Title: Brotherly Bonding
Summary: Ben and Monty as adults, older adults like in their 60/70s.
Rating: K+ for mentions of child abuse.
Authors Note: Also, your grandkids are evil can be taken either a) one of them has a shadow suit like Father/Grandfather/Mother or b) they just love picking on him since he retired and kids can be cruel. This story has also been edited to include updated names of Nigel and Rachel's kids.

Benedict mentally groaned before sliding his hand into the door to the restaurant and yanked it open. Sighing, he let his eyes search the crowd for his elder brother somewhere in the restaurant. It wasn't hard to find Monty Uno in the mix of people. He had just seen his brother this morning he didn't understand why he had to go to lunch with him. Oh, he knew why they couldn't come together, it was that silly thing called a will.

Rolling his eyes he strode over to his brother. Monty looked up at him with a bright smile and his blue eyes meet his. Then he spoke loud enough to think that Monty should have shouted. "Ben!"

Taking a deep breath Ben slide into the booth across from his brother. It had been 72 hours since the funeral. Now, both of them were having lunch. Just like old times. Every weekend on a Sunday morning at 10 am on the dot, since Monty moved from England, Monty and Ben have been going to breakfast together at Bobby's Family Restaurant. Monty loved to call it Ben and Monty's brotherly bonding over breakfast at Bobby's (now that was a mouthful). Then when Monty moved back to England, they had only talked on Sunday nights.

"How have you been holding up, Ben?" asked Monty looking up at him from his menu.

"I've been okay," he said thinking about his dad. Pappy was the textbook definition of abusive toward Ben, until he was decommissioned. Then he turned out to be an okay dad. Distant but relatively okay. "I don't think it really sunk in."

It had been a week since pappy or grandfather's death. This didn't really affect him as much as he thought. Monty had been upset when he got the call at one a.m. in England. Monty seemed to be working through his own grief well. Although, he already went through something similar when his wife, Kathy, passed on about eleven years ago. Now Ben was starting to get depressed thinking about it.

"Well, what you think of us being around?" pressed on Monty. "Surely we helped you a little?"

That had to be the best thing about their dad dying, though Ben sarcastically. Pappy had left everything in his will to Monty. Everything. Not even Grandma Clara's antique china doll collection was left to him. Every single thing that still belonged to their dad went to Monty. It was depressing to think that pappy didn't even care about him. Not only that but since Monty got everything, Monty had to sort it all out.

So Monty had to fly back to America from England to sort through the will. What was bad about it, is the fact that Monty lived with his son, since Kathy died. So Monty, Nigel, Rachel (Nigel's wife), and their kids (Melanie, Liam, and CJ) had all come to America. The kids were on a holiday (vacation? Break? Why holiday?) from school so their treat was to go to America. On top of this, Monty decided not to get a hotel, but to move in with him.

It was torture on top of pain. The girl, Margie, always had that look of pity for him on her face. She tried to make him watch some stupid sci-fi show that started with a D. The second kid, Leo, was never around but always tried to talk to him when he was there. Then the last kid, Caleb, had the courtesy to lock himself in his room, but always threw insults at him when they saw each other. He was retired for Pete's sake! He wasn't some kind of super villain anymore.

"Yes," he said through gritted teeth in fake smile, "you all have been a great help."

Monty only looked concerned at his brother for a moment. He knew that their dad wasn't exactly the greatest father toward Ben. He and Nigel were his last blood family and he wanted them to stick together. Monty had talked to all of them about getting along with Ben. Ben was always the more sensitive one, a trait that Monty greatly appreciated about his brother. Monty had always been the matter-of-fact one. So Ben would be a little more affected by their dad's death. Or he was just as oblivious as Ben thinks he is.

A black haired waiter poured Monty more coffee and filled Ben's water cup before they ordered either food. Monty his usual breakfast for lunch: a waffle with a bran muffin. Then Ben ordered a lunch of a salad with a cheese burger.

"So let's not talk about dad, Monty. How have you been? Living in England to here has sure been fun right?" asked Ben, trying very hard not to think about what was going on at home.

"Oh yes!" he said as Ben noticed that Monty's eyes lit up. "Kathy and I would go see a show every once in a while. The parks are beautiful and I feed the pigeons every day. When Rachel announced that she was pregnant with Maggie (oh so that was the girls name), I did almost everything I could with her while she was growing up. The zoo, a castle, Ferris wheel rides, story time at the libraries, wonderful fun things. Fishing every once in a while. It gets very rainy over there so I would drink coffee and watch the news on the bad weather days. What about you? How has it been here?"

Besides sitting in front of the television and drowning in rocky road? He thought for a moment, "Not much, it gets kind of boring you know?"

"Well the slower pace is peaceful," said Monty. "Are you sure nothing is wrong Ben?"

"Yea, I'm fine. It's just nice to have you back in town." He had that small smile on his face that he never usually graced his face. Both of them went quiet as they ate their food. Although, something was off about that burger. One bite into Ben spit it back out.

Monty jumped back a little as the chewed food landed between their plates. Oh gosh that tasted horrible.

"That was a burned burger," he moaned, wondering if he had to burn the waiter too. That would require effort though and he didn't want to put effort into anything right now. At least in front of Monty. "I could make a better burger than that."

Monty's eyes grew on his face before speaking, "You cook Benny?"

Oh gosh, he had to call him Benny. He hadn't called him that since they were 6 and 4.

"Well yea, you've been making food for me and I've been picking up on it. If you want I can cook one day besides McKayla or Rachel."

"It's Maggie, Ben," he said but smiled brightly, "you can surprise us one day."

"Oh yea sure, and by the way your grandkids are evil."