Shakespearean - JayTim - Camp NaNoWriMo - July 2017

Chapter 15 - Clark

A/N I am by no means a linguistics expert. I wanted to study it for a few years in middle school and high school, and I've sat in on like one lecture, and that's about it, so please just know that I in no way know what I'm talking about in this chapter. Then again, I've never taken a Journalism class either and half of this fic is about that, so ??? idk anything. Enjoy!

Clark smiled as he stood in the doorway, completely unnoticed by the man he was watching. Bruce had always been the kind of man who completely focused on whatever was in front of him. As a homicide detective, it had made him the best. As a teacher, it made him successful. But when that gaze was fixed on an individual person, it was always hard to breathe.

Clark liked to watch him like this, completely absorbed by whatever language or class he was working on. Sometimes, he'd get offers from archaeologists and historians to consult on various projects, and he'd spend days doing nothing else but staring. He always refused to go anywhere though. Anything they wanted him to study or translate had to be sent to him, or at least photos of it. His work and his family were too important to him to permit traipsing across the globe as one of the world's best linguists.

Clark admired that. He wished he had always been such a dedicated father. As it were, he spent his first few years of parenthood traveling the world for one story or another while his son grew up on a farm in Kansas, raised by capable, but aging grandparents who could never truly replace the father he knew existed but had never met. It was seeing Bruce as such a great parent that had made him decide to go back. There was something about the close-knit nature of the Wayne family that inspired others, made them jealous. How a group of people with little to no biological relation could be so loyal and dedicated to each other was impressive, yes, but it was also something that was incredibly desirable to any outsider looking in on that kind of family.

Clark knew he was lucky to have a son and parents who truly loved him, who would do anything for him. He was incredibly grateful to have had a second shot at parenthood, as well as having been blessed with such a wonderfully talented, well-mannered, and well-behaved son, but he knew that he was just as lucky to be considered a further extension of family by Bruce and all of his crazy children. With the exception of Damian, of course, who persistently refused to call him anything other than, 'The Alien'.

Bruce leaned back in his chair, stretching out his back and cracking his neck loudly enough to make Clark wince. He looked around the room in a glance, suddenly noticing that Clark was standing in the doorway. He gave Clark a considering look before giving him a small smile. "How long have you been there?"

Clark chuckled softly. "A little while. Work or play?"

Taking a deep breath, Bruce waved him over. Clark pushed off the door frame and made his way over to stand next to Bruce behind the desk. "A little of both, I suppose. One of my students wrote a concept essay for their senior thesis that argues that languages like Russian, Arabic, and Japanese which have their own unique written characters would actually be easier to learn for English-speaking, picture-based, memorization learners than other European languages like Spanish, French and German because they wouldn't have to worry about how different vowels and consonants are pronounced in different languages. They could picture the word in their heads and remember how it's supposed to be pronounced and all of its various meanings based off of the image. Because the writings all look different, you don't have to make those language-specific differentiations that might make remembering more difficult."

Clark sighed. "Sounds like work to me."

Bruce shook his head, a smile finally forming on those full lips. "It's an interesting argument that goes against the grain of common opinion. It's been made before, but some of the points this student used are unique. It's entertaining to see how many of his arguments could be validated on a wide scale. If so, it could change the way that languages are taught in schools and could even have some interesting implications for software like Rosetta Stone."