his ribs are suddenly unable to expand. Alfred is doing nothing now except holding perfectly still, letting his own weight and Oswald's thrashing exhaust him. This close, he can smell the blood on him. Alfred knows the scent of blood very well. He holds, implacably, hissing gently through his teeth as his captive wastes the last of his strength on struggling. "Sssh, ssh, shh," he admonishes, and not in his nicest tone. "Ssh." And he squeezes just a tiny bit harder, tightening the muscles in his biceps to make sure of his grip.
"Now," he says, very close into one soaked and bloodied ear, when Oswald is starting to go limp from lack of oxygen. "I don't know what you're doing here, Mr Penguin, but back where I come from, the accepted thing to do when making a social call is to knock. At a door. Or ring the bell. We have both doors and bells here, mate." He relaxes his grip just a little, to make sure he isn't going to kill his prey. Oswald draws a whooping breath, rattling slightly.
"I'm going to put you down," Alfred continues, in what he knows is a calm and reasonable tone (it's actually very similar to the one he uses on Bruce when dropping him off at school) "and you're going to go right back out the way you came, toddle all the way to the gate or wherever the hell you got in, and then I'm not going to see you again unless one or the other of us is picking up the cheque for this window. Okay?"
He thinks the Penguin nods. So he lets go, and watches the man stagger, do everything possible not to fall to his knees. A rubber man, a lurching puppet with half the strings gone and the rest being pulled by a drunk. The body language is ruined, made unpredictable by pain.
So it's a complete surprise when the lurching figure manages to turn like a striking cobra, and is pressed back up against Alfred before Alfred's even really aware of what happened. Oswald's maddened eyes are intent, his nostrils flaring like a wild animal's, and he knots his fingers into Alfred's shirtfront.
"I want. Help," he hisses, chopping out the words before they get can cut off by further violence. Then he says, "James Gordon -"
And he drops. Hands still clutching at Alfred all the way down. Alred looks down in a mixture of surprise and annoyance at the white knuckles clasped into the expensive pinstripe at his knees.
"Bugger," he says, with feeling.