Alfred had just gotten a job he'd been waiting months for when he cracked open the morning newspaper and saw that, in Gotham City, Thomas and Martha Wayne were looking to hire a butler.
"You're moving to Gotham?" his new boss said when Alfred handed him his keys and told him he'd have to pass on the job. "What the hell could possibly be in Gotham that's better than this gig? You can keep the keys. You're not going to make it out of that city alive."
What was better had been Thomas Wayne on the phone. The heir to the Wayne fortune, Gotham's king, humble doctor and benefactor in the face of Gotham's devastating economic depression, had asked him, "Do you know how to make a decent whiskey sour?" Then he'd laughed. "My wife, Martha, wants me to ask if you're good with kids or if you have any experience, you know, butlering, but it's my opinion that you can tell a lot about a man from how he can mix a drink."
Alfred agreed, and told him as much, told him about being in the military and learning to serve drinks there to his friends, men tired and sore after a long day in the field: that was the extent of his experience as a butler. Although he did know how to tie a bow tie. And an ascot, if pressed. "But to be honest with you, Mr. Wayne," Alfred said, "it's been a long time indeed since I've even had a whiskey sour, but I've been told my gin and tonics are a balm to the weary man's soul."
"Then that's good enough for me," said Wayne. "Why don't you come up to the manor and we can get to know each other before we make any decisions?" He'd paused. "By the way, are you any good with kids? We have a four-year-old here who's getting to be a bit too much for his parents."
-
As easygoing and down-to-earth as Thomas and Martha Wayne were, they were still both impeccably groomed and stylish, without a hair out of place. The first time Alfred met Bruce, on the other hand, Alfred had taken Martha up on her invitation to tour the gardens and was bending to pass underneath a tree branch when a war cry thundered through the peaceful quiet and someone leapt into Alfred's arms, expecting to be caught. Alfred was glad he still kept himself in shape as forty or so pounds of solid child landed on his hip.
"Bruce!" Martha said, horrified, but then her lips twitched and she snickered a little. She glanced apologetically at Alfred. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Pennyworth, he's just so energetic and we don't get many visitors here at the manor... Bruce!" She snapped her fingers. "Come here right now. Now you know you cannot be leaping out of trees at perfect strangers."
Bruce ran to his mother's side and wrapped himself around her leg.
"Perfectly all right, ma'am," said Alfred, and meant it. "If nothing else, I believe I can skip the free weights for tonight. Isn't that right, Master Bruce?"
Little hands squeezed Martha's leg, then Bruce peeked his head out. His face was solemn - he had narrowly avoided a smack from his mother - but his eyes twinkled at Alfred. His face was nearly a perfect miniature of his father's, skin and hair slightly darker and more so, Alfred imagined, in the winter, when the sun wasn't bleaching him. His eyes, though, were all his own. Alfred felt himself smiling back at the sneaky intelligence he saw in them.
"Well," said Martha, shaking her head, "now you know what you're getting yourself into."
-
He was on probation for six months; just precautionary, Thomas said, not expecting to have any trouble. Alfred agreed, until he got a call from back home that his mother had died. The next day he stood in the hall, fastening his tie for the funeral he would have to hurry to and lifting his overcoat from the entryway closet.
When he turned to go outside, Bruce was standing in front of the doorway. He stepped forward and tugged at Alfred's sleeve. "Don't go," he said.
"It's only for a little while, Master Bruce," Alfred said firmly, reaching around him for the handle.
"No!" Bruce hung onto his arm. "Take me with you," he said, looking up at Alfred with wide eyes.
It took five minutes of coaxing and cajoling just to get Bruce off his arm, and after that Alfred didn't even know where to start to convince Bruce to let him leave. "Let him go, Bruce," Thomas said, striding into the entryway and taking his son by the hand. "Alfred has to go and be somewhere where he's very needed right now, but he'll be back eventually. Okay?" Bruce held his father's hand and looked at Alfred mournfully.
"Much obliged, sir," Alfred said, putting on his hat.
Thomas nodded and held the door open for him. "Take care," he said. "And oh, Alfred."
Alfred paused on the last step of the porch, turning back to look back at the Manor. Thomas had his hand on Bruce's head and was stroking his hand through Bruce's fine dark hair. "Yes, sir?" he said.
"When you come back," Thomas said with a small smile, "I hope you won't be leaving again for a long time."
Alfred nodded, turned back around and opened the door of the cab that'd been called for him. A smile tugged at his own mouth.
-
On Bruce's first day of first grade, they all sat in the kitchen waiting for him to get home. Martha had baked cookies and Thomas had a pair of tickets to a ball game in hand. Alfred grinned. "The two of you look more nervous than Master Bruce did this morning."
They shrugged helplessly, then both started half out of their seats when the front door opened and shut. "Bruce?" Martha called. "We're in the kitchen, honey." Bruce's footsteps paused, started slowly towards them, then turned and hurried up the stairs. He shut his bedroom door very quietly (he had been trained out of slamming it when angry).
They looked at each other. "I'll go," Alfred said before Thomas or Martha could say anything. "I'm sure he doesn't want to disappoint you, that's all."
Upstairs, he knocked on Bruce's door. "Master Bruce?" he said. "Might I come in? I would very much appreciate it."
There was a long pause. Then: "No."
"Your favorite news show will be coming on soon. Shall I have to watch it by myself?"
Bruce didn't say anything.
Alfred sighed a long, drawn-out, put-upon sigh. "Very well, then," he said, sounding sorrowful. "I'll just have to go and see by myself whether you were correct or not about the county elections, and how much you'll win on that little bet we placed - "
"All right, all right!" Bruce flung open his door and pulled Alfred inside. He left Alfred standing in the middle of the room and went to sit on his bed, tugging at his baseball cap, and something about the self-conscious way he did it prickled at Alfred.
"Master Bruce," he said gently, "won't you take the cap off?"
Bruce sighed, scuffing his toes on the new Superman carpet he and his mother had picked out a few weeks ago. "Promise not to tell my parents," he muttered, taking the cap off, revealing a blooming black bruise on his right eye and another on his cheekbone. His lip was split down the middle and crusted with blood.
Alfred shook his head, suppressing a smile. Boys would be boys, he supposed, and Bruce had always had a bit of a temper. "Well, now," he said, "that's not so bad, is it? Here, let me at that lip, at least. Is it quite sore?"
Bruce stood still as Alfred doused a towel with some bottled water and dabbed at the blood. "No," he said, slapping Alfred's hand away when Alfred tried to probe the bruises. "But that does. Ow."
"And what prompted this, Master Bruce?"
"I didn't do anything."
"You just stood there and let somebody punch you, then? That's dreadful."
"No!" Bruce scowled. "I mean I didn't start it, Alfred."
"Well, I should certainly hope not," said Alfred, "but perhaps you ought to tell me what actually did happen so I won't keep getting confused."
Bruce looked down at his hands. "None of the other kids liked me," he said in a rush, "none of them. Everyone avoided me until the very end of class, and then some of them started making fun of me 'cause - you know - we're rich," he whispered, "and everybody else is having trouble with money, like Dad says, which is why I'm going to public school in the first place, because everyone is having such a hard time and it'd be wrong to send me to private school with the economy the way it is." That was almost a direct quote from Thomas. "But then one of them started making fun of Dad and saying he'd never worked a day in his life and Gotham City didn't need the Waynes and we should just get out, so - " He took a deep breath. "I lied. I kind of did start it. I hit him first."
His hair was falling into his eyes; he needed a haircut, even though he'd gotten one just a few weeks ago. Boys. Alfred felt a rush of affection. "Well, first of all," he said, "your father is a doctor and he works very hard, as I'm sure you know."
Bruce nodded quickly. "I know!"
"So they were wrong for saying that. And they were wrong for saying the Waynes should leave Gotham. Your family has done quite a bit of good for this city, and most people, you know, appreciate that very much. Your classmates are simply frustrated, and rightfully so. They could just as easily have been born a Wayne instead of you, but they weren't and you were. You are very lucky, Master Bruce." Alfred paused, carefully. "As you get older you may find many people who resent your wealth, but you shouldn't let that make you resentful. Instead you should try to live up to all the responsibilities that your wealth has given you, as your father and mother try to do."
Bruce just looked at him. "I know all that already, Alfred. But that doesn't mean I have to let people push me around, does it?"
"Certainly not. But perhaps you shouldn't use your fists to assert your independence."
"I know," Bruce said, biting his lip automatically, then wincing. "Are you going to tell my parents?"
"I am." Alfred pushed a stray brown lock out of Bruce's eyes. "But you have nothing to be ashamed of. You made a mistake, but that's all right, because next time you'll handle it better."
They sat for a while in companionable silence, Alfred stretching his legs out in front of him and Bruce swinging his, always the bundle of barely contained energy. Then Bruce jumped a little. "Oh! The news!" he exclaimed, reaching for the remote. "Read it and weep, Alfred. You're going to owe me twenty bucks."
"We'll see," said Alfred, hoping he wouldn't have to go to the bank later on.
-
The night before Bruce's eighth birthday party, Alfred was up late, insomniac and cleaning. He had just finished polishing Martha's hundred-old china set, left to her in her mother's will, when he heard Thomas come in through the back door and lean heavily against the wall for a moment before setting down his bag and stethoscope.
Alfred washed and dried his hands, tossing the rag into the laundry bin. "Long night, wasn't it, sir," he said.
Thomas startled. "Oh, Alfred," he said, rubbing the back of his hand over his eyes. "Yes. Yes, it was an extremely long night. Can I beg some coffee off of you?"
"I'll start a pot right now, although you know - "
"I know, I know, with the way you make it, I won't get to sleep until tomorrow night, after Bruce's run us all ragged." Thomas smiled tolerantly. "I'll take my chances, thanks."
While the coffee brewed, Thomas collapsed onto the couch, sighing every now and then. He was still in a pair of stained scrubs, which he only wore when he took a shift in the ER. Alfred brought him a cup of what was affectionately known as his black death and sat down on a chair across from him, crossing his legs and waiting for him to speak.
Thomas blew on the cup, his eyes far away. "I can't believe Bruce is about to turn eight," he said, finally. "Really does seem like just yesterday that I was - " He paused and smiled, shaking his head. "Holding him in my arms. It was a tough pregnancy for Martha. We'd been trying to have a kid for years." He looked up. "I've never asked if you had any children."
"No, sir," said Alfred, sipping from his own cup. "I never had any desire."
Thomas sighed and leaned forward, putting his head in his hands. "I worked on a little girl tonight," he said, voice muffled. "Her father turned on the stove and made her hold her face down on it. I tried, God knows I really did, but what am I supposed to - " He trailed off.
Alfred tried to think of what to say. He greatly admired Thomas Wayne, and partly why he admired him so much was because they had very little in common. Similar politics, maybe, in some respects, and a common interest in the greater good of Gotham, although Alfred would never burn for it like the Waynes did; they cooked in it in the womb and breathed it in every day once they were born. But Alfred wasn't a well-educated man, and his background, military, was as far from as Thomas's blue-blood upbringing as one could get. But, with an ease that came from not trying, Thomas never condescended or patronized, or acted like there were some things he just couldn't discuss with Alfred as equals. Thomas Wayne treated him like a friend, and Alfred had never felt so humbled to be considered someone's friend.
"Some men," he said, "do that sort of thing regardless of whether it's their own flesh and blood. And others think that having children will change them, and the truth is it just doesn't, point of fact."
Thomas pulled a face. "That's a terrifying thought."
"You were a good man before you had your son, Master Wayne," Alfred said. "And that's why you're an excellent father. You didn't have a child to validate yourself. You wanted to provide a loving family, and, my God." He snorted a little. "You've certainly done that. Why, that child is one of the happiest I've seen."
"I'm glad to hear that," Thomas said quietly. Then he smiled. "Are you trying to say Bruce is spoiled, Alfred?"
"Bruce is rather spoiled, sir. But not completely," Alfred said, grinning. "Stick him in the icebox for a while and he might keep from getting too overripe."
Thomas laughed and shook his head, sipping his coffee. "Well," he said, putting down his cup and running a hand through his hair, "you know what, I think I can manage to sleep even with all that black death seeping into my brain." He paused, then said, "Thank you."
"You are perfectly welcome, sir," Alfred said serenely, stirring what was left of the sleeping pills into his own coffee.
-
The funeral had taken nearly everything out of him; it took Alfred the last of his reserves to sit on the bed with Bruce until Bruce fell asleep, a frown etched into his forehead and his hands clutched tightly under his chin. Alfred splashed water over his face and blotted dry, hoping the new heaviness he felt in his face wasn't permanent. He felt grateful, at least, that he was too tired to think about the past few days, the call from the police, the ride to the station and then the awful ride back to the Wayne Manor with Bruce quaking next to him. And then the funeral, the awful hangers-on, corporate bastards, vulturous press. Alfred pressed his thumbs into his eyes. He had no idea what would happen next. Bruce had no immediate family; there was an aging cousin some two hundred miles west, but Martha always said she smelled like saltine crackers and thriftiness and didn't like kids, anyway. No grandparents, no aunts, no uncles. No kind benefactor sweeping in and offering him to take Bruce to a world of soft pastels and fairy tales where parents didn't die in a dirty alleyway in front of their only child.
For now, though, he was too tired to think about it. He put a cold cloth over his face and climbed on top of his bed, hoping to doze if not fall fully asleep.
Some time later - two minutes or two hours, he couldn't tell - the creak of his door opening woke Alfred with a jerk. He sat up and turned on his bedside lamp. Outside, it had begun to storm in earnest.
"Turn it off," Bruce whispered fiercely, freezing in the doorway.
Alfred clicked the light off, and Bruce's footsteps headed towards him, culminating in the bed dipping with his weight and both of Bruce's hands wrapping tight around Alfred's bicep. He shoved himself up against Alfred, putting his head on Alfred's shoulder. The rain pattered on the thin roof above Alfred's bedroom.
"Was there something you needed, Master Bruce?" Alfred murmured. The body next to his was silent; it had been a stupid question. Alfred patted Bruce's hand in wordless apology.
Then, out of the darkness, Bruce said, "Don't leave me, Alfred."
Alfred lay and thought about his response. He could lie; everyone thought it was okay to lie to children. They didn't understand, after all. Or he could be honest and tell Bruce that he was taking him to an orphanage, or perhaps leaving him with the Daweses, who could surely do a better job of raising a child than Alfred. Finally, he could say nothing, and not feel guilty later on about broken promises.
Instead, he put his hand on Bruce's head, stroking away the piece of hair that was always in his eyes, and said, "If that's the way you want it, Master Bruce, that's the way we'll do it."
-
"I'm sorry," Mrs. Dawes had told him. "I just can't in good conscience keep working here. It's distressing Rachel and honestly, Alfred, I really want to stay but - "
Alfred understood. Wayne Manor seemed darker these days than it ever had; the rooms certainly seemed much bigger and emptier, and little Rachel had begun having nightmares that she was lost in them. She had begun to dream, too, of being shot. He and Bruce gazed out the window of Bruce's room, watching Rachel and her mother pack their things into their car, Bruce with his hands pressed against the glass and breath fuming onto the window pane.
Alfred put his hand on Bruce's head. "Come along, young master," he said. "Let's go downstairs and say our goodbyes."
"I hate saying goodbye," Bruce muttered.
"Life is just a series of goodbyes, Master Bruce," Alfred said. "And the best way to get through it is to learn to say them graciously. Now come along." He gave Bruce's head a little nudge and walked toward the door.
"Alfred," Bruce said.
Alfred paused and turned to look at him. He refused to crumble at the sight of the young Wayne looking up at him with watering eyes and trembling lips pressed firmly together. Bruce's eyes looked bruised in his pale face; he hadn't been outside to play in months, another reason, probably, that the Daweses were leaving. "I know, Master Bruce," he said, holding out his hand. "But we can do it together."
Bruce ignored his hand as he brushed past him out of the room. Alfred suppressed a sigh and, closing the door, put his arm over Bruce's shoulders and walked with him down the grand staircase to where Rachel and her mother waited to say goodbye.
-
Alfred held Bruce's latest school report card in his hand. "You can do better than this," he said to the sullen pre-teen in front of him. "I've seen your aptitude tests, Master Bruce, and - don't look at me like that. This is your future, believe it or not."
"No, it's not." Bruce knew better than to express his rebellion by growing a green mohawk or getting pierced or tattooed; he rebelled with his face, giving Alfred the darkest of looks, the most heartlessly evil of looks, Alfred thought irrationally. "I'm a Wayne. I can get into any school I want to and you know it."
Alfred was taken aback for a moment. "That's not how a Wayne should act and you know it," he said after a pause. "No Wayne has ever deigned to rest on their laurels and let their name take them places."
"I'll do better," said Bruce, monotone. "Can I go now?"
"To do what?" Alfred said in disgust, "write tortured poetry?" But Bruce was already spinning on his heel and stalking off, every inch the dignified Wayne.
That night, Bruce came to his room, like he always did when he and Alfred fought. At night he turned back into the boy he'd been before grief and puberty had made him annoyingly, willfully stupid. Alfred held out the remote without a word and Bruce took it, switched on the television, turned to the news. He sat on a chair far from Alfred's bed, letting Alfred know silently that there was a rift between them, but Alfred told himself that he was here, at least. He was here.
-
Bruce received his acceptance letter from Princeton on his eighteenth birthday. Alfred had been right, but Bruce had been right, too; Bruce had kept his word and done better, but his grades weren't stellar and Princeton accepted him anyway, unable to resist the money smell. Alfred told Bruce that he was proud anyway, which he was. "What shall you major in?" he asked as they stood side by side in Bruce's room, packing the essentials. "Medicine?"
Amusement flickered in Bruce's eyes. "That's what Mr. Earle told me I should major in," he said sardonically. "I was thinking business management, instead."
"Don't be ridiculous. You've got no head for business, you never have. God knows you've got no head for money."
"I can learn. I can do anything I put my mind to, can't I, Alfred?"
Alfred pressed his lips together, and Bruce actually chuckled. He had finally grown into himself, Master Bruce had. Still a bit lanky, and his hair was a mess, but an adult stood next to Alfred and Alfred wasn't sure when Bruce had gotten so tall, when his eyes had gotten so dark, his jaw so hungry-looking.
"If you're quite finished with your fashionable sarcasm - "
"I'm not being fashionable." Bruce smiled. "I'm just taking after you."
Alfred pocketed that in his head to mull over later. Strange. Bruce had learned so many things from his parents, but Alfred had never thought about what Bruce had learned from him.
"You can take your time declaring a major," he told him. "There's no need to do anything right away. You have four years, after all."
Bruce folded his last pair of socks, tucked it into his suitcase, and zipped it shut. "I just want to get it over with," he said, face wiped clean of humor again. "Can you get that bag for me? No, the light one. I'll get these. Thanks."
"You are really being quite insulting today," Alfred said, getting one of the heavy ones. "You young pup."
"I just want you to be around when I come home for the holidays," Bruce said over his shoulder as they headed down the stairs.
A light drizzle started as they filled up the chauffeured car, which Bruce had insisted they hire someone else to drive ("too long a drive for you"). Alfred unfolded an umbrella and held it over Bruce's head as Bruce turned to face him. Suddenly awkward, Bruce looked at his feet, chewing his bottom lip. "Well," he muttered. "I'll see you at Christmas, I guess."
"Yes," Alfred said. "You shall. Do take care, Master Wayne."
Bruce smiled faintly at that. It would take time for him to get used to that address. "You, too, Alfred." He cleared his throat and opened the car door abruptly, sliding into the far side. Alfred shut the door after him and pounded on it, and the car engine roared to life, propelling the car slowly down the long path from Wayne Manor. Alfred watched it until it disappeared into fog, umbrella hanging at his side.
-
Occasionally, Alfred thought about moving and getting a different job. He was old, but not decrepit; he had intended for this to be his last job, but then, he had expected Thomas and Martha and Bruce to outlive him by many, many years. The mansion was terribly empty now. Cleaning it could fill his days if he wanted it to, but mostly Alfred didn't want it to. For a few years he spent most of his hours trying to find leads on Bruce, but if Bruce wasn't dead, he had disappeared completely, and Alfred finally gave up on Bruce's twenty-fifth birthday. He sat at the kitchen table all night and got shit-faced. The next morning he realized he could never do that again at his age.
For a while after that, he filled his time with going through the Waynes' personal effects. Martha had whole trunks of things she had brought over from her family, and the attic was practically a museum of Gotham and Wayne paraphernalia. In one corner was a family tree that Alfred suspected some curator would be willing to murder him for. Thomas had carefully wrapped it in plastic and leaned it against the driest wall in the mansion. Alfred dragged it out and hung it on the wall across from the dining room table, then realized that Master Bruce's name had never been added and dragged it back down again. Then he set it aside and forgot about it.
He started on Bruce's things, but stopped after going through a scrapbook Martha had been keeping for her son that ended abruptly at age eight, right after a glowing progress report from Bruce's teacher: he was such a gifted student, the teacher had written, so intelligent, and so well-liked by all the other students. His parents were doing a marvelous job with him. Alfred sighed, and got some brandy.
One day the phone rang while he was in the garden, tending the herb patches. It was Mr. Earle, the corporate vulture, who didn't return Alfred's cautious greeting. "I'm declaring Bruce dead," he said. "I thought you might want to know."
Alfred raised an eyebrow. "How thoughtful of you," he said dryly.
"The boy's been gone for more than five years now, Alfred. It's time for Wayne Enterprises to move on. And it's time for Gotham to move on. The Wayne family is finished," Earle said. "I just - "
Alfred hung up the phone. He'd always hated that bastard.
-
Alfred remembered the genealogy chart when he stumbled over it and nearly broke his ankle. After cursing it roundly for ten minutes, he laid it out on the table and debated how he should add Bruce's name. The other names were sewn in, but Alfred was shit at sewing, and to be honest he didn't want to ruin the thing's value.
The phone rang, and Alfred got up absently to answer it, half-looking at the thing over his shoulder. He picked up the phone on its eighth ring. "Wayne Manor," he said.
Static roared in his ear. Someone was talking, but it sounded like they were on the moon. "Speak up," Alfred said sharply. "And be quick about it, if this is an international call I'm not wasting money on it."
" - shake this thing." The static grew, then dissipated somewhat, and Alfred could finally hear someone shouting at him: "Home!"
"Come again?"
"Alfred," said Bruce Wayne, the static finally clearing. He sounded exasperated. "I said, I'm coming home."
"Oh. Well, then." Alfred felt the ground shake. Earthquake? he wondered, then realized that his knees were shaking. A goofy grin felt like it was splitting his face in two as he sank into a chair. "I assume you're broke and need a ride, then, Master Wayne," he said. "Where are you?"
"Well - funny you should ask."
-
Alfred was dozing in his room when a gentle knock woke him up. He sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and watched Bruce slip into his room, a hesitant smile on his face. "I was wondering if you wanted to watch the news," he said, holding up the remote to Alfred's television.
"I'm afraid it won't be very interesting," Alfred said. "The media misses having you around."
Bruce rolled his eyes. "I'll find something else, then." He didn't turn the television on, though. He sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at Alfred.
Alfred wondered what he saw. For his part, he was half-amazed, half-horrified at how much Bruce had changed: his face was whittled to practically nothing, wind-burnt, his nose peeling from the glare of the sun off white snow, and his skin was so pale it made his hair look several shades darker. He'd finally lost his lankiness, though. He moved like a tiger. He would have to, if he wanted to pull this crazy scheme off.
"You haven't changed much," said Bruce, eyes softening in his brittle face.
He was quite obviously lying, so Alfred returned the favor. "Neither have you, Master Wayne."
Bruce nodded. "Good. I don't want people asking too many questions."
"Well, if you ask me, sir, you don't look at all like you've been spending years stealing from your own company and training with a league of ninja in a secretive Buddhist kingdom."
"I detect sarcasm, Alfred."
"Yes, sir," Alfred said, flashing a grin. "Yes, you do."
It wasn't raining outside, although it perhaps should have been. Bruce stretched out on the bed next to Alfred and said quietly, "Let me stay?" He managed to make it a question, a statement and a plea all in one.
"Whatever you want, sir," Alfred said, and meant it. He would have to be dead not to recognize that Bruce had grown into a beautiful young man, even with skin peeling off his face, but what was most striking was that which was most familiar: his nose was his father's but his cheekbones, ah, Alfred had watched those appear over years and years, and that dark hair, a different color and consistency from his parents', would probably be even darker when he actually took a decent shower and got all the dust out of it. His fingernails were still chewed off. He'd have to stop that habit finally; God knew how often Alfred had tried to dissuade him from it.
Bruce reached over him to turn off the light. In the dark, Alfred heard the whisper of Bruce's shirt coming off and dropping onto the floor, and saw the dim outline of Bruce running a hand through his hair. Then Bruce leaned over him, eyes locking with his solemnly. Bruce held his gaze for several seconds; then he dropped it, lifting a hand to Alfred's and running it slowly up the length of Alfred's arm, ending with his hand hooking around Alfred's bicep.
"Okay?" he murmured.
Alfred's heart squeezed itself. "Are you?"
"Getting there." Bruce put his other hand to Alfred's face. "As long as you're not leaving."
"Someday, Master Wayne. But for right now, I am obviously here."
-
Shortly after the Waynes' murder, Alfred got up early, showered, dressed in a suit, and headed to his hearing in the Gotham court house. He'd hired the best lawyer that Wayne money could buy, so he leaned back in his chair and watched the proceedings, twiddling his thumbs a little when he got nervous.
When both cases rested, the judge asked him if he would like to say anything for himself. Alfred nodded, stood up, smoothed down the front of his vest. "I don't have much to say," he said, cracking a smile. "I just want to do what's best for the boy, as horribly cliched as that might sound."
"And why do you think it would be best for the child in question to stay with you?" asked the judge as Alfred was about to sit down.
Slowly, Alfred stood back up again. "Well," he said. "Ah, to be perfectly honest, I can't say that it would be. I've never particularly liked children, and I was certainly always happy before to stand by and let the Waynes handle their own son. I have no idea how this will all turn out. It's what the boy wants, but what's more important to me is what he needs. He's not a meal ticket, he's not some perfect fantasy child, he's just a boy who's going to have to make his own way now, and he needs to be with somebody who recognizes that, in my opinion."
The next day, Alfred packed Bruce up for his first day back to school. Bruce watched him somberly as Alfred buttoned up his cardigan and smoothed the front of his pants. "Alfred," he said, taking his lunch box when handed it and clenching it with a tight, white little fist, "will you be here when I get back?"
"I will, Master Bruce," Alfred said, walking him down the steps. "For as long as you want me."
-
Alfred was fixing eggs and French toast. "I can't eat that," said Bruce, appearing behind him in pajama bottoms and a white tee shirt, toweling his hair dry.
"Of course you can," Alfred said, depositing the food onto two plates. "It's good for you."
Bruce raised an eyebrow. "French toast is healthy now? Did I miss something?"
"I didn't say it was healthful, Master Wayne." Alfred sat down at the table and waited for Bruce to sit down, as well. "I just said it would be good for you to eat some French toast and eggs."
"Uh-huh," Bruce said, mouth twitching. He shook his head and speared a piece of toast with his fork. "Thanks, Alfred," he said, taking a small, tentative bite and closing his eyes for a second, tongue darting out to lick the corners of his lips.
"It's been too long since you've had my cooking, wouldn't you say?" Alfred said, settling back in his chair comfortably.
Bruce smirked. "Don't get too smug, or I'll have to make you try my cooking."
"Heaven forbid."
"Hey, I make a mean yak butter tea."
"Why couldn't you have gone to Paris for a few years, like any decent socialite?" Alfred asked with a wounded sigh.
Breakfast disappeared from Bruce's plate, and he leaned over to scrape the rest of Alfred's clean. "Well," he said, blotting his mouth on a napkin. "I guess eventually the press should find out that I'm back, huh."
"Eventually, sir," Alfred said. "It will give Gotham a lot of hope."
Bruce grimaced. "Maybe." He stood, running a hand through his hair absently. Alfred already recognized the far-away look his eyes could take on now, not like the one when he'd been younger and thinking about the alley way, his parents lying on the ground, but a new one that meant he was deep inside his head. It somewhat reminded Alfred of when his computer would get too busy and blink its little hourglass at him.
Then Bruce's hand pressed against his head jolted Alfred out of his thoughts, and he realized he'd been far away, too. "You'll be all right without me today, Alfred?" Bruce said quietly.
Alfred reached up to pat the hand. "I think I can manage, sir," he said, not mentioning what they both already knew, that he had spent many days alone and had gotten used to it.
Bruce squeezed his hand, then nodded briskly and walked out of the kitchen. Alfred stacked the dishes in the dishwasher, wiped down the table, and went back into the room where he was keeping the genealogy chart. He would send it someone, he decided, and have them put the young master's name on it. It wouldn't be complete otherwise, and years from now, whoever had this house - for it would probably not be a Wayne - would know that there had been such a person as Bruce Wayne.