Alfred fic!

[icarus_chained]

I'm in an Alfred kind of mood, apparently. Gods, I love that man!

Title:  Protect and Serve
Rating:  PG
Characters:  Alfred, Bruce
Summary:  The early years, from the moment at the graveside to the first night patrolling. Alfred and Bruce learn to be there for each other, to protect and serve each other as they can.
Wordcount: 3300

Protect and Serve

Alfred hadn't seen it coming. Not quite. Not at first. There had been something ... a premonition, a faint flash of foreshadowing. It had been there, in Bruce's eyes as he stood beside his parents' graves and watched as the coffins were lowered. Behind the blank shock, the dull, heavy ache of grief. Not quite fury. Not quite determination. Just the beginnings of an oath, half-formed in eight-year-old eyes. Conscious of the boy's pain, but unable to do anything to help, Alfred hadn't understood what it meant. Not then.

They had been good people, Thomas and Martha Wayne. Not perfect. There had been glimmers of arrogance to them, Thomas in particular. The need to bear the weight of the world, and to be seen to bear it, something Alfred had seen before and couldn't help but distrust. But despite that, they had been good people, and Alfred had been proud to count himself something of a friend to them. He was proud now, too, to stand for their son when they could not. To stand in loco parentis, as they had wished. He vowed, at that graveside, to do everything in his power to protect and serve that child.

He just hadn't known what that vow would entail. 

The first few months were a trial for both of them. Grief made them stiff, made them uncertain. Bruce had always had a certain empathy, an incisive but sympathetic intelligence, and he saw clear through to the pain Alfred hoarded in his heart, despite everything Alfred could do to hide it. But the boy was too lost in his own pain to be able to help Alfred, and he saw that as a failure in himself. He wanted to protect, to show Alfred he cared, to keep Alfred near. To make himself worthy of being near. The thought of losing Alfred terrified him. It was clear to see in those grave eyes. But anger at himself made Bruce stand-offish, and try as he might, nothing Alfred could say or do could reassure him. Bruce flinched from his gentleness, shied away from his closeness, needing Alfred but afraid to let himself care too much. And all Alfred could do was be there, and try to show him that he always would be.

They moved gingerly around each other for those months. Tried to show each other they cared, without showing it. Alfred would take such care with meals, with clothes, trying to leave as many little signs of his presence around the vast, empty house as he could. To show Bruce that he wasn't alone. And in return ... he would find little gifts. Drawings, rolled up in socks. One of Bruce's old books, a favourite that once upon a time Alfred would sit up and read to him, left lying open on the kitchen table where he would see it when he came down in the morning. Even, one morning, a box of his favourite tea delivered with the milk, Bruce having rung the milkman the day before and asked. They didn't speak to each other too much, not the way they had before and would again later. But they knew the other was there. Always.

And then ... that one day. One of Alfred's market days, a longstanding tradition and habit of his. He would wake early in the morning, before Bruce was up, and head into the city. He'd be back by noon, every time, regular as clockwork, knowing the certainty was reassuring to Bruce, knowing the boy would need to know when he was due back.

But this day, as he wandered through the open air market off Robinson Park, he sensed something different. Eyes, on his back, following him wherever he went. A presence, near him, focused solely on him. Old and well-worn instincts rose to the surface. Alfred had been a hunter of men, once upon a time, and hunted too in his turn. Something deep in him remembered all too well how to turn the tables on those who thought to come for him, a dark and vicious thing that he felt no pride in, but trusted for its efficiency. It was an alien and familiar thing, this beast inside all men, and Alfred knew his well.

He moved out of the market, away from the crowds, his hand slipping easily into his pocket and the little equaliser that waited there, a habit as regular as morning tea. The beast did not forget, and the civilised gentleman was too wise not to listen to it, even in these gentler days. He slipped into an alley, turned to wait, ready for whatever came. He glanced at his watch, thought of the boy waiting for him in the empty house, and his eyes glittered with a fierce determination. He would be back on time. Bruce needed him to be, and Alfred knew what it would do to him if he fell here. He meant to be back by noon, and heaven help anyone who thought to stop him. When he sensed the presence at the corner, he readied his hand in his pocket, and turned the corner sharply to cut the shadower off.

And stared in shock at eight-year-old features, watched dumbly as shock, fear, resignation, disgruntlement flickered over them in rapid succession. Bruce stared uneasily back up at him, chin jutted forward stubbornly, fear lurking behind the defiance in his eyes.

For a second, Alfred hadn't know what to do. The thought of the risks the boy had taken, the thought of the child wandering alone through the city behind him, hit him in a flash, and sickening terror rushed up through him. In his mind, he imagined that graveyard, and another, smaller coffin being lowered to rest beside those of Thomas and Martha. Fear rushed through him, and raw, panicked fury clawed through in its wake. He was within an inch of snapping at Bruce, and the boy knew it.

Then Bruce had squared his shoulders, braced himself for the verbal blow, and looked at Alfred with such relief and fear and need that the words died in his throat. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, but nothing came through the fear, the pride and pity, the love that strangled him. He couldn't speak. So he did the only other thing he could think to do.

He pulled his empty hand from his pocket, and held it out to Bruce, a gentle invitation. For a second, there was such surprise in the boy's eyes that he almost laughed, dizzy with emotion, and then ... Bruce reached forward, hesitantly, and curled his small hand into Alfred's. And the relief in his face as he did, the joy, the yearning love ... Alfred almost wept.

They walked through the market together, hand in hand, and Bruce lifted his head with fierce pride as he walked beside him, glaring at anyone who talked to them as if to warn them that anyone who messed with Alfred, messed with him. Alfred fought the whole way not to smile, not to embarrass the passionate little boy at his side, and when someone came suddenly out of an alleyway in front of them, and Bruce stepped instinctively in front of him, raw terror and determination flashing over his face, he thought his heart might break within him. He saw, then, a little of what Bruce would become. The wounded, protective spirit of a grieving child, the terrified determination of a powerful man.

It terrified him beyond all reason, and set such a heavy weight of pride in his heart that it was all he could do not to cling to the small hand, not to clutch the child to his chest and never let him go.

He knew Bruce would never allow that. 

The signs grew more numerous, over time. Bruce dove relentlessly into research, the library growing in leaps and bounds as more and more books on criminology, on martial arts, on chemistry, on psychology, on biology, on every subject related to criminality, began to fill it. Alfred watched in a kind of terrified awe as the grave child devoured every scrap of knowledge he could get his hands on, every fragment of theory on the subject. He picked up the books as he cleaned, took care of the occasionally explosive results of Bruce's early experiments, every so often picked the child up from where he slept at his desk, soothed the angry marks on his cheek, laid him into bed. He knew, long before Bruce got up the courage to tell him, knew what the young man intended to do. To become. He knew, and did nothing to stop it.

When Bruce went away for the first time, the first of his training trips, Alfred had smiled at him as he left, given him a quip or six to keep him company on the journey, and let his eyes silently tell him to be safe. In return, Bruce had stood a little closer, his handshake a little firmer than usual, his eyes a little warmer and a little more desperate. Alfred bit his cheek against the need to ask him to stay, and let his pride shine through for an instant, fierce and unmistakable.

Bruce had left with a smile, and a firm set to his shoulders.

When he'd gotten back to the manor, Alfred had made himself a cup of tea, to calm his nerves. He had nursed it for a long time, striving to ignore the silence of the house, fighting to quell the shake in his hands around the cup. He had sat there for the longest time, trying to master himself.

Then he stood up, tidied away the tea things, and went upstairs. To Dr Wayne's medical library, and the knowledge that resided there. He had his own preparations to make, his own training to do.

In that past life of his, Alfred had had a more than passing acquaintance with injury, with pain, with the things that caused them. He had also learned some of the ways to deal with them. He'd pulled himself and many a colleague back together, once upon a time. His hands twitched, remembering something of their old skills, his mind pulling up the more sluggish theoretical memory. His hands moved over the shelves, his eyes flickering over what he knew, what he would need, how to get there.

He fully intended to have remembered everything by the time Bruce came back, to be able to put those old skills to use. To serve, for fear he wouldn't be allowed to protect.

He looked around that room, the legacy of Thomas Wayne's life, and reflected suddenly on the echo of it Bruce made. Thomas had been a doctor, had striven to heal the wounds the world made. And Bruce, with that strange empathy of his, had gone one step further. Back to the old, mystic healers. Bruce meant to heal the wounds by taking them on himself, by giving the world an angry, living body on which to break the teeth of its fury. Preventive medicine.

And Alfred fully intended to help him. He wasn't going to be left behind. He'd sooner die than leave his boy to face that fury alone. And if some superstitious part of him reached out to touch the wooden shelf at the thought, to deflect the curse that waited in the words, he didn't really believe it. He would not fall as easily, would not be as easy a victim. The beast remembered, after all. He would be strong enough. Be ready. He would be ready to stand beside Bruce and face the world, and strong enough that Bruce wouldn't need to worry about him.

The world could come for him as it pleased. He would be still be standing at the end, waiting for his boy to return.

The years as Bruce grew towards adulthood passed much like that one. The rhythm of their preparations echoed each other. Bruce travelled the world, learned to be deadly, learned to see what others could not, learned to think as criminals thought. His empathy and intelligence made him perfect for the task, his ready and sympathetic mind leaping with ease where he directed it to go. There was danger in that, Alfred knew. Danger that it would go too far, that Bruce would see too deeply into what he hated, and be lost inside it. Alfred set himself against that fate, as surely as he set himself against the physical dangers.

His own research developed apace. He went to first aid courses, field medic courses, paramedic courses. His hands relearned all they had once known, and improved on it. Back then, it had been his comrades and his friends whose lives depended on his skill, and that had meant more than he could explain. But now ... now it was his family. And family meant something more again. Alfred would not allow himself to fail.

At the same time, he made himself known at the hospitals, at the field clinics, at the outposts of medicine littered through the black and glittering city he now called home. He made himself familiar with routines, response times, staff skills, reputations. In the process, of course, he was ever under the eyes of another kindred spirit. Leslie Thompkins watched his preparations with a knowing eye, and leant him what help she could. He was always grateful to her, for that. He learned everything he possibly could, and made ready for the shattering.

And then it came. At last. The day of reckoning.

That evening, Bruce was feverish in his preparations, excitement and determination coursing through him. Alfred kept his more restrained than that, less obvious, but still ... He checked and rechecked every piece of equipment before handing it to Bruce. He ran through the list of hospitals sixteen times in his head. He checked the medical supplies in the cave three times in the space of an hour. He tidied everything in sight, as seemingly casual and mildly longsuffering as always, but he didn't know that the deception fooled Bruce at all. The boy saw too much. He always had.

When Bruce went to leave, he stood up. Stood to one side, wanting to touch, wanting to hug the boy in case this was his last ever chance. He restrained the impulse ruthlessly, waiting for Bruce to move first. And when Bruce looked at him, and he had seen the fear beneath the eagerness and determination in those eyes ... because Bruce was an intelligent man. He knew, full well, what he was doing. He knew what this mission would do to him, what it would make him. He knew, and he feared it, and in that moment of leaving as he looked at Alfred, the boy within him reached out in fear and asked to be stopped. Asked to be freed from this choice, asked Alfred to stop him, look after him, be strong for him.

It had almost broken Alfred's will, that look. But he had known, always, what Bruce would need to do. He had seen, just a shadow, just a glimpse, from the very beginning. He knew that Bruce would never forgive him if he listened to that silent, fearful plea. And though he had sworn to protect his boy, he had also sworn to serve him. To help him be what they both knew he had to be. So he had stood firm, stood proud, and nodded once in fierce encouragement as his boy marched determinedly into the path of fate.

He listened intently to the radio that whole night, never straying from the computer. His eyes traced Bruce's path by proxy on the map, his voice murmuring snide observations out across the city, his presence invisible and almost tangible beside his boy as he ran and hunted for the first time. And if Alfred's hands were clenched around fistfuls of his trousers, if his mind was feverishly reminding itself of every medical station in reach of Bruce at every turn, if he was straining forward in his seat and biting his lip not to tell the boy what to do, fighting to control the beast that rose within him and yearned to run out and protect his cub ... if he did all that, he was confident none of it showed in his voice. The gentleman was stronger than the beast, and wiser.

Bruce had come back. Not exactly in triumph. Not exactly in one piece. But he had come back. He had sat on the table, let Alfred's hands perform their old, remembered tasks, looked into Alfred's eyes and fought to explain. The triumph, the strength, the fear. The need for more, to perfect. What had to be done, to make this first attempt meaningful. Alfred had listened, as he pulled his boy back together. He had listened, and given what advice he could. He would help Bruce on the next step, beyond doubt. His will was firm within him. He would be there every step of the way.

He got Bruce into bed, finally. He helped that weary body up the stairs, poured it into bed with well-practiced ease, and brushed the hair from exhausted eyes as he had since Bruce was a child. He did all that, exactly as normal. Then he went out, onto the stairs, sat down, and put his head in his hands. He made no sound, restraint as familiar as breathing. He didn't cry, emotion almost too strong for release. He simply sat there, on the stairs, in the grey light of dawn, and shook silently.

He sat there for three hours.

Then, he stood up. He went downstairs. He tidied away the supplies. Put the clothes red with Bruce's blood in the trash. Cleaned up the cave. Went upstairs, collapsed into bed. Slept.

The next night, it was easier. The next years. The watershed had been reached, the course set, for both of them. Bruce learned. He learned. And the fear was forgiven between them, the need to protect they saw and mourned in each other, even as they cherished it. The Batman was born, and they both learned to live with it. Alfred was strong, for Bruce's sake. He was strong enough to stand back, time after time, and let his battered boy stand between the world and those it tried to hurt. He was proud to do so, the love so powerful inside him that sometimes he wondered that it didn't shake him apart.

They never spoke of those first years. Not really. The loneliness, the fear, the need. The attempts to be there for each other, though neither really knew how. The pride and defiance, the terror and the rage. The emptiness of a house, and the fragile attempts to fill it. The strength they had both had to find, the fear they had both had to fight. They didn't speak of it. But the memory was always there, inside them. And it showed. In the silent gifts they gave. In the way they fought to show they cared, without ever showing that they cared. In the way Alfred kept standing aside to let Bruce out at night. In the way Bruce always made sure to come back on time, or let him know why not. In the way they were there for each other, always and forever.

Alfred remembered those years. To the end of his days, through the widening of their family, through their later losses, to the prides and pains of the life they had chosen to live, he remembered those years. He remembered the beginnings, all the way to the end, with a mix of pride and sorrow and love.

He never told Bruce of the three hours on the stairs. And he never sat there again. Over time, he stopped needing to.

The trust and love was enough to get him through.