"Look, I don't think it needs to be said again, but I didn't grow up with a lot… No, scratch that. I grew up with literally fucking nothing. No participation trophies in Reuben's beggar ring, let me tell you.
Anything I had, I had to fight tooth and nail for, and I learned very quickly that you must defend what's yours like a rabid dog, or you lose it… Simple.
And then Bruce fucking Wayne himself swooped in, and suddenly 'where's my next meal coming from' became 'which of these fifteen breakfast options do I want?' Existing stopped being a problem and started being… I don't know, enjoyable? Weird concept, I know.
Then there was Alfred.
For all his passive-aggressive commentary about my language and behaviors, the old man gave me something I didn't even know I was missing. Unconditional love. The kind you don't earn, or barter, or bleed for. You just… Get it. Still fucks with my head, honestly.
And then Dick showed up. My 'little brother', and yeah. Sure, the kid was grumpier than I am, which is saying something. But for all the attitude? It was fun having someone to train, to bicker, to share this weird-ass life with… In just a measly few years, I went from an orphan with nothing to an orphan with everything, and so I did what any rational person would do: I defended it.
Religiously.
Like a rabid dog defending its hovel… And here's the kicker: The first idiots who got to experience the full extent of my bite weren't Deathstroke.
It wasn't the kingpins, or the Joker either. It wasn't even any of Gotham's A-list psychopaths or criminal masterminds. Hell, it wasn't a C-lister hoping to make a name for themselves! Nooo—ope!
It was a bunch of twenty-something nobodies who made the catastrophic mistake of dragging their mud-covered boots across the floors of my home and beating the man who happened to be the closest thing I had to a functional grandfather-figure.
They fucked around…
And so I let them find out."
— [HELLBRED] —
That night, after cooking dinner for young Richard, Alfred went to sleep as per usual, only to startle awake when a loud boom shook Wayne Manor to its foundation.
The old man hurried from his bed, stumbling on his own feet as he yanked the drawer open, where a gun lay in wait.
He had expected this day since the moment Bruce took up the cowl…
The day when the villains finally put two and two together and deduced Batman's real identity…
The day when Wayne Manor itself would come under attack. He had not let Bruce in on the fact he kept one right next to his bedside, of course, even though he suspected the young man already knew.
"I had hoped I'd never have to use you again, old friend." Alfred murmured, his fingers wrapping around the grip with muscle memory he'd tried so hard to forget.
To say he wasn't the slightest bit afraid would be a lie. But the former MI5 agent had walked across entire battlefields and didn't have many regrets in life. And as such, he had made peace with death a long, long time ago.
Now, he only hoped he could get Dick to safety before the end came.
Loading rounds into his regularly maintained Colt, the butler marched into the hallway with shoulders squared, making straight for Dick's room at the end of the hall.
Alfred found it strange the door remained shut despite the commotion. The boy was a light sleeper, trained to wake at the slightest sound, but he didn't think much of it until he opened the door to find the room empty.
The emptiness of the room stopped him cold as his heart jumped to his throat. "Master Dick? The manor has come under attack… I need you to come with me now."
When no one responded to his plea, Alfred turned on the nightlight, thinking the weak glow wouldn't draw attention from possible loiterers outside the manor.
The bed was still made, corners tucked just as he'd taught the boy.
The window meanwhile, stood open, curtains billowing in the night breeze. At first, he thought the boy might be hiding, so Alfred crouched, peered beneath the bed, and was greeted by a thin layer of dust that he mentally added to tomorrow's cleaning list, assuming there would be a tomorrow at all.
The boy had gone after the intruders. Of course he had.
Alfred's jaw clenched as he rose.
Master Bruce had been the same at that age. Reckless. Brave to the point of stupidity.
He'd hoped Dick would have more sense, but hope was a luxury few could afford in Gotham these last few weeks.
The Batler would never admit how… Comfortable the Colt's weight was in his grip, not out loud, at least, but it reminded him of a simpler time, when he only had to remember a target's face and name, then find the man and point a gun at his head.
Alfred hated how easy it was to slip back into this mental state, how readily the old instincts resurfaced.
Alas, barbaric problems sometimes required barbaric solutions… Another crash echoed through the manor as Alfred rounded the corner into the main hall, just in time to watch his beloved green antique vase, the very same Martha Wayne had brought back from one of her trips to Shanghai, shatter into a thousand irreparable pieces across the marble floor.
"Oh, shit, dude! Why'd you do that?! We coulda' sold it!"
Spewing fire and retribution from his eyes, Alfred stealthily observed the intruders, finger wrapping around the Colt's trigger.
There were three of them, all armed and carrying the dirt under their shoes all over his home like they owned the place…
Alfred's eyelids twitched in irritation.
The vase was one thing; the muddy boot prints across his freshly cleaned floors were another.
"Get out of my home…!" Alfred hurried to reposition even as he shouted. The warning probably wouldn't deter them, but he had to try.
After all, Bruce could return at any moment, and the young master shouldn't come home to corpses in his foyer.
More importantly, these intruders were young, likely in their early twenties. Children, really, however dangerous they'd proven themselves.
"Oh, fuck! I told you place's fucking occupied!"
"Who gives a fuck? Where're you at, ol' man?"
The intruder called, glaring at the upper floor while… Hissing?
His face was thick with white makeup, dark lipstick, with a pair of… Derpy little fake vampire fangs potruding from his gums. The Batler had long given up understanding what passed for style these days, though as that late-night radio host often preached: 'Let the youth express themselves…'
Besides, this was Gotham.
Weird was kinda the baseline.
"I'll not ask so kindly next time," Alfred hollered from the 2nd floor, emphasizing each word. "Leave. My. Home!"
"Or what?!"
Alfred fired twice.
Warning shots that splintered the bannister and sent wood chips raining down, while he intruders ducked and cursed, but kept coming anyway. "Crazy old bastard's actually shooting at us!"
Now spotted, Alfred raised the Colt again as they charged up the stairs, taking aim at the lead intruder's center mass.
His finger rested on the trigger… All it'd have taken was a squeeze, and yet his hands trembled. Not from fear, but from the sheer weight of what he was about to do.
They were criminals, yes, but they were also young, immature, stupid children playing at violence… He could not help wondering if he hadn't taken Rowan in; if Bruce hadn't given Dick a home, might they have turned out the same way? And that moment of hesitation cost him dearly, as instead of his center mass, the butler only aimed for the thigh.
"FUCK! The old guy got me!"
"Mike, you good?!"
"Do I look good, dipshit?!"
The other one grabbed Martha's second vase and hurled it at him.
Alfred tried to dodge, but seventy years of life had made him slow and weak…
The antique porcelain exploded against his shoulder, and the Colt clattered away uselessly, just as the last intruder threw himself at him like an eighteen-wheeler going downhill.
Alfred fought back ferociously, but his body… His aching back and throbbing joints simply couldn't deliver, and soon enough the young man had him pinned. "Why, yer ol' piece a shit! Shoot at this!"
The boy's tattooed knuckle found his cheek, snapping his head to side.
"Shoot at this, motherfucker!"
Another punch split his lip.
"Shoot at this!"
The beating stopped, and for a moment, Alfred dared believe the boy had regained some senses, only for him to stand up and raised his leg. Oh! Variety… Goodie.
"Not so tough now, are you?!"
He closed his eyes, awaiting death, only for someone to come between them, but it wasn't out ofmercy as Alfred had hoped… "Wait, wait! Hol' the fuck up, dude! We need the old guy to tell us where the fucking safe is!" Before long, they'd dragged Alfred to the first floor, almost as if to show him that even where he lay wasn't in his control anymore.
Basked in moonlight, the butler stared absentmindedly at the imported Venetian glass dome that Thomas had insisted upon despite the cost, while the robbers ransacked his home. Alfred hadn't imagined this would be how it'd end… Then again, he supposed there were worse ways to go.
"Where's the safe, old man? Tell us, and we'll be out of your hair."
The other immediately jested. "Hair? Dude barely has any!"
Personally, the butler did not find anything amusing about the fact, but they certainly seemed to, howling with laughter while tossing aside the medieval armor Tom had procured from a European seller decades ago.
He blinked as dark spots filled his vision and darkness began swallowing everything whole. Initially, Alfred thought it was him blacking out, but then the robbers started looking around in concern as well. "Shit… The fuck's wrong with the lights?"
He hadn't finished when the lights began flickering rapidly, almost like someone was playing with the fuse box in the basement, until they shut down completely, leaving only the weak pale moonlight pouring through the glass dome as the remaining light source, at least until one of the robbers turned on his flashlight.
"Master Bruce?"
Alfred whimpered weakly, finally feeling something he hadn't in weeks as a dark, bat-shaped silhouette nosedived toward Wayne Manor, then crashed through the dome and showered all four in jagged shards. The figure landed in a crouch above the butler, blocking the deadly rain with spread 'wings.'
"Bruce, my son? You're back... You're back at last. That's good." He reached for the fully masked face, wearily wondering why Bruce had chosen the cowl when he'd always said he wanted to scare criminals, not children.
Perhaps the situation demanded it?
It didn't matter.
His son was alive and whole and home, and that was all that mattered.
At ease, the butler's hand dropped, only to be caught by Rowan, who had ordered the Shade to envelop him like a Symbiote.
Beneath the cowl, his teeth ground together until something cracked. Rowan's fingers pressed against the butler's neck, feeling for a pulse that was barely there. Then, he sucked in a breath through gritted teeth, tilting his head toward the intruders. "Follow me."
Trading uneasy glances, the three hissed to each other.
"Isn-Isn't that the Imp?"
While he might look different, who else would skulk around at night dressed like a Bat?
For a second they thought it was Batman himself given the way his... Cape? Wings? Membrane? Well, whatever it was, it couldn't be an outfit, not with the way it was pooling around his feet, but everyone knew the Bat was 8'10, maybe taller. This one was too small.
"I thought the psycho disappeared months ago?"
"How the fuck should I know?!"
"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck—" Watching the Demon cradle the butler, putting one hand under his neck, and the other under his knees, the leader found the courage to ask. "And what if we don—"
But he really shouldn't have…
At least he could've spared himself the jaw dislocation, although perhaps the wait would have been far, far worse.
Startled, the other two jumped back, one clutching his mouth in horror, the other shaking like a leaf as the dark tendril from the Imp's cape plugged their accomplice's airway.
"Sshh..."
The vigilante put a finger to his lips, then chided like one would misbehaving children.
"You're going to wake Alfred."
"Wh-What?"
"You're going to wake Alfred." The vigilante repeated it like they were daft, sounding so sincere even they were beginning to buy the act. "It isn't nice to wake an elderly person."
In fact, he was so calm that their once thumping hearts had slowed, while placating smiles slowly sprouted where terrified frowns used to be… Until the 'cape' lunged at them like serpents and coiled around their ankles. And then they made their third fatal mistake. They screamed.
"Why can't you just shut up? Now I have to dislocate one of your jaws, but since I'm such a kind and reasonable person, so I'll allow you two to decide between yourselves… You have until, oh, I don't know, after the tour?"
Dragged kicking and screaming toward the eye-catching grandfather clock with their mouths stuffed shut, the three tried to slow down by grabbing randomly at the furniture, but it was like wrestling against a moving train.
Helpless, they could only watch while the Demon manually turned the clock's hands to exactly 10:48, teeth itching in their gums as the mechanism shrieked like a butchered pig.
"Congrats, gents! You're about to be some of the very rare few criminals who got a tour of the Batcave!"
They didn't even know why they were surprised. It had been obvious, hadn't it? But what started as bafflement soon soured to dread. The trio were young, reckless, maybe even stupid, but even they knew what this meant… Best case scenario, they would be imprisoned forever, or they'd leave… In body bags.
"""'O! 'O! 'Wease!!!""" The shadow pulsed, muffling their screams while their skulls bounced off each descending step into the cold, somber darkness.
"Home, sweet home."
Tearfully, they continued to beg as Rowan turned onq the lights, revealing the Batcave in all its glory while hauling them toward the medical bay. Usually, when either Bruce and he was wounded, they would be patched up in the main cave, but for injuries this severe, a more professional setting was needed.
It took no more than three minutes to reach the operating table, and the entire time, Rowan chattered away about every object and sight like a proper tour guide, both to unsettle his guests and, though he wouldn't admit it out loud, to distract himself.
"Here we are... Sit tight while I operate, will you?" He carefully positioned Alfred on the table, grazing the old man's broken cheekbone. "Oh, and if you're religious, do pray for him. If you aren't, pick a religion and have at it. Talk to whoever will listen, because if Alfred dies, the three of you will be his burial offering."
Then he sighed.
Rowan knew how to patch up cuts and bruises. He even knew how to stitch gunshot wounds, but this degree of internal bleeding demanded more than his rudimentary medical knowledge.
He briefly considered bringing Alfred to the underground doctors, but it'd been half a month since Gotham was taken over. Chances were his information was already outdated, and judging from his shallow breathing, Alfred wouldn't be able to hold on that long either. Reaching for the butler, Rowan clenched his fists.
He'd fought Metas, battled hundreds of thugs at a time, and never hesitated, but now his palms were sweating.
If he failed, would Alfred blame him?
Would Bruce? Dick?
Could he even forgive himself?
Rowan's hands hovered over Alfred's abdomen as Ichor extended tendrils into the wound, moving where his trembling fingers couldn't and where he dared not set his knives, silently sealing torn vessels while its Conjurer prattled away. "—Batman's a fucking slave driver, I tell you—"
The Batcomputer's holographic display flickered, highlighting internal bleeding in the clinical blue he so despised. He then guided the tendrils deeper, knitting as they went, while sweat beaded his temples despite the cave's chill.
"Computer, cross-reference symptoms. Uneven pupils, shallow breathing, impact site upper left temple."
[ANALYSIS: SUBDURAL HEMATOMA. CRANIAL PRESSURE CRITICAL]
"Fuck." Rowan stared at Alfred's skull, jaw clenched as Ichor formed a hair-thin drill to drain the fluid pressing against the butler's brain.
[HEMATOMA LOCATED. FRONTAL LOBE, 3.2 CENTIMETERS]
More tendrils snaked through the burr hole, so impossibly delicate that even Rowan himself could barely spot them under the… Blindingly bright surgical bulb.
"You lot probably haven't met the guy. If you had, you'd know what the fuck I'm talking about. You see those trees outside? Imagine getting pummeled by fists that can snap those in half; fists that can leave goddamn imprints on solid stone. Shit was fucking wild—"
Piece by piece, the clot came loose while Alfred's vitals climbed toward stable.
With the last of the fluid extracted, the butler's heart rate steady and blood pressure normalizing, Rowan finally slumped forward, forehead pressed against cold metal. But just to be sure, he split his palm and fed the oozing black tar to Alfred.
Rowan wasn't sure if it'd work, but he knew for a fact he'd inherited more than just the bare framework of a Game from the Draculina… His completely healed state proved that much. He also knew vampire blood was widely theorized to heal humans, although he wasn't sure if it'd turn Alfred into a soulless vampire either.
Even if it did, so what?
People had recovered from worse in DC.
So long as Alfred lived and breathed and could still give him that disappointed look when he tracked mud through the manor, Rowan would find a way to fix whatever came next. And even if he couldn't, there was bound to be someone who could, be it through Magic or technology…
He stayed like that for ten seconds, which stretched to twenty. Then he abruptly straightened, wiped his hand on his suit, and turned to face the robbers with a halfhearted smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. The kind that promised suffering in excruciating detail.
"Now," Rowan started, his voice almost conversational, the kind of friendly tone you'd use to discuss weekend plans, if you could ignore the murderous intent behind every word, of course. "About that jaw… Whichever one of you can tell me who did that to Alfred gets to walk out of here on their own two feet."
He tilted his head, and the Shade at his feet writhed like it was eager to get started.
"In fact, since I'm feeling so goddamn generous tonight, only one of you needs to spend the rest of your miserable life as a vegetable. You lot have five seconds, starting… NOW!"
Glaring at the trio now scrambling over one another, spitting muffled, inaudible words they probably barely understood themselves, Rowan impatiently tapped the operating table. True fear, as he saw it, wasn't the excess of violence, but the building dread preceding it, which was an arguably stronger weapon than any in his arsenal, while simultaenously being the only language anarchists like them would understand.
As for walking free… If the moment they entered Wayne Manor they had earned themselves a beating to last several lifetimes, then the second they touched Alfred, the three had forfeited any right to a normal life. Rowan dragging them down to the Batcave was just him barricading all paths of retreat, just in case he chickened out.
"Four…"
The three robbers, even with the now slack jaw that just wouldn't close properly, thrashed against the Shade coiled around their ankles.
"Three…"
Their mouths, still partially stuffed full by the dark membrane, frantically worked to plead, to accuse, and to bargain all at once.
"Two."
Finally, after what felt like ages, the one with the broken jaw and one of the remaining two all threw their heads in the direction of the last. Rowan would describe them, but they looked the same to him: Deadmen.
"One…" Chuckling like he had just heard the funniest joke, Rowan loosened the blockage in their mouths, then yanked a chrome-plated pipe from a nearby wall. "Who was it?"
The two remaining men gasped in a ragged, panicked intake of air. ""Him!""
"You fucking cowards!"
The Beater spat as the muffled membrane falling away, his eyes darting frantically between the unblinking cowl and the weapon now heavy in Rowan's palm. And then he pointed at the leader, his voice a strained, desperate whine. "He said it was easy money! He's the one who picked this place!"
"'I-ih-n't lay-a-'and on 'e ol' man! 'Oo di'! 'Oo shou' 'uffer, not-ee!" (I didn't lay a hand on the old man! You did! You should suffer, not me!)
"Yikes… No honor among thieves, it seems."
A manic smile still plastered to his face, the leader continued to roar, spittle splashing everywhere, until the pipe crashed into his cheekbone and threw him on his back in a heap. Meanwhile, the other two could only stare, confused as to what had just happened. "I-Bu-But… Yo-You said—You promised..."
"Heh… You lot sure are naive for walking, breathing trash, but don't worry, you'll not be walking after I'm through with you."
Rowan mocked, then expressionlessly brought the pipe down on his spine so hard it would have given the Jason Todd of Alt-Earth PTSD.
"YOU PROMISED!!!"
"Don't you fucking get it? I lied."
Gotham beware…
The Imp is back.