gri

which is to say there's no doubt about the love and respect that bruce feels for alfred, but it's complicated. and bruce doesn't appreciate anyone pointing it out. he's fiercely loyal, and maintains the argument that alfred helped him when nobody else would, but he has nothing to compare it to past barely-there memories from before he was eight years old.

and i also don't think that alfred was ever purposefully malicious or cruel, but he was strict in the boundaries he set as an employee of the wayne family. his ideas of how bruce should be raised were limited, given his stance as the family butler, and there were a lot of things he didn't support or even condemned bruce for because of that structured distance—and maybe even his own outdated beliefs on how a young man should act, especially one of bruce's stature.

bruce hears about abuse and neglect, and he sees these things as batman, and it never once occurs to him that he might have experienced them, too. alfred never hit him. he was never purposefully cruel. he always had fresh food for bruce at the appropriate times, bought him new clothes as he grew, and drove him wherever he needed to be at any given time. it never occured to bruce that this was the bare minimum, purely because he feels so indebted to alfred for being the one man to look after him after his parents died.

bruce knows, logically, that losing his parents meant losing out on experiences and feelings and memories. but he doesn't get it until he sees martha kent pull her son down to kiss him on the cheek, both of them smiling as they pull away. until he observes queen hippolyta embrace her daughter with a worn, relieved expression after a gruelling battle. until he watches a young dick grayson putter around, showcasing his acrobatic skills with infectious laughter, and thinks, helplessly fond, i love him. i'd do anything for him.

❤️💙💛GRACEFUL💛💙❤️

Shots from a PHM animatic I’m doing which I’m planning to post tomorrow!

Edit: it’s now out!!