The Butler's Apprentice, Part 1
- - - January 2nd, 2010 - - -
„Welcome to the Wayne Residence", Alfred announced, as he steered the black limousine into the driveway.
Mary stared at the white three-story building amid the lush green garden. The warm evening sun dipped the scene into a golden light.
"It is beautiful", she exclaimed.
Alfred nodded thoughtfully. "And yet it is a true part of Gotham", he muttered.
"You will not ask any questions", Bruce Wayne ordered.
"Yes, sir", she replied.
The tall man looked at her sternly. For a moment, Mary was worried that he would send her away after all.
And yet they had already brought her here, had already entrusted upon her the secret civilian identities of Batman and his young trainee Robin. She even knew they had a secret 'Batcave' in close proximity to the mansion, yet she was not to make any inquires about where it was or anything that went on there.
Bruce Wayne nodded once.
"The less you know, the safer you will be here."
Was that a promise or a threat?
"This is your room. If you like it. I mean, there are a lot, you could choose another one later if you want..." Robin's voice trailed off.
He watched Mary take in the sight of her new home. A bright, spacious room with wooden furniture. Two large windows overlooking the gardens. A desk, a wardrobe, a book shelf and a bed. He could not remember that anybody had ever slept in it.
"This is absolutely splendid. Thank you very much, Master Richard."
"Please, just call me Dick. Everybody does."
Everybody who knew him without his mask.
"Mr Pennyworth calls you Master Richard", she retorted.
Revealing his true name to her had felt utterly strange. Guarding his real identity had become second nature to Robin ever since Batman had taken him under his wings.
Only J'onn knew that they had actually taken the young woman back to Wayne Manor with them.
"On probation", Batman had said.
She needed a safe place where she could slowly get accustomed to the 21st century.
They needed someone to help Alfred.
Their loyal butler had spent several weeks in hospital after the Joker's last attack. They had missed him dearly. Alfred was the heart of Wayne Manor. He was not only the closest they had to a family, he was also their cook and housekeeper, manager and secretary, supply officer and strategist, keeper of the Batcave, and most trusted ally. He knew when to make the right excuses to business officials, social calls and school teachers, while Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson were fighting crime in the backstreets of Gotham. Leading their double lives had been twice as hard without his support.
Yet Alfred was still far from fully recovered. He could hardly move his left arm and his broken rips had barely started to heal. The doctors had order him to rest, to take a well-earned vacation, once they discharged him from the hospital.
Being at least as stubborn as Bruce, Alfred had returned to work immediately.
There had been nobody who could relieve him of his duties.
Mary had asked to become Alfred's assistant at an opportune moment. And yet she had not originally asked to work for Alfred. She had asked 'Agent A', Batman's masked assistant, if he would teach her how to serve the Justice League.
The League could do well with some more assistance, too. From what Robin knew, each major mission left a major paper trail, and Black Canary had several times threatened to leave the League if the other members kept burdening her with every organisational detail. Green Lantern, Zatara and Wonder Woman had seemed rather interested in reviewing Mary's proposal.
Yet to work for the Justice League, one had to earn their trust.
Batman was known to never trust anybody – except for Alfred and, potentially, Robin.
After a long talk with both of them, Batman had told the other League Members that he would personally test the young woman's loyalty.
Batman had offered to train her, in an undisclosed location. To let 'Agent A' teach her to be his sidekick, and to introduce her to the modern world.
There would be no record of her ever working for Bruce Wayne, no trace of her helping out Alfred while he recovered from his injuries. She would be invisible within the manor, at least for the first few months.
Her probational period.
If she showed any signs of being untrustworthy, even the slightest notion to betray their secret identities, Batman would 'execute Plan B'.
He had not disclosed to Robin or any of the League Members what Plan B would be.
Robin really hoped that he would never have to find out.
"Mary, dear, please take a seat. It must have been a terribly long day for you."
Alfred smiled at his new protégée. She was still wearing the long blue dress that had been sown for her as a statue. Robin had lent her one of his loose training jackets which was far too short at the sleeves for her.
"We will get you some proper clothes tomorrow. Did Master Richard provide you with everything you might require for the night?"
"Yes, thank you, Mr Pennyworth, he has been very kind. I am truly grateful... for everything."
"You are very welcome, dear. We will be glad for your assistance."
For a while, she was just watching him while he sautéed the salmon, stirred the sauce and occasionally checked on the tagliatelle. She did not ask about the induction stove – it's function must have been obvious to her, even if the underlying technology eluded her.
Alfred marvelled that just this morning, from her perspective, she had faced an alien invasion in wartime England.
"Master Bruce likes his pasta al dente", he offered, placing the pasta sieve in the sink.
Without being asked, Mary had already risen from her chair, lifting the pot from the stove to pour out the water. It would have been challenging for him to do so with his left arm still immobile.
Of course she had noticed. She had been training to become as a nurse, after all.
"Would you mind cutting some more tomatoes for the salad? They are right behind you in the fridge. Yes, that metallic door, and then the bottom left drawer. Refrigerators were already known in the early 1940s, were they not?"
"We had one at the hospital, to store medicine and blood samples."
"They can be found in every household now. And you certainly haven't seen an automatic dish washer yet. A very handy invention, I will show you how to operate it tomorrow. Would you fetch me the salad bowl from the top of that shelf please? Thank you, dear. Now, let me get you a cutting board..."
It was a grey, windy winter morning in Gotham. Mary was glad for the black coat Alfred had lent her, even though it was far too large for her.
They were going shopping today.
"She should be here any minute", Robin assured her. He was wearing civilian clothes, yet his eyes were covered by dark glasses. They were meeting a League member who knew him only as Robin, not as Dick Grayson.
Mary kept watching the street. A silver car, a black car, a large yellow truck, a bus painted with advertisements, a white car, a blue car, another black car, another silver car, a woman on a motorcycle, another bus. "It's just normal traffic", Alfred Pennyworth had ensured her while calmly steering them through the streets of Gotham, his face hidden below a tilted cap and the car's mirrored windows. Even so, Mary had been soaked with sweat when he finally dropped them off at the meeting place. They were standing two blocks away from 'the mall', which had been described to her as a large building full of stores. Alfred had warned her that the mall might be rather overwhelming for her. "It will teach you a lot about our modern times, though", he had said.
"There she is", Robin called out.
A blond, unmasked woman was approaching them. She wore high leather boots, skin-tight grey trousers and a black leather jacket. Robin did not react if her appearance was in any way unusual. The woman's wavy hair fell openly over her shoulders, her neck was adorned with a slim black collar. Her eyelashes were darkened and she wore lipstick in a soft berry shade.
"Hey there! You must be Mary."
"Pleased to meet you, Mam." Tentatively, she shook the superheroine's outstretched hand.
"Oh no, don't even start with that. Just call me Dinah."
"Pleased to meet you, Dinah", Mary repeated coyly.
"There you go", the blond woman smiled. "Now, Robin, are you coming in with us?"
"Just for a short stop at the games store, but I still have some homework to catch up on. Mary, you'll be fine if I leave you with Dinah, right?"
Mary smiled reassuringly. "I hope so. How do I get back afterwards?"
"I'll just call Robin when we're done", Dinah answered for him.
Mary kept her face carefully blank.
"There are mobile phones now", Robin explained. "Look, they are quite small and fit into your pocket. Most people have them."
She carefully touched the sleek black rectangle he was showing her. A portable telephone - that did sound very handy.
Dinah watched her with a sober expression. "Wow, there are so many things that must be new to you, Mary… Please, feel free to ask me if you have any questions, or need any help, whatever it is. Don't by shy about it, okay?"
"Thank you. In fact, I would be very grateful for your help to choose some clothes."
"Sure, that's why I'm here! Let's go spend Batman's money!"
The mall was overwhelming.
Light. Sound. Talk. Music. Advertisement signs. Advertisement songs. Advertisement movies. People. Stores. Household appliances. Pretzels stores. Toys. Advertisement. Clothes. Jewellery. More advertisement. Food stalls. Lingerie. More people. More advertisement. More pretzel stores.
Within five minutes, Mary's head was spinning.
"You look like you are about to faint", Dinah observed. "Let's sit down for a moment. Look, there's a free table. You wait here, I'll get you a smoothie."
Mary sank into the seat.
Calm down. You've survived the air raids. This is just a big house full of stores.
There had been advertisement in London, too. Just without all the half-naked women. And without movies. There were movies playing everywhere, all of them in colour. There had to be hidden projectors somewhere, like in the cinemas.
Why were there three different songs playing at the same time?
Focus. You are here to buy clothes. What are women wearing today?
Trousers, apparently. Very tight trousers, mainly.
For a second, she wondered if men and women had just swapped their clothing styles. She could not suppress a faint little giggle. But no, men were not wearing skirts either. Nobody was.
Or were they? Two teenage girls walked by, each wearing a very short, skirt-like slip of fabric. It barely covered half their upper leg.
Mary adverted her eyes.
Blouses still existed. Some older women were wearing them. Younger women wore short- or long-sleeved shirts without buttons, often with some kind of writing on their chests. Woollen cardigans were apparently in fashion. Nobody wore hats, but patterned scarves were abundant. She liked the rich colours. Most shoes had strangely thick, whites soles, but there were also feminine boots, most of them with heels.
"I hope strawberry smoothie is fine?", Dinah asked. She handed Mary a plastic cup filled with a thick red liquid. Her own drink had a bright orange colour.
Mary carefully took a sip. It was cold, incredibly sweet, and did taste like liquid strawberries in the middle of winter.
'Smoothie', a new word in a new world.
"I like it", she decided.
For a while, they drank their refreshments in silence.
"How do you feel?", Dinah finally asked.
"Better, now. Thank you for your patience."
"Please, I'm here to help you. Take all the time you need."
Mary nodded.
She took another sip from her smoothie.
"Dinah, how does it feel to wear trousers?"
When Alfred picked up his young protégée in the afternoon, Mary was wearing a pair of soft blue boots, a dark blue winter jacket, a scarf with a flower pattern, woollen grey tights and a knee-long skirt. She was carrying several large bags from various stores.
"You look very well, dear", Alfred commented while opening the car's door for her. "I am glad you found some sensible clothing. Most of today's fashion is quite horrid, isn't it?"
"Yes, Mr Pennyworth. We did find some nice pieces though, once Dinah started telling the shop attendants we were looking for clothes befitting of a catholic private school."
He chuckled while starting the car. Bruce had done well in asking Black Canary to accompany Mary on her very first shopping spree. Dinah was good at caring for others.
For a while, they drove in silence.
Mary was the first one to speak up again. "Mr Pennyworth, is it true that women can even become prime minister today?"
The next morning, Mary was carefully ironing one of Bruce Wayne's business shirts when Robin entered the room.
She had already used an electric iron back in London, but this one was able to blow steam, too. She treated it with utmost respect.
"How can I help you, Richard?", she asked without quite daring to look up.
He had insisted that she call him by his name, without any title.
"Mary…"
Finally meeting his eyes, Mary felt her heart plummet. She returned the hot iron to its metal tray, then slowly unplugged it.
Robin was holding out a small electric device to her. It showed the picture of a smiling old man.
She would always remember those eyes, green-brown like her own.
Very gingerly, she received the flat device.
Oh, Andrew...
"I'm so sorry", Robin whispered.
"When?", she croaked, tears welling up in her eyes.
"It was a kidney failure… He passed away eight months ago."
To think that she had come so close to seeing her little brother again…
"He settled down in a small town in Cornwall", Robin recounted softly. "He worked at the post office, and he bought a little home with a garden, right by the sea…"
"There you are, Mary. I wanted to show you…" Alfred broke off when he saw his pupil's eyes. Clearly, Richard's research had not yielded the desired results.
"Mary, dear, would you prefer to lie down for a moment?"
She looked up from the basket of perfectly folded shirts in her lab.
"Do you think that would help?"
He paused. No, in this household, grief had never been cured with inaction.
"Listen, dear. Come up to the kitchen with me, and we'll have a cuppa tea before I show you how to set the dinner table, how does that sound?"
"So we have an automatic dish washer to wash the dishes, a laundry machine to do the laundry, and a robotic vacuum cleaner to clean the floors?" Mary looked at her mentor quizzically. "Is there an automatic tea maker as well, Mr Pennyworth?"
"Please do call me Alfred, dear, I insist. And no, tea remains a human skill alone. Although of course we have a fully automatic coffee maker..."
Bruce Wayne did not comment on the way she had set the table, nor did he look up when she served the first course of their dinner. That was a good sign. A good servant's work is rarely noticed, Alfred had said.
"I am having an ID card and a passport made for you", the master of the house announced.
Mary almost spilled the soup.
"Eh, thank you, sir?"
"We have to discuss the details of your backstory, your legal identity. Do you want to keep your birthday? The year has to be shifted by several decades, of course."
"Oh, she could be her own granddaughter!", Robin chimed up.
"You were already eighteen when you were declared dead in 1942. I suppose it's not impossible. We could say you had a little daughter? Maybe she grew up to be a nurse, too, or even a doctor..."
"Mary, dear, please do hand me that soup terrine before you break it", Alfred gently interrupted his employer. "You might want to sit down for a moment. There, that's better. You don't need to make any decisions tonight. Isn't that right, Master Bruce?"
After studying her pale face for a moment, Bruce Wayne relented.
"Do you want to spar with me? Bruce is busy."
"Spar with you?"
"You know, get some exercise down at the gym?"
Mary just looked at him.
"Don't tell me you've been living with us for two weeks now and nobody has shown you the gym yet?"
"Baking is a delicate art, my dear. Today, I shall teach you how to make broiche, a traditional French cake quite en vogue with the people of Paris. You will find that most European recipes are vastly superior to the American 'cuisine' – if you even want to call it that." Alfred handed his protégée a flowery apron, then began to carefully lay out baking ingredients on the kitchen counter.
"Now, first of all, you must always remember that Bruce Wayne hates raisins…"
"What's up, Mary?" Robin looked up at her from his half-finished homework.
Mary stood in his doorway, slowly wringing her hands. "It's about the topic Master Wayne raised at dinner a few days ago. About my backstory, my past. And you were able to find out information about my brother so quickly..."
He started to nod, then froze. "Please don't tell me you actually have a daughter?"
"No, no, none of that!" She blushed fervently.
The silence stretched for several long moments.
"There was a man though. His name was Henry…"
"Mary, dear, you need to learn how to cater for our special guests as well. Let's say Ms Diana Prince, the Amazonian ambassador, would pay us a visit at Wayne Manor. How would you plan a formal dinner for an Amazon?"
His British protégée's eyes grew wide. "But isn't she royalty? You expect us to host a royal princess?"
"Well, technically, she is, although I ensure you that she very rarely stands on protocol, especially not with Master Bruce… In any case, if you are preparing a dinner for an Amazon, make sure to serve only vegetarian dishes – no meat, no fish. The Amazons themselves are all excellent hunters and live on a meat-rich diet on their home island, but they also feel compassion for all animals, hence they deeply detest our modern meat production system. Hens and dairy cows are generally not treated well either, so vegan recipes would actually be best. The same holds true for the Atlanteans, by the way. Avoid dairy products, and never serve store-bought fish to Aquaman or his companions, they would be deeply offended."
"You mean his royal highness, the King of Atlantis?"
Alfred sighed. "Master Bruce insists on just calling him Orin..."
It was the middle of the night when the sirens sounded.
Mary jumped out of bed. She was out of her room before she was even fully awake.
Where was the shelter?
Her blood nearly froze when she realized that she did not know the way to the air raid shelter.
Where were the others? Had they left without her?
Robin's bedroom was just down the hall. She burst through the door.
The boy sat up straight when she entered, instinctively reaching for something next to him.
Why was he still in bed?
"Richard, get up! There's a siren! We need to find shelter!"
He looked at her groggily, then dropped the small black piece of metal he had pulled out of his tool belt.
"Never, ever burst into my room like that. Is it the Bat Signal?"
"What?"
"Is there a yellow light with a bat symbol projected in the sky?"
"What? No, it's a siren! Richard, we have to hurry!"
"Calm down, Mary, it's just a fire alert. It means there is a fire somewhere close by in Gotham. Batman is probably checking up on it already, he went on patrol alone tonight."
"But… the siren…"
He took her trembling hands. "Mary, sit down. It's not an air raid. There are no more air raids."
Mary felt the tension slowly drain from her body.
No more air raids.
The war was really over.
Robin pulled her into a hug when she started to sob.
"You see, Mary, when Master Wayne returns after a nightly patrol in Gotham, he always appreciates a light snack waiting for him on the counter in the central hallway, accompanied either by a small glass of warm milk or a large pot of black coffee, depending on the time of his arrival. Master Richard, on the other hand, is unpredictable in his food preferences, and prone to plunder our fridge at any hour…"
"How does this actually work?"
Robin seemed surprised at Mary's question. He had returned late from a mission and was just about to heat up some leftovers from last night's dinner for breakfast. "I thought Alfred showed you how to use the microwave weeks ago? With this dial, you can set the duration..."
"He showed me how to operate it", she clarified. "But how does it work?"
"Now, Mary, how about I show you how you can look things up on the internet yourself?"
"Yeah, okay, that went badly. How about I'll make sure to set up some add blockers and a safe search function for you? And in the meanwhile, you can look up anything you like in my old school books – actually, I should have a hard-copy science encyclopedia lying around somewhere..."
"Richard, that just can't be right. This book is telling me that you can get electricity by sticking two bits of metal into a potato?"
"What? Oh, yes, that's quite an old school experiment, it really works."
"Well, we sure didn't have electricity in our potatoes at my time. What did you do to them?"
He stared at her incredulously.
"I knew a lot of people who were growing potatoes", she explained. "We ate them. We boiled them, we baked them, we even made some awful bread out of them. There was no electricity inside. That must be caused by some of this stuff you have in the air nowadays. What did you call it? 'Wifi'?"
Down at the kitchen, Alfred smiled to himself when he heard the boy burst into a fit of laughter.
"Are you sure you don't want to enrol at a local high school? The age difference is still minimal, and school fees would not be a problem."
"Yes, Master Wayne. I am sorry, I know it's been six weeks, but I just don't think I would be comfortable among teenagers from the 21st century just yet…"
"You are wearing pants!"
Mary blushed at Robin's outcry. She still felt rather uncomfortable, showing her legs like this.
"Dinah talked me into buying a pair, back at the mall", she explained. "It's an experiment."
"Looks good", he offered.
"Thank you. Actually, I wanted to ask you if I could maybe meet her again some time soon? I have… some more questions."
"Sure, I'll ask Bruce to get in touch with her."
"Mary, you're a nurse, right?"
It was almost midnight. Mary had just finished filling up the snack bowls on the counter near the stairs.
Robin was still wearing his costume. She could not see his eyes through the mask, but his voice was stained. He held his left arm pressed firmly against his upper body, clutching his left wrist with his right hand.
"Close enough", she replied.
"You need to come down to the cave. Batman's hurt."
She nodded briefly. "Lead the way."
Mary asked no questions that night.
Not about the Batcave, nor the shadows that haunted it, nor the true cause behind their nightly missions.
Yet she found many answers nonetheless.