Chapter Text
718-846-6849: i'm scared
Is the text that starts it all.
A text from an unknown number that Alfred receives while he is watching a movie with Masters Bruce, Dick and Jason. He doesn't get a lot of texts, so this one makes his eyebrow raise in surprise.
"What is it?" Bruce asks him quietly from the couch.
Jason is curled up beside him, while Dick is in the next armchair over.
"I don't know," Alfred murmurs, pulling the phone into his hands.
Alfred Pennyworth: Who is this?
718-846-6849: i'm not supposed to tell. i'll get in trouble
Alfred straightens in concern.
Alfred Pennyworth: Why are you scared? He types, all too aware of Bruce's eyes on him.
Someone pauses the movie and suddenly he's aware that there are three sets of eyes on him.
718-846-6849: it's the thunder. it's really loud
Alfred glances at the big bay windows, to the sight of the rain coming down in sheets. Lightning splits the skies as thunder shakes the windowpanes.
Alfred Pennyworth: It's a loud storm. But there's no need for concern. It should be over soon.
He pulls up the weather app and sees that the storm is only forecasted to be bad for the next hour, give or take. It's a cold front that will be dropping the temperatures somewhere between 10 and 15 degrees.
"Who is it?" Bruce asks in the silence.
"I think," Alfred says, pressing his lips together in thought, "It's a child. But I don't know how they got my number."
"Maybe an accident?" Dick wonders.
"Maybe," Alfred concedes, not at all certain.
--
The next text he gets is a few days later.
It's a picture of hands. Small hands. Ones that have been torn up with possible road rash. Very red and sore and bloody.
718-846-6849: do you think they're infected?
He purses his lips again. His phone had buzzed in his pocket, and he had taken his rubber gloves off and retrieved it. The dishes can wait in the light of this new mystery.
Alfred Pennyworth: Is there any pus?
718-846-6849: no
Alfred Pennyworth: How did this happen?
718-846-6849: . . .
718-846-6849: . . .
718-846-6849: i fell
He barely registers the appearance of Master Bruce walking into the kitchen.
Alfred Pennyworth: How?
718-846-6849: (sends a picture instead of answering)
Alfred sucks in an audible gasp.
"What is it?" Bruce asks, pressing forward into Alfred's space.
It's a picture of Batman and Robin racing across the rooftops.
"Alfred, let me see the phone," Bruce demands, reaching for it.
Alfred turns his back on him instead, striding across the room and pressing, 'Call.'
He's not sure if anyone will pick up, but after three very long rings, someone does.
"I'm sorry," a boy whispers into Alfred's ear. "I didn't mean to."
"What did you not mean to do?" Alfred asks, ignoring how Bruce is looming at his shoulder, far too close to him, obviously listening in.
"I didn't mean to use your number. I wasn't thinking. I'll stop."
Alfred thinks furiously before asking.
"How old are you?"
"I'm 10," says the actual child on the other side.
"Who am I?" Alfred asks next, feeling the way Bruce stiffens behind him.
An explosive rush of air into his ear.
"I won't--I haven't told--," is what the child says in response.
"Who am I?" Alfred asks, repeating himself, feeling his stomach clench in some strange mixture of concern and fear.
"You're Agent A," the young voice answers, helplessly.
Bruce goes ramrod straight at that, barely breathing.
"Are you safe? Is there someone with you?" Alfred asks, not letting himself worry for the moment.
"I'm--no, I'm the only one. I haven't told anyone."
Alfred frowns and turns to look at Master Bruce, who looks stricken.
"Who are you?"
He doesn't get an answer. He wasn't sure if he'd been expecting one, really.
"I gotta go. I can--I don't have to write back," the young voice offers.
Pleads.
"I would feel better if I knew your identity," Alfred answers.
"You wouldn't," the young man on the other side says. "It wouldn't help. And you don't really want to know me anyway."
And then he hangs up.
Alfred is left with a silent phone and the feeling that he is missing something.
"What's the number?" Bruce asks after a moment.
Alfred rattles it off, already having memorized it.
"It's Gotham, at least," Bruce answers, before turning on his heel and heading for his study.
Alfred has no doubt as to where he's going.
--
The number is in Gotham. But it's a burner phone that was purchased with cash at a local shop near the Bowery. It was purchased with three other phones at the same time, each the same model, but in different colors. The plan was purchased with a credit card that leads to a fake identity. It is, all in all, a dead end.
Three days later, he gets another text.
718-846-6849: if i don't want someone to touch me, they should honor that, right?
Alfred stiffens at the text, but dutifully gets Bruce's attention before responding.
Alfred Pennyworth: They should, yes. Who is doing the touching?
718-846-6849: there's a teacher. at school. who always touches my arm or my shoulder. and i told him i don't like it and he doesn't listen
Alfred shows Bruce the message, causing him to glower before turning the phone back around and responding.
Alfred Pennyworth: What teacher?
718-846-6849: i shouldn't tell you
Alfred Pennyworth: Why not?
718-846-6849: i don't want Batman to come after me
Alfred purses his lips. Bruce, who is reading over his shoulder, is predictably, of no help.
Alfred Pennyworth: Batman doesn't go after innocents.
718-846-6849: he's protective of you and i've already fucked that up
Alfred Pennyworth: Language. And you haven't threatened me, but it sounds like your teacher could be a threat to you. Why don't you tell your parents?
He eyes Master Bruce and gets a nod.
718-846-6849: they won't care
Alfred scowls.
Alfred Pennyworth: What's your name?
718-846-6849: i can't tell you
Alfred Pennyworth: If you can't tell your parents, then tell another teacher. Or your principal. Or a police officer.
Maybe he should tell him Batman's number and advocate that the boy call him.
718-846-6849: then they'll want to talk to my parents
At least there is proof that the boy has parents.
Alfred Pennyworth: Yes, that would be the general idea.
718-846-6849: but they can't talk to them!
Alfred Pennyworth: Why not?
"Yes, I would also like to know that," Bruce mutters from beside him.
718-846-6849: they'll get mad at me. it'll be my fault for causing a problem
Alfred frowns at that.
Alfred Pennyworth: They should not.
718-846-6849: . . .
718-846-6849: . . . but they WILL
--
So far, Alfred knows a few things about his mysterious little friend. He knows that that thunderstorms frighten him, and that he likes to chase after Batman and Robin. He might also know their identities. In addition, he can extrapolate a few extra details from what he's been given. He knows that his young friend is pale, possibly white, though pale hands are not always indicative of actually BEING white. He also knows that he's in school and he is likely prepubescent, given the timbre of his voice.
And he has a male teacher, who may or may not be a threat.
--
It's nearly a week until he gets another message. Master Bruce and Jason have been on the lookout for a little stalker or friend on their nightly patrols, but have been unsuccessful at finding anyone young enough to be Alfred's new friend.
He's found himself worrying over the situation more and more as the young man in question continues not to write him and has just about decided to text him first when he finally gets a message.
It is two in the morning on a very early Saturday, and he is in the cave on comms, waiting for Batman and Robin to finish up what they are doing and return home.
718-846-6849: i'm scared
Alfred Pennyworth: Why?
718-846-6849: (sends a picture)
It's a picture of a warehouse. There is a crowd of goons and Two-Face, surrounding two adult female hostages that are tied to chairs. The picture has been taken from above the room, possibly in the rafters.
Alfred both desperately wants to know why his young friend is there and also wants to scream at him to get out. Immediately. Posthaste.
Alfred Pennyworth: Where are you? Can you get out?
718-846-6849: not now i can't
Alfred Pennyworth: Where are you?
He's got his hands already on the transmit button when his young friend responds, relaying Batman the address and the situation.
Alfred Pennyworth: Why are you there?
He doesn't ask where the boy's parents are. It's clear that this child is woefully unsupervised. He has a sickening feeling that this could have been Dick's fate, should Master Bruce not have bothered training him.
"Two minutes ETA, Agent A," Batman says in his ear.
Alfred Pennyworth: Batman and Robin are coming. Please hold on and don't get caught!
He watches through Batman's cowl footage for any sight of small boys in rafters. He thinks he sees something from the other side of the room, and zooms in. There! A small blurry face of a boy dressed all in the black. He's only there for a few frames before Batman's attention is diverted.
"Batman, he's in the rafters on the east side," Agent A says into the microphone when the fight starts winding down and he's no longer in danger of distracting his master.
"Not anymore he's not," Robin says a moment later, answering in his stead.
Alfred Pennyworth: Are you safe?
He texts without much hope of a response. And he doesn't get one, not for several hours.
718-846-6849: i'm safe
He finally gets a text back after Batman and Robin have returned. After they've gotten out of their uniforms and Bruce has circled back to look at the blurry footage that Alfred had found of their little friend.
--
Dick joins them for brunch the next day, open about his curiosity of their mysterious texter.
Bruce is barely awake, staring mournfully into a cup of coffee, leaving Jason to fill up most of the silence with his chatter. Alfred brings them pancakes and then, without prodding, sits at the table as well. It's enough to get Master Bruce's attention, and he stops his brooding long enough to butter a plate of pancakes.
"So he was out there last night?" Dick asks when they are part of the way through breakfast. "Any idea what for?"
Alfred shook his head in the negative, as he eats steadily through his own plate of pancakes.
"And you've never seen him before?" Dick presses on, ignoring Jason's scowl at the question.
"No," Bruce grunts, rubbing a hand over his face with obvious frustration.
"I wonder how long this has been happening," Dick muses, mostly to himself.
--
Later, when the dishes have been done and Dick and Jason are off somewhere together in Gotham, Alfred and Bruce return to the Batcave. Alfred sits at the computer and brings up the file they have been compiling on their little friend.
"How many male teachers are there in Gotham?" Alfred asks, knowing the answer is probably not going to be helpful.
It's not.
He's not even certain that their little friend is a boy, though he thinks it's likely.
He leans back and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger and then looks back at the file.
"Did you look back at the camera footage from around the warehouse?" Alfred asks Bruce, swiveling around to stare at him.
Bruce is leaning over a separate keyboard on the opposite end of the desk, pulling up images.
"Yes, but I'm going back over it to make sure," Bruce responds.
"Did you two go back over where he might have been hiding?" Alfred asks next with a frown.
"Yes. We could see where the dust had been disturbed, but not much else. There was a catwalk leading over to the spot. It was a bit unsteady, but Jason had no trouble with it. But it would not have held up my weight," Bruce adds.
"Wonderful. So our mystery child is somewhere between fifty and two hundred pounds," Alfred responds with a scowl.
He doesn't mean to be so short with Bruce, but his anxiety is getting the better of him. He decides that it's better if he leaves Bruce to study the footage alone, before standing up and pulling his phone out to see if the child has written back yet. Nothing.
"Have you considered writing him?" Bruce calls out when he is almost at the steps leading back to the study.
He freezes and then turns to look back at Bruce.
"I have not. I will rectify that immediately," Alfred adds.
Alfred Pennyworth: Have you eaten today?
He writes him when he gets back upstairs, in the quiet of Master Bruce's study.
718-846-6849: uh, yeah. why?
Alfred Pennyworth: Because it occurs to me that no one is watching out for you.
718-846-6849: i can take care of myself
Alfred Pennyworth: You should not have to. What did you eat?
718-846-6849: just some cereal?
Alfred Pennyworth: What about protein? Fruit?
718-846-6849: . . .
718-846-6849: later?
Alfred Pennyworth: Who will cook for you?
This time, the phone rings. It's his mystery child.
"What do you mean, 'Who will cook for me?'" The boy's voice rings out in his ear. "No one will."
"Should I infer that you are an accomplished chef then?"
He tries to keep his disdain out of his voice. He doesn't want to scare off the child now.
From a pocket, he pulls out a recording device and deftly turns it on, his phone linking to it via bluetooth almost immediately, before putting it on speaker phone. He presses his alert to Master Bruce a second later and then continues on the conversation.
"I don't have to be an accomplished anything to feed myself. I'm not--," the boy cuts himself off with an aggrieved huff of air just as Bruce opens the cave entrance and slides silently into the study.
"What are you not?"
"I'm not like you. I don't have to have fancy meals and people to feed me," the boy says, clearly frustrated.
"Do you subsist on ramen noodle and pop-tarts then?" Alfred bites back.
"There's nothing wrong with pop-tarts!"
There are so many things Alfred could say to that, but he sticks with the most basic of problems.
"They are junk food and not conducive to healthy eating."
"Listen, why are you talking to me?" The boy's voice is plaintive.
Alfred and Bruce glance at one another.
'Be careful,' Bruce signs at him.
"You are a child. A growing child. You cannot grow to your full potential living off of junk. How . . ." Alfred takes a deep breath and lets it out inaudibly. "How will you keep up your energy for following Batman and Robin across the city if you aren't getting enough vitamins?"
Silence for long enough that Alfred begins to fear that the child has hung up.
"Oh," is the soft reply he gets finally. "Healthy stuff is expensive."
"Do you not have enough funds for food?"
His mind is in overdrive trying to think of a way he could provide the boy with food without causing him undue distress.
"Kinda. My parents--," the boy makes a strangled sound. "They're gone a lot. And they leave some money, but I have to budget. I can't--," he makes another plaintive sound, and Bruce leans in close enough to bump shoulders with Alfred.
"I can't waste it on cooking disasters."
Alfred frowns.
"Would you," Alfred's frown gets deeper. "Would you let me send you some gift certificates? I assume you don't want me sending you food?" He asks, hands itching for something to do. "I would, if you would let me, send you food."
There is a shaky exhalation on the other side of the phone, like someone is trying not to cry.
Bruce's hands are balled in fists in his lap.
"I could--you could. Uh, I have a P.O. Box. You could mail me things?" The little voice on the speaker is so very hesitant in its suggestion.
"That would be acceptable," Alfred responds, already making plans. "Will you tell me what the number and zip code are?"
The box number is rattled off, along with a zip code that contains part of Bristol, and he watches Bruce write it down before getting a strangely constipated look on his face. Alfred doesn't dare let the child know that Bruce is listening in, but he's desperately curious to know what his ward is thinking.
"I will send you some items immediately. See that you check your box soon," Alfred says instead.
"O-Okay."
"If you won't tell me your name," Alfred adds, asking before the boy can hang up, "Will you at least give me something I can call you?"
There is a moment of strained silence that erupts between them, and Alfred can see Bruce lean in again as they wait.
"I guess," the boy says softly, "You could call me, 'Crow.' If you want."
"I would like that," Alfred responds. "Crow."