Chapter Text
The house was quiet in the late hours, save for the faint hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the grandfather clock down the hall. Alfred preferred it this way — the hour when the manor finally settled and the ghosts could be sorted properly, one by one.
He set his cup of tea aside and turned to the open binder before him — the family’s medical files, neatly labeled and color-coded. A habit born of necessity and, perhaps, worry. Each year, he made a habit of reviewing them: vaccination records, allergies, injuries old and new. Not because he doubted their competence, but because he knew precisely how prone they all were to omitting inconvenient truths. He kept both physical and digital copies — experience had taught him that firewalls could be breached, drives corrupted, and sometimes the only reliable safeguard was paper and ink under lock and key.
Master Richard’s file was a testament to stubborn denial — his lactose allergy mysteriously vanished after his sixteenth birthday, reappearing only after a particularly disastrous encounter with cheesecake. Jason’s file was riddled with redactions, most of them his own doing. Master Damian’s was pristine, of course.
It was when Alfred reached Timothy Drake-Wayne that his hand faltered.
The folder was thin. Far thinner than it ought to have been.
He frowned, flipping through the sparse contents: a vaccination list, half a page of minor illnesses, and a single printed record from a few years back. No ongoing prescriptions. No notations of common allergies, though Alfred faintly recalled an incident involving shrimp and a rash. That, too, was missing.
Then he saw it — an addendum in Tim’s meticulous handwriting, quietly tucked between pages.
Status post splenectomy – see attached.
There was no attachment.
For a long moment, Alfred simply stared at the words. Then he read them again. And again.
His tea went cold beside him.
No spleen. No record. No mention. No warning.
He turned to the next page, searching for context, for anything — a hospital, a date, a physician. Instead, there was a brief medication list scrawled in shorthand, the kind one might keep for self-reference. Antibiotics, immune supplements. Nothing else.
Alfred’s throat tightened. He sat back in his chair, fingers steepled against his lips.
How long had it been this way? How many times had he brewed Tim’s tea, scolded him for working too late, handed him soup after patrol — and not known that the boy’s immune system was fighting with half its defenses?
For all his careful neutrality, for all the distance he had told himself was prudence — he had failed.
He had let a child shoulder the weight of saving his son. Alfred remembered thinking that perhaps—perhaps—this young man could anchor Bruce again, the way no one else could. He should have seen the cruelty of that. He should have seen the child beneath the mission. Instead, he treated Tim less like a grandson and more like a solution. A salve for Bruce’s wounds. And in doing so, he neglected the boy’s own.
And now, staring at this incomplete record, Alfred felt the weight of every missed sign — every empty plate, every fever brushed aside, every quiet apology Tim had offered for simply existing under the same roof.
He had been proud of his composure once. Now, it felt like cowardice.
He closed the file. Sat in silence. And, just for a moment, considered pulling on the old skills he’d buried — the ones MI6 had trained into his bones. He could find answers in minutes. Medical networks, hospital archives, even private records. But that would not fix the wound between them. It would only deepen it.
So instead, Alfred did what he should have done long ago.
He went to the source.
Tim looked up from his laptop when Alfred entered the study. “Hey Alfred. Need something?”
“Yes,” Alfred said mildly, holding up the folder. “I need you.”
Tim blinked. “Uh… what?”
Alfred set the file down on the desk, opening it with practiced care. “I was reviewing medical records. I found a few… omissions.”
Tim froze. “Oh.”
“‘Oh,’ indeed,” Alfred said gently, though his voice carried an unmistakable edge. “Would you care to explain the missing spleen, Master Tim?”
Tim groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s not a big deal, Alfred. It was months ago. I’ve recovered. I’m fine.”
Alfred’s gaze softened, but his tone did not. “You most certainly are not fine. You lost a vital organ mere months ago, your immune system is compromised, and your medication schedule—if this record is to be believed—is erratic at best. And it appears no one, least of all your attending physician, has been keeping adequate documentation.”
Tim shifted, uncomfortable under the weight of Alfred’s calm disapproval. “I’ve been managing. It’s not like it slows me down.”
Alfred’s brow furrowed. “That, I fear, is precisely what worries me, my boy.”
“I can handle it,” Tim said quietly.
“I have no doubt of that,” Alfred replied. “But you should not have had to.”
Tim’s shoulders dropped. “I didn’t tell anyone because… I didn’t want to make it a thing. Everyone already has enough to worry about.”
Alfred drew in a slow breath, then seated himself across from the boy. “My dear boy,” he said softly, “you are not an obligation. Nor an afterthought. And caring for you is never a burden.”
Tim looked down. “I didn’t think— I mean, I know you care. I just…”
Alfred reached across the table, resting a hand atop Tim’s. “You and I both express care through action. Through service. I mend, you plan — both of us thinking it will spare others from worry. But affection, Master Timothy, is not something to be earned by usefulness. It is something freely given.”
Tim’s eyes flicked up to his. “You mean like… you making me snacks when I forget to eat or trying to replace my coffee with tea?”
“Precisely.” Alfred smiled faintly, a teasing warmth in his voice. “And you, for instance, setting up that system to track pantry inventory. You claimed it was to ‘reduce inefficiency.’ I suspect it was to keep me from overworking myself.”
That earned a tiny, reluctant laugh.
Alfred allowed it to linger before continuing, voice gentler now. “Let us see to this together. Your medications, your diet. You have gone far too long managing alone.”
Tim hesitated, then nodded. “Alright. But… only if you let me help organize your files after.”
Alfred’s eyes twinkled. “A fair exchange, I think.”
He closed the folder and stood, setting a hand on Tim’s shoulder — steady, reassuring. “Now then. No more secrets, hm?”
Tim smiled faintly. “You first.”
Alfred chuckled. “Touché, my boy. Touché.”
And for the first time in far too long, the quiet between them was comfortable — not born of distance, but of trust.
Later, Alfred was gathering his notes when another question struck him. He paused, looking up from the neat stack of papers.
“Master Timothy,” he said mildly, “where, pray tell, did you have your splenectomy performed? I see no record from any of the local hospitals—or any domestic ones at all.”
Tim froze halfway to the door. “Uh. How did you even check that?”
Alfred adjusted his cuffs, expression unreadable. “One acquires certain skills during one’s formative years. Some habits prove… persistent.”
Tim blinked. “Right. Okay. Well, I—uh—lost it while tracking Bruce a few months ago. It’s probably still in Ra’s hideout somewhere.”
Silence.
Alfred stared at him for a long, measured moment. Then, very quietly, he said, “Oh.”
Tim hesitated. “You good?”
Alfred’s face was perfectly calm, almost serene. “Quite,” he said, in the tone of a man who was absolutely not quite.
Tim frowned, uncertain, but decided against pressing. “Okay, then.” He left the room, muttering something about data syncing.
Alfred waited until the sound of footsteps faded. Then he rose, straightened his vest, and walked directly to the Cave.
Bruce was at the console when he arrived, but even he looked up at the sound of Alfred’s approach.
“Alfred?”
“Master Bruce,” Alfred said smoothly, hands folded behind his back. “Should you happen to cross paths with any senior member of the al Ghul family in the foreseeable future…” His tone remained calm, clipped, and absolutely lethal. “Do extend to them my deepest regards. And a reminder that I am not, nor have I ever been, bound by your moral code.”
Bruce paused, then slowly said, “Understood.”
Alfred inclined his head, every inch the composed English butler. “Splendid.” He turned on his heel and ascended the stairs, calm as ever.