His son's children
When Alfred looked into the security video of the front gates, he froze for a moment. Taking in the image of the two children there. One was a tall, red haired girl with a teal headband, confident but with a look of wary in her eyes. Behind the girl was a younger boy, black haired and wearing a NASA shirt, appearing to be reluctant like what they were doing was a bad idea. Alfred's stomach dropped just a little when he saw the boy and his familiar features.
A second later worry flitted accross his face, but still, because of protocol, he asked them for their reason for this surprise visit. No one expected any visitors this late, and Alfred knew if he looked over his shoulder, he would find one of the children snooping, trying to find out who their visitor could be.
Yet when he heard the girls request to see him, not Bruce Wayne, but him, Alfred Pennyworth, his stomach dropped even more. Knowing now for sure that he hadn't seen wrong with the boy's features. He buzzed them in, while his mind remembered old cherished memories of two you black haired toddlers playing together, growing up together until that one day. When he chose to stay and his significant other chose to leave. Sometimes, he wondered if Bruce still remembered the one that could have been a brother to him if things had gone different.
He doesn't regret his decision, but when he looked at the two worn-out children, no his own grandchildren, before him he mourned the fact that he had let his own son become astranged from him and Bruce. Having believed it to be the best with what Bruce had started to get up to.
But maybe it wasn't to late to make amends he thought as the young girl, clearly of the same vibes as Richard, like someone who had grown up to fast and taking on responsibilities that shouldn't be theirs, tried to explain that they won't call him grandpa if it made him uncomfortable and that they would only need a place to stay for a couple of days before they could move on.
Alfred's heart broke for them as he listened to the girls, Jasmine's hurried explanation.
During her explanation, he studied them more closely. Marveling at how much the boy, Daniel, looked like him when he had been younger. But also noticing the clear signs of injury he was trying to hide. He suppressed a huff, years of taking care of his reckless charges and other grandchildren, and their wounds had made him an expert in spotting these things. But it also gave him a sickening feeling. The injuries Daniel tried to hide did not appear like your average kind of injuries.
They were going to stay, Alfred would make sure of it and he would also let Bruce know of his findings. There was clearly more to his grandchildren sudden appearance than Jasmin was willing to explain.
Whatever endangered his grandchildren from his own estranged son. He would ensure that nothing would hurt them ever again.
His granddaughter did not need to list reasons to convince him to let them stay for a couple of days. And his grandson did not need to look this cautious and wary of him like someone was going to attack him any second.
Alfred was going to give them a home if his son couldn't. And if Bruce had a problem with it, he could take it up with his children. Clearly, if he looked over his shoulder at the noisy little ones, all of his other grandchildren could see that these two before him needed a home to stay.
Besides from the looks of it, they would fit right in with this family.
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Captain and Fanny’s friendship has always been so fascinating to me. They just work. This is not just because of how similar they are on a surface level - both rarely laugh, both are somewhat judgemental, and both (in my opinion) display symptoms of autism, to name a few examples - but also because of how unconventional they are. The Captain is a WW2 soldier who likes to act the hero and the tough guy, these traditional masculine values that were highly regarded as the ‘proper’ way to be. And yet he’s scared. He’s the first to run. He represses himself because his true self is not what society expects him to be. And Fanny is very similar. She maintains a facade of being a lady, acting how she would have been expected to even when she dies. But in actuality, she’s repressed her intellect because she was told all her life that business was no place for a woman. All she wanted to do was help her father, but because the mere idea of a woman outside of the home was so outlandish to her mother, she was forced to marry and spend her entire life in misery. Ultimately, I believe it’s these unconventional traits that allow them to connect on the level that they have. They see themselves in each other, and finally feel comfortable in indulging in their true natures whenever they’re alone.
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