Alfred walked in with the breakfast tray and nearly dropped it when he saw Bruce swing a crowbar at a man in a cheap suit sitting in Bruce's chair in front of his computer console without flinching. To the butler's surprise, the crowbar and not the man bent with impact.
Bruce swung, again and again, but the man didn't flinch or react. His suit was a bit pulverized, but that was nothing compared to the crowbar; the thing was, in a word, mangled.
"Finished?" a calm, deep voice asked, and the man's head turned to the side. Alfred recognized Clark Kent and, with the sense that remained to him, set the tray on a nearby table to avoid dropping it. Knowing that Kent spent a good deal of his free time flying around the world in primary colors, seeing his extra terrestrial-ness confirmed, especially without the suit, was more than slightly startling.
Kent adjusted his glasses and took the crowbar from Bruce. Bruce collapsed into the chair Kent had vacated. For one nervous moment, Alfred was sure Kent was going to reciprocate the blows he'd taken with a few of his own, but he didn't. Instead, he calmly, almost absent-mindedly, reshaped the iron rod and set it on the desk next to the keyboard.
"Thanks," Bruce said roughly, drawing a nonchalant smile from his friend.
"Hey, whatever works," Kent chuckled. "Some days, I need you around to talk some hard truth into me; some days you need me around so that you can beat the crap out of a crowbar."
Bruce inhaled deeply through his nose, putting his elbows on the console and burying his face in his hands. Clark put a hand on his back for a moment before turning and leaving the room, stepping past Alfred on the way out. Alfred followed the tall reporter out.
"What was that in there?" Alfred asked bluntly, knowing Kent well enough to know that there was no use circling the subject.
"That was Bruce taking out his frustrations on somebody that can take it," Kent said sadly, adjusting his tie again. "It's been a week since the funeral."
Alfred nodded, then looked up at Kent again, more seriously than before; "I burned the note she left."
"That was probably the right thing to do," Kent agreed after a moment. Alfred nodded mostly to himself, but glad that Kent shared his opinion—not that the action could be reversed.
"It just doesn't seem that anything is getting better. With Harvey Dent and Rachel both gone—and I'm not just talking about their shared idealism and public position. The evidence of the personal impact is right there in the other room."
"Gotham isn't ready for a White Knight. It desperately wants one, it needs one, but a White Knight can't do what the city needs right now. Right now they need their Dark Knight, no matter how much they hate him and resist."
Alfred nodded sagely but didn't say anything.