Author's Note: Unlike Tim, Alfred Pennyworth definitely was on duty at the Manor when Wonder Woman first visited the place in "Starcrossed." So while they may not be "well acquainted," I figure they've at least spoken to each other before!
P.S. I've now revised my Profile to include a list, in "chronological order," of all my Justice League fanfics. With the grand total standing at 16, I decided my readers might find it helpful! (All of those stories are meant to fit into a single timeline of events, although I usually try to arrange the plots so that you can probably appreciate any given fanfic on its own terms without needing to remember the plots of eight or ten others!)
Third Conversation: Diana and Alfred Pennyworth
The Batcave had impressed Diana the first time she entered it, and nothing had changed since then. She could name at least a dozen other "underground lairs" in her experience which had fallen far short of achieving such a dark, brooding atmosphere. (Most of those had been artifically-built bunkers, full of flat concrete surfaces and ninety-degree angles, and seriously lacking in authentic native wildlife such as bats—all of which might have something to do with it!)
If you were standing in the "central" area, surrounded by computer screens and trophies and so forth, you couldn't even see the private hospital area. But Tim's instructions had been precise, so Diana zigged and zagged until she found where the hospital area had been set up. Unlike everything else, it was both walled off and roofed over; presumably to keep the bats out.
The word "quarantine" had come up in her conversation with Tim, and Diana hadn't been sure what to expect. Her sole previous visit to the Batcave had been brief, and no one had showed her this area. She half-expected to find the only beds for patients were located behind an airlock, with a requirement for everyone to strip down and pass through a shower with powerful antiseptic chemicals before they were allowed in or out.
It turned out she was only half-right. There was a sealed room, made of transparent Plexiglass or something similar, and only accessible via an airlock arrangement. However, no one was lying on the bed in that room. After thinking it over, Diana decided that Batman must prefer to reserve that room for real emergencies involving contagious diseases, and his current situation didn't qualify.
Batman himself was stretched out on one of a half-dozen cots in what she arbitrarily dubbed "the main ward." Several feet away, Alfred Pennyworth was slumped in a very comfortable-looking chair. Diana had to move around it to confirm that his eyes were closed. She restrained herself from gently touching Alfred's shoulder to awaken him; the man looked like he needed his rest.
With the sole exception of Diana herself, the Amazons of Themyscira were thousands of years old but looked no more than thirty, so Diana literally had never seen a case of "old age" until just a few years ago when she had run away from home and invented the role of "Wonder Woman." She had always known that the phenomenon existed among mortals, and had even spent many hours reading up on it on the Internet after choosing to remain in "Man's World" for the foreseeable future, but she still had precious little experience in dealing with it up close. Her rule of thumb was to treat old people as particularly fragile. (Of course, to a woman with Amazonian strength, most mortals seemed fragile!)
Batman was out cold and had an IV hooked into his arm. She thought of him as "Batman" in this situation because he'd only stripped off his gloves, boots, utility belt, and cape before collapsing onto the cot. (Or perhaps Alfred had removed those things after his employer was unconscious? Same difference.)
There was a clipboard on a nearby table with Alfred's careful notes on his employer's condition. It appeared that, each hour on the hour, the butler was checking pulse, temperature, and other items, in addition to having a few sensors hooked up to his employer's body. The notes did not say the sensors would trigger a noisy alarm if anything took a drastic change for the worse, but why else were they there?
Diana moved around the room without disturbing either of the two sleepers, aided by the fact that her boots never needed to touch the ground as she flitted from point to point. Finding nothing else of immediate interest, she settled into another chair to read some printouts of toxicological reference materials while she waited for something to happen.
Forty-four minutes later, something made a soft humming noise. It turned out to be a device concealed within Alfred's tuxedo; he touched it to make the device shut up, blinked a few times as he saw Diana seated across the room holding a finger to her own lips, then remembered his duty and did a quick check of his patient's vital signs, adding new notes to the clipboard, followed by stepping toward the exit and looking inquiringly at the unexpected guest. Diana took the hint and followed Alfred out of the miniature hospital.
He kept striding at a brisk pace until they were back in what she thought of as the "main area" of the cave, unlikely to disturb Batman's rest. Then he turned around and asked politely: "What may I do for you, Your Highness?"
"You could start by not calling me that," she suggested. "Hardly anyone ever does, here in the 'outside world,' and I heard even less of it when I was growing up. With a small population where everybody knows everybody else by name, we Amazons don't need much pomp and circumstance."
"But you are the only child, and thus the direct heir, of a sovereign Queen?" Alfred seemed determined to treat her as the equivalent of a member of the British Royal Family; a comparison she could easily live without.
"There are heirs and then there are heirs," Diana observed. "Given that my mother has ruled for thousands of years and is still going strong, my prospects of actually inheriting a throne seem rather . . . remote. I'm not sure anyone on Themyscira seriously expects to ever see that happen. I'm certainly not sitting around at home just waiting for it!"
"No, I had noticed that last point myself," Alfred admitted. "But I am not about to call one of Master Bruce's honored guests by her unadorned first name, so what form of address would you prefer? If not 'Princess,' then perhaps 'Miss Wonder Woman'? Or even 'Ms. Wonder Woman'?"
"Most people just say 'Wonder Woman,' she suggested. "Think of it as a job title rather than a nickname, if that lets you feel properly formal about the whole thing. Besides, I think you may be giving me too much benefit of the doubt when you say 'honored guest.' I did arrive unexpected and uninvited, after all."
"I am happy to say that is inaccurate," Alfred said promptly. "For quite some time now, you have been on a short list of the Master's dearest friends; people who are to be extended every courtesy whenever they happen to drop in, with or without advance notice."
That sounded good, but it was a trifle vague. "Could you give me a few examples of what 'every courtesy' might mean in that context?"
Alfred raised his eyebrows. "In essence, whatever you needed and the hospitality of the Manor could provide. A room for the night; a hot meal; a change of apparel; the loan of an automobile . . . and for those friends such as yourself who are effectively Batman's 'co-workers' in the fight against villainy, it would naturally extend to the use of the special resources contained within this cavern."
"Wait!" Diana raised a hand, palm outward, and Alfred kept his mouth shut while she gathered her thoughts. "Are you saying that for quite some time now, Batman has had my name on a list of people who are always welcome to sleep under his roof, and to be treated practically as if we were members of the family . . . except that he never bothered to tell me about my standing invitation?"
There was more than a trace of amusement in Alfred's face, but his voice was quite bland as he replied reasonably: "As to what he has or has not told you when I was not within earshot . . . I really could not say. But the balance of your paraphrase of the situation is perfectly correct. Are you quite sure he never suggested your presence in his home would not be unwelcome in the future?"
Diana took a moment to untangle the syntax in that diplomatically phrased question—all those negatives made it tricky—then replied frankly: "I don't recall his ever saying anything to the effect of 'I hope you will come by again.' I've always had the distinct impression that your employer prefers to keep his 'civilian identity' and his 'costumed identity' as separate as possible. The occasion when he suggested the League split up and reunite here was a unique case. The Thanagarian fleet controlled the skies; holding a meeting at the Watch Tower had become impractical even before Batman deliberately crashed it. But as soon as possible, we built a new Tower and went back to 'business as usual.'"
"Ah, yes. It was immediately after that bit of unpleasantness that Master Bruce placed your name, among others, on the list I mentioned. The Master is a very busy man in both of his identities; I conjecture that if you ask him about this apparent discrepancy between what he told me and what he didn't tell you, he will merely point out that he can't be expected to remember every little thing."
She knew there was nothing to be gained by trying to argue the point any further with the butler; it wasn't his fault that his employer seemed to be afraid to let her know she'd be welcomed with open arms if she ever wanted to pay a social call when the entire world wasn't in peril!
So she smiled her sweetest smile and said, "Let's move on to a more constructive subject. I watched you checking and recording his vital signs. Walk me through anything else I need to know about the situation, and then you can go upstairs and get at least six hours of uninterrupted sleep." (Strictly speaking, the word "can" made it a mere suggestion, but she wasn't going to take "no" for an answer.)
Alfred made some token protests about the Manor's guests not being required to do such menial tasks, and Diana suggested that he stop thinking of her as a "guest" for the time being and instead just regard her as "a friend trying to help a friend." A "guest" might expect to be waited on hand and foot, but a "concerned friend" was less fussy!
There was further argument on that point, but Diana stood firm. She could have rendered the old man unconscious with one deft move, and told herself (with considerable justification) that it was really for his own good, but she didn't relish the thought of trying to explain that to Bruce when he woke up.
Author's Note: It's Friday afternoon as I post this. I hope to have the next chapter ready by Monday morning. (I'll probably be offline for most of the weekend, so when I come back a few days from now, I'll find out, all at once, how people liked this latest installment!)