Chapter One: Summer 1978
Note: Many thanks to Autumn_Froste for the Beta-Reading help! This was originally written for Day One ( September 24th) of Bruce Banner Appreciation Week 2018 on Tumblr. Prompt: Cooking. This fits in as a prequel or flashback for Special Needs: A Bruce and Natasha FanFic, which you can find here on FFNet.
Susan Banner, PhD, the tenured Division Head of Music and Arts for Central High School, had been practicing making Cream of Wheat all week. She wasn't a breakfast person herself—coffee and a piece of toast buttered and scarfed down just before she rushed out the door at 6:30am was all she normally had before hurrying off to her administrative job. She preferred teaching to paper pushing, but after five years in the position, she'd earned a reputation for both efficiency and competence that even the coaching staff had to respect.
Yet, mastering the art of cooking something as basic as farina seemed to be eluding her today. It ought to be simple: Heat salted water to boiling, add gritty white stuff, stir as it cooks for 2.5 minutes, remove from heat and let stand for another 2 minutes, plop in a bowl, add butter, sugar, and milk—ENJOY! No matter how much she stirred or when and what temperature she introduced the cereal to the water in the sauce pan, so far the results were always lumpy, thick as glue, and tasted half raw, even with a lot of butter, sugar, milk, and more salt.
The reason she was trying to cook this concoction one more time was still asleep in bed upstairs in her former office and looking completely angelic when she checked in on him 15 minutes ago. Susan wanted to get this right because nothing else seemed to have gone her nephew's way, and she desperately wanted to give him a sense of . . . of what? She couldn't replace what he had lost and that was his whole freaking world.
She crushed the biggest lumps against the side of the pan with the back of the wooden spoon and pulled it all off the heat. "Instant, my ass," she said under her breath. Maybe it would help if you sang to it, Suzy, mocked a voice in the back of her head. Susan ignored it and got down two bowls from the cabinets. Face it, Lovey, even if he starts off his day with the perfect breakfast, the boy is broken and no amount of cereal is going to fix him. "I know that," she answered herself. "It's going to take time and energy and patience." Things you have in short supply, her alter ego noted with a hoot! "Just lay off," Susan warned in her teacher voice, and her head was quiet again.
She peeked under the lid and, satisfied that there was cereal now and not undercooked sand, she stirred the thickened mass before she poured it into the two bowls and placed them on the kitchen table. The butter and two kinds of sugar were already in their places. She debated about grabbing the raisins from the pantry, but let it go for the moment, not sure what the boy thought about dried fruit. She took off her apron and turned to go upstairs and check on him, but when she looked up, the eight-year-old was standing in the doorway, taking in the room with his big dark eyes and a sober expression. He had that strange greenish ragdoll with him that someone on his mother's side of the family must have made. The child looked a little disoriented despite having his daytime clothes on already.
"Good morning, Bruce," she said with a smile. "You're up early."
He focused on her for a moment before giving her a shy smile back. "Good morning, Aunt Susan."
"Your Grandmother Walcott said you like Cream of Wheat, so I thought I'd try making it for us." The child climbed into the chair and kept the ragdoll in his lap. "What's your friend's name, Bruce?"
"This is Guardian. He usually stays in my room, but he wanted to see the rest of the house, so we got up early."
"Hello, Guardian. Would you like some cereal, too?"
Bruce finally smiled. "He doesn't eat, Aunt Susan."
"Well, then, more for us!"
"Right, more for us," he echoed back.
"Do you like milk and butter and sugar on yours?" she asked.
"I like brown sugar and butter on it. If it's hot, Grandma put cream on it, but milk will work."
She had cream, so she retrieved it instead of the milk and poured some for both of them before putting the carton back. "Your Grandma made it for you?" She sat down and passed him the brown sugar and used a butter knife to slice them both off generous pats.
"Yah, Mom used to make it, too." He pushed the butter down so it was submerged in cream and hot cereal before he spooned the brown sugar on top, observing as it melted into the liquids.
She watched him attentively since this was the first time he'd brought up his mother. When he didn't say more, she asked, "Did you help either of them?"
"I helped Grandma. She used a colander to sift in the Cream o' Wheat, and I got to help hold it. It was kind of an experiment."
"Why did she use the colander?" Susan was really curious to know the answer.
"So there wouldn't be lumps. When I would watch Mom, sometimes she would get kind of mad about the lumps. Grandma said you had to be patient and sift in the grains while you stirred very constantly."
"I guess that's the secret! I practiced and I still couldn't get rid of them," she said with an audible sigh.
"That's okay, Aunt Susan. I kind of like it better with lumps."
She laughed with relief, "Good, because there are a bunch of them."
"You owe me kisses then. That's what Mom used to say, but you don't have to do that."
"Sorry," Susan said with a dramatic shake of her head, "you are not getting away without kisses then." She half stood up and leaned over the table to plant a kiss on the top of his head. The boy smiled shyly before getting back to stirring his cereal. She sat back down, and they ate in comfortable silence for a bit.
When they'd finished, Bruce took both their bowls to the sink where she washed them. "Do you have a dishtowel so I can dry them?"
"Sure," she said, and pointed to a drawer. "I guess you were kind of a team with your Mom, hmm?"
"Yes." He handed her the bowls one at a time to put back up and tackled drying the saucepan. "Cousin Rich says this is a lot like in baseball when players get traded to other teams."
"How so?" Susan asked with a puzzled look. Rich was one of Bruce's Walcott cousins on his mother's side and at least four or five years older than Bruce. Susan was Bruce's God Mother as well as his aunt, so she'd out maneuvered Richard's parents for custody by showing she had the better resources. Both sides had come close to hiring lawyers and going to court before the Walcotts had backed off and let Susan have uncontested guardianship of their nephew.
"Rich said they wanted me to come play for their team, but you had more room on your team and needed me more. Is that true?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes, I wanted you on my team Bruce." She thought about trying to explain the complexities of the situation, that she could be his guardian and Bruce would be able to use benefits that came through his father's employment. Whereas the Walcotts wanted to adopt him, but with two other children they didn't have the financial resources she did. It wasn't the kindest analogy, but her nephew was gifted, and she couldn't bear to see him growing up like a swan among ducklings without the educational opportunities she could provide and the connections she had. "We're all family, Bruce, and I think we're going to make an excellent team." She put up the pan, and Bruce guessed the correct drawer for the silverware.
"Good, I do, too."
"Does Guardian want to go on a tour of the house with us?" she asked looking over at the doll propped up in his seat and staring at her with its black button eyes.
"Yes, he does." Bruce picked Guardian up and hugged him to his chest.
"All right, I'm going to start with my favorite room. Do you both like music?"
"Oh, yes! You teach music, don't you?"
"Right. Not as much as I'd like to teach though, but that might be changing soon." That was what she hated about administrating—it took her out of the classroom. "Would you like to learn piano?" His mother had played and both his parents sang, so there was no way Bruce didn't have some natural abilities.
"Yes! We both would," he said beaming up at her.
How could that enthusiasm not put a smile on her face? "Well, follow me, gentlemen, and I'll show you the music room and introduce you to the Baldwin. I think all of us are going to get along famously."
End Note: Thanks for reading! Your comments are always welcome. Please leave a Review if you've enjoyed this! I plan to post at least three more chapters of this series.