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When Bruce Wayne first saw you, it was a day like any other.
Well, it was a night like any other, time tended to blend in the event of an Arkham breakout, by the end of it the entire family ran on fumes, much to the displeasure of one Agent A.
He could feel the unnaturally piercing gaze of his butler from the farthest corner of his cave.
Alfred Pennyworth turned 109 yesterday, the demon his family contracted to them, a 1000.
The Waynes were ancient, more so than the crowd of ‘old money’ they were clumped together within Gotham's social construct, as if she could be so organized.
Gotham herself called to the first of her Waynes like a siren does to a greedy sailor.
She sang and they were helpless to her tune of darkness and death.
Many think Bruce despises magic. This is incorrect, he despises what he can’t control but he can’t help but be drawn to it all the same.
He wouldn’t have stayed on as the Dark Knight in so unruly a city if he didn’t.
Arkham breakout aside, his faithful servant informs him of an anomaly.
You were not quite what he expected you to be.
Not many things can make a crease form in Alfred's brow and a woman like you isn’t one of them.
An anomaly indeed.
He feels something stir awake within him as he reads your file, reads his son's report on the masterful shot of yours, he has your life’s story in his palms and yet.
Something doesn't add up.
He will crack this code and settle the thing you seem to have awoken within him.
No matter the cost, because the last time he listened to such a beast he ended up as Gotham's Dark Knight and father to countless errant children.
A new beast will only complicate things.
He has failed.
This new creature prowling within him has broken free.
The party, the guns, that rescue.
He must have you.
Alfred feels a dark sense of delight in the cavity his heart should be in.
Wayne manor will be welcoming a matriarch soon, the first in the longest gap since the idiot named Charles Wayne decided the manor could function without one.
Never again.
Alfred needs her, not quite in the same way his master or his children do, but it is a need close to it. The demon hopes she likes the clothing he sends, while he doesn’t doubt the ability of the Wayne clan to protect you, they cannot be trusted in courting you into the fold.
He will spare you of their attempts.
In your tiny apartment, cramped close to the heart of the city and the police station, you sneeze.
“Damn dust allergies”