I neither own nor created Batman, Deadshot, Dr. Leslie Thomkins, Alfred Pennyworth, or his "cousin" Fredrick. I did create Madge. :)

This story is for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained. :)

Alfred guided the slumping man into the passenger seat and buckled him in. Deadshot kept blinking as he fought to stay conscious. When Alfred got into the driver's seat and buckled himself in his passenger slurred softly. "Where are we going?"

Alfred turned and stuck the man in the side of his neck with a syringe. Deadshot's eyes slid closed and he went completely limp. Alfred turned back around and wrapped the syringe in a handkerchief before placing it in his breast pocket. Then he turned the key in the ignition. "You'll never find out."

. . .

A crowd had gathered around the Ferris Wheel. Everyone wanted to see who had dropped from the sky. Someone peeled off the mask to reveal a wax head, squarish in shape with no well defined features.

The mannequin's black canvas suit seemed the right cut and shape, but the cape was made from an old parachute, cut apart, sewn back together, and dyed jet-black. Most of the onlookers were disappointed. Then someone spied the bullet-hole between the eye-indentations. Whispers rippled through the crowd again.

Leslie stood in the front row draped in a man's jacket that almost fell to her knees. One of her hands gripped the ends of its collar. The other gripped her opposite elbow. The eyes in her white face were focused on the "victim."

A hand resting on her shoulder squeezed it. Then an arm went around and pulled her away from the scene. She let it.

Leslie leaned into her companion and buried her nose in his shirt. Her boy, her boy was not lying back there. Bruce was right here. There wasn't a scratch on him.

He navigated her through the mostly emptied avenues of the carnival. When they reached the parking lot, Leslie wondered if she could remain standing until Alfred pulled the car around. The vehicle that pulled up, though, was not his, nor hers. The driver got out wearing a fedora instead of a chauffeur's cap.

A less familiar face grinned at her, and the wrong British accent spoke a greeting. "Ello, Doc. Good to see you in one piece."

Lesllie blinked. "Fredrick?"

. . .

Several minutes later, Leslie sat in the car's backseat leaning against Bruce's chest. He still had his arm wrapped around her. She stared at the back of their driver's head.

Fredrick met her gaze in the rear-view mirror and grinned again. "Don't worry, Doc. I'm not hopping back across the pond for a few days at least. We'll have you feeling safe and snug again in your own house before then."

Instead of answering Leslie leaned back into Bruce and closed her eyes. "Where's Lucius?"

"Putting the plane away."

Leslie smiled. "Ah." Lucius had been excited to get his pilot's license last year. He'd designed planes for years. Now he could fly them too. "Did he borrow the advertising plane?"

"We rented it."

"'See the sights of Gotham?'"

"It seemed appropriate."

Leslie smiled wider and then frowned at another thought. "Where's Alfred?"

"Taking care of our visitor."

Leslie's eyes flew open. She looked up to see Bruce staring out the window with an expressionless face. She blinked. "You left them alone together?"

"Yes."

"Bruce."

"It'll be fine." He squeezed her briefly. "It'll be fine."

. . .

Alfred laid out the now completely unconscious form on the table and strapped it down. The roof of the bat-cave loomed over them, but their guest never saw it.

The Englishman glared down at his assignment. Then his gloved hand reached for a metal tray. He picked up a scalpel.

Image's flashed in the butler's mind. Tea-cups, pale powders, trays, parties, men in uniforms loaded with medals, men in suits with guns and envelopes in their pockets, voices not speaking the king's English that he understood anyway, his own voice responding in kind while he handed out champagne glasses, watching out of the corner of his eye to make sure the right man drank from the right glass, sneaking up on those who hadn't drunk enough with a syringe, laying limp forms into cars, driving fully awake ones past tall buildings, encouraging them to look out a window, those forms then going limp in the backseat. Every now and then he'd slipped up. He'd "taken care" of compromises to his cover, sometimes with kitchen knives, sometimes with scalpels.

The Englishman's ice-blue eyes bored into the form on his operation table. Then he slammed the scalpel back onto the tray. He closed his eyes. Other images washed through his mind.

The street coming up to meet him as he fell, turning over as pain racked his leg, a man running up to him hate in his eyes, gun in his hand, that man falling, Fredrick rushing past the fallen figure to stand over him and meet his gaze, Fredrick's face as he reached down and helped him up, the ceiling of a hospital room, the new-testament on the table, the church chapel, the face of the British ambassador as he introduced himself, the smiling face of the ambassador's daughter, Martha, her red hair and grey eyes shining beneath a white veil, the same grey eyes shining in the face of a baby she handed him as he held out shaking hands to receive the "little master," those grey eyes gazing back blankly at him from a child's face asking just one question. "Why?" That young man had asked him another question years later. "Can you teach me?"

He'd not answered right away. He'd kept staring down at the water flowing under the bridge instead. After waiting in silence, his young employer had spoken again. "Is that a 'no?'"

He'd finally looked up at the horizon in the park. "Every man joins a war-effort, hot or cold, to stop monsters, Master Bruce. Slaying them can protect hearth and home, but it changes you. However monstrous they are, they are men too, and so are you. In killing them, you begin to become a monster too. You can forgive yourself, but you're never the same."

"Did you become a monster, Alfred?"

The manservant's mouth curled into an odd expression beneath its mustache. "There were reasons I quit beyond my leg."

Bruce sighed beside him. "Can you teach me to stop them, without killing them," he turned those intense, grey eyes his direction, "without becoming a monster?"

Alfred looked back down at the water flowing away beneath them. His face creased in thought. "We could try, but it would be better if you learned from others as well."

Bruce turned away from the horizon before them to lean back against the bridge-railing. "I should leave Gotham anyway, for now." He gave a bitter smile. "Everyone's keeps telling me to 'get away' anyway."

Alfred gave a slight smile. He lightly slapped and then gripped the young man's shoulder. "In that case, Master Bruce, we'll go on a world-tour, like I used to with your grandfather and mother." His grin broadened. "A man can learn a lot on a world-tour ..."

. . .

The butler gazed down at his guest. The assassin was completely lax, completely helpless, completely guilty. All his and Fredrick's contacts had told the same story. Only those who hunted and hired this man would miss him. The Englishman was still somewhat proud "their" team had caught him. The butler's chest heaved once as a sigh escaped him in a hiss. "Not here. Not now." He walked toward the other medical supplies. "Not me."

He'd follow Bruce's instructions, keep their guest unconscious, alive, and as unharmed as possible, until they could deliver him to his true punishment. Agent Alfred Pennyworth was retired, mostly.

. . .

Madge sat at Leslie's kitchen table with a cup of Chamomile tea sitting in its little dish the way "teach" had taught her to serve it. Her eyes were red from the second big cry she'd had that month. It was becoming an embarrassing habit. Suddenly, a bell, that mysteriously hung on the wall without a reason anyone would tell her, rang. She jumped out of her chair and stared at it.

. . .

Fredrick opened the car-door. Bruce got out first and then helped Leslie out. She held onto his hand even after she'd gotten onto her feet. He met her gaze. "Fredrick can drive you to the mansion tomorrow. You should take a week off work at least."

Leslie nodded. Later she would argue, say she was perfectly capable of going back to work sooner than that. Patients and co-workers needed her. She hadn't been physically harmed other than mild abrasions and a drugging that had worn off hours ago. Just now though, she didn't want to do anything but reacquaint herself with the familiar. Home was a good start.

She was reluctant to let go of her godson though, let him out of her sight. She nodded, but kept hold of his hand. Bruce sighed. "Madge needs to see you. She'd been worried."

This time Leslie let go as she nodded. Fredrick gently turned her round to face the door into the basement. "Now then, let's get you upstairs and have a nice cup of peppermint tea, or chamomile. That was your favorite wasn't it, old girl?"

Leslie frowned at Fredrick as he smirked and slid the door aside.

…

Madge was examining the bell that seemed built into the wall, when the nob of the door into the basement moved. Her eyes widened. Then she grabbed a frying pan hanging off the wall near the bell and set her feet. She wound up like in junior high baseball.

A click sounded from the nob. She tensed. The door swung open. She took two steps forward and swung, then froze mid-swing. A stranger was standing there with the Doc, one arm wrapped around her, the other raised to fend off her blow. Madge's gaze flicked from him to the doc and back to him. "Let her go!"

Leslie blinked at Madge. Then she spoke in her psychiatrist voice. "Miss Robertson … this is my friend, Mr. Pennyworth's cousin Fredrick. He drove me home after extracting me from a distressing situation. He's as welcome here as you."

"Oh." Madge lowered the frying pan, looked down at the floor, and gestured over her shoulder. Behind her a jar of chamomile blossoms sat open on the counter. Next to it was the stove-top with a kettle on a burner. "I'll uh … make some tea."

Yeah! This chapter is not super-late! :D I hope you guys like this continuance of the happy ending, which I hope raises its own questions. ;) I hope to finish another of my stories before coming back to this one, but after that I might be able to put even more concentration into this one.

Reviews are much appreciated and often responded to. :)

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes