Chapter Text
A list of duties carried out for the holidays by one Alfred Pennyworth (deceased).
- Ensure the manor is decorated to specification. Contact the following for lights, tree, and various small decor. The tip for the gardener is approximately forty percent of the final invoice. Perhaps reindeer this year.
[ Enclosed, a list of phone numbers and requests, most of which boil down to ‘the usual’ and indicate many of the time slots have already been booked.]
- Invitations. Include a return envelope for Christmas lists and RSVP.
- Plan dinner. Perhaps a place for Miss Kyle this year. Master Jason unlikely to attend, despite Master Dick’s best efforts. Master Tim might be busy with…
The first list fills precisely two and a quarter pages in a small black book maintained by the former butler, in a distinguished hand meant only to ever be read by one person and yet assuredly legible for others. As of now, December Twelfth, the book has been opened by one Bruce Wayne by the request of a precisely worded will that asked that all duties should be carried out as normal by Alfred’s successor. Lacking a successor, whomever wished to take on the duties listed within could do so, but it was his foremost wish that at the very least Christmas should remain unmarred by grief and instead include a celebration of his life and the lives of those he loved most.
Many birthdays and other smaller affairs had carried on in silence. Thanksgiving had come to nothing aside from a brief well-wishing and the manor had remained largely empty aside from a single visit from each of the former Robins, with one notable (or perhaps not notable because of just how expected it was), exception.
...a list of accommodations for one Jason Todd. Or rather, notations of what had been attempted over the years and what he had enjoyed. Though Jason was acrimonious by nature it wasn’t as if all he ever lived were fury and misery even if he attempted to espouse such. Every year the answer to the RSVP was marked ‘unable to attend’ and his list had been returned empty aside from a singular desire to be left alone, if he bothered to answer at all (although to his credit there was only one year to which he did not respond). That was the only gift he had ever asked for.
- Included Master Jason in cookie decorating. Although he did not put in much effort in the actual decoration, at least he enjoyed a fair number.
- Included Master Jason in cookie decorating. Of note, he seemed to particularly enjoy the following recipe common to middle-class households with its cornflake crust. Also of note this is not a type of cookie that needs to be decorated so perhaps that lends to the enthusiasm.
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Included Master Jason in cookie decorating. Sent him home with a pan of Magic Cookies for him to consume at his leisure. It seemed he actually enjoyed decorating this year, although that might be because he spent most of the time painting all the bats with red frowning faces. Master Richard’s presence seemed to help, but he does seem to keep the family in good spirits in general.
- Invited Master Jason to select the tree for the manor as well as one for his own domicile. While he rejected the offer for a smaller tree he did at least seem to enjoy the process of selecting a gorgeously large fir. I suspect because it gave him license to complain about no less than half a dozen other trees.
- Invited Master Jason to select the tree for the manor as well as one for his own domicile. He even stuck around to assist in decorating, although he made his excuses to depart when Master Bruce returned.
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Invited Master Jason to select the tree for the manor as well as one for himself and Master Richard. Although initially reluctant, Master Richard’s encouragement resulted in the purchase of a smaller tree that Master Jason stated would be ‘stuck on the table or whatever’ to keep it from shedding needles throughout the new building.
- Invited Master Jason to a smaller dinner with just the other children. Declined.
- Invited Master Jason to a smaller dinner with just the other children. Declined.
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Invited Master Jason to a smaller dinner with just the other children. Initially declined. Master Richard then proceeded to bring him as a personal guest. Hopefully this behavior continues.
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Took Masters Jason, Tim, and Dick to a local Christmas market. He seemed to enjoy himself. The others brought plus ones, although he hardly appeared to be put out by this. Perhaps smaller group affairs are an idea to apply in the future.
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Master Jason has accepted my request to join him on visitation to his mother’s grave. He seems to appreciate the company.
- Requested Master Jason’s accompaniment shopping for the others in order to get an idea of what to get him for Christmas. It was nice to have an extra pair of hands for the bags, although he did point out rather sullenly that it might be easier to order gifts online instead…
...The list goes on and on so much longer than Bruce could ever think it to, largely because he hadn’t actually expected such a list to exist at all. There were other records as well because Alfred was nothing if not thorough and attentive. While these longer lists were compiled neatly on a personal computer, there were still a fair number of the small black books to record information on the fly. There was no reason at all for these records not to exist, it just didn’t occur to him, and this was a thought that niggled at the back of his mind for reasons unknown. He wouldn’t think of it until after hours of poring through the relevant details just what the trouble was.
There was years worth of information. Decades even, some of which only encompassed his own preferences and inclinations. There was a notable gap between when Jason had been presumed deceased and when the entries resumed, but resumed they had, and with little delay once the former ward had revealed himself as living. There was just so much written, so much time that he hadn’t accounted for in all his time away and with his teeth bared at the boy who had come back a man.
There was so much he had missed .
There was guilt there too. Guilt that he couldn’t imagine Jason doing any of these things, that he could hardly imagine the young man as anything but the boy he had been and the red mask and bulletproof armor he was now. Assuredly there was someone underneath the mask as was the case for himself but that face had been so thoroughly denied him outside of a few moments and even those dripped with enmity. The Red Hood he knew was not the one who carried bags for Alfred or decorated cookies. The Jason Todd he knew was a boy in green and yellow, one far too reckless, not the one who begrudgingly allowed himself to be brought to breakfast at the heels of Dick Grayson as they avoided touching too much in the image of teenagers trying to put on a face for their parents that said they hadn’t been kissing not moments before.
It was simply that he had to resign himself to the knowledge that he did not know Jason Todd and in fact, knew so very little of what happened under his own roof that not only did his butler see but had planned for and accommodated.
‘World’s Greatest Detective’ , he could hear in primly accented tones.
That wasn’t to say he didn’t care for the man nor that they were always completely at odds. It seemed to be in their nature to conflict but there had been a few occasions in which there had come a peace of sorts and he could almost see the fragments of what had been. No capes. No guises. Only himself and Jason and the hood of a car and burgers in hand. That was part of the problem, wasn’t it? That he only saw the fragments and the fragments did not encompass the whole and his responses had been equally fractured. A moment, an embrace when the world was darkest, didn’t make up for all the shadows he hadn’t chased away. Some of the things that Jason asked of him he was incapable of giving but that didn’t mean…
...what did it mean?
The word ‘fatherhood’ was not one that applied to Batman nor to Bruce Wayne in the public consciousness. One a lone figure, the other a billionaire playboy not known to settle down. Despite his wards over the years one could hardly be inclined to call him a ‘Dad’ or a ‘Father’ when the word Guardian still existed. That didn’t mean he was lacking in the inclination. He wasn’t. Or he didn’t think he was, because he knew he loved each and every one of them and yet now, looking at these pages he could begin to understand just how that knowledge only burned in his core and didn’t reflect itself in the eyes of those around him. Affection had never come easy and it always seemed that there was never enough time or circumstance to express it and it had come to the point where he anticipated the rejection even before he tried.
Sometimes he wondered how Dick managed, but the eldest Robin had always been physically affectionate and flippant. It was the kind of demeanor that at first had seemed to grate on Jason at a minimum and make him actively hostile at worst but over time it had culminated in what they had become. Some part of Bruce took no small amount of credit for having insisted that Nightwing keep an eye on the Red Hood, try and get close, hold down tabs on the fort as it were. On the other hand he wondered if they might have turned out this way regardless and if the forced proximity had only accelerated what was already there. It wasn’t his business regardless, although this birthed a small idea.
“No way,” came the laughter from the other end of the line.
“Why?” Precisely measured, but calm and curious.
“Because,” Dick said, and the clink of a spoon and the muffling of words suggested a bowl of cereal at hand. Bruce could imagine him gesturing with the utensil on the other end of the line as he spoke. “if I tell you anything, he’ll know it came from me. You’ll miss out on the valuable Good Dad points. Get him what you think he’d like best. I don’t think you have to do the whole Christmas deal, just...you know.”
Good Dad Points? Was that what this was about? It could probably be condensed to something so simple. Not that he’d phrase it that way. If Bruce were to appropriately define it he might have philosophized on the idea of making up for lost time and a lack of paternal intimacy, and promptly filed it away in an encrypted drive.
“Bruce?”
“Thanks.”
He hung up on a sentence garbled through a cheekful of peanut butter puffs.
‘Just...you know.’ You know how to do this.
You don’t have to be Alfred. It doesn’t have to be the perfect Christmas with all the bells and whistles and everyone crammed onto an opulent couch for crisply wrapped presents and the smell of a four course feast wafting from another room.
You just have to try .
Bruce dials the first number on the first list without a scheduled time block yet and closes his eyes as it rings.