Alfred/J'onn-verse

[icarus_chained]

Merfilly's happy!J'onn challenge made me want to continue this storyline. So. Third installment. Not sure yet if it'll be the last. But to be going on with ...

Title:  Old Hearts
Rating:  PG
Pairings: Alfred/J'onn, Bruce/J'onn
Summary:  After Bruce brings J'onn home for the first time, properly, Alfred seeks him out in the quiet aftermath for a word. About the past, and the future. And the family.
Notes:  sequel to True Deceptions and Old Habits.

 

Old Hearts

The day Bruce finally brought J'onn home again, Alfred bided his time before going to look for his old friend. He wanted ... needed ... to speak to him alone. Just for that first time. After that ... after that, J'onn would be family again, with all that entailed. But for this first time, Alfred needed them to have privacy, and a chance to speak of the past, and the future.

Bruce understood, in that silent way of their family. They were private people, to a man, and in that respect Alfred rather thought J'onn would fit in perfectly. The Martian needed space as much as any of them, and Alfred at least, and Bruce as well, knew that J'onn yearned for the silent, bone-deep connection that at times was all that held their family together. But they did hold. Ever and always. Because that connection could not be severed.

The house was empty now, save for himself and the newest member of the household. Master Tim had slipped away with Miss Cassandra, which was all to the good, because Tim needed that young lady's understanding to help him come to grips with this new bombshell. Alfred loved his son more than anything, but Bruce had never been exactly good at finding the right way to tell people things. Master Dick, of course, had already known from Miss Barbara, who had a slight tendancy not to miss a trick. But despite that, the reaction to Bruce's announcement had probably swamped J'onn's telepathic senses. Alfred was not alone in being thankful that Bruce had taken his boy out to lunch. J'onn needed the reprieve.

Even if he didn't look like he did. Alfred stopped for a moment, in the morning-room doorway, and just looked at him.

J'onn drifted gently in the sunlight in front of the great bay windows, his green form entirely alien and entirely natural, framed against the rolling grounds of Wayne manor. Framed against the backdrop of Alfred's home. The aura of peace that he always seemed to exude was with him still, his presence a warm, gentle weight against the senses, but the sharpness that used to taint it, the hollow echo of unearthly loneliness, had faded. It wasn't gone. Alfred wondered if it would ever be completely gone. But it had receded. And in its place ...

“I would ask if you approved, if I did not sense your hand in bringing us here,” J'onn commented wryly, without turning. “You devious old man, you.”

Alfred hid a smile, tucked it away behind his best poker face as he walked into the room, came up beside the Martian. “Considering the fact that you knew me in my youth, I would be careful bandying about accusations of age, were I you,” he rejoindered, equally dry. J'onn turned to face him with a smile.

“I see you don't deny any of the other charges laid against you,” he observed neutrally, his amber eyes glowing with disguised mirth. Alfred looked away for a minute, and allowed his smile to shine through.

“Deception is no longer my way of life,” he explained, gently. “That career I have passed on to my son. Whatever small ... misconceptions I still help foster, they are only to help those I care for.” J'onn nodded solemnly, understanding plain between them, a surrendering of old lies. And then Alfred grinned a little. “Or, sometimes, maybe a little intrigue just to keep my hand in. One mustn't let oneself become complacent, after all.” J'onn's startled laugh delighted him.

“I see you have not changed at all,” the Martian smiled. “At least not where it counts.”

Alfred huffed at that. “Certainly I have! How dare you! Can't you see how I've grown in wisdom and gravity since we saw each other last? I must be a veritable sage, by now.”

J'onn laughed. “Of course! Forgive an old Martian his blindness, my friend. Why, I see it even now! The light of your wisdom is a blessing to my senses.”

Alfred reached out to punch him lightly on the shoulder, and glared. “And don't you forget it!” he admonished, all his experience as an intelligence agent and member of the Wayne household coming to his aid in keeping a straight face. For about two minutes, before he melted under J'onn's knowing gaze, and allowed his grin to show plainly. J'onn grinned back, and clapped him gently on the shoulder.

They stood for a moment in silence, or Alfred stood and J'onn floated, shoulder to shoulder in the afternoon light, and the warmth of an easy companionship drifted in the air around them. Then purpose settled once more in Alfred's chest, and he turned to face his companion. J'onn returned his look with equal gravity.

“Are you truly alright with this, my friend?” the Martian asked softly. “I do not wish to cause you pain, and not ... not here, of all places. Not in your home. Tell me honestly. Am I welcome?”

Alfred met his concerned gaze for a moment, then looked away with a rueful smile, out over the gardens. His home. Yes. Home should be sacred. Family should be sacred. And how keenly both of them knew that it wasn't. Not all the time. And sometimes ... not when you needed it to be the most. Homes could be destroyed. Families ... could be lost. And always, they were left to pick up the pieces. To build again. And to fight, with every last breath in their bodies, to keep those families alive and well, to keep those homes sacred.

He knew what J'onn was asking. He knew that his weary friend would willing sacrifice his own safety, his happiness, even the love he had found with Bruce, in order to keep Bruce's family intact. In order to avoid wounding Alfred, or Bruce's sons. In order to keep Bruce from losing his family all over again. Because J'onn had lost a family once, even as Bruce had. And he would sooner die than cause another to suffer the same loss.

Alfred could not speak for the boys. But he could answer for himself, for the history that he shared with this man, the history that J'onn feared might stand between them. He turned back to his friend, and laid a firm hand on his arm. And shook his head with a smile.

“J'onn,” he murmured. “Welcome to the family.” And he meant it, with every aged fiber of his being. He could not hide the joy he felt at being able to call this man family, the relief at knowing that the person he had once loved with such brief and terrifying passion was now safe, now loved, and now, once and for all, a part of Alfred's life. A part of his family. He couldn't have hid it, not from J'onn, and he made absolutely no attempt to try. What was past was past, and the future was in their hands. To make of it what they would.

“I ... I am glad, my friend,” J'onn murmured, thickly. “I am happy to ... to be able to share this with you. To be ... part of your family.”

Alfred nodded, dipping his head to disguise his emotion. He pressed the back of his knuckles against his lips for a moment, trying to pull himself back together. It would not do, to lose his composure now. “Say ... say that again after your first Batfamily disagreement, and I might believe you,” he managed at last, with a wry twist to his smile. “Being a member of this particular family is not an easy prospect. I'll understand, if you feel it may be ... too much?” He stopped, silently cursing himself. But perhaps Master Bruce was not alone in his acute awareness of the fragility of this home that they had made. Alfred had stood beside his son through everything that had taught him those bitter lessons. Prehaps more of it had stayed with him than he'd imagined.

A warm green palm brushed the side of his face, briefly, and Alfred looked up in startlement. J'onn smiled sadly down at him, and shook his head slowly. “Never,” he murmured. “Never too much. For Bruce, for you, for what you have made, there is no hardship too great to endure. To be part of what you have ... I would be the greatest of fools to run from that. The very greatest.” He rested his powerful hand gently on Alfred's shoulder. “Remember. A spiderweb may be fragile, but its threads are stronger than steel.”

Alfred dipped his head with a smile, and reached up to lay his own, wrinkled hand over the stronger one on his shoulder. “I see why Bruce says you are the heart of them,” he murmured, and squeezed J'onn's hand gently when the Martian moved as if to withdraw it in surprise. “You were meant to have a family, my friend. Your very nature demands it, I think. And I only hope that this family is worthy of you.” But even as he said the words, he knew in his heart that they were. More than anything else, Alfred believed in his family. And in time, he hoped J'onn would too.

J'onn was silent for a long moment. Then, turning his hand so that it held Alfred's, he pulled their clasped hands to rest over his chest. Over his heart. “You are,” he said quietly, and let the truth of his words, the joy and love of his heart, flow into his companion. Alfred gasped a little, tears springing unbidden to his eyes, and gripped that alien hand fiercely, and let his own love rise up between them. Love for Katerina, for J'onn, for Bruce, for his sons, for family, for friends. So much love. Every warm and glowing scrap that he had hoarded over the years, every moment of joy and meaning with the people who mattered to him. He gave it to J'onn, let it rest in that eternal, ancient heart, as if for safekeeping. To keep that love alive, when he was dust, and to keep that heart glowing, in the face of everything he knew his friend must yet endure. He gave J'onn all his love.

But that was alright. Love grew greater for the giving, and as deep in the heart that gave it as in the heart that recieved it. Alfred had learned how to love, in his long and eventful life, and knew that love meant little until it was given. In every small, silent way at his disposal.

And suddenly, the great hand in his was shrinking, and the green form before him was changing, shimmering in the sunlight until ... she stood before him. His Katerina, with her beautiful, stubborn features upturned to catch the sun, and her rusty-brown eyes shining with quiet tears as she looked at him, and the love so clear in her face that he nearly wept with it. He let out a sudden sigh, of love, of joy, of regret and sorrow, and smiled when she raised her other hand to caress his face.

“Katerina,” he whispered. “J'onn.”

She smiled at him then, a deep and knowing smile, and stood on tiptoe to wrap that arm around his shoulders. And kiss him. Softly. Gently. Lovingly. He pulled her to him, his heart a vibrant, painful weight in his chest, and kissed her back, as fully and passionately as he could, with everything he had to give. It was their first kiss, the first they had ever shared. The very first, meaning more to him than he could ever hope to explain.

Because it was also their last. He knew it, deep inside him. This was Katerina's goodbye, her last farewell. J'onn's gift to him, given from a compassion so deep that Alfred had to cherish it, had to be awed by it, and from a love that Alfred could never, ever regret. Even as tears ran down his cheeks, he kissed her, and smiled into it.

Love was worth anything. Worth everything.

And then, when it was time, she pulled away again. When they were ready, Katerina pulled back, and let herself slip away, into their memories, as J'onn once again stood before Alfred. And for all his acceptance of it, Alfred could not restrain his tiny gasp of anguish at her loss. And J'onn could not help reaching forward to pull him into a gentle embrace, could not help holding him as Alfred grieved, just a little, for all that might have been. Because J'onn understood. More than anything else, perhaps, J'onn understood the pain of might-have-beens.

The sun drifted a little across the sky as they stood there, in its light, arms around each other. Two friends, standing firm together as the tides of the past washed around them, and gently receded. Alfred rested his head against J'onn's chest, letting himself settle, letting the ache drift lower in his chest until he could barely feel it beneath the weight of love and joy that rose again inside him. He thought for a moment, of Bruce, his son, somewhere out there with his own son. Of J'onn, standing here with him, knowing every feeling that his son even now tried so hard to hide. Of the joy that lived in the future, for his family. For the lives they would live together.

He could remember the past. He could hold it close, and savour it, and even regret, just a little, what he had lost to its embrace. But he could never weigh that past, with all it's might-have-beens, against the present, with all its joys and sorrows, and count it greater. What he had lost could never, ever be greater than what he had gained.

He had gained a son, a proud, strong, complicated son, a son who loved him in ways that neither of them could ever bear to say. He had gained a family, raucous and disonant and strained, that would stand together against whatever life threw at them. He had gained a home, a place of safety and meaning and life.

And now, he had gained a friend. Someone for his son to love, someone to love him back. Someone to stand beside on sunny afternoons, and watch their family grow. Live. Love.

He stepped back, gently disentangling himself, and looked up into J'onn's loving, compassionate features. He looked into the face that should have been alien, and smiled at the welcome familiarity he found there. A smile that only broadened as J'onn, hesitantly, smiled back. With the silent, soul-deep connection that characterised his family, Alfred reached out to this newest member, this man who could speak in the way they could only feel, and opened his weary, happy heart to him. Always and forever.

“Thank you,” he whispered softly. And J'onn's heart whispered back.

Thank you.