trauma makes good drama

Alfred will likely try to stitch that one up once they arrive at the Manor, will probably check him over for other notable injuries—which would be no more than a couple bruises, scrapes, and cuts, none quite as deep or require stitches, definitely not the kind his uniform would need—and he will be doing it in silence. But the thing about Alfred is that his silence is never quiet. If anything, his berating is much more preferable than his silence, because in his silence you can hear his disappointment, and Bruce is enough of a disappointment as he is. That he knows as much, at least. The Wayne boy, throwing fists at fellow classmates? Preposterous. Ludicrous. Utterly unseemly behaviour. Downright shameful.

But what Alfred doesn’t know is that those boys deserved it. He didn’t see the things they had said and done to Sydney, doesn’t know the kind of burning, righteous anger it ignited in him, the driving need to see justice to those deserving of it—and she did. She wouldn’t have stood up to them otherwise, their teachers or classmates wouldn’t have stood up for her otherwise—it was him or no one else. Alfred doesn’t know that there was no other choice. And the things they said to him—orphan boy, they sneered, like Bruce had any choice in the matter. 

And more than that, Alfred doesn’t understand. There is a fire in his veins, a fight inside asking—begging to break out. When he swung his fist, when he was struck back, the fire turned into something else. His entire body sang with it, like his pain receptors were instead replaced with pleasure. It is an indescribable, perhaps sickening sense of satisfaction that needs constant fulfillment, and the sting of his broken knuckles are worth it. 

Alfred drives the car to a stop by the side of a road leading up to the Manor before they even reach its gates—there are trees and shrubbery poking their green fingers on the window, sitting at the base of the hill the Manor perches on. Bruce keeps his eyes on the window, anywhere but Alfred’s eyes. The indistinct reflection of the face on its surface glares frowningly at him. 

“I am tired, Master Bruce,” Alfred admits quietly after a brief lull. Despite himself, the admission makes something twinge in Bruce’s chest—he shows none of it. “Tired of the phone calls, the fighting, all of this needless, senseless violence.” 

“It wasn’t senseless,” he mutters, “And it was needed.” 

“Pray tell, Master Bruce, when is it that violence is ever necessary?” 

He tips his chin up, wraps his arms together. “When serving justice.” 

“That is not justice. What you sought was vengeance, Master Bruce, which is another order of thing entirely. And you sought it through violence.” 

“Well, Mitch deserved it.” 

“Violence does not solve problems,” Alfred snaps back, each word enunciated sharply. “When will you stop thinking with your fists and—”

“This again,” Bruce mutters with a roll of his eyes. 

“You are the last remaining son of Thomas and Martha Wayne,” Alfred says, and he didn’t raise his voice but he might as well have. “Do you think they would have approved—”

“Who cares what they think!” Bruce throws his hands up exasperatedly. “Whether they approve, whether they don’t! They aren’t around anymore, Alfred! Haven’t been for years!” The realisation of what he’s just said hits him almost immediately, and then the shame of it, but Bruce clenches his jaw and carries on anyway. “They only left me with you,” he finishes bitterly, stifling the unwanted guilt. 

Alfred sits in silence for a moment, perhaps letting the words sink in for them both, and he was not lying about Alfred’s quiet being anything but. 

“I never asked for a son,” Alfred says bitingly. 

“I’m not your son,” he counters back. “And you’re not my father.” 

They are speaking quietly—quietly enough that Bruce can pick up the small creaking sound of Alfred’s thin, strong fingers tightening on the steering wheel—with only an undercurrent of something dangerous lurking beneath; the right trigger and the slow fuse will burn up and blow. It’s their familiar song and dance of the past few years of his teenagehood, the same argument and the same biting words and the same quiet anger. 

“I would’ve taken any of their places, that night, if I could. I would’ve gladly exchanged my life for theirs. Perhaps then I wouldn’t have to put up with all of this nonsense. Perhaps then your actual parents would be able to put you back in line when you act out, like this.” 

It’s an honestly justified reproof. But it still stings, as much as the split in his lip and his torn knuckles. Maybe even more. The swirling anger is still bubbling up inside, skittering across his skin. He runs his tongue over his busted lip, balls his fists tight and feels the shot of pain up his arms—it’s preferable, at least, to Alfred’s eyes, his words, his silence. 

For a brief moment he entertains the idea; what could have been, if it had been Alfred that night instead of mother or father. If it had been Alfred’s body he held in his arms as his aching knees dug into the concrete, Alfred’s breath and heartbeat he desperately tried to find the faintest hint of, Alfred’s blood staining his clothes red. He imagines Alfred’s lifeless eyes, the slump of his lifeless body, and further imagines living the rest of his lifeless days in the Manor without him, what it would have been like to grow up without him, without his steady arms and steady presence, his reprimanding and his obsessive care for the details and his damned silence. A wave of intense feeling washes over him from his head to his toes, and he sits there for a moment trying to master it.

He imagines a bullet buried between Alfred’s eyes like it had in mother, blood pooling under them, and what it would be like to lose him forever. 

“Master Bruce?” Alfred’s voice, laden with reluctant worry, does little to pull him out of the visions his brain conjures in sudden vividness. The feeling has turned into something else, and he tries to fight it to no avail. 

Bruce doesn’t quite register what happens next. His vision blackens around the edges, at first, and somehow that doesn’t register to him until too late. The floor lurches to the side and he struggles to hold his ground. A rhythmic trembling has begun in his hands, arms, spreading all throughout his body. And his breathing—it is not quite right, it’s like there are bands wrapped around his chest in a vise-like grip, locking up his airway and blocking any air daring to enter. It only gets steadily worse from there. 

There are sounds—the car door, Alfred’s voice, but they are moving far away from him, running away from him, and—no, they are being drowned out, muffled under the sudden ringing in his ears, and he cannot get it to stop, cannot get himself to breathe, no matter how many times he thumps a fist into his chest he cannot feel it, cannot feel himself, cannot hear anything but the ringing and his thunderous heartbeat and the squeeze of his lungs. He does not know what’s happening. What is happening to him? He must be dying, he must be—

“Master Bruce!” Alfred’s voice cuts through the fog. His vision swims with blood red as he tries desperately to find the source of Alfred’s voice, to make out the head hovering over top of his. “Master Bruce, you must breathe, follow me. Come on, my dear boy, you must breathe.” Alfred has Bruce’s hand pressed to his chest, and Bruce can feel the rise and fall of it as Alfred inhales and exhales exaggeratedly. “Follow me, Master Bruce, slowly. In—and out, and in—and out. That’s it.” 

Bruce tries to follow, he really does, but just as he thinks he’s done it, the visions rise up again and suddenly he is back in that alley, struggling for breath, for sense, for feeling other than the suffocating squeeze. 

“I—” he tries to speak, choking, throat spasming. “Alfred,” he manages. “Please.” He doesn’t know what he’s asking for. Doesn’t know why he’s begging. 

“It’s alright, Master Bruce, try again, it’s alright,” Alfred says, keeping a steady stream of words. 

At some point an inhale chokes him, sends him into a coughing fit that leaves him that much more breathless. He realises after that he’s folded himself over, hands clutching tightly—painfully—on Alfred’s fabric-clad biceps. 

“Don’t—leave—me,” he chokes out, “Please—don’t—please—” A hoarse, broken sob tears out of him. Alfred is making hushing, soothing noises. 

“Never, my dear boy, never, I would never leave you—breathe, darling, come on, you can do it, come on.” 

He shakes his head, trying to say I can’t, I can’t out of uncooperative lips, and through tear-blurred eyes sees blood and spit and tears drip down from his chin onto their laps. He can’t even feel the pain, only the lack of air, the feeling of drowning. When is this going to stop? Will he die before then? His heart, his lungs—there is something wrong with them, he must be having some sort of heart attack, he is going to die, Alfred will need to call an ambulance, call a doctor, call his father who would know what to do, but no, he isn’t here, not anymore—can’t someone stop this, anyone, will anyone be able to stop this? 

They must sit there for a long time as Bruce tries to wrest away the visions, regain his breath. It takes what feels like centuries until he feels himself returning to his body, bit by bit, finger by finger and limb by limb until he feels partly whole again, until he feels partly present again, until he feels his breaths again. Still jittery, but at least he can take a full breath in. Alfred is still holding him—or, well, Bruce is clutching at him and Alfred is holding him up. Suddenly all of the anger from just moments prior has completely fizzled out, and in its wake is a bone-deep exhaustion. All he feels is pain, though his head is strangely light, spinning idly. 

Pain, and deep, excruciating shame. It isn’t even a kind of humiliation he can describe—it is more than humiliation; whatever the right word for it is. The kind of humiliation that scorches the flesh from his bones, and even the bones are soaked in shame. 

“Alfred,” Bruce croaks, ashamed of his tears, his words, himself. “Alfred, I’m—”

“Shh,” Alfred hushes him, “None of that, Master Bruce. Come on, then. Let’s head home,” he says. Firm hands rub up and down his arms.