Compared to their last meeting in the spring, the little conversation he'd had with Zelda Fisk in August seemed so innocuous that Alfred hadn't thought to be ashamed of it. It wasn't that the idea that they shouldn't be seen talking together had never occurred to him (it had, when he'd first discovered her sleeping on the bench outside the office in the Museum), but after nearly a month of no direct consequence he'd put that particular danger out of his mind. He hadn't imagined that anyone had seen, or cared, that the two of them had spoken, and he was so surprised by the question that he could think of nothing to say but the truth.
"She asked me to," he said, putting his hands up in front of his stomach in a half-hearted gesture of defense. "I couldn't very well say no. She — might've needed something, you know," he continued, flushing once more. What he wasn't saying in that last sentence didn't need to be said, he trusted — she might have been pregnant, and Alfred wasn't trying to run away from those potential consequences if that had been the case. Ari Fisk may not have been happy with the fact that they'd met and talked (particularly given the direction that conversation had gone — did he know about that, or only that they'd seen each other?) but if the situation had been something slightly different, Alfred was sure no one would have forgiven him for not agreeing to meet with her. Not that she'd really left him much of a choice, staking out the Museum as she'd done.
(This was the second time that he'd been ambushed by a Fisk in as many months; perhaps it was a family tactic. He doubted this conversation was going to end as amiably as the one with Zelda had, no matter what he said between now and the end of it.)

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER
"She asked me to," he said, putting his hands up in front of his stomach in a half-hearted gesture of defense. "I couldn't very well say no. She — might've needed something, you know," he continued, flushing once more. What he wasn't saying in that last sentence didn't need to be said, he trusted — she might have been pregnant, and Alfred wasn't trying to run away from those potential consequences if that had been the case. Ari Fisk may not have been happy with the fact that they'd met and talked (particularly given the direction that conversation had gone — did he know about that, or only that they'd seen each other?) but if the situation had been something slightly different, Alfred was sure no one would have forgiven him for not agreeing to meet with her. Not that she'd really left him much of a choice, staking out the Museum as she'd done.
(This was the second time that he'd been ambushed by a Fisk in as many months; perhaps it was a family tactic. He doubted this conversation was going to end as amiably as the one with Zelda had, no matter what he said between now and the end of it.)

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER