bakerstreet | The Brother or Sister Complex Meme

[ Because, well, yeah. ]

Home was a very unhappy place. Dad drank and ranted about how he should have forced Mom to abort them both. Mom would get smacked around if she said a word otherwise. They would get smacked around worse if either of them attempted to intervene. Mom would avoid them afterwards and only kiss them goodnight. When Dad wasn't ranting about them, it was like they weren't there.

But Bruce never felt ignored by Tony.

Tony talked to him. Tony laughed with him. Tony hugged him when Dad wasn't around to bark out something about them being sissy boys. Tony sat with him at lunch and worked on projects with him and stuck up to bullies with him and smiled at him like he was the only person who mattered.

Bruce loved his brother. He would do anything for him.

Bruce had a new bruise on his cheek and lots more on his back from accidentally breaking a glass that evening. He'd have to tell the school that he had been roughhousing with Tony again. Or maybe his excuse should be running into a banister. He really needed to get creative with the excuses these days.

He had been sent to his and his brother's room without any dinner. Dad was shouting at Mom downstairs. Bruce tried to block it out and instead rifled through his backpack and took out the little molecular modeling kit they had taken home for homework. There weren't too many atoms and bonds, but he could make something interesting with it.

He sat on the edge of his bed, his face and back throbbing, and started putting together the pieces. Organic chain after organic chain.

Tony had tried once, and only once, to stand up for his mother and his little brother. All it had gotten him was a trip to the ER almost three hours later once his father had sobered enough to drive him there. He'd only hit Bruce even more too. Since then, Tony had learned to keep his mouth shut and how to load his napkin with food while he ignored the fighting going on in the kitchen.

He was stronger than Bruce, less emotional, and he hid everything behind his smile. That the kids and teachers at school seemed to think he was constantly the one bullying his brother was fine by him. He didn't mind the detentions, it kept him from going home on time.

It kept him from having to listen to his mother sobbing in her bedroom even when their dad wasn't home or trying to make a perfect meal.

He'd learned to ignore it. All of it.

His only concern was Bruce.

There was a smash from the kitchen and Tony took that as hie cue to fold up his picnic dinner and rush up the stairs, missing all of the spots along the way that might lead to a creak and set off the anger in his father towards him. He dashed down the hall and shut the door behind him with a grin.

"I brought you something to eat!" he proclaimed happily. "Come and hide under the bed with me."

Bruce perked the moment he saw his brother, his smile becoming so wide that it hurt his cheek. "You're the best!"

He jumped off his bed, landing softly on the ground before shoving his molecules into his backpack quickly and crawling under the Tony's bed.

"You didn't take too much, right? He won't notice?" Because it was easy to tell who would steal food after Bruce was marched to bed and their mother was cowed into submission. It hurt when his brother was hit.

"Nah. He'll never know." Mostly because it was off of Tony's own plate. He didn't need to eat much. He just took off of Sam's lunch at school. His mom packed him like three snack cakes. Three! Totally amazing. Tony always split a chocolate one with Bruce, fingers tangled together under the cafeteria table.

It was dark under the bed, the ledge the mattress rested lined with all sorts of gadgets. It didn't stop Tony from brushing back Bruce's hair. He frowned at the bruise and then rolled over onto his back.

"I could kill him. If mom doesn't kick him out soon... I could."

"Don't talk like that, Tony." Bruce leaned his cheek against Tony's chest, unfolding the napkin and eating with one hand. "He's our dad."

And while Bruce knew that Brian Banner was doing horrible things, he couldn't wish death on him. It's Bruce's fault he gets so angry most of the time, anyway. He's just a bad kid. "Besides, he's so much bigger than you."

"Bigger they are, the harder they fall." Tony was too scared of him to do anything about it though. He was all talk. In the dark, the edges of the little robots, little presents he'd made for Bruce, stood out just at the edges. He could feel Bruce breathing and that was good. Last year he'd found Bruce laid out in the back garden, kicked so hard in the head that Tony had thought he'd been killed. And why?

Because he'd been out playing when he should have been helping peel potatoes? Tony had been in detention for the act itself but when he'd seen him through the fence-- He still had no idea why no one called the police. Why no one helped them.

"If I'm not allowed to kill him, let's run away. I can earn money."

At ten years old?

Tony had high hopes.

"Who do you think would let you work for them? There are child labor laws, you know." Bruce curled his free hand in Tony's shirt. His brother always had a certain smell. Their mother smelled sweet and their father smelled like alcohol, but Tony always smelled... clean. New.

"Someone would pick us up and put us in foster care. They don't keep brothers together in foster care." He paused in his eating long enough to bury his face in Tony's shirt. It was the only place he felt safe. Wanted. "I'd rather stay here and be with you."

Because Bruce honestly didn't know where he would be without his brother. He was a worthless monster of a child. Who else would care about him if Tony was taken away?

And where had that come? How had their dad instilled in poor Bruce that he was a monster? He'd never called Tony that, and not because Tony brought home science fair ribbons, not because he was charming and outgoing. Their father just seemed to like picking on the weaker members of their family. The ones that never fought back.

And Tony did fight. He hid the alcohol. He kicked the man in the shin. He doubted the man actually was afraid of him, but it seemed easier just to beat their mom and little Bruce. He was so...small. So very small.

Tony curled his fingers around his ear.

"Okay, okay, fine. Just eat, okay? You're making a mess, jeez. We won't leave. Yet. But as soon as I'm eighteen, Brucey, me and you, okay? I'll be your legal guardian."

Edited 2014-08-04 01:54 (UTC)

"When you're eighteen. I can work with that."

Bruce smiled at Tony before going back to eating. Despite his behavior, he honestly was hungry.

"You want to play with the molecule models when I'm done? I tried making a trans fat from the pieces they gave us, but I didn't have enough."

They'd have to hide them afterwards. Dad never seemed upset with Tony over his achievements in science, but whenever Bruce did something above average, he would start raving and calling him a mutant. Bruce did his best to hide his intelligence, even if it was around the same level as Tony's.

Bruce could smile away the rain. It might be an odd thought for a ten year old to have about his younger brother, but there was a burning in his chest whenever he saw the real Bruce Banner smile. It happened so rarely, and only for him. He ruffled up Bruce's hair and shoved him away again, complaining about crumbs. "Why the heck are you doing trans fat molecules? You know dad gets really mad if you make him go in to see the teachers."

Even for praise.

"You have to lay low!" He didn't like to yell at Bruce but sometimes his younger brother just didn't think. Then again, sometimes that happened to eight year olds. Even genius eight year olds. "Please, please just...just ...let's not even talk about it." But Bruce was bound to get upset. Tony would eventually give in. He just liked engineering better than biology.

Bruce winced, his smile immediately fading away. "I wasn't going to give it to them! I was just going to give them some H2O models."

He deflated, his eating becoming slower, closer to a bird's. "I was just planning on playing a little with them."

It hurt. It hurt that he was capable of so much, wanted to do so much, and Tony was allowed to while he was punished. He was restricted to drawing pictures in class that he had to quickly erase before the teacher saw--equations and blueprints of all the things that popped into his head. He wanted to be able to show them to Mom, because even if Dad wasn't proud, he bet she would be. Maybe.

It physically hurt Tony to hurt his brother like that but a little bit of anger and some emotionally induced tears was just about two thousand times better than having their dad hurt him. Still... Bruce just didn't realize how important he was whole and alive, even if his genius was a little stunted.

Tony sighed when he realized that Bruce had stopped eating and he rolled onto his side and tapped his fingers against the floor boards.

"Well-- I don't even know what one looks like," he lied. "So maybe you can just show me a little okay? Just so I'll know if it comes up."

His silence followed. "How bad did he get you? Should I get the salve mom uses?"

"You're a liar." Bruce stuck his lower lip out in a pout. "But I'll show you anyway."

Bruce picked at the food, trying to eat but feeling less and less hungry. It was something he did sometimes. Like if he eats less, maybe he'll disappear, and everything will be all better for everyone else.

"He didn't get me too bad." He presses his finger against the bruise on his cheek to prove the point, which was undermined when he winced. "I'll be okay. He didn't end up hitting you, did he?"

Tony's heart did flip-flops down to his stomach. Bruce's wince made him wince too and Tony leaned over to lightly kiss his brother's cheekbone. He'd seen moms in cartoon shows kiss their kids when they hurt themselves. Since their mom didn't really do that, Tony took it upon himself to be Bruce's mom.

It was weird. But it was his little secret. Just like what life at home was like.

He ruffled his brother's hair gently and let it go. Dwelling did nothing. He could plot their father's demise all in his head anyway.

Tony sighed. "I want all of that gone by the time I get back," he said, army crawling to the other bed where they hid library books on physics nicked from under the watchful eye of the librarians. After molecules, he wanted to build elements.

Bruce smiled when Tony kissed the bruise, his cheek tingling at the touch. It was another thing that couldn't happen in front of anyone, but he liked it, the same way he liked when Tony played with his hair or gave him hugs.

"I'll try." He wasn't hungry anymore, but Tony sacrificed to feed him, so he would try to eat it all. He gave him a goofy smile as he crawled away. "You're sounding like Mom."

Well, when Mom wasn't trying to please Dad by ignoring Bruce.

Someone has to sound like mom, Tony thought to himself. Bruce needed to have a mom. It was a long time ago, but Tony actually had some pretty happy memories of what it was like before Bruce was born. That was back before their dad started drinking. Tony never blamed Bruce for any of that though. He loved having a little brother more than he loved having a mom or a dad.

Everyone else-- Well, it just wasn't that important to Tony at all.

They spend the evening ignoring their mother's crying after their father passed out on the sofa, playing with molecules and studying things kids in second and fourth grade weren't typically expected to know, understand, or even expand upon. It was almost ten when Tony insisted that they go to bed.

He knew better than to crawl into bed with Bruce any more.

Just in case their dad checked on them.

Bruce wondered a lot about why everything changed when he was born and not when Tony was. Dad would say it was because he was a monster, and he knew it the second Mom told him she was pregnant, although usually the explanation was couched in more vivid descriptions about how he should take Bruce out of this world now and he should have made Mom abort him. Bruce knew way more about abortion than an eight-year-old should.

Bruce tossed and turned at night, fitful without someone to cuddle with. He often had nightmares. He usually had dreams about seeing himself turning bigger and bigger and mindlessly destroying everything in his path while he father screamed that he was a monster. In his dreams, a ball of rage that has been quietly growing since birth expressed itself, and the bruises were now on the other people.

He woke up in a cold sweat. He didn't know how late it was, but he bit his fist to keep from sobbing loudly. He didn't want to wake up Tony, but more than anything, he didn't want to wake up Dad.

It was better to ignore Bruce's nightmares. Nothing good could come of them. Tony laid awake for almost two minutes as he listened to the muffled sobs before he climbed out of bed and latched the bedroom door. He'd get the shit kicked out of him if their dad tried to come in, but he wasn't exactly interested in them either so the threat was low.

In bare feet and dinosaur pajamas, Tony crept from the door to Bruce's bed, pulling up the covers at the bottom to crawl up to the pillows. He put an arm around his brother and huffed in the shell of the boy's ear.

"Shh. I'm here."

Bruce's stomach sank when he realized he had woken Tony up. He heard the latch, and his guilt loosened in his gut as Tony crawled under the covers with him.

He removed his fist from his mouth, sniffling softly as he rested his hands on Tony's arms.

"And you're not going to ever go away, right?"

Bruce wanted to keep the only person who didn't mind he was a bad child. He never wanted Tony to leave.

"No one could ever make me leave you," Tony said, hugging his brother close. "And if they did, they couldn't keep me away. I'd always find you, Brucey, no matter where you are. So you don't have to cry, okay? Don't ever let anyone see you cry. They're not worth tears."

Their dad was gone by morning, off doing whatever asshole grown up men do. Their mother said nothing when Tony and Bruce arrived for breakfast. She just put oatmeal down in front of them, poured them each milk, and got their lunches ready. He liked it when she wrote notes, but those almost never arrived on napkins any more. Neither did the pudding cups he always asked after.

Peanut butter and jelly and a juice box was the extent of their meals. Sometimes little packs of gummy worms Tony could trade up for if he was lucky. "Hold your brother's hand when you cross the street!" was the first thing their mother said to them, at the door, waving them both goodbye. Tony would have held Bruce's hand the whole way but he was just too old for that.

"Yeah okay!" He didn't look back over his shoulder. Tony wasn't sure he loved his mother at all. She stopped being a mother years ago.

"Thanks, Mom!" Bruce, despite how he was ignored, was still a mommy's boy who cheerfully waved goodbye at their mother, looking like a ghost in the doorway.

Bruce loved his mother. He loved his father, too. He had so much love in his soul that it had to be shared, and it made him easier to hurt.

Tony responded to pain by smiling and deflecting. Bruce responded by internalizing. The consequences wouldn't be visible for a long time, but there was rage in his loving heart, and it grew every time his father raised his hand against someone.

"Tony, do you think the bruise on my cheek is too obvious?" Because he didn't want Tony to get detention again. Not over him.

The honest answer was yes. Bruce's eye was a deep, purplish red. It would fade, like all the rest, to a sick yellow glow before it left him all together. Tony, however, had gotten use to multi-colored face of his brother. "Maybe," he said as they rounded the corner to take the shortcut through a lush green garden alley that ran between the back yards of two streets.

He was halfway through when he stopped, glancing behind him, and letting Bruce fall into his shoulder. He had an idea. Probably not a good one, but Bruce always felt so guilty--

Tony grimaced. "I need you to hit me, hard as you can, right here." He pointed at his lower lip. "It had to bleed. We'll run the rest of the way to look like we were jumped and then ran away."

Bruce face fell, flinching back and pulling his hands close to his chest, as if that will keep him from actually punching. "But... that will hurt you."

It might hurt less than the teachers glaring at him all day and dragging Bruce away again to try talking to him about how he didn't owe it to his brother to defend him, but he was worried about his brother possibly getting mad if he hit too hard.

He'd listen to his brother. He always listened to Tony. He just was worried about hitting him.

"Oh, c'mon, I can take it!" Tony laughed. If Bruce could take it, so could he. And Bruce took a lot.

Tony dropped his backpack and his lunch and inhaled sharply. Having his face marred didn't really make him feel so great, though he'd not yet hit puberty and it didn't really hit his ego to have a marred face. He just didn't like pain. Then again, who really did? He gestured for his brother to come at him.

"Hard as you can, Brucey." He didn't want to be smacked around twice. "Put all of your weight into it!"

Bruce frowned, giving Tony a little pout. "If you're sure..."

He pulled his fists back, hesitating again with a wince. He didn't want to be like Dad.

Then he put all his weight behind a sucker punch, just as he was told. As soon as it hit, he flinched back, as if expecting to be punched back. "I'm sorry, that was too hard, I'm sorry!"

Tony doubled over immediately, gagging on the fresh bloom of blood that seeped over his tongue. His hands went up to cover his mouth, to keep Bruce from having to see, and swallowed the thick liquid. He felt like gagging and crouched instead to avoid being seen blinking away the years.

"Don't be sorry, you saved me detention," he mumbled, his whole face starting to throb. "Are your knuckles hurt? Should have told you to hit me with a book," he bemoaned, eyelashes wet and sparkling.

He'd had worse, he told himself, but for such a little guy, Bruce had quite the punch.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Bruce flailed, putting his hands on his brother's shoulders and trying to get a good look at him, his eyes welling up with guilt and panic.

"I'm sorry, Tony!"

No, he hadn't heard much of what Tony had said. He only saw the gagging, the sparkling tears, the blood. "Are you okay?"

"Shh!" He was going to be just fine. Some cotton shoved up his nose and that would be that. They could even manage to get past their first classes from being with the nurse. Though Tony's hands were bloody, he took Bruce's to check his knuckles. "Listen!" He had to get Bruce to calm down and pay attention. "Remember what we're going to say? You and I were jumped. They hit us both, two boys. You were able to hit one back, that's why your knuckles are bruised. Grab your books. We have to run."

He didn't wait for Bruce to acknowledge him, he just grabbed his hand and tugged. Bruce's feet would listen or he would drag the boy with him. Simple as that.

Bruce's feet listened. He ran. He scrubbed his face with his sore hand, trying to keep Tony from seeing his guilty tears. He accidentally smeared blood on his cheek.

He ran as far as Tony pulled. When they got to school, Bruce let Tony do the talking, the teachers taking his sniffles as from fear and pain instead of guilt.

As they're ushered to the nurse's office, Bruce never let Tony's hand go, lacing their fingers together and holding tight.

"We'll have to call your mother," the nurse said, a kind woman use to children feeling ill or coming in from scraps in the school yard. That Bruce and Tony, more often the former, were more horribly bruised and cut than with upset stomachs unnerved her. And Tony knew that, he could see that. Even so, she still wouldn't do a damned thing.

No one would. That was what angered him most of all because Bruce wouldn't let him fix their problem either. The older of the pair grit his teeth. "Please don't. It was some high school boys," he complained. "We were going down the alley. It's just going to make her worry and she's not been feeling too good."

It seemed a good enough excuse. The nurse didn't want the bother any way. She nodded. "Then sit here until your second class. Hold ice on for the next ten minutes, the both of you."

Tony's anger subsided. He wasn't one to hold it in.

Bruce nodded along with Tony, keeping his mouth shut. He didn't like talking to teachers much, because they always looked at him funny and twisted his words around to say things he didn't mean. If he told them the truth, Dad would get mad and he and Tony would be taken away. If he told them fibs, they blamed Tony and Tony got in trouble.

Bruce took the offered ice and pressed it to his cheek before resting his head on Tony's shoulder, avoiding looking at the nurse, and instead looking at the wall and ceiling, bare except for some posters explaining nutrition and CPR.

He kept their fingers laced. If the nurse asked him questions, she was met with noncommittal noises in return. That was usually what teachers got out of him these days, anyway.

There were other things to handle, like personal phone calls, and desk organization, and so the nurse left them be on the little cot behind the faded yellow curtain. Tony made sure to nudge the pole it spread across over so that they were no longer visible and sighed against Bruce's hair.

"It's going to be all right now," he said, though it was a horrible lie. The moment they got home it could very well start up again. Looking beaten and bruised was never a reason for their dad to lay off. It just depended on what sort of day he'd had in the long run and if anyone disturbed him.

"I have a few nickles. Want an ice cream after school?"

It was never going to be alright, but Bruce wasn't going to say that to Tony. He liked to pretend that things would be okay. That they would be like families on TV one day.

Bruce nodded his head, nestling his head against Tony's chest. "Ice cream would be nice."

It would delay them. And it was sweet. He liked sweet things, and sweet things weren't often kept in the house.

"Can we stop in the library, too?"

Making a face, hidden from his brother, Tony gave in. "Yeah," he said, with a caveat. "You just have to read the books there." Their father had, their mother told them at one point, been a bonafide genius. He didn't know why he was so against Bruce taking an interest in the fields he himself use to be so very invested in, and it angered him. Tony was not as bookish as Bruce. He liked more hands on approaches to problems. He liked to get dirty, though he really hated being touched by anyone but his little brother...and sometimes their mom.

When the nurse came back, he flinched away from the hand she shoved under his chin to lift his face up for inspection. If she'd had any training at all in what to look for in an abuse victim, she'd had seen more than one red flag with that. Of course, it was a time when most people just looked the other way.

It was easier. Less messy.

"All right, you're both good to go back to class." Tony frowned. That meant leaving Bruce. Sometimes it couldn't be helped.

[ Very yes. AU siblings are good too! ]

Edited 2014-08-03 08:26 (UTC)

[Open to smut.]

The Brother or Sister Complex Meme

Ethan ۩ Teen Wolf ۩ OTA

jack benjamin ♚ kings

Kaname Kuran | Vampire Knight | OTA

Tony Stark || MCU || For Bruce

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Nephry Balfour-Osborne | Tales of the Abyss

Yuui | Shiritsu Horitsuba Gakuran (Clamp) | ota

Leanne | Fire Emblem | M/F