Spade.
Prompt: #50
AU Bruce circa early 1900s.
The earth was soft under the rusting metal of the shovel. It gave way underneath the pressure and he dug down and transferred large scoop next to the small indentation he had created. He repeated this. Again. And again.
"Wayne…" one of the men whispered uncertainly, afraid if he spoke too loudly the poor man might break.
"….Wayne?" Another one spoke this time. A farmboy from Kansas, "Bruce?" he tried again a few minutes later. The man- the boy he was just a boy they were all just boys (such stupid, stupid boys with grand dreams and schemes. Full of hope and wonderment, and ideas that could never materialize)- was watching him.
Bruce didn't respond. He had to do this. He had to do this.
The farmboy had probably just turned eighteen. He was big for his age though- standing even a few inches taller than the already imposing Bruce Wayne.
He was no older than the others though, Bruce reminded himself as he ignored the words of the solider; he was no older than the other hundreds and hundreds of boys falling down all around them. Older in fact, than many. Older than the boys who ran away from their homes and lied in a chance to fight the Germans and the Austrians and the Ottomans.
"We need to keep moving Lieutenant; the Krauts… they're not going to wait for us to… to… you know…"
"Shut up, Kent." He managed despite the fact he could have sworn his voice had left him so many hours ago.
The boy was broad-shouldered with dark hair that was curling in the rain; his handsome face held a look of pity as he reached out a hand to grasp onto the shorter man's shoulder.
"Don't touch me," was the curt response. His voice was drained of all emotion. "Don't touch me. That's an order."
Private Kent withdrew his hand and looked at the other men around him. They had accepted that Wayne would not let them continue on until he was finished, so they had taken the unscheduled stop as an opportunity to eat, to relieve themselves, to rest... and to think of home. To dream of home. To pray they would get back, to pray they wouldn't end up like the others.
1st Lieutenant Bruce Wayne didn't stop when the shovel broke. He got on his knees and dug his hand into the earth that was coated in blood and pain and just dug deeper and deeper and deeper until he couldn't feel his fingers anymore and he was certain he'd never again be able to wash the dirt out from under his nails.
It didn't matter anymore. Nothing in this stupid war mattered anymore.
And there, on the edge of a civilization on the brink of insanity- no one watched or cared when Gotham's Prince, Bruce Wayne, son of Martha and Thomas (millionaire and industrialist) buried the body of an orphan named Richard Grayson under the heavy earth.