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“Do you need anything else tonight?”
“You didn’t have to come down here. You must be tired.” Bruce doesn’t turn around from his computer screens.
“That’s considerate of you,” Alfred answers, “but you know I can’t sleep unless I’ve checked on you.”
This time, the kid does turn around. “All right. I’ll—go to bed, too.”
Alfred raises an eyebrow in surprise. This is nothing like his charge normally behaves. He’s known to stay up half the night most nights, tinkering with his equipment and sneaking out to do his work.
The butler is limping more than usual. The physical therapy to help him recover from his bombing injuries is really taking it out of him. Wordlessly, Bruce holds out his arm, and Alfred hangs onto him, letting him help as they make their way inside the house.
“Good night, Bruce.”
“Good night, Alfred.” The butler is deposited at his own room by his enigmatic charge.
“Don’t get any ideas that I’m too weak to know what’s going on,” he adds to the retreating figure. “I still have eyes in the back of my head, Bruce Wayne.”
“No doubt,” Bruce answers drily. “Get some rest.”
—
Bruce Wayne has never been good at apologies. He seethes in his room, angrier with himself than he ever was at Alfred.
When he and the butler are training, everything seems so clear. So unified. Alfred says he has a talent for man-to-man combat. The butler’s skills are undeniable. It will be years before Bruce can win without Alfred letting him.
It’s the other things that don’t work so well. It’s when Alfred tries to impose bedtimes or study rules or curfews. Bruce can tell the butler feels as awkward as he does about it, and the buttons aren’t hard to push.
“You’re not my dad.”
At fourteen, it’s not the first time he’s said it to Alfred, and it won’t be the last. He will regret it every time.
—
Alfred’s body is slowly mending. His mind will take longer. He still dreams about Bruce opening that package instead of him, about Bruce not making it out.
This is one of those nights. He wakes up at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat and rolls out of bed, fumbling for his cane. He needs something to take his mind off the nightmares. He limps through the hallways to the kitchen to get some hot cocoa with milk. Back home in England, they said that was supposed to make you sleepy. It’s never worked for him, but it’s something to do at the dead of night when your brain refuses to quiet down. When he gets close, he sees that the kitchen light is already on.
“Bruce. I didn’t think you were going out tonight.” There’s no judgment in his tone when he sees his one-time ward at the table measuring out cocoa powder. (He’d learned to make it from the best, after all.)
“I’m not,” the man, who still seems like a kid, answers. “Just couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither,” says Alfred, deftly taking over the cocoa preparations. “Bad dreams. You?”
“Headache.”
“You should have called for me, Master Bruce. I would have brought something up for you.” The “Master” slips out. He can’t help it sometimes.
Bruce smiles a rare, lopsided half smile. “That would’ve defeated the purpose.”
“Which is?” Alfred hands him a mug with cocoa, milk, and a few marshmallows, just the way he’s always liked it.
“Figured if I went to bed early, you might actually get some rest.”
Alfred sits down with his own mug, one of Martha Wayne’s favorites that he’s guarded for two decades. “I’m fine, Bruce. The physical therapy is supposed to be tiring. It’s about pushing.”
Something is still eating at Bruce. Alfred can tell. He’s acting like he’s got something to say, the way he has since he was a child, all fidgety and distracted, but he’s not saying it.
—
After an hour alone, Bruce finally gathers up his courage. Daring to violate the “go to your room” that came out of Alfred’s mouth during their last encounter, he goes back down to where Alfred is working, standing behind the desk quietly, trying to be brave.”
“I know you’re back there,” Alfred says, though he doesn’t sound angry. “Your stealth is improving, but you’re not silent quite yet.”
The butler sounds almost amused, but Bruce feels anything but. He walks around to stand in front of his butler, eyes downcast.
“Alfred, I—”
“Yes?” Alfred knows what he’s going to say, he’s pretty sure. The butler still waits for him to say it.
“I’m—sorry.”
Alfred nods, standing to his feet and facing Bruce, still towering over the boy by several inches. “I’m not your father, Bruce. But I’m doing my best.”
“I know.” Bruce wants to cross the distance between them, but he feels unbearably awkward.
This time, Alfred doesn’t leave him on his own to flounder. This time, Alfred comes to him.
“We’ll—start fresh tomorrow, yeah?” The butler gives him a hug, and, after a few seconds, Bruce hugs back. It feels good.
—
“Alfred.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Me, too.” The butler smiles across the kitchen table at Bruce, well aware that there’s more to come. Sometimes you just have to wait out Bruce Wayne until he’s good and ready.
“I-uh,” Bruce stares down into his cocoa as if he’s expecting to find the secrets of the universe there.
Alfred is starting to get an idea of what he might be trying to say. He’s been through this enough times over the years, after all. He just waits, letting the silence at the dead of night cocoon them.
Bruce looks up after a few quiet moments and meets his eyes. That part is new. Alfred is reminded that the boy has become a man, however much he may still resemble the quiet, tumultuous kid he once was.
“I’m—sorry about what I said before—about you not being my father. I didn’t—mean to ever say that to you again.”
That conversation feels like a lifetime away, but Bruce has never been good with leaving conflicts open. He’s too vulnerable, too in need of reassurance from the people who matter to him. Only Alfred understands the true depth of need found within the city’s fierce vigilante.
“You know I forgive you,” he answers readily, reaching over and putting his hand on top of Bruce’s where it rests on the table.
“I—know.” Bruce doesn’t pull away.
Not much else is said until both men finish their drinks, and Alfred stands up. Wordlessly, Bruce offers him a shoulder once again, and they make the walk back to the butler’s comfortable quarters.
“Thanks, Alfred,” Bruce says a little awkwardly as he gets ready to leave the bedroom.
“Wait,” the butler says, not sitting down. He gets a quirked eyebrow in return.
“You apologize, Master Bruce, you get a hug. Remember?”
To his satisfaction, his charge smiles that lopsided smile again. Alfred won’t push it; the smile is enough. If Bruce wants to treat it as a joke from the past, he’ll let him. After all, he’s gotten two smiles tonight.
“Okay.”
That’s all the invitation Alfred needs. He crosses the space to Bruce and wraps him in a firm embrace. No longer is he taller than the boy he raised. Bruce has five inches on him, but he still melts into Alfred’s arms and seems to soak up the comfort like he always did.
After a while, Alfred pulls away but leaves his hand on Bruce’s neck, warm and, he hopes, reassuring. “You’re a good man, Bruce Wayne. I’m proud of you.”
That’s the limit, apparently. Bruce finally bolts, leaving the room without another word. Behind him, his butler can’t stop smiling.