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"Bad night, sir?" Alfred asks as he climbs out of the Batmobile into the cave. His reception and perception both force him to recognize that this is no longer Agent A talking through a communicator device to Batman; it's Alfred making an inquiry of Bruce. The disconnect between his two selves is, as always, unpleasant.
Batman tugs off his cowl; Bruce tugs off his gloves. "Bad night," He agrees. That Alfred has noticed and can tell, it speaks of the decades between them seeing as he's not projecting anything to suggest this that another person would be able to pick up on. Only Alfred.
A grimace makes its way on to his face but these days it always feels that is the case. "Not to mention that Timothy Drake showed up. Again. He still insists I take him on as Robin."
The boy is talented, that's not the issue. As a detective alone, he's unearthed the secret identities of Batman and both Robins - something that has never before been done. In terms of maneuverability, he isn't bad either; self taught clearly but still good and can keep pace far more easily than Batman would like, seeing as he wants these encounters with the kid to come to an end. Though, even if his skills had been lesser in this regard, those sort of skills can be taught far more easily than Timothy Drake's sharp mind can be taught to dullards.
However isn't a question of ability. A lack of talent is not what makes Batman snarl at Timothy Drake to go home - and don't come back.
(The kid always comes back. He won't one day. For better or for worse, he won't. He'll see the logic Batman is trying to impress upon him. Or he'll be unable to come. Be dead - perhaps after showing up at the wrong place, the wrong time. All the more reason for Batman to not hold back. If he can just talk sense into this kid, he might be able to save his life. That'd be at least one kid he'd save even if he couldn't save, failed to save - )
Timothy Drake thinks that being Robin is something he can decide to be. It doesn't work like that. Robins don't become Robins because they demand it from Batman. Batman is the one who offers the position. And after - well - after, there's no way that he'll ever offer the position of Robin to anyone. Never again, not after he's made the mistake twice. It can be argued that Dick isn't - wasn't - a mistake but wasn't it? Isn't he? Or else wouldn't Bruce have some damn peace of mind and know that it isn't the case?
But even so, Dick is the lucky Robin. Bruce might have rescinded the Robin position from him, might distrust his current inability to make ethical decisions, but at least he walked away from it.
It's hard to walk while six feet below. Dick is in Blüdhaven now. Jason is - well.
Bruce swallows, throat tight, and his bare fingers flex into a fist. The sight of his flesh appears naked and vulnerable without the attire of Batman to protect it. Appears too small and too human for him to bear; he looks away.
Timothy Drake thinks that either of these Robins' fates are something to aspire to? To demand from Batman - and if he even had a right to demand them, which he does not, this, these are what he demands?
It's infuriating. Nauseating. Enraging.
Truthfully which is everything a Robin is turning out to be but should never have been. Perhaps in this case then Tim would fit in with the rest.
The thought briefly made in dark jest sours something within Bruce. The rest of what? Human embodiments of Bruce's mistakes? Bruce doesn't need a Robin to become that effigy; he has himself after all. He's made up of enough mistakes that sometimes he thinks that is what courses through his veins, not blood. Mistakes. Mistakes and grief and guilt entirely deserved to be wrought upon him.
"Please, Batman," Timothy Drake keeps begging like a child desiring dessert. As if anything in life is that simple or sweet. The bitterness of tragedy is something that lingers on Bruce's tongue and sours in his mouth. No, he knows that the world never is that sweet even if Timothy does not.
The answer is no. The answer will always be no. For such a smart boy, this is a lesson that Timothy never seems to learn.
"Ah." The quiet noise of comprehension catches Bruce's attention.
"What is it?"
"Well perhaps you should consider that he might be right." At that, Bruce glances up. Alfred sighs. "Master Bruce, you are a man of high intellect. I believe that young Timothy is correct in that - " Here he pauses. "You haven't been yourself lately. And he's right in that lately you've been losing control. You need help in reigning yourself in. In knowing when to stop. Someone to remind you that Bruce is still behind that mask, not just a man filled with rage and powerful fists."
He scoffs. "I don't forget." As if the turmoil of being Bruce could be so easily subdued by a method as simple as forgetting. "And even if I had, what's a mere child going to do?"
"Plenty," Alfred says softly but immediately. "Your sons, if you recall, are children."
"Were," He corrects sharply. Far more sharply than Alfred deserves. "They were children."
Now they are not. Now Dick is a teenager - a young adult really - who Bruce fears is going down the wrong path and Jason is never going to get the chance to be anything else. Anything other than a child. Anything other than a corpse. Dead.
Accepting the blame for the verbal misstep, Alfred inclines his head. The gesture reads with enough remorse than Bruce hates himself for having used such an acerbic tone towards him. He too, Bruce knows but forgets in his own loud screaming grief, is suffering quietly. There's no need for Bruce to make it worse. Not when it's already worse than anything they'd imagined.
"You can't keep blaming yourself," Alfred says. Bruce certainly can and should and will. "This isn't healthy, Master Bruce. And quite frankly: I have become alarmed at how things have turned out. This self loathing and anger - this violence - it doesn't become you."
There is also where Alfred is wrong. The self loathing and violence become Bruce more naturally than anything else. The second skin he dons is not acting this way and this is his natural state of being, the first layer of skin underneath when all is stripped down and there are no pretenses or armor or children hiding away his true nature. A violent terrible beast with claws that tear at all around him, nicking even himself in the wild process of lashing out.
But that's good, isn't it? His claws might wound Alfred but Alfred will forgive him; his claws might wound Timothy Drake but those wounds will heal and scar whereas an autopsy would not. Bruce is protecting the boy by lashing out like this. He should stay home and be a child - stay home and be safe. Be alive.
His claws might rake up and down his own body and soul but this pain is nothing compared to what he is going through after losing Jason. Besides - he deserves to be in pain. Deserves to suffer.
Alfred speaks like sadness has curdled in his mouth. But although he is far less naive than Timothy Drake - far more experienced and worn by these years and tragedies thrust upon him - he too can be considered foolishly optimistic. Or else why would they be holding this conversation in the first place? "I know that you understand the human body, the human mind are not meant to be treated this way."
"I'm fine," He replies and these simple words seem to be the straw that break his butler's back.
"Master Bruce," Alfred says softly. "I can't stand by idle watching as you are killing yourself. You cannot ask this of me."
There's a second before the gravitas of the moment hits him where Bruce is about to mock Alfred for so often accusing Bruce of being the dramatic one and yet has the audacity to say this. The words stall on his tongue frozen. He stares, not quite understanding the earnestness in Alfred's pain nor the quiver in Alfred's mouth.
"Alfred," Bruce says at last. He too is speaking softly. Cautiously. Like coaxing a wounded animal. "That isn't what I'm doing."
"There are many things I am willing to do for this family," Alfred continues. "But not this." He shakes his head. "Never this."
There isn't a response anywhere near adequate enough for this situation, so Bruce doesn't respond at all.
"It isn't fair, sir." Alfred continues. To see how distraught he is and know that it is Bruce's fault? The guilt weighs heavily upon him.
Perhaps not replying at all is worse than an inadequate reply. "I'm not," Bruce says again. It sounds feeble and pathetic in the face of Alfred's genuine despair.
The guilt inside of him intensifies and all at once it channels into a hot anger.
"Well," He erupts, "What do you want me to do?" He throws an arm out and gestures to the cave around them, to the emptiness of his home and life symbolically and literally as his echo bounces off cavern walls and collides to him in the most human contact he's had outside of bruising fists in the past few months. "Dick is out there trying to kill people - "
"That isn't accurate and you know it," Alfred interrupts firmly. Draws himself up impossibly straighter and more upright. "It was one person -
Bruce scoffs. Like that is what matters here. "One person - "
"And," Alfred raises his voice over him. "You know why he tried to do so. You know why. Don't make him out to be just as out of control as you are currently."
"Just as - Alfred. He tried to kill him." This shouting, none of it is going to sway Alfred's mind. So why is he doing it? Why are they even arguing to begin with? Why is he so angry?
"Master Bruce, he tried to kill the Joker. You are trying to kill yourself. Don't ask me not to draw parallels between how the both of you are hellbent on exacting vengeance upon someone; just because your persons are two different people in which you're trying to kill does not make them dissimilar to each other and does not make yours morally superior."
That's not - that's not even what he's doing. There's no use in arguing that so Bruce ignores it and continues on; luckily and unfortunately for him he has much to yell about. "I raised him better than that!"
"As I raised you better!"
The blow strikes deep within him. Down to trenches he had thought were buried long ago.
Every comeback and counterargument that Bruce has been preparing falters at that. Alfred meets his gaze without regret.
The anger within him bleeds into weariness like a wound. Sluggish but draining out of him all the same.
Finally Bruce manages to shake his head. Holds gauze to his wound to trap in his anger and is ready for more. He can take it. "It doesn't change the fact that Dick is out of control."
"Master Bruce - "
"He is out of control!" He yells and Alfred just lets him. "And I have to stop him. It's my duty. If he thinks that he can justify his crimes by using Jason - "
Sudden silence.
Bruce closed his eyes and chokes back the nausea and the guilt - oh the guilt - and pretends that he did not hear the way his voice has cracked while saying the name of his dead son.
Fallen apart like his life around him and let down as if even the vocalization itself is too great a burden for his body to bear, just as it'd been a burden too great for him to accomplish saving -
"Bruce," Alfred says softly. He is too kind and too unkind to ignore his voice breaking. Audible proof betraying that no matter how angry Bruce is, no matter how much he yells, the worst of it all is that he is mourning.
He doesn't deserve to mourn.
In this way, Alfred is right. There's a reason why Dick has gone after Joker and why Bruce has laid similar siege upon himself: they both are monsters. Worse. They both are the monsters responsible for Jason Todd's death.
Why should anyone pretend otherwise? Bruce doesn't demand this. No, he knows he is to blame and should be blamed. But no matter how much the both of them deserve to die, for Dick to decide to exact that penalty upon the Joker is too much. Bruce, the Joker - they don't deserve to live. Not after what they did to Jason.
But they also don't deserve to be killed. The only saving grace for monsters such as they: justice, not vengeance.
Thus he stops Dick from murdering the Joker. And Alfred stops Bruce from - however accidentally - murdering himself.
"I'm sorry," Bruce could say. Doesn't. Isn't actually.
Alfred however is and sounds it. Bruce is sorry for that. "You don't have to try to do everything alone."
Yes he does. Alone is what protects those around him. Alone means that his own is the only life he risks. It is the only life that should be risked, which is worth the risk even should he lose everything. Gamble without luck and if he's only wagered himself? Then that's all right. Those he cares about? Those are stakes too high to even consider. Alfred, his beloved friend. Timothy Drake, a mere child.
Dick all the way in Blüdhaven, out of his protection but also in flagrant disregard to the only price of his protection, in which is to follow his one of two rules. No killing.
"We all miss him." Alfred's voice is quiet. He doesn't specify who; he doesn't need to, they both know far too much.
The lump in his throat is hard. Bruce swallows. "I know," He admits. Voice rough and grated and all too telling of how deep a wound this is to even speak of. "I know."
When his voice again cracks, Alfred's face softens into something melancholic. "Oh, my boy," He sighs.
Bruce looks away. If he does, he doesn't have to face Alfred. Face the truth. Face his own heartbreak.
Everything is so much easier when he can hide himself behind gruff armor and anger. This sadness leaves him too raw, the wound of his grief too exposed.
"Master Bruce," He persists in exposing the wound further and not allowing Bruce to deny itself existence or cover it up. "You're not alone. Please. If nothing else, then for my own sake - " At this, Bruce looks back to him. " - Please endeavor to try."
Heaviness washes over him. Sinks him like a boat in the harbor. "Alright," He agrees. Agrees because he has nothing left but to be Batman - nothing left but Alfred. Alfred who has always been there. Who has seen him at his worse - time and time again, when his worst keeps becoming worse and yet here he is yet again at the very worst version of himself as Alfred stands, watches, is concerned.
Alfred's voice is gentle. "Why don't you get dressed," This is not phrased as a question but a soft command, "And meet me upstairs. I'll prepare some tea."
The heavy ache in his soul does not diminish. But still he smiles, which is a feat he has not accomplished for some time now. "Thank you."
Alfred sighs. He stares at Bruce so intently and Bruce wonders - is ashamed - of what he sees. "It's my pleasure," Alfred assures him.
And the thing is, is that it does assure him. Bruce's life - and he himself even - is swathed in darkness and turmoil.
Alfred has been and always will be tinged with the bittersweetness of home. Of belonging.
Bruce may continue to rot and fester into increasingly more terrible depraved versions of himself. But even so - even so. At his very worst and then some, when he can not even bear to look at his own reflection, Alfred is a constant.
Bruce might be terrible, he might be worse and worse still; he might be a curse upon everyone he loves, an infestation of turmoil. He might be the worst, might be better off dead. And he might be undeserving of anything but the punishment of enduring - and failing to make amends to all that he has wrought even though he tries and fails and tries and fails again as he lives on with the tragedies around and inside him.
But Alfred steadily reminds him that even so - even so - he is loved.
This a weight that bears a far greater burden than any tragedy within him, for those have already happened and merely haunt him. But this? It is breaking his heart with each day that he looks to Alfred and sees somehow the love he does not deserve and yet receives. This is an ongoing tragedy in perpetual motion. More fraught and terrible, maybe, in that while Bruce deserves atrocities, he doesn't deserve this.
"Bruce?" Alfred calls. Has not left yet. Is worried.
"I'm coming," Bruce promises. Ash in his mouth, though this is now the truth.
He leaves behind the Batman suit in the darkness of the cave; climbs up the stairs long after Alfred has left, chasing the light trailing behind and upwards, though it is not meant for him to rise out from the darkness in which he deserves to dwell.
Bruce, yes Bruce deserves to suffer. But Alfred does not deserve to suffer along with him. Does not deserve to be caused pain witnessing Bruce's failing attempts at atonement and the punishments he incurs upon himself for failing - always failing - to reach that absolution.
But the point of it all is to make himself worth it. To make amends for his failings just enough that his existence is justified - or at least forgiven.
The point of it is not to make his loved ones bear heavier burdens. This is a miscalculation, an error made in the eclipsing guilt of his grief.
Maybe...
Maybe Alfred is right. Maybe he has been too focused on himself. Too selfish. He needs to view things with a wider scope, an alternate angle.
A fresh point of view, perhaps.