Chapter Text
Tim slouches in the seat at the Batcomputer and watches the security footage, his troubled gaze fixed on the familiar form of Alfred Pennyworth. The aged retainer is moving through the rooms of Wayne Manor, performing his chores as he has for the past forty years with his standard efficiency and attention to detail. The only difference he can see is a subtle pallor in the man’s skin and the occasional red glint of his eyes. Oh, and he no longer has a reflection in any of the mirrors, so there’s that.
This is beyond messed up, even for Gotham. Tim glances at the other monitor, where the text of the chirp that caused widespread panic in Gotham and broke Chirper earlier tonight is displayed in all its creepy glory.
Happy Halloween, Gotham! The monsters in your closets are coming out to play. It all starts tonight and boy, have I got something for you to sink your teeth into. It’s gonna be fang-tastic! But this is just the first act. Hang on for the big finale—it’ll be a scream. HA HA HA!
If there’s one rogue every Gothamite knows to truly fear, it’s the Joker. Some civilians with both sense and a place to go fled the city in the hours after the chirp went out. Others started a riot and looted dozens of stores all over the city. That was about when the vampires started showing up, because of course they did. It didn’t help that it’s a rare clear night and the moon is almost full. Gotham always gets weirder when there’s a full moon, and there are two of them scheduled this month.
Tim makes a face, not wanting to think about that just yet. Instead he studies the message, noting cadence and word choice and comparing it to Joker-related cases they’ve solved in the past. No new patterns or clues jump out at him, just as they haven’t the last six times he read it.
His chatlog with Oracle has nothing new, either, not since her last message stating she managed to trace all the simultaneous duplicate Joker chirps back to a series of dummy accounts set up with darknet email addresses and burner phones. They’re not untraceable, but even Oracle had to work to drill through all those layers of anonymity. She was not happy when the payoff just ended up being an IP for a Batburger with free wifi and wiped security footage.
Ugh, couldn’t it at least have been a coffee shop? The Joker is awful in every possible way. Then again, it’s not like his enjoying the occasional Batburger is new information. Horrible memories of that one time the Joker kidnapped Tim at Christmas and took him on the joyride from hell flood his mind—complete with mowing down pedestrians, threatening to drive into a crowd of children, and shooting the drive-through worker at Batburger because the poor guy couldn’t understand the Joker’s crazy order.
Sighing, Tim rubs his face. Holidays in Gotham are terrible. Especially Halloween. This is only the first Saturday in October, so they should’ve had at least a few more weeks of relative peace. “I know we can never have a normal Halloween, not in this city, but does the crazy really have to start earlier and earlier every year?”
“Yep,” a deep voice says from right behind him. “Because Gotham’s an actual goddamn hellmouth.”
Tim’s pretty sure he manages not to jump. A loud snort followed by a low chuckle raises a flicker of doubt about that conclusion. Whatever. It’s like three in the morning, the Joker’s loose in Gotham, and there is an actual freaking vampire cleaning the bric-a-brac in the parlor right now—he’s allowed to be a little jumpy.
Stupid Jason.
He turns and can’t help but light up at the welcome sight of his friend. Even though the big jerk is still laughing at having surprised him. “Hey.”
“Hey baby bird, came as soon as I heard. I was busy knockin’ some heads together in the Bowery when everything went down.”
“How’d that go?”
Jason rolls his shoulders in an easy shrug and plops down in the chair beside him. “Eh, not so bad, up until one of the guys I was fighting turned into an actual goddamn vampire and tried to take a bite outta me.”
Tim pivots his chair to look at him, scanning him from head to toe searching for signs of injuries. Nothing jumps out at him, but that doesn’t mean much considering who he’s dealing with. Jason has walked off actual death before and probably wouldn’t consider something like a bite or a light maiming worthy of a mention. “Did he get you?”
He reaches out and twitches the collar of Jason’s jacket aside so he can examine his neck and the skin above his clavicle. He runs his fingertips over it, feeling for concealed damage. It’s unbroken as far as he can tell, although… He leans closer, intent. That’s odd. Jason’s skin is beginning to flush a faint pink. A reaction to the bite, maybe? He starts tugging the shirt down, wondering if the bite is lower.
“No,” Jason says, rearing back and slapping away Tim’s questing hands. “What the fuck, replacement? Buy me dinner first.” He’s still blushing, highlighting a few scattered freckles on his cheekbones. It’s really cute.
“I wish,” Tim mutters, too tired and distracted for his filter to keep up.
“What?” Jason’s head raises to look at him, eyes bright with something Tim’s too much of a coward to name.
“What?”
“I—damn it, you totally said something just now.”
Tim rolls his eyes. “No I didn’t.” He raises his voice to cover Jason’s sputtered protests. It’s definitely time for a subject change. “Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, we have reports of over two hundred Gotham citizens being transformed into, well, monsters on the stroke of midnight. Specifically, vampires and liches.” He swallows, looking back at the Joker’s message so he doesn’t have to meet Jason’s eyes. “One of them was Alfred.”
“Fuck,” Jason says, his voice very soft.
Tim closes his eyes. That’s the worst part of all this. Not that the Joker is loose again and winding up for some gruesome joke with an inevitable punchline written in human misery, or the fact that they all dragged themselves back after patrol with no real leads. It’s not even that over two hundred civilians were apparently turned into bloodsucking monsters overnight, presumably thanks to some arcane magic the Joker got his pasty hands on. Vampires and other magical beings are uncommon but not unheard of, so that isn’t what’s throwing him off.
No, it’s that Alfred is one of the people who have been affected.
Somehow, that’s putting him more off-balance than all the rest of it combined. Alfred is supposed to be safe from this kind of thing, shielded from direct involvement in the more dangerous aspects of this side of their lives. He’s a constant, steady presence, always there in the background with a word of advice or a warm meal, and his quiet support is a lifeline for the rest of them amidst the turbulence.
Alfred being compromised feels like putting his foot down for a landing and missing the roof.
“You’ve been keeping an eye on him?” Jason’s gaze is worried, the humor drained from his face.
Tim misses the blush. The corners of his mouth tilt down at the reminder of what he’s been doing since he got back from patrol. “Right now, we don’t know much of anything about whatever agent or catalyst is causing these transformations. We think it’s related to the Joker, but there’s no hard evidence linking him to the occurrences besides coincidental timing and that vague message. Alfred seems to be behaving normally now, which is great, but it’s possible at any point the transformation might advance.” He doesn’t want to say it, but the biggest fear is that Alfred might lose control, his humanity giving way before whatever unknown force is changing him.
Jason seems to understand anyway. He clears his throat. “Should we… like, put him in quarantine or something? I mean, he is a vampire now.” He sounds deeply hesitant, like even he can’t quite believe he’s saying it.
Tim snorts. “Do you want to be the one to put Alfred in quarantine?”
“Well, no—but—”
The sound of a throat being cleared causes both of them to turn. Alfred is standing just behind them, his steps apparently even more silent now as a result of his transformation. It would be creepy except for the old man’s expression of amused tolerance and the innocent tray of tea he’s holding in his hands. Somehow, it’s hard to be scared of someone who’s carrying tea and looks like a kindly grandpa.
The reddish glint in his eyes is concerning, though.
“Excuse me, sirs, but I couldn’t help but overhear your concerns. I assure you, should I feel any strong urge to seek out some poor unfortunate and consume their blood I shall immediately place myself in quarantine.” Alfred sounds so much like himself that it’s almost easy to ignore the pallor and quick flash of fangs when he speaks.
Blushing at having been caught spying on him, Tim nods. “Sounds good, Alfred. And I’m sorry about—” He waves his hand in Alfred’s general direction, a wave of guilt dimming his mood. The fact that an attack managed to penetrate all their security and reach him here, in the heart of Wayne Manor, means every one of them failed at protecting him. They should have been better.
Tim should have been better.
“Nonsense, young man.” Tim looks up in surprise at Alfred’s firm tone. The old man is looking at him with a reassuring twinkle in his eyes, which are only faintly red now. “We’ll have this fixed in a trice and I assure you, I feel quite well. There is no need to worry yourselves over me.” With that, he hands each of them a cup of tea, which Tim knows without even tasting it is prepared perfectly to each of their specific tastes.
Warmth spreads up his fingers from the cup and makes him feel like maybe, things are going to be okay after all.
Alfred watches with an approving air as they both take an obedient sip of their tea. “There you go—good lads.” He pats them both on the shoulder in his best reassuring manner before inclining his head and turning to go.
Tim watches for a moment, curious, as Alfred makes his way back up the stairs. He can’t hear him moving at all.
“Well, at least he seems to be handling this well. How’s B taking it?” Jason makes a face, clearly not expecting anything good. Bruce’s stance on monsters in Gotham is well known. It has been, ever since the night so long ago when his parents were murdered by one before his very eyes.
Tim bites his lip, then shrugs. “He didn’t try to throw him out of Gotham, at least, so it could be worse. He must know there’s a difference between someone being temporarily transformed into a monster and actually being one. He should be willing to make an exception.” Although it’s pretty unfair that his stance on monsters extends to all of them, not just those who choose to engage in criminal activities. If he were more willing to look beyond his own bloodstained memories, he might see that plenty of monsters are law-abiding citizens, or even heroes in their own right.
Yeah, that’s never going to happen. They’re lucky if he doesn’t round up Alfred and all the unfortunate civilians who’ve been transformed and lock them up somewhere well away from Gotham on the off chance they might go crazy and start attacking people on some signal from the Joker. It’s an unfortunate possibility, of course, but Tim figures the trackers the team planted on every vampire they found so far are more humane and should, in theory, give them some warning if movement patterns or vital signs suddenly change.
To be honest, the fact that Batman hasn’t come back to the Cave yet is both worrisome and a bit of a relief. Punching criminals in the face is his therapy of choice, after all, emotionally stunted though it may be. Maybe he’ll manage to work through some of his issues before he comes home and has to face his guardian, transformed into the guise of one of his oldest traumas.
At least Alfred isn’t the exact same kind of monster who killed the Waynes. Although Batman’s prejudice extends to all monsters, he’ll always have a particular loathing for weres.
“Fuck him, if he tries to throw Alfrie outta Gotham he’ll hafta get through every damn one of us first.” Jason scowls, drumming his fingertips on the desk. “Is Nightwing with him?”
“Yeah. He should be able to run interference,” Tim says, feeling hopeful. “Or at least warn us if Bruce seems likely to do something inadvisable.”
Jason nods. “If anyone can help that emotionally constipated old fart deal with his issues, it’s probably Dickie.” His lips twist into something that isn’t quite a smile.
Tim snorts. “Even Dick isn’t that good. If anyone tries to have an emotional talk with B, he’ll just drop a smoke bomb and disappear. It’s like how an octopus reacts to perceived danger by releasing a cloud of ink and fleeing.”
“Dude. You’ve been letting those nature documentaries autoplay in the background while you’re sleeping again, having you?”
Guilty as charged. “Yep.” It’s soothing.
“Hey, whatever works. I’m just glad you’re actually sleeping at this point.” Jason stretches his arms over his head and inhales, then slumps in the seat with a tired groan. “You crashing here tonight, baby bird?”
He’s not planning to leave Alfred to deal with everything alone, well adjusted to this craziness or not. “Yep. Wanna trade off on keeping watch?”
Jason nods, looking relieved. “Yeah. I know Alfred would never hurt anyone of his own free will, and it would damn well kill him if he did it because of some fuckin’ magic spell. Not to mention Bruce and his issues.”
“Agreed. You look more tired than I am, so go ahead and take a rest. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”
Jason only argues for a few minutes before giving in, leading Tim to revise his estimate of how long the other man has been awake upward by a few hours. He’d never capitulate so easily unless he was running on at least a couple of days without sleep. “G’night, Timbo—I’ll be down to take over in a couple of hours.” He tousles Tim’s hair before ambling over to the stairs.
Tim takes a sip of his tea and sighs, enjoying the taste and welcome warmth even as he wishes it were coffee. On the monitors, Alfred is polishing the silverware again and looking as energetic as ever. He’s eyeing the corners of the vaulted ceilings with a gleam in his eye like he wants to reach for a duster.
It’s going to be a long night.