II
Bruce was beginning to become uncomfortable with the amount of interest that Alfred had taken in Dick Greyson. When Bruce had first brought the orphan back to Wayne Manor after the death of his parents, Alfred had been aloof. He had even expressed skepticism about the propriety of "two old bachelors with unmentionable secrets and busy nights" (his words) becoming the caretakers of a young boy. But now, less than a week later, he was doting on the child, perhaps even to the point where he was neglecting his other duties, a shift in priorities that Bruce had thought would be impossible for the normally fastidious butler. Two days earlier he had returned to his bedroom after an hour spent suspended upside down recalibrating the suspension mechanism on his utility belt to find his pajama shirt from the night before was still on the end of his bed, unwashed and unfolded. He has gone to find Alfred to tease him about his uncharacteristic dereliction of duty, and had found him in Dick's room, reading the child a Rudyard Kipling story. He even deepened his normally monotonous voice, just a decibel or two, as he related the words of Bagheera the panther.
Bruce remembered his earliest days under Alfred's care, just after the murder of his parents. Alfred had always taken an interest in him, even while Thomas and Martha were still alive. He had not had much time or opportunity to interact with Bruce, as Wayne Manor demanded an even higher standard of care back then, when the Waynes had regular dinner guests and tennis tournaments and the occasional fundraising gala for one of their pet causes (mental health, homelessness, improving science education in inner city schools, etc.). But somehow, busy as he was, Alfred always managed to be there, hovering at the periphery of Bruce's childhood. While Bruce hung from his personal jungle gym, the waist of his untucked shirt inches from his face, Alfred would be nearby, tending the garden. While Bruce was in the pool, learning to breaststroke in spite of the awkwardness of his loose-fitting trunks, Alfred was crouched nearby with a test strip, checking the pH. And at the end of each day when Martha dragged Bruce between bathroom and bedroom, hair soaked, the fly on his pajama pants unbuttoned, Alfred was always there to offer him a warm towel. "Master Bruce," he would say, "it would be a terrible thing for you to go to bed cold."
And then came the opera, the two gunshots, and the long day at the cemetery where, rather than look at the lifeless, makeuped faces of his parents, Bruce watched a robin exhume a worm from a fresh grave. After the funeral, there were to be no more dinner guests, tennis doubles, or charitable dances. Alfred closed the house to the outside world, insisting that it was what was best for his young ward. "There are murderers in this world, Master Bruce," he explained "Murderers and parasites and riffraff, all of whom would like nothing better than to see another good boy from a reputable family dead in the gutter. To think of your mother and father, lying on the street, in the same alley where transients urinate and fallen women operate. The dishonor of it all is far worse than their deaths. I'll not have the same happen to you."
So Alfred became his only family, his only friend. Though emotionally cold, he took meticulous care of the ten year old. He simultaneously did everything that one normally expects of a parent, a servant, and a teacher: the cooking, the cleaning, the lessons in grammar and mathematics, the feigned losses at tee-ball and chess, the perfunctory attempts to explain the reasons behind life and death. Bruce wanted for nothing, except for the sound of laughter and the comfort of a gentle tone of voice. He wondered, sometimes, if Alfred saw him only as the sum total of his work, the way an accountant would view the digits on a spreadsheet or a maid would examine the surface of a freshly mopped floor.
He wondered this until one night after a rare day trip into Gotham that culminated in a surprise visit to the movies—Alfred, not taking any chances, had bought out the entire showing—Alfred had given a still-excited Bruce a glass of warm milk, garnished with a cinnamon stick. "It is very late, Master Bruce, and this will help you sleep." Indeed Bruce began to feel drowsy before he had even finished the glass. Alfred took him by the hand and led him from the kitchen into the hall, but rather than lead him upstairs to bed, Alfred brought him downstairs, through the now empty servants' quarters (all of the other staff had been dismissed after the funeral) and into his own room. Bruce walked through the door absently; he could not process where he was, why he was there, or what was likely to happen next. He doubted that he was still awake. Alfred pointed him towards the bed and he sat down and waited there, watching the polka dots on the wallpaper undulate and grow. The next morning he remembered very little of the night before, just a few images without context: the flapping tails of a butler's coat, the fluttering of black sheets, a cricket bat propped in the corner.