The rain came back with a vengeance three nights later.

Alfred hunched against it, collar turned up, walking the long way home from the club because he needed the extra time to not think. Maltby Street glistened under the lamps like a wet scar on the city's skin.

Footsteps fell into rhythm behind him. He didn't speed up. That only made the chase more fun for the other man.

"Evening, Mr. Pennyworth," a voice said—American, vowels rounded, confidence quiet and precise. "You have a moment?"

Alfred glanced over his shoulder.

The man was well-dressed in the sort of way that suggested money but not vanity. Dark coat, neat suit, tie knotted properly. Rain slicked his hair but didn't seem to bother him. Glasses caught the orange streetlamps like tiny lanterns. The kind of man London ignored unless it owed him something.

"Depends who's askin'," Alfred said.

"Thomas Wayne," he replied. "I believe we have... friends in common."

"That so?" Alfred looked him over. "Doesn't look like you spend much time with my sort of friends."

"Your sort of friends?" Thomas smiled faintly. "You mean soldiers? Or the people you knock unconscious for a living?"

"Bit of both."

Thunder grumbled over the Thames, a low, metallic sound.

Thomas tucked his hands into his coat pockets, perfectly calm. "I was referring to Mr. Gaunt, actually."

The name tightened something in Alfred's shoulders.

"I've heard the Raven Society has taken an interest in you," Thomas said. "I also heard you didn't immediately sign up to march around in their little bird costumes. That tells me you have a functioning brain."

"You always this insulting on first meet?" Alfred asked.

"Only with people I'm hoping to hire."

Alfred snorted. "You Yanks really do think money fixes everything."

"In my experience," Thomas said mildly, "it fixes more than moral outrage does."

A car rolled slowly past the far end of the street. Not the same black motorcar from the club, but Alfred clocked the shape out of habit.

"Who are you really?" Alfred asked.

Thomas considered the honesty of the question and returned it.

"On paper," he said, "I'm an accountant. My family runs a financial group—Wayne Enterprises, investments, the usual sins. America sends us to tidy up European books when they get messy."

"And off paper?"

"Off paper," Thomas said, voice lowering, "I work for people who are very concerned about what the Raven Society intends for this country. People who aren't supposed to exist. People who need men like you."

Alfred let those words settle.

"You could just say CIA," he said.

Thomas's eyes flicked—respect, recognition, and calculation.

"You were that good, were you?" He murmured. "Out there."

"I was good enough to spot a spy when he's dancing around the word," Alfred replied. "So: what do you want from me, Mr. Wayne?"

"A very simple thing." Thomas's tone shifted, colder, and clearer. "Not heroics. Not double-agent theatrics. I want you to keep doing exactly what you're doing Working the door. Listening. Watching. And when certain people come calling—" he nodded toward Brewer Street "—I want you to tell me precisely what they say."

"You payin' me to be a snitch?"

"I prefer 'observer,'" Thomas said. "It's less poetic but more accurate."

"And why," Alfred asked, "should I believe you're any better than them?"

Thunder rolled again, closer. Thomas didn't bristle. He simply answered.

"Because the Ravens want to decide who counts as human. My people..." His glasses reflected a passing flash of lightning. "We're only interested in what happens when human beings make terrible choices. We catalogue. We nudge. We prevent certain... outcomes."

"Like fascism," Alfred said.

"Yes. And like what comes after fascism, if nobody stops it." Thomas's gaze sharpened. "You've seen what weaponized ideology looks like. The Ravens are building something ugly. My handlers believe 'Stormcloud' is one of their codenames. We don't know what it is yet. Gas, maybe. A virus? A story that convinces people to kill for it. I want to know what it really is before London finds out the hard way."

Stormcloud.

The word tasted wrong. Alfred filed it away.

"Let's say I do it," Alfred said. "I pass along what I hear. Then what?"

"Then maybe we will get ahead of them," Thomas said. "Maybe we neutralize something before it kills thousands. Maybe nothing happens and we both sleep a little better."

"Don't sleep much anyway," Alfred muttered.

Thomas's smile flickered. "Then consider this: the Ravens want to use you. I'm offering you a chance to use them."

A bus clattered past, headlights sweeping across both men like a stage cue. Alfred stared at the American with his clean shoes and tired eyes. He felt something unexpected.

Recognition.

There was something in Thomas's gaze—quiet, overburdened—that Alfred remembered from the field. A man who had seen too much, sorted it into tidy files, and sealed the drawers so it wouldn't spill.

"You pay properly?" Alfred asked at last.

"Well enough." Thomas produced a card from his pocket and held it out. "If you decide I'm less intolerable than the alternatives, call the number on the back. Ask for Mr. Archer. He'll know who you are."

Alfred took the card without looking at it.

"Anything else?" he asked.

"Yes."

Thomas stepped closer, voice low.

"Don't underestimate them. They've got help."

"From whom?"

Thomas hesitated. Rain streaked his glasses like tears he couldn't be bothered to wipe.

"There are men in my country," he said slowly, "who believe war is good business. Some prefer to stay in the dark. Some have sons who will inherit more than money. Think of them as... distant benefactors. One of them," distaste edged his tone, "has been sniffing around London under several shell companies. L&L Holdings, among others."

"L&L." Alfred turned the letters over in his mind. "I'll keep my ears open."

"I know you will." Thomas stepped back. "Good night, Mr. Pennyworth."

"Night, Mr. Wayne."

Alfred watched the American walk away until the rain swallowed him whole. The card in his pocket felt heavier than it should have.

He didn't yet know that the name behind L&L Holdings was Lionel Luthor. That truth would come later—like a match falling quietly onto old, dry paper.

For now, he walked home through the rain and tried not to think about how every time he thought he'd left the war, it simply changed its uniform and found him again.