April Seventeenth – Chapter 2 – Alfred

Master Bruce’s birthday had come and gone, with Miss Kyle having made sure that his broody charge enjoyed it for once without risking life and limb, something for which Alfred was quietly grateful and carefully not inquisitive.

Though, given the bruises consistent with shackles he had spied on him a few days later, his assumptions on safe, sane, harmless fun might have been slightly off the mark.

With yet another restrained sigh, the British epitome of what a servant should not be (because no one could have afforded him), resumed picking lint off the Bat-computer (and muted yet another sigh at his master’s childish need to stamp his logo on the most inane of things—that Bat-shark repellant had been a bridge too far). Of course, his poise remained when he was interrupted by the Bat-mobile (really, he blamed American TV for that affectation) roaring back into the Bat-cave (at least this one was somehow appropriate, given the utter mess of flying rodents he had to clean after time and again). He was already used to the vehicle’s engine intruding on his musings.

What he was not used to, and what had him clench his knuckles a bit more than would appear proper, was knowing that this arrival was forty minutes before the scheduled time. Before. Not after.

His master taking an early night was always cause for concern.

He made his way to the pad where the futuristic car was programmed to stop just in time to see the passenger door open, a very upset Catwoman (still wearing her old costume, for reasons he dared not speculate on, lest what remained of his sanity finally deserted him) frantically dragging a fully suited Batman out of the cockpit.

“Selina, you are exaggerating—”

“You took a shotgun blast to the chest! You could have internal bleeding!”

“That is inconsistent with—”

“You took a shotgun blast to the chest! You are in no condition to diagnose yourself!”

Ah. A voice of reason. He had forgotten what those sounded like.

“I am fine. I finished the fight well enough, didn’t I?”

“Which doesn’t mean there won’t be any complications! Really, you could have bruising in any internal organ, and you won’t find out till you go to sleep and you don’t wake up, and why aren’t you receiving metahuman healing right now?!”

“I told you the Flash is off-world—”

“Then make him come back! What could be so important that—”

“Stopping another Rann-Thanagar war.”

“Oh. Well, maybe I will accept his apologies when he comes back.”

Alfred had to bite down a laugh at Catwoman’s distinctly feline poise of magnanimous acceptance. Sometimes, her moniker seemed far more adequate than others.

“If you will allow me, Miss Kyle, I will lead Master Bruce to the infirmary and proceed to treat him.”

Selina stopped fighting a flustered Bruce and looked at him with a quiet focus completely at odds with her earlier distress.

“Alfred, don’t take this the wrong way, because I love you like the father-in-law I never had,” she was briefly interrupted by Master Bruce sputtering. Really, he thought he had taught the boy better. “But are you a certified doctor?”

Alfred paused, his lip very carefully not pursed.

“I assure you, Miss Kyle, that I have been certified as a combat medic specialist in the service of Her Majesty’s armed forces.”

Selina cocked her head.

“Right. I always forget how ridiculously over-qualified you lot are. Still, can you tell me what the American Medical Association thinks about treating family members?”

“… That it is only advisable under emergencies or for minor issues.”

“Perfect. So you are going to treat him during the emergency, and I am going to call Leslie Thompkins.”

Bruce grumbled, Selina shushed him, and Alfred, after nodding seriously and moving to help get the pile of muscles out of his garishly decorated racing car, managed to hide a very improper smile.

Really, it was about time someone managed to put the boy in his place.

***

Alfred was not used to being banished out of any place in the mansion. Usually, it was him who did said banishing, particularly when not adequately clad and far too adequately inebriated young models insisted that Master Bruce was expecting them and that Alfred would get fired for getting in their way.

Ah, the recklessness of youth and gold-diggers…

Still, he had to admit the experience of brewing a pot of Earl Grey while someone else took care of Master Wayne’s particularly uncooperative approach to medical treatment was quite novel. Certainly, he was anxious and more than a bit unsettled at not being the one taking charge, but… He had to admit Miss Kyle’s advice wasn’t quite as misguided as he may have thought. Being the one responsible for keeping Batman operational and Bruce Wayne alive was a stressful job at the best of times, and a nightmare for even one with nerves as steady as his when what was on the line was…

Ah, yet again, wistfulness got in the way of productive contemplation. He was getting on in years.

Right as the alarm on the pot signaled it was time to take the leaves out of the water (such a preposterous invention, yet one of Master Drake’s more thoughtful gifts), the grandfather clock leading to the cave slid open, and Leslie Thompkins walked into the study, her gait slightly unsteady, unlike what he was used to seeing from the composed woman.

Without even thinking about his tea bittering by the second, Alfred stood and offered his chair to her, taking her elbow with his usual care.

“Leslie? Is everything all right?” And if there was a slight tremor in his voice, nobody could begrudge him it.

“I am retired.” The doctor answered with no more calm than him.

Which meant Master Bruce wasn’t the concern… didn’t it?

“I am sure you have earned it.”

Leslie looked straight into his eyes, with an intensity she usually reserved for other circumstances.

“No. No, you don’t get it. Selina. She just browbeat Bruce into buying my clinic and staffing it to offer free care and armed security.”

“She did, did she?”

“Said I had already risked myself for too long. That it would be good for me to be available without other responsibilities weighing on my mind.”

“It sounds reasonable enough.”

“Alfred,” her gaze locked on his, “I’m moving here. The van will arrive in the morning.”

In a way far too feline for his usual mannerisms, Alfred tilted his head to the side.

“I will be sure to arrange your chambers.”

Leslie’s hand met her face. Ah, how unrestrained. There was something to say for grandiose gestures, even if he (contrary to his Shakespearean training) rather favored nuanced understatement.

Something Americans seemed genetically incapable of doing. Really, maybe the colonization process had more to do with character than with social, economic, and religious pressure. Manifest Destiny, indeed.

“Just give me the goddamn tea,” the doctor grumbled.

“Certainly.” This time, Alfred didn’t hide his slight sardonic smile. There was no point with her, of all people.

Finally taking out the leaves before they further worsened the brew, Alfred served two cups and offered one to Leslie.

“You know I take it with milk and two sugars,” she reproached as she took a light sip.

“You know I don’t purposefully foul my own tea,” Alfred calmly riposted as he took a sip of his own.

Twenty seconds too much. The bergamot’s citric aroma masked the worse of it, though it still irked him.

“Delicious as always,” Leslie said with a grumble that tried very hard not to be a relieved sigh.

“Yet you persist in your attempts to worsen it.” If she hadn’t noticed the delay, he wouldn’t point it out to her. It was one thing to be honest, another to willingly offer openings.

“And you persist on acting above your station,” she replied, nose held high, pinky fully extended as she imperiously waved the teacup.

And then she started giggling.

“God, could you be any less British from time to time?” she asked, mirth still in her tone.

“If you insist on it, Doctor, I will try my best. Perhaps I should start by consuming this ‘Jersey Shore’ thing I have heard so much about?”

And Leslie laughed, that full guffaw so select few had heard from her.

It never failed to make him smile, no matter the company.

They settled in a familiar, companionable silence, tea being sipped, gazes and smiles exchanged. It wasn’t the first night they had spent relaxing after Master Bruce’s antics had landed him in medical care, and it wouldn’t be the last. Not with Leslie moving in after having finally passed her duties regarding the most dangerous parts of Gotham to better paid, better equipped, and better-protected professionals.

He wondered what would be an appropriate gift for Miss Kyle to express his gratitude for her having handled the two most stubborn people Alfred had ever met (and he had served in the Army) into being ever so slightly less reckless with their own lives.

Catnip would probably be inadequate. Even if handed inside a stuffed Batman doll.

She would surely laugh at it, though. And would likely try to taunt the Joker with it.

His idle musings were intruded upon by a weary sigh, and he raised his eyes from the warm liquid still pooled in his cup to see Leslie rubbing her shoulders with a grimace.

“The days will be shorter, from now on,” he offered.

“At the cost of how many sleepless nights?” Her rueful smile didn’t stop her impromptu massage.

“Knowing you? About the same as you would have endured.” Her smile soured a bit at that, and Alfred rose from his seat. “Please, allow me.”

He took off his gloves, and Leslie frowned at him, but still dropped her hands as he stood behind her.

She wore a blue cardigan and a white blouse. Leslie didn’t care much for anything beyond practicality, as so many doctors and nurses who soon learn not to bother when their clothes risk having to be changed in a hurry according to a patient’s less pleasant reactions. Still, they weren’t cheap clothes, and far from unsuited to the slender woman. Settling his fingers on her shoulders, he could feel bone under taut muscle, and he rested his thumbpads on the twin knots of tension below and to the sides of her neck, steady pressure not enough to cause a flinch of discomfort as he set his hands on soft, slow circles while he warmed the body under his touch.

“You don’t need to be so gentle with me, Alfred. I am not going to break.”

“I remember,” he answered, perhaps inappropriately, with a lower tone than he intended, and she sharply inhaled. “Still, it never hurt to be proper about things.”

She chuckled, the weight of years and memories and maybes carried by airy melody.

“And since when have you been proper, you cad?”

He increased the pressure, each fingertip sinking just ever so slightly in the proper spot, places he had known for a long time, the same familiarity of returning to a once-beloved home after years away.

“Are you insinuating I have been neglectful of my duties, Madam?”

His thumbs pressed down, sinking into muscle softened by his earlier caresses, and she let out a barely contained gasp.

“Duty is the one thing you never faltered at.”

He frowned at that. He let go of slender shoulders, of flesh softening under braided cashmere, and stood in front of Leslie, who looked at him with a hint of remorse, as if fearing having crossed a line.

So he knelt in front of her and, very slowly and deliberately, slipped a flat-soled shoe off her right foot as she crossed her legs under a far-too-long mauve skirt.

“I think your feet always get sore after a long day of standing around.” His thumbs glided over tight nylon and between delineated bone until they reached the line where foot met leg. His other fingers settled on her sole, carefully tracing muscle and tendon with touch firm enough not to devolve into tickling. And Leslie gasped.

“You are far too good at this,” she bit off a moan as he pressed right on the spot between the ball of her big toe and her other toes, a circular pressure that he knew she would feel drilling up into the center of her limb.

“I have never faltered at my duties, Madam,” this time, it was his own smile that turned rueful as he stared into eyes that had been sapphire blue before age and experience turned them steel grey.

“I somehow doubt the Batman requires foot rubs after a long patrol,” she let out with a hint of laughter in her voice.

“The boy has not enough sense to ask for it, no.”

“Then, what duty is this about?”

“Do I need to say it?” His hands left her foot as they slid up a slender and toned calf, the muscle trembling under this careful touch as her skirt pooled over his forearms.

Her eyes held his, and her mouth thinned.

“Yes.”

His thumbs caressed the ridges of her tibia as his grasp tightened and her muscle gave way. This time, she moaned.

“The one I may have been neglectful to.”

And he leaned forward, laying a gentle kiss over a still covered knee.

“I am old,” she said.

“I am no spring chicken,” he didn’t disagree.

He switched legs, sliding her other shoe off with no less care than the first one.

“We have tried already,” she almost protested.

“No. We have faltered.” His finger sunk in spots he had learned years ago.

“Fal—” Her eyes fluttered closed just for a moment. “Faltered?”

“In our duty towards the boy. In watching over him without distractions.”

She hummed in a non-verbal acknowledgment of his touch, of the way he made her feel, of the memories of the way he had made her feel.

“The boy is currently sleeping in the infirmary of the Batcave,” she finally said, a trailing note of her humming on the words.

“And he has someone watching over him.”

His hands slid up, the skirt once more pooling on his forearms even as he was careful not to let it reveal anything to him, as he remained kneeling in front of a woman he had known for decades, the only one who had stood with him as he watched over a broken child who would turn out to be an extraordinary, admirable, broken man.

“Is that all it took?” Her voice was soft, not a whisper only by intent.

And Alfred closed his eyes, fleeing from steel for the second it took him to center himself.

His hands slid further up, going above her knee, tenderly massaging soft muscle.

And he looked at Leslie, at lidded eyes that held promise and warning in equal measure.

“Yes.”

And he rose up as she leaned down. And kissed the woman he loved for the first time after five years.

“You could have told me,” she said with bitterness in her tone even as the soft touch of her lips lingered on his own.

“I didn’t want you to wait for me.”

And fingers strong enough to set bone and push a needle through dense muscle grasped his bowtie. Such a ridiculous accessory. He should remember to take it away before any fight.

“Stop lying.” Her teeth clenched.

“I am not lying. Just telling a part of the truth.”

She stood up then, not letting him go, dragging him to the study desk until he was forced to sit on it, thankfully not disturbing the tray with the tea service.

“Stop it with your Bond routine. Be straight with me for once.”

“How American of you, Madam.” This time he was the one who chuckled.

“Alfred…”

He pushed forward, kissing her once again, the first taste far from enough to sate his thirst.

“Leslie.”

Her other hand rose to cradle his cheek as she pulled his bowtie undone, black silk sliding over starched cotton.

“You are incorrigible, aren’t you?”

“So you keep saying.”

She leaned forward, nibbling on his jaw until she reached an ear already burning with excessive excitement.

“Only I?” And her question was just that tad brittle, that much more than two syllables should be forced to carry.

“For decades. Only you.” He held her face and kissed a brow marred by years and lines of worry.

“You foolish man,” she murmured as she allowed herself to melt in his arms, their chests meeting for the first time in far too long.

He wrapped them around her, holding her upright and between his legs.

“Would you have had me any other way?” he asked.

“Sooner. I would have had you sooner.” There was bitterness in her tone, yet also something else as she slid off her cardigan.

“We aren’t of age to be rushing around.” He took off his jacket.

“On the contrary, one should rush when there’s little time.” She undid her blouse and he his shirt.

“This is the very height of impropriety.” His torso was bare, scar and muscle evident on a frame that clothes always had made into something far slighter than it was.

“I am sure the staff will be mortified,” her lips trailed down his sternum, detouring to kiss the mark that bullet he had taken in Afghanistan had gifted him with. She always kissed that puckered patch of skin, always trailing the edges of raised flesh, acknowledging its presence and then moving on.

His pants were undone.

“You seem to have me at a disadvantage.” He raised his hips, allowing her to drag the cloth down to his ankles.

“After that routine you pulled with the foot massage that wasn’t at all a prelude to something else? Be thankful I don’t bend you over my knee and show you what’s what.”

“Ah, so you are familiar with English traditions.”

She paused halfway to her knees, her head far too close to his exposed member, and he raised a mocking eyebrow. Then, and only then, she laughed heartily.

“All these years, and you still manage to catch me off guard,” she said, wiping an imaginary tear.

“I don’t know what you are tal—” And then he felt warmth engulf him.

Far too dexterous fingers tenderly played along his length, her tongue slowly drawing circles over his wet tip until he felt himself fully rising up to the challenge.

“That was fast,” she murmured, each syllable a draft of warm air over wet skin.

“You always managed to draw out the best in me.”

Her smile was closer to a smirk as she stood up, her skirt falling to the ground, her white pantyhose digging into her waist.

“I always counted on it.”

And then he was standing, she suddenly seated on the space he had been occupying on the table, tea service still thankfully undisturbed. And he ripped the pantyhose.

“Hey! Those were—”

“Easily replaceable; I will buy you as many as you want.”

“That’s not—hnnn!”

He was inside her. She was warm, wet, embracing him just as he had yearned for year after year.

“Wha—what happened to not rushing?” She asked, leaning back, her bare breasts still shapely as they swelled over her chest, her erect nipples still begging for his touch.

“I am not rushing,” he almost growled before leaning down and taking her lips, deeper this time, more fully, pressing until she granted him entry and their tongues met.

And, just as they did, just as they resumed a dance left unfinished for far too long, he moved his hips, and she answered him.

They weren’t frantic, at least, not in the motion. There was a yearning being fulfilled, a promise being remade, and an urgency that would only fade after reassurance took its place. His every motion was sure, steady, almost forceful, and her every answer was demanding, asking for more of him and from him.

They didn’t rush, not as the word is usually understood, but they certainly were tired of waiting.

Two slender legs clad in nylon surrounded his waist as she pulled him deeper inside her, as her nails dragging down his back, and he let go of her lips just so he could bite down on her neck, the point of his canines tracing a beating vein as Leslie moaned between his arms and the vibration reached his core.

“You—you always have to—”

“Of course I do.” His teeth pressed harder, and a yelp accompanied a rush of fresh wetness.

“Alfred, Alfred, I—”

He leaned back, the woman blushing and panting under him, the top of her breasts a rosy red that never failed to captivate him even as the trace of ribs rose under still smooth skin.

“Are you on the pill?” He hurried to ask, worry thick on his tone.

“Wha—you bastard!” And he laughed.

He laughed as he leaned down, kissing lips that were fuller with excitement and sensation. He laughed as her arms and legs clenched around him, the woman he loved trembling under him for seconds that stretched into a shared future.

He only stopped laughing when he finally spent himself inside her, liquid heat and rush of sensation overtaking him, only allowing him a grunt as his teeth clenched with too much strength.

And then strength abandoned him, and he fell over her, the both of them spread over a table that he would need to thoroughly clean before the morning came.

The crash came as a surprise. They both turned to see the tray had vacated its spot. Alfred was too tired to lift his head from where it comfortably rested atop a chest he had often failed not to admire, but he also was far too familiar with rambunctious generations of Robins to not picture how still warm tea was now pooling on the hardwood floor, as shards of sharp porcelain would likely surround Master Drake’s likely busted contraption.

“I—”

“I will buy you as many as you want. Just don’t get up yet,” Leslie interrupted from beneath him.

He hesitated just for a moment, turning his head up to meet steel that had, somehow, still a spark of sapphire.

“You are far too persuasive.” He nuzzled atop soft skin as deft fingers danced over where hair used to be.

“You are far too easy.”

“Only for you.”

And she leaned down, laying a kiss atop his crown, the movement barely disturbing him from his resting spot.

“I know.”

***

The floor didn’t stain, the teapot wasn’t broken, and the cups were part of a set that had far too many spares.

Even if it had been otherwise, it would have been worth it a thousand times over.

That did not mean that the next morning was without complications.

“Alfred? Why have I just signed on the delivery of a hundred pairs of pantyhose?”

“Because you are apparently physiologically incapable of processing the concept of ‘bed rest,’ Master Bruce.’”

Bruce Wayne quietly grumbled at that, far too used to the sardonic replies to react in any overt way.

“Right. I will bring them to Leslie’s room, because I assume you aren’t going to try to convince me that you are suddenly developing an interest in cross-dressing at your age.”

“Certainly not, sir! Please do, I am sure the exercise will be good for your rehabilitation.”

“… So, where is her room?”

“Oh, up the stairs, second door to the left.”

“Isn’t that… your…” Bruce hesitated in a way that most people rarely associated with the masked crusader, while Alfred rose an inquisitive eyebrow that everybody readily associated with the definitive butler.

“I… Ah… I didn’t…” Bruce vacillated.

The eyebrow remained raised.

“Congratulations?” The superhero finally settled on.

Alfred looked down at the slowly fading mark of a manacle or something similar on Bruce’s wrist, making him squirm as he tried to hide it from the inquisitive gaze.

“Likewise.”