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“I lost my temper.”
Bruce is standing in the doorway of Alfred’s bedroom, looming up from the shadows like a bat, except he’s not dressed as Batman, and his gray sweatpants are starting to fade.
“I thought that was somewhat part of the job,” Alfred answers drily, putting aside his nighttime reading.
“I don’t mean as Batman.”
“Sit down.”
Alfred motions to his extra easy chair, and Bruce obediently comes inside and perches. His body is taut, like a coiled a spring.
“What happened?”
“Richard—I, uh, caught him in my parents’ room.” Bruce nervously puts his hands through his tousled hair and stairs down at his lap. “I’ve—told him not to go down there. He was looking through my mother’s jewelry, and I—just snapped.”
“I’d say that’s understandable,” the butler replies, handing over the cup of tea he’s been stirring while his employer speaks.
“He looked terrified, Alfred. He ran.”
“Yes, and he’ll recover.”
“Are you sure?” It’s touching how worried Bruce is. Alfred taps him on the knee.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“How?”
“Because I had to have lost my temper at you about three thousand times, yet here we are.” Alfred smiles, handing over another sugar cube. Judging by Bruce’s face, the tea has been steeping too long, and it’s gone bitter.
“What?” Bruce doesn’t take the sugar, obviously not even noticing it. “You never lost your temper, Alfred. You’re the most patient person I’ve ever known.”
The butler puts his head back and laughs, his jerk so violent his robe falls off his right shoulder.
“Memory’s a funny thing, Bruce Wayne,” he says after a moment.
“What—happened?” The younger man looks genuinely baffled.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it rocket science. I cooled down, apologized, and if it was a particularly bad time, sometimes I bribed you with your favorite food. If you actually did something wrong, it didn’t get you off the hook, though. I’m not crazy. With your growing skills, I didn’t want a delinquent running around Gotham.”
“Oh,” Bruce says. “I—remember getting mad at you. I don’t remember the other way.”
“Kids are the center of their own world. Besides, you were safe with me. I always figured—if you knew that, the rest would sort itself out. Considering your current—activities—I’m not sure how right I was.” The butler is only half joking.
“That’s the problem.” Bruce leans forward, chin resting on folded hands. “He—doesn’t know that yet. I—might’ve ruined it.”
The younger man’s earnestness is deeply endearing. Alfred resists the urge to reach over and ruffle the characteristically unruly locks falling over his forehead. He doesn’t want to make light of it, though. The Grayson boy matters.
“I think he’s starting to know, Master Bruce, and you can always tell him.”
Bruce blinks. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done this whole thing, Alfred.”
“I’ve wondered that for a myriad of reasons,” Alfred rejoins with characteristic directness, “but losing your temper once isn’t one of them.”
“What should I do?”
Alfred could offer to smooth it over himself, but he’s still Bruce’s guardian, after all. He still has lessons of his own to teach. “You find him. You talk to him. You get past it.”
“All right.” Bruce unfolds his lanky frame from the chair, get up, and turns to leave.
“Bruce.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let him off the hook.” All Alfred receives is a nod from the back of the other man’s head.
—
Richard wonders if he should pack. This whole thing was always too good—and too weird—to be true, after all. But even to a kid, that seems cliche, like something in a movie. Nobody is coming to tell him to leave, and Nellie brings him his study break snack at 4:30, just like she does every day.
He was a little afraid, for a second. But only for a second. For a second the quiet man he barely knows had made him wonder what he was in for—but then he remembered the day he’d found out who Batman was, and he wasn’t afraid any more. If Bruce hadn’t done anything to him for that, hadn’t sent him away or hit him or even yelled at him for searching out his secret, he figures there’s a halfway decent chance he might skate by this time, too.
What he doesn’t want to think about is how disappointed his parents would be that he’d done the one thing Bruce Wayne had told him not to do. It’s not a bad gig to live in a mansion, and the billionaire and his butler have surprisingly few rules. People might think Bruce is strict and austere, but that’s not really how it is. Richard has most of the things he wants, for the first time in his life, and as long as he gets his schoolwork done, he has a lot of freedom to set his own bedtimes and hobbies. Alfred is a little more structured than Bruce, but he has a tendency to make sure Richard gets his favorite foods and has plenty of time to just be a kid.
Maybe that was the problem, really. It was too good to be true, and Richard had to push on the one thing that was an absolute boundary, just to see what would happen. It’s like the time his mom had told him not to pull on the string hanging off his sweater, but he hadn’t listened, only to find out that when he tugged on it, the whole thing started coming unraveled. Apparently, he thinks, he hadn’t learned anything back then, or he wouldn’t have done the exact same thing.
After a while, he figures he should man up. His dad had always told him it was better to do the right thing, but if you did the wrong thing, the way to fix it was to square your shoulders and apologize.
Ok, maybe he’s a little afraid, after all. He pulls the duffel bag out of his closet, the one he’d brought with him the night Bruce had sent a car to pick him up. He puts it on the floor next to his huge, four-poster bed. Man, he would hate to go back to single beds.
He takes a deep breath, leaves his room, and nearly runs smack dab into Bruce in the middle of the hallway.
—-
Bruce catches his ward by the shoulders before the two collide. Richard usually has better spatial awareness than this. “Are you okay?” Bruce asks, frankly puzzled.
“Yeah, I was coming—to find you.”
“Oh,” Bruce replies, still a little confused. “I was coming to find you, so I guess we’re even.” He’s still holding the boy’s thin shoulders, and he can feel the tension ratchet up at his words.
“Oh, do—you want me to pack up?” Richard’s eyes are on the wood floor.
In a flash, Bruce understands. He puts on hand under Richard’s chin, gently forcing him to look up. “What did I tell you before—about how long you could stay here?”
“Al—always.”
“Right.” Bruce nods. “Now, when exactly did that change?”
Richard shrugs his shoulder under Bruce’s hold.
“Kid, I was coming to say I’m sorry I lost my temper. You shouldn’t have been in that room, but I shouldn’t have freaked you out. That’s all.”
“Sorry,” Richard answers softly, looking back down as soon as Bruce lets go of his chin.
Not for the first time, Bruce realizes how much a young Richard Grayson is not the same sort of thing as a young Bruce Wayne. He’d have probably been combative, argumentative, had to calm down for a few hours before crashing down and making up with Alfred. He’d always run hot and cold. This is different.
“Can I—hug you?” Bruce feels out of his depth, but he remembers the last time, the way Richard had responded to physical affection.
“Okay.”
Bruce has no idea what kind of people the Graysons were, and he’s very sure he’s a lot less adept at parenting. Still, when he puts his arms around the slight frame of their son, he hopes he’s doing what they might have done.
“Always, Richard,” he says, holding on with an arm around the boy’s shoulders and another holding his head. “I meant that.”
Bruce remembers reading somewhere in a psych report that you shouldn’t let go until the kid does, so he keeps holding on until Richard starts to pull away. It’s longer than he’d have expected.
“Alfred said I shouldn’t let you off the hook for disobeying me,” he says, noting how much calmer Richard seems. The boy is making eye contact now, on his own. “Are you going to do it again?”
“No.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” Bruce holds out his hand, and they shake on it.
“Richard—I—have a hard time talking about my parents, but—you could ask Alfred, if you want to know about them. You can find out more from him than you could from going through their stuff, anyway.”
“I—wasn’t going to take anything,” Richard says quickly.
“I know that. I never thought you were.” Bruce holds his gaze for a moment. “Don’t tell Alfred I didn’t punish you.”
“Ok.” Richard finally smiles.
—
Alfred Pennyworth is a good eavesdropper. It’s the kind of skill you pick up when you work in the intelligence service. He soundlessly melts back down the shadowy hallway and into his room, neither the boy nor the man noticing his presence.
Truth be told, he’d never for one moment thought Richard Grayson was going to come away with more than a hug and a gentle admonition to do better. That's just Bruce's way-he's always been a giant soft heart in a bat suit. It’s probably a good thing the world doesn’t know that.