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He’d known about bond sickness, though he’d never witnessed it himself. Theory was still useful, however. Every caretaker knew the signs of a broken bond. Every beta was instinctively attuned to the scent, before they’d ever had a chance to smell it.
Bent over the side of the car and emptying his stomach into a Gotham gutter for the third time that night, theory had turned into practice for Alfred. It was a cruel twist of fate, made even more cruel by the hold it seemed to have at his very core.
When he finally managed to pull himself back into the driver’s seat, the nausea had barely subsided. The ache in his chest seemed to deepen by the very minute, rending into his instincts and, through them, into his scent.
Grief -- not bond sickness, it couldn’t be that -- smelled sour, even to his senses. It filled the car’s interior, sinking into the fabric with unusual strength. As if his very grief was determined to layer itself around him, his soft beta scent increasing tenfold.
Alfred closed his eyes and turned the engine over. It had been stupid to pull over, much less get out of the car in downtown Gotham at night. But there was a part of him -- a bitter, rapidly-changing part of him -- that insisted all could not be lost in one night. Not all of them. Not at once.
He managed the rest of the drive to Park Row without having to pull over again, though the urge nearly overtook him several times. There was an unspeakable instinct pounding through his body, driving him forward even as his resolve began to falter.
He needed to find Bruce. Needed to find the pup. He was safe -- the man on the phone had promised, but that meant nothing to Alfred, without setting eyes on the pup himself. On his pack, their solitary numbers dwindling even further with the sudden loss of their Alpha and Omega.
It was the only thing that had kept him upright, bowed against the kitchen wall. The thin feeling of Bruce still-present against his mind, their pack bond alive and trembling where the others were suddenly, viciously gone.
The phone call had come only a few moments later. And Alfred knew, before the officer proceeded through his stiff pleasantries, exactly what the man would say.
Bring a coat for the pup, the man had closed the call, sounding vaguely uncomfortable. He’s -- well. He’s safe. I promise. But the boy needs a coat. It’s cold out.
Alfred parked a few feet away from the police cordon, turning the engine off. He swallowed down another wave of nausea at the sight of dozens of flashing police cruisers. The entire alley had been shut down from 52nd down to 58th, blocked off by tape and a handful of grim-looking alpha patrol officers.
Dread rolled through Alfred, suddenly overtaking the thick sludge of grief in his veins.
Alpha officers meant an increased sensitivity to scent, especially if they were on guard. A butler arriving to take temporary charge of a pup in the absence of their caretakers would be allowed through, especially when they were a beta. A distant pack member or relative would undoubtedly be waved through.
But a grieving, distraught beta? One who smelled bond-sick?
There wasn’t a world in which an alpha officer would turn a vulnerable pup over to a bond-sick beta. Bruce would be handed to the nearest foster home for the night, and after that, shuffled off to a distant relative with an equally distant claim to being pack.
It was bitterly ironic that the bonds he and Bruce shared -- the ties of pack -- would come to be a double-edged sword. Alfred was pack to him because of those bonds. He’d been pack since the very moment he’d set eyes on the pup, quietly held between the three of them in the nest, still covered in blood and after birth.
And, because of those very same bonds, Alfred was as close to the edge of death as he’d ever been. The absence of Martha and Thomas in his mind, in his very soul, would only continue to eat away at him. The sickness would progress, and -- without pack nearby -- he would be at risk of succumbing to it entirely.
They only had each other now. And Alfred would throw himself into Arkham before he would let Bruce be taken away from his remaining pack members. Not with two broken parental bonds and one barely holding on.
Alfred reached for the glovebox, propping it open with a trembling hand. He dug for an old bottle of Thomas’ cologne, the label long since rubbed off, and pried open the nozzle.
Three swipes of the heavy cologne against his throat hid his scent under an eye-watering layer of fragrance. He slammed the glovebox shut, reaching for Bruce’s spare winter coat on the passenger seat.
Clad in Thomas’ scent, he tried to square his shoulders as he approached the nearest officer. He prayed that alpha posturing would distract some of the attention away from his trembling hands.
“I was called,” Alfred held up the coat, keeping his eyes fixed on the alpha’s nose. “For the pup.”
The officer took a noticeable step back from him, nose twitching. “You pack or something?”
He could hear the unspoken question, clear as day: You’re pack with the Waynes? YOU?
A frantic, choked laugh built up in Alfred’s throat. He swallowed it down, shaking his head. It was a mistake -- the alley began to blur in front of him, like he was viewing it through an oil slick. The cologne burned in his nose.
Martha had insisted, even when Thomas’ pleas had dropped off. If he wouldn’t bear their mark or accept their pack bonds publicly, then signing the guardianship papers would serve in place of a claim. They were a legal entity, the three of them -- a flimsy distraction from the deep, instinctual bonds that ran between them as Pack.
He’d never imagined a world without them both in it. And as such, signing for Bruce’s guardianship had seemed, at the time, a more than valid compromise. Now, Martha’s insistence would bear terrible, life-saving fruit.
“Legal guardian,” Alfred said, forcing the words out against a desperate surge of instinct. “Are you going to let me through?”
The alpha’s eyes went to the coat in his hands, then back up to his face. “Fuck, whatever. I guess you can’t make it worse at this point.”
The patrol officer next to him yanked up the yellow tape, waving him through. Alfred gripped the coat tightly between his hands, ducking under the cordon as quickly as he could without losing the bile still churning in his stomach.
Every single officer in Gotham seemed to be present between the brick walls of Park Row. Alfred pushed through the waves of blue uniforms and white evidence bags, looking for --
“Mr. Pennyworth.”
Alfred let out a low growl as a hand descended upon his shoulder. The scent of alphaduty briefly overtook his senses, putting him on edge.
His body could barely handle the touch of anyone who wasn’t pack right now -- it craved something it could never have again. His skin and instincts were raw with that need, aching for Thomas and Martha in a way he’d never imagined could hurt this much.
“I was the one who called,” the officer who’d grabbed him said, drawing him to the side. He was young, with a thick mustache -- an alpha, but much more subdued than his colleagues. “Good, you brought the coat. We’ve been giving the pup ours, but he keeps rejecting them. I think it’s the scent.”
Alfred didn’t trust himself to speak. The ache in his throat was like a fiery poker, driven straight through his esophagus. There was a hand on him, and it was so utterly wrong, so unwelcome, that it drove home everything the phone call hadn’t.
Martha and Thomas were gone. And here was what awaited them, in their absence. The misery of a broken, burning bond-end.
“Hey,” the officer said, pitching his voice into a soothing rumble. “Are you okay? I was going to take you over to the pup, but--”
“Fine,” Alfred cut in, clearing his throat. “It is just very -- distressing news. Especially to receive so late at night.”
“Yeah,” the officer said, sympathetic. “You sure you’re alright?”
“Fine.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, that scene is fairly gruesome. We’ve been trying to get the pup away from the bodies for a while, but he’s not moving and no one had the heart to try and force him up yet.” The officer glanced down at the hand he still had on Alfred’s shoulder, frowning. “We’ll need to start on the evidence processing soon, though.”
Alfred tried, with all of his remaining strength, to not process what the alpha had said beyond Bruce’s location. He could feel the way the desperation seemed to well up in his chest, leaking out into his scent despite his best efforts to keep it locked inside of him.
The alpha officer -- he’d given a name on the phone that Alfred had promptly forgotten -- leaned toward him, nostrils flaring. Concern bloomed in his scent, distinctly alpha.
“You’re--”
“Please,” Alfred cut in, before the alpha could speak the accusation into being. “Please, just let me see him.”
The plea -- and the matching surge of scent -- made the alpha’s head snap back, nostrils flaring. His eyes dilated with instinct, lips pressed together before his canines could slip out.
Alphas wanted to protect, above all else. And the scent of a grieving, bond-sick beta begging for their pup had to be near-unbearable to their instincts. Even just a hint of it.
“Jesus,” the alpha whispered, eyes dropping to Alfred’s chin in respect. The hand around his shoulder tightened, digging into his collarbone. “You were pack with them. Weren’t you?”
The them went undefined. It didn’t need to be. Every person in Park Row knew who they were.
“I am his legal guardian,” Alfred pressed, voice trembling. “I have the documentation to prove--”
“You smell like them. The -- the bodies.” The alpha shook his head, looking away across the crowd. “We were looking for another male scent. Thought it was the perp’s, at first, but the pup smelled like it too. Too strong to be anything other than a bond, now that I’m thinking about it.”
Alfred’s entire body went rigid, thrumming with sudden adrenaline. In the safety of his mind, he cursed the overly-sensitive noses of alphas. They made good detectives, often for that reason alone.
Thomas’ nose, conversely, had made him an excellent doctor. He could scent when a wound would turn septic, even before some of his omega nurses.
“The gravity,” Alfred started, swallowing, “of what you’re suggesting--”
“Suggesting?” The officer’s eyes returned to his face, not without sympathy. “Mr. Pennyworth, would you like to sit down?”
“No, I would not,” Alfred hissed. Even he could scent the change in alpha pheromones, from open and inquisitive to thick with patronization. “Take me to my pup or I will find someone who will.”
The officer flinched, pulling his hand back like he’d been burned. “Jesus,” he repeated, with a slightly heavier invocation of a Gotham native accent. “You two really are pack. You know, he bit one of my officers when we tried to pull him away from the bodies. M’sure he learned that from you.”
Alfred stared the officer dead in the eyes, challenging the man without saying a word. His free hand balled into a fist at his side, preparing for a fight.
“Relax,” the officer said, noting his suddenly-rigid posture. “Your secret is safe with me. I’ll take you over to them as soon as you get a hold on that scent.”
“I am not pack with Bruce Wayne. I am his legal guardian.”
“That’s a damn shame, sir, if you don’t mind me saying,” the officer said, lips pursing. “Because I think he really needs pack right now.”
They faced off for another moment. Eventually, Alfred let his eyes fall shut, taking a breath he didn’t really feel to calm his roiling scent. There was no peace inside of him, no happiness or joy, but there was a certain kind of calm at the center of the chaos.
When he opened his eyes, the officer gave him a curt nod. Alfred followed as the other man split through the crowd, heading toward the north end of the alley.
Large plastic curtains obscured the far corner, billowing in the wind. The scent of fresh blood was sharp in Alfred’s nose, pricking at his eyes and throat.
Bruce. Think of Bruce.
The alpha officer led him to another cordoned area, waving him through the tape. Alfred clutched Bruce’s coat like a lifeline, holding it close to his chest as they passed beyond the curtains.
He didn’t realize he’d stopped moving until the alpha’s hand returned to his shoulder, squeezing in sympathy.
There was so much blood. A sea of blood and blood-soaked fabric. Limbs and hands that no longer looked human, despite being entirely intact. Thomas’ unseeing eyes, directed skyward and still dilated by instinct. Martha’s hair, soaked in blood and brain matter, her pale, beautiful face no longer recognizable.
They were curled close together on the cobblestone, as if they’d died in the other’s arms. And between their bodies, huddled into the shelter of their bloodstained coats, was --
“He was covered in it,” the officer murmured, still holding Alfred’s shoulder. “We had to take his coat for evidence. Every time we tried to get him in the ambulance for an eval, he broke free and ran back to them.”
There were no words. There was nothing in Alfred’s chest other than absence. The agony of nothing, a yawning, gaping hole in his very being.
Alfred stepped forward, feeling the alpha’s hand drop from his shoulder. The nearby officers let him pass, a hush falling over the crowd as he approached the untouched bodies and the pup sheltering between them.
He knelt in the river of blood running between the cobblestones, feeling it soak the fabric of his pants. A fresh wave of scent bloomed up at him, overtaking the stale notes of Thomas’ alpha aggression he could still scent on the air.
“Bruce.”
A bloodstained face lifted from Martha’s sleeve. Bruce’s eyes were impossibly wide, dilated with an instinct far beyond his years as a pup.
“Al--” the pup croaked, blinking up at him. “Alfred?”
“My boy,” Alfred said, swallowing around the sudden ache of emotion in his throat. “I’m--”
The force of Bruce’s sudden embrace nearly rocked them both backward into the cobblestone. Alfred held on for dear life as Bruce tucked his face into his neck, holding the pup tightly to his body.
The noise Bruce was letting out was barely human. It was a cross between a pup’s whine and a sob. It never seemed to end, a constant note vibrating into Alfred’s chest and through his bones. His scent was wild with acrid, bitter fear, softening with the beginnings of relief.
“I’m here,” Alfred whispered, digging his hands into Bruce’s hair as they scented each other. “I’m so sorry, Bruce. I’m here. I’m here, I promise.”
Behind them, he could hear the alpha officer he’d spoken with directing the officers back to their tasks. He barely registered their attention, too focused on the feeling of BruceBruceBruce slowly filling up the hole Martha and Thomas had left in his chest.
The illness he’d felt since their passing began to abate with every lungful he took of Bruce’s scent. The beta instincts they’d so patiently fostered in him slowly came to life again, finding meaning in the feeling of a vulnerable pup in his arms. A pack pup. His pup.
The bond between them strengthened, taking on the slack of its two missing bonds. Bruce shivered in his arms, his whine dying out against Alfred’s collar.
Maybe if he’d accepted their offer -- maybe if he’d agreed to their public claim, he would’ve been at their sides. If he’d swallowed his fears, his focus on propriety, and allowed them to dream of a world where butlers walked alongside their employers as equals. If he’d been there tonight, a pack beta in every sense of the word, both in and without the Manor…
If he’d been there tonight. Well. There was a world where he’d lived happily, publicly, by their sides. But it was also a world where he’d died by their sides, just as gruesomely as they had.
A world where Bruce still lived, as he did now, but lacking his final pack bond. And a pup without a parental bond rarely survived long. Not that young.
Alfred gathered the small coat around Bruce’s shoulders, refusing to break the contact between them for more than a few seconds. He breathed in the scent of Thomas and Martha’s blood, hiding his own tears in Bruce’s hair.
The next three hours were a blur of scents and polite, if insistent, questions. Bruce refused to leave his arms, so they sat in the ambulance together, then in the chair at the police station, and -- finally -- in the backseat of a cruiser taking them back to the Manor.
Alfred carried Bruce to the nest, smearing blood along the banisters as he climbed the stairs. The pup had fallen asleep an hour ago, nose tucked into Alfred’s neck and tears slowly drying on his pale face.
He couldn’t find it within himself to part with Bruce for long enough to clean them, so he…declined to do so. Martha would understand, the kind of desperation for sleep and comfort that precluded one’s ability to remove shoes and shower off brown, flaking blood. Or her nest would, at the very least.
Alfred curled up in the center of the nest, Bruce’s tiny body slack in his arms. He stared up at the thin, gauzy curtains around the bed, his thoughts tripping over themselves in exhaustion.
For a moment, he was lying back in the alley with them, Bruce held securely to his chest. The thick plastic dividers from the crime scene investigators swung in the wind, crackling with the sudden breeze.
Martha and Thomas were next to them on the pillows, eyes wide and unseeing. Their blood soaked into Alfred’s clothing, a thick blanket of fluid and viscera that stopped just under Bruce’s chin.
Alfred closed his eyes, willing their ghosts away. The tears he’d hidden earlier flowed freely now, hot and stinging down his face.