Chapter Text
Alfred finds him bandaging his hand in the cave later, the incinerator in the corner on and burning the pants he had been wearing. He eyes the new sweatpants, the sandwich with the broken plate in the trash, and the bandages before quietly coming over to finish the job. "Master Dick left in a hurry. He seemed to have left in much the same state as breakfast." Bruce doesn't bother to ask if he left safely, Alfred wouldn't have let him leave any other way, and just focuses on the careful motions of Alfred’s hands over his own. "And where have your pants gone?" Alfred asks as if Bruce is five again and finding it okay to run around without them in the back gardens.
"There was blood on them." The incinerator is loud in the silence that follows.
"Well, perhaps next time you will remember that we own a washing machine. One that our staff is quite adept at using."
"Yes, Alfred." He feels like a child getting scolded and it helps ground him from the way he still wants answers from parents long gone. The bandages get secured and Alfred gives a soft pat on his wrist, it sends comfort up his arm but it dies before it can take root in his chest. “The plate,” he says instead of the dozens of things he has running in his mind, not half of which is threatening to make him spiral.
“Yes, my plate. Shall I ask for an explanation or pretend I never saw it?”
“I surprised Dick. It wasn’t his fault.”
Alfred watches him carefully and Bruce watches his mouth tighten at whatever he sees before it smoothes out into the careful blank face he always wears when he’s being careful with his words. That hand comes up to run through Bruce’s hair again. “I never said it was, Master Bruce.”
“It wasn’t his fault.” Bruce can’t help but repeat to the ghost of his childlike cries begging for his parents and desperately leans into that hand.
“You never said it was, Master Bruce.”
The bats squeak and Thomas Wayne reaches and Martha Wayne reaches back and Bruce screams and they don’t touch and his knees are stained and he can see the ghost of himself begging his parents to come back.
Bruce leans forward until his forehead connects with Alfred’s chest, feels it move with the steady breathing and something unspools in his own just a bit. His childlike ghost is screaming out his regret. “It wasn’t his fault,” he whispers and he can’t tell anymore if he’s talking about himself or Dick. The hand is steady in his hair and Bruce reaches with his good hand for Alfred’s back, gripping the shirt for something to hold him tighter together. Something is breaking in his chest, something is always breaking in his chest, but his childlike ghost is finally getting chased away with Alfred right there next to him. “No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t yours either, my boy.” Alfred says and it chases that ghost away for good. It takes away the scattering pearls and the crack of a gun. The hand on his head feels secure enough for him to breathe through the fear of the bats.
When Bruce finally feels calm enough he pulls away and has to stop himself from rushing back in when Alfred takes the hand with him. There’s a steady heat that wants to crawl up his neck to his face but Alfred has seen him in worse states than this and he can’t really find it in himself to be ashamed. Not when he’s so tired at least. Perhaps he’ll find it in himself after a few hours of sleep. “Dick,” he tries, because despite knowing Alfred would have sent him off fine and well he can’t help the niggling worry, “did he leave okay?”
“Master Dick left perfectly fine. Well enough to slam my front door on the way out even.” There’s a click of the tongue that tells Bruce that Alfred will hold that memory close until the next time he needs Dick to sweep the floors for some inane reason. It brings a huff of amusement out of him despite himself. “As for you, Master Bruce,” that amusement goes away in a hurry, “I’m not sure what you planned to do in the cave but might I suggest you shift to the manor proper?” The tone suggests this is not really a suggestion. When Bruce opens his mouth to object—the case files he needs to work through flying through his head, all the upgrades he needs to figure out—Alfred raises a single eyebrow. “Master Bruce.” The tone makes Bruce straighten and get off the seat to stand straight.
He makes another effort to open his mouth to say something, about the million things he could get done from here. About the showing and not telling he could be working on for his kids in this cave that might not be going through but still keeping them alive and safe. But all Alfred does is clear his throat and Bruce has never been able to win against Alfred. All the training in the world and he could never win against a single look and a few words. Bruce turns on his heel to head for the stairs without a word and hears Alfred cleaning up behind him.
The bats squeak above and Bruce breathes through the sound to keep walking.
It's as he's passing the trash with the massacred sandwich in it that his steps stutter to a stop again. He can't look away from it. The only thing he can think of is all those decades of Alfred by his side learning how Bruce loves while Bruce is just now learning to be afraid he hasn't learned how Alfred loves.
"Alfred." It comes out before he can think about it and his own voice surprises himself. Behind him he hears movement stop and Alfred’s clear voice asking what he needs. What does he need? The sandwich doesn't have any answers but—
"Thank you for the sandwich."
He hurries away before he can hear his own voice echo back to him in the walls of the cave. He doesn't want to hear the always-present anger. There's only so much of that he can take in a day and his nights are drowning in it. Alfred’s voice calls for him but, ignoring it, he heads inside the manor and stands in his office. Not quite sure what to do with himself. There isn't anything on the agenda for him today at the company, he's just been kicked out of his own cave until night-time, and he's not feeling especially tired for a nap.
His eyes catch on his desk and the pile of papers on it.
Lucius has been sending more and more passive-aggressive 'per our last correspondence' emails about those paperwork. Bruce can feel his nose wrinkle in distaste already but with an open schedule and the threat of another passive-aggressive 'per my last inquiry' message he sits down to get some work done as civilian Bruce Wayne. The first page already threatens to make him snap his pen in half and remember why he put this off for so long when he sees it’s a business proposal from Mr. Warren Mercer. Bruce feels his head throb and grabs the file to shove into a different pile with a note on top. One that reads, ‘Lucius, you better not have waited until I got actual eyes on this to reject the proposal or you're fired.’
If Mr. Mercer wanted a business proposal to go through he should have picked one that would, quite possibly, work or at least try to make the world a better place. Not one that essentially boils down to: make a line of public space areas that can be free of homeless people due to certain structural choices. He refuses to be one of those companies. He refuses to be someone like that to the people in Gotham. To people.
He turns back to the file and scribbles out another note.
'I'm serious.'
He stares at it before drawing a heavy-handed line underneath 'serious' to lend it more weight. As if he could ever survive without Lucius. As if the man doesn't know it. Bruce huffs out his discontent and moves on.
The next few files go well before he finally reaches one he gets every year. The yearly auction he set up once he got Dick. One where the proceeds go to various charities and conservations, only one of which was an elephant conservation which got a nice large chunk in Dick’s name. Bruce’s hand stops on the file. He can't remember if he ever fully explained the auction to Dick. He was always so bad with words.
He leans back.
He recalls taking Dick to them every year. 'Tradition' Dick had once joked even with a grin so sharp it could turn into a sneer in a heartbeat. 'Tradition' he had said and Bruce had thought he meant love. Because Bruce hadn't really gotten to make very many of those with his own parents and isn't tradition supposed to be love? 'Tradition' he had said but walked out halfway as an adult when they still fought every week and never went again ever since.
Does Dick really know this is tradition?
Tradition in that this only started when he got Dick? Tradition in that he always sends the money in Dick's name? Tradition in that there is an elephant conservation out there waiting for Dick to visit one day that Bruce had only gotten the courage to broach the topic about the year they both fell apart and then never again. Tradition in that this is love?
Show and not tell.
Bruce leans back forward, signs the papers to get the auction rolling, then grabs his phone to message Dick.
"The Wayne Auction is in two months. Will you be atten—" Bruce deletes the whole thing. "I'm aware you haven't come for a while now, but the Wayne Auction is in two months. I was wondering if y—" deletes it again.
He presses the edge of his phone against his forehead.
"The Wayne Auction is in two months. Will you come this year?" He sends it before he can second guess himself.
Dick would still be driving. He knows this. But he can't help the way he stares at the screen. He tells himself it's to avoid the paperwork.
Surprisingly he sees three little dots jump out at him at the bottom.
His eyes shoot up at the time and finds it's later than he realized, the paperwork took longer than he thought and he hadn't realized what time it was, before glancing down just in time to see them disappear. They come back and go away again a few more times, hiking up Bruce’s blood pressure each time.
"Sure." Is what comes in the end. Period and all. Bruce is too relieved at getting a response, and one that Dick would attend at that, that he doesn’t even care.
"I'll make a note of your attendance."
"K." Again. Period and all. Bruce actually does wince this time. A horrible combination, the one letter and a full stop. Dick was upset when he left and his anger is really something even Bruce doesn't like to confront most days. He debates telling him about the elephants. The donations. All those years of silent love that should have gone through but didn't because Bruce is terrible with words. But that isn't a conversation to be had over text, not with something like this, even if it would be easier for someone like Bruce who has a tongue that stumbles all on its own over nothing.
Bruce swallows some courage and reacts with a heart to Dick’s last message and quickly puts his phone away.
Small steps.
Bruce’s phone doesn’t buzz with any new messages and he breathes through the nerves to get lost in more mind-numbing paperwork.
Small steps.