TITLE: In
AUTHOR: Demon Faith
FANDOM: DC Comics
PAIRING: Bruce/Dick
RATING: PG-13
WARNINGS: Angsty angsty angst. Because this is Bruce
SUMMARY: “A butler knows these things.” Alfred watches Bruce.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, not mine, not mine! If they were, I might understand which Batman comic I’m meant to be reading.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: It was a random snippet based on an amusing picture from a pleasant holiday. Now, it has a sequel thanks to the lovely people of the batfic list. *blows kisses*
This resides out of any real continuity but Tim is Robin and Dick is Nightwing. Crisis? What Crisis?
It was the same again today as it had been every day since Tim had slammed the Manor door, breathless, as if he’d run all the way from Bludhaven clutching that little blue note. It was from the set Barbara had bought him
years previously, a not-so-subtle hint to keep in touch. Alfred suspected this was the first time it had been used.
Every day, Bruce would go to work, return early and sit in his study by the window, staring at the driveway. Every night, he would go out and return with more cuts and bruises than ever before, but he didn’t seem to care. Nobody would see anyway, except Tim who witnessed the blows and Alfred who caught glimpses in the cave. There was no one to see.
Alfred had never known him to be like this. It wasn’t as if
it were the first time – there’d been fights, partings, and he’d always
returned, slowly, gradually. But this was different. He wasn’t in costume, on
every news screen across the state, reported in by various League members or
secretly calling Alfred and e-mailing Tim. He wasn’t the former ward who was
scared he was turning into his mentor. No, he had vanished off the face of
And everyone knew. Every hero from the Titans to the Lantern Corps knew that Nightwing was missing because Batman screwed up. And most knew why it was this bad, and more than half sided with Dick. Purely on instinct: only two men knew exactly what had been said in the Cave and one was currently unreachable. No one dared ask The Bat what had transpired, the closest because they were afraid he might cry. Alfred wasn’t even sure he was strong enough to handle Bruce’s tears.
Tim had temporarily moved rooms – further down the corridor, away from Dick’s old bedroom. He didn’t say why but Alfred suspected it had something to do with agony so intense that it cut through the thickest of walls. A butler knows these things.
But what could they do? Bruce was an expert in exquisite methods of self-destruction and here was his latest, so intense and desperate that it was living poetry, disjointed and laden with secrets. What had happened? What had been said? Did it even matter now?
First, there had been anger, rage. He’d turned on every computer in the Batcave, all running searches for his name, his credit cards, his scent. London Heathrow was where the trail ended, where Bruce lost him in a crowd at Arrivals. And there was nowhere else to go. His bank account was empty, though his trust fund was tauntingly full. About a week later, when Alfred brought the vigil-sitter some tea, he numbly repeated the balance and was silent for the rest of the evening. They knew each other’s most intimate buttons – this level of pain was child’s play.
He had retreated into himself as the days passed, his terse
answers fading to a few softly-spoken words every hour or so. His appearances
amongst the
Dick Grayson could be dead. And they’d never know. What Alfred feared most was that Bruce would see a hearse roll through the gates, or that years and years would pass until there was no hope and no man beneath the cowl.
The others were taking it better. Barbara had the Birds, Tim had the Titans and The Outsiders had each other. They all wandered around as if he was taking an extended vacation whereas Bruce had all but erected a gravestone. Over the days and weeks, Alfred slowly realised that Bruce honestly never expected to see Dick again. The thought burned.
It was with great reluctance that Alfred even opened the door to Dick’s room. He had always flicked a duster over it for years now, keeping it ready for when the exhausted man dropped in after a long night’s work in his former city. Now, of course, it was used mostly as storage space but he did return to it if Bruce was out of town. Something Alfred would never understand was the strange rituals the pair kept. It was as if Dick felt he needed to be invited in by Bruce, as if he were a guest, an intruder.
This was partly the reason Alfred kept his room clean – a
reminder that he would always have a place in the house, regardless of whatever
Bruce felt about the matter. It didn’t seem to have sunk in though, or he would
not be disappeared in
He carefully passed the cloth over what few possessions remained, pretending he didn’t notice that some objects were moved or missing, that there were crystallised tear tracts on the desk. Alfred left quickly and shut the door behind him, erasing the memory from his mind. That room was never meant to be so sterile, so ordered – he missed the motorcycle magazines haphazardly thrown across the floor, the bulging drawers where everything was shoved just prior to a room inspection by Bruce and, most of all, he missed the life Dick somehow breathed into everything he touched.
He missed it in Bruce.
Alfred prepared a cup of coffee and took it into the study. He hesitated in the doorway, observing the man who slumped in his chair by the window. He seemed to have aged fifty years, hunched over with hands trembling slightly in his lap. He mumbled a thanks as Alfred set down the mug, not meeting his eyes. This was how it was – a façade at work, a wreck at the Manor and violence by night. Alfred couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the man’s eyes, let alone a smile.
He walked away unhurried, trying not to appear in a hurry to get away. He couldn’t abandon him too.
The chair creaked behind him and he turned automatically, expectantly. Bruce had a hand braced on the arm of the chair and was staring out of the window, eyes wide in disbelief. With a surge of energy, he pushed himself upright and the years fell away. He turned to Alfred with shining eyes before running from the room, a young man of twenty.
Almost cautiously, Alfred approached the window and a smile flickered onto his face. The long, unkempt black hair, the slightly rounded shoulders, strong hand idly swinging a hold-all as the other rested in his jeans pocket, a carefully measured walk that gave no hint he could fly – there was no mistaking Dick Grayson.
But a very different man raced down the drive before stopping a few inches from his target, shoulders heaving with the effort of breathing, hand wondering if it dared reach out. And then Dick was in his arms, held so tightly that one would think he’d returned from the dead. And Dick closed his eyes and rested his hands on Bruce’s back, the picture of peace.
Alfred stepped away from the window, not wishing to intrude on this public private moment and reached for the phone.
“Master Tim? He’s back.”
And all’s well.