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Bruce returns home again around dawn after the Riddler disaster in Gotham. He wills it as a temporary homecoming, just to recharge before his next round helping people in daylight.
He doesn’t mean to not keep his word to Alfred about eating homemade dinner, so, instead of passing out in the cave after nearly running into so many things on the way home with his bike, he staggers away to walk straight to the nearest bathroom. Getting rid of the sickening stench of the factory waste dump all over his muddied body before the sensory systems of the CCTVs notify Alfred about his arrival is the race of the century at the time, knowing Alfred all his life—
—which he fails miserably when he nearly drops his boot as he sees the man’s silhouette right around the corner, biting his tongue in the process to hold himself back from letting out a strangled sound. Startled is an understatement despite his autopilot taking over for Bruce to greet with a throbbing tongue, “Alfred.”
Materialized from the shadows, Alfred greets back sternly, “Master Wayne. Welcome back.” He’s still in his wheelchair from the hospital, seemingly not able to steal a couple of winks of sleep the entire night. Bruce tries his damndest to not wince at the formal name he calls him as, and readjusts his dirty bag on his back.
“Why are you still awake, Alfred?” Bruce asks although he knows it’s such a stupid question. He can’t help it. Blames it on the multitasking before he forces his frigid body to just get on with it, take off the shoes, and run away. Now.
Or apologize, a part of him suggests with a tone scarily identical to Alfred’s years ago, and he feels his feet become heavier to be dragged with guilt at the thought. Takes a moment by conscious effort to calm his heart rate down, and resolves.
“Well—” Alfred begins just at the same time Bruce blurts out without a second thought, “I’m sorry, Alfred.”
Alfred blinks up at him as Bruce ducks his head, bowing down to put down his boots before entering the hallway, steeling himself so hard that he belatedly realizes it’s a mistake when Alfred’s tired face softens not only because of his words.
“Sorry for… being late. I’m-” Bruce stammers quietly and dodges Alfred’s gaze by walking close to the wall and past the butler, who looks like he is considering something even without looking at him up and down, “Give me time to have a bath. I’ll—go eat dinner right after, catch up with you. You’ve made them already, right…?”
“You do smell terrible, Master Bruce,” Alfred says after the pause, and the man turns in his wheelchair with scrunched up nose. He huffs when Bruce looks away. “And, yes. I will reheat the dinner now while you clean yourself. Do you need anything else?”
Bruce is too absentminded to make a witty remark at that, so he hums and mutters, “No, thank you. Be right back.” He almost doesn’t hear Alfred saying he will deliver a clean change of clothes in an hour, even, and falls asleep in the bathtub the first five minutes becoming one with the blissfully warm salt bath water.
Alfred refrains himself from observing when Bruce enters the dining room. No doubt Bruce has his eyes averted to the steaming meals on the table he’s prepared while leaning his head to the side to remove water from his ear. Either he avoids him because he’s embarrassed Alfred found out he fell asleep in the bathtub for a while, or because there’s an honest glimmer in his eyes at the sight of hot meals that’s basically screaming how starving he must be.
Bruce slows the movement of drying his hair when Alfred maneuvers his wheelchair back after filling a glass of water for Bruce to drink. He pulls a chair to sit on, and glances at Alfred from the soup he’s been gawking at from the entrance that makes Alfred almost laugh.
“Mulligatawny,” Alfred confirms with pride, because he knows when Bruce is awed. Touched. “It’s been so long, isn’t it?” He only dares to smile to himself when Bruce is seated and busies himself with a bowl and spoon, towel abandoned around his shoulders; seemingly doesn’t mind the rivulets of water dripping from the tips of his needle-like damp hair onto his dark gray shirt as he moves.
When Alfred stands up carefully from his wheelchair to reach for Bruce’s towel, to either continue drying his hair or not let the towel soak his already damp shirt further, out of reflex Bruce visibly aborts his intention in his chair as well in alert like a deer caught in headlights.
“What is it...?” Bruce asks with urgency, eyeing him cautiously, and he has a posture telling Alfred that he is going to stand up along if Alfred gets up for more than half-an-inch than now. “Where do you want to go?” And that stops Alfred for a solid second to blink, twice.
After a moment of pure silence and feeling bewildered, Alfred inwardly snorts in amusement. “Your hair, Master Bruce,” he points out, clicking his tongue, and thins his lips when Bruce makes a face at that. “You didn’t wash it clean enough. Look at that towel, mottled by remnants of dirt. How do you even wash your hair…?”
“Oh,” Bruce mumbles, and looks down to the dirtied towel draped over his shoulders. Alfred tries again to reach for it, but Bruce is faster. He backs off and stretches his arm out toward him to say: no. Then, he scowls when Alfred raises his eyebrows at him expectantly. Sit, Alfred, don’t you dare, his expression warns.
Alfred withdraws his hand, then. “Alright,” he says, sighing. “I’ll help you wash it again later—”
“No, you won’t,” Bruce cuts him off tiredly, looking serious enough but more to reassure himself that by doing that he can finally eat without having to watch over his supposedly-be- taking-it-easy butler. “Won’t have time. I’m going out again after this, to help the search party, so I didn’t bother." He turns his eyes somewhere else again, away from whatever he's seeing in Alfred. "Don’t bother either," he finishes.
“What?” Alfred breathes out, unbelieving and stung. His lungs and heart spasming gradually with unsolicited dismay.
Bruce just quietens, so Alfred opens his mouth to say something; ready to complicate things. But before he can even form a coherent argument, before he gets worked up enough because this is a grown kid he raised himself that he’s going to face up and against - he sees the way Bruce’s hands shake as he shoves a spoonful of his food into his mouth, and how quick he chews on it before he swallows. Not even meaning to be eating in haste, but Alfred’s shoulders sag down witnessing how fast Bruce goes after that; he practically inhales the soup struggling to hold onto the table manner he’s been taught since he was a child just to fill his empty stomach like there's no tomorrow.
Bruce is clearly famished, Dear God. Alfred relents and shuts his mouth; thinks for the better. He has his hands ready to give Bruce water if he chokes on his food while, in Alfred's mind, trying to recall all contacts of partnerships that would come to aid as soon as possible in the name of a debt or 'owing-Thomas-that-much' they might still have towards Bruce's father. Contacts of logistics and supports more proper than heavy-lifting machinery to clear non-living things away from endangering the living ones. Gather humanitarians and more medic to bring supplies to feed and tend the starving victims, workers, and volunteers on the streets before sun down today, because it's been only twenty-four hours since he came home from the hospital.
Actually, it has only been less than twenty-four hours since coming home from the hospital. Detective Gordon didn't linger much longer than half-an-hour and Alfred was glad because he nearly got a mini heart attack seeing the silver writings on the wooden floorboard that are no mistaking Bruce's—the Batman's doing to solve the Riddler's case in the opened living room. The electricity and electronic devices here in the manor have to rely on generators that Bruce hasn't got the time to activate, it's the only thing Alfred could ask Gordon for a hand on, to help him call support from all over the world under their names—under Alfred Pennyworth's and James Gordon's names as soon as possible.
But there were no calls of support answering much sooner than the ones Alfred has made sure with his entire soul will come in no time under Bruce's name. It was all one hell of a thing, days and nights that turned months to years of negotiations. But, when things paid off well this way, Alfred takes all the sleep, time, and energy he sacrificed to be worth the price. Someone had to look after the young master out there, as a stretched out hand of Alfred's, who could do nothing more than watch and pray for his safety in the manor. Especially with his condition right now.
That ought to prompt it, he supposes: The loudest thought from the back of his mind that has been bothering him since Bruce came to him with blinding determination that it was time for the real responsibilities as the successor of Wayne family. "Do you not know how important you are, Bruce?" Alfred can't help but ask. Unintentionally soft. And he bonds a bridge with his tangled fingers as he embraces himself for what's going to come.
There's a sound of breathless huffing before Bruce perks up. His cheeks bubbling as he chews with an expression full of questions pinned on Alfred, dazed eyes flickering with suspicion as he slows down like he's unsure whether he is or isn't getting it right, brain delaying to connect the implications.
Air gets knocked out of Alfred's lungs when the first thing Bruce says after he manages to swallow the food again is, "What kind of important? Being a sponsor—inventor—whatever-the-hell-wealthy-status-my-father-has-built-since-beginning kind of important...?" And it should be a bitter, disgusting thing, the way Bruce is putting it like that. But Alfred can't detect it. Perhaps it's because of the shake of the head that Bruce does as he says it, not after he said it. Alfred suspects there's an unraveling fight he isn't aware of going on inside, despite the bagged eyes, despite the fresh, haunting memory of him being the one saying I'm not afraid to die, Alfred by someone else's deathbed as he confessed about his biggest fear: The almost of Alfred being taken away from him when he looked away.
Bruce might have been thinking about it, too. About people of Gotham going to bring the history of the Wayne family up at any given chance someday in the shittiest way possible. Just not in the way this current fight he's facing at the moment. An invisible fight that seems - apparently, has shaped into something that fends off those concerns, draining and overtaking, because Bruce's hollowed eyes give away that much.
Though, then again… what do you expect from someone who hasn't rested this long anyway? What do you think would happen to a person who's lacking sleep at all as they push through exertion after exertion just to make things right as Bruce Wayne and not Thomas Wayne and not-Bruce Wayne as well at the same time?
"No, not like that," Alfred responds, and heaves out an exasperated sigh. The last thing he would want to do is be unfair towards this boy. Bruce is aware of the holes and gaps he has to look after and patch up, and Alfred is the one who’s nurtured and planted that - that mindset or behavior for so long. To Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne has become far more important than he could even articulate how, even before his soft yellow bravery turned into scarlet red kind, then void black. He's earned the now grown-up boy that much.
“—city’s in good hands…”
Alfred pauses his inner turmoil when he hears mumbling. "What was that...?”
“Good hands. You said it’s in good hands now, the city. With or without me.” Bruce’s mumbling becomes less intangible this time. The food in his bowl is almost finished, and he’s taking a break, half-contemplating, half-out of it. “Being important is not… is not the same as good. Not for the city; Gotham kind of city. And- and not for me either, Alfred. I'm still… I'm not…” He trails off, then gets his drink with one hand that turns two, big gulps going down as Alfred watches with all kinds of nostalgic feelings raining down on him. Bruce would drink like that when he’s much younger; hands in tremor, sweating, usually after running around playing knights with the maids’ kids before lunch.
Alfred shoots a signaling glance at the napkin just at the right time, because Bruce stops his hand from wiping his mouth when they exchange gaze. Natural color climbing up slowly, slightly painting Bruce’s face after getting and digesting the nutritions from his favorite food is the nicest thing in this dim-lit room.
Bruce is not done yet, however, so Alfred receives whatever this is handed to him right now. “I'm… going out there not because I'm going to take people's opinions personally anymore, Alfred," Bruce says after a while, taking the time to collect himself as he runs his tongue on his front rows of teeth close-mouthed, pondering and repeats quietly; "I'm not going to take any of it." He then looks up and proceeds to say, "I mean, I'm still here, aren't I? Alive, with the city or as part of the city. And Miss Reàl was— is right. There are... tons of good things to do, all of them must be visible and true enough to gain the people's trust again, resurrect humanity in this cursed city once more, and… not even to make the same people we help realize, or force them to do the same, because important things aren't the same as… good. Maybe not all of them. It's - not fair to think that way: Being important isn't the higher level of- of being good. Being good is what's- better than being important."
It's that simple to tighten the ropes around his heart and guts, huh. Alfred understands, then. Nodding with a positively heavy emotion, he says, "Not all things have to have meanings to be profound, is that it…?" When Bruce nods once, and continues eating again without looking at him, Alfred smiles. "That's - that's really good, Master Bruce. I'm…" Alfred picks his words carefully. Can't tell Bruce his parents would be proud, or that a mere butler like him is proud of the milestone this young man just achieved. It won't be so wise. So, Alfred ends up with, "I'm afraid I’m not going to be able to help you prepare the suit, though, for you to go out there again at the moment."
It might've hit two birds with one stone, too, he predicts, because Bruce finishes his food while his bloodshot eyes slow-blink to consider that. Really consider that. "I know," he says in the end, dismissively yet sounding half-hearted. And Alfred pays closer attention when Bruce starts to fade even as he rises up from his chair, clearing the table so he doesn't have to. Bringing the dishes to the sink as Alfred follows suit to carry forward his unbidden mission.
“You’re going to need extra bat suits in the future.” Alfred nudges Bruce to move out of the way from washing the dishes, so Bruce can get onto his main tasks somewhere. (Sleep, he wishes inwardly with a poker face. You must be very sleepy, my boy, so, sleep.)
“Lesson learned,” Bruce sighs, stepping sideways but not yet moving to go. Alfred can almost hear the whirring gears inside his head halting every passing second even as he says, “Have to help people as who I am, then, in the meantime.”
Alfred coos out his impressiveness. “While the sun is up?” He teases while washing the dishes, and snorts faintly when Bruce makes a sound between grunting and groaning and mutters under his breath don’t remind me about my snapped sunglasses, Alfred. He acts modestly, changes the topic: “Representatives from Egypt should be coming this noon, by the way. You should go somewhere high and stay there for an hour or so around twelve to get their signal. We’re going to track you from here.”
“Oh. That's... great.” Bruce waits absentmindedly for a minute before he scratches his nape, like he just realizes something. “Are they, uh…” he swipes away his bangs from his eyes; the movement sways him a bit in a daze, “They’re military…?”
Alfred shakes his head, mentally still chanting sleep spells towards Bruce. “The Koreans are.”
Bruce’s lips form a small O without a sound. “...Medics, then?” he asks with a timid shift. Alfred lets out a soft chuckle before he glances at Bruce who’s furrowing his brows and blinking rapidly to chase away the sleepiness hanging heavy on his eyelids.
“France still has plenty in their hands at the moment,” Alfred explains as he puts the washed tablewares on the rack next to the sink. At that, Bruce stares dumbly before he nods like he’s holding back a big yawn. Alfred pretends to not notice. “Hopefully they can join this week, is all I can tell you. Egypt volunteers for logistics,” Alfred adds, jutting his chin toward the direction of the nearest cloth to dry the tablewares.
Bruce obliges after studying him. “What about food, and clothes?”
“Those, too.”
Alfred's smile is small when Bruce sniffs with blank expression. “Is there, uh… something that I must do to return the favors from all of them…?” Bruce asks as he tidies up the rest. Caution crystal clear in the tension on his shoulders.
“We’re bonded in mutualism,” Alfred begins as he maneuvers his wheelchair back to dry his hands with paper towels; feels the absence of Bruce’s eyes on his back the whole time which Alfred is glad. “And besides, they owed me first. Helped them countless times, so you don’t have to worry about that kind of thing.”
Bruce seems and sounds genuinely surprised. “They owed you…?” he echoes, turning to face him with head tilted to the side.
“You can say so.” But that’s not entirely the truth.
If he has to be honest, Alfred only doesn’t want to tell Bruce yet that there are certain kinds of people who have this - special kind of mindset and are honorable enough to be considered more as friends than allies. People who have similar ethics that’d usually lead to the thought of I’m going to minimize the damage of how this world has treated some of us as best as I can by doing what I can. The rarest kinds of people, but they do exist in this harsh, unforgiving world. They seriously do, and Alfred has seen them, fought with them, fought for them, and they just - never left. They never part ways. They remain one call away with responses like, you know I know you’d do the same if I was in your situation.
Alfred is lucky enough that those are his people, and is grateful that he’s met people like Bruce like that far before all this.
What do you think is going to happen, with Bruce's melancholy condition behind him, if Alfred is honest about that? About the existence of lots of people with hearts as mercurially golden enough to be as relentless as him? When all Bruce needs to do right now, even just for a little while, is to rest? Just to take a well-deserving break for once? It’s been almost ten days, for the love of God, and Bruce is in his early thirties. Alfred didn’t stop either when he was his age back then, now look at how that got his health these days.
So. Not now.
“I’m going to fill up your bike, there should be enough gas in the gas tank,” Alfred says as Bruce makes a turn to head to his room upstairs, and hears a brief humming of acknowledgment. Good luck finding what to wear before going back into the floods once more, is what Alfred doesn’t say out loud, full of mismatched hope and worry this will fail miserably but also - no. It will work. Bruce is too worn out already. It will work.
Alfred focuses and keeps himself busy to stretch his luck some more. Taking his sweet time to reach the batcave for as long as he needs to in order to give Bruce time to - fall unconscious without his supervision. Leave him alone to be defeated by fatigue that has equal effect as consuming melatonins after a feast. Throw in Bruce’s blackened dirty clothes and sticky bag into a pile of something he’ll have to deal with later, after he gets time to sleep and some other hands to help him. And just in case, once inside the workshop, Alfred does fill the bike with gas fuel. Shoves some ration bars inside Bruce’s spare bag with some medkit, ropes, and many other things before he clicks his tongue in disapproval seeing how faceless Bruce’s bike has become like it just dove into a cesspool.
That won’t do, he thinks with a frown.
He checks around the bike to make sure it’s still functional before going back to the field, making sure there are parts that he can repair with his own bare hands, breathing through his mouth the whole time. It takes extra time to rinse down the bike with a hose, but he doesn’t mind. He just - sits there, deadpanning at the mud melting away under the pressure of water with no thoughts, head empty, and he’s doing it long enough that he can’t pinpoint where he starts to feel bored… and tired… and— and, worryingly sleepy…
…And…
Bruce jolts awake in a snap, nearly gasping audibly in shock from under the surface of mixed comfort and discomfort. He doesn’t remember when he fell asleep in front of his opened wardrobe.
The curtains of his room are still covering to shield away the sun rays from the outside, so he has no idea how long he has been asleep. Takes a solid minute for him to stop the world from spinning for a moment; the silence is all he hears at first, then his ears gradually pick up muffled conversations coming from the front yard. One familiar voice whips him scrambling up on his feet to take a peek from behind the curtain to see who’s outside. Bruce yelps in pain when the sun punches his eyes as he does like it’s an act of ancient revenge.
Letting out a growl as a sign of hostility toward the sun, Bruce fights back. He squints so tightly he might look like he’s scowling, so grudgeful if people catch a glimpse of his face from the window, but he doesn’t care. He needs to know who brings a helicopter to land on his front yard, who’s the people there, and who gave the permission to—
The throbbing in his head gets subdued eventually by the sight of Alfred talking to several people in the front yards, like he’s a respected high-ranked soldier. There are men and women wearing uniforms he doesn't know what they signify of. Bruce is wide-eyed in no time, unaware of himself holding his breath.
“Egypt…?” Bruce wonders minutely, but doesn’t let himself get stunned too long and comes rushing downstairs to see it closer for himself.
“Alfred!” he calls out just as he opens the front door. Slowing down only to see that there are actually two helicopters on the brink of taking off from the ground. His mind races, frantically trying to recall Alfred’s words this morning in his confusion: Is it… twelve at noon already…? The glaring light precisely overhead answers that for him.
“Master Wayne!” Alfred turns around when he’s close enough, and motioning him to get closer than standing under the shadows of a tree, glaring back at the light.
“Are they…?” Bruce doesn’t have to finish his question for Alfred to get him. Auto-pilot takes over from the mannerism lessons he had to take, and he stiffly accepts a stretched-out hand of greeting toward him from the man who grinned kindly at Alfred. “Hello,” he says guilelessly.
“Master Wayne, this is Lieutenant Ur,” Alfred gestures to the man shaking Bruce’s hand, introducing lightly like he’s introducing an old friend.
“Bruce Wayne. It’s a pleasure.” Lieutenant…?
“The pleasure is mine, Mister Wayne,” Lieutenant Ur replies before withdrawing. There’s black sunglasses perched on his nose smoothing his forehead from scowling under the glaring sun, and Bruce isn’t envious of him at all. “Sorry about the - noises.” He gestures a spiral with his hand. “Alfred has told me everything that we need to do, locations that we need to cover, so, rest assured, you don’t need to worry. We got this, and we’re going to go now.”
Bruce turns to Alfred with raised eyebrows.
“You can still catch up later,” is all that Alfred can offer him with a reassuring nod. Underneath the layer of that, Bruce can sense apology in there. Great. They’re going to have a talk about this.
The lieutenant seems like he knows better than that, though, with the way he says, “Sure, Alf,” and he gets on the last helicopter with his team. The lieutenant exclaims something that can’t rival the sounds of rotor blades while waving farewell to both of them on the ground, white teeth shining at them as he goes—
“Did he just call me ‘kid’...?” Bruce grumbles in disbelief after catching his mouth-reading, watching it fly away before he turns sourly to Alfred - who’s still there next to him and suddenly standing from his wheelchair. “Whoa, Alfred—” Bruce abandons any emotion to scramble and take a hold of his butler while heart plummeting to the stomach from seeing that. Glowering when Alfred smugly avoids his annoyed staring because all he wants to do is just stretch his body until there are satisfying popping joints Bruce can feel in his palms, cracking his neck left-and-right and all that.
“I fell asleep too, you know.” Alfred pats Bruce’s back as he holds onto him, huffing softly in lieu of apology, and he’s grinning. “I just happen to always mind my look whenever I wake up from an unplanned nap, Master Bruce.” Unbelievable. He snickers this time when he gestures to Bruce’s hair, which he assumes is sticking out in eight directions and which Bruce also cannot believe but must be true no matter how much he denies that.
Bruce, stewing as he pushes Alfred inside the manor again, takes that as an excuse to roll his eyes for the first time in his life; sullen and irritated and just—horrifyingly feeling at ease, for once.