Chapter Text
‘…a Stark Foundation Scholar!’
‘Mashallah!’
Bruno stares at the email on his laptop screen, like he still can’t quite believe it, as his family cheers and whoops and celebrates around him.
The Stark Foundation will pay for any US college of his choice that he’s admitted to. Tuition, books, food, accommodation, even a stipend for coming home for breaks. For all four years. There’s other perks too; networking events, special seminars…
MIT or CalTech is now a very real possibility, instead of a wild dream.
Nonna puts an arm around him, squeezes gently.
‘The world saw, tesorino.’ A pause. ‘I am so proud of you.’
‘…my baby brother, a Stark Foundation Scholar!’
‘Told you you’d get it!’
Tas grins and socks him affectionately in the arm.
Auntie Salma, meanwhile, looks over at the kitchen, and shakes her head, before gesturing towards the door.
‘We are having a celebratory dinner tonight, beta! I will go tell Hassan to start making up all your favourites…’
-
In the Banner lab at Columbia University, Bruno carries a piece of weighing paper with several grams of Oxone on it over to the fume hood, where he has a large round-bottom flask clamped to a retort stand, the suspension inside being stirred by a magnetic stirrer bead.
In other words, Bruno is having a perfectly ordinary day, doing some RA work while he prepares to defend his PhD dissertation next month.
‘Bruno?’ He turns to face the door as Bruce sticks his head into the lab. ‘You free for a meeting in fifteen?’
‘Yeah, I’m just about done with the set-up of this Oxone oxidation, just in your office?’
Bruce nods, and withdraws his head from the lab, while Bruno carefully pours the Oxone into the flask.
He smiles a little wryly.
If you’d told Bruno as a teenager that he’d be this casual with THE Dr Bruce Banner, he would not have believed you. If you produced proof, he’d probably have fainted from the shock. It took six months of his PhD to be persuaded to call his supervisor Bruce, and a solid six months more to actually do it consistently, because he’s THE Dr Bruce Banner. THE Dr Bruce Banner!
One of the greatest scientific minds of our time, has a Nobel, publishes incredible papers, has some collaborations with Stark Industries and the Stark Foundation that are genuinely life-changing…
(Bruno’s nonna has benefitted directly, as her medication is actually affordable for them.)
…and Bruce has a real-life superhero story on top of that, and inspired Bruno’s favourite superhero, Dr Barney Brummer, better known as the Incredible Hulk.
Look, Bruno is kinda a Bruce Banner fanboy.
(Yeah, that’s an understatement.)
(What gave it away?)
-
When Bruno walks into Bruce’s office, he stands in the doorway and stares, before blinking, before staring again.
Tony Stark is sitting in Bruce’s office opposite Bruce, like he’s here every day, playing with a brain-shaped stress ball from a conference that was on Bruce’s desk (which, while messy, is not in fact a mess; there’s a highly complex organizational system that took Bruno several months to learn), casual as anything.
Bruno is in the presence of Tony Stark. THE Tony Stark.
Genius, billionaire, ex-playboy, philanthropist. His contributions to sustainable energy alone…
…then there’s his groundbreaking work on AI and nanotechnology, and his philanthropy that Bruno has personally benefitted from…
…and he is the real-life Timothy Strike, better known as Iron Man.
Yeah, look, Bruno is also a Tony Stark fanboy.
He’s staring, he knows. Bruno is awkward at the best of times, and this is beyond his wildest imagination…
Mr Stark just shrugs, and tosses the brain stress ball from hand to hand.
‘Yeah, I get this a lot, kid.’ He turns to Bruce. ‘He gonna faint if I tell him?’
Bruno’s brain is officially stuck in buffering mode.
In reply, Bruce just deposits a chair behind Bruno.
‘Sit down, son, trust me.’
-
‘Tony, why do I have results for paternity testing that I did not order?’
Bruce walks into his best friend’s home office one evening on his way home from Columbia, having received by courier a very official-looking envelope a couple of hours previous.
Tony whirls around from where he’s contemplating a holographic plan for what looks like a luxury playhouse – complete with built-in ball pit and princess dress-up room – for his daughter, Morgan.
‘It occurred to me I should check that dear old dad didn’t leave any of his mistresses with living souvenirs.’
‘That didn’t occur to you years ago?’
‘Oh, it did, I checked, thought I should check again.’
Bruce sighs internally. Tony Stark’s Daddy Issues keep one very skilled therapist very well-paid. He sits down in the chair opposite Tony’s at the desk, speaks gently.
‘Tony, what brought this on?’
Between him and Pepper working things out, the therapy and becoming a father-figure and then a father, Tony Stark is a changed man.
(Bruce and Rhodey breathe a collective sigh of relief over this frequently.)
(Rhodey more than Bruce; Bruce is pretty sure he’d have strangled Tony by now if he knew him as long as Rhodey has.)
Tony banishes the holographic playhouse with a gesture.
‘Peter doesn’t have any family left.’ Bruce just waits for Tony to elaborate on his apparent non-sequitur regarding his protégé, Peter Parker. ‘Doesn’t know too much family history either. He and your kid-‘
‘Bruno is not my kid, Tony. Figuratively or literally.’
Bruce gestures at the envelope he’s holding, which contains an answer – 100% no – to a question he has never considered asking, because it’s completely ludicrous.
Tony waves a hand dismissively.
‘Peter and your kid get along like a house on fire.’ Courtesy of JARVIS, several photographs – seemingly from surveillance footage in Stark Tower – are projected in a slideshow. Peter and Bruno eating lunch in the canteen, gesticulating at each other in a way that makes them look like overgrown kids. The two of them and Harley Keener, another protégé of Tony’s, laughing about something. Peter and Bruno in one of their offices – it’s unclear whose – staring at equations and molecules scribbled on the glass walls with whiteboard markers. Both of them have their arms crossed as they muse and similar expressions on their faces. ‘You see it, right?’ Tony gestures at the last image. Bruce nods, because he has to concede that there’s an odd similarity there, in the mannerisms. ‘I started wondering…’ Tony points at him. ‘It didn’t start with me, by the way, Ned said-‘
‘-I don’t want to know how you know that.’
Bruce really doesn’t want to know how Tony knows something that Peter’s best friend said once.
‘-he said that maybe they’re second cousins, you know, Peter’s got Italian in him-’
‘-so you got convinced that it was possible they were secretly your dad’s great-grandkids?’ Bruce rubs his forehead with a hand, before looking back at his walking headache of a best friend. ‘And decided you’d double-check I didn’t make another kind of mistake after Betty while you’re at it?’
It doesn’t come out quite as irreverent as Bruce intended. That wound still aches a little, after all these years.
Tony nods as if that all makes perfect sense. He also reaches out to pat Bruce on the back.
Bruce sighs again.
The only explanation for this is that Morgan must have slept poorly a few nights in a row, Tony stayed up with her, naturally, and now he’s sleep-deprived and…
Bruce gets up, and points at the other man.
‘I’m calling your therapist to have another talk to you about boundaries.’
-
Bruno finishes doing up the last button on his long-sleeved grey button-down shirt, tucks it into his navy chinos and does up his belt. He quickly straightens up the Incredible Hulk quilt on his bed, and then picks up his backpack and steps into the living/dining/kitchen of his and Nonna’s apartment above the Circle-Q.
Nonna is in the kitchen, making egg, tomato and avocado sandwiches for the two of them for breakfast. Bruno hurries over to the kitchen and sets up the sandwich press before Nonna can, earning him a fond head-shake from his grandmother, who nonetheless surrenders the sandwich plate to him.
‘I will be fine, tesorino.’
Bruno puts the sandwiches into the press, and sticks a mug under the hot-beverage-maker so Zuzu will dispense Nonna’s morning coffee.
‘The doctor said you have to be extremely careful; it was a close call last week-‘
‘I will use the walker, I promise.’ Nonna eyes said walker, by the kitchen counter, with distaste. She hates it, but she needs it, now. She’d fallen last week, and thank God, had just been badly bruised. ‘And Zuzu will look after me.’
Nonna says that pointedly, gesturing with her head towards Zuzu sitting on the counter, as Bruno hands her her mug of coffee, which she sets in the little basket attached to her walker.
Bruno rattles off the alphanumeric code that corresponds to the correct protocol to Zuzu, just in case, and Nonna smiles and shakes her head, more indulgent than anything. He puts his travel mug under the dispenser of the hot-beverage-maker, so Zuzu will dispense his morning chai, and goes to the fridge to grab his packed lunch, as Nonna heads over to the couch.
Bruno grabs his packed lunch out of the fridge, takes the sandwiches out of the sandwich press, putting one on a plate for Nonna and putting the other one on a napkin for him to eat as he walks to the train station, and grabs his travel mug of chai.
He then drops off Nonna’s breakfast to the coffee table for her, says goodbye to his grandmother, and hurries out the door for his job at Stark Industries, in Stark Tower in NYC, taking a big bite of his sandwich as he goes downstairs.
-
Late on Friday night, Bruno suppresses a yawn as he works a shift in the Circle-Q. He picks up a couple shifts every week, because that saving in wages makes a difference to paying off the mortgage.
He was able to make a bigger payment this month, having gotten a pay rise.
Bruno yawns again, and gives up on the just-for-fun Nature paper he’s reading between customers. He pulls out his phone instead and brings up a racing game that’s a thinly-veiled Mario Kart knock-off to pass the time – and keep him awake – for the last fifteen minutes before closing.
-
In the Stark Tower canteen, at their usual table, Bruno smiles through his mouthful of steamed broccoli, from his box of broccoli, dal and aloo keema, as Peter explains the new articulation system he’s developing for the prosthetic arm project he’s working on. Peter gesticulates slightly too enthusiastically as he explains the joints between the prosthetic carpals and metacarpals, sending the last cube of cucumber from his salad flying. Peter ducks under the table to retrieve it, before putting down his fork and digging into the bodega sandwich he purchased on his way to work. Bruno swallows his mouthful of dal and aloo keema, as an Idea for wiring artificial nerves through the prosthetic arm occurs to him, and starts explaining the newly-crystallized Idea to Peter.
Harley comes up, holding a tray from the canteen, and shakes his head at the two of them as he plops down and digs into his lunch, shoving a large forkful of chicken into his mouth and talking with his mouth half-full.
(Harley doesn’t really cook or prepare food aside from Kraft macaroni and cheese and Hamburger Helper.)
‘You two are nerds, talking shop over lunch. Come on, what’re we doing this weekend?’
-
Bruno reaches the top of the rock-climbing wall slightly ahead of Ned, and presses the button, before rappelling down.
Peter has an odd obsession with climbing things, so they – meaning Bruno, Peter, Ned and Harley - go rock climbing and bouldering on alternate weeks.
When he gets to the bottom, Peter grins and high-fives him, before bumping a fist to Ned’s, complete with their secret-handshake-style additions.
Meanwhile, Bruno rolls up the sleeves of his long-sleeved T-shirt slightly, stopping about halfway up his forearms, because he’s feeling warm.
Once they’ve swapped over the ropes, Harley and Peter grin at each other, nod, and start racing up the wall.
Peter wins, of course.
Peter is not only oddly obsessed with climbing things, he’s also extremely good at climbing things. Despite it being entirely unscientific and irrational, Bruno does not just attribute that to the fact that Peter is the most physically fit of the four of them.
A couple months ago, they’d played Settlers of Catan over hero sandwiches and beer (for Peter, Ned and Harley; Bruno had Diet Coke), and after maybe one too many beers, Peter had detailed a plan for climbing the Washington Monument, that, according to Ned, he’s been working on since he was fifteen.
As he and Peter rappel down again, Harley points at their friend.
‘Next time, Pete, I’m bringing those gloves I’ve been working on!’
-
‘…come on!’
Peter makes a noise of protest as a smirking Harley wins the round of Halo. Ned offers his best friend some popcorn from the big bowl.
Meanwhile, Bruno shucks his flannel shirt as it’s warm inside Peter and MJ’s apartment, leaving him in just his T-shirt, and picks up his controller with both hands to stop himself from automatically, self-consciously, rubbing the now-exposed burn scar on his arm.
Bruno previously never let people outside his family see the scars on his arm. He still doesn’t go out in public in short sleeves, but he’ll take off his flannel or his hoodie when he’s hanging out with Peter, Ned and Harley. And MJ.
They’re his best friends.
And…
Harley met Tony Stark after he blew up a garage in Tennessee by sabotaging the operations of some would-be terrorists who’d stolen Stark tech. That included a bout of being hostage by said terrorists, who underestimated him and his intellect and his potato gun, owing to Harley being a child at the time. Harley jokes, gesturing to his torso, that he and Bruno match.
As Seniors in high school, Peter, Ned and MJ went through…a lot, when Peter’s connection to Tony got him and his family – that being his Aunt May, his best friend Ned, and his girlfriend MJ - targeted.
Ned spent a long time recovering from his injuries. Peter lost May (scars don’t have to be physical). MJ sustained a head injury from a fall, and forgot who Peter was for years.
Peter had a period of what MJ now calls incredible stupid during which he decided to stay away from her, instead of trying to help her remember.
Thinking of, MJ comes out of her study as they start another round of Halo, and makes herself a very large mug of black coffee.
(MJ is a novelist, she wrote her first bestseller in the early days of her long recovery from amnesia.)
Sipping on her coffee, MJ leans on the back of the couch as she watches them play for a minute, expression deadpan except for a slight arch of a brow. Peter looks up at her, tilting his head back and playing without properly looking. MJ arches that brow a little more, Peter grins, and MJ smiles down at him, touches a hand to the broken black glass necklace she always wears, before leaning down for an upside-down kiss and padding back to her study to keep writing.
-
In Harley’s loft apartment, Peter, Ned, Harley and Bruno stare at the newly-completed Lego Millenium Falcon in front of them. Peter and Ned reach out and do their secret handshake without looking. Ned’s almost vibrating in excitement. Peter’s grinning. Also grinning, Bruno reaches out and bumps his fist against Harley’s, who is more smirking as he holds up a remote controller with his other hand.
‘Ready for a test fly?’
The other three of them nod, and Harley presses the on button.
Their heavily modified Lego Millenium Falcon lights up and takes off.
-
Bruno’s hot-beverage-maker officially runs Doom.
There’s a round of fist-bumps all round in celebration, and somewhat wry, self-aware laughter. Nonna’s bedroom door opens, and she sticks her head out, leaning on her walker.
‘Hey, Nonna Carrelli.’
‘How’re you doing, Nonna?’
‘Have you thought more about those rocket thrusters?’
Ned gestures at Nonna’s walker. Nonna smiles back fondly, shaking her head, in that way she often does with Bruno, has since he was a kid.
‘I think I will stick with the current model.’ Bruno supposes it isn’t exactly a common-and-garden, off-the-shelf walker; he added a more comfortable seat and a keep-warm cup holder for Nonna’s coffee. ‘What’s made you all so happy?’
‘Our hot-beverage-maker now runs Doom.’ Nonna blinks, considers and opens her mouth. Bruno realises that Nonna may be confused, because to her, it sounds like they’ve made their hot-beverage-maker dangerous, which does not make sense to her. ‘Uh, it’s an old video game.’
Nonna smiles indulgently again, shaking her head once more.
‘As long as Zuzu can still make my coffee in the morning, tesorino, you can do anything you want to it.’ Nonna is very fond of Zuzu’s coffee. Apparently, Zuzu brews well. (Bruno doesn’t like coffee. Nonna bemoans that teasingly.) ‘Have you four had lunch?’
With a couple nudges, they all step aside so Nonna can see Bruno’s most-recently completed project, hard at work making orecchiette.
Nonna sighs this time, and shakes her head as she walks slowly towards the bathroom.
‘They do not taste the same, tesorino.’
That is, currently, true.
However…
‘How? The ‘bot copies your hand motions precisely.’
Bruno pulled it out this morning to see if Harley, Peter and Ned had any suggestions as to why that might be the case.
Nonna shakes her head, clucks her tongue in that way that Bruno’s 95% sure she picked up from Auntie Salma.
‘Not everything can be explained by your and your brilliant science, Bruno…’
-
Over family dinner at the Shahs, Bruno exchanges a wry, fond smile with Babar, Zahid (Amal’s husband) and Moussa (Tas’s fiancé). His two sisters, and his sister-in-law Zainab, are chattering away eagerly about the new rom-com that is all half the women of the Jersey City Masjid can talk about.
Objection, Your Honour stars Tas’s favourite actress, Nakia Bahadir, as an implausibly young high-powered lawyer. Kareem Ali plays her legal rival turned love interest.
Nakia Bahadir is a rising star in Hollywood, and very popular at the Jersey City Masjid. She’s strong, opinionated and campaigns hard for Justice off-screen (and on, sometimes). She’s also a hijabi and loudly, proudly and unapologetically herself, which includes being loudly, proudly and unapologetically Muslim. She famously walked off set when a studio exec tried to force her to cross her boundaries and set aside her beliefs and values; her resultant spontaneous speech-rant combination went viral.
Kareem is slightly less famous, but is extremely popular amongst the female population of the mosque due to being exceedingly charming (Aunties and Nanis chatter that his uncle raised him well, he has such lovely manners, while the younger women are more likely to look significantly, knowingly, at each other and say mashallah.).
Bruno smiles softer when Auntie Salma puts another pakora on his plate, before turning to give more food to Bismah and Imran, Babar and Zainab’s kids, and to ask his nonna if she’s done with her food, or would she like her to heat it up for her again?
(Nonna doesn’t eat like she used to; her appetite’s fading and she doesn’t finish her plate at family dinner most of the time now.)
Uncle Rashid picks up the dish of palak paneer, and offers Amal some more, with a wink as he declares that a little birdie told him that she has been craving it.
Amal rests one hand on her ever-growing baby bump, and smiles at Zahid. Zahid smiles that same soft smile back at her, and reaches out to put a big spoonful of palak paneer onto Amal’s plate.
-
Bruno laughs as his niece and nephew tackle him into the blanket fort they’d previously constructed together, while waiting for dinner to be ready.
‘Got you, Uncle Bruno!’ Bismah crows victoriously, and sits up on the pile of pillows. ‘Got you good!’
Bruno smiles at her, nodding as Bismah does a victory dance, as Imran tugs on one of the blankets.
‘Cape!’
Bruno grins, taking the blanket from Imran and folding it in half.
‘Capes are cool.’
-
Rashid smiles, reaching out and putting an arm around his dear wife as they sit on the couch in the living room.
Tas returns with Nonna, helping her sit back down next to Salma, having walked with her to the bathroom, because there is a single small step-up. She then walks into the kitchen, where Moussa has just finished loading the dishwasher, and puts an arm around her fiancé, leaning up to kiss his cheek.
Meanwhile, Zahid finishes his point about the recent Cricket World Cup, punctuating it with a kiss to the top of Amal’s head, leaning over the back of the armchair their daughter is sitting in to do so. Zainab, sitting in the other armchair and holding Babar’s hand as he perches on the arm, nods consideringly, before she and Babar, amusingly in sync, bring up the current dearth of truly speedy fast bowlers in Pakistan’s side.
Rashid smiles wider, feels his Salma do the same in the way she leans into him, pats his leg, when there is more noise from upstairs, and their youngest and their two grandchildren come down the stairs and almost-run down the hallway, capes flying behind all three of them.
Mashallah.
Inshallah, Rashid hopes and wishes and prays, Bruno will bring a nice girl home and into the family soon.
…though genius grandchildren may be a headache.
He will never be so glad of a headache, though, Rashid thinks!
-
That night, in the space between being awake and falling asleep, Bruno’s brain lingers on memories in a way that feels like wishing or hoping or praying or maybe dreaming.
Babar purchasing near-absurd quantities of Hershey’s Kisses.
Nonna saying to him, with a twinkle in her eyes, that she wanted to live to see him add to their family, build a family of his own.
MJ smiling, hands clasped around her big mug of coffee and leaning on the back of the couch, as Peter looks up at her, grinning.
Zahid and Amal smiling at each other, those smiles softening and widening a touch when Zahid puts more palak paneer on her plate.
Bismah and Imran grinning and laughing as Bruno finishes tying capes around their necks.
Tas and Moussa laughing as they finish the dishes, Moussa putting an arm around his fiancée for a side-hug.
Uncle and Auntie on the couch, Uncle’s arm around Auntie, Auntie leaning into Uncle, smiling as they watch their family simply enjoy time together after dinner.
Maybe one day, Bruno thinks. Maybe one day, if he’s lucky.
-
On a Saturday evening, after their early dinner, Bruno puts Objection, Your Honour on for him and Nonna to watch, thinking that Nonna might enjoy it.
Nonna falls asleep thirty minutes in, but Bruno watches the entire movie.
It’s a pretty cheesy, corny rom-com, but it’s good. Nakia Bahadir and Kareem are both excellent in their roles. Bruno gets and appreciates some of the jokes/references/moments that Tas and Amal and Zainab loved so much due to his childhood with the Shahs.
But Bruno’s favourite character and performance is the best friend of the lead, played by, he discovers, one Kamala Khan. She’s funny and vibrant and bright and just shines, stealing every scene she’s in, in his opinion.
-
Netflix keeps recommending other films and shows that Kamala Khan is in to Bruno, then Google algorithms catch on, and…
…well, he winds up watching her entire filmography and realises that he has a Problem.
That being some kind of crush on an actress. A decently famous actress who got her big break at sixteen, and thus left Jersey City for LA.
Kamala Khan lights up the screen and steals the show. Her smiles and grins light up everything, and are undeniably adorable. She lights up even brighter – which he’d think was impossible if not for the multitude of on-camera evidence - when she talks about things she loves.
There’s an interview in which she spends a solid minute talking about Captain Marvel and how awesome she is after the interviewer asks her about the macrame bracelet with Captain Marvel’s symbol woven into it that she’s wearing. A video she posted on her socials from California AvengerCon, that is 50% near-incoherent fangirling. Another interview in which Kamala is talking about her family and her parents supporting her dream, eventually, with a wry, sheepish but very loving smile. There’s a clip of her clapping and cheering excitedly, exuberantly, at an awards show when Nakia Bahadir won Best Actress. Another interview where she’s talking about growing up in Jersey City with great fondness, even – she even gives Najaf a shout-out, saying that she’s looking out for the little guy.
(The reference to Ant-Man makes Bruno grin like an idiot.)
Kamala Khan apparently also went to Coles Academic High School like he and Babar, Amal and Tas did. Kamala is, however, two years younger than he is, and Bruno graduated at sixteen, so they didn’t overlap at Coles, but…
…Bruno occasionally finds himself wishing that this was the universe where they’d met in science class at Coles. Or at Eid. Or a chance meeting in the Circle-Q, or…
Yeah, look, he knows.
Celebrity crushes are generally considered harmless?
Bruno shakes himself out of his fanciful ridiculous daydreams.
She’s a famous actress, Carrelli. Guys like you don’t meet women like her, let alone…
Even if they could’ve been ships passing in the night. If but for one flap of a butterfly’s wing…
Great. Now he’s getting poetic with Chaos Theory.
Bruno refuses to try and do a little math, a little bit of probability. He’ll never meet Kamala Khan in this universe. He might not be living in the best timeline or the best universe in the multiverse, but Bruno’s current timeline and universe are pretty darn great, and that’s an understatement by at least two orders of magnitude.
(His timeline and universe and life are amazing, actually.)
(He’s so very lucky.)
-
Tony Stark comes into the staff canteen one otherwise perfectly normal Wednesday, saunters over to Bruno, Peter and Harley’s usual table, and grabs a chair, turns it backwards, and plops down opposite Peter and next to Harley. Bruno’s boss steals one of the spring rolls off Harley’s plate, as Bruno picks up his lunchbox, intending to go sit somewhere else while Mr Stark doubtlessly spends time with his proteges. Mr Stark, however, swallows his mouthful of spring roll and points at Bruno with the other half.
‘Sit back down, this ain’t high school, kid.’ Bruno does as told, and Mr Stark steals another one of Harley’s spring rolls, ignoring Harley’s protests, and holds it out to him. Bruno takes the spring roll and gives it back to Harley, who stuffs it in his mouth in one go. ‘Besides, Bruce’d kill me if I kicked his favourite student off his lunch table…’
-
On what was once a perfectly normal Wednesday, like Peter and Harley, Bruno leaves lunch and heads back to work with a hand-delivered invitation to NYC’s second-biggest social event of the year: the Stark Foundation Gala Ball.
He still doesn’t quite know exactly how this happened.
-
Bruno is going to have to regretfully RSVP no.
The Gala is a nighttime event, obviously, and Nonna shouldn’t be alone at night. He’d planned to ask Uncle and Auntie or maybe Tas and Moussa if they could stay with Nonna, but the restaurant is going to be extremely busy that night, with Brown Jovi booked to provide live entertainment.
He’s just about to call the RSVP number to do so when he gets a text from a respite care service.
He blinks.
-
‘You’re not the boys’ fairy godfather, Tony.’
Bruce accepts that he (and Tony) are getting old, if they’re calling grown men like Bruno, Peter and Harley boys. The greys in their hair are just another reminder.
Bruno’s received an invitation to this year’s Stark Foundation Gala Ball. A respite care nurse has also been arranged to look after his nonna for the evening and night, so Bruno can attend.
At last year’s Stark Foundation Gala Ball, Harley had found himself seated next to his motorsport idol.
And the Gala Ball before that, Peter had been reunited with MJ, his high school girlfriend and the woman he’d never gotten over.
(Bruce supposes that is far more reasonable; Tony feels responsible for MJ losing her memory of Peter, like he still feels guilt for Ned’s injuries and May’s death.)
(Still, inviting a famous novelist who is your sorta-son’s sorta-ex to your big charity gala, without warning him, and personally interfering with the seating chart to ensure they’ll be seated next to each other in a nice, private corner, is extreme.)
(Tony doesn’t really do subtle. Or halves.)
‘Fairy godfather, not bad, think I might even like that.’ Bruce sighs. ‘Got a nice ring to it.’ Tony points at DUM-E. ‘Pass me that wrench the idiot’s holding?’
Bruce passes Tony the wrench, and speaks up over the sound of clanking metal as Tony dives back under the car he’s making some modifications to.
‘Stop projecting your Daddy Issues onto these kids.’ Bruce and Tony’s friendship has been helped along by the fact they both have Daddy Issues, albeit of extremely different flavours. Bruce expects that their proteges’ own Daddy Issues don’t help Tony’s projecting. (Peter’s dad died when he was a kid. Harley’s dad walked out on his family when he was six. Bruno’s dad was abusive; the one time Bruno talked to Bruce about his parents, he’d said he thinks he was lucky that they very literally abandoned him.) ‘And you even heard of boundaries, Tony?’
Tony slides out from under the car and points at him with his wrench.
‘That’s what the therapy’s for, big guy. Besides, Pep agreed.’
‘And what were the five things she was juggling when you asked her?’
Tony doesn’t answer, just slides back under the car.
Bruce sighs again.
Even the world’s best CEO has found a Stark kid and a grown Stark man hard to juggle.
-
‘…my Prom suit doesn’t fit very well anymore…’ Bruno pulls out the grey suit he’d gotten half-price that he wore to Senior Prom. The trousers are maybe a fraction shorter than is flattering, and the jacket is a bit tight across his shoulders, chest and arms now. It’s good enough for things like a job interview, he thinks, but certainly not for the Stark Foundation Gala Ball. ‘…and this is the rest of my formalwear.’
MJ and Peter blink as Bruno pulls out his two shalwar kameez (one bold blue, one a more sedate maroon), his sadri (teal and boldly patterned) and his sherwani (deep maroon, also boldly patterned).
‘Yeah, probably not the look you want for the ball.’
Bruno nods wryly in agreement with Peter’s statement. As he is rather pasty, he’s very conscious of going about wearing a shalwar kameez; it too easily looks like cultural appropriation.
MJ looks at Peter like she’s saying, you think? but props her chin up on a hand in thought, studying Bruno and his Pakistani formalwear critically.
-
‘Trust me.’
Several minutes after walking into the suit store, MJ thrusts a blue three-piece suit at Bruno. He blinks and takes it automatically. Peter looks rather sappily at her. In reply, like a woman on a mission, MJ reaches out and takes her boyfriend’s hand and drags Peter – clearly not against his will – over to look at pocket squares and ties.
Bruno blinks again, and heads for the changerooms to try on the suit.
MJ is stylish. Peter’s a more stylish kind of nerd than Bruno. Got a bit more swagger to him, Harley says.
(Bruno’s told he doesn’t have too much of that, conversely.)
(Yeah, look, Harley’s not wrong.)
-
A few minutes later, Bruno blinks at his own reflection. Peter comes over and holds out a fist for a fist-bump, nodding in approval.
‘You look good.’
‘Thanks, man.’
Bruno smiles; he agrees, actually, even if he says so himself. He looks pretty fly. Auntie Salma, Nonna and Auntie Nazia from Saeed Fashions insist blue is his colour. He thinks MJ agrees.
MJ strides over, looks evaluatively at Bruno, nods and holds out a red tie and matching pocket square.
Bruno takes both without a word.