Gardens of Wayne Manor: Oath (7/37)
Title: Chapter Seven: Oath
Pairing/Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Martha Kent
Rating: PG
Warnings: Character death referenced
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: 2200Summary: Terrible things happen, and Clark can only be there for Bruce in small ways, but small ways can matter deeply.
November
"...and I solemnly swear to live by honor and for glory, to protect the innocent and comfort the wronged, and to be in all things brave and true."
The two boys finished reciting the Code of the League of Valor and Clark put the Sword of Oaths in its place on the wall of the tree house again. Then he turned to Bruce, grinning. "Boy, what are we going to do today?" he asked with relish.
Bruce stretched his arm, still feeling the ghost-cramping of the cast on it. Finally free. He hadn't been able to climb the rope ladder to the Secret Fortress for six whole weeks. Clark had insisted he come up and renew his oath right away. "Well, I can do this now," he said, lunging forward to tickle Clark's ribs. Clark made a sound that was supposed to be challenging but was quite close to a squeal, dodging him.
"Watch it," Clark announced between giggles, "I'd hate to break your other arm."
"As if," Bruce snorted, and the two wrestled good-naturedly for a time until Clark started sneezing. Bruce lay next to him on the rough wooden floor, staring up at the pictures tacked on the ceiling, photos of Australia, Nepal, Japan, Sweden, the Amazon--all the places they were planning on traveling together someday--and just felt glad to be alive, his breath gusting faint white clouds into the chilly air.
"Actually," he said, "Can we go back to your place where it's warm and read for a while?"
"You bet," said Clark, scrambling to his feet.
"I am so jealous you get to see Zorro before I do!" Clark's voice drifted down to him as Bruce descended the rope ladder.
"We'll go together next weekend," Bruce said apologetically.
"It's not the same," Clark said as if he was trying not to sound petulant, scrambling down to the ground.
"I'm sorry," said Bruce for what must have been the twentieth time. And he was sorry. But not too sorry, because he didn't get to go to the movies with his father much, and a small part of him had been looking forward to this night for the last two months. "Look, I promise I won't go see the Gray Ghost movie at Christmas without you."
Clark swung to look at him. "Promise?"
Bruce couldn't help laughing at the intensity in his eyes. "I promise! Do we need to go back up so I can swear it on--"
"--Nah." Clark elbowed him in the side, grinning. "I trust you. I promise I'll wait to see it with you, too."
"Cool."
For a moment Clark just looked at Bruce, smiling a bit goofily. Then he pivoted, his face flushed pink with the cold air, and broke into a run. "Race you!" he called back.
"No fair!" Bruce howled. "Cheat!"
Cozily installed in Clark's bedroom shortly after, fortified with hot chocolate and macaroons, the boys settled in. Bruce had been on a Hardy Boys kick recently; a neat stack of blue-bound books awaited him. Clark, on the other hand, was laboriously making his way through Bulfinch's Mythology, stopping every couple of pages to check a word in a dictionary, brow furrowed in concentration. His lips moved slightly and his eyes were shining. "Seraphical," he whispered.
"What?" Bruce was only half-listening; Frank and Joe were about to unravel the Clue of the Broken Blade.
"Seraphical," Clark repeated, drawing the word out luxuriously. "It means 'like an angel." That's what Orlando looked like when he died. And then Charlemagne showed up after he was dead and 'threw himself, as if he had been a reckless youth, and embraced and kissed the body,'" he read, looking down at his finger on the page. "It's very sad."
"Hmm," Bruce said, more concerned with the mystery of the stolen sword.
From the Manor came the sound of Martha Wayne calling Bruce's name. Bruce glanced at their alarm clock and jumped up. "Oh, I have to get going! The movie starts soon."
Clark looked up from his Charlemagne, too lost in medieval France to be jealous of Bruce. "You'll tell me everything? Pinkie promise?"
Bruce held out his hand, the little finger crooked, and they solemnly shook on it.
: : :
It wasn't much fun to keep reading without Bruce there, somehow, so Clark marked his book with a scarlet leaf from one of the Manor oaks and went into the kitchen.
His mother was poring over a stack of maps and diagrams on the kitchen table. "Oh, there you are," she said. She got up and ladled beef stew into two bowls; the scent of garlic and bay leaf made Clark's mouth water.
"What are you working on?" he asked as she cleared away the papers so they could eat.
"Mrs. Wayne's moon garden. I'm trying to decide between the Crystalline or Polar Star hybrid teas for the roses."
Clark gulped his stew and looked over at the photos. "I like the Polar Star ones. But they're both pretty," he said judiciously.
"I'm going to have all the paths of white stones, and Mrs. Wayne just ordered the statue she wants at the center. I think it's all coming together nicely," Martha said. She gave him a crooked smile. "Are you still mad at Bruce?"
Clark flushed a little to think that his sulking over the movie had been so obvious and took a big mouthful of stew to cover his discomfort. "He doesn't get to go out with his father much, so... I remember when Pa and I went to see Flash Gordon together. It was cool." He smiled a little at his mother. "I'm lucky I have good memories of him," he said.
She ruffled his hair. "Yes, you are." She absently touched the falling-star pendant she always wore. "We both are."
There was a cold wind picking up as they cleared off the table; it rattled at the corners and windows of the little bungalow. "Looks like a storm tonight," Martha said.
Clark curled up in bed and read Bulfinch all evening, looking up at the Manor to see when the Waynes returned. He fell asleep with his book on his chest and the Manor windows still dark.
Martha slipped in and closed the curtains, and so he slept through the slow sweep of headlights returning across the darkness, making their reluctant way to the Manor, waking it from sleep to nightmare.
: : :
Clark slowly slipped his arms into the black suit, feeling it settle on his shoulders. He hadn't worn it for almost a year, not since... He blinked at the pale wrists the sleeves wouldn't cover.
"My, you've grown this last year," his mother tsked, tugging at the suit to make it fit right. She glanced in the mirror and sighed, adjusting her own hat with its bit of black veil.
"I don't know what to do," Clark whispered, and she bent down to hug him.
"Just be there for Bruce, dear. After all, you know a little of what he's going through. You know how he's feeling."
"Not really," Clark said, looking at the stiff, awkward boy in the mirror, feeling warm arms around him. He still had his mother, after all. Bruce was all alone. And not just that. Clark had heard what happened from the other servants' gossip and from the newspapers: the dark alley, the gunshots, the blood. "The poor boy's suit was all splattered with it," Antonia had said with relish to the maids as Clark made himself small in a corner of the kitchen, hoping to catch a glimpse of Bruce somewhere. "They bled to death right there in front of him and he sat in the dark, all covered with their blood. My friend Bobby--he's on the force, he was there--said he wasn't even crying when they came, just a little broken doll in the street with dead eyes and blood in his hair--" Alfred Pennyworth entered the kitchen then and looked at her, and she had fallen into sullen silence, the maids slipping away like mist before a wrathful sun.
No, Clark wasn't sure he understood how Bruce was feeling at all.
: : :
The funeral was quiet and solemn and rather impersonal. Winifred Elliott sobbed loudly into a lace handkerchief, but everyone else seemed in shock, subdued. Tommy Elliott sat next to his mother, his gaze diamond-sharp toward the front of the church and the two black coffins covered with white lilies. Clark couldn't seem to read his expression, but there was something painful and yearning about it.
Clark thought about his Pa and believed he understood how Tommy was feeling.
Clark could see the back of Bruce's head five pews ahead of him, the closest he'd gotten to Bruce since that night. Bruce stood up to sing the hymns (Time, like an ever rolling stream / Bears all its sons away / They fly, forgotten, as a dream / Dies at the opening day...) and sat down when they were done, and looked straight ahead the whole time.
The long, slow procession to the cemetery dragged by. Clark and his mother rode with Antonia and her husband. A raindrop spattered the windshield, then another. Soon a steady pouring rain set in, drowning all the world outside in darkness.
At the gravesite, Clark watched Bruce as earth was shoveled onto the coffins, dirt and rain showering down. Alfred Pennyworth held a black umbrella over Bruce's head, his own face bleak.
There was an endless receiving line. When he finally reached Bruce, Clark stood for a moment, irresolute. Then he stuck out his hand. Bruce took it mechanically, looking at Clark and then through him. "I'm sorry," said Clark. "Let me know if I can help."
For a moment, Bruce's eyes focused on Clark's face. For just a moment, some strong emotion tore across his face like a gust of wind across water. "Thanks," he said, and his hand tightened on Clark's.
And then Clark had to move on, had to listen to Antonia's gossip fill the car all the way home.
He was sitting in bed later that night, listening to the wind howl and the rain drum on the roof, when he looked out the window and nearly dropped his book. Off in the distance, as if underwater, a light was glimmering, coming from the Secret Fortress. It blinked out his name in Morse code, then paused and started again.
Clark was running toward the treehouse before the final dash dot dash appeared again, his slippers soaked already, shivering in the cold rain.
He clambered up the rope ladder to find Bruce sitting with the flashlight in his hands, waiting. The wind was making the whole tree tremble, the boards of the Fortress creaking, branches scratching up against the sides like skeletal fingers. There was a sudden flash of lightning, far off.
"I need you to witness an oath," Bruce said.
The thunder arrived as he finished speaking, a low growl muttering after his words.
"Sure," Clark stammered. "Let me...." He grabbed the little silver blade from its hanger on the wall. Holding it between them by the hilt, he started: "Do you solemnly swear on the Sword of Oaths--"
"--It's not a sword," Bruce said harshly. He reached out and wrapped his hand around the blade. "It's just a letter opener. It's not real. None of that stuff is real. But this oath is. I'm going to make it real." His hand tightened on the blade until the skin was white across the knuckles; his eyes were like dark holes, boring into Clark. "And I swear--I swear on my life that I'm going to--" He stopped suddenly and blinked, as if he wasn't sure how to continue. "I'm going to--stop bad things from happening," he finally said, with a strange, heavy emphasis on each word, as if they meant something to him alone. His face twisted. "There's no valor. And there's no glory. But there are bad things in the world. And someday, somehow, I'm going to stop them."
"Okay," Clark whispered. Bruce seemed beyond comfort, beyond solace, beyond humanity itself. In that moment, Clark gave him the only thing he could: his assent, if not his understanding. "Okay."
Bruce nodded, once. There was another flash of lightning, much closer this time, then a sharp bang of thunder that made Clark jump. Bruce didn't even seem to notice it; he released the letter opener and sighed as if suddenly exhausted. Clark wanted to catch up his hand and check to make sure he wasn't injured, but Bruce was already moving toward the rope ladder. He disappeared into the storming night, and Clark wasn't sure if he heard or only imagined a last "thank you" drift back under the sound of the rain.
Clark watched the small figure trudge through the sheets of rain back toward the Manor, shoulders lowered into the wind, setting himself against the storm.
(Chapter Eight)
Pairing/Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Martha Kent
Rating: PG
Warnings: Character death referenced
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: 2200Summary: Terrible things happen, and Clark can only be there for Bruce in small ways, but small ways can matter deeply.
November
"...and I solemnly swear to live by honor and for glory, to protect the innocent and comfort the wronged, and to be in all things brave and true."
The two boys finished reciting the Code of the League of Valor and Clark put the Sword of Oaths in its place on the wall of the tree house again. Then he turned to Bruce, grinning. "Boy, what are we going to do today?" he asked with relish.
Bruce stretched his arm, still feeling the ghost-cramping of the cast on it. Finally free. He hadn't been able to climb the rope ladder to the Secret Fortress for six whole weeks. Clark had insisted he come up and renew his oath right away. "Well, I can do this now," he said, lunging forward to tickle Clark's ribs. Clark made a sound that was supposed to be challenging but was quite close to a squeal, dodging him.
"Watch it," Clark announced between giggles, "I'd hate to break your other arm."
"As if," Bruce snorted, and the two wrestled good-naturedly for a time until Clark started sneezing. Bruce lay next to him on the rough wooden floor, staring up at the pictures tacked on the ceiling, photos of Australia, Nepal, Japan, Sweden, the Amazon--all the places they were planning on traveling together someday--and just felt glad to be alive, his breath gusting faint white clouds into the chilly air.
"Actually," he said, "Can we go back to your place where it's warm and read for a while?"
"You bet," said Clark, scrambling to his feet.
"I am so jealous you get to see Zorro before I do!" Clark's voice drifted down to him as Bruce descended the rope ladder.
"We'll go together next weekend," Bruce said apologetically.
"It's not the same," Clark said as if he was trying not to sound petulant, scrambling down to the ground.
"I'm sorry," said Bruce for what must have been the twentieth time. And he was sorry. But not too sorry, because he didn't get to go to the movies with his father much, and a small part of him had been looking forward to this night for the last two months. "Look, I promise I won't go see the Gray Ghost movie at Christmas without you."
Clark swung to look at him. "Promise?"
Bruce couldn't help laughing at the intensity in his eyes. "I promise! Do we need to go back up so I can swear it on--"
"--Nah." Clark elbowed him in the side, grinning. "I trust you. I promise I'll wait to see it with you, too."
"Cool."
For a moment Clark just looked at Bruce, smiling a bit goofily. Then he pivoted, his face flushed pink with the cold air, and broke into a run. "Race you!" he called back.
"No fair!" Bruce howled. "Cheat!"
Cozily installed in Clark's bedroom shortly after, fortified with hot chocolate and macaroons, the boys settled in. Bruce had been on a Hardy Boys kick recently; a neat stack of blue-bound books awaited him. Clark, on the other hand, was laboriously making his way through Bulfinch's Mythology, stopping every couple of pages to check a word in a dictionary, brow furrowed in concentration. His lips moved slightly and his eyes were shining. "Seraphical," he whispered.
"What?" Bruce was only half-listening; Frank and Joe were about to unravel the Clue of the Broken Blade.
"Seraphical," Clark repeated, drawing the word out luxuriously. "It means 'like an angel." That's what Orlando looked like when he died. And then Charlemagne showed up after he was dead and 'threw himself, as if he had been a reckless youth, and embraced and kissed the body,'" he read, looking down at his finger on the page. "It's very sad."
"Hmm," Bruce said, more concerned with the mystery of the stolen sword.
From the Manor came the sound of Martha Wayne calling Bruce's name. Bruce glanced at their alarm clock and jumped up. "Oh, I have to get going! The movie starts soon."
Clark looked up from his Charlemagne, too lost in medieval France to be jealous of Bruce. "You'll tell me everything? Pinkie promise?"
Bruce held out his hand, the little finger crooked, and they solemnly shook on it.
: : :
It wasn't much fun to keep reading without Bruce there, somehow, so Clark marked his book with a scarlet leaf from one of the Manor oaks and went into the kitchen.
His mother was poring over a stack of maps and diagrams on the kitchen table. "Oh, there you are," she said. She got up and ladled beef stew into two bowls; the scent of garlic and bay leaf made Clark's mouth water.
"What are you working on?" he asked as she cleared away the papers so they could eat.
"Mrs. Wayne's moon garden. I'm trying to decide between the Crystalline or Polar Star hybrid teas for the roses."
Clark gulped his stew and looked over at the photos. "I like the Polar Star ones. But they're both pretty," he said judiciously.
"I'm going to have all the paths of white stones, and Mrs. Wayne just ordered the statue she wants at the center. I think it's all coming together nicely," Martha said. She gave him a crooked smile. "Are you still mad at Bruce?"
Clark flushed a little to think that his sulking over the movie had been so obvious and took a big mouthful of stew to cover his discomfort. "He doesn't get to go out with his father much, so... I remember when Pa and I went to see Flash Gordon together. It was cool." He smiled a little at his mother. "I'm lucky I have good memories of him," he said.
She ruffled his hair. "Yes, you are." She absently touched the falling-star pendant she always wore. "We both are."
There was a cold wind picking up as they cleared off the table; it rattled at the corners and windows of the little bungalow. "Looks like a storm tonight," Martha said.
Clark curled up in bed and read Bulfinch all evening, looking up at the Manor to see when the Waynes returned. He fell asleep with his book on his chest and the Manor windows still dark.
Martha slipped in and closed the curtains, and so he slept through the slow sweep of headlights returning across the darkness, making their reluctant way to the Manor, waking it from sleep to nightmare.
: : :
Clark slowly slipped his arms into the black suit, feeling it settle on his shoulders. He hadn't worn it for almost a year, not since... He blinked at the pale wrists the sleeves wouldn't cover.
"My, you've grown this last year," his mother tsked, tugging at the suit to make it fit right. She glanced in the mirror and sighed, adjusting her own hat with its bit of black veil.
"I don't know what to do," Clark whispered, and she bent down to hug him.
"Just be there for Bruce, dear. After all, you know a little of what he's going through. You know how he's feeling."
"Not really," Clark said, looking at the stiff, awkward boy in the mirror, feeling warm arms around him. He still had his mother, after all. Bruce was all alone. And not just that. Clark had heard what happened from the other servants' gossip and from the newspapers: the dark alley, the gunshots, the blood. "The poor boy's suit was all splattered with it," Antonia had said with relish to the maids as Clark made himself small in a corner of the kitchen, hoping to catch a glimpse of Bruce somewhere. "They bled to death right there in front of him and he sat in the dark, all covered with their blood. My friend Bobby--he's on the force, he was there--said he wasn't even crying when they came, just a little broken doll in the street with dead eyes and blood in his hair--" Alfred Pennyworth entered the kitchen then and looked at her, and she had fallen into sullen silence, the maids slipping away like mist before a wrathful sun.
No, Clark wasn't sure he understood how Bruce was feeling at all.
: : :
The funeral was quiet and solemn and rather impersonal. Winifred Elliott sobbed loudly into a lace handkerchief, but everyone else seemed in shock, subdued. Tommy Elliott sat next to his mother, his gaze diamond-sharp toward the front of the church and the two black coffins covered with white lilies. Clark couldn't seem to read his expression, but there was something painful and yearning about it.
Clark thought about his Pa and believed he understood how Tommy was feeling.
Clark could see the back of Bruce's head five pews ahead of him, the closest he'd gotten to Bruce since that night. Bruce stood up to sing the hymns (Time, like an ever rolling stream / Bears all its sons away / They fly, forgotten, as a dream / Dies at the opening day...) and sat down when they were done, and looked straight ahead the whole time.
The long, slow procession to the cemetery dragged by. Clark and his mother rode with Antonia and her husband. A raindrop spattered the windshield, then another. Soon a steady pouring rain set in, drowning all the world outside in darkness.
At the gravesite, Clark watched Bruce as earth was shoveled onto the coffins, dirt and rain showering down. Alfred Pennyworth held a black umbrella over Bruce's head, his own face bleak.
There was an endless receiving line. When he finally reached Bruce, Clark stood for a moment, irresolute. Then he stuck out his hand. Bruce took it mechanically, looking at Clark and then through him. "I'm sorry," said Clark. "Let me know if I can help."
For a moment, Bruce's eyes focused on Clark's face. For just a moment, some strong emotion tore across his face like a gust of wind across water. "Thanks," he said, and his hand tightened on Clark's.
And then Clark had to move on, had to listen to Antonia's gossip fill the car all the way home.
He was sitting in bed later that night, listening to the wind howl and the rain drum on the roof, when he looked out the window and nearly dropped his book. Off in the distance, as if underwater, a light was glimmering, coming from the Secret Fortress. It blinked out his name in Morse code, then paused and started again.
Clark was running toward the treehouse before the final dash dot dash appeared again, his slippers soaked already, shivering in the cold rain.
He clambered up the rope ladder to find Bruce sitting with the flashlight in his hands, waiting. The wind was making the whole tree tremble, the boards of the Fortress creaking, branches scratching up against the sides like skeletal fingers. There was a sudden flash of lightning, far off.
"I need you to witness an oath," Bruce said.
The thunder arrived as he finished speaking, a low growl muttering after his words.
"Sure," Clark stammered. "Let me...." He grabbed the little silver blade from its hanger on the wall. Holding it between them by the hilt, he started: "Do you solemnly swear on the Sword of Oaths--"
"--It's not a sword," Bruce said harshly. He reached out and wrapped his hand around the blade. "It's just a letter opener. It's not real. None of that stuff is real. But this oath is. I'm going to make it real." His hand tightened on the blade until the skin was white across the knuckles; his eyes were like dark holes, boring into Clark. "And I swear--I swear on my life that I'm going to--" He stopped suddenly and blinked, as if he wasn't sure how to continue. "I'm going to--stop bad things from happening," he finally said, with a strange, heavy emphasis on each word, as if they meant something to him alone. His face twisted. "There's no valor. And there's no glory. But there are bad things in the world. And someday, somehow, I'm going to stop them."
"Okay," Clark whispered. Bruce seemed beyond comfort, beyond solace, beyond humanity itself. In that moment, Clark gave him the only thing he could: his assent, if not his understanding. "Okay."
Bruce nodded, once. There was another flash of lightning, much closer this time, then a sharp bang of thunder that made Clark jump. Bruce didn't even seem to notice it; he released the letter opener and sighed as if suddenly exhausted. Clark wanted to catch up his hand and check to make sure he wasn't injured, but Bruce was already moving toward the rope ladder. He disappeared into the storming night, and Clark wasn't sure if he heard or only imagined a last "thank you" drift back under the sound of the rain.
Clark watched the small figure trudge through the sheets of rain back toward the Manor, shoulders lowered into the wind, setting himself against the storm.
(Chapter Eight)