September 8th
September 2nd
Thursday
Bruce was sitting at the living room computer, looking through his emails.
Marvell's Boarding School for Middle and High-school;
Dear Brian Banner, We have taken into consideration everything from the survey and have used this information to assign the best roommate for Bruce. We have assigned him dorm 24 roomed with Thor Odinson. If you would like to contact them, we have listed their information below, and we hope your son will be able to get along with their roommate. -Sharron Kelly
Bruce read over the email a couple times, just to make sure he hadn't read it wrong.
He's heard the name Odinson before. It was another large name up there with Stark. Even if you didn't care for big names, or stayed off of media you would know the name.
Odin was a famous actor and his wife, Frigga was also a famous actor along with her modeling career. Thor, Loki and Hela, as much as they've been kept from the public eye, are still known.
Great. Setting his head on the desk he groaned. He was using this to get away from drama. Not to get involved with it.
Hearing the front door open, Bruce deleted the email, and opened some of his notes.
"Bruuuce!" Brian called, the door slamming behind him
As he walked into the living room, he noticed Bruce and walked over looking around the room.
"Are you finished?" He slurred, and he smelled of bear
Bruce nodded.
"Good. Now go make dinner. I'm in the mood for Mac´n cheese"
Bruce stood up and headed for the kitchen. Their house was small just the entrance hall, the living room connected to the kitchen and a pantry. One bath and two bedrooms, connected in a small hallway.
One could call it cozy, if it wasn't for the bare walls. Cheap furniture and bad memories.
Pulling a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese placing it on the counter, and pulled out a small pot from under the sink. Filling the pot, and started boiling it opening the box and started dropping in the noodles. Once the water was boiling and the noodles were no-longer hard, Bruce drained the water into the sink and added the packet of cheese and milk into the pot and stirred.
Afterwards he poured it into a bowl, grabbing one of Brian's opened bears from the fridge and brought him his stuff.
"I'm going to bed." Bruce said
Brain waved him off and went back to watching some sports game on the TV.
Entering the room, it was almost as bare of the rest of the house, excluding the mess of scrapped parts, and tools. Besides that there was a worn out suitcase and duffel bag.
They were both filled. They've been filled since he got the acceptance letter back in June.
His calendar was still hanging on the wall with a red sharpie on his bed. Crossing out the date, he only had six more days til he left. Just six more days.
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September 8th
Wednesday
Bruce sloppily grabs a chocolate muffin, adjusting the duffel bag strap on his shoulder.
The clock read 9:26 and the bus arrived at 10:00 and it took a bit to walk to the bus stop, so all in all he needed to leave now.
Brian was still asleep, and Bruce hoped he was conscious enough last night to understand that he had told him that when he got home from work Bruce would already be gone for school.
Bruce had woken up at 6 and has been making sure he had everything before leaving. Checking his bags about a thousand times.
It was warm outside as me made his way to his stop.
Bruce was pretty sure school was in session right now if he remembered hearing the bus drive past his house.
Sitting down on the cold seat at the bus stop, Bruce pulled out his burner phone and looked over his messages. A lovely chat with Brian from a few weeks ago. And two messages from the Odinson's.
Which was rather unexpected.
Bruce didn't answer either text. He wasn't going to get himself too involved with them, well the least uninvolved as he can with rooming with Thor.
As the bus pulled up, it looked just like your regular bus, and the inside was just as normal. The only non-normal thing was an overhead luggage compartment. Most likely for your suitcase or bags.
Bruce made his way somewhere to the middle, and stuffed his suitcase in the over head. Keeping his duffel bag on him. He wanted to keep some space for the person next to him to put their stuff.
As he sat down, the bus started running again.
Leaning against the window, Bruce took in the moving scenery of his hometown.
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Waking up to an uncomfortable heat, Bruce found that his duffel bag was now on in front of him on the floor and that there was also another kid next to him.
Adjusting his glasses, the kid had dusty brown hair, he was wearing a dark blue T-Shirt and jeans, and some plain tennis shoes.
Should he say hi? No, he looks like he wants to be left alone. But what if he does want to talk. Uh, I’ll just say hi-
The bus came to a sudden stop and they were both pushed against the seat.
“OK everyone, we're here. Please exit the bus and wait for further instruction.” A male voice called out over the bus, and just like that kids started filing out of the bus.
The boy next to him grabbed what looked like a scruffy worn down duffel bag from in between his legs and stood up. Doing the same, Bruce stumbled to stand up grabbing the bag straps.
Some rows had at least three people and Bruce was somewhat relieved that he only had to sit next to one person. Even if he was asleep for most of the trip, he couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable it would be to sit next to three people.
The boy moved so Bruce followed into the row, taking a moment to as quickly as he could, grab out his suitcase and speeding his walk pace to keep up with the kid in front of him.
Outside it was warm. It looked as if the sun had started setting a bit ago but it was still warm. If Bruce had to guess it was a day-long drive and probably the most sleep he’d gotten in forever.
People had started talking to each other, and the man who Bruce assumed was the one who was talking earlier was looking at a clipboard.
Bruce sat on a bench more secluded from the group and watched as more kids left the bus. It wasn’t a school bus, or at least any he was familiar to. Instead of the usual bright orange bus, it was black with a white line along it. On the white line were the words, Marvell's Boarding School.
“Bruce Banner!” The man called
“Here.” Bruce said just loud enough that the man heard him.
He kept calling names and Bruce assumed he was doing roll-call. There looked to be about thirty-ish kids here, some looked to be around his age while there were a few younger kids here, presumably the middle-schooler's.
Fiddling with his fingers, Bruce waited as names were being called.
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There were four dorm buildings, two female and two male. As the large group was split into fours each being led into a different building where they momentarily dropped off all of their bags, the teacher saying they would all get the official dorms after diner.
Now though, it was time for the campus tour.
Tours were done in dorm groups so only the middle-schooler's had gone off with a different instructor to be shown around the middle school.
The high-school was pretty large compared to the one back in Bruce's home town. It was three stories plus the auditorium and a lecture hall.
The dining hall, and recreational were their own buildings, along with the gym which was connected to the pool.
Dinner was fine. Bruce was never a fan of mac’n cheese but for school food it was pretty good.
"Dorms! We'll let you guys explore the dorms yourselves, but I want to state dorm rules and where you can find us teachers." Mr. Rose started, "As you all know you have already been picked out a dorm and keys will be passed out momentarily."
"Curfew will be at 11pm and on school days we expect you all to be awake and getting ready at 7:20am The dorm has its own study area and kitchen. The kitchen will be open from 12:15 to 10:20pm. And you can find us teachers in the staff hall of the dorm. Now we expect you all to be respectful to us teachers, and your peers. Rude behavior of any kind will not be tolerated."
And with that Mr. Rose grabbed a small basket with what Bruce assumed to be the keys, and started handing them out to students. As of which would hurry off with their stuff.
Bruce flipped over his key to see his room number in bold numbers. C-65.
Looking around to his left he saw a sign hanging with the numbers labeled 33-66 and headed down that hall.
Walking down the basically empty hall beside the one or two others, Bruce made it to the end where his dorm sat. Feeling the key in his hand, he inserted it and opened the door greeted with a plain room.
It was a decent sized room, with two beds by the door. There were two desks, each at the end of the beds and two closets. Basically everything in here was in twos. And on the right there was a window with white blinds.
Bruce placed his suitcase down and sat on the left bed.
Did Brian notice he was gone? Probably not. Actually, if Bruce knew his father, (and he did) Brian was probably getting drunk at the bar right now. Flirting with other women.
Bruce shifted on his bed some more.
He should unpack.