Author's Note: I've decided that I need to stop worrying if things sound perfect and just write. I'm caught in a loop of "I know everything that needs to happen, I just don't know how to get the characters there." It will itself unravel. :) Presenting chapter two. I love Alfred, and I don't own any DC comics content.
"I want to sleep…" Bruce silently fumed from beneath his plush duvet, groaning as he righted himself. He popped his neck and flexed his sore biceps as he faced the source of his sleep's disturbance. An aging butler dressed to the nines—as usual, Bruce noted, not a gray hair out of place—stood about three feet from the foot of the bed and looked at him stonily.
"Yes, Alfred?" Bruce asked in a tone he considered quite polite considering the unexpected early morning wake up call. Well, judging by the position of the shadows in his room, perhaps not early after all. But he'd been out until five o'clock that morning, Bruce reasoned internally, so he had a right to call it as it seemed.
"It is eight A.M.," the butler stated without the usage of his master's customary title, noting regretfully that Bruce sported a long bruise on his pectoral and rubbed it unconsciously. "The GA basketball rally starts in one hour." He folded his hands behind his back, and his tone—as well as his gaze—was unforgiving. "Dick is expecting you. Get out of bed."
"Ahhmmm," Bruce groaned, flopping over and burying his face in the down pillows yet again.
Yes, Alfred noted, more scars on display for your old butler to see. Some recent and others softened with time, Alfred wondered how much his old heart could take as he looked at what was once undamaged; noting Bruce's wounds, he still saw that innocent boy, his charge, who became man knowing little but pain and violence. He saw his every failure.
"That was today?" Bruce asked, unaware of the old man's plight. He turned his face slightly to the left that his voice might not be muffled. He clenched the muscles in his back as well as the pillow, knowing that the world would not just disappear but wishing that it could…just for a few more hours.
"Yes," Alfred said again, unwavering despite his sadness. "Get up."
Bruce rolled onto his back again and watched the shadows cast by the billowing drapes play across his ceiling. He had not been himself, but even awareness couldn't bring alteration to his behavior. Normally, Bruce Wayne—when they didn't interfere with the necessary protection of Gotham—cared more about being there for Dick's school functions. Normally, Bruce Wayne didn't forget his scheduled appointments. Normally, Bruce Wayne didn't need to sleep in. But the Batman didn't normally play cat and mouse with a common—abet talented—thief, so maybe there was something wrong inside his head—or, heaven forbid, his priorities—though its nature he would never admit, even to himself.
Before Bruce could do more than stir, Alfred interrupted his thoughts.
"Master Wayne," he said sternly and fervently, forsaking the use of his master's first name for a more serious command, "I will not let you neglect him any longer. Now, get out of bed."
"Neglect?" Bruce parroted, sitting up and blinking at Alfred disbelievingly.
"Yes, sir."
"What are you talking about?"
"I have kept my peace, but I'm sure you understand, even if you dare not think on it now, that Dick is, no matter how responsible, a child," Alfred stressed. Though Alfred had made his views known on a few previous occasions, Bruce still felt a pang of guilt at such a mention of Dick's youth.
"And as much as I disapproved of you bringing him into this mad web of nighttime vigilantism," Alfred continued, "as much as I begged you reconsider for his sake continuing in your nightly activity at all, I remained predominantly silent for all of these years as you trained the young master. I grew fond of him immediately and likened to him a sort of…a sort of grandson, if you will." Alfred's cheeks tinged pink ever so slightly and his words slowed as he broke eye contact and looked to the floor.
"I have been there when you couldn't be, and I would wish nothing less. I have…" He hesitated, clearly frustrated. "I have not been able…"
Bruce looked on, concerned and surprised, as his long time caregiver, perhaps for the first moment in his memory, appeared at a loss for words. But then the old military man was back, and Bruce again found himself looking into steel gray eyes.
"In a way," he said, "I have failed you. I've known it for quite some time.
Alfred paced back and forth. "I have tried to rectify my mistakes with the young master, and as much as it kills me to see him willingly waltzing down a path from which I tried so hard and failed so miserably to save you," here he gestured to Bruce, "—by your guidance, no less!—, though it occasionally tears my heart to pieces, as long as he was taken care of, I told myself that it didn't matter what path he was on." He halted his stride. "I would insure he was nurtured, attended to, and in every way I rightly could show him the senselessness of vengeance…" Alfred's eyes misted, but he blinked the tears away, rapidly composing himself.
"I have said more than I initially wished. Our priority is this; you are neglecting Master Dick. Though I see it as far wiser a decision, don't think that I don't notice you keeping the lad in now during nights unless his attendance on your crusade is absolutely necessary. Don't think that I don't notice you skipping evening dinners—a matter I thought we'd rectified some years ago?—to obsess over the identity of this "cat woman." Don't think I don't suspect what's happening here, Bruce." Alfred sighed. "I've kept it from Dick, but think of what is best not only for him, but for you.
"You are a father." Alfred threw a used towel lying on the foot of the bed over his shoulder. "And a lucky one at that." The old man walked toward the door, the object of his address still watching him speechlessly, now slightly open mouthed. He turned back to the man he considered his own son with his hand on the knob.
"The rally is in thirty minutes. Act like it."
