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“Master Dick stopped by today again, Sir.” Alfred’s voice spoke from the top of the stairs.
For days, Bruce had been locked up in the batcave, forcing out any sound that wasn’t the building grunting over its hinges and the tired purr of the computers, so Alfred’s voice did make him flinch in the shadows when he failed to hear the door clicking open.
He didn’t need to look up to know his old friend’s shadow was stretching from the staircase like the nightmarish creatures that slipped between his nights, not caring much for his sleepless nights in an attempt to avoid seeing the twisted, broken shapes of his loved ones in a withering scenery. Not sure if to avoid the conversation or trying to ignore the shadow’s presence as it hovered over him, Bruce remained silent and with his eyes fixed on the screens.
Alfred’s voice paused for a few seconds, gave him the chance to answer. “...He begs you to answer his calls at some point, master Bruce. Or emails, or messages, or to the door.” A heavy sigh left his lips. “Have you eaten anything at all today?”
The silence that followed didn’t seem to impress the old man, who moved tired steps down the stairs. He heard Alfred move around the cave as he picked up the molding food he Bruce hadn’t found it in himself to even touch, let alone have a bit of.
As his old friend piled up the plates with a grimace in his face Bruce felt like he should apologize to him for letting his food go to waste; but the words had been a poison going up and down his throat for the past week. Never stayed enough to kill him, but still made him feel sick in every way the word held.
There were so many things he wished he could say, but each came with a heavier feeling than the prior and his body felt like it had just clawed its way out of hubris after days of calling for help to a dead silent city and no one to come help. Even light felt too intense for him, which made sitting in the darkness somewhat more bearable.
“Master Bruce…”
“I don’t want to hear it, Alfred.” It was all he muttered. His voice felt like it was being dragged over the pavement.
He swore he heard him scoff somewhere in the shadows he didn’t dare look at. Bruce only became aware of the man’s whereabouts when he felt his steps grow closer to him or his walk sent a soft breeze his way.
“Oh, well excuse my manners, master Bruce, but last time I checked your survival was a task of mine,” Alfred pointed out, “a task you’re making incredibly hard with this stubborn–”
“Alfred,” Bruce stopped him again. His voice was more worn out this time, tired. He could understand if Alfred was mad at him; God knew he was too, but he needed silence, desperately. He felt like he was barely holding together the pieces of his mind from falling apart, and his arms were about to give up. “Please.”
For ages it had been like this, except every time his mentor managed to find some hidden crack, some door almost closed he could slip past that allowed him to, despite Bruce’s best attempts, get into his mind and speak to the crumbling, shaken sides of him he had tried to hide. He had told him he didn’t lock himself away because he was scared of sharing his worries, but because he was scared of what the enraged and afraid creature seething inside him would do while unleashed.
But he could felt in the way Alfred lingered around that it was beyond his better judgment, that just as he couldn’t help the sharp edges of his broken self, Alfred couldn’t avoid the urge to bleed if it’d throw in some light. It only made him want to dig himself further away from it, see how far Alfred was willing to bury himself for the sake of saving someone who just couldn’t stay alive.
Like father like–
Oh.
“Master Bruce, one day you’ll have to understand you simply can’t save everyone.” Alfred sighed again. A lesson way too many times heard; never learned, however. It had taken him long enough to accept his new night activities, Bruce could only imagine he wasn’t much of a fan of the price he paid for it. “You’ll eventually come across people who you…”
“He was just a kid, Alfred.” Bruce said before he could keep talking, and the silence that followed said enough about Alfred’s own grief. Jason might’ve been around for little time compared to Richard, but Alfred had a kind heart taught to love, and he had loved Jason like a son of his. He wondered if Alfred hated him deep inside; somewhere in that tangled corner where logic and heart never understood each other and one just raged or sobbed or loved, never understood. “A kid. It’s not that I can’t save everyone, I can’t fucking save ANYONE!!!”
The room held its breath as Bruce stood up, knocking his chair down as his full shape straightened up, casting deeper shadows into the already dark room. He was a ghost of the man Gotham had seen, a sad whisper that told fond stories of a loved face. But nothing else of what colored the skin or framed the person was his: the days old beard, the dark circles under his eyes, the lost eyes. He wasn’t there.
“And it’s not only him, it’s also Richard, and father, mother, the kids’ parents, Gotham, the world.” In a fit of rage, Bruce turned around and smashed fisted hands against the desk, keys flying and scattering over the floor as he struggled to control his breath. If Alfred had been afraid of the violent outburst, he had hid it skillfully, for he stood even closer now with a glimpse of worry showing through his quietness.
Bruce collapsed to the floor, his entire frame falling like a monument, making the cave groan in resentment as he curled up on the floor feeling a gag pushing against his teeth, threatening to make him vomit whatever bits it had missed the few times this heavy feeling in his chest had choked him out.
“I lost the kid, Alfred.” Bruce shook as he spoke, the closest thing to a sob he could afford letting Alfred see him without losing himself entirely. He knew the moment that door broke open and the emotions ran loose he’d be done for; Bruce would likely go insane that very moment. “He trusted me, Alfred. And I failed him. And now he’s…”
An agonizing sound made him try to push himself back up for the sake of having some spare room to spit his guts out, mercifully the bile stayed where it belonged.
He had been replaying the last house previous to Jason’s death over and over again inside his head and on the screens. Thought of every possible outcome, end, chance, opportunity for them to avoid a kid dying nights ago, and each had came to the same conclusion. In what world was a boy meant to die? What sort of fate deals such awful cards?
Alfred was there immediately, muttering his name like he might disappear if he spoke any louder as he helped him back up and sat him down on the table. His hands were always there even when he was just trying to dig himself deeper, to lie down and rest, to stop: Alfred was always there.
Bruce gave up on trying to make him listen. He was tired, exhausted; he chose to save his little energies to not vomit on himself or not lash out on Alfred.
“Master Jason was… A heartbreaking loss, sir, that much is true.” He managed out, his voice quieter to the point it took Bruce an effort to pick it out from the constant buzzing of the computers and machinery. “But that does not give you the right to ignore everything else you’ve accomplished, master Bruce. Because between those achievements there was a boy who looked at you with joy and excitement and to whom you offered a home.”
He shook his head. Because it wasn’t enough, it clearly hadn’t been enough. He wondered what it would’ve taken for him to be able to get there in time; had he subestimated Joker? Had he been too slow to solve the puzzle? Had he missed anything for too long?
Was he simply meant to be alone? He had first driven Richard away, and now Jason was gone too. Maybe the best he could give them was to never come into their lives to begin with.
“When your parents died and I took you in I thought to myself every night: how am I raise this boy? Keep him alive? I couldn’t protect two adults, how am I to teach this boy about the things his father should’ve? Tell him about love and hard work and empathy like a parent should…?” Alfred leaned against the desk, giving Bruce’s eyes a little rest as he covered the screens’ light. “I had the weight of a child on me, master Bruce,” he sought the younger’s eyes, like a father would after scolding his child, trying to let him know it was okay. “You have the weight of thousands. I can only try to imagine how terrifying it must be.”
At his silence, once more, Alfred sighed. Then, Bruce felt a hand on his shoulder, gentle.
“Whithering away won’t bring the kid back, master Bruce,” Alfred said, standing back up and unloading the tray he had brought with new food, then loading the stack of moldy dishes into the now empty tray. “But accepting the risks of your job and assuming not everyone can be saved might be the difference next time…”
For the first time in days, Bruce’s eyes left the screens as they tiptoed after Alfred, trying to linger around him a little longer as he tried to summon the image of a younger man, left alone in the world with a boy who had lost everything. And yet, despite all the worries and fears he claimed to have been consumed by, Bruce couldn’t think of anyone better to take Alfred’s place; and he was sure his parents would’ve thought the same.
He stared at his food then, and waited patiently, with a pinch piercing his heart as he waited for the telling ‘click’ that took so long to seal him back in his mourning isolation, knowing Alfred, too, had wished to linger.
Bruce stared at the food, feeling the sickening feeling come back up at the mere thought of eating it. He wondered if there’d be any way to get it out of the batcave without Alfred noticing; he didn’t want to see that pained look in his face again, much less because of him.
Perhaps one day he’d be able to be half the guy Alfred had managed to be when Bruce’s world was coming down all around him, maybe one day he’d have all the right words and all the precise movements to offer without feeling like it’d come at a too high cost. But until then, the world would have to do with his best attempts at protecting them.
…And he’d have to learn to taste the bitter, ashy feeling of failure.
But until then, he’d mourn. Because he owed every person he failed to protect at least that: mourning. And a really kind, smart man had told him decades ago that to mourn the lost was no sign of weakness, but a way to engrave their names in one’s heart forever.
Maybe one day he’d run out of names to engrave.