He did his best thinking while stitching up his employer’s wounds, which he did far more often than most house staff do, but that tends to happen when the employer tends to run about beating down psychotic mass-murders on the regular. When you’re the butler for The Batman. But what he thought about was shaped by the fact that he was far more than just an employee working for checks and vacation time, the night-stalking detective was also the closest thing he had to a son.
A child shattered by the random horror of death. A child who became the monster under the bed for the actual monsters, so he didn’t go mad himself. What could he do but try to raise that boy? What could he deny him? Now here he was, an old man using his old British army medic skills to patch up a billionaire who fought serial killers by-night and alongside aliens and wizards the gods themselves by-day. Someday, maybe after they are both long dead, the world would learn the truths and wonder, what was his damn parents’ butler thinking encouraging such madness?
Or maybe the people would be parents themselves and understand. He wasn’t alone in this odd situation. He spoke with the Kents at least once a week, swapping tales of the exceptional? The occasional meal with Flash’s wife Iris. But it only helped so much. Very few would understand.
Stitch stitch stitch, he’d think upon the news stories that obsessed on The Batman and how he wouldn’t kill. A man running around in a bat-suit and that was what they worried about. They thought it’d be so much better if he just killed, put them down. Why didn’t he use guns? Why didn’t he just put them all down like the dogs they were? The Americans, so black-and-white.
Even those who knew his secret, vigilantes and close friends, many didn’t understand. Some thought he couldn’t cross that line because then he’d never stop. No. Good intimidation idea? But no. Some thought because his parents were killed, he couldn’t kill, but it wasn’t that. He understood some of them could not rehabilitate. Weren’t in touch with Reality, such as it was.
Could never let go of their hate.
No, Alfred knew what it really was. All of those monsters had someone who loved them, even though they didn’t deserve it, there were folks that loved them. Even The Joker had a wife and kids from before his mental break, out there in-hiding, somewhere. Maybe the clown deserved death, Alfred might say. But that scared little boy all-grown-up could not do to them what had been done to him. Wasn’t self-control, wasn’t some warped technical-pacifism, it was empathy.
Not sympathy for the devil, like the Rolling Stones sang, he thought, rather empathy for those unfortunate to love The Devil despite themselves. “What’s that you’re humming, Alfred?” his son might ask. “Just an old song to distract myself from your wounds, sir.” Stitch stitch stitch.
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