Chapter Text
Even though he was already in his sixth week in the past, Bruce Dickinson still wasn't sure how it had happened. He still didn't know how one moment, he was celebrating his seventieth birthday with his family and friends and in the next, he found himself standing in the middle of his dirty apartment, wearing a black T-shirt which needed washing and a pair of old jeans which were more holes than pants and his bare feet standing on a dirty floor.
Having grown used to the extravagant lifestyle of a millionaire rockstar, getting used to being poor and estranged from his only family in the past had been very hard; he needed a house which he could only share with his wife and children and not with strangers; his palate had grown used to delicious meals prepared by the most talented chefs he could more than afford and just the idea of cleaning his own messes had already had his skin crawling.
But by the second week after he found himself in the past, he started getting used to living in destitute and far away from the family he made himself and from his beloved friends, all of whom he would meet again in the future as long as he planned everything perfectly. He'd checked the wrinkled calendar inside the small apartment he was renting and saw that it was only August 16, 1978, a year before he joined Samson and two years before Iron Maiden) so he should only be performing with another band in pubs and private parties by this period of his life.
And he hadn't met ‘Arry, Dave, Nicko and H yet.
Janick was already a good friend of his by now, although they really didn't start to regularly hang out until he joined Samson and the band and Janick's White Spirit started performing in the same festivals and clubs. Not to mention that the guitarist was still attending uni so he could finish his degree so he didn't have enough time to go clubbing with Bruce and drink himself stupid with the singer.
Bruce felt a painful prick in his heart at the thought of his friends and brothers. Goddamnit, he missed them. He missed all five of them so much that he wanted to find them and squeeze each one of them in a hug, though he had a feeling that ‘Arry would bite his head off if he tried touching the bassist in this period. Young ‘Arry was a good bloke but also very uptight unlike his much older counterpart who had long removed the stick from his ass and became more receptive of other people's affection towards him, even returning them when he was in the mood and had already been piled with several glasses of favored drink.
He grinned. He couldn't wait to get reacquainted with the leader of Iron Maiden again. Pranking the other man as teasing him would be so much fun.
But first, he needed to do some investigation on how the band Iron Maiden was doing as of now. Even though he’d been a member of the band for nearly fifty years, he could admit that he didn't know much about the formation and early years of the band for which he had dedicated more than half of life into. He just wasn't interested in knowing all the dates and the minute details and he’d often mistook one former member for another, aside from Clive, Paul and Blaze.
At first, his disinterest towards the topic had frustrated Steve to the point that the bassist had nearly torn off his hair–and Bruce's–until the singer managed to convince him that there was really no use for him knowing about those things and Steve finally got off his back about it. But right, he found himself regretting not asking Steve back then.
Had Steve and the other members of Iron Maiden met Rod yet? Had they signed themselves into a record company and started recording their first live album yet? Was Dave already a member of Iron Maiden and who was the singer as of now between Dennis Wilcock and Paul Di’Anno?
These questions and the uncertainties which came with them were almost making his head explode. Add the calls which he’d been recently receiving from his parents, asking him if he was ready to enter uni or not yet and what was he planning to do with his life and if he wanted to visit his little sister and he was getting stir crazy.
One night, while he was in the middle of nursing a pint after another gig with his current band, he’d overheard something unbelievable from the two drunk tough-looking blokes speaking to his left.
“What do you mean they broke up?” he demanded, getting up to the guy’s face and nearly upending his glass on his lap.
Fortunately, the guy that Bruce had nearly splashed with ice-cold beer didn't look angry or offended, only confused by Bruce's action. “ Calm down. What are you talking about, mate?”
Bruce didn't want to calm down. He wanted to summon all his energy and yell at the man and his friend for insulating something unbelievable, almost sacrilegious and so, so wrong.
But try as he might, he was too baffled (and admittedly frightened) to get angry. “You and your friend,” he waved at the other guy who was watching him with an annoyed frown, “were talking about Iron Maiden disbanding. Is that true? Or I was just hearing it wrong?”
Bruce watched in bated breath as the man’s expression cleared up in understanding. “Oh, so this is about those blokes? It is true. They’d already disbanded three or four months ago. Heard that it was because the leader just decided to it was the time for him to retire and start finding a real job. It was such a real shame though. And I also heard that the other blokes weren't happy with ‘im. Claimed that the leader–what was his name again? Harry? Harris?–fired ‘em all through the payphone which was terrible of ‘im, in my opinion. So yeah, that band was no more…”
The man was still speaking but Bruce could no longer hear any more of the words coming out of his mouth. His ears were ringing so loud that it felt like he was about to get a migraine.
Was this kind of a sick joke? Was the universe making fun of him, plucking him from the future and dumping him into the past only to find out that Steve had already disbanded Iron Maiden and the band which he would spend the majority of his life with no longer available to him?
There was no way Steve fucking Harris would just disband Iron Maiden like that. And firing members by payphone too? Bruce had known Steve for decades and he knew that the bassist was so insensitive and inconsiderate of other people that he would just callously drop them off without talking face to face with them first.
Iron Maiden was Steve Harris’ life to the point that Bruce even believed that the man loved the band more than he loved his own children. And he loved Lauren and his other kids a lot. Steve Harris was also not a person who easily gave up easily. Hells, he stubbornly steered the Iron Maiden ship through the turbulent 90s and didn't give up until Brave New World and Dance of Death brought the band back to the mainstream and started selling out arena and large stages.
The man could be lying but he didn't look or sound like he was. He was so sure of what he’d heard through the grapevine; for some reason, Iron Maiden had disbanded even before Bruce had returned to the past.
And Bruce…
He swore that he wouldn't stop until he found out the real reason why.
After a thorough searching through the giant ass phonebook, Bruce found the number for the Harris Residence. After saying a quick prayer that Steve would answer the phone instead of his parents, he dialed the number and then waited, his back full of sweat and his heart hammering loudly inside his chest, for the bassist to pick up the phone.
Bruce counted seven seconds before he heard a click.
“Hello?”
Bruce’s heart nearly jumped out of his throat when he heard the familiar Cockney accent.
He swallowed down his nervousness and spoke, tentatively: “Hey ‘Arry, it’s me, Paul Bruce Dickinson. Remember me?”
The moment those words left his lips, Bruce nearly slapped his forehead in dismay. Obviously Steve wouldn't remember him. The two of them had yet to meet each other in this timeline. In his past life, he’d only met Steve and the other members of Iron Maiden, including Paul, after he’d joined Samson of the new British heavy metal wave.
Shaking his head at his own dumbassadery, he nervously waited for Steve to ask him if he was a prank called or just hung up on him.
But what had met him was only silence.
He could hear Steve breathing from the other end of the line so the bassist was still on the other end of the line but why wasn't he responding to Bruce?
“Harris? Are you still there?”
More silence.
“Steve? …’Arry…?”
A click. Then the dial tone.
Bruce cursed.