Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Subtle Shifts
Alfred polished a silver platter in the silent solitude of the kitchen, his movements practiced and rhythmic. The quiet was a luxury, a brief respite from the ever-present hum of the manor's security systems and the constant, unspoken anxieties that lived within its walls.
He hummed a soft, tuneless melody, his mind, as always, on his two charges. The needs of two high-maintenance superheroes are never done.
When it came to Clark, he had noticed the small things first, as he always did. A sudden aversion to a certain tea, an unexpected craving for a particular brand of crackers, and an unusual amount of time spent in the library, not on research, but simply sitting in the sunlight.
These were not the habits of a man of steel. They were the habits of a man settling into a new kind of quiet.
Clark’s metabolism, a thing of legend and constant management, had also begun to shift. The quantity of food remained immense, but the quality of his requests had changed.
There was less meat and more fruit, less coffee and more herbal tea. Alfred had, of course, noted it all down, a small, private list in the back of his mind.
He was a professional, and his job was to anticipate needs before they were even spoken. A quiet hum of concern settled in his chest, a deep-seated worry for the man who faced the sun and the moon.