Gardens of Wayne Manor: Spiderweb (5/37)
Title: Chapter Five: Spiderweb
Pairing/Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Martha Kent, Martha Wayne, Tommy Elliott, Winifred Elliot--since I wrote this it has come out her first name is Marla, but rather than have Martha and Marla talk about Martha, I changed her name. :P
Rating: PG
Warnings: None necessary
Continuity: The Gardens of Wayne Manor is an AU series in which Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne's lives intertwine at an early age. Click here for the complete series and series notes.
Word Count: 2600Summary: The summer's first big party at Wayne Manor and the gardens have to be in perfect order.
June
Clark Kent ran across the dewy grass toward the Manor, the morning sun glinting off the damp blades. In his arms was a mass of fresh roses, sent by his mother to be given to Martha Wayne.
"Oh, thank you, Clark," Mrs. Wayne said distractedly, taking the lush armful from him. "Oh, they're beautiful." She put her face into the petals for a moment and breathed in deeply. "Tell your mother thank you."
Clark looked around the great hall, filled at the moment with caterers and decorators, Mr. Pennyworth directing all the action. "I'll tell her, ma'am." Privately he wasn't sure his mother would hear him. She'd been working feverishly for days in preparation for her first big party at the Manor, and was even now pruning and re-staking shrubs in the garden.
Mrs. Wayne was arranging the roses in a porcelain vase, serene in the midst of chaos. Clark looked around almost reflexively for Bruce, but he knew his friend wasn't there: he'd spent the night at the Elliott's. Bruce had been enthusiastic about seeing his friend Tommy again after so many months--so enthusiastic, in fact, that Clark could tell Bruce was trying to talk himself into feeling happy about it. Somehow Clark couldn't feel envious of Tommy when he realized that.
But he still missed Bruce.
"Mrs. Elliott will be bringing Bruce back when she comes for the luncheon, dear," Mrs. Wayne said as if she could read Clark's thoughts. "And the guests should be gone in time for you two to watch Gray Ghost tonight." She smiled at him over one scarlet rose. "It wouldn't do to miss it."
Clark felt himself reddening slightly, but a crash and a shriek from Antonia in the kitchen drew Mrs. Wayne's attention away, and he ran back out into the gardens.
"Mrs. Wayne says thank you," he gasped to his mother, who looked up with a somewhat harried expression. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek and her hair was tied back in a kerchief.
"Lovely, dear. Could you go tell Rafael to give the fountain in the north garden a last scrubbing?"
Clark cast her his best League of Valor salute and ran off, warmed by her smile.
The roses were pruned, the fountain scrubbed, and fresh bouquets placed in the sitting room, music room, and grand hall before the first guests started to arrive. Clark found his mother sitting in the kitchen of their cottage sipping a cup of coffee and staring out at the dark yews fencing in their house. Her eyes were tired, but she smiled at him as he came in. "Well, Clark, we did the best we could."
Clark pulled up a chair. There was a pencil on the kitchen table and he rolled it back and forth, staring at it. "Are you worried?"
Martha took a long sip of coffee, frowning. "It's the Waynes' first big party, and people will notice if the gardens don't look perfect. I'm not exactly one of the elite gardeners of Gotham."
"Of course the gardens are perfect!" Clark scowled at the implication anyone could find fault with them.
"Mmm." Martha sounded less certain. "I think the pansies in the south garden are a risk. They might be considered too garish. But Mrs. Wayne did say she wanted to get away from the more sedate English garden..."
"I wonder if Bruce is back yet?" Clark hopped from his chair and headed toward the door.
"Clark." He turned at his mother's voice. "You can't go running around the grounds right now."
"I just want to find--"
"--While there's a social function going on, we stay out of the way as much as possible. It's not our place."
"Bruce is my friend."
Her mouth quirked a little; not a smile. "He is. He is also the son of your mother's employers. And during a Wayne social function, that's more important."
Clark looked away for a moment; when he looked back his smile was cheerful and guileless. "Okay, I'll go to the Fortress, then."
Martha hesitated. "That should be okay," she said eventually.
Clark did go to the Fortress; he even took the time to climb up into it for a moment so that he wouldn't possibly be lying.
Then he clambered back down and ran toward the Manor.
: : :
He knew the grounds well enough to know how to stay unseen; he and Bruce had played hide and seek in the gardens more than enough times. Through a gap in the hedge that fenced off the north garden, he slipped along the flower-lined paths without any of the scattered strollers in their fancy dresses noticing him. He was almost to the Manor when he heard Martha Wayne's voice coming along the path toward him. Looking around wildly, he ended up hiding behind a honeysuckle bush that was giving shade to a bench.
"Winifred, you look tired," Martha Wayne's low voice was solicitous. "Why don't you sit down and rest your feet?"
"I think I shall, Martha." The other woman's voice was more high-pitched, with a grating whine underneath it. "You know, I don't think I shall ever fully recover from that terrible day."
Two women came around the corner--Mrs. Wayne and a woman with orange-red hair tied back in a severe bun. They settled on the bench and Clark crouched lower behind the bush, feeling like an animal at bay.
"I know, dear. I do hope having Bruce over wasn't too much of a drain."
A short laugh. "I hardly saw him and Tommy at all. I suppose Tommy has better things to do than spend time with his old crippled mother." A long, self-pitying sigh, while Martha Wayne murmured reassuringly. "I must say, Martha, you must be feeling the loss of Mr. Barnes keenly," Mrs. Elliott went on. "I mean, look at this."
"Whatever do you mean, Winifred?"
"Zinnias? Don't you think they're a bit gaudy? I mean, maybe they suit the front of a country cottage, but not one of the finest estates in Gotham."
Clark bit his lip hard and felt his heart hammering. He was just about to surge to his feet when Martha Wayne laughed, a low lilting sound. "My dear, I chose the zinnias myself, so perhaps I should be the one exiled to a 'country cottage.'"
"I didn't mean-- That is--"
Martha cut into Winifred Elliott's flustered disclaimers, her voice amused. "Martha Kent is a godsend for Wayne Manor, Winifred. She's brought new life to these gardens, and I love them. You may feel free to report that to the Gotham City Garden Club at their next meeting."
"Well! Certainly!" Mrs. Elliott stammered.
"Do you know what we're going to do with this garden next year?" Martha Wayne's voice was dreamy. "We're going to make it over as a moon garden."
"A--a what?"
"A moon garden. All white flowers and pale foliage, so it will shine cool and silver in the moonlight, like a fairy garden."
"I never heard of such a thing!"
"Vita Sackville-West had one."
"Well, I have never heard of this Sackville-West woman, but I doubt she's one of Gotham's elite."
There was a wry tilt to Martha Wayne's voice. "No, I suppose she's not."
From behind the honeysuckle flowers, Clark saw Mrs. Elliott shake her head. "Well, it's hardly orthodox, Martha."
"Orthodox! Proper! Appropriate! Oh, you have no idea how tired of those words I can become!" Martha Wayne stood up suddenly, her back stiff. Then she sighed and turned to look at Mrs. Elliott, a small, wistful smile on her face. "Allow me my tiny inappropriate dream, Winifred."
As the other woman pulled herself painfully to her feet to join her, Martha Wayne's gaze traveled past her to where Clark was crouched behind the bush. He crouched lower, trying to make himself small--but her eyes widened as they met his.
For a long moment they looked at each other. Then Mrs. Wayne's smile deepened enough to reveal a dimple in her right cheek. Over Mrs. Elliott's shoulder, she winked at the grubby boy hiding in the shadows.
Then she was taking her friend's arm and helping her walk back toward the house, and Clark was collapsing in a long sigh of relief onto the wood-chip-covered ground.
He eased himself around the bush and made his way cautiously along the path, choosing a different direction than the two women. As he came around the last corner he saw a young boy with a shock of bright red hair crouched in front of a patch of flowers, peering into it. One hand was tightly closed; as Clark drew a little closer, the boy opened it slightly, bringing it closer to his face. A silvery moth emerged from his hand, crawling over his fingers. "Aren't you pretty," murmured the boy.
Then with a swift motion he cast the moth into the spiderweb in front of him.
The web shook as the spider rushed out to wrap the hapless moth in white strands. Clark felt rooted with horror; he must have made a sound because the boy turned and saw him. He smiled, a friendly smile that somehow chilled Clark's marrow. "Isn't it interesting? Want to give it a try?" His eyes were flat green chips, devoid of any malice, filled with nothing but curiosity. And yet Clark found himself backing away slowly. The moth wasn't struggling anymore.
He turned and ran back to the cottage.
: : :
Bruce looked anxiously at the clock. It was only thirty minutes until Gray Ghost began, and Mrs. Elliott was still talking with his mother. Tommy Elliott was curled up on the library sofa reading one of Bruce's father's medical textbooks. Bruce realized he'd re-read the same paragraph of Rocket Ship Galileo about five times without the words sinking in at all.
Mrs. Elliott finally began to move toward the door. "Come along, Tommy," she said to the boy on the couch. Then a speculative look crossed her face. "Or...you could stay the night here, if you liked. Would that be all right, Martha?" she said belatedly, turning to her friend.
"Oh...certainly!" Martha smiled; only Bruce could have seen the fleeting discomfort in her eyes. "You know Tommy is always welcome here." She turned to Bruce. "And you two can watch your show with Clark when he comes over."
Tommy put down his anatomy textbook; there was a brief glimpse of diagrams of human bodies, their illustrated skin flayed from their muscles. "Clark. Is that the boy with the floppy hair? Are you two still watching Gray Ghost?"
The mockery in his smile was so faint that the adults would miss it, but Bruce did not. He bit his lip. "It's fun," he said, surprised to hear how steady his voice sounded, how certain. Almost angry. And he was angry, he realized only after he heard his own voice. Because the Gray Ghost was fun, and he didn't like Tommy making fun of it. Or of him and Clark.
Mrs. Elliott was still watching her son. "Would you like to stay, Tommy?" she asked, ignoring his comment to Bruce.
Tommy's eyes had narrowed at Bruce's words. He slid off the couch, still studying Bruce's face, his expression the curious and abstracted one he got when studying things under a microscope. "No, I think I'll be going home. I have to prepare for the chess tournament tomorrow, and I shouldn't be wasting time," he said. He smiled politely at Bruce's mother. "Thank you for having me, Mrs. Wayne." He turned at the door. "Enjoy your little fantasy program, Bruce," he said.
Only when the Elliotts were gone did Bruce release a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He wasn't sure why he was so relieved, and he hoped his mother didn't notice. She didn't seem to as she bustled around, tidying up.
Fortunately, adults often didn't seem to notice things like that, things that Bruce couldn't help but notice: significant looks, hesitations, slips of the tongue. Adults seemed to be better at shutting them out and getting by without having to think about every little thing going on around them.
Maybe it would be easier for him when he was an adult too.
There was a gentle throat-clearing at the door and Bruce looked up to see Alfred there. "Master Bruce, Master Clark is at the back door. He--"
Bruce was pelting down the hall before the sentence was done.
: : :
"I don't care if zeppelins don't work that way, the battle was awesome!"
Bruce suppressed a grin as he and Clark quietly climbed the stairs to the attic floor and the old servants' wing. Other than Alfred and the Kents, none of the staff actually lived on the Manor grounds anymore, which meant the very top floor of the building was abandoned. He and Clark liked to sneak up here sometimes, to explore the maze of tiny rooms. "Yes, the battle was pretty awesome," he agreed. Clark was never terribly interested in the science of how things like zeppelins or quasars or atoms really worked--it wasn't that he didn't understand them, he just was more interested in the overall sweep of the story, the plot and the characters and their motivations, than the actual nuts and bolts of time travel.
Clark started rummaging in the boxes stacked on the floor, unearthing treasures: old sepia photographs of strangers, brooches made of ivory, satin slippers with holes in the soles, the detritus of generations. He pulled out a brown felt derby and balanced it on his head, grinning over at Bruce. "Oh," he said softly, reaching into the box. "Look at this." It was an ornate silver letter opener, shaped like a dagger with blue glass gems set in the hilt. "It's...the sword of the League of Valor." He brandished it at Bruce, his eyes bright under the derby. "Have at thee, varlet!" His hair had fallen slightly into his eyes, and Bruce suddenly heard again Tommy's voice: Clark. The boy with the floppy hair?
"You met Tommy today," he said without thinking, and Clark's gaze dropped.
"I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have been there during the party--"
"--I don't care. You're my friend," Bruce said. Clark was busy peering into the box again and didn't answer. Bruce picked up the letter opener, turning it around in his hands, watching the dull and dusty light of the attic kindle in the blue glass. "Do you ever think that we're...wasting our time?" he asked slowly.
"What do you mean?" Clark said, not looking up.
"I mean, someday we're going to have to grow up and put it all away. The Gray Ghost, Zorro, the League of Valor--"
Clark scrambled to his feet, cutting Bruce off. His eyes were blazing brighter than the blue rhinestones--not with anger, with something fiercer and more joyful. "Put valor away? Put heroism and bravery and justice away, Bruce?" He smiled as if surprised at his own words, as if delighted by them. "You know better than that. Those aren't kid's things, Bruce. They're the most important things of all." His rapt smile gentled, wrapping Bruce in something shared and special. "You know that."
Bruce looked down at the little dagger. After a moment he held it up to Clark. "We can put this in the Secret Fortress. It can be the Sword of Oaths, and whenever we make a promise we have to put our hands on it and swear."
Clark reached out and rested his hands on top of the dagger as well. "Yes," he said, as simply as a vow.
(Chapter Six)
Pairing/Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Martha Kent, Martha Wayne, Tommy Elliott, Winifred Elliot--since I wrote this it has come out her first name is Marla, but rather than have Martha and Marla talk about Martha, I changed her name. :P
Rating: PG
Warnings: None necessary
Continuity: The Gardens of Wayne Manor is an AU series in which Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne's lives intertwine at an early age. Click here for the complete series and series notes.
Word Count: 2600Summary: The summer's first big party at Wayne Manor and the gardens have to be in perfect order.
June
Clark Kent ran across the dewy grass toward the Manor, the morning sun glinting off the damp blades. In his arms was a mass of fresh roses, sent by his mother to be given to Martha Wayne.
"Oh, thank you, Clark," Mrs. Wayne said distractedly, taking the lush armful from him. "Oh, they're beautiful." She put her face into the petals for a moment and breathed in deeply. "Tell your mother thank you."
Clark looked around the great hall, filled at the moment with caterers and decorators, Mr. Pennyworth directing all the action. "I'll tell her, ma'am." Privately he wasn't sure his mother would hear him. She'd been working feverishly for days in preparation for her first big party at the Manor, and was even now pruning and re-staking shrubs in the garden.
Mrs. Wayne was arranging the roses in a porcelain vase, serene in the midst of chaos. Clark looked around almost reflexively for Bruce, but he knew his friend wasn't there: he'd spent the night at the Elliott's. Bruce had been enthusiastic about seeing his friend Tommy again after so many months--so enthusiastic, in fact, that Clark could tell Bruce was trying to talk himself into feeling happy about it. Somehow Clark couldn't feel envious of Tommy when he realized that.
But he still missed Bruce.
"Mrs. Elliott will be bringing Bruce back when she comes for the luncheon, dear," Mrs. Wayne said as if she could read Clark's thoughts. "And the guests should be gone in time for you two to watch Gray Ghost tonight." She smiled at him over one scarlet rose. "It wouldn't do to miss it."
Clark felt himself reddening slightly, but a crash and a shriek from Antonia in the kitchen drew Mrs. Wayne's attention away, and he ran back out into the gardens.
"Mrs. Wayne says thank you," he gasped to his mother, who looked up with a somewhat harried expression. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek and her hair was tied back in a kerchief.
"Lovely, dear. Could you go tell Rafael to give the fountain in the north garden a last scrubbing?"
Clark cast her his best League of Valor salute and ran off, warmed by her smile.
The roses were pruned, the fountain scrubbed, and fresh bouquets placed in the sitting room, music room, and grand hall before the first guests started to arrive. Clark found his mother sitting in the kitchen of their cottage sipping a cup of coffee and staring out at the dark yews fencing in their house. Her eyes were tired, but she smiled at him as he came in. "Well, Clark, we did the best we could."
Clark pulled up a chair. There was a pencil on the kitchen table and he rolled it back and forth, staring at it. "Are you worried?"
Martha took a long sip of coffee, frowning. "It's the Waynes' first big party, and people will notice if the gardens don't look perfect. I'm not exactly one of the elite gardeners of Gotham."
"Of course the gardens are perfect!" Clark scowled at the implication anyone could find fault with them.
"Mmm." Martha sounded less certain. "I think the pansies in the south garden are a risk. They might be considered too garish. But Mrs. Wayne did say she wanted to get away from the more sedate English garden..."
"I wonder if Bruce is back yet?" Clark hopped from his chair and headed toward the door.
"Clark." He turned at his mother's voice. "You can't go running around the grounds right now."
"I just want to find--"
"--While there's a social function going on, we stay out of the way as much as possible. It's not our place."
"Bruce is my friend."
Her mouth quirked a little; not a smile. "He is. He is also the son of your mother's employers. And during a Wayne social function, that's more important."
Clark looked away for a moment; when he looked back his smile was cheerful and guileless. "Okay, I'll go to the Fortress, then."
Martha hesitated. "That should be okay," she said eventually.
Clark did go to the Fortress; he even took the time to climb up into it for a moment so that he wouldn't possibly be lying.
Then he clambered back down and ran toward the Manor.
: : :
He knew the grounds well enough to know how to stay unseen; he and Bruce had played hide and seek in the gardens more than enough times. Through a gap in the hedge that fenced off the north garden, he slipped along the flower-lined paths without any of the scattered strollers in their fancy dresses noticing him. He was almost to the Manor when he heard Martha Wayne's voice coming along the path toward him. Looking around wildly, he ended up hiding behind a honeysuckle bush that was giving shade to a bench.
"Winifred, you look tired," Martha Wayne's low voice was solicitous. "Why don't you sit down and rest your feet?"
"I think I shall, Martha." The other woman's voice was more high-pitched, with a grating whine underneath it. "You know, I don't think I shall ever fully recover from that terrible day."
Two women came around the corner--Mrs. Wayne and a woman with orange-red hair tied back in a severe bun. They settled on the bench and Clark crouched lower behind the bush, feeling like an animal at bay.
"I know, dear. I do hope having Bruce over wasn't too much of a drain."
A short laugh. "I hardly saw him and Tommy at all. I suppose Tommy has better things to do than spend time with his old crippled mother." A long, self-pitying sigh, while Martha Wayne murmured reassuringly. "I must say, Martha, you must be feeling the loss of Mr. Barnes keenly," Mrs. Elliott went on. "I mean, look at this."
"Whatever do you mean, Winifred?"
"Zinnias? Don't you think they're a bit gaudy? I mean, maybe they suit the front of a country cottage, but not one of the finest estates in Gotham."
Clark bit his lip hard and felt his heart hammering. He was just about to surge to his feet when Martha Wayne laughed, a low lilting sound. "My dear, I chose the zinnias myself, so perhaps I should be the one exiled to a 'country cottage.'"
"I didn't mean-- That is--"
Martha cut into Winifred Elliott's flustered disclaimers, her voice amused. "Martha Kent is a godsend for Wayne Manor, Winifred. She's brought new life to these gardens, and I love them. You may feel free to report that to the Gotham City Garden Club at their next meeting."
"Well! Certainly!" Mrs. Elliott stammered.
"Do you know what we're going to do with this garden next year?" Martha Wayne's voice was dreamy. "We're going to make it over as a moon garden."
"A--a what?"
"A moon garden. All white flowers and pale foliage, so it will shine cool and silver in the moonlight, like a fairy garden."
"I never heard of such a thing!"
"Vita Sackville-West had one."
"Well, I have never heard of this Sackville-West woman, but I doubt she's one of Gotham's elite."
There was a wry tilt to Martha Wayne's voice. "No, I suppose she's not."
From behind the honeysuckle flowers, Clark saw Mrs. Elliott shake her head. "Well, it's hardly orthodox, Martha."
"Orthodox! Proper! Appropriate! Oh, you have no idea how tired of those words I can become!" Martha Wayne stood up suddenly, her back stiff. Then she sighed and turned to look at Mrs. Elliott, a small, wistful smile on her face. "Allow me my tiny inappropriate dream, Winifred."
As the other woman pulled herself painfully to her feet to join her, Martha Wayne's gaze traveled past her to where Clark was crouched behind the bush. He crouched lower, trying to make himself small--but her eyes widened as they met his.
For a long moment they looked at each other. Then Mrs. Wayne's smile deepened enough to reveal a dimple in her right cheek. Over Mrs. Elliott's shoulder, she winked at the grubby boy hiding in the shadows.
Then she was taking her friend's arm and helping her walk back toward the house, and Clark was collapsing in a long sigh of relief onto the wood-chip-covered ground.
He eased himself around the bush and made his way cautiously along the path, choosing a different direction than the two women. As he came around the last corner he saw a young boy with a shock of bright red hair crouched in front of a patch of flowers, peering into it. One hand was tightly closed; as Clark drew a little closer, the boy opened it slightly, bringing it closer to his face. A silvery moth emerged from his hand, crawling over his fingers. "Aren't you pretty," murmured the boy.
Then with a swift motion he cast the moth into the spiderweb in front of him.
The web shook as the spider rushed out to wrap the hapless moth in white strands. Clark felt rooted with horror; he must have made a sound because the boy turned and saw him. He smiled, a friendly smile that somehow chilled Clark's marrow. "Isn't it interesting? Want to give it a try?" His eyes were flat green chips, devoid of any malice, filled with nothing but curiosity. And yet Clark found himself backing away slowly. The moth wasn't struggling anymore.
He turned and ran back to the cottage.
: : :
Bruce looked anxiously at the clock. It was only thirty minutes until Gray Ghost began, and Mrs. Elliott was still talking with his mother. Tommy Elliott was curled up on the library sofa reading one of Bruce's father's medical textbooks. Bruce realized he'd re-read the same paragraph of Rocket Ship Galileo about five times without the words sinking in at all.
Mrs. Elliott finally began to move toward the door. "Come along, Tommy," she said to the boy on the couch. Then a speculative look crossed her face. "Or...you could stay the night here, if you liked. Would that be all right, Martha?" she said belatedly, turning to her friend.
"Oh...certainly!" Martha smiled; only Bruce could have seen the fleeting discomfort in her eyes. "You know Tommy is always welcome here." She turned to Bruce. "And you two can watch your show with Clark when he comes over."
Tommy put down his anatomy textbook; there was a brief glimpse of diagrams of human bodies, their illustrated skin flayed from their muscles. "Clark. Is that the boy with the floppy hair? Are you two still watching Gray Ghost?"
The mockery in his smile was so faint that the adults would miss it, but Bruce did not. He bit his lip. "It's fun," he said, surprised to hear how steady his voice sounded, how certain. Almost angry. And he was angry, he realized only after he heard his own voice. Because the Gray Ghost was fun, and he didn't like Tommy making fun of it. Or of him and Clark.
Mrs. Elliott was still watching her son. "Would you like to stay, Tommy?" she asked, ignoring his comment to Bruce.
Tommy's eyes had narrowed at Bruce's words. He slid off the couch, still studying Bruce's face, his expression the curious and abstracted one he got when studying things under a microscope. "No, I think I'll be going home. I have to prepare for the chess tournament tomorrow, and I shouldn't be wasting time," he said. He smiled politely at Bruce's mother. "Thank you for having me, Mrs. Wayne." He turned at the door. "Enjoy your little fantasy program, Bruce," he said.
Only when the Elliotts were gone did Bruce release a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He wasn't sure why he was so relieved, and he hoped his mother didn't notice. She didn't seem to as she bustled around, tidying up.
Fortunately, adults often didn't seem to notice things like that, things that Bruce couldn't help but notice: significant looks, hesitations, slips of the tongue. Adults seemed to be better at shutting them out and getting by without having to think about every little thing going on around them.
Maybe it would be easier for him when he was an adult too.
There was a gentle throat-clearing at the door and Bruce looked up to see Alfred there. "Master Bruce, Master Clark is at the back door. He--"
Bruce was pelting down the hall before the sentence was done.
: : :
"I don't care if zeppelins don't work that way, the battle was awesome!"
Bruce suppressed a grin as he and Clark quietly climbed the stairs to the attic floor and the old servants' wing. Other than Alfred and the Kents, none of the staff actually lived on the Manor grounds anymore, which meant the very top floor of the building was abandoned. He and Clark liked to sneak up here sometimes, to explore the maze of tiny rooms. "Yes, the battle was pretty awesome," he agreed. Clark was never terribly interested in the science of how things like zeppelins or quasars or atoms really worked--it wasn't that he didn't understand them, he just was more interested in the overall sweep of the story, the plot and the characters and their motivations, than the actual nuts and bolts of time travel.
Clark started rummaging in the boxes stacked on the floor, unearthing treasures: old sepia photographs of strangers, brooches made of ivory, satin slippers with holes in the soles, the detritus of generations. He pulled out a brown felt derby and balanced it on his head, grinning over at Bruce. "Oh," he said softly, reaching into the box. "Look at this." It was an ornate silver letter opener, shaped like a dagger with blue glass gems set in the hilt. "It's...the sword of the League of Valor." He brandished it at Bruce, his eyes bright under the derby. "Have at thee, varlet!" His hair had fallen slightly into his eyes, and Bruce suddenly heard again Tommy's voice: Clark. The boy with the floppy hair?
"You met Tommy today," he said without thinking, and Clark's gaze dropped.
"I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have been there during the party--"
"--I don't care. You're my friend," Bruce said. Clark was busy peering into the box again and didn't answer. Bruce picked up the letter opener, turning it around in his hands, watching the dull and dusty light of the attic kindle in the blue glass. "Do you ever think that we're...wasting our time?" he asked slowly.
"What do you mean?" Clark said, not looking up.
"I mean, someday we're going to have to grow up and put it all away. The Gray Ghost, Zorro, the League of Valor--"
Clark scrambled to his feet, cutting Bruce off. His eyes were blazing brighter than the blue rhinestones--not with anger, with something fiercer and more joyful. "Put valor away? Put heroism and bravery and justice away, Bruce?" He smiled as if surprised at his own words, as if delighted by them. "You know better than that. Those aren't kid's things, Bruce. They're the most important things of all." His rapt smile gentled, wrapping Bruce in something shared and special. "You know that."
Bruce looked down at the little dagger. After a moment he held it up to Clark. "We can put this in the Secret Fortress. It can be the Sword of Oaths, and whenever we make a promise we have to put our hands on it and swear."
Clark reached out and rested his hands on top of the dagger as well. "Yes," he said, as simply as a vow.
(Chapter Six)