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STORY BUNNY: I've been thinking a lot over the last decade about how stories are 'okay' when taken at one level but become horrible when taken another. Mostly about how when Harry Potter is at a 'kiddy story' level, the Dursleys really aren't people. They are merely a plot device. However, that level of acceptance becomes wrong when the story becomes a YA one. Now we can't ignore their crimes.

Likewise, when Batman was all" Biff! Pow! Holy Cheese Whiz Batman!" we could ignore that at a fundamental level that the Batman is truly a horrific character. One who continues to do terrible things the more dark and gritty the writers make their stories.

Yet evil is rarely innate. It has to be nurtured. We have seen ad nauseum the scene where Bruce Wayne loses his parents. Yet he was a child. He wasn't the master of his destiny. So how did a Bruce go from being a traumatized to becoming The Batman? Because there is an element we ignore. A very critical element.

This story is set in a generic sort of DC Universe where Batman has been so for awhile even as it uses elements from the film, Batman Begins.

COOKED IN HELL

PITHY STATEMENT RELATING TO THIS CHAPTER: "Revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell." (The Heart of Mid-Lothian) – Walter Scott – Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright, and – 1771 - 1832

LAST UPDATED ON: 06-16-2021

WAYNE MANOR, GOTHAM CITY, USA – AUGUST 16th, 2012 – EVENING

Princess Diana beamed into existence. A quick glance showed what she expected. The Batcave was in low power mode with only a few lights blinking on one of the computers. Other than Clark, Diana knew she was the only one to have such access. Yet even then she had to have Kelex, the Kryptonian robotic major-domo in the Fortress of Solitude, work it such that there was no alarm or indication she'd transported in from the Watchtower.

Diana shook her head at that. All the knowledge and technology Clark had due to his Kryptonian heritage and yet the League had almost exclusively used Wayne Tech. From almost the very beginning, they had allowed the Batman to get their hooks into them.

She slowly moved through the Batcave towards an area where various Batsuits were kept in glass enclosures. Yet it wasn't Bruce's suits which drew her eye. It was the older ones, the one's for The Boy Wonder which caused her beautiful features to grow cold.

"Never again!" She swore to herself.

She made her way up the long stairwell. She quietly opened the door hidden behind the clock in the study. Within moments, the gifts the goddess Artemis had imbued her with made it clear where her prey was. For she was hunting. Hunting for answers. Hunting for justice.

Not surprisingly, Diana found him in the kitchen. He was at the table with a cup of tea. Only a raised eyebrow betrayed his surprise at seeing her. Diana just looked at him. Thinking of the many times she had sat at this very table with Bruce. Talking with him (and quite often Clark as well) while the man had glided in, serving them and then fading away. The quiet comments. The little playfully sarcastic digs at Master Bruce.

An irreverent thought popped into Diana's head. It seems it had been the butler all along.

The man began to rise but Diana waved him back to his seat. "Don't get up. I'm neither thirsty nor hungry. I'm here to talk. There has been an…incident."

Again a quick burst of emotion quickly smothered crossed Alfred Pennyworth's face. "My word! Is Master Bruce alright? There hasn't been any alerts."

Diana marveled at the man. How had they missed this? All these years and it was staring at them all along. No, that wasn't right. He had been behind them all along. The butler with his tray of tea and biscuits. Always there to step up to help and then fade back out of sight. Yet he had been there all along.

Diana rested her elbows on the table and her chin on her clasped hands. She stared at the man she'd taken for granted for many years. She was not just an Amazon princess, heir to the throne of Themyscira. Diana was the avatar of the Olympians and graced with a fraction of their powers. Yet this man had escaped the notice of the wisdom of Athena and the tracking of Artemis. Yet now, with all of her senses, she finally began to feel a stirring from the unlikeliest of sources. That of Aphrodite.

Interesting. Then again, some of the worst crimes came about due to love…or love lost.

Still, the man sitting across from her wasn't the only one who could play a part. "There were no alerts due the actions of Livewire. According to Bruce, she shorted out the Batmobile in a surprise attack. He was able to manually reset enough to get it operational but couldn't link back up with the computers in the Batcave."

"Oh dear. That will be a frightful bother to resynch," Alfred muttered .

Diana had to marvel at the role the man played to the point where she wondered if he knew where the role ended and the real man began? "As I'm sure you know, the Joker broke out of Arkham a while back. At that time, I had asked Bruce what he felt the Joker would do. He simply said it would be something insanely over the top but he would stop it." Diana looked away and focused on a small, framed photo under the shelves by the toaster. A picture of Bruce and Dick on the grounds taken after Dick had only been Robin for a short time. She turned back to Alfred, "But this time it was different. There had been rumors that the Joker hadn't taken Harley Quinn leaving him well. That he'd been raging he hadn't really loved her. That he'd show that everyone uses people to further their own ends."

Now that she was focused, Diana easily saw the flicker of something in Alfred's eye. Remorse? Guilt? Fear?

"So instead of some death trap in an abandoned factory, Joke set up various villains up to keep Bruce busy so he could capture the people he was going to use to make a point."

The color drained a bit out of Pennyworth's face, "Oh dear god! Is Barbara…"

Diana cut him off, "She wasn't taken. It seems that the Joker, consciously or not, didn't want to draw attention to the fact he's done this sick ploy to justify his behavior before. This time, however, it wasn't Jim Gordan that was the target. This time he went all in on something Bruce always says he doesn't have."

Alfred looked confused, "That being?"

Diana sighed, "Friends. Maybe a family. For a man who constantly plays the sad, orphan card, Bruce keeps a lot of people around him for such a self-professed loner. So while Batman battled the likes of Livewire, Mirror Master, Count Vertigo and Two-Face, Joker set up his finale. He taunted Bruce via a stolen Bat-Communicator about what he was planning to do. However, Bruce was in Blüdhaven by the time he'd finally beaten Joker's last patsy. He had to race into Gotham to fight the Joker. This did not go well."

Alfred's lips pursed into a thin line, "Nothing goes well in regard to the Clown Prince of Crime."

The table creaked dangerously as Diana slammed a fist down, "He isn't a criminal. He is a psychotic killer. That's part of the problem. But I get ahead of myself. So Bruce shows up is promptly captured. After he escapes as only the Batman can, he gets into a fight with the Joker. If by a fight I mean went into a blinding rage and almost killed him."

Alfred frowned, "I am sorry to say I have little pity for such as he." His frown deepened, "Yet Master Bruce rarely loses control. What happened? It must have been dreadful."

Diana stared at the man for a moment before nodding, "If by dreadful you mean brutally torturing Detective Montoya, the Huntress and Nightwing yes. If by dreadful you also mean raping Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain while Bruce and Timothy are tied up and can't intervene. Can the word dreadful even be used to describe the Joker almost beating Timothy to death with a crowbar, all while ranting about how the first time he did it, it obviously didn't stop Bruce from putting another child into harm's way?"

For the first time, Diana saw naked emotion play over Alfred's face, "No!"

Diana shook her head, "I'm afraid yes. But let's not stop there. You see, once again, Bruce didn't call for back-up. All the heroes of the Justice League at his beck and call and yet The Batman refuses to call for help. Even when those dear to him are at risk, Gotham is his city and he will save it. One communicator call and Superman or the Flash could have been there. Or perhaps either myself or Captain Marvel as we are both blessed by the speed of Mercury even if we rarely use it. Alas for Gotham, her protector refused to even consider asking for such help."

Diana paused; memories of the images brought up on the screens of the Watchtower. Of the holding cell where a black-clad man continued to make excuses for what he had done.

She looked back up at Bruce's butler, "Since he didn't call for help, he had to get across town as fast as he could. This meant removing obstacles in his way. Typical of Bruce. Nothing can stand in the way of The Mission. The Blüdhaven police aren't as forgiving as those of Gotham. They had called for Batman to explain why he was at the scene of a building which had been destroyed. Instead of explaining the machinations of Two-Face, Bruce ignored them and raced off in the Batmobile. The ensuing chase had Bruce driving along rooftops, driving through some buildings, dropping caltrops for the Blüdhaven police cars to drive over as well recklessly driving through traffic."

Alfred sighed, "Sadly typical of Master Bruce."

"Typical? Is it typical for him to cause damage to over fourteen buildings? To seriously damage a historical church? To injure a family of five when the roof of their apartment caved in? Do we ignore that he injured 5 different Blüdhaven police officers in the process of damaging two patrol cars and destroying another? Two of those officers are in critical care. One is not expected to survive. Driving through traffic as he did caused six different accidents resulting in two people sent to the hospital. Then there are the three homeless who are dead when Brue drove the Batmobile through a camp under an overpass, causing their make-shift home collapse and catch fire. They all burned to death. None of these people were criminals."

Alfred's jaw dropped slightly before he visibly got himself under control, "That…that isn't like Master Bruce. Was the Scarecrow involved? His fear gas has caused Master Bruce to act…erratically in the past."

Diana snarled, "No he wasn't but that isn't the point. You're making excuses for him! Just like we all have! You say this isn't typical behavior for him but the truth is that it is very much like him. Everything is justified as long as long as it furthers his self-appointed mission. Worse, is he gets to make the rules on when the rules apply to him. He doesn't kill the likes of the Joker even after he paralyzed Barbara Gordon. Yet he was perfectly okay with leaving the KGBeast to starve if Dick hadn't realized what Bruce had done and went back and got him out of the sewers before he starved."

Alfred looked away, "Master Grayson has a good heart."

Diana scoffed, "Which implies even you see Bruce as having a dark heart. What else but egomania can we explain how Bruce felt it was perfectly reasonable to create ways to defeat the Justice League and yet didn't ask for our help in protecting those protocols? Superman would be the first one to agree to having a plan to stop him if he went rogue and he has the Kryptonian super-science able to protect it. Yet that would require trust and a willingness to truly be part of a team."

Alfred looked back, "Master Bruce has always been a loner."

Diana leaned, her face a stone mask, "Has he? I understand he hobnobbed with other of Gotham elite's children before his parents died. And that's why I'm here. You can answer a question which will help make sense of what happened tonight."

Alfred straightened, "I would be delighted to help."

"Why?" Diana asked in a flat tone.

Pennyworth blinked at this simple question, "I beg your pardon? Why what, princess?"

Diana sighed, "Why did you create The Batman?"

Again a quick burst of emotion crossed the man's face. Once again the man schooled his face to let nothing show. "I am sorry to say I do not catch your meaning, princess. Master Bruce's decision to become a crime-fighter was not something I had much of a hand in. If anything, I tried to discourage it."

Diana was silent for a moment before leaning closer to Alfred and whispered, "Liar."

This time Alfred's face showed surprise and he did little to hide it.

Diana leaned back with a scowl, "Don't lie to me. I am the Goddess of Truth. I don't need my Lasso to see it now. Moreover, I was raised by Amazons who all suffered due to the lies of men.

Alfred's face flushed, "What are you accusing me of? Do you think some villain is using me via mind-control or some twaddle like that?"

Diana stood up and put her palms on the table as she leaned toward him, "Alfred Pennyworth. The only villain here is you."

Alfred's face grew angry, "Now see here! You come into Master Bruce's house without permission and now are casting insults at me. Maybe it is you who are under some form of mind-control."

Diana leaned back and began to laugh, "You can stop playing the role, Alfred. As I said, I am the Goddess of Truth. I can hear your lies now that I'm looking for it. Now, I'm going to ask you again. Why? We can be civilized about this or we can do this the hard way. I'm sure you have ways to activate the Manor's defenses. If you try, all that will happen is there will be a lot of damage and you will end up with the coils of my Lasso. For regardless of how this plays out, you will tell me the truth, Alfred Pennyworth."

The menace in her voice was almost palpable. Her beauty often confounded friend and foe alike that she was a deadly Amazonian warrior. Trained from birth to fight. While she promoted peace, her very existence was very much that of a weapon created by the Olympians to protect Earth.

Alfred visibly gulped but said nothing.

Diana gestured towards the door. "Why don't we take this into the study. Bruce seems to tell closer to what is the actual truth while in there. Maybe it will work on you."

Alfred nodded and quietly got up and primly walked to the study. Diana followed him, watching for the hint of betrayal. When they arrived, Diana sat in her favorite plush chair. Alfred, however, stood before the fireplace whose fire was low but still generating plenty of light. He was facing away from her and looking up at the portrait of Thomas and Martha Wayne.

For a long span of minutes, the only sound was the slight crackling of the fire. Diana was patient. As she had said, she would get answers but she had long ago learned that it was better for the truth not to come form the coercion of the Lasso of Truth.

Finally Alfred sighed, "I loved her you know. She was a woman so unlike any I had met. An heiress to the Kane Chemical fortune. People saw her as a socialite. A debutant you could always find at the swank soirees in town. Few knew she was a hunter. She had the pulse of Gotham and she knew how to use it. So much good she did through intermediaries. So intelligent and elegant. Yet for all that, she fell for Thomas Wayne. A man she would make excuses for till the day she died."

Alfred turned towards Diana, "Do not let me give you the wrong impression. Dr. Wayne was a brilliant man. Driven to be more than just the heir to the Wayne fortune. While others in his circle were content to give at the various charity events, many sponsored by Martha herself, Thomas could often be found performing surgery for the underprivileged. If anything, he was more driven than Martha herself to do more. However, in doing more for others, Thomas neglected what he had."

Diana thought on this. Knowing that perhaps Bruce was more like his father than he suspected.

Alfred gestured around the room. "For all Master Bruce sees this as his father's study, it was actually used more by Martha. She'd come and read by the fire. Taking notes and researching her next move to help move money from the idle rich into the hands of those who needed it. For all that this fulfilled her, she was lonely. All the good being done via Wayne Enterprises or from Thomas' scalpel, Martha missed the simple compassion from another. Thomas may have loved her but due to his own upbringing, he was hard pressed to show it."

"And there you were, ready to comfort her," Diana said flatly.

Alfred scowled slightly before sitting down in the chair opposite to Diana, "You make it sound so tawdry. It began innocently enough. Holding her hand a bit to long when comforting her. Allowing myself to stay and listen to her concerns when I should have kept my professional distance. In the end, she was a lonely woman in pain. Is it wrong to want to comfort a person in such straits?"

Diana smirked slightly, "I wonder if you would think so if you had a wife and found her in bed with the hired help."

A flash of anger crossed Alfred's face before it returned to the calm look of a cool, gentleman's gentleman. "That never happened! Beyond kisses to the check, she rarely touched me. I simply was her avenue to unburden herself."

"But it went deeper than that on your end, didn't it?" Diana asked. "You weren't just giving her an ear to bend; you were giving her an outlet to do anything but confront her husband and deal with their problems."

Alfred waved a hand, "Forgive me for saying that advice coming from a being who spent almost all of her existence on a magical island populated only with women might have little in the way of context on how we mere mortals flail about in our lives is suspect at best."

Diana nodded slightly to acknowledge the point, "Very well. You loved Martha Wayne. I find it sad that you ultimate expression of that love was to mold her son into a weapon to avenge her death."

Alfred scoffed, "I did no such thing! Almost from that terrible day forward, Master Bruce was driven by The Mission."

Diana sighed and fingered her lasso, "I've told you not to lie to me. Maybe you're lying to yourself but I doubt it. For I see what you're doing. You did it to Bruce so well that he thinks its always been on him. You have artfully created the idea that Bruce wanted revenge."

"Who wouldn't after that horrible night?" Alfred said heatedly.

"Ah but Bruce was a child. A traumatized child. It is only natural that a child like that would want to lash out. To make the person or persons that hurt him pay for hurting him. Yet as natural as those thoughts might be, Bruce was still a child. It was the duty of the adults in his life to ensure for his well-being. And the man most responsible for that was you, abetted by your long-time friend Dr. Leslie Thompkins."

"Leslie would never harm Bruce! The very idea is absurd!" Alfred said dismissively.

Diana laughed, "There you go again. You are deflecting the conversation towards one idea. That I am saying Dr. Thompkins physically hurt Bruce. No, I'm saying is she allowed herself to be manipulated into not intervening on Bruce's behalf. The boy should have been in therapy. Perhaps been taken in by a foster family with other children to give the boy a safe place to heal. But that's not what happened, is it Alfred?"

The man was silent, his face barely illuminated by the light of the fire.

"No, instead of working to heal Bruce, to ensure his childish fantasies of revenge stayed fantasies, you were the one in position to keep Bruce here under the pretext of him being the Wayne Enterprises heir. To keep him alone and isolated. To keep him in a huge mansion where everything reminded him of what he had lost. Instead of encouraging him to continue to grow and play with others of his age, you sat back and allowed his fantasy to grow. "

Alfred scoffed, "I did no such thing!"

Diana laughed bitterly, "Oh? I've known Bruce for quite some time and have managed to get him to open up about himself. I am the Goddess of Truth and Bruce does seem to be susceptible to wanting to talk to beautiful women when perhaps he shouldn't. I've heard many of his tales of how he began his training. The physical side, the study of all the various topics he would become masters of. All the tutors over the years from the mundane to the esoteric like Giovanni Zatara. All of this while a minor. A minor, no matter how rich had no way to make such things happen. Only you could, couldn't you?"

"I serve the Wayne family. I gave Bruce what he wanted," Alfred said tightly.

Diana laughed again. This time the bitterness almost left the taste of ashes in her mouth, "One doesn't raise a child by giving them what they want. The central aspect of being a child is not only not knowing what is best for them but to actively need guidance on how to properly grow. Bruce only was able to do what he did because you enable it. While it might have been Bruce who came up with the concept of The Batman, you had already put him on a path where it was inevitable for him to do it."

Alfred was silent before he sighed, "All of this speculation on your part is just that: speculation. Unless you have something else than base rumor-mongering, I would ask you to leave. It is obvious that there is much to be done for Master Bruce as well as rest."

Diana stood so fast that Alfred barely had time to blink in surprise. By the time that blink finished, the old man found himself with the Lasso of Truth coiled around him.

"It appears your delusion runs deep. So be it. Now, Alfred Pennyworth, why did you create the Batman?"

Diana had to admit she was shocked that Alfred kept silent for almost half a minute before he choked out, "…the pearls."

Diana almost tugged the lasso and repeated the question when she remembered when Bruce once told her, his voice filled with guilt, about how the robber had wanted Martha's pearl necklace. The same necklace that Bruce himself had asked her to wear because he like how they looked on his mother.

"So all of this was to punish the boy who made an innocent request?" Diana asked. She had seen the banality of evil in so many ways but this was new to her.

Alfred looked up; his face finally alive with emotion. His eyes almost burning with hatred, "Punish the boy? No! I wanted them all to suffer. They all were in on it. The elite's who let this city fester in crime and misery. Many of those same elites were crime bosses and profiting on the misery. The police? Corrupt! The whole lot of them! Even the people! They deserved the 'hero' I created for them. So meek and willing to go along with their misery instead of doing something about it. I had seen in day in and out at Leslie's clinic. Heard Thomas bemoan it every time he came back from doing his charity work on the sly. Even poor, beautiful Martha often despaired at whether Gotham was worth saving. Gotham got the hero it earned."

Diana was about to send a pulse of power through the Lasso but Alfred continued to rant. Perhaps the Lasso had broken the dam holding his long pent-up emotions away.

"I hated them all! The entire system conspired to take my Martha away. For all his literal billions in money, Thomas couldn't even be arsed to pay attention to his wife and son! Who got left with that task? Me! The hired help as you said. Yet you stand there, so sanctimonious and cast me the villain! Where were when Gotham sank into despair? Where was your peace and love you say you want to bring to Man's world when mob bosses ran this town into the ground?"

Diana scowled, her voice like ice, "Don't blame me for the works of Man. We all make choices. You say you despise the common man for their failings and yet instead of pushing Bruce to be a force of change, you allowed him to mold himself into a weapon. A self-replicating weapon at that!"

Alfred scowled at this but looked away.

Diana reached out and grabbed his chin, "You don't get to look away! You might be forgiven into helping forge Bruce into the Batman but you abetted his child abuse!"

Alfred sagged against the Lasso, "I was trying to give him a family! Ahhhh!"

Diana smirked as the Lasso burned the man, "You cannot lie under the power of the Lasso. You might think that's what you were doing, but you know it's not true. What is the truth?"

Alfred panted before gasping out, "I did want him to have a family. But the risk would always be there. If tragedy struck then at least he would feel the same loss I had to suffer. He never truly saw me as a father even though I was more of a father to him than Thomas. I didn't…at first…intend for things to be as they ended up. I was indulging him at first. I thought it was a necessary phase to help him grieve. That through study, Master Bruce would realize he could be more than just a man bent on revenge. Yet in short order, he became a little hellion who saw me only as a tool to further his childish desires. Even after all that we had had together from his earliest days, I was still just a servant. My family had been serving the Wayne family for three generations but I was determined to be an actor. Yet when my father died when Bruce was but a few days old, I was pressured by the family to take up the family business as I were. I had put my dreams aside for my family to help his family for what?"

"You were not shackled into the position, Pennyworth. For good or ill, you could have chosen to leave. Chosen to put Bruce in with another family. One who would care for him and give him a proper family. But you didn't, did you? So while you may not have intended it, your hatred of your Fate was always there. Festering. Even now, confronted by it, you still try to deny you created a monster."

"Gotham needs The Batman," Alfred said with another wince as the Lasso burned at the half-truth.

"No. Gotham needed hope. The Batman is your way to continue to hurt Gotham and Bruce by extension for all their failures. Worse, is after abusing your position as surrogate father to Bruce, you stood by while he did the very same to Dick. To Jason and Tim. All the while bring others into his warped world view. Barbara, Cassandra, Sophia and even the Huntress and others. Your pawn for revenge has infected an entire generation of heroes into thinking being a hero was to fight crime when in reality they were merely beating up criminals."

Diana leaned in, "Your actions aren't restricted to Gotham. Robin was truly the first of the side-kicks. I doubt the rest of us would have been so accepting of allowing children into the lives we live. Dick and Roy deserved a childhood. Even those with powers shouldn't have been roped into The Squad. Trained to do missions, many of them the Justice League couldn't do for various reasons. Your Batman made us think we were being mentors when we were actually stealing their innocence."

"Dick's parents were murdered!" Alfred spat out.

"That they were. A Dick was a child and Bruce did to him what you allowed him to do to himself. All for the Mission. Thankfully, after all that and all his scars, he rejected much of Batman's ways. For all that I see what we did to the youngsters, Dick and Kaldur'ahm never saw them as merely tools to be used." Diana said evenly.

Alfred said nothing.

"Which brings me to another thing. You watched over Dick as he grew and quarreled with Bruce. Enough to break way from him. Yet you stood by as he took in Jason which led to his death. Why? Or why did you stay silent when the pair of them allowed Barbara to become a shadow of Bruce?"

Moments ticked by before Alfred sighed, "It was exciting. The job of a butler is to serve. To keep things running smoothly but not be seen. Almost be a part of the furniture as it were. Dick brought a…panache to the mix. It made Bruce be less a mindless force of justice to being something like a man from time to time. If I could not live my own life, I could at least watch theirs. And over time, there was so much to watch."

Something niggled at the back of Diana's thoughts about this. Then it hit her. How many times has she and Clark been in the Batcave with Bruce hunched over his console, the wall of monitors alive with information? Bruce worked to collect data from everywhere. A task he later sub-contracted (in a sense) to Barbara in her role as Oracle. How many times had Bruce called up video footage from all over Gotham? Her eyes widened as she remembered what she had though when she'd first beamed in. The Watchtower was run with Wayne Tech.

She shook her head to clear it only to find Alfred looking at her with a knowing smile, "As you said; you should have seen it earlier. In this sense, Bruce and I are similar. Whereas by my station I cannot do what I want, Bruce doesn't allow himself the same. But we both like to watch it."

Diana felt slightly sick. A lot of the JLA spent a lot of time on the Watchtower filled with a security system supplied by Bruce's company.

She gave a rough tug on her Lasso, "Did any of us have any privacy?"

Alfred chuckled, "None what so ever. He saw it all. And so did I. Bruce always had a blind-spot for me. He actually thought I couldn't get into his files. I'm sure he just saw me as an older man who probably couldn't get a VCR to not blink 12:00. Yet I am the one who ends up doing much of the work around here. There never was any secrets from me. And what secrets! Do you know who is cheating on who in your Justice League? Did you know that Ice has a tattoo of a butterfly on her right buttocks? That the Elongated Man has no problem orally gratifying himself?

Diana found herself shocked at how little she was shocked by this.

Alfred smirked slightly as she simply stared at him. " I can tell you that Bruce was very entranced with the night you and Euboea spent together after the big fight the JLA had with the Injustice Gang when Circe led them against the Amazons. Master Dick also provided so many hours of entertainment. So many beautiful women coming and going over the years."

Diana silently fumed. It was one thing to see unabashed perversion from the likes of Doctor Psycho; it was another thing entirely to see it from the likes of Alfred Pennyworth. Still, he wasn't denying being a voyeur or make excuses for it.

Still, the man she held in the coils of her Lasso had abetted the destruction of what Bruce Wayne could have been. Stood by and abetted when Bruce did the same to Dick, then Jason and Tim. Watched as Stephanie was allowed to continue the life when she should have been put as far away from the life of her father the Cluemaster as possible. Worse is Artemis should also have been sheltered and given a better life from being the child of Tigress and Sportsmaster instead of being made into a replacement Speedy for Green Arrow. So many sins all stemming from this man who wanted revenge on the hand fate had dealt him.

"What should I do with you," Diana said, more to herself than anything.

"Why kill me of course," Alfred said promptly. "You can't put me on trial. I know too much. Even if you did, how long would I last in prison? How long before some super-villain tried to use me as bait or to learn what I know? I have a life of regrets. It is a blessing, you know, that this Lasso makes me compel to tell the truth. I hate my life. I have hated it for so long. Yet my sense of duty…family guilt in reality, kept me here. I guess once the first sin is done, the rest come easier, don't they?"

Alfred looked away, "Besides, I can imagine all to well what has happened at the hands of the Joker. I did love them in my own way. I hated how aloof Thomas was to his family but he was a stand-in for how I hated my father and grand-father. Always on duty for the Wayne Family. Growing up I knew that the needs of the Wayne family would always take precedence over the needs of our own family. My father missed my graduation because he was covering for a very drunk Thomas whose bachelor party got out of hand. My childhood was filled with such. In my own way I tried to always be there for the boys." Alfred sighed, "Ever the hypocrite, I know. I loved them as I hated them. I used them even as I strove to protect them. I pushed Master Dick to escape Bruce even as I stood by and watch The Batman work to keep his protégé from ever truly escaping the Mission."

Diana felt a wave of sadness wash over her. Her beauty also hid another truth about her. She was old. Far older than most in the JLA thought. While never lying, Diana had learned it was best to let people think she was the age she her face projected. Many stories she told were done to obscure the fact the Amazon she was telling tales of had been herself. And almost all fell for it. Even the ones who could do the math and realize how improbable that Queen Hippolyta, who had ruled them since the 4th Century BCE would wait over two millennium before working to have a child.

While Themyscira had a timeless quality to it, Diana felt the long centuries of her life on her now. So much easier to fight naked evil, villains who wore their bad deeds proudly as badges of honor. For all the horrors they inflected, they were simple. Not so this man in front of her. At once broken and steadfast. Repentant while not apologizing for his misdeeds. A man who had been a surrogate father even as he betrayed his 'children' at every turn.

Alfred's soft voice broke into her thoughts. "I am glad you were the one to learn the truth. This would have…will hurt Master Kent. He would be unable to do what you must. May I make a suggestion how to stage my suicide? My last duty to the Wayne Family reputation."

Diana summoned the Lasso away from the man. She once again took his chin in her hands, looking him deeply in the eyes. "No. No more lies. No more duty. This supposed duty to the Wayne Family helped to put you on this path. At the last, let your death be for you and you alone."

Alfred blinked at this before his face relaxed, "Yes…yes I quite like that. Thank you. It's probably far more than I deserve. But what about you?"

Diana smiled sadly, "This is Gotham. You being found murdered in the Manor will be remarked on but in the end? This is Gotham. As for the Justice League, I can handle them. I've killed before for justice. I will do so again. Besides, as you said, what other choice do we really have other than tossing you into the Phantom Zone? That isn't justice; it's torture and one day I might finally convince Kal-El that in this respect his people weren't as enlightened as he believes. Better you die now then toss you into a technological limbo. How can anyone believe one could find repentance in such a state? No, it is cruel punishment dressed up as humane confinement."

Diana released Alfred and took a step back to let the man compose himself. With practice movements, Alfred and tidied himself up to once again be the portrait of the immaculate man-servant. He took a long look at the portrait above the fireplace before turning back to Diana.

"For what it's worth, I am sorry about invading your privacy. However, it would be a lie, to gaze on your naked glory is a sin I believe any mortal would risk. I do have a request if you would."

Diana nodded. He was right about one thing. Many a man had risked their lives to see naked Amazons. Few survived taking that risk.

Alfred hesitated, "Please tell Leslie that I'm sorry. As you said, I led her down a path I shouldn't have. If I had been a braver man, I would have turned away from it all and tried to be the man she deserves. She, in so many ways, could have been my own Martha. Yet I allow my base nature to win out."

Diana nodded, "I will."

Then in a blinding flash of speed, she reached out and broke the man's neck.

XxXxX

Author's Notes: It might surprise you to know that this is not me bashing Batman. Nor am I trying to turn Alfred Pennyworth into a villain. What I'm trying to do is raise a point is that too often we partake in various entertainment and not really think about a lot of the consequences.

Woke? I know many of you will decry this saying, "It's just a comic book!" or saying I'm trying to do "Cancel Culture" which is not the case. What I am trying to illustrate is that perhaps we need to reassess which stories are worth telling again and again.

I loved the film Revenge of the Nerds when it came out. Yet this film (like so many) have aged poorly. Now, I see that it has NO redeeming qualities. Unlike a film like say Real Genius, RotN if filled with rape culture and returning bad behavior with more bad behavior for 'revenge' – now as a nerd, I could see the appeal. However, watching the film now, it is shocking horrible. And that's the point. While one should be careful of judging past people by your own standards, one should also be up for reviewing what is considered right. Owning people was once okay. Now it is not. The Boombox Scene in Say Anything was seen as romantic at the time. Today we see it as stalking and a guy not taking no for no. If anything, "Cancel Culture" is about reassessing what we will accept as canon going forward.

Say No! To Side-Kicks: There are many reasons for the comic side-kick. Much of it was to give the kid reader a POV character to see themselves as. The artist Alex Ross remarked how the side-kick helps make the hero look bigger than life when one tailors the framing on the size of the child and not the adult.

But let's cut to the reality. Dick Grayson is a 12yo who watched his parents fall to their death. Instead of giving him to the therapists and a foster home, Bruce feels for the kid and takes him in even though he's The Batman who has The Mission. When the kid finds out, instead of once again getting rid of him for his own safety, Bruce doubles down by putting him in a bright outfit with pixie boots and throws him against adults with guns, knives and fists. Worse, is it's not just him. People like Superman just roll with it. In the film Justice League: The New Frontier, Clark sees Robin and casually remarks, "I see you've added a side-kick" to which Bruce replies to something of the effect he isn't in the business of scaring children. But putting them into harms way is apparently okay.

As I've said with Dumbledore in regard to Harry Potter, whether by manipulation or not, Dumbledore makes Harry a child warrior and Harry goes along with it BECAUSE HE'S A KID! He doesn't know any better because kids, by definition, don't know any better. At least Damien Wayne was raised since birth among assassins. He knows nothing else. Dick Grayson and Timothy Drake all had families and normalcy which their parents death mess up but Bruce takes any further normal childhood away from them.

The Moral of the Story: And thus we come to the point of this fic. Throughout it all, from the day the Wayne's die to the rest, there is Alfred Pennyworth. The adult who should have put his foot down and ensured that Bruce was treated. Instead, he let the kid stew in his own trauma to the point of dressing as a flying rodent and inflecting this mindset on children and other heroes. By intent or not, Alfred dropped a very big ball.

Again, it's easy to say, "It's only a comic" but it's also a story. And comics have always been moralistic stories. Is this the type of moral we want to keep kicking down the road? That we're okay for a 12yo being manipulated by an adult(s) to become a child soldier in an adult war. Hell, even the new Snyder cut put forth the idea that Robin died because Batman "sent a boy to do a man's job"

We look at 12yo's with AK-47 in groups like Boko Haram and state how terrible it is yet we consume a LOT of entertainment where children of similar ages do the exact same thing. Because in reality, strip away the plot armor and most of those side-kicks would have died very early on. We should own up to this and find a different way to tell engaging stories. Sort of like how male author's (myself included) should be very careful not to use the rape/death of a female to give the male POV character their reason to do whatever. (The rape of Batgirl and Spoiler in this fic is just a 'natural' flow of if you're a psychotic killer who wants to make a brutal point, well not much more brutal than that. Plus, Batman didn't stop when Jason was beaten to death…even if they retconned that death away. So Joker would unfortunately ramp it up to eleven.)