Free Write - Alfred

[icarus_chained]

Title:  Necessary Evils
Rating:  PG-13, maybe R
Fandom:  DC Comics
Characters/Pairings:  Alfred, Joker
Summary:  Necessary Evil is a phrase Alfred knows well. A phrase he's acted on more than once.
Wordcount:  1134
Continuity:  Current canon, ie after Bruce's death
Notes/Warnings:  For cold_nostalgia , and I'm positive it wasn't what she intended. It went ... dark ... people. Very, very dark. Disturbing themes ahoy!

Necessary Evils

 

Necessary evil. It was a phrase Alfred knew well. Too well, maybe. Life was never easy. Life was never black and white, only ever grey, murky, a fog of disinformation and ill-made decisions. It was hard, in that world, to know how to make the right choices. There were some who said there were no right choices.

That last, he might disagree with.

He's seen many kinds of evil in his day, Alfred had. He walked in theaters of war as a medic, then the murkier and sometimes bloodier fields of politics as an intelligence agent. Secrets and blood and lies, all the way. He learned about men who butchered people on the ground, and men who slaughtered thousands with a word. He'd learned about courage, and honour, and the utter lack of choices violence presented. He'd learned about death.

Then, Gotham. By far the murkiest, bloodiest theater he'd ever walked. War there, too, after the Waynes' deaths. After Bruce began his quest. Death, always present. Always following.

In Gotham, he'd been everything that he'd been before, soldier, medic, spy, butler. And more. So much more. Father, friend, confidante. Advisor, for all that he'd been rarely listened to. Shoulder to cry on. Devil's advocate. But most importantly, he'd been a father. To Bruce. To his boys. In whatever ways he could, he'd always fought to be there for them, even when he didn't agree with what they did.

Now, he was going to be all that again.

He moved silently through the halls of evil. Otherwise known as Arkham asylum, but only by the innocent. To those who knew better, the place was only a step away from hell, and that step not a long one. Evil lived here, all but oozed from the walls, echoed by the voices of the criminals and madmen within it. Echoing back and forward, amplifying itself. No-one could ever heal here. No-one could ever regain sanity. That wasn't their fault, the prisoners locked up here. But other things ... other things were.

He found the cell easily enough. Everyone knew where this cell was. Everyone knew who occupied it. It wasn't even marked on the paperwork, on the boards. It was the only cell unmarked. Because no-one wanted to even write his name.

The Joker's name.

He eased his doctor's bag back on his hip as he approached the door, bracing his elbow on it as he brought the shotgun up. They'd sedated him to the gills for the night, according to the charts, just to keep him quite, but with the Joker that didn't always mean anything. Hence the gun. Even the Joker would pause for a minute in the face of a shotgun. And a minute was all Alfred needed. Not even that, but he had to make allowances for age. He wasn't quite as fast as once he'd been.

The door opened with a small click. Alfred didn't bother disguising it. People paid more attention to muffled sounds at night, wary and alert, but normal sounds that signified someone who had a right to be there ... that was different. Old lessons. Old habits, but Alfred remembered them clear as day. Clear as yesterday.

The Joker was lying on the bed as he entered. Strapped down. That was useful. That would make things much easier. He caught the gleam of eyes in the dimness, the flash of awareness, and the creature chuckled weakly as he met Alfred's gaze. Sedated, alright. Sluggish. But alert. Aware. Alfred was rather pleased at that. He wanted to creature to understand, to know, as much as he was able to.

"Joker," he said softly, courteously, a genial greeting as he laid the medical bag on the steel table, sitting down at the bedside. "I'm sorry to come at such a late hour."

The creature grinned, a gleam of teeth and madness. "No trouble," he rasped, medication fogging the words. "Always happy ... happy to see you!" He laughed a little, more by habit than anything else, Alfred thought.

"I'm glad," he said, gently, pulling a syringe and a vial from his back, and carefully preparing it. He wanted no air bubbles, nothing wrong. He wanted this to be clean, as clean as it could be. "I didn't want you to be disturbed by my visit."

"I'm not disturbed," Joker said, watching the needle, and Alfred looked up at the strange, deadly seriousness of the tone. He met the creature's eyes, met that maddened gaze, and in it he saw not only complete understanding of his purpose, but also ... an almost desperate relief, a dark joy. It was as if the man buried in there had surfaced for a second.

"No," he said, slowly. "I see you're not." Then he smiled, a genuine, compassionate smile. "I'm glad you're not, Mr Joker." And he slipped the needle into the pale flesh of one white arm, and pressed the plunger home. The Joker's head fell back on the pillow with a thump, and softly, viciously, the man began to laugh. And laugh. And laugh, until he could laugh no more, and only the fixed rictus of a deadly smile remained, eyes glimmering madly at an eternal abyss.

Alfred sighed, then, standing slowly and stiffly, feeling every minute of his years. He was tired, he realised. Very, very tired. But not finished. Never finished. Duties, once taken up, can never fully be let down. Carefully, he packed up his kit, putting the shortened shotgun in the bag as well. It fit perfectly. Preparation. He'd always been well versed in the art of preparation.

He stopped, at the door, looking back at the still figure in the bed. A demon, the man had been. A monster. Utterly evil. This thing had killed one of his boys, tortured the others, left one of his girls in a wheelchair. This thing had torn his family apart, time and again.

Not this time, of course. Another evil had ... had killed his boy. Killed his Bruce. But maybe that was why. Maybe that was why he could do this, now. Because it wasn't vengeance. Not for Bruce, who would never have allowed such a thing. It was vengeance for older hurts, older pains, and Bruce no longer had to pay the consequences of that vengeance. His bright boy, who had never truly lost his belief in black & white, good & evil ... that precious boy would never have to know how grey the world really was. How grey Alfred was.

The monster was dead. His boys, his girls, his family, they were safe now, at least from that fear. And Alfred had killed once more, as he had done in the past, in other ways, for other causes. Necessary evils. Necessary greys.

But none, he thought, that he had ever believed in so much. A necessary evil.

But the right choice.