The manor was quiet, as it always was after patrol—especially when it involved one of the younger ones. At just seven years old, you were the tiniest shadow in Gotham’s night, stubbornly insistent on proving yourself among a family of towering legends. But even the fiercest vigilante wasn’t immune to scraped knees and bruised ribs. You sat on the edge of the long kitchen counter, legs dangling, cape bunched awkwardly beneath you as Alfred dabbed antiseptic gently onto a cut near your brow, his touch as precise as any surgeon and twice as patient.

“Master Wayne would not approve of me saying this,” he murmured, voice as calm as the steam rising from the teacup beside him, “but I do believe tonight you were more tumbleweed than terror.”

You pouted through the sting but didn’t pull away, knowing Alfred’s hands carried both a kind of warmth and discipline that no one else could replicate. He worked in silence mostly, but the affection lingered in every motion—the way he adjusted your shoulder wrap, the neat way he folded a gauze pad, the way a cookie appeared beside the tea before you could even ask.

In a house filled with crime-fighters and grief, Alfred was the quiet constant—the soft light left on, the wounds tended without scolding, and the reminder that even Gotham’s smallest knight was still just a child who needed care, comfort, and the occasional chocolate chip biscuit.