Nightwingsass - thanks for both reviews! And you're so damn right! A good Batman and Robin movie is all I'm waiting for! Apart from that, no, I don't celebrate it. In fact, I don't even know what it's about. Wrong country, I assume. But thanks anyway ;-)
Special welcome to Naunet42, my beta who found her way to this story on the website by accident :-) Thanks again!
I'm not entirely happy with that first scene, but oh well... It has to do.
Second to last chapter, today. Prepare for the end ;-)
One night, nearly two months after the boy had discovered his guardian's secret identity, Master Bruce came to Alfred's quarters, waking him. The butler immediately was on high alert.
"Master Bruce, is something wrong?"
"No, everything's fine. I'm sorry to wake you, Alfred, I just didn't want to wait until morning and risk Dick overhearing us. You never know where the boy is and what he picks up", he smiled. The butler had to agree with that. More than once he had been startled to find the boy standing behind a corner, watching him. He suspected it to be an exercise in stealthily behaviour Master Bruce had assigned him.
"So what is the matter?" the old butler asked.
"Tony Zucco", the younger man said with grim satisfaction. "I found the man who manipulated the ropes on the trapeze in Haly's circus. Well, the man who ordered it to be done, to be precise."
At that, the butler straightened himself. "So now you think the time has come to take the boy out on the streets?" His voice had a hint of sharpness to it.
"I know, Alfred. You don't like the idea."
"No, indeed I do not!"
"And I do understand that.. But you should see him in training. He's a natural and he loves it. Whatever I teach him, he picks it up within minutes and he never gets tired of asking for more. He's so eager. And I promised him. I promised I would take him with me once I located his parent's murderer. You know, I can't go back on that. He would never forgive me." Alfred had to admit that was true. Was keeping the boy safe worth ruining his trust in his guardian? He was afraid, the boy would never be able to trust again, after losing his family to a criminal and the man who was to care for him afterwards lying to him. The butler nodded.
"So I wanted to ask you a favour. Not for me but for Dick", the younger man added at the sight of Alfred's slightly indignant expression. "Would you sew him a costume? The only thing flexible enough for his movements he has is his old leotard but it provides no protection, not even against scrapes. If I have to take him with me, I want him to be as safe as possible."
The butler couldn't argue with that. And he knew, he had no choice, for the exact same reason. There was no decent way of keeping the boy home so he had to do everything in his power to protect him, there was no space for pride or stubbornness on his account.
"I'll talk to him about it tomorrow", Alfred promised. His employer nodded and left the room, relief showing in his posture. The butler only hoped, the man would get some much needed sleep now and that maybe, hopefully, their differences would lessen somehow from now on. He was tired of constantly living in a weak truce.
"Master Dick, would you like to accompany me at a visit to the attic?" The boy was instantly intrigued by this question.
"The attic? Really?" he asked with sparkling eyes. Alfred could understand his excitement. He hadn't been up there yet because the door was always locked and wasn't the attic the most interesting part of a huge old house to a boy?
It was the next morning and Master Bruce had just left the house, not without giving Alfred a meaningful look before he went out the door. So the butler decided not to lose time and asked the boy to come with him to where the sewing machine and the fabric was stored. Of course the boy didn't know what awaited him. Alfred wasn't going to ruin the surprise.
When they reached the last step of the staircase leading up to the door and Alfred opened it, he smiled at the excited look on the young sir's face.
It took only a second for the boy to vanish behind the things stored up there. Loads of old furniture and boxes with photographs were put away here to collect dust. The only person ever coming up here was Alfred, when Master Bruce's uniform needed to be repaired because the vigilante had damaged it. Again.
He walked over to the corner holding the material he was looking for. There was an old but fully functional sewing machine next to a desk complete with lamp, paper and pencils. There was no way of tailoring a costume without a detailed draft. A huge wardrobe full of different fabrics stood only a few feet away.
"Master Dick", he called out. The boy instantly appeared from behind an old davenport.
"Yes?"
"I think you would like to come over here and help me with this." Curiosity sparkling in his eyes, Master Dick walked towards where the butler was standing.
"You need help with a ... sewing machine?" he asked a little sceptical, once he had identified what the old man was standing next to.
"Not with the device but with what I'm going to tailor with it."
"How can I help you with that?"
The butler smiled. "It is for you. Master Bruce asked me to make a costume for you, so you are dressed properly when you go on manhunt with him."
The boy's face lit up immediately. "I'm getting a costume? Awesome! What is it gonna look like?"
"That is for you to decide." Master Dick beamed at him.
They carried two chairs over to the desk and settled down, a large piece of paper sprawled out in front of them. Alfred picked up a pencil and looked at the boy.
"Well then, young sir, do you have any ideas?"
It took nearly three hours until the two of them were satisfied with their work. It wasn't as easy as expected, matching both Master Dick's wishes concerning the look of it and Alfred's musings respective the safety issues and the practicability.
In the end, they had quite a colourful picture drawn out. A red vest, as a tribute to his old circus costume, black trousers, a yellow utility belt, black boots, black gloves and a black cape with a yellow inside. The vest was going to be reinforced with Kevlar, Alfred had insisted on it.
"Are we going to make it now?", Master Dick asked excitedly but the butler shook his head.
"I would prefer to ask for Master Bruce's approval first. We don't want him to not like your costume, do we?"
"No", the boy was slightly disappointed. "But we'll make it as soon as he allows it, yes?"
The old man could see now, what his employer had meant by saying the boy was completely ecstatic whenever it came to anything concerning his training and the planned mission. It would be hard to make the boy stop once had sniffed the air outside. The butler partly hoped, he would get scared out there and decide, he would never want to do it again. But he knew, the chances were low.
When Master Bruce came home, his ward was already waiting for him in the entrance hall, the paper with the draft in hand, practically bouncing on his toes. The butler was standing more patiently a few steps behind him, ready to take his employers jacket as soon as the boy released him.
The door opened and Master Dick instantly ran to the man coming in.
"Bruce, look. Do you think it is good? It is good, isn't it? Tell me you like it so we can make it!"
His guardian smiled at him in surprise. "Easy, Dick, calm down. I can't even see what you have there. Let me have a look", he said and crouched in front of the boy.
"It's my costume. Alfred and I drew it today. Well, Alfred drew it, really, but I helped. And he said, you had to say yes before we could make it. So please, say you like it. It's awesome!" Apparently, the boy was still far from calming down, he was nearly shouting and still bouncing up and down.
Master Bruce smiled thankfully at the butler. Alfred realized, the younger man hadn't been quite so sure his employee really would help with the costume. He nodded in response and kept his eyes on the happy scene before him, not entirely sure what to feel. He was glad, the boy could be so obviously happy again but still, the reason behind it bothered him a lot. Why couldn't there be another way to achieve that happy look on the child's face?
In the end, Master Bruce expressed his approval which made the boy nearly burst and was allowed to get up again. When the butler came over to finally get the jacket off the man, he was rewarded with a low "Thank you, Alfred" by the younger man.
This evening, Master Dick was having difficulty on deciding what he wanted to do. Training with Bruce or tailoring with Alfred. Over the whole dinner, he kept changing his mind, until finally the butler stepped in.
"May I present the idea of splitting the time, Master Dick? You could first go down to the cave and then start working on the costume with me. I will put the time until you arrive in the attic to good use and look if we have fabric suitable to our cause."
In the end he had to wait only half an hour before the boy stormed in.
"Can we start now?" The excitement in the child's voice still hadn't lessened the tiniest bit.
"Yes, we can. First, I need to measure your body, so I know how big the costume has to be. Would you come over here and spread your arms? Yes, like this", he said, when the boy promptly stood in front of him, looking as if he tried to hug the whole room at once.
He took notes while he rounded Master Dick with the measuring tape. When he had everything he needed, he guided the boy over to the table where he had spread out fabrics in different colours and qualities.
"I thought, this black one would work well for the cape, combined with this yellow cloth over here. And would you like this red one for the vest? The pants would be best made of this", he said, indicating a black fabric. "And the shoes we are going to buy tomorrow. For the utility belt, we are going to take one of Batman's and change it so it fits your needs."
The boy nodded frantically, not able to express the amount of excitement he felt.
When the butler got to work, Master Dick looked at his doings interestedly.
"How do you know how to do this?"
Alfred smiled. "Oh, I've made Master Bruce's costume as well. So I am what you would call experienced by now."
"You made Batman's costume?" The boy looked at him in awe.
"Yes, I did. And I repair it every time he gets a tear in it, which is quite often, I can assure you", he said with a blink. Master Dick snickered.
"But before that. Where did you learn it?" So he was persistent. Well, as they were going to spent more than just a few minutes on tailoring this, Alfred decided he could very well tell the boy his story.
"Well then, Master Dick, maybe you want to sit down here next to me, because it is going to be quite a long story." The boy complied and looked at him expectantly.
"First of all, you have to know, I haven't always been a butler. I come from England."
"So that's why you sound so funny", the boy burst out, interrupting him. When the butler raised an eyebrow, Master Dick blushed. "Sorry. It's just... You speak differently, you sound differently. I didn't know why."
"Well, now you do. I only came here around thirty years ago when Master Bruce was a very small child. But later to that. First, I was in England and I did not work as a butler there. Can you guess what I did instead?"
The boy thought about it for a second but then shook his head.
"I was an actor." Alfred smiled at the surprise showing on Master Dick's face. "Yes, I was. And I liked being one. We travelled around the whole country, quite like you did, and everywhere we went, people would come to see us perform. It was a lovely time."
The boy nodded sadly. "Yes, I know. I loved it, too." He was silent for a second and the butler waited for him to come around again.
"So that's where you learned it? Tailoring costumes?"
"Yes. We all had to make our own costumes and as everyone wanted to have the best one, we put a lot of effort in them and got better and better." The butler smiled at the memory of this ever-lasting competition.
"Why did you stop being an actor?" Alfred's smile faded at the boy's question.
"My father got ill. He had gone to America when I was old enough to live alone, my mother had died years before that, so I had not had the chance to seen him often. But when I got mail of how bad his condition was, of course I travelled to his side at once. It was in this very house that I saw him for the last time. He was the butler here before me", he explained when Maser Dick made a questioning noise.
"When I talked to him, he had one request. He asked me to take over his employment and be the butler to Dr. and Mrs. Wayne. It was his dying wish, so I went to Thomas Wayne, Master Bruce's father, and applied. He gladly took me and I lived here ever since."
"Don't you miss being an actor?" The boy's eyes lay on him and they bore a look of sympathy. He seemed to know what Alfred had lost that day.
"Sometimes", the butler admitted. "But the Wayne family was really friendly and it has always been a pleasure working for them. Dr. Wayne was a really nice man and Mrs. Wayne was a lovely woman. It was devastating when they got shot. Especially for Master Bruce. He was only eight years old then, just as you are now. After the tragic incident, I took care of him and tried to give him a good life but he never was quite the same again. You may have noticed that he can be dark and brooding at times, not talking much. Before all that happened, he was a happy child."
"Why did they get shot?", Master Dick asked quietly, compassion on his face.
"Because someone wanted their wallets and thought they did not hand them over quickly enough."
"Why do all the good people get murdered for money?" The boy's rhetorical question caught the butler off guard. He hadn't seen that specific resemblance. And it made him sad that someone as young as Master Dick had lived through enough to have such thoughts.
"I don't know, young sir, I don't know", he answered sadly.
There was silence after that and the butler delved into cutting the different fabrics into shaped pieces while the boy watched him work.
Suddenly, nearly half an hour had passed and Alfred was busy with the first seams, Master Dick spoke again.
"I don't want to become dark and brooding." The butler looked at him in surprise, recognizing the phrase he had used to describe Master Bruce.
"You don't have to. It is up to you what kind of person you will turn out to be", the old man reassured him.
"But if I'm not dark and not brooding but happy, wouldn't that mean I don't miss my parents enough?" The boy sounded truly worried. He had probably thought about it a lot and waited for someone to ask.
The butler hurried to put Master Dick's mind at ease. "No, it does not, I can assure you. Don't you think your parents would like it better if you are happy than if you couldn't enjoy yourself anymore?"
The boy looked at him with eyes widened in hope. "Yes?" It was more of a question than an agreement but when the butler nodded, a cautious smile spread on the boy's face.
So, obviously I took the Robin costume from YJ as an example. The one he wore in the comics wouldn't have made sense because Alfred would never have let him go without pants :-D In fact, whose idea was it in the first place? No wonder, everybody makes fun of it^^