Fic: Nesting Habits - Alfred (?!?) - G (?!?!?!?!?!)
Title: Nesting Habits
Fandom: DC toonverse (with a touch of comicsverse, at least in atmosphere)
Pairing: None (I know, it's crazy)
Rating: G (even more crazy)
Notes: I don't know, I was reading JA Baker's The Peregrine in between a lot of Batslash and Bat!meta discussions, and it ate my brain a little. I wanted to write Bruce/Terry, but I kept thinking how there was never enough Britishness in the Wayne household despite Alfred's best efforts, and living in London I wanted to do something very understated and English, from the point of view of the one member who has been there since the beginning and yet has never been allowed to participate as fully as the rest of the Batfamily. He's been an actor and a soldier and a member of M16 and even a bad guy*; and yet most of his presence in Batworld consists not of himself, but of what the family needs from him at the moment. Mostly I wanted him to get more stuff done. Patching up Bruce all the time just gives him more grey hairs. Besides, Alfred's whole role in the story is pretty much "And now for something completely different."
Notes part 2: LOTS of Britishisms. Because he just thinks that way. ex: torch=flashlight, schoolwork=homework, &c=etc.
Summary: Thad Pennyworth wants to be a lot of things over the course of his life. His life has other ideas.
Egg
In a small town in Kent lives a boy called Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth (or Thad, to most people who know him).
Thad Pennyworth is eight, and he wants to be a superhero.
At night he reads Dan Dare and Buck Rogers under the bedclothes with his torch, long after his mother has sent him to bed. The only time he fails to do this is when his father is home from London. His father is a butler for the Warde family, who live in Kent's Squerryes Court for two months of the summer but in London the rest of the time. Thad thinks that being a butler is a little like having super powers, because his father knows, every single second, exactly what Thad happens to be doing. Even when they're in different rooms.
Whenever Jarvis Pennyworth comes back to Kent, Thad puts away the Eagle comics, and tries to keep busy: in addition to his usual chores, he helps his mother in the garden and his little sister with her schoolwork, and runs errands for his father on his bicycle. He does his own schoolwork, and almost manages to keep his concentration from drifting off into space, or Arctic wastelands, or the African jungle (when he finally starts paying more attention to his lessons he will realise that Africa doesn't have jungles, and feel a little betrayed). His father finally notices this one day, and Thad ends up listening, head bowed, to a lecture on the need for constant self-awareness, the pressing concern of family responsibility, and how he needs to lose his habit of "faffing off" into idle fancies that will do him no good when he has to become the family provider.
But Jarvis Pennyworth is not usually at home, and while Thad is not idle, neither is he impressed with his father's sense of financial urgency. No matter how often he hears his parents talking about them, the world of monthly wages, mortgage loans and the Inland Revenue is far more alien to him than outer space.
Anyway, outer space is far more interesting. At least in the 25th century, and especially for Buck Rogers.
Thad finds Earth, in the 20th century, much less absorbing. In fact he has hardly any interest at all in his immediate surroundings until one fine spring day his class takes a trip to nearby Eagle Heights, the bird sanctuary and falconry centre.
Everyone's a little frightened and awed by the birds. Thad stares as if he's never seen one in his life. The falconers croon and call; birds fly back and forth. An eagle shuffles on its tall perch, set above the rail that most of the other birds occupy. An owl descends softly on a handler's gloved fist, and she croons and hisses to it, feeding it a tiny scrap of meat. A kestrel calls, and other birds answer it. The birds shift their feet, stretch their wings, shake themselves like wet dogs.
A rustle among all the movement catches Thad's eye, and he looks up to meet the bright, powerful gaze of a golden-brown falcon with dark marks like arrowheads running down its breast. He's never seen a living thing look so angry before.
The falconers have noticed the boy and the bird staring at each other. One of them brings a glove to Thad, wraps his wrist with leather before he puts the glove on--it's far too big for him--and shows him how to use the jesses and the hood. Then calls the hawk to him, and Thad's throat tightens as the bird sweeps up and settles on his arm, waits as the leather jesses round its ankles are tied firmly to his glove and the blinding hood fastened to its head.
It's proving harder than he thought, this...falconing business. He is badly startled by the freakishly large, sharp meathook claws that dig into his glove, that shift and shuffle, pricking along his wrist. He tries to hold the bird as far away from his face as possible, but it's terribly heavy; his arm wobbles a bit and the bird, loses its grip and dangles in its jesses, flapping like a chicken strung up for the pot.
Thad's first thought is ohmyGod it's going to cut me open, but then he remembers Dan Dare and Dan would never be afraid of a silly old bird. So he bites his lip and tries to keep breathing so he can hear the falconer explaining very quickly and softly how bating--what the bird's doing--often happens when a falcon and its handler are starting to get acquainted, and the thing to do is to hold still and let it lever itself back onto the wrist again.
Thad's arm aches until it feels like it might snap off by the time the peregrine finds its footing. But he says nothing. After a moment or two the falconer gently removes the hood, cupping Thad's elbow to support it so it doesn't wobble again. The raptor shakes its head and then leans back and to one side, and fixes Thad with its stare as if it's memorising his face. The boy stares back, wondering how he never noticed that birds had expressions before. The peregrine looks fierce and furious and proud, and suddenly it's the most beautiful animal in the world.
They put pieces of meat on a wooden post, and let him and a few other children fly the birds at the meat. Some birds stay on the post, and the falconers have to whistle or call for them. Some fly back only to their handlers. The peregrine keeps its eye on Thad, and swoops back as if pulled by a rope; it returns so fast he barely remembers to put his glove up for it in time.
He's petted and praised by the bird handlers and his teacher, but he barely hears any of it. The following lecture about the sanctuary and the dying art of falconry is a blur, and Thad hardly notices the short tea afterward. He goes home with his heart singing.
end 1
*which will not be part of this fic, btw, just putting it out there as an example of the wacky things writers have done with him.
Fandom: DC toonverse (with a touch of comicsverse, at least in atmosphere)
Pairing: None (I know, it's crazy)
Rating: G (even more crazy)
Notes: I don't know, I was reading JA Baker's The Peregrine in between a lot of Batslash and Bat!meta discussions, and it ate my brain a little. I wanted to write Bruce/Terry, but I kept thinking how there was never enough Britishness in the Wayne household despite Alfred's best efforts, and living in London I wanted to do something very understated and English, from the point of view of the one member who has been there since the beginning and yet has never been allowed to participate as fully as the rest of the Batfamily. He's been an actor and a soldier and a member of M16 and even a bad guy*; and yet most of his presence in Batworld consists not of himself, but of what the family needs from him at the moment. Mostly I wanted him to get more stuff done. Patching up Bruce all the time just gives him more grey hairs. Besides, Alfred's whole role in the story is pretty much "And now for something completely different."
Notes part 2: LOTS of Britishisms. Because he just thinks that way. ex: torch=flashlight, schoolwork=homework, &c=etc.
Summary: Thad Pennyworth wants to be a lot of things over the course of his life. His life has other ideas.
Egg
In a small town in Kent lives a boy called Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth (or Thad, to most people who know him).
Thad Pennyworth is eight, and he wants to be a superhero.
At night he reads Dan Dare and Buck Rogers under the bedclothes with his torch, long after his mother has sent him to bed. The only time he fails to do this is when his father is home from London. His father is a butler for the Warde family, who live in Kent's Squerryes Court for two months of the summer but in London the rest of the time. Thad thinks that being a butler is a little like having super powers, because his father knows, every single second, exactly what Thad happens to be doing. Even when they're in different rooms.
Whenever Jarvis Pennyworth comes back to Kent, Thad puts away the Eagle comics, and tries to keep busy: in addition to his usual chores, he helps his mother in the garden and his little sister with her schoolwork, and runs errands for his father on his bicycle. He does his own schoolwork, and almost manages to keep his concentration from drifting off into space, or Arctic wastelands, or the African jungle (when he finally starts paying more attention to his lessons he will realise that Africa doesn't have jungles, and feel a little betrayed). His father finally notices this one day, and Thad ends up listening, head bowed, to a lecture on the need for constant self-awareness, the pressing concern of family responsibility, and how he needs to lose his habit of "faffing off" into idle fancies that will do him no good when he has to become the family provider.
But Jarvis Pennyworth is not usually at home, and while Thad is not idle, neither is he impressed with his father's sense of financial urgency. No matter how often he hears his parents talking about them, the world of monthly wages, mortgage loans and the Inland Revenue is far more alien to him than outer space.
Anyway, outer space is far more interesting. At least in the 25th century, and especially for Buck Rogers.
Thad finds Earth, in the 20th century, much less absorbing. In fact he has hardly any interest at all in his immediate surroundings until one fine spring day his class takes a trip to nearby Eagle Heights, the bird sanctuary and falconry centre.
Everyone's a little frightened and awed by the birds. Thad stares as if he's never seen one in his life. The falconers croon and call; birds fly back and forth. An eagle shuffles on its tall perch, set above the rail that most of the other birds occupy. An owl descends softly on a handler's gloved fist, and she croons and hisses to it, feeding it a tiny scrap of meat. A kestrel calls, and other birds answer it. The birds shift their feet, stretch their wings, shake themselves like wet dogs.
A rustle among all the movement catches Thad's eye, and he looks up to meet the bright, powerful gaze of a golden-brown falcon with dark marks like arrowheads running down its breast. He's never seen a living thing look so angry before.
The falconers have noticed the boy and the bird staring at each other. One of them brings a glove to Thad, wraps his wrist with leather before he puts the glove on--it's far too big for him--and shows him how to use the jesses and the hood. Then calls the hawk to him, and Thad's throat tightens as the bird sweeps up and settles on his arm, waits as the leather jesses round its ankles are tied firmly to his glove and the blinding hood fastened to its head.
It's proving harder than he thought, this...falconing business. He is badly startled by the freakishly large, sharp meathook claws that dig into his glove, that shift and shuffle, pricking along his wrist. He tries to hold the bird as far away from his face as possible, but it's terribly heavy; his arm wobbles a bit and the bird, loses its grip and dangles in its jesses, flapping like a chicken strung up for the pot.
Thad's first thought is ohmyGod it's going to cut me open, but then he remembers Dan Dare and Dan would never be afraid of a silly old bird. So he bites his lip and tries to keep breathing so he can hear the falconer explaining very quickly and softly how bating--what the bird's doing--often happens when a falcon and its handler are starting to get acquainted, and the thing to do is to hold still and let it lever itself back onto the wrist again.
Thad's arm aches until it feels like it might snap off by the time the peregrine finds its footing. But he says nothing. After a moment or two the falconer gently removes the hood, cupping Thad's elbow to support it so it doesn't wobble again. The raptor shakes its head and then leans back and to one side, and fixes Thad with its stare as if it's memorising his face. The boy stares back, wondering how he never noticed that birds had expressions before. The peregrine looks fierce and furious and proud, and suddenly it's the most beautiful animal in the world.
They put pieces of meat on a wooden post, and let him and a few other children fly the birds at the meat. Some birds stay on the post, and the falconers have to whistle or call for them. Some fly back only to their handlers. The peregrine keeps its eye on Thad, and swoops back as if pulled by a rope; it returns so fast he barely remembers to put his glove up for it in time.
He's petted and praised by the bird handlers and his teacher, but he barely hears any of it. The following lecture about the sanctuary and the dying art of falconry is a blur, and Thad hardly notices the short tea afterward. He goes home with his heart singing.
end 1
*which will not be part of this fic, btw, just putting it out there as an example of the wacky things writers have done with him.