A/N: so, the prompt said "an AU where the characters are the members of the same family". It takes place shortly after Howard and Maria Stark's death in 1991.
Just Like His
Stark Mansion, New York
1991
There was a man standing in front of Tony, and he presented a threat to everything Tony knew and, arguably, loved.
"I think I will leave you boys alone for this one," Obie said, giving the file to Tony, and leaned a little bit closer to add "Get 'im," in a harsh whisper. He sent Tony one last crooked smile before exiting the room, leaving the matters in Tony's hands. But that was just how the young man wanted it.
He opened the file and gave it a quick look.
"So you're Robert Giles, Rebecca Giles's son?" he said, lifting the eyes at the other man.
"It's actually Banner. Bruce, if you don't mind."
The guy didn't look threatening. Far from that. In fact, the first word that came to Tony's mind upon looking at him was 'pity', and then 'pathetic' right after. The messy hair, the nerdy glasses, the mismatched, ill-fitting clothes, the hunched posture and the quiet, slightly mumbling voice…
How in hell is living mess here an actual relative of mine?
"It says 'Robert' here."
"My full name's Robert Bruce. But yes, I am her only son," the mess nodded, then took a small step forward and extended a hand. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Stark, and you have my condolences for…"
"Yeah, well, okay, let's make some things clear first, Robert or Bruce or who the fuck cares," Tony said harshly, discarding the file but making no movements in the other man's direction. "You. Do not. Have any. Rights. To the company. I'll even be extra generous and repeat it for you one more time: old man might've passed down a couple of genes to you, but that in no way means you can lay any kind of claims on the Stark Industries."
The guy's expression became a little bit more strained, but he lowered his hand and took a small step back.
"I assure you, Mr. Stark, that I have no interest in the Stark Industries," he said in a perfectly controlled voice. The whole… lack of attitude or any attempts to argue at all caught Tony by a bit of a surprise, and it took him a second to school his features back into an expression of lazy superiority.
"That's right," he grinned. "Now, he did leave you some money still, so…"
"I can also assure you that I am not interested in anything Mr. Stark senior might have left me."
"What, are you rich or something? 'Cause you sure don't look like it."
"No, I am not rich."
"Proud then? Yeah, old man was like that too," Tony regarded the guy for a couple of seconds. There was something about him he just liked, but tried to consciously squash in a preemptive strike against further inevitable disappointment. The whole 'turns out Howard had a family on the side and I only find out about it now that he's dead' thing was bad enough, and Tony wasn't going to exacerbate it by liking the bastard (a literal one at that). "How often did you see each other?" he asked casually, taking a bottle of scotch from the desk's drawer and pouring himself a glass. "Want some?"
"Thank you, I don't drink."
"Whatever. So what, did he actually remember about your birthdays? Science fairs? Sports matches or whatever you were into?"
"I wouldn't say so," the guy shrugged, his face still tense. "Look, Mr. Stark, I got a call yesterday asking me to come here in the matters of inheritance. So I came to renounce any and all claims to such. Are there any papers I need to sign or something?"
Tony took a big gulp of the scotch, then set the glass away and looked a little closer at the other man. "Wait a sec here, big guy. You say you're not rich, and I can get pride, believe me I can get it, but there's pride and then there's stupidity. I mean, sure, compared to my fortune that's like a drop in the sea, but that's still lots of money. What did Dad ever do to you to make you throw away that much cash?"
"Precisely that. Nothing," Giles (or was it Banner?) said, his tone cold as ice. "As far as I know, the only time Howard Stark and I met was a couple of days after my birth, when he visited my mother in a hospital. He told her that he was marrying another woman and was not going to see my mother again. He was true to his word."
Tony winced. He imagined some sort of a "double life" plot, Dad lying to Mother, having a mistress and another son or some shit. Howard really didn't spend a lot of his precious time on Tony (or Maria, for that matter), so it wasn't at all a stretch for the young man to believe that he spent it on someone instead. That, however… that was a whole new level.
"Well, he did remember her still," Tony tried, unsure. "I mean, there's something left for her too here."
"You're kidding me," the guy deadpanned, then shook his head and bit his lip in a sort of a nervous tic gesture. "Good 'memory', isn't it – my mother's been dead for fourteen years."
"Oh," was all that Tony managed to get out at first. Suddenly, his reasons for disliking the 'other son' were much more dim and vague than at the beginning of the conversation. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, it's not like he was a really good father to me either, so maybe you haven't actually lost much."
"Do you know how to bandage wounds and set joints right?" Banner asked, looking away.
"Uh, no?" Where did that come from?
"Then maybe he wasn't all bad after all," he said quietly.
And just like that, Tony didn't see 'pity' anymore, or 'pathetic'. The clothes were still horrible, the glasses still nerdy, and the guy still stood out like a sore thumb in Howard's red wood paneled old study, but all his quirks and oddities now added up to something else entirely.
"Did your mother raise you alone?" Tony asked before he could stop himself to consider why he is asking this rather personal question of a guy he was dead set to hate only a couple of minutes ago.
"No," Banner frowned, confused about it just as much. "She married a man when I was about a year. That's why it's Banner, not Giles. Then there was my aunt and her husband, after Brian was... taken away."
"You go to some kind of college or something? Work?"
"I got into med school, but had to drop out after the sophomore year," he said, then bit his lip again, and Tony noticed him wringing his hands too. "Health… health problems. I've got a couple of jobs now. Manage."
"And you still don't want to take the money?"
Banner just shrugged, going more for indifferent then defensive this time around. "I don't see how I have any right for any of it. Howard Stark wasn't a father to me, not for a day. And as you said yourself, a couple of shared genes do not mean that…"
"Yeah, well, I say a lot of things," Tony amended hastily and picked up the glass again, taking a sip. "Like that time I said to my curator that an electron-positron collision can actually realistically produce a Higgs boson, and he looked at me sort of like I just confessed to him of being a Young Earth enthusiast or something."
"But it can," Banner frowned. "Produce the boson, I mean. The particle accelerator should be huge, of course, but it's theo… What?"
Tony realized that he might be staring just a tiny bit at the other man. "You said you went to med school."
"I did," Banner nodded, looking slightly uncomfortable. "Mom always wanted for me to be a doctor. But I always liked physics and mathematics, so I research and write some stuff for myself from time to time."
"Just what stuff exactly are we talking about?"
"Not much. Teachers used to tell me it was gibberish."
"What do they know," Tony scoffed. "You think someone believed in me when I started building Dum-E? My robot," he elaborated.
"Oh, I remember that article, it was in an MIT magazine, wasn't it? An incredible design."
There was a tiny smile on Banner's face as he said that, a light smile of a fond memory. A thought struck Tony all of a sudden, and he peeked into the file quickly, conforming what he already knew: the age difference between them was only a year. Ten months, to be precise. Banner managed to look so much older than that though.
"It was," Tony smiled in return. There was a plan already forming in his head, but he needed just a couple more details to flesh it out. "Now, do you have a place in the city?"
"I rent a room," Banner said, visibly unsure of where this was going.
"Relatives? Girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever?"
"No, not since… no."
"Cool," Tony took another sip from his glass and set it on the desk again. "Look, I get it that you're angry with old Howard, it's totally cool, and that you've been sort of screwed over by him, and your mom too, big time, and you're kinda probably hate me by association, or just because I'm rich and handsome or who even knows with you, but the important question is: how do you feel about California?"
"What that… has to do with anything?"
"I asked first."
"It's… okay. I've lived there for a while, and I've got an aunt and a cousin in LA, but what's it…"
"I've been thinking of moving away lately," Tony began simply, moving to stand near the windows. "With the folks gone I'm the big boss, so I'm thinking of going closer to the roots, so to speak, closer to the company. Sure, Obie'll help me along the way, but it's ultimately my responsibility. And the mansion's huge. Not quite as the New York one, but it's still pretty vast, you know, we may not see each other for days if that's your thing. And I was thinking of building a new one anyway. A bit smaller, a lot more modern, right near the ocean. For the view."
"Wait, wait, you want me to… visit you in your California home or something?" Banner's face was a rather funny image of complete incomprehension with a slight suspicion mixed in.
"Visit, live, whatever," Tony shrugged. "Need a job? I can get you a job at SI, no kidding."
There were the wringing hands again. "You… You want to… wait, you want to hire me now – a basic stranger, an undergrad with mental issues?"
"Mental issues?"
Banner's eyes widened, like he just now realized he said something he shouldn't have. "Those health problems I've mentioned," he shifted from side to side, bit his lip. "I've been diagnosed with depressive disorder two years ago."
Two years ago, Tony thought. Probably around the time he was finishing his sophomore year. That would explain… some things.
"You taking pills?"
"I… should."
"Well, you still seem pretty functional."
"I also don't have higher education," the guy pressed.
"Please. I've graduated MIT at seventeen, but if you think I've attended even a half of the classes there then you're just a deluded optimist, which, no offence, you look nothing like. At all. And you agree with me on the Higgs boson. I think you're smarter then you let on. Hell, maybe those genes of Howard's you got were the genius ones."
"You don't know me," Banner said, eyes hard and cold.
"Sure do. You're a fuck-up who likes physics."
"No, you literally don't know me," he went on, a bit more annoyed now, "we've met today, and I- the whole world knows who you are, and you want for me to believe that you're offering a 'fuck-up' like me a job or a place to live out of the goodness of your heart?"
"Sure there wasn't some 'paranoia' in that diagnosis of yours?" Tony said with a snort, and saw Banner clench his teeth at that, "Shut your mouth" coming out of him as a hiss.
He obviously struck a nerve with that last comment and should have stopped, but Tony just wasn't in the habit of doing things half-way.
"Gee, did you talk to your sweet mom like that too?"
And then all the air was rushed out of his lungs, and the windows creaked behind his back, and there were fingers squeezing at his neck.
"I said shut up," Banner snarled, his face inches from Tony's. "If your father didn't leave her she might still be alive today. You have no right, you hear me, no right to even…" he faltered then, and Tony could swear he heard something click in the guy's head, saw the light go back on behind those eyes. Dark brown eyes. Just… just like his. "Sorry. Sorry," the guy muttered, letting go of Tony's neck and taking a couple quick steps away. He started wringing his hands, than lifted one to rub at his eyes, shaking his head, mouthing something as if talking soundlessly to himself.
Mental issues, huh?
"Are you aware that your whole face sort of twists when you're like that?" Tony said with uneasy chuckle, massaging the throat that was sure to bloom with a couple of bruises soon. "You don't even look like yourself."
"I am aware," Banner turned to look at Tony again, all traces of agitation swiped clean from his face, his tone even and steady as always. "And I am sorry."
"Yeah, you said that," Tony shrugged simply. "So, about a job?"
"What?" Banner's eyebrows shot up in disbelief.
"Look, if you're so keen on knowing my reasons, I'm doing it because I can. And something about conscience. I can't just pretend you don't exist now that I've met you, so."
"Why? Your father has managed it for twenty two years."
"You know, he was your father too," Tony said quietly and got a hard, bitter look for his trouble. He decided not to press this time though, and just lifted his hands in surrender. "Dad was an ass," he sighed, "and I don't wanna be an ass, simple as that."
"I… can relate to that," Banner frowned after a pause. "I do. I… I would have liked to take you up on your offer, Mr. Stark, but I really don't want to make weapons." He ran a hand over his eyes again and offered Tony a weak smile. "It's just… isn't something I want my life to become."
"Pacifist?"
"Bad experience."
"Whatever. I can put you on something else. We can fucking start something else, I mean, like one of Howard's old insane projects like the… the Arc reactor or something. Energy stuff."
"That sounds great. But I need to think."
Banner still looked suspicious, all wringing hands and awkward shuffling, and Tony couldn't help but wonder if the guy was that used to people lying to him or just actually paranoid.
"Sure. I'll be in town for another week or something. You need to see me, you come here," Tony shrugged and extended a hand.
Banner looked mildly surprised for a moment, but stepped closer and shook Tony's hand in a soft but strong grip.
"You're not… what I expected you to be, Mr. Stark."
Tony wondered suddenly what were Banner's previous thoughts on the 'other son' subject, and if they changed as radically as Tony's upon this conversation.
"I get that sometimes. And, Tony. It's just Tony."
"Thank you, Tony," Banner smiled.
"For what? No, really, I haven't done anything for you yet, you didn't even accept your inheritance money, so I don't really see what you're thanking me for."
It made Banner chuckle. "Goodbye," he said, backing to the door. "I'll think about what you've said."
"You better."
With that, the guy walked out, closing the door carefully behind himself, and Tony was left alone. This encounter was… bizarre, to put it mildly, and he needed a couple of minutes to center himself and actually process everything that's transpired that morning in his father's old study.
And then he picked up the phone and dialed the number he knew by heart.
"Hey, Rhodey? Guess what just happened… no, not- shut the hell up, Rhodey, and listen, 'cause I think it's pretty damn important." He laughed all of a sudden, and he'd be damned if he knew the reason behind this good mood. "I guess I've just found myself a big brother."
A/N: I both like this universe really much, and not at all. On the first hand, Bruce has got himself a semblance of family, and Tony will definitely be there for him when, in 1992, Brian Banner gets released from the mental institution. On the other hand, thanks to Bruce's influence Tony will actually start considering the change in SI course earlier on, which will make Stane take action and dispose of the threat to his reign on Tony and the company, which will most likely get Bruce killed. So yeah.
Also, I'm really into Tony perceiving Bruce as this sort of weird big brother/parental figure/actual adult sort of person, if you can't tell.
So, I really hope it was worth your time, and I'd be immensely grateful if you left a review.
Next time in Kaleidoscope: Sex-Swap!