Chapter Text
Duke nervously approached Alfred who seemingly had not moved an inch since the young vigilante left him to take Bruce to bed.
“Mr Alfred? You okay?”
If Bruce was there, perhaps he could see how Alfred tensed ever so slightly at the question. Nobody else could. How could they? Alfred ensured they remained a respectable distance from him, even when he idiotically indulged and shared an old story or two from his youth.
“Yes, Master Thomas. And please, as I have always told you, it is just Alfred.”
Duke sighed, “I know… Just feels weird. Mom and Dad always told me to say mister or miss to anybody older than me.”
“I will not intrude on that, but please remember, I am a butler in this house–you needn’t bother with formalities.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No need, Sir. Now, off to bed with you, hm? If my aging memory serves correct, it is only you in the house who remains naturally diurnal?”
With a few fleeting words, Duke nodded and went back to his room, yawning all the way.
Alfred took another glance over the room, fighting down resentment at the numerous changes over the years. With a shaky exhale, he left and went back to Bruce’s room to check on the man (who had already fallen fast asleep) and then retreated back to his own quarters.
He sat at his small table, the one where he ate all of his meals and practically everything pertaining to himself. His teeth chewed on his lips. The name that Bruce called him, it just couldn’t leave his mind.
‘Alfie’, ‘Alfie’, ‘Alfie’.
Bruce had been the last person alive to ever refer to Alfred with such a name. The butler remembered the exact day the boy stopped calling him that. It was all so random.
-
“Alfred, do you know where my rucksack went?” Bruce asked as he practically tore apart his room. Alfred hadn’t intended for Bruce to pick up the English terms for certain words but he had very little idea on how to rectify it. Frankly, it had never been a concern until the murder.
Nevertheless, the butler stiffened from where he stood in the doorway.
“Ah, well.. I-” Alfred couldn’t get a grasp on his stammering tongue.
“Nevermind, it fell under my bed,” Bruce muttered. Once he turned to Alfred, his brows furrowed, “You good?”
“All’s well, Master Bruce. I…”
“You never stutter. Or trail off for that matter.”
“Just a bit surprised, is all, Sir,” Alfred sighed out, finally straightening himself, “Can’t say I am used to hearing ‘Alfred’ from you.”
Bruce hummed, his eyes falling down to the floor.
“Yeah, well, it’s your name. And I shouldn’t be calling you Alfie anymore. I’m fifteen, nearly an adult. Can’t stay a kid forever.”
“As you say, Master Bruce.”
A day later, Alfred opened Bruce’s bedroom door to see a letter on the bed, explaining from Bruce that he was leaving Gotham indefinitely.
What Bruce didn’t know was that there was a point where Alfred was singularly known as ‘Alfie’. That Alfred’s family, friends, the bloody Queen would only call him that. He couldn’t take himself serious enough to be called ‘Alfred’. Then he moved to the States after meeting, and with the help of, the Waynes and people thought that Martha and Thomas called him ‘Alfie’ out of familiarity. The name faded to two people for a few years until Bruce was born and began to talk. Bruce’s family was his Mommy, his Daddy, and his Alfie.
But from that day, the day before the boy left to become a man, ‘Alfie’ didn’t seem to exist any longer.
-
With a large tip of some single malt into whatever glass was closest, Alfred choked out a sob and drank. Possibly for hours, the clock in his room hadn’t worked in months and he had yet to get around to fixing it. Though maybe the clock was right. Maybe Alfred started drinking at 8:32 and finished drinking at 8:32.
However long he spent, looking between his old glass and the clock, he finally fell asleep in his chair, unbothered with changing out of his uniform or to do any of his superstitious nightly rituals.
-
When Bruce awoke, he was just as confused as before, if not more, considering he had thought last night was a dream. He shuffled out of bed, glancing around for his teddy that had travelled whilst he slept. A sigh of relief filled the air once he found the teddy, the one that Daddy had affectionately called ‘Mr Teddyworth’. With Mr Teddyworth in tow, Bruce crept down to the dining room where he hoped and prayed he would find his mom, dad, and Alfie.
Instead, he clung to the dining room doorway, staring ahead at a small bundle of strange people, including one who he vaguely recognised, who were in his parents’ seats.
“Hey, Bitty B, sleep okay?” Duke asked, getting up and approaching Bruce the moment the man caught his peripheral vision.
“Why they here?” Bruce asked directly, pointing right ahead at the three at the table.
“Well, they live here. Most of the time. It’s pretty weird, but that’s what happens when you get older, I guess. You get weird.”
“Jamie in school thinks I’m weird,” Bruce muttered, squeezing Mr Teddyworth, “And e’rybody does.”
Duke gave as much of a comforting smile as he could, wrapping his arm around Bruce’s shoulder in a half sort of hug, “That’s alright, B. I’m pretty ‘weird’ myself.”
“Really?”
“I’ll show you once you’ve gotten some breakfast in you, alright?”
“‘Kay.”
Bruce and Duke walked ahead to the dining table before Bruce stopped abruptly where a young man sat.
“That’s my chair.”
“Huh?” Tim murmured in a tired drawl, “Not right now Bruce, this hangover is fucking me up.”
“That’s a bad word.”
“Dude, I just f-” Duke sighed, “Tim, I literally just told you the situation. For the love of God, move.”
Damian snorted under his breath.
Bruce murmured a thank you as he took his seat. Duke could only be a million times more grateful that the man had seemingly calmed down from the mental breakdown he was suffering the previous night.
“Where’s Alfie?” Bruce asked, biting his nails, “I need him. Um. For…” He squeezed his eyes shut and hit his head with the heel of his palm, “I don’ remember.”
“I’ll go find him, Bab- Uh…” Damian glanced to Duke who seemed to be the only helpful person in the room. Unfortunately, Duke could only shrug. “I’ll go find Daada.”
-
Two rhythmic knocks on the door to the servants’ (Alfred’s, since Bruce was four) quarters. The way Damian always knocked. He couldn’t exactly explain why, only that it felt right.
Behind the door, mere moments after the knocks, Damian could hear shuffling, clattering, and faint curses. The young boy furrowed his brows.
“Daada? Are you okay?”
“Ye- Yes! Perfectly fine, Damian, I’ll be down to make breakfast shortly.”
“We already made breakfast, we thought you were with Baba but then he came downstairs. I… Have very little clue as to what is going on. Can I come in?”
“One moment, just- ah bugger, one moment.”
Damian brought his fingers to his mouth, teeth aching to bite at them, before catching himself and shoving his hand in the pocket of his school blazer. Stressed and worried was one way to put how he felt in that moment.
“I’m really worried about Baba,” the young man murmured through the door, leaning against the wall, “It’s so much- it’s so different to the usual spells.”
The door creaked open and Alfred emerged with an unironed shirt on and a stubbly face.
“All will be well, Master Damian,” the butler spoke, voice soft but clearly recovering from whatever hell he had just been through, “Your father and his colleagues specialise in resolving situations like this, remember? Straighten up, now, you’re a Wayne, aren’t you?”
Damian gave a small nod, trying his hardest to not yell at the fact that things will very clearly not be well if it has affected Alfred so much.
Instead, Damian bit his tongue and smiled and walked down to the dining room with Alfred.
Bruce’s head shot up from where he was staring at a full plate of toast and jam when he heard the familiar sharp clacks of Alfred’s oxfords.
“Alfie!” Bruce exclaimed, tumbling off of his chair and tugging the butler into a hug, “You didn’ wake me up! An- I was in Mommy and Daddy’s room and it was so weird! Oh! I ‘membered now–I don’t feel the ouches anymore, Alfie. ‘S all gone, but my body’s like… fuzzy.”
“That’s… one-” Alfred let out a shuddering exhale, forgetting what he was about to say, “Looser grip, Master Bruce, please.”
“Huh?” Bruce murmured, slowly backing up from the hug with a frown. Alfie would always let him get a hug, and encourage the boy to squeeze as tight as he could. “Oh,” Bruce spoke, realisation dawning on him, “‘Cause I’m weird?”
“Has anybody tried hitting him over the head yet?” Tim grumbled, massaging his temples, “Or tape over his mouth- I’m dying over here.”
“Then get out, Tim,” Duke muttered with an eyeroll. He couldn’t begin to understand the undermining ‘jokes’ that people gave to Bruce.
“Fuck you, firstly,” Tim spat, getting up.
“You privileged bastard, don’t start a fight you can’t win,” Duke responded, bracing his hands on the countertop. Tim only continued to bark more and more at the younger man.
Bruce, hearing them both, began to bite at his nails and glance back at Alfred.
“Alfie, I didn't mean to,” Bruce said, voice very much nearing an upset cry.
He caused enough arguments. That much he knew. When he was weird and stand-offish in class and his parents had to have a ‘quick talk’ with his teachers that ended with somebody crying. When he accompanied his parents to galas and he’d say something Alfie advised him not to say and half an hour later, Daddy was holding Mommy back from attacking somebody for speaking ill of her boy.
“I'm aware, Master Bruce,” Alfred sighed out, eyes closed as he tried his best to will away his own headache. He knew he shouldn’t have drank. But this was all so different. Bruce was never de-aged so far back for his parents to not be… to have not experienced the tragedy.
“Am I in trouble? ‘Cause ‘s not my fault! I don't know what I did! That's not fair, Alfie! I- I-”
“Bruce, come on, you're getting yourself worked up,” Duke quickly chimed in, breaking himself away from the close-to-getting-physical fight he was having with Tim.
“Please, just a few deep breaths, Baba,” Damian added, finally taking a step towards his cursed father. Though he couldn't say at all that his fear of the situation had dissipated.
“But it's not fair! I don't- the rules are different!” Bruce cried, “I don’ know what I do! I want Mommy!”
“Master–”
“--I want Mommy!” Bruce yelled, face wet and red with tears now as he stomped his foot, “No more ‘cation! I need my Mommy!”
Alfred took Bruce’s hand and wordlessly took the man out of the dining room and down to Thomas Wayne’s study and library. He guided the crying man to a seat and rushed around, eyes squinted and struggling for a long while before he found what he was looking for.
“A thousand miles ago–Bruce, listen, please. It’s your favourite. A thousand miles ago, in a country east of the jungle and south of the mountains there lived a firework-maker Lachland and his daughter, Lila…”
As Alfred read on, Bruce sniffled and calmed to ask, “Firework book?”
“Indeed. How could I ever forget your favourite?”
“I dropped Mister Teddyworth,” Bruce whined, looking around for the bear.
“Shall we go find him?”
“Please.” Bruce paused, “Can you still read?”
Alfred nodded and held the book in the crook of his elbow as he and Bruce stood up and ventured slowly out of the library. Bruce’s eyes were glued to the floor as he tried to find his best friend.
‘Lachland’s wife had died when Lila was young. The child was a cross little thing, always crying and refusing her food, but Lachland built her a cradle in the corner of his workshop where she could see the sparks play.’
Slowly but surely, they entered the dining room once again and began to search the floors around where Bruce cried.
‘Once she was out of the cradle, she toddled around the workshop laughing. Many a time she burnt her little fingers but Lachland splashed water on them and kissed them better.”
“Ah! Bruce, here we go,” Alfred said, picking up the tear soaked teddy and handing it over to Bruce.
“Mr Teddyworth! Thank you, Alfie!”
‘When she was old enough to learn, her father began to teach her the art of making fireworks.’
Alfred smiled and pressed a kiss to Bruce’s temple, the highest the ageing man could reach.
“Of course, my boy.”