#tiny alfred

“Look at him, isn’t he precious?” Stephanie cooed a few days later, her voice reaching a pitch that made Titus sit up and tilt his head. She lifted from the ever-morphing chaos on the table a tiny peg doll with dot eyes, a crisp black bow tie, and a pleased u of a smile.

“Is that… Alfred?” Dick’s head had also tilted in an unconscious mimic of Titus as he squinted at the figure pinched between Stephanie’s fingertips.

Stephanie caught movement in the doorway and pivoted on heel with a cry of, “Tim, look!” only for her glittery-eyed glee to sour into a frown at Tim’s grimace. “Migraine?”

“Mm,” Tim replied noncommittally. He had smoothed out his expression and looked almost normal, except for a tightening around his eyes and mouth.

Stephanie’s glare narrowed further. She looked like Babs when she did that, which everyone else found both alarming and effective, so they never told her. “Did you take your meds?”

“Um,” Tim hedged.

“Tim!” Both Dick and Stephanie exclaimed in varying level of exasperation, but only Stephanie then marched forward, doll held in front of her like a cross before a vampire. “Look at him. You don’t want to disappoint him, do you?”

Tim’s eyes nearly crossed in an effort to focus on the tiny figure, then widened. “Uhh.”

“Take your meds,” Steph urged. “For Tiny Alfred.”

Tim took a step back, to escape or to obey, it wasn’t clear. Steph advanced, grabbed his hand, and shoved the little doll into his palm. “No, no, take him with you. He’ll know if you did or not.”

She waved her hand, not in a crossed benediction but in the vague shape of an A. “Go. For Tiny Alfred.”

Tim retreated fully, still clutching the tiny doll.

Dick raised an eyebrow. “Do you think that will work?”

Steph shrugged. “Can’t hurt.”

So began the benevolent dictatorship of Tiny Alfred. He began to appear in odd places, as if by magic—on a shelf, in a drawer, on a windowsill, in a cupboard. No one would own up to moving him, but he seemed to travel the Manor with ease. And then he appeared further afield. Dick found him perched on an unpeeled clementine on his dashboard. Damian found him nestled amid his colored pencils next to the project he had grown frustrated with and given up. Jason found him in his apartment, sitting comfortably atop his night class reading assignment. Cass found him on her bedside table, placed carefully next to the unused tube of medication lotion meant for her hands.

Alfred himself might have fallen under suspicion, but when Tiny Alfred finally made an appearance in his presence (Stephanie; unopened water bottle), he had seemed outwardly bemused but, underneath it all, a little miffed. Frustration that his mini homage worked more effectively than his own pointed glances seemed to disqualify him as a suspect. Bruce, of course, was next on the suspect list, though no one could prove it.

Whoever was deploying Tiny Alfred did so judiciously. He was mostly used as encouragement, perched on or in or near an item to be used, a small, beatific cheerleader in painted tails. He still also made neutral appearances like in his first days, hidden in unexpected places to elicit a startled smile from whoever found him. On rare occasions, he was a gentle warning, forcing the recipient to look into his unblinking ink eyes or—worst of all—physically lift him off the video game controller, the pack of cigarettes, the caffeine pills, the battered boxing gloves, in order to use them. Soon enough, even his presence wasn’t required. A murmured He wouldn’t like that or Not in front of Tiny Alf! was enough to influence behavior. Texts of “WWTAD” (What Would Tiny Alfred Do) became common. When objection was made to names in the field, Tiny Alfred appeared in the Cave, spotlit on the main work bench, an even tinier felt mask tied to his face, Tiny Agent A ready to see to his duty incognito.

It was only a matter of time before, like all heroes before him, Tiny Alfred’s stakes grew. Mundane foes gave way to sharp moments of crisis. Stress. Exhaustion. Injury. Defeat. Heartbreak. A nudge from Tiny Alfred was fine for eating well or taking meds, but when the teeth of obsession refused to release or despair beckoned, Tiny Alfred was a challenge and reminder and invitation to listen all in one, placed openly by whoever needed to next to whoever needed him.

WWTAD.

Tiny Alfred’s most daring battle yet came on a wet, dreary, and miserable November evening, as Bruce sat red-eyed and shivering in front of the Batcomputer. His cheeks were red with fever, his lips pale, his forehead clammy. His eyes weren’t focusing on the screen as he scrolled, instead glassy and drifting, but he refused to go upstairs. No passive-aggressive asides, no pointed looks, no huffs or grumbles or even outright comments seemed to penetrate.

At last, Damian, freshly washed from his post-patrol shower, cowlick askew, awkward in rapidly growing limbs despite his trained control, stomped forward and placed the tiny wooden doll next to his father’s hand.

“Go to bed,” he said, then turned and stomped back up the stairs to the Manor.

The others, still milling about the Cave with pretend tasks, froze.

Bruce pinched Tiny Alfred between his fingertips, the doll impossibly small in such large hands, and brought it up before watery eyes. He stared. He sniffed. Tiny Alfred waited.

Bruce placed the doll carefully down on the desk next to his keyboard, pushed himself to his feet, and mumbled a mucous-heavy, “Goodnight.”