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The suit is…less than convincing, upon first glance.
All black -- varying shades, wrapped across buckles, plates and fabrics -- and thankfully matte. At the very least, it won’t reflect light. It’s a small consolation.
“You don’t like it,” Bruce says -- not asking, but seeking Alfred’s approval nonetheless.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Is it the belt?”
It’s not the belt. But the absurd number of pouches and attachments, now pointed out, aren’t helping. Why on earth would someone need that many items?
Alfred holds his tongue. Bruce’s arms are still held out at his sides, presenting the armor for Alfred’s inspection.
The cape is a thick, almost rubbery material -- something one would wear on a fishing boat. Too unwieldy to truly disappear in darkness, but undoubtedly waterproof.
It won’t protect him from Gotham’s bullets. But the occasional downpour? Alfred has some hope.
“Move over into the light,” he says, “If you would.”
Bruce obliges, stepping further back into the main Cave floodlight. The strange cape ripples with the action, making a half-hearted attempt to snag on the buckles of his boots.
The light, as he suspected, makes everything worse.
Dear lord, Alfred thinks, keeping his expression neutral, how much extra weight is he carrying in armor alone?
“Are you married to the cape?”
“It has multiple tactical uses,” Bruce says, tilting his head, “So yes.”
Despite the three or so extra inches the boots give him, the added height doesn’t feel impressive. It puts Alfred somewhere beneath Bruce’s chin, staring at the matte, reinforced kevlar plates across his chest.
Bruce catches him staring and offers a small, eager smile. Alfred smiles back reflexively, craning his neck to see the boy’s face.
“The helm?” he asks, if only to move on from the odd, complicated suit.
Maybe seeing it all put together -- Bruce’s face disappearing under the mask, shoulders unconsciously lifting back, hips squaring for anticipated movement -- will help.
Alfred has the distinct, unpleasant impression, that this entire facade -- this entire, so-called mission -- hinges in large part upon his approval. That Bruce’s hope, Bruce’s fears -- they all branch from this moment, moving forward. Unstoppable, perhaps, but still so weak in their infancy.
Bruce turns around, lifting the carefully-altered half-helmet from the workshop table. He pulls it on easily, buckling a hidden snap under the gorget.
“It has lenses,” Bruce says, waving proudly at the blank white glass lodged in the eyeholes, “I debated adding them -- it was difficult to make the material bulletproof and functional for scanning, but I think this version is more than adequate.”
Alfred keeps an admirably straight face as Bruce’s chin bobs up and down during his explanation, jostling the thick stubs -- ears -- at the top.
“And the…ears?” Alfred asks, “What function do they serve?”
Bruce perks up visibly, white lenses shifting onto Alfred’s face. “They store the wiring and receiver for the comm system.”
Ah. Well, he can’t really doubt the necessity of that.
“It’s quite impressive,” Alfred says, quietly relieved when Bruce removes the helmet and sets it back down.
The strange, almost comical lenses stare at him from the table. Blank and vaguely disconcerting -- like a clown’s mask.
“You’ll be even more impressed when you see it in action.”
Bruce’s smile is the brightest he’s seen in…decades, maybe. Alfred’s heart aches, sorrow trailing through his veins.
He’s going to get himself killed.
Alfred nods, forcing a smile.
“I can’t wait.”
The morning after the first patrol, Bruce comes back to the Cave -- aptly named, and one of the few changes Alfred can’t find an issue with -- largely uninjured and grinning widely.
High on adrenaline, he lets Alfred clean the laceration across his chin -- from something sharp and hard, like the corner of a signet ring -- and discusses the suit’s improvements.
The sight of Bruce’s blood, even from a cut so insignificant, turns Alfred’s stomach. He swallows, pushing down the nausea creeping up his throat.
“I’ll need to adjust the armor around the knees,” Bruce says to the wall over Alfred’s shoulder, “I couldn’t get full rotation on one of the flips I did, but that might have been the added weight of the armor.”
Alfred hums, swiping an alcohol-soaked pad across the cut. Bruce doesn’t even blink, so focused on his suit’s performance.
“The gloves work great,” he continues, “I might add a retractable set of spikes on the knuckles, for when I need to break windows.”
Or people, Alfred thinks, and is suddenly overcome with the image of a Gotham criminal redirecting the brass-tipped punch back into Bruce’s chin.
“Have you considered a mouthguard?” Alfred asks, pushing aside thoughts of shattered teeth and broken jaws and the thousand ways he’d seen a man’s face split in half.
Bruce inhales. “Well, the pros and cons of using the --”
Alfred largely tunes out the next five minutes, patiently cleaning and bandaging the laceration to the best of his abilities. He hopes -- prays -- it won’t scar, despite Bruce’s clear and pronounced indifference to such possibilities.
Thomas, Alfred thinks, staring at the near-delicate, handsome curves of his friend’s face, made whole again in Bruce’s features. Sharp, blue-grey eyes and plush, full lips from Martha -- a beautiful face by all definitions, pale and unscarred.
I’m so sorry.
The routine continues. Bruce marches out of the Cave in the evening and limps back in the morning. Slowly, he begins limping in the evenings too, hiding the accumulating injuries under tightly-controlled movements and the heavy drag of his cape.
He ducks Alfred’s questions about the altercations, diverting them into a discussion about the suit’s improving functionality. It’s not that he won’t share his fights with Alfred; it’s simply that, to him, to this mission, they’re not important once complete.
Alfred sews lacerations and bullet grazes biting down hard on his own tongue. Bruce bears the pain with stunning lucidity, relaxed and talkative where a stronger man would have cried out.
There is a lifetime of experiences in mountains and jungles that Alfred isn’t privy to. Bruce’s face is still youthful -- despite the premature aging of long-term combat -- but his soul is so much older.
Far older than the boyish grin he flashes at Alfred over his stitches, clearly pleased with the speed Alfred had gained in the long-disused skill of suturing.
(he ties off a suture deep in the corner of a pillow before it sinks in, that yes, his hands had never really forgotten)
The curiosity -- if it can be called that, something far more charitable than deep concern -- gets the better of him, two months and five days into this so-called mission.
Night falls, and the bulky, strange armor is donned like clockwork. Bruce’s cape disappears into Gotham’s night, concealing a badly sprained ankle and three broken ribs.
Alfred follows.
It is long past sunset; the Narrows are sunk into their usual darkness. He tracks the armor deep into one of the alleys, working off the half-memorized map he’d created from Bruce’s post-patrol notes.
He perches by a half-flooded box of crumbling bricks and rancid garbage, waiting patiently. A sewer groans quietly next to him, choked with rotting leaves and cigarette cartons.
Despite all appearances to the contrary, the heavy boots are near silent against Gotham’s pavement, the cape barely a whisper on the brief gasps of wind that slip through the lowest section of the Narrows.
The matte black armor disappears entirely into the darkness: belt, buckles, and all. Bruce’s figure becomes one with the shadows, and it is only because Alfred knows where to look -- knows to look -- that he can see the Bat at all.
White lenses lock onto chosen prey. A gloved hand comes up, closing into a fist. The Bat towers over an unfortunate criminal, so much larger. So much more.
If the Bat speaks, the words don’t reach his hiding place. Alfred leans in, barely breathing.
The shadows explode into movement. The criminal hits the ground with a wet, broken noise, blood gushing from his mouth and nose.
The Bat rears back, barely exerting itself in the motion. It tilts its head, white lenses flickering as several figures enter the alley, cutting off both exits.
Alfred’s hand lifts to his mouth, pressing down hard. It’s a meaningless gesture; there is no breath left in his lungs with which to make a sound.
The Bat is encircled. It does not seem to care.
The fight -- if it can even be called that -- is over in less than two minutes. Ten men, half a dozen weapons, and one, sole opponent. Multiple injuries.
It is something out of a dream -- a strange, feverish dream where matter no longer obeys the laws of physics and shadows are beholden to only one.
He was terribly mistaken, it seems, to pity Bruce in all of this. To fear for Bruce, when something awful reigned in between Gotham’s shadows, far greater than anything he could’ve conceived.
The Bat -- he cannot call it something else, not now -- heaves with breath, standing in the middle of an alley of broken bodies. Its back remains rigid and straight, a predator’s grace in the curve of its limbs.
White lenses scan the alley, seeking out further prey. Alfred presses his body back into the wet cardboard, hoping -- praying -- that he remains unnoticed.
There is, it seems, another force looking down upon him. The Bat’s attention is drawn to the north by a distant scream, halting its scan of the alley. It slips back into the shadows, gone as quickly as it had appeared.
He regains the ability to breathe normally several minutes later, still pressed tightly against damp cardboard. The Bat is gone, surely, but the threat of its attention still hangs heavy over the alley.
He hurries home on numb, aching legs, the fear of its return dogging his every step.
“Did you stay up for me?”
Alfred jerks upright, nearly spilling his tea across the worktable. He quickly rights the cup, heart pounding in his chest.
Bruce’s smile is brighter than a sunrise. Brighter than Gotham’s lukewarm attempt at morning, at the very least.
“I,” Alfred clears his throat, “not intentionally, sir.”
If Bruce notices his frazzled nerves, he doesn’t mention it. A broad, scarred hand snags the paper off the edge of the counter, fingers slipping between the thin sheets with surprising care.
“Anything interesting?”
Alfred stares at the open paper, dazed. “I…couldn’t tell you, sir.”
There is nothing left of the Bat in Bruce’s loose, relaxed posture. He is human again -- freshly showered, barefoot, in sweatpants Alfred remains committed to throwing out and yet finds back in the wardrobe after every attempt. So much less, and yet unmistakably more.
There is a fresh cut across the back of his left hand. Alfred’s eyes catch on it, watching the blood slowly begin to clot at the edges.
“You know,” Bruce says, conversational over the edge of the paper, “I was thinking about adding some weapons to the suit. Something I could throw.”
Alfred blinks, trying in vain to wrest his attention back from the sight of fresh blood on Bruce’s pale skin. The barest hint of bandages under his shirt, padding his ribs. The half-inch of the brace wrapped around his left ankle, poking out from the hem of his sweatpants.
“That,” Alfred clears his throat again, forcing the words out, “that seems very interesting, sir.”