[Young Justice] pocket full of posies - 2220 words
Rating: T (character death, blood, absent guardians)
Summary: Bruce Wayne loses his parents when he's eight years old, he's never been any good at letting things go (prequel/companion to ashes, ashes, we all go on)
Martha and Thomas Wayne die in a moment. A gun is held in unsteady hands. A move is made to protect their young son. Unsteady nerves break and two shots ring out. Bruce Wayne sobs in a dark alley. His parents were taken from him in an instant. It takes much longer to get them back.
&
Bruce Wayne is eight years old and believes in magic. Two days ago he hadn't. He's a precocious child, far more interested in science than flights of fancy. He runs around the garden dreaming of commanding rocket ships or snakes with exaggerated caution through the halls on a super-secret spy mission. Dreams change. He wakes up, truly alone for the first time in his life, and knows he believes in magic because it's the only thing that can bring his parents back to him.
Bruce had grown up on stories of the Justice Society of America. He would beg for a tale of their exploits at every bedtime. He would make his mother tell him the story of how she had actually met the Green Lantern over and over. He would flip through his father's old scrapbooks for hours, memorizing each picture. He had never been particularly interested in Doctor Fate (his stories tended to lack a certain amount of violent heroism) but his picture stood with the rest of them.
Now, Doctor Fate is the prize of Bruce's new collection. He carefully cuts out the articles describing 'Earth's Sorcerer Supreme' and pastes them on the first pages of his new book. The rest of the book quickly fills up with reports of other mystics and notes in Bruce's careful hand on everything else he can find about magic and unexplained events. He sleeps with it besides his bed. The book shows that anything is possible. It has to be.
Gotham is cursed. It's an old story. The accounts Bruce finds differ with one another: in some, the land itself is under a curse far more ancient that the foundations of the city. In others, the fist act of building brought down a blood debt upon all of the cities inhabitants, present and future. In a few, the darkness was brought down much later under satisfyingly blood curdling circumstances. Whatever the truth, Bruce decides it makes things convenient. A cursed city is the perfect place to call back the dead.
&
(Philip Wayne is not a bad man. He loved his brother and sister-in-law and he loves his young charge. He tends to Bruce's fortune with scrupulous honesty and he tries carefully to meet all of the child's needs. He is not a man at home with children. With Thomas' death he became the guardian of a traumatized child whose will more than outmatched his own. He brings Bruce to therapy but the boy won't talk and he won't move. He tries his awkward best to connect but is met with a black wall. He embraces Bruce's interest in the supernatural as the first signs of interaction with the outside world. He is happy at every smile, at every moment spent scribbling away instead of staring at the wall. He presence is obviously viewed as an interruption, he tells himself there is no need to impose where he's not wanted. He walks away with a little too much relief.)
&
"Magic can't bring people back," Zatara tells the sharp faced boy standing outside his dressing room (he's too tired to find softer words), "not really." By then it's far too late.
&
Bruce is eleven years old when he gets his parents back. After all the books full of arcane rituals, painstakingly memorized, and all the grizzly warnings, promptly ignored, from the true practitioners he had hunted down, the event could almost be seen as anticlimactic. He sits in the dimly lit attic and waits. There were words he had needed to know to open the breach and materials to help the process and there were the other futures that he'd sacrificed (if you do this, the woman says, there is no letting go, no moving on, time won't heal this wound, and he says, it will never heal, and she shakes her head but goes on and inwardly he embraces the burning coal of his pain because he never wants to let go). But, in the end, he had already had the most important aspect of the spell.
There is blood on the floor. Bruce's blood carefully spilled in patterns soaking into the wood (the knife is carefully sterilized, the cut is nowhere near a vein, because his parents will see him, they'll know that he remembered their lessons). Blood calls to blood. He remembers the blood flowing sluggishly from the bullet holes, falling on the dirty ground (like he has fallen, unmoving, uncaring). The anguish reechoes within him and he falls flat on the floor because it's not the remembered pain it's every moment fresh and it's not just his but his parents dying breaths as they leave the world, leave their son (if you do this, the woman says, you will take their pain, spirits cannot hold such emotion and you will always have their pain, and he says, for eternity).
Bruce's parents are upset. He put himself in danger ('and just where did you learn to do this,' Martha says sternly but her hand is gently caressing his forehead) and the had wanted him to be happy (they have no idea what he's truly done). That night he's tucked into bed for the first time in years and as he drifts off to sleep to the sound of the rocking chair creaking after so many years sitting unused, Bruce doesn't regret a thing.
&
(Leslie Thompkins always wishes she had more time to give. Running one of the few (one of the very few) free medical clinics in Gotham isn't a job with set hours. The doors can never close and it's so hard to tear herself away when she might be needed. Not to mention all the paperwork that needs to be filled out to keep things organized and running smoothly. There's more fund raising to do now a days, too. The Wayne money always comes in but Martha was the one who used to set up the parties. She made everything seem so simple. The money would flow freely. Thomas always used to say that it was her charm that lured donors in and her steel trap of a mind that kept them. Leslie misses them. Every year it seems like she has fewer friends left. However busy she is, though, she always makes time to check up on Bruce. It's a hard trip. The shy, sensitive little boy that used to solemnly tell her that he was going to be a doctor so he could help people just like his Aunt Leslie is gone or hidden far from her reach. She does what she can. He's in good health, even if he doesn't seem particularly interested in his food. He's quieter than he was but he'll answer questions about his school (it's fine), his guardian (he was fine) and the scar on his arm (caught in a fence, it was fine). He even seems animated about some of the tricks he's learned. She walks away and wishes there was more she could do.)
&
Bruce loses them day by day.
&
Even in the beginning, they aren't strong manifestations. They come through on the power of Bruce's love and pain (and rage) but however strong his feelings are they are just those of one boy. Voices are softer than those that rang so loud in his memory. Limbs are cooler and weaker. They love him, though. Whatever might have been lost their love burns strong and as he rests in their arms nothing else matters.
No one else can see his parents. Bruce decides he's glad. There would have been too many questions. Things might have gotten troublesome. He regrets their sorrow as people who they once knew walk by without a glance but then they smile at him and he knows that it's okay. All they really need is each other. Their sorrow fades over time. He tells himself that they've just adjusted to their new existence. Pain fades (his pain never fades but it's not important because he can open his eyes and they're there).
Bodies fade, too. Bruce refuses to notice. He has his training. He brought his parents back. He is determined to stop anyone else from having to go that extra step. His mother kisses his forehead (light as a whisper) as he bends over his work and points out mistakes in his equations with a light finger. His father frowns at his bruises and flips emphatically to pages on proper muscle growth. They don't talk much, anymore.
&
(Alfred Pennyworth is employed to look after a manor full of ghosts. He's happy to take the job. He had known the Waynes', once. He might wonder whether a guardian really needed to travel halfway around the world from his fourteen year old charge but butlers know when to speak. The time is definitely not when their new employer is muttering things about taking care of foreign interests while looking nervously over their shoulder. Despite his brief worries, on the the whole Master Bruce is exceedingly easy to deal with. The boy is polite (if cold), intelligent, driven and can be surprisingly empathetic. Alfred quickly learns that, if allowed, he will spend most of his time in solitude. Alfred quietly resolves not to let him draw too far away. He offers light conversation while he drives Bruce to school or when dropping him off at his various athletic enterprises. He goes to all the award ceremonies and sits in the mansion's gym while Bruce is exercising and carefully arranges the newspapers with the articles of the most interest displayed. Alfred brushes up on his lab safety and makes sure to bring in trays of food and drink when he's studying. Bruce mutters that there's nowhere he can go to escape but he's smiling. Alfred walks away with a smile on his own lips and if he was a different sort of man he would have sworn a ghostly hand grasps his shoulder in thanks.)
&
Bruce grows up, his parents never age.
&
Every time Bruce returns hope from a trip abroad, the first thing he does is look in on his parents. He never has to search to find them. They don't leave the attic (they don't leave the room whose floor bares stubborn stains even Alfred can't clean away). The windows are left closed. In direct sunlight, even Bruce's eyes have a hard time seeing them. They never speak, at least not on a level that he can hear. Every time, Bruce tells himself that their presence is enough.
On Bruce's twenty-first birthday he officially gains his entire inheritance. Philip awkwardly claps him on the back (it's the first time they've seen each other since Bruce returned to Gotham several weeks back). Alfred dryly suggests his 'first taste of alcohol' should wait until he stops needing pain killers (of course, Alfred had been present at Bruce's first hangover). Bruce already announced that he had come home for good. Philip leaves quickly, not even bothering to ask about the cut on his face.
As the sun sets, Bruce makes his way up to the attic room. There are new blood stains on the floor. All the broken glass has been cleared up but Alfred hasn't had time to put a board up across the window yet ('ah, Master Bruce,' he'd said, 'I am so glad to see that you felt strong enough to attempt to bleed out in the attic instead of lurking around in the foyer like some common ruffian'). The dying light casts long shadows, his parents cast none. That night, for the first time, Batman flies.
&
(Bruce Wayne is twenty eight years old and he's attending a circus. The seats are full that night. Outside, the air is cold but inside it's warm with people and excitement. Each act is greeted by louder cheers than the one before. Everyone is watching. The Flying Graysons are the stars of the show. They stand together, waving, as a roar of noise greets them. Six athletic forms stand out against a backdrop of stars. They fly. Every eye is on them. Every heart is lodged in a throat. The audience is linked together, pulses pounding with agreeable fear, the joy of disaster narrowly averted. Not all disasters can be averted. It happens so fast, there's no time to help, no time to look away. No one wants to see a child fall. Batman takes it all in. No operation of this level would allow equipment to fail like this. He needs answers. He knows just who he can get them from.)
&
They never find out exactly how many people were sitting in the audience that night, Dick doesn't like to remember and it's not really important. It's the feelings that matter. Thousands of people's fear and horror is a powerful brew, especially with a little help to channel it into a form. Bruce takes Dick's hand (it almost feels real in his) and refuses to wonder how long it can last.
Summary: Bruce Wayne loses his parents when he's eight years old, he's never been any good at letting things go (prequel/companion to ashes, ashes, we all go on)
Martha and Thomas Wayne die in a moment. A gun is held in unsteady hands. A move is made to protect their young son. Unsteady nerves break and two shots ring out. Bruce Wayne sobs in a dark alley. His parents were taken from him in an instant. It takes much longer to get them back.
&
Bruce Wayne is eight years old and believes in magic. Two days ago he hadn't. He's a precocious child, far more interested in science than flights of fancy. He runs around the garden dreaming of commanding rocket ships or snakes with exaggerated caution through the halls on a super-secret spy mission. Dreams change. He wakes up, truly alone for the first time in his life, and knows he believes in magic because it's the only thing that can bring his parents back to him.
Bruce had grown up on stories of the Justice Society of America. He would beg for a tale of their exploits at every bedtime. He would make his mother tell him the story of how she had actually met the Green Lantern over and over. He would flip through his father's old scrapbooks for hours, memorizing each picture. He had never been particularly interested in Doctor Fate (his stories tended to lack a certain amount of violent heroism) but his picture stood with the rest of them.
Now, Doctor Fate is the prize of Bruce's new collection. He carefully cuts out the articles describing 'Earth's Sorcerer Supreme' and pastes them on the first pages of his new book. The rest of the book quickly fills up with reports of other mystics and notes in Bruce's careful hand on everything else he can find about magic and unexplained events. He sleeps with it besides his bed. The book shows that anything is possible. It has to be.
Gotham is cursed. It's an old story. The accounts Bruce finds differ with one another: in some, the land itself is under a curse far more ancient that the foundations of the city. In others, the fist act of building brought down a blood debt upon all of the cities inhabitants, present and future. In a few, the darkness was brought down much later under satisfyingly blood curdling circumstances. Whatever the truth, Bruce decides it makes things convenient. A cursed city is the perfect place to call back the dead.
&
(Philip Wayne is not a bad man. He loved his brother and sister-in-law and he loves his young charge. He tends to Bruce's fortune with scrupulous honesty and he tries carefully to meet all of the child's needs. He is not a man at home with children. With Thomas' death he became the guardian of a traumatized child whose will more than outmatched his own. He brings Bruce to therapy but the boy won't talk and he won't move. He tries his awkward best to connect but is met with a black wall. He embraces Bruce's interest in the supernatural as the first signs of interaction with the outside world. He is happy at every smile, at every moment spent scribbling away instead of staring at the wall. He presence is obviously viewed as an interruption, he tells himself there is no need to impose where he's not wanted. He walks away with a little too much relief.)
&
"Magic can't bring people back," Zatara tells the sharp faced boy standing outside his dressing room (he's too tired to find softer words), "not really." By then it's far too late.
&
Bruce is eleven years old when he gets his parents back. After all the books full of arcane rituals, painstakingly memorized, and all the grizzly warnings, promptly ignored, from the true practitioners he had hunted down, the event could almost be seen as anticlimactic. He sits in the dimly lit attic and waits. There were words he had needed to know to open the breach and materials to help the process and there were the other futures that he'd sacrificed (if you do this, the woman says, there is no letting go, no moving on, time won't heal this wound, and he says, it will never heal, and she shakes her head but goes on and inwardly he embraces the burning coal of his pain because he never wants to let go). But, in the end, he had already had the most important aspect of the spell.
There is blood on the floor. Bruce's blood carefully spilled in patterns soaking into the wood (the knife is carefully sterilized, the cut is nowhere near a vein, because his parents will see him, they'll know that he remembered their lessons). Blood calls to blood. He remembers the blood flowing sluggishly from the bullet holes, falling on the dirty ground (like he has fallen, unmoving, uncaring). The anguish reechoes within him and he falls flat on the floor because it's not the remembered pain it's every moment fresh and it's not just his but his parents dying breaths as they leave the world, leave their son (if you do this, the woman says, you will take their pain, spirits cannot hold such emotion and you will always have their pain, and he says, for eternity).
Bruce's parents are upset. He put himself in danger ('and just where did you learn to do this,' Martha says sternly but her hand is gently caressing his forehead) and the had wanted him to be happy (they have no idea what he's truly done). That night he's tucked into bed for the first time in years and as he drifts off to sleep to the sound of the rocking chair creaking after so many years sitting unused, Bruce doesn't regret a thing.
&
(Leslie Thompkins always wishes she had more time to give. Running one of the few (one of the very few) free medical clinics in Gotham isn't a job with set hours. The doors can never close and it's so hard to tear herself away when she might be needed. Not to mention all the paperwork that needs to be filled out to keep things organized and running smoothly. There's more fund raising to do now a days, too. The Wayne money always comes in but Martha was the one who used to set up the parties. She made everything seem so simple. The money would flow freely. Thomas always used to say that it was her charm that lured donors in and her steel trap of a mind that kept them. Leslie misses them. Every year it seems like she has fewer friends left. However busy she is, though, she always makes time to check up on Bruce. It's a hard trip. The shy, sensitive little boy that used to solemnly tell her that he was going to be a doctor so he could help people just like his Aunt Leslie is gone or hidden far from her reach. She does what she can. He's in good health, even if he doesn't seem particularly interested in his food. He's quieter than he was but he'll answer questions about his school (it's fine), his guardian (he was fine) and the scar on his arm (caught in a fence, it was fine). He even seems animated about some of the tricks he's learned. She walks away and wishes there was more she could do.)
&
Bruce loses them day by day.
&
Even in the beginning, they aren't strong manifestations. They come through on the power of Bruce's love and pain (and rage) but however strong his feelings are they are just those of one boy. Voices are softer than those that rang so loud in his memory. Limbs are cooler and weaker. They love him, though. Whatever might have been lost their love burns strong and as he rests in their arms nothing else matters.
No one else can see his parents. Bruce decides he's glad. There would have been too many questions. Things might have gotten troublesome. He regrets their sorrow as people who they once knew walk by without a glance but then they smile at him and he knows that it's okay. All they really need is each other. Their sorrow fades over time. He tells himself that they've just adjusted to their new existence. Pain fades (his pain never fades but it's not important because he can open his eyes and they're there).
Bodies fade, too. Bruce refuses to notice. He has his training. He brought his parents back. He is determined to stop anyone else from having to go that extra step. His mother kisses his forehead (light as a whisper) as he bends over his work and points out mistakes in his equations with a light finger. His father frowns at his bruises and flips emphatically to pages on proper muscle growth. They don't talk much, anymore.
&
(Alfred Pennyworth is employed to look after a manor full of ghosts. He's happy to take the job. He had known the Waynes', once. He might wonder whether a guardian really needed to travel halfway around the world from his fourteen year old charge but butlers know when to speak. The time is definitely not when their new employer is muttering things about taking care of foreign interests while looking nervously over their shoulder. Despite his brief worries, on the the whole Master Bruce is exceedingly easy to deal with. The boy is polite (if cold), intelligent, driven and can be surprisingly empathetic. Alfred quickly learns that, if allowed, he will spend most of his time in solitude. Alfred quietly resolves not to let him draw too far away. He offers light conversation while he drives Bruce to school or when dropping him off at his various athletic enterprises. He goes to all the award ceremonies and sits in the mansion's gym while Bruce is exercising and carefully arranges the newspapers with the articles of the most interest displayed. Alfred brushes up on his lab safety and makes sure to bring in trays of food and drink when he's studying. Bruce mutters that there's nowhere he can go to escape but he's smiling. Alfred walks away with a smile on his own lips and if he was a different sort of man he would have sworn a ghostly hand grasps his shoulder in thanks.)
&
Bruce grows up, his parents never age.
&
Every time Bruce returns hope from a trip abroad, the first thing he does is look in on his parents. He never has to search to find them. They don't leave the attic (they don't leave the room whose floor bares stubborn stains even Alfred can't clean away). The windows are left closed. In direct sunlight, even Bruce's eyes have a hard time seeing them. They never speak, at least not on a level that he can hear. Every time, Bruce tells himself that their presence is enough.
On Bruce's twenty-first birthday he officially gains his entire inheritance. Philip awkwardly claps him on the back (it's the first time they've seen each other since Bruce returned to Gotham several weeks back). Alfred dryly suggests his 'first taste of alcohol' should wait until he stops needing pain killers (of course, Alfred had been present at Bruce's first hangover). Bruce already announced that he had come home for good. Philip leaves quickly, not even bothering to ask about the cut on his face.
As the sun sets, Bruce makes his way up to the attic room. There are new blood stains on the floor. All the broken glass has been cleared up but Alfred hasn't had time to put a board up across the window yet ('ah, Master Bruce,' he'd said, 'I am so glad to see that you felt strong enough to attempt to bleed out in the attic instead of lurking around in the foyer like some common ruffian'). The dying light casts long shadows, his parents cast none. That night, for the first time, Batman flies.
&
(Bruce Wayne is twenty eight years old and he's attending a circus. The seats are full that night. Outside, the air is cold but inside it's warm with people and excitement. Each act is greeted by louder cheers than the one before. Everyone is watching. The Flying Graysons are the stars of the show. They stand together, waving, as a roar of noise greets them. Six athletic forms stand out against a backdrop of stars. They fly. Every eye is on them. Every heart is lodged in a throat. The audience is linked together, pulses pounding with agreeable fear, the joy of disaster narrowly averted. Not all disasters can be averted. It happens so fast, there's no time to help, no time to look away. No one wants to see a child fall. Batman takes it all in. No operation of this level would allow equipment to fail like this. He needs answers. He knows just who he can get them from.)
&
They never find out exactly how many people were sitting in the audience that night, Dick doesn't like to remember and it's not really important. It's the feelings that matter. Thousands of people's fear and horror is a powerful brew, especially with a little help to channel it into a form. Bruce takes Dick's hand (it almost feels real in his) and refuses to wonder how long it can last.