Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

June 26, 20XX

Bruce walked out of the theater, leading his parents—his mother always said he was a fine leader, he was always sure to emulate that when with them—out. They walked shortly behind him, speaking quietly about the movie: The Mark of Zorro. They had liked it. He wasn’t sure about all of what happened—some parts were confusing, weird—but as far as they needed to know, he understood all of it and was quite entertained by it.

His parents always held a different air than they did at home, Bruce noticed. He fell back to walk in line with them, his mother resting a fond hand on his shoulder. He looked up at them, tuning in to their voices. They spoke somewhat posh ly, a bit haughty, a vague English or trans-Atlantic accent falling into their voices. He thought it odd, but he tried to mimic them, but they tended to laugh at his attempts, cooing over him as though he was a baby. 

Bruce wasn’t a baby. He was almost ten, and that’s double digits! That’s not a baby. He didn’t protest, though, because it was his parents and he loved them and as far as they said, they loved him, even if they did spend a lot of time out and about without him and wouldn’t let him hang out with them and he never saw or heard Father after dinner. Bruce asked Mother once, where Father always went; she seemed uncomfortable: “Thomas is busy, Bruce. He has… business to attend to.” He didn’t ask again after that.

Bruce let his parents lead him to the car, which they’d parked in an alleyway a block or so away from the theatre. He halfheartedly listened as they spoke, hearing weird words about brokers and agents and the stock—he knew that one!—market. He figured he wouldn’t care, anyway, if he did know what they were talking about.

He looked up at his father. Father—Mr. Thomas Wayyyynnne, as the people (trying to get close with him for his money) called him (that’s what Mother had told Bruce, he was unsure of its accuracy)—had light stubble and, as one of the ladies at the dumb parties and galas Father and Mother made him go to, a jawline which could cut diamond, and a straight nose, and firm blue eyes. The eyes were the only resemblance he could find between himself and Father, but Mother told him on the regular that Bruce was growing more and more to look like his father every day. One time, Mother had even told him that he was developing the brains of his father—that had made his day. Maybe his week. He hoped she was telling the truth. 

Bruce watched Father fumble with the keys in the door. He looked at Mother. 

She was wearing pearls tonight, dressed very well, but they looked different from her usual that she wore to galas and whatnot. They were smoother, less shiny, a brighter, cooler white. He vaguely wondered why she’d worn them. Probably for a good reason—he frequently heard Father tell Mother how bright she was. Father wouldn’t lie.

As he was watching his mother, he was vaguely aware of an incredibly loud bang! and red spilling down her sternum and pooling at the neck of her dress before dribbling over that and soaking the lilac. Red spilling from a hole. A hole in his mother. Mother had a hole in her—she didn’t usually, did she? Where did that come from? 

Bruce heard another bang! and turned to see his father crumple to the ground on the other side of the car, a broken shout coming from him. He heard the keys clatter on the ground. A strange sense of confusion overcame him. He whipped back to his mother, who was now kneeling beside him. He crouched down. “Mother?” He asked softly. Her pearls had been torn and were now on the ground. “No, don’t worry, Mother, I’ll collect them for you.” Bruce begins to gather the pearls, offering them to Mother as he does so. She doesn’t take them and he sighs. “Mother, can you take these?” He asks. She doesn’t answer, so he resolves to continue collecting them. He hears his father cough, a wet sound, and go silent. 

Bruce drops a pearl, and tries to grab it, but in the action just drops another. He sighs. “Mother, please, take them?” He continues collecting, holding them close to his chest to try to avoid scattering them again. A few drop from his fist—too small to really hold so many!—but he continues picking them up. He hears someone run up to him, their footsteps rapid and frantic. Someone rests their hand on his shoulder and he looks up, holding the pearls. Mother’s red dress was quite lovely. She should wear more red. His eyes wouldn’t quite focus, but after a few moments he recognised the someone as Alfred, his parents’ butler. He looked at him blankly, holding the pearls. 

After several seconds, he greeted the butler, standing to meet him and to be a little closer to his eye level: “Hello, Alfred!” He grinned. “Mother dropped her pearls. I’m collecting them for her. Can you hold them? My hands are too small to hold them all.” 

Alfred looked weird. Scared. Bruce giggled. “What’re you so scared of, Alfred?” He handed the red pearls to him. “It’s okay, I have bad dreams sometimes, too.” 

Alfred took Bruce’s little hand, neglecting the red pearls. “I… I’ll be back, shortly. Master Bruce. Stay here.” 

Bruce watched Alfred walk away. He watched his back as he left the alley. His gaze returned to the ground, finally free of pearls. “Mother, do you want these back?” He asked. She still didn’t answer. She must’ve been taking a nap.

Bruce still clutched a few of the red pearls. Bruce looked around the alley, a curious look on his face. A curious feeling in his chest. A weird feeling. He opened his palm to examine the red pearls. Those pearls shouldn’t be red. They should be white. They’re red. They’re supposed to be white. Covered in red liquid. In dark red liquid slowly turning brown, dark red which covered his hands and which he felt seeping through the knees of his pants. Blood. He was covered in blood. In his mother’s blood, which had covered her lilac dress. Which had seeped and oozed from the hole in her chest. Bang ! His mother was dead. Bang ! His father was dead. They were both dead and he was an orphan. He was an orphan at nine years old. Not even double digits. He felt the white pearls drop from his hands and sank to his knees. “Oh my god,” he whispered. Tears welled in his eyes. He felt as though he, too, had been shot, just below his ribs. He was shaking. “Oh, my god ,” he muttered. He felt as though someone was scraping his insides out and dropping them to the ground where his mother lay dead. Bruce looked around frantically.

“Help!” He screamed, horrified. “Please, please, help me!” The tears finally spilled over and he tried to scrub them away but he was just rubbing blood all over his face . His mother’s blood. He was covered in his mother’s blood and—

Bruce frantically tried to cover the wound, to stem the bleeding, but it had already clotted, it was already sticky and yucky and she was already dead and he was so scared and couldn’t bring her back and “What do I do?!” He shrieked. He really was so small and helpless. His father—his dead father —was already gone and couldn’t help him and Mother would be so disappointed— why can’t you be more like Thomas— he was so so scared. His breath picked up desperately. Terrified. “Mother!” He screamed. 

It felt as though he knelt like that for a month, a year, screaming his lungs raw. His throat hurt. He heard footsteps, familiar footsteps, Alfred’s footsteps, approaching him, accompanied by a few others, somebody new. “Bruce?” Alfred’s voice called. Bruce looked up, horror in his face. He stood and ran to Alfred, fisting the butler’s coat and clinging onto him. “Alfred, Alfred they’re dead, ” he stammered. He looked back to Mother, the blood pooled around her, and spun to face from Alfred. He vomited on the ground. His bile mixed with Mother’s blood. Tears streamed down his face again, drawing tracks through the blood. 

Alfred drew him closer, wrapping his arms around Bruce in a comforting gesture. His eyes were wide. He hushed Bruce: “Shh, Master Bruce, calm yourself. You’re—you’re safe. You’ll be okay.” He stroked Bruce’s back, turning him to face Alfred. Bruce buried his face in Alfred’s side, his tears staining the man’s black blazer. 

The next days Bruce spent in a blur, falling between fits of tears and screams and numb silence. He was fairly sure he’d eaten, but he couldn’t risk eating any more than he must’ve, lest he vomit again and be struck with the image of his mother’s blood mixing with the sickly chartreuse bile. He ignored Alfred’s worried looks and attempts to feed him while he lay in bed, instead opting to spend his days crawling into his parents’ bed and sobbing at pictures he’d drawn mere weeks ago, of the three holding hands in a grassy field, a yellow sun in the right corner.

Bruce laid there. He hadn’t thought much over the past however many days, nor eaten, he recognised that. He was lucid for the first time in nearly a week and his hair was mussed and tears were crusted around his eyes. Alfred’s soft footsteps padded down the hallway, and Bruce tried to sit up but his body felt weak. A sharp pang of hunger washed over him, and his stomach growled. 

Alfred knocked on the door and, after waiting a few seconds for no response, opened the door, poking his head in. “Master Bruce?” He asked, his voice soft. Bruce stared at him, his eyes drooping with exhaustion. 

Alfred stepped into the room. “How do you feel?” He seemed to recognise Bruce’s consciousness. He held a tray of—praise the lord—cut-up fruit and a glass of water.

“Awful,” Bruce mumbled, his throat raw and dry. He felt so small as Alfred sat on the edge of the bed next to him. Bruce again attempted to sit up, managed, and took a square of melon. He chewed it thoughtfully, the fluid sliding down his dry throat and cooling him.

Alfred looked somewhat relieved at Bruce eating. Bruce tried not to feel guilty for his effects upon Alfred’s well-being. Bruce pulled his knees up to his chest, hugging himself into a small ball. 

Alfred was silent for a while, just watching Bruce slowly eat the fruit. “I’m glad you’re eating,” he finally spoke. Bruce gave a noncommittal grunt in reply. Alfred looked saddened at that reply (or, more accurately, lack thereof) but didn’t comment on it. “You’ve grown so much,” Alfred mused. 

Bruce frowned. “I haven’t been eating. Should’ve done the opposite.”

Alfred shook his head: “No, not in that way—you seem… older. You act beyond your years.” He hesitated. “That worries me, Master Bruce.” 

Bruce didn’t answer, instead opting to drink the glass of water. He felt exhausted again and leaned back to his pillow. He knew he looked awful—he felt it. “I’m going back to sleep,” he muttered. He turned to lay on his side. Alfred didn’t leave, which was unsettling (yet comforting). 

The last thing Bruce saw, before letting go to the fog which clouded his thoughts, was Alfred staring at him, somewhat longingly, somewhat sadly, as though he were grieving not for Bruce’s mother and father, but for Bruce, himself.

Chapter Text

September 5, 20XX

Alfred knocked on Bruce’s door and reached in, flipping the lightswitch. Bruce groaned in response. 

Five years ago, Bruce had watched his parents die before him, and five years ago, Bruce’s essence, that which made him Bruce Wayne, had been torn out of him, scooped out of him like stuffing from a turkey. 

Alfred had been slowly lumping Bruce back together, making him somebody, and Bruce had slowly been becoming a person, but… There’s only so much anyone can do to a broken child.

Bruce was now fourteen. It was a cold September in Gotham, the bitter cold slipping through the gaps in the windows of the progressively-worsening Wayne Manor.

Since Bruce’s parents had died, the house had been growing more decrepit, despite Alfred’s best efforts. There was only so much he could do alone.

Alfred knocked on the door again. “Master Bruce?” He called. Bruce groaned again. 

Bruce, now technically a freshman, was, this year, going to school—the Gotham-Metropolis Academy for the Gifted (or GAG, as he’d heard it called)—for the first time since… before. 

(He’d separated the two halves of his life, with a firm line dividing the time before his parents and after. Before was colourful and bright and fun and Bruce had been happy , and after was… Grey.)

Bruce finally swung his legs over the side of his bed, hissing as they touched the cold wooden floor. “I’m up,” he mumbled. Alfred’s soft footsteps padded away from Bruce’s room. Bruce staggered to his dresser, where Alfred had folded his new uniform. Bruce stripped himself of the soft pajamas and tossed them on his unmade bed. He pulled on the uniform, looking somewhat disdainfully at the bright purple tie. Bruce put on a black overcoat and squinted at himself in the mirror. He looked awfully peppy , something he hadn’t seen in himself since…

Bruce grabbed a leather stained black satchel and slung it over his shoulder, stuffing a few assorted notebooks in it. As an afterthought, he grabbed a pencil—no need to be that kid . 

He glanced at himself in the mirror before leaving. His mother was right—he looked like his father. Uncannily so. The thought swelled his chest with pride, before he felt embarrassed of himself and stamped that down. Corny.

Bruce walked out of his room. He didn’t remember dreading school with this much vigor Before. Granted, he also didn’t remember feeling miserable all the time Before, so After must have played some part in it. Bruce stopped in the kitchen, where Alfred was sitting at the island, reading the paper. Bruce felt a strange wave of familiarity wash over him, recognition. Following… the after , Alfred had been gaining more and more mannerisms reflecting Bruce’s parents. Bruce was still unsure of how he felt upon it—though it brought a rock to a time when he desperately needed stability, it was likely an unhealthy way to cope. Bruce decided not to think about that.

Alfred appraised him with a proud look. “You look like your father,” Alfred said, parroting Bruce’s own thoughts. Bruce wasn’t sure how to answer, so he muttered out a thanks. Alfred’s face softened, yet he didn’t respond. Bruce looked down at the floor, a weird yet characteristic pang of guilt sliding into his chest.

“Can we leave?” He asked the floor. Alfred stood from the table and nodded. Bruce shuffled behind Alfred, always trailing in his footsteps like a baby duckling. Bruce wondered to himself if Alfred was a sort of father to him. Bruce didn’t like that thought.

——————————————————————————

Bruce climbed out of the car, murmuring another thanks to Alfred as he gently shut the door. Alfred had dropped him off about a block from the school, so he’d “have a chance to meet someone his own age”—Alfred’s words. 

Bruce started toward GAG, head down and feet shuffling, eyes trained on the concrete. It was smooth and perfect. The stamps on every few squares said it’d been redone the prior year. 

“Yes, Ma, I know, I’ll call you when I need to come home,” a boy called to a rusty blue truck, backing up toward Bruce. Bruce didn’t move, assuming the boy would stop on his own, and was promptly knocked to the ground. He didn’t think he was that fragile.

The boy yelped and spun around. He wore something not dissimilar to the GAG uniform, but the black vest wasn’t quite black and the purple tie had a nearly indiscernible striped pattern. Bruce figured he was a scholarship student, rather than one like him who’d paid his way in.

The boy reached a hand out to Bruce, holding his backpack which hung on one shoulder from falling with his free elbow as he leaned over Bruce. “I’m so sorry, are you okay? Are you hurt? Oh, gee…” The boy stammered in a thick midwestern accent—gross—as he lifted Bruce. The boy was built like a corn-fed bus who played basketball with bales of hay in his spare time. He had a chiseled and pretty face framed by dark brown curls, a layer of baby fat yet to fall. He was pretty. The boy wore a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, yet as far as Bruce could see, they didn’t seem to be prescription. The boy dusted Bruce off, yet the rainwater which seemed to coat every surface in Gotham had soaked through his pants.

The boy stuck out a hand to shake. Bruce disdainfully took it. “I’m Clark,” the boy told Bruce brightly, a dorky and lopsided grin adorning his face. 

“I’m Bruce,” Bruce said softly. He felt awkward next to Clark, as though the brightness and joy which seemed to emulate from Clark was rubbing off on Bruce and muddling the darkness which seemed to envelop his every move. 

“You go to GAG?” Clark asked. “Oh, for crying out loud—obviously. Sorry, I’m all poohed out—been workin’ hard as a bucket in the rain.” 

Bruce looked at him in bewilderment.

Clark laughed nervously. “Is there something on my face?”

Bruce shook his head. “You say… a lot of words. Which all mean very little.” 

Clark smiled, raising an eyebrow as though Bruce had said something weird and as though he hadn’t just been speaking fluent gibberish. “Bless your heart,” he grinned. Bruce assumed that was a compliment.

Bruce shrugged. 

“Anyways, you go to GAG—I’m heading there now, j’wahna come with?” 

Bruce shrugged again. “Sure,” he told the ground. He adjusted his black satchel and trudged toward GAG with Clark. 

Clark kept talking at Bruce, speaking more gibberish than Bruce could keep up with. He seemed to be telling a story about three ducks in different colours and a hole for corn. Bruce wasn’t sure what the hell the man was on about, but he nodded at appropriate moments and grunted acceptably. 

Clark interrupted his ramblings: “Oh, jeepers cripes, I’ve just been a total chatterbox, haven’t I? How’re you? What grade are you?”

Bruce thought for a moment. “Freshman.” 

“Oh, that’s just gorgeous!” Clark exclaimed. “Me, too. Are you Gotham?”

Bruce nodded. 

“You look it. Figure your parents are, too? How’re they?”

The tentative joy looping into Bruce’s mind dropped immediately. “Dead,” he answered flatly. 

Clark’s goofy grin dropped. “Oh, for goodness’ sakes, I am so sorry. I—are you okay?”

Bruce straightened his back. “I guess.”

The two continued toward the school. When they got to the front door, Clark paused. “Whad’ja have?”

“Bio,” Bruce said, monotone.

“Aw, man. I’ve got Creative Writing. Seeya ‘round?” Clark asked hopefully.

Bruce thought for several seconds. “Give me your number,” he ordered Clark.

Clark’s face lit up. He was like a lightbulb within Gotham. Bruce felt a necessity to squint. “Nine thirteen, five-five-five, eight-eight six oh,” Clark told Bruce. “Do you want me to put it in your phone?”

“No.” Bruce turned and walked away to the Science building, not looking back to the prince he’d left.

Chapter Text

September 5, 20XX

As Bruce sat in Bio, bored out of his mind, he found his thoughts drifting to that boy. He wasn’t sure what he thought of Clark. He knew the other was pretty, he knew the other was kind and polite, but those were just facts. 

Bruce wanted to be Clark’s friend. That wasn’t a feeling he’d had in a long time, not since before . Clark was cute, in a way, muscular, and Bruce didn’t doubt that the other boy would have girls swarming over him before the new year. 

Clark was… odd. Bruce wasn’t sure what felt off about him—his eyes were too blue, his skin too smooth, his arms a bit too long, he was uncanny. Bruce told himself that it was endearing.

(Bruce felt somewhat guilty for thinking of the other boy like he was a science experiment, but Clark didn’t have to know.)

Bruce glanced to the clock. His teacher was rambling—something about ribosomes?—about things he’d learned in his private tutoring years ago (his parents had put him into tutoring to “get ahead of his studies”, and Alfred never had the heart to remove him from the lessons). There was a bit less than a minute before the bell, so he closed his binder and shoved it into his satchel. After he did so, he heard a chorus of backpacks zipping and unzipping behind him and felt strangely proud that he caused a wave of packing up. He then cringed at himself.

The bell rang—four loud chimes, they’d changed it from when he was in GAG’s elementary school from a shrill, constant RIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG for five seconds—and Bruce stood from his seat, slinging his satchel over his shoulder.

Some girls behind him were whispering. He hoped it wasn’t about him. Bruce ducked his head and filed out of the classroom, his hair falling with the movement. He made a mental note to get a haircut.

Bruce trudged to his next class—Honours Geometry—and internally dreaded the day to come. It wasn’t even nine yet, and he was exhausted. He, unfortunately, had to walk past the Athletics building to get to English, and he attempted to conceal his disgust at the scent of the people leaving. Seriously, he thought to himself. You’ve had, like, three years to get into the habit of using deodorant at every opportunity or necessity. Bruce breathed through his mouth. 

He finally got to the classroom. Praise the lord, there was no preset seating plan—hopefully, that meant this was one of the good teachers, one of the teachers who didn’t care so much if you showed up or not, as long as you had a decent grade—so he took a seat near the middle, not too far from the door but not so close he looked eager to leave, not in the front to avoid looking like a teacher’s pet, but not far enough back to look like a slacker. He didn’t register who he’d sat with until that voice beamed into his skull like a gorgeous, hot knife sliding through wax:

“Oh, hi, Bruce!” 

Bruce looked up. Clark was there. Sitting next to him. In fact, Bruce had probably sat next to him , making him look like a fan . 

He nodded politely. “Hello, Clark.”

“How was your first hour—Bio, was it? Who do you have?”

Bruce thought for a moment. “Not sure of her name. The tall brunette.”

Clark grinned. “Was she cool?”

Bruce shrugged. “Maybe? We didn’t do much. There was a bit of lecturing, a bit of overview of the syllabus, but otherwise…”

Clark seemed to hang onto Bruce’s every word. Weird. His eyes were wide, eyelashes a bit too long, and Bruce was right—those eyes were very blue. Like sapphire gemstones boring into his retinas, blinding him slightly. His skin was smooth and clean of imperfections, a small splatter of freckles across his nose, skin a bit tan (likely from the same place he’d gotten that god-awful accent) and golden. He was, frankly, gorgeous.  

“How—how was your first?” Bruce wracked his brain to remember—Clark had given him the grace of remembering what schedule had been revealed, so it was only natural that he should do the same. “Creative writing?”

Clark nodded, looking genuinely ecstatic that Bruce knew. “Yeah, Creative Writing. It was pretty good—I didn’t realise how—and pardon my French— bitchy some of the non-scholarship kids would be. I guess I lucked out, meeting you, huh?” He grinned. 

Bruce’s stomach flipped. It felt vaguely like nausea. “I suppose. Thanks. I thought Creative Writing was a sophomore year class..?” 

Clark cocked his head. “Yeah, technically, but that’s what my scholarship is… that’s what it’s for. Writing.”

Bruce nodded. “That's cool. You must be really good; you should let me read some of it sometime.”

Clark looked as though he may pass out. "Maybe." 

“Are you okay?” Bruce asked, a bit bewildered. 

“Right as—as rain,” Clark stammered. Rain wasn’t right, was Clark maybe experiencing some psychological deficits from whatever illness had suddenly struck him? He seemed feverish; Bruce held his hand to the boy’s forehead to check. He was warm.

“You look ill. You have a fever.”

“I’m okay,” Clark insisted.

The bell rang, signalling the beginning of class. 

Bruce squinted at Clark and shrugged. “If you say so,” Bruce relented, entirely disbelieving. Bruce turned his attention to the front of the room, where the teacher was speaking about the syllabus. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Clark’s knee bouncing furiously. He mused that Clark may have an anxiety disorder—maybe it induced a psychogenic fever? Bruce discarded that thought; though first days of school in a new state were likely stressful, it probably wasn’t to the extent which Clark was experiencing. 

The teacher set them all off to do independent work—“Surely you’ve all got something to do, by now”—and Bruce mindlessly doodled in the margins of his notebook. He was expecting a lot more for the first day.

Clark suddenly stood from his desk. Bruce looked up in alarm. “Are you alright?” He whispered. 

“Yes. No.” Clark sat back down. “Yes,” he decided.

“Okay,” he answered after thinking for a moment. Bruce kept his eyes on the other boy. 

After several seconds, the silence between the two became suffocating. Shockingly, Bruce was the one to break it: “So, um, where are you even from ?”

Clark looked at Bruce. “...Kansas.” 

Bruce nodded. “Where in?” A few years ago, he’d heard of some meteor landing in Kansas when he was about four. 

“Smallville. It’s a tiny farm town in the middle of nowhere.”

Bruce squinted. The city sounded familiar. He considered it as Clark spoke. 

“I live—lived?—on my parents’ farm. Corn. Like, a lot of it.” Clark seemed to loosen as he spoke. “All the kids there were desperate to get outta that place. Me included. Most interesting thing that ever happened was the paint drying on the barn, and that was by a long shot,” he said drily. “Most everyone there was some kinda bigot, my family excluded. There was—there was an immigrant, there, when I was in seventh or eighth grade? He was gone within the week; somebody reported him to ICE. Gross.” Clark seemed like he was trying to sound more indifferent than he was about the immigrant.

Bruce nodded. “Don’t like people like that,” he agreed. Clark seemed to relax further at Bruce’s assent, as though he was testing him.

“The kid was a good guy. Javier something. I was… sad when he had to go.” Clark became very interested in the floor. 

“Were you and Javier… close?” Bruce prodded. He, stupidly, felt jealous of this mystery boy who Clark hadn’t seen in at least a year.

Clark didn’t answer for a moment, long enough that Bruce was considering repeating himself in case Clark hadn’t heard.

“Yes… Very.” Clark’s voice was soft, tender. Bruce wanted to comfort him.

Clark’s back straightened. “That’s nothing we need to talk about, now, though.” 

Bruce cocked his head. “Are you sure?”

Clark thought. “No. But I don’t want to force my grief on you.”

Bruce shook his head. “That’s not what you’re doing. We’re friends, aren’t we?” The word felt foreign in his mouth. “Easier to bear as two.” He was parroting Alfred’s words regarding Bruce’s parents. 

Clark smiled awkwardly. “Thank you.”

Bruce reflected Clark’s dopey grin. The two fell into a comfortable silence.

The bell rang and Bruce jumped. He hadn’t realised that much time had passed during the two’s brief conversation. 

He and Clark both stood from their desks. Bruce hefted his satchel over his shoulder. “What do you have next?” Bruce asked. The two walked out of the classroom, near the end of the clump of students escaping.

Clark thought for a moment. “I’ve got Speech and Debate.”

Bruce sighed. “I have English,” he moaned. 

Clark smiled pityingly. “Sucks to suck,” he gloated. Bruce wanted to shield his eyes from Clark's smile, so bright and forgiving and free. 

Bruce whacked Clark, though a warm feeling bloomed in his chest. “Will I see you soon?”

Clark shrugged, a shit-eating grin resting on his face. “Maybe, maybe not. Who knows?” With that, he left like a leaf in the wind. Bruce smiled as he walked to English.

Chapter Text

September 5th, 20XX

The rest of Bruce’s day went relatively smoothly. Somebody tried to talk to him at lunch, which was horrifying, and he was late to Russian (he could have avoided the tardy demerit, but if he’d learned one thing in his schooling during Before, it was that to run while wearing a backpack within a school building is a crime the likes of which would be punished with tarring and feathering, and Bruce did not want to be tarred or feathered on his first day of high school.), but otherwise, his day was uniform and uninteresting.

At lunch, he’d scoured the lunchroom and the student commons and the football field and the orchestra room (just in case) and found exactly zero pretty freshmen who’s name started with C and ended with Lark Kent, so he settled to sit alone in a secluded area of the student commons. 

After an exhausting seven-hour day, Bruce finally walked down the stairs to the lobby of GAG. His eyes trained on his feet to avoid making eye contact and thus conversation,, he didn’t register the brick wall in front of him until he walked right into him.

“Bruce!” Clark grinned. Bruce jumped. 

“Sorry,” he muttered. 

“How was your day?” Clark was like a walking ray of sunshine: blinding and a little bit hard to look at. And also warm. Bruce took a big step back.

“Alright. Yours?”

“It’s been wonderful.”

Bruce nodded curtly. “Are—are you a dormitory student?” He internally cringed at his horrific attempt at small talk.

Clark, angel that he is, cocked his head, his smile yet to falter. “Yes. I’m gonna be living, er, in the Metropolis building. It’s across the bridge, right?”

Bruce nodded again. “Are you walking there?”

Clark thought for a moment. “Yeah, I am.” He winced. “If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t, for all that weather—it’s raining cats and dogs out there!—but yanno’.”

Bruce didn’t know. “Yes, I know.” 

Clark looked at him funnily.

Bruce awkwardly extended an invitation: “Would you like me to drive you?”

“You can’t drive, Bruce. You’re only fourteen, aren’t you?” Clark laughed.

Bruce frowned. “ Obviously . I mean, I could ask my butler to drive you.” Bruce nearly recoiled at his standoffishness. “Sorry.” 

Clark barked a huff of laughter, a shocked little thing. “ Butler. You have a butler .” 

Bruce’s frowned deepened; his brows furrowed. “Of course I do.”

“First guy I meet at GAG has a—a butler . For goodness’ sakes…”

A rare smile crossed Bruce’s face. “I forget about the other half.”

It was Clark’s turn to frown, confused. “Other half?”

“The other half? As in, ‘How The Other Half Lives’, by Jacob Riis?”

Clark shook his head. “I’m not familiar. What’s it about?” That lopsided, goofy grin adorned his face once more. 

“It’s… It’s a study—photographic study—into the slums of New York. Written in the 1880s. It was the start of some major push to improve the lives of the poor. My reference was a satirical play on my own wealth. I thought it was… I thought it was funny.” Bruce trailed off, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

“Huh.” Clark seemed so thoughtful. Bruce felt a strange wave of shame. 

“Sorry.”

“Whatever for, Bruce?” 

Bruce smiled awkwardly. “I just—it felt inappropriate. Once I thought about it.”

Clark shook his head. “Don’t you worry your pretty head, B. It was kinda funny, with the context, and I’m sure if I read the book it’d be funnier.” He smiled invitingly. Bruce tried not to sigh. It would not be funny, if Clark knew what he was talking about; implying that Clark was some desolate, rattish coke addict hardly living his life and starving half to death would surely wall him off from any sort of friendship with Clark ever . Bruce firmly decided he would be far, far kinder to Clark.

Bruce’s phone pinged. Only one person ever texted him.

“My butler’s here.” Bruce started toward the door.

“Are you sure it’s okay, that I’m coming?” Clark jogged behind him.

“He won’t mind,” Bruce did say. He thinks I need more friends, anyways, Bruce didn’t say. He stopped at the sleek black Mercedes-Benz. He felt somewhat smug as he opened the rear passenger door for Clark, who’s mouth was agape, eyes wide. Clark seemed out of his element but very polite, suddenly a docile, quiet version of hisself. Bruce wasn’t certain if he liked it.

Bruce slid in next to Clark in the back. Clark stared at Bruce. Bruce wanted to look cool and carefree, so he didn’t even glance at Clark. He kept his eyes outside.

“Who may this be, Master Bruce?”

“Clark,” Bruce replied curtly. “He’s a dormitory student in the Metropolis building.” Bruce could feel Alfred’s eyes on him in the rearview mirror. Bruce ignored him.

“You have a beautiful car, Mister…” Clark offered helpfully. 

“Alfred. Thank you,” Alfred said warmly.

“Just Alfred,” Bruce supplied.

“Are you related to Bruce in any way?”

Alfred laughed. “Not at all. I was friends with his parents a long time ago.”

“His parents?” Clark seemed to perk up. Bruce started to second-guess if he’d been too short with Clark. Too brief with his answers. He probably seemed a stranger to the poor boy. Too late to fix it.

Alfred was silent for a few seconds. “Yes,” he continued, more softly. “His parents were delightful people. Some of the brightest I ever knew. Master Bruce takes after them well.”

“Oh, I can tell,” Clark grinned. His smile faltered. “I’m sorry for their passing.” Clark seemed to immediately regret his words. 

Bruce winced and looked up at Alfred in the rearview mirror. Alfred’s eyes were on the road.

“My mother and father passed away a few years ago,” Bruce responded for Alfred. “Five years ago this past June.”

“Oh.” Clark wrung his hands in his lap. “I figured… it’d been earlier.”

Bruce shrugged. “It was awful for a long time. Not so bad, now.” That was a complete and utter lie. Every day, he felt alone. Alfred frowned at Bruce in the rearview mirror but said nothing. “We’d gone to see The Mark of Zorro. We were heading back to the car, and… ker-plunk.” Bruce was certain he’d never said those words aloud. Especially not ‘ker-plunk’. He resisted the urge to scream and throw himself out of the car and lay down in the middle of the street.

“Oh, my goodness, you were there? ” Clark seemed horrified. “Bruce, my gosh, I don’t—I can’t imagine —er—oh, my goodness. ” Clark was at a loss for words.

Bruce ducked his head and picked at his fingernails. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Clark shook his head. “Don’t worry, Bruce. Don’t worry at all.” Clark looked at him with tender concern. It felt uncomfortable. Bruce wanted more than ever to jump off the bridge from Gotham to Metropolis. 

The car felt heavy with the silence. Alfred broke it after what felt like literal decades:

“Mister Clark, you said you were lodging at the Metropolis dormitories?”

Clark nodded. “Yep, I am. I, uh, I’m at the—” Clark checked his student ID and made a funny face. “The Wayne building.” Clark looked up at Bruce. “Is…”

Bruce nodded stiffly. “Yes. They donated it after the bombings in the ‘90s.”

Clark swallowed and looked back down. “The Wayne building. South end.”

Alfred nodded. “Beautiful place, so I hear.” His eyes twinkled humorously.

Clark chuckled awkwardly. “I wouldn’t know. Haven’t been there yet.”

Nobody answers that. Alfred parks in front of the south entrance. 

“Have a good evening, Clark,” Bruce commands him.

“No, Master Bruce, you go help that boy take his things inside.”

“He really doesn’t need to—”

“I insist, Mister Clark.” 

Clark looked at Bruce helplessly. Bruce shrugged and took Clark’s school things from him. “You can take your room stuff, right?”

Clark nodded hesitantly. “Yes. No problem. Thank you, truly, Mister Alfred.” 

“Just Alfred,” Bruce told the ground.

Clark smiled. “Thank you,” he repeated.

Bruce confidently lead Clark onward into the building. He’d been there what felt like a billion times Before. His parents had proudly shown it to him. “This is what you’ll contribute, someday,” they’d tell him. “You’ll provide schooling and housing and you will help people. You’ll carry on what we have built. Does that make you happy, Brucie?” Bruce had always grinned excitedly and cheered his hope for his own future. Bruce wished they’d stayed to teach him how he could ever compare to all they did. 

“What’s your room number?” Bruce tossed over his shoulder. 

“Uh, um,” Clark stopped, and Bruce slowed, looking back at him. He was balancing two boxes in one arm, using the wall for support, one duffel bag on his shoulder, and a backpack on his back. All of which very stuffed. “248-SW. 248 South-Wayne.”

Bruce nodded and continued at his prior speed. He heard Clark stumbling to catch up and felt a flash of guilt, but faltering would show weakness. 

He shifted the books to balance them on his hip and pressed up on the elevator panel. Seven seconds later, the doors smoothly whooshed open. He stepped in and stuck his loafered foot in the doorway to prevent it closing. Clark was a healthy twenty feet behind Bruce. Bruce made a mental note to slow down. 

Once Clark was safely inside, Bruce hit the second floor button. 

“I have a question for you, Bruce.”

“What?”

“Are… You called me a scholarship student. By the logic that I could only get in with the help of the school’s money, one may… assume that somebody of your… financial prowess may have only gotten with the help of… your family’s money.”

“You’re asking if I bought my way in,” Bruce said simply.

“I suppose.” Clark’s face had turned red.

“I don’t doubt that my family’s past contributions to this school may have assisted in the priority of my application, but I took the tests, I applied, I wrote the essays, just like everyone.”

Clark seemed somewhat relieved. “Cool. Awesome. Hey, since you’re, um, rich, and everything, you must’ve gone to, like, fancy dinner parties, right?”

Bruce frowned. “I suppose I’ve been to some. I stopped going After. My parents died.” Bruce didn’t like how he chopped up that sentence. Horrid.

“There’s this kid, in my Speech and Debate class. He’s like, your exact opposite. But also super mega, uh, rich. You might know him..?”

“Name?”

“Al-ex-and-er Luth-or.”

Bruce groaned. The elevator doors slid open. “Worst guy ever.”

Clark followed Bruce out of the elevator. “Worst?”

“Super pretentious. He also got in with his tests, but he’s a total douche about it. Thinks he’s hot shit just because he’s at GAG. He’s got this weird vendetta against those new metas—dunno if they were a thing in Kansas, but we call ‘em “meta-humans”. They’re like normal people with superpowers from like radiation or chemicals or some sort of mutation, they’re super common in Gotham, got a lot of freaks like that. He thinks they’re all here to destroy American purity or whatever. I think it’s his parents infecting him. Granted, I haven’t spoken to him since Before my parents died, but I doubt he’s changed much.”

“Metas. So like aliens?”

“In function, yes, but not really.”

Clark nodded. “How do you feel about metas?”

“I couldn’t care less about ‘em. Wish they weren’t in Gotham, though. We’ve got more than enough issues without superpowered freakazoids running around.”

Clark frowned. “How do you feel about aliens?”

“I mean, realistically, they’ve gotta exist some where. But I really think it’s more likely that Earth is super early on the universal clock. Cause, like, relatively, the Earth is pretty damn young, but so is the whole universe. I would believe it if there were aliens walking around Earth in a couple thousand years, or if we went out and helped some bacteria on some protoplanet a bunch of light-years away in a few hundred years, but now? I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect them to, like, invade us or anything”

Clark cocked his head. “You’re very opinionated about these.”

“What about you, Clark? How do you feel about ‘em?”

“I think they’re super cool. Bet the aliens, if they’re here, would be super strong and like hot and whatever. Maybe shapeshifters, or maybe they just naturally evolved to look like people and function like them. Like us. I haven’t really heard of metas at all, other than some in the news back in Smallville. I bet they’re pretty tight, though.”

“Interesting. I like your outlook on the world.” Bruce stopped abruptly at room 248. “This is you.” 

Clark looked up. “That felt fast.”

“No, it didn’t. Open the door.”

Clark opened the door. The room was… gaudy. Somebody had come decorate it with memorabilia from Smallville. A banner praising the Smallville Giants was hung on the back wall. There were shelves hooked on the wall, all covered with trophies and medals and academic certificates and god knows what. Bruce felt a bit horrified at the decorating disaster. On the plasticky mattress provided by the school—Bruce decided he’d bring Clark a new, soft one when he got the change—was a blue, red, and yellow striped sheet. Very bright. Very bold. Everything was very. very colourful. Bruce felt blinded. Bruce approached Clark’s bedside table. On it rested a golden inverted pentagon emblazoned with a red S . “What’s S for?”

Clark froze and scrambled closer. “Um. Smallville.”

“You must love your hometown.”

“My parents decorated. I think.”

Bruce nodded. “Clearly.”

Bruce gently placed Clark’s books on the bedside table, careful not to touch the golden pentagon. He slung Clark’s backpack onto the floor by his bed. “It was nice talking. Text me. Goodbye.” He spun around and strutted out of the room. He felt far too close to Clark’s true self and whatever. Weird. Uncomfortable. 

Bruce’s walk back to the car felt so quiet and so lonely. He didn’t dwell on that thought. It was time to go home and finally sleep. 

In the car, he stared at the building as it slowly disappeared from view. Bruce strongly suspected Clark would become a very, very important character in his life.