The abrupt way in which the visits ceased was jarring. One day, the vast grounds of the manor were a poplar gathering for all sorts of odd birds, and the next day Bruce went out to find none. The swish of wings and various calls he had become accustomed to hearing over the months turned to eerie silence.
He asked the staff if they noticed the change, and even they found it noteworthy. The gardener voiced his suspicions that the change was brought about by a predator moving into the ground to frighten them all off.
He noticed Alfred seemed wary, constantly casting his gaze out the windows as if looking for something. Eventuality he became antsy, smuggled a gun under he jacket, and pretended he was going for a walk to clear his head.
Bruce was not young and unobservant as he once was, so he noticed both the odd behavior and metal band of the butt of the handgun hiding under the material. He made it a point of going alone, instructing Bruce to finish up homework while he was out.
About an hour later there was the muffled sound of a shot far in the distance. No one besides Bruce seemed overly worried about that. The gardener only smiled at patted Bruce on the arm, "I bet he got 'im, whatever it was that scared away your birds."
Alfred did come back, limping, but otherwise unharmed. He told a story about stepping in a hole that Bruce did not believe for a single second. But he smiled, so relieved every time he looked at Bruce, like he felt considerably better.
"Does it hurt?" Bruce asked tentatively when he bent down to place the new ice pack around Alfred's knee.
Alfred grinned, still seeming lighter than he had in days, as if some of his worry was lifted, "Not in the slightest, my boy!"
"So-" Bruce backed up a few paces before he ran at Alfred, imitating the motions he would have used to jump in his lap; Alfred looked panicked as he hurried to put his hands up to catch the boys progress; however Bruce stopped himself before making any sort of contact, "-if I had jumped on your lap, that wouldn't have hurt, right?" Bruce asked innocently swaying his shoulders for added cuteness.
Alfred narrowed his eyes, unconvinced, and waged a finger, "You are a devious little bugger, you are! I don't know where you get it from! Olga must be a bad influence on you!"
"So it does hurt then?" Bruce prodded, smiling impishly.
Alfred snatched him by the arms pulling him onto the chair, proceeding to tickle him within an inch of his life until he was screaming for Olga to save him.
Olga did come to the door, frantic until she saw what the ruckus was about. Her look turned unimpressed as she muttered in her native tongue, rolling her eyes before walking away again, a dish towel and dripping cup still in her hand.
Regardless, Alfred routinely went on those walks of his, always with a gun tucked away somewhere. Sometimes there would be a shot, sometimes not; sometimes Alfred "fell" during his walks and limped home. Bruce was always just glad he made it back each time.
The birds, however, never really returned, not fully. The turtle dove visited once a week, but the rest were seemingly gone for good. Whatever had been haunting the woods must have been enough to keep them from wanting to venture near again.
That was confirmed fully when Bill, the gardener was found dead one morning on the grounds nearest to the forest line. One of the maids opening the curtains for the morning light saw him fist, shrieking loud enough to bring the entire house to her. Bruce had seen everything before the adults had noticed and ushered him away.
Bill's body had been battered, yes, but the most horrid thing about it had been his missing eyes. Bruce had never forgotten what the monster did, what he had seen happen that night. It was weeks before he slept again rather than sitting up in bed, a kitchen knife tucked under his pillow. The nightmares haunted him regardless of whether or not he closed his eyes.
Alfred found the knife once but did not take it away from him. Instead, he moved a bed into the room and slept there each night, lulling Bruce off with a story and the sense of being protected.
Though he never brought up their deaths, he would offer Bruce other outlets in regards to his parents. He began including stories about watching Thomas and Martha date and fall in love, or anecdotes about Thomas teaching Bruce how to throw a ball when he was three.
They always started something like; "Did I ever tell you about the time your dad set the table on fire when he tried to set up a romantic evening for your mum on their third anniversary?"
Bruce was almost more enamored with those stories, more grateful than he was for all the other, far more extraordinary ones. He learned a great deal, things he never knew before. Like how his father could not cook without burning something, or multiple things. Apparently, Martha was the one who hired Olga in order to keep her husband, an aspiring chef, out of the kitchen.
He felt closer to them when Alfred told those stories and sometimes it was enough to keep the dreams of them from turning quite so dark.
On the worst nights, when sleep was fitful to start with and ending in tears he tried to muffle in the pillow, Alfred quit his own bed to perch next to the young boy. Gentle hands soothed circles into his back and after some time, sleep would arrive once again.
Those mornings, Bruce woke to find Alfred bent up at strange angles, looking like he'd break something if he stayed in those positions much longer even if he was snoring like he was peaceful enough. Those days the man walked a little crooked, rubbing at his neck, cracking his spine when he thought no one would notice.
Extensive alarm systems were put in all over the mansion and that allowed Bruce enough peace of mind to tell Alfred he could sleep on his own. Even then, Alfred moved into the room next to his and he could not have adored the man more if he tried.
A year after the alarm systems were installed, Bruce came home to find Alfred sharing a drink with a man in a grey overcoat. His sandy hair was neat, brushed back much more smoothly than Bruce could get his own to behave most days. His voice was a low hum, calming and easy to listen to even if the words were unclear. When he saw him first, his tall body was folded into a leather chair in the drawing room.
The boy took care in sneaking closer to get a better look as there were few visitors to the mansion, though Bruce did think the man ordinary enough at a simple glance. He did not initially find a reason to be overly interested in an exchange beyond wanting to know the reason for anyone to come to them at the estate, particularly anyone that knew Alfred. After all, Alfred was a very interesting person and that would logically lead to interesting acquaintances.
The amber liquid swirled in the crystal tumbler as it was tilted back and forth, swirled round by the motion of a wrist and the motion entranced Bruce against his will. The hand attached to the wrist looked strong, almost dangerous, as if the blunted nails did not belong there. Slate blue eyes found Bruce's from the reflection in the huge bay windows and it made the boy jump. The eyes gleamed in the reflection, a trick of the sun making them too round and shiny.
Before Bruce could consider diving behind the sofa to pretend he had not been eavesdropping, the stranger stood and turned, facing him with a warm though mildly hesitant smile. He was rather classically handsome, a strong jaw and evenly spaced features accented by those magnetic eyes. He reminded the boy of Alfred to a point, though he seemed almost to have sharper edges.
"Bruce, I didn't think you'd be coming home quite yet." Alfred hedged, seemingly trying to draw attention from the visitor as he stepped closer to almost bodily block them.
"Practice was cancelled." Bruce explained, stepping to the side in order to see properly around Alfred, unable to look away from the new figure in the house.
"Oh, I see." Alfred said, already resigned to wait for whatever came next.
Looking into those eyes, something, the familiarity finally came into focus piece by fragmented piece. Bruce felt adrift, his mind racing and stalling at once. It took him a few moments too long to recall where he had seen the man before him. This man was, while still a stranger, no stranger at all. He was, to Bruce, by all right, his savior. He had been there when he had been cold, terrified, and alone. It was this man he had dreams about, guiding him away from the blood and death.
When he truly knew, he could hardly breathe, his chest too tight. "I know you." Bruce eked out, his voice strangled by the sudden influx of tears rushing unwanted to his eyes. "You - you were there-"
Bruce did not totally think before he acted, driven by memories and emotions he'd tried very hard to banish entirely. When his feet rushed him forward unbidden, his arms wrapped around the man's middle as he crushed his own face into a solid chest. Arms draped over the top of him in return, gentle, but firm enough to make Bruce feel safe the way they had that first meeting.
"I still have your coat." Bruce mumbled into the white button up shirt.
That made the man chuckle slightly, rubbing circles into the boy's back, "I'm sure you cared for it well, Bruce."
He tried to. At times, Bruce put it on again in the solitude of his room when he thought of that horrible night. It had become something of a security blanket to him with time, something he felt safer for having near him. It was a reminder, he supposed, that he survived. Perhaps it was also a reminder that even though there were monsters, there were also good people out there.
Bruce could not let go for another moment but he tried very hard to pull himself together once he stepped away and could not hide his face any longer, so he swiped fast at his eyes with a sleeve, "Would you like it returned now?"
The strong features of the man seemed very soft when he shook his head, resting a gentle hand on a small shoulder, "I'd appreciate it if you held onto it for a little longer. No doubt you keep it better than I do!"
Once the man had gone a few moments later, ruffling Bruce's hair on the way to the door, saying he would be by at a later date to check on him again, Alfred was rather mum.
He insisted the man never offered a name but Bruce felt certain it was a lie. The two men knew each other. They had an easy rapport, too much so for them to have only just met. Clearly there was some form of connection there. Bruce had never thought to wonder how the man knew where he lived or how to get him there. It seemed acceptable in his state of shock that adults, in his mind, at least at the time, knew everything. He never questioned the validity of that, possibly because he did not like to think of those events more than needed. But now that he had considered it, it was obvious that the man had to know more than a passing bit about the Wayne's. What his connection was, why he knew Bruce on sight without a name, why he could so easily drive him home, that was the mystery.
Bruce tried everything conceivable to entice the birds to return. Some of them did indeed come back but not nearly as many as there had once been. The birds he was really after did not darken the door.
The Grey Goshawk, Black Falcon, and the Cormorant never returned. On occasion, he thought he saw one or the other of them, but it was always from a considerable distance so he could hardly be sure. They never exactly let him get close.
Eventually, Bruce gave up his attempts and his hope of seeing them again. He did what he always did and put it from his mind to lessen the sting from another loss.
Over time, with the years drawn out, Bruce began to forget about the birds entirely, hardly thinking of them, save the dove that returned every month or so.
The science teacher at school told him the bird must have been born on the grounds and that was the reason it returned rather than any sort of attachment to Bruce; and that was only if it was the same bird, which was a tenuously accepted fact. They did not entertain his fancy of friendship with it. Wild animals, he was dutifully informed, were not like that.
People were not inclined to believe stories like that about animals, he learned.
He once tried to give account in a school report of the Cormorant that jumped in the pool to save him, but the teacher stopped him, reminding him that the report was supposed to be of a real event. It was not "creative writing class," she told him.
What he thought would be an interesting story to offer was more or less shunned, so far as he could tell, and he ended up telling them about Alfred instead. A few students did believe him, offering stories later, to him personally, about various animals that had done surprising things for their owners. Still, it seemed that birds were not generally in the habit of helping humans, particularly not wild birds.
Eventually, confronted with such disbelief, he further conceded ground in his own mind. Perhaps, he thought, he really had imagined all of it.
When he brought the matter to Lee, as he was still supposed to see her each month, she did have some thoughts. She told him that many children invented things to help them through hard times in their lives, and perhaps those birds had been something he used, embellished in his own mind, to use as a distraction. He supposed she might be right considering he had known they were a distraction even when he believed they could be magical birds. He began to wonder how much he honestly remembered and how much he invented thanks to Alfred's stories.
He never stopped Alfred from telling his stories, but he lost faith in their validity. He privately supposed it was equivalent to growing into an understanding that Santa was a creation of old stories and imagination, something of legend rather than reality. All children grew out of their unshakable belief in such tales so it was only natural for him to do so as well.
Alfred did not tell him stories about those monsters anymore and he thought it was likely a kindness, all things considered. He still told him things about his old school life, antics his friends had gotten up to.
Bruce began to wonder though, if he and Alfred both made things up in their own minds about their lives. The mind was a safe place, after all, if one wished to hide. He did not know the extent but with all the things he pieced together about Alfred, the man had lived through hard things, so perhaps, he too invented strange stories in order to get over it all.
It was not terribly long after Bruce's sixteenth birthday that things went wrong once again. So horribly, horribly wrong.
School had been perfectly normal until he got a call from Alfred. He knew instantly that something dire was happening, he could hear something in the background. Alfred insisted it was nothing but he was adamant Bruce not come home for the night. Of all things, he wanted him to stay the night with a friend or stop in at a hotel to relax and take a day off school.
When he arrived at the manor, it was to the flash of red and blue lights dancing over every surface visible. Swimming in terror, he bolted from the taxi before it even came to a full stop.
When he rushed through the door to his own house, Olga was there, racing to him. Her smile was too wide and too forced as she babbled at him in more English than he thought she knew. She told him they were going out shopping for new school clothes and they would return later. She ignored Bruce and his frantic inquires with selective hearing.
For a short woman, she was considerably stronger than she looked as she bodily dragged Bruce out of the house to head him right back to the cab he had neglected to pay.
"Olga, what's going on?" Bruce insisted to know, digging his heels into the gravel, "Where is Alfred? I need to speak with him immediately!"
"He be very busy, Mr Wayne! We come back later!" Her heavy accent was tainted by how cheery she was still trying to sound.
Some of the officers littering the grounds were watching him with great interest. Some looked particularly worried the longer he remained. One of them snatched up a bundle of folded cloth and headed for the biggest knot of people.
A long sheet fanned out when he shook it out, flapping it high before guiding it into the center of the crowd. Some of the more oblivious ones looked at their co-worker in surprise and annoyance before there were whispers exchanged frantically. More eyes turned to him and it caused some to part the circle just enough to give him a look at something he had not formerly seen.
The white sheet was spread out, newly draped over a suspiciously shaped heap on the ground not far from where Bill had been found. The smattering of crawling, growing red broke up the stark white of the linen.
The air was lost from Bruce's lungs when he saw the hand peaking from underneath. It should not have been enough to identify anyone, but Bruce knew that hand. He's grown up holding it, being swung about by it, recounting stories while those fingers held up pictures.
"No." Bruce wheeze, turning to Olga with wide, pleading eyes, "It's not!" He told her, watching the water well up in her big eyes and her chin wobble.
"Bruce, sweety-" She cupped his face in her hands, holding him there to keep him from looking again.
"No," he heaved out a breath, gasping to take in more air, not seeming to get enough, "No, no, no!"
The tears spilled from her eyes and Bruce broke with them. The world became a blur, his body disconnected, unmanned like a ship cut from her sails. He had no idea what happened after that, no idea what happened for days after either. Bruce only knew he came back to himself days later, maybe a week later. He did not know or care about time. He suppose he had been asleep, in a sense, with only a jumbled bit of memory of lucidity here and there.
Bruce was in a hospital bed, connected to monitors that beeped irritatingly. Olga was sitting on one side of him and Lee was on his other side, holding his hand.
A man in a top hat was beside her, mustache curling as he smiled indulgently at Bruce, "There he is! Welcome back, Bruce! We lost you for a bit there, didn't we? But everything is going to be fine."
The stranger's voice was airy, soothing, and made it so tempting to close his eyes. Olga sighed in relief, petting Bruce like she would a cat as she teared up again, mumbling what sounded like pet names in Russian.
"Who is he?" Bruce spoke past the odd feeling of being surrounded by water, voice dry and scratchy from disuse.
"My name is Jervis, Bruce." He spoke sweetly, a sugary, kindergarten teacher quality to his voice.
"He... helped you-" Lee hesitated, seeming to waver over wording, "- get past your block."
"Is fine now." Olga patted Bruce soundly on the shoulder, "He is fine now. We go home."
Lee dithered, "Olga, I'm not sure that's-"
"We go home." She said again with more finality.
N:Alfreeeeeeed, I'm sad, I hate myself! Why did I hurt him?! I blame the show, they hurt him first and now I've got it in my brain.
But next chapter finally gets us to time loops! And we get to all the other characters too